Defining

I am a hockey mom.
I am pretty much everything stereotypical that goes along with that. I wear Uggs and leggings/ skinny jeans to the rink. I stop at Tims on the way to get a giant coffee. I drive an SUV. I am learning which rinks you bring your own water to, which rinks are cold as f*ck and where all the washrooms are (that coffee comes out pretty fast). I am fiercely proud of my little player, and I have fantasized about throwing a throat punch at the other team. I never would of course, as I have completed my Respect in Sport Course lol.
I am also a preschool mom. A new ringette mom. A gymnastics mom. I've been a soccer mom, a basketball mom, an art class mom, a room rep, a PTA mom...
I'm called A's mom. G's mom (I won't type out my kids names because the internet). I am the Beard's wife. I am the bootcamp trainer. I am the yoga teacher. I have been the runner, the Spartan racer, the figure competitor, the junior high teacher.... But I am not enough of any these things to put a sticker on my car. I am the sum of all of them, and yet still more.#hockeymom #rinklife #noidentityofmyown
See how these labels go on and on and on. Occasionally I am actually called Cara.
My point is that I am defined by none of these things. Many of them are a fleeting season in my life. Many of them are life long labels. I find so many fellow moms defining themselves by these labels. Hockey is not all we have. I have my own accomplishments that I am proud of, as I hope my children do. I am not JUST a hockey mom. I am not JUST a mom. I am not only a wife. I am me. I am a separate entity. I am certainly not defined by my children's accomplishments.  What will you be when hockey (insert child's activity here) is done (since none of our children are going to the NHL lets be honest)... Which group will you cling to to identify with?
I was thinking about women as we age.  We become the hockey/ soccer/ working/ pinterest mom. How can you not? My life is consumed by my family at this point. I admit that I adore it. I love watching my children learn, and grow, and be active. My calendar rarely has a blank space, but when it does- I relish every second. How can we avoid losing ourselves in all this? When the activities and driving kids all over town is done... what will fill my time?
I have heard from many women that they lost themselves. I have heard many women blame their spouses for losing themselves. I hate to say this ladies, but if you lose who you are... you allowed someone to take that from you. Over years and years, we get chipped away. I get that. It happens in small pieces and suddenly you realize you are so far from who you actually are that you don't know how to get back, or even what it is you need to get back to.
Be more than someone's mom. Be more than someone's wife. Somehow, some way, make time to be YOURSELF. Sometimes, you have to be persistent. Sometimes, your family may balk at this and wonder why you are being selfish. What kind of mother spends time doing things they enjoy, when there is ALWAYS laundry to do, pee to wipe up, a bake sale to bake for, a child to read to, a meeting to attend.....a good mother. A mother intent on preserving herself for the long term gain of her family.
Maybe this happens to men too, I have no idea. I only speak to what I do know.

We talk about self care all the time. I feel sometimes we have gone too far in our generation, and are so worried about time away, that we don't appreciate what we have. Trips without kids, girls trips, guys trips- but that is a blog for another time.
Self care brings you back to the core of yourself. I lost myself in a sea of resentment years ago, and it took yoga to bring me back. Maybe yoga isn't your jam. I lost myself in a sea of competing many years ago, and it took a divorce, a ton of therapy, eating disorders and a drunk summer to bring me back. Maybe that wasn't the best way....
I am certainly not saying get divorced or abandon your children. I am saying deal before it gets there. Don't allow yourself to be chipped away. Be the greatest hockey mom, but be the greatest YOU too. The kids are going to leave you, as devastating as that is, and do you want to look across from your spouse and having nothing to say? Invest in you. Invest in him. Invest in the relationship- and how can you invest in him if you have nothing left? Do something only for you. Something that makes you feel like you. Like the old you, before your calendar became a mess of color coordinated activities. Before people called you the wife... when you just had one name.
Because you're amazing. Just you. Just as you really are.

Things no one told me...

