I’ve thought a lot about values as of late. I read something recently that said if you want to know what your values and priorities are, look to the last few weeks and see what your actions show you; how we spend our time, where we spend our money, the people we call, the books we read, the food we eat and so on and so forth all tell us something about ourselves, about our values and what we prioritize. This relationship between saying and doing has helped me so much in gaining a clear vision and understanding of myself, as well as of those around me.

Which brings me to my dad… a man that has forever shown me, not merely told me. A man who has accepted less for himself so he could provide more for my sister and I. A man that I’m happy to say I can go to for advice because I wholeheartedly trust his example.

He’s not perfect. He needs naps. He keeps tortilla chips in his pocket. He sometimes looks at me like my boys are savages. He’s referred to my home as appearing “lived in”. But he’s also picked up the windex and grabbed a towel to clean my dirty windows. And my boys ARE very savagy at times. And who doesn’t like to reach into their pocket and pull out a salty, crunchy tortilla chip topped with lint? And he’s much more patient with said savages when he’s had said nap. So ya, not perfect, but perfectly human.

Thank you, dad, for forever doing the work. Your willingness, your strength, your values… I see them clear as the sky.

And a shoutout to my mom, my rock, who worked so hard behind the scenes – often unacknowledged and under-represented – so that my sister and I could come away with the memories of our dad that we do.

I also want to make space today for anyone that may be triggered by Father’s Day. I know as a newly single mom that I stumble through parts of it. To anyone in the struggle, whatever your struggle may be, there’s space for you.

Hindsight always holds the truth. That’s why if I could rewind to where I was two months ago with the knowledge and experience I have today, just two months later, I would have advised myself of the following:

-Of course this feels impossible, what’s being asked of you is not possible. You can’t do it all, you already know that, so stick to what you can do, when you can do it, and do it well. One step, then the other.

-In regards to your healing and your personal work: it’s hard, sure, but it’s harder if you don’t. No one is saying you have spare time to fit this stuff in but it sure makes things on your plate easier to handle when you make the conscious effort to fit it in. You’re worth it.

-There’s chaos around you and it comes in all forms. You don’t need to deny its existence but you also don’t need to open the door when it comes knocking. You control the door, close it when you need to.

-What feels overwhelming and awkward today will feel doable and comfortable in the coming days. It’s a learning curve; remember that you don’t have to project yesterday’s shortcomings onto tomorrow’s possibilities. It doesn’t get easier but you do get better.

-Quick list of pros: getting to spend all this time with my boys has really made me realize how much I enjoy them; they’re my kids first, but they’re also my friends and a part of me is sure to miss this time with them when normal life resumes. Not having to get up and stress about getting everyone dressed and fed and out the door in what feels like lightening speed is nice. Cuddling in the bed in the morning is better than any other way I can imagine to start a day. Finding creative ways to spend our time. Exercising together. Mid-day, mid-week trips to the beach. And photographing this time, on my real camera, feels good. In general, changing the “I have to” to “I get to” has done a world of change to my perspective.

Years ago I was exiting a bad relationship I had kept bottled up inside me for too long. A dear friend listened to my story and responded with, “closed mouths don’t get fed”. It’s stuck with me ever since. Sharing the bits and pieces I have here has fed me. There is no value so great as the value to be heard, to be seen, and to submerge myself in my own truth. And to connect; even if it’s through nothing more than relatability, shared experience. There are definitely those that are bothered by what I share here and by what I don’t share here, too. Divorce has a way of silencing parts of your life and delusion has a way of making that silence out to be whatever delusion wants it to be. The truth of the matter is that I only feel comfortable sharing my story; the story where I am in the driver’s seat and not the story where I’m being driven. And by driven, I’m referring to merely responding to the behaviors of others for which I have no control over other than the way in which I respond. Or don’t. And so, I choose to stay in my lane as best I can with progress-not-perfection being my motto.

Sharing the bits and pieces that I do has been cathartic for me. As someone who was struggling to trust their own reality, sharing my truth and seeing the words on a screen or hearing the words come out of my mouth creates a beautiful acceptable and an incredible release.

I read a post yesterday by @holly that said, “It is not your job to convert people to your way of thinking. It is your job to speak your truth so that others may find theirs. She went on to discuss how so many of us stay silent out of fear. The whole platform of instagram makes it easy for us to confuse the purpose of why it’s so important to share our truths — so easy to get caught up in likes and supportive comments (aka external validation when the real validation we ought to be seeking is internal). While those are all niceties, we must not lose sight of why we ought to share; that in speaking our truths, we are inviting others to speak theirs. It’s a way not only of owning our reality but in perhaps helping others own theirs. Many thanks to @holly for that reminder.

And so share! Share! Share! Do not let others have a hand in telling you what your truth is. Find it for yourself, own it, and share it. In the words of Oprah, “Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have”. I always tell my boys, don’t give away your power. It doesn’t matter if what you share sits right with anyone other than yourself.

Remember, closed mouths… they don’t get fed.

Life can feel so disjointed. I’ve been rather silent here for a plethora of reasons but one is that time is so segmented; never lending itself to the completion of any one task let alone a single thought. It’s not any one thing – it never is – but rather an assortment of circumstances that get fed into the old funnel and spit out the nasty truth that things these days happen little by little or not at all.

It all feels like a tag-team effort; two hands meeting in the air as one parent steps out and the other steps in. Willy and I were just talking about our dear friends who seemingly spend so much time together doing mundane things, like picking up their kids from school. We were laughing thinking about how unrealistic things like that are for us nowadays. We’re always trading or handing off, but so rarely get time all together anymore. Which seems baffling considering we both work predominantly from home. One would think that the time we spend together would be abundant.

