Me Time…Where can I find it?

Is a question very often ignored by most mom's because in reality it would seem we would have to add hours to the day to accomplish this. Why is it that even women with no children, feel that they need to do other stuff first before they can allow themselves a little time to call their own?


I see it all the time. There's work, house work, husband/boyfriend maintenance, family obligations, the list goes on and on. Why is it that a man can come home from work and sit down to watch TV but a woman, come home from work and start dinner or put a load of laundry in, or return that call from her sister etc. Granted not all men are like this and many will equally help around the house but they will sit down first and watch TV, then put that load of laundry in. Why is it that we woman feel like this stuff is so urgent it cant wait 1/2 hour while we relax. Because we feel like we are not being efficient. I wonder if it's generic.


Sometimes though is more a matter of too much effort. Take me for example, I love to scrapbook, but I seldom have the time to do it. I have 6 children and I am still working on the first two children pictures....I have gotten as far as their elementary school years...they are 21 and 19 now! I have maybe one page done of my third child (who is almost 10) and boxes of pictures in storage in my precious plastic container in the entertainment center cabinet. Of course I have tons of digital pictures too, of all my subsequent children, that I mean to keep making into videos etc..

All my children

Well it takes a lot of time. I have to get all my scrapbook materials out (and I have accumulated quite a bit in the pretense that I will be working on it soon) get the pictures I want to use, spread everything on a table. Of course through this there will be children asking for my attention, people getting hungry, phone ringing...you get the picture. If I get up to attend to this things many different disasters can occur to my scrap booking setting...by the time I am done attending to other matters I have to clear the table and put everything away and not one page is done. So you see most times I feel like "why bother".


So you are probably wondering how do I have time to blog...Ahhhhhhh well this is an activity that stays cleanly contained inside the computer. All it takes is the keyboard and my brain. It can be interrupted a hundred thousands time without a mayor disaster, like being scattered all over the room, getting cut into "pretty" shapes by my artistic 5 and 4 yrs. old, or eaten up by the baby. Thanks to that great technology thing called, "save as draft". And of course children eventually go to sleep and so do husbands/boyfriends! lol


I wrote this piece in 2007, I am now a single mother with more children than when I originally wrote it, so I had to edit ages and add children. The point is, is still current in any other way except for what I just stated….so where is that me time? I still haven’t been able to figure that one out but I have seen glimpses of it, I know is out there somewhere. So parents, for your own sanity and the benefit of you children, do not give up in the search. Is in there somewhere, so make sure you always look for it and if you are lucky enough, you will have those small capsules in time to just do what you love or sit down and relax!

Through the Eyes of Children

Every night when I put my children to bed each one of them says a “night, night” prayer. It amazes me how incredibly awesome children are. They sure know how to appreciate things in their life. Please note that this is not an attempt to convert by any means. Is just who we are and the purpose of sharing it, is to remind ourselves that, no matter how bad things may seem , there is always plenty to be thankful for if we look hard enough.


Here are some examples of the things my children have said in their prayer:

Visiting grandma and papi

Noel: (5 yrs old) “Thank you God for ALL our toys, thank you for the stuffed animals, I know they are toys too but they are not made of plastic or hard like the others, they are soft and fun to jump on to. Thank you for the roof on the house so that bad people can not climb in, oh and the walls too! Thank you putting food in the stores so that mami can make our yummy food. Thank you for the roads so that there is no grass all over the place and we can drive or we would be getting stuck in the mud (it had been raining for 3 days in a row lol). Thank you for our family. Keep the our angels with us, keep the nightmares away, AMEN!


Analise: (almost 4yrs old) God, thank you for everything, thank you for all the toys, thank you for the “ horsies” and dollies, thank you for the books that Noel forgot to tell you, for my princess dress because I can be a pretty princess, thank you for “(names of about 15 family members)” keep our angels with us, take care of us, keep the nightmares away , AMEN.


Coral: (18 months old) This she is happily saying while the other two say theirs lol. Yes! Mama, “baby mumblings”, bobo (pacifier in Spanish) the girl knows her priorities lol.


Estrella: (almost 10 yrs old) God thank you for this day, I had a fun day, thank you for my friends and my family, thank you for our food, our clothes. Please take care of our friends and family, keep the bad people away, why are they bad? Keep our angels with us, keep the nightmares away, AMEN!


I will say it, I am proud of my children for showing gratitude for what they have, for caring about others and for their honesty and innocence. If we could all listen to them more often and remember how to be kids at heart maybe this would be a much better world.

The most unglamorous best rewarded job

Me and my middle daughter Analise when
she was about 1 yr old. My oldest daughter
Estrella took this pic:)

Life as a mother brings with it many surprises, challenges, joys, frustrations, discoveries, tenderness, worries, dreams and so on. I think even the youngest first time mom expects most of this things. The one thing we still refuse to believe at the time, is that we will ever not care how we look, what we are wearing or even if our hair is combed.

The more children we have, the more relaxed we get raising them. Meaning our confidence increases, we are less paranoid, and don’t double boil everything that goes in their mouth. We all heard the famous stages of cleaning a pacifier by how many children we have. First baby we boiled the pacifier every time it touches the floor. Second child we wash it with soap and water. Third child we clean it by doing a quick clean up with our mouth. By the fourth we just blow on it or wipe it against our jeans.

There are things that start to take priority as we go in this journey. At some point in the first crazy months after having your first baby, you look in the mirror and think “YIKES” whatever happened to me? Then you decide you are going to make an effort to look nice. You fix your hair and even some minimum makeup before going to the store, you still choose to shower before sleep, you try keeping up with the laundry, and cooking wholesome meals. But for us with more than one we know the truth. By the time you have 3 kids the most you do is make sure your t-shirt appears to be clean before running out for groceries. You throw your hair up in a very unsexy pony tail and hastily clean your face with a wipe while you are running out to the car, just to make sure there are no crumbs left on it from the hastily eaten cold piece of pizza you had while running around the house picking up evil tiny toys and looking for pacifiers.

It is when you reach this stage, that you realize is those precious moments that make you smile inside, are what really matters. That’s when you need to slow down and enjoy the moment. Savor it and imprint it in you memory. When your child reaches up to you with their tiny arms, their sweet voice saying mami I love you, their contagious laughter, their stumbling steps, their sloppy kisses.
Who cares if you look like you just went through a hurricane, or your mascara ran because they made you laugh so hard you cried, or your hair looks goofy because they wanted to comb it for you and make you pretty. Those things do not matter, is the precious moments that will always warm your heart and the time you spend with your little treasures that will forever make you beautiful in their eyes.

Me and my youngest daughter Coral

Walk through @ your own risk

I believe most parents prefer to not use “adult” language around their kids, but there are times when an extra effort is required to hold those “bad words” back. Take for example your kids bedroom, play room or your own living room. . .

My daughter Analise

Ever heard of Hot Wheels, Legos, Little People, even Jacks and balls for those of us of a “mature vintage ” lol. Those and many others are the guilty, little mouth trippers. No matter how good you think they have been picked up and put away, they always seem to find their way right under your bare foot.

Do you ever wonder if there is some true to the movie “Toy Story”? Because sometimes I do wonder…. Like in the middle of the night when I walk into my little ones bedroom, half asleep and suddenly get that sharp pain coming from the bottom of my foot and right up my leg! And with that pain comes the one on my tongue from biting it down to smother an ill chosen word or two. I can just see it, the little devils, just waiting for me to come in, plotting and planning…"get ready, here she comes!” and as I grab the door knob they ran to get in position. “Ha