*Note- I started writing this last week on the first week of school, but had to step away because I kept crying. I am a baby and I cry a lot. Not in front of people, so if you're surprised it's ok. I cry alone, and apparently while writing things. I am posting it today, in honor of my biggest little turning 7 tomorrow. I find myself feeling weepy all over again... I have yet to get through a birthday of one of my children without crying. *

I read all the baby books. I read all there was to read about pregnancy, post pregnancy, attachment parenting, natural consequences, sleep solutions... I felt prepared. I had an ed degree and isn't that really just 4 years learning how to raise kids? I had seen other people parent and knew exactly what I would never do. I knew it all.
Until I had a kid. Then another kid. And I realized I didn't know anything.

No one told me that breastfeeding wasn't easy. No one told me my birth plan wasn't worth the paper it was written on, and that I'd have to have a c-section, and since that wasn't part of my type A birth plan I had no idea how to deal. No one told me my belly would look like deflated bread dough for months after, regardless of what I ate or exercised. No one told me about how my boobs would entirely change after two babies, and i would barely recognize myself anymore. No one told me I would have drenching night sweats, or migraines, or awful depression from the hormones post baby.  No one told me about the resentment that would build up boiling hot in my chest when my husband got to go out for work lunches or golf and I was at home trying to make sure the baby had enough tummy time so he wasn't a stunted freak.No one told me it's ok (and accepted even in most cultures) to cosleep if that's what the baby needed- instead I lay awake convinced I would roll over him and smother him to death... while all he wanted was to be close to me.
No one told me how I would be so far from the mother I thought I would be. No one told me I would pause mid-yell (or even YELL at all!) and be horrified at the words coming out of my mouth. No one told me that after 7 years of rarely sleeping through the night I would have to force myself to be kind at 3am to my wide awake child instead of my natural instinct to yell "would you freaking  sleep already?!?!". No one told me about the guilt over working, the guilt over not working enough, or reading enough or doing enough crafts or creating an independent thinker or creating an obedient child. No one told me about the guilt.
No one told me that not every mom dances when their kids go to school. No one told me that the hardest thing I would face in the first few years was not interfering or running onto the ice when my child was sobbing as he learned to skate. No one told me how it would rip my heart apart when my child was upset over not being included in a birthday party and not having an answer to his why. No one told me I would worry about absolutely everything, all day, every day.  No one told me that most nights after they went to bed I would sit and think of all the times I could've and should've done better. No one told me that family vacations would be more work than vacation, and no one told me that trips without the kids would result in an ache without them.
No one told me that sometimes liking my child would be a struggle but the mama bear love would never fade... even if they were being the most annoying human on the face of the planet.
No one told me that the greatest moment of a day (week, month) would be a chubby, sticky arm around my neck while reading Barnyard Dance for the 150th time. Or of a heavy body sagging into me as they fell asleep on my lap. Or of a big boy saying "Mom I forgot to give you a hug!!" And running back to me before he walks into his grade 2 class. Or of a big girl telling me she will be ok by herself at preschool, as I sob in my car alone- so proud of the little person she is, but at the same time so scared of the world she has to navigate.
My kids went back to school this week
Grade 2 and preK.  I've been a mom for 7 years. And I've learned how little I know in that 7 years. I've learned that the mom I planned to be, isn't the mom I am. I'm still learning to give myself a fucking break when I am doing my best, and sometimes I need a swift kick in the ass, because I'm NOT doing my best. These kids deserve my best. Maybe not every minute of every day, but most minutes and most days. Just because I'm tired, or stressed, or at my daily limit of being touched... my words and actions will shape who they become and how they feel about themselves.  No one told me that either. The enormous responsibility it is to create a human.
7 years is nothing. 7 years is a fart in the wind. I have no answers and I have no advice.  Maybe it'll get easier, but I doubt it.
Most of all, no one told me that the saying about how "having a child means your heart is walking around outside your body", wasn't just an adorable plaque to hang on a wall.It's an agonizing truth. A wonderful, life changing, exhausting truth.