The struggle to find a balance – regardless of what it is your balancing – is always real. For us, it’s managing a household of three young boys that all require an abundance of attention in addition to managing a growing business where the needs and demands are ever-changing.

I read the Bernstein Bear books to the kids often, just as my mom read to my sister and I when we were young. Reading them now, as a mother, brings them into a whole new context and I find that my entire tone changes when I read mama bear’s part in the book as if to highlight the fact whatever struggle we’re reading about – being kind and polite, keeping a clean house, lying about something that happened, watching too much TV etc – is indeed a similar, if not the same, struggle we just experienced in our own home. In any event, I channeled Mama Bear when I insisted that we all get out out of dodge for spring break and spend sometime away from home, work, and with each other.

We spent Easter with Willy’s side of the family and then booked it up to Payson, Arizona. A small, rink-a-dink town that I’m sure has a killer rodeo at some point in the year and perhaps the biggest Wal-Mart I ever did see. I wouldn’t say it was the end all, be all; the struggles of parenting are there no matter where you are, but it was nice to have a change of scenery. Even, if for nothing more, that wondrous hour in the car when all the kids are asleep, your favorite music is on in the background, the road ahead seems to go on forever, and the you can actually talk to the man you love.

Growth & Appearance: Your hair is getting long, it’s past the base of your neck and unless we put it up, it’s caked with food and whatever else. You don’t mind having your hair put up but you hate having it brushed (due to said food caked into it so often). Your hair is blond, but not as light as I remember your brother’s being. You get mistaken for a girl often, even after we refer to you as a ‘he’. It’s made me realize how silly gender is.

You have fuller lips, like your Papa. And his build, too (much like Van). Your cheeks are plump and your smile spreads full across your face.

You bang yourself up often and most always have a cut or scrape on either your elbows or knees, or both.

You’re in size 2 clothing, size 4 diaper. You rarely wear shoes. You weigh 25lbs and are 36in tall (I know only because you just scraped by at the local carnival).

Eating: You eat a mean breakfast. Like enough for the whole day. Which is ironic because it’s typically all you eat for the whole day; meaning you most always reject lunch and seem to pick a few things for dinner but throw most of it down to Jimmie, who never leaves your side and has subsequently packed on the lb’s.

Your current favorites: greek yogurt, string cheese, eggs, blueberries. I made you your first smoothie and you loved it.

You also love to eat the eraser tops to all of our pencils.

Sleeping: If your brothers’ sneak out of the room quietly, you’ll stay asleep while they’re getting ready for school and sleep until 7:30am or 8am. Other days you wake up with them. You’re still napping twice a day but the length of such seems to vary greatly; some days you’ll stay asleep from 10am until I wake you up at 2pm. Other days you’re screaming bloody murder at 12:30pm. Either way, we still put you down around 4pm and you sleep for another hour or two. You’re in bed by 8pm.

Some mornings Hooper will get you out of your crib and bring you downstairs. It’s pretty sweet to come down to you on the sofa, surrounded by a pillow fort your brothers have built for you.

You climbed out of your crib and onto the bottom bunk the other day so that cat is out of that bag.

You sleep with your blanket.

Development: You have an endless array of words and are able to communicate what you want pretty clearly, though you still resort to screaming. It drives us insane. It seems to be happening less than before but it’s pretty dreadful taking you anywhere where there’s no quick escape (i.e., restaurants, planes, grocery stores, etc). And I take it back, it still happens on a daily basis. Our outing today was dreadful.

If we ask you what color something is, the answer is blue. No matter what. If we ask you how many something is, the answer is three. No matter what. We set you up for success by pointing to the sky and asking what color and by asking how many you have left if you take 97 away from 100.

You’re on the go for all the hours you’re awake. You like to climb, run, chase, be chased, climb the stairs… oh, the stairs. We used to put a couple of boxes to block the entrance, but you soon learned to get around that. So then we used the bench from the entryway to block it. Then you learned how to move that. Then we put the boxes on top of the bench. Then you leaned to move that. Then we used to bungee cord to hook the bench onto the banister so you couldn’t move it. Then you started climbing over it. So then we had the bench, the bungee cord, AND the boxes on top of the bench to keep you off the stairs. Now we’ve more or less given up; I tend to let you go and hope for the best whereas your Papa tends to hover in the event you fall, or get knocked over.

You still try to jump but have yet to get both feet off the floor at the same time.

You throw with your right arm and you have damn good aim.

You’re in the habit of creating your own problem and then whinging about it; like you’ll throw your cup on the floor and then become hysterical because your cup is on the floor.

You’ve discovered the world above and refer to all flying objects as helicopters. You have a toy helicopter that you covet and you try desperately to get your hands on your brothers’ helicopter lego. Speaking of your brothers, it’s a love / hate kinda thing; all in all they’re fairly patient and loving but they hate you getting into their stuff and they build barriers to keep you out often. But you also nap a lot, so they get a reprieve.

Favorites: I was wondering when the affinity for the garbage trucks would begin and it happened overnight and is in full force. You’ll hear the trucks when they’re miles away and insist on sitting in the front yard to wait for them to arrive. You say ‘garbage truck’ like an 80 year old man with cotton in his mouth and it’s just about the cutest thing that I ever did hear.

You still love your g’pa. He’s your favorite and you’ll go running to him and do your happy squeals as soon as he’s in sight. You also prefer your Papa over me but I’m totally okay with that, it’s a pretty sweet thing, actually.