Marla the Blogger

There's one suggestion in my monthly well-being planner on the Start Making Choices website that I find particularly daunting. In the activities section one of the suggestions is to "volunteer in your community." I've volunteered my time in the past to several worthy causes and I'd like to do it now. However, with my current responsibilities at home and work, time is the one thing I don't have enough of these days. I understand the value of giving back; it helps you feel good about yourself while you're also doing good for others. So whenever I see the "volunteer" suggestion, I think, "yeah, I should do that!" but then the reality of trying to find the time to volunteer hits me.

The other day I realized, though, there are ways of giving back that don't require much time at all. They were having a blood drive at work, so in the afternoon between meetings, I went down and gave blood. Now, I realize giving blood is not exactly a heroic act or anything. And it was really easy; they had a huge blood-mobile sitting in the parking lot at my office. But still, donating blood could make a big difference in someone else's life. And it made me feel good. And it made me realize that you can still do little things to give back without having to make a big time commitment. Plus, like I said, it was easy. I just had to give up about 20 minutes of my day and put up with a pinprick from a needle. 

There are probably other easy ways I can give back, too, without having to commit a lot of time or a bunch of money; I just have to look for opportunities. For example, the mom's group I belong to is organizing people to deliver dinners to moms who recently have had a baby. I signed up to take dinner one evening to someone who just had her second baby and also has a toddler at home. I think she'll probably appreciate not having to cook a few meals (I know I would have loved it when I had my son) and it shouldn't take a lot of extra time on my part. I'm planning on making a double batch of dinner the night before and then refrigerate the extra portions to take to her and her family after work the next day. Also, while going through my son's clothes the other night I realized we have several items that he's outgrown that I can donate to other people who could use them.

Maybe donating blood, meals and clothing aren't going to change the world, but they are small things I can do to try to give back. If you have time to do something big like volunteer at a homeless shelter once a week or become a big brother or big sister, then I would definitely encourage you to do that. But, if you can't give back in ways like that, maybe you can find other small ways to try to help others. Like I've said before, sometimes it's the little things that can make a big difference.

There's a joke in the movie "When Harry Met Sally" when a couple is debating the merits of his wagon wheel coffee table that she finds ugly. "Everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor but they couldn't possibly all have good taste." I've always thought that line was funny, but it's also somewhat true. We can't all be good at everything. Logically, it doesn't make sense. But sometimes our competitive nature or our desire to be good at something makes us blind to it and we won't admit it. I have a friend who I adore, but she is a terrible driver. Of course, she thinks she's a good driver. Can you imagine anyone admitting otherwise? "I'm an awful driver. Really. I can't believe they ever gave me a license." No one would ever say that. But would it be so bad to admit that? Does it make you a bad person because you might not be that skilled at driving?

I've decided that I am no longer going to waste time trying to be, pretending to be or insisting that I am good at something I am not. I don't have to be good at everything and there is no shame in saying that I'm not great at some things. Here is just a short list of things I'm terrible at and I'm not going to pretend otherwise:

• Baking. Seriously, I have messed up a box cake before. All you have to do is add water and maybe an egg and bake it, and I found a way to do it wrong. It tasted okay, but it looked like a mudslide. Cake breaking apart, candles sliding off the side, it was so epic my husband took pictures.
• Housekeeping. Maybe it's not so much that I'm bad at this, but more that I hate it. Well, most people don't like cleaning, but I'm also not big on the whole decorating, organizing, home accessorizing thing. It's hard to say which came first; am I bad at it because I don't like it or do I not like it because I'm bad at it? 
• Singing. I WANT to be a good singer. I love to sing. I sing all the time. I can't listen to a song on the radio and not sing along. The thing is, I'm no good. I can't carry a tune. My range is terrible; I can't hit the low notes or the high notes. Or really the in-between ones either.

And of course, those are just off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are other things I'm no good at.

You might be thinking, wow, this is all very negative. Why focus on what you're not any good at? Actually, I think it's very freeing for me to acknowledge what I'm not good at, so I don't have to feel inadequate or continually try to do something I'm just not cut out for. So what if I can't bake? That's what bakeries are for. I don't have matching towels in my bathroom, my bed is rarely made and I really don't care. My house is comfortable and to me, it's home. And as for the singing? Well, I'm not going to stop singing because I enjoy it. But I'm also not going to feel bad about the fact that I have no talent for it.  I like it; it's fun for me and so what if the only other person who wants to hear me sing is my 2 year old son?

The other advantage of admiting what you're not good at is learning to work around your limitations.  For instance, I'm also really bad at finishing projects (not so much at work, but at home).  I still have a stack of stuff to put in my son's baby book (he's almost 2 now), shelves I bought weeks ago that I haven't put up and, oh yeah, this year my husband and I will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary and I still haven't put our wedding pictures in an album.  However, now that I have accepted the fact I'm bad at finishing projects, it's actually helped me be more productive.  So when I think about starting yet another new project, I remind myself, "hey, you're really bad at finishing projects" and instead look at one of my old projects that need to be finished.  That's how the magazine rack finally got mounted on the wall last weekend. So, I say, admit what you're terrible at! You never know, you might find it really freeing.   

The first few weeks after my son was born, it was all I could do to keep the two of us alive. Seriously, 36 hours of labor was a piece of cake compared to the first six weeks of his life. I was physically and mentally exhausted and had no clue what I was doing from one moment to the next. Fast forward to almost two years later, and it looks like I actually have this whole mom thing down. We've survived all kinds of major changes relatively unscathed: me going back to work and him going to daycare; him learning to crawl, walk, talk, feed himself; the whole family picking up and moving to a completely different part of the country. But really, the feeding and diapering and naps and bedtime and day to day stuff isn't that hard (well, I don't know about potty training yet.  Ask me about that next month). The bigger challenge, for me at least, is figuring out how to raise a happy child.

Actually, I'm very lucky. My son's natural disposition is to be happy. Sure we have the typical toddler moments when he throws himself on the floor and kicks and screams over some minor issue, but that's definitely the exception rather than the rule. But in some ways the fact that he is naturally happy is what's a little intimidating; I don't want to do anything to change that. I don't want to look at a sullen, difficult person someday and think, "remember how happy he was when he was little?" Of course, that may happen no matter what I do or don't do, but I definitely don't want to be the one to cause a change like that.

So, just like in other areas of my life, I try to keep it all balanced. Obviously, as his mother, my job is to set boundaries for him and teach him appropriate behavior. Besides just meeting his physical needs, I must keep him safe and help him learn how to navigate the world. But I don't want to be arbitrary and inflexible. Also, I want him to have the opportunity to become his own person, to choose the path in life that he wants to follow. How to I protect him without smothering him? How can I let him learn things on his own and still raise him with the values I think are important? To me, these questions are a lot harder than how I can get him to eat more vegetables.

All I can do is try to be the best mom I can be and hope. I hope that I'm setting a good example for him by focusing on my own well-being, as well as his. I hope that by treating him and those around me with love and respect, he'll learn to do the same. I hope to help him focus on what's really important in life and not to spend time and energy on what's not important. Most of all, I hope when he's an adult I can look at him and still see in him the happy child he is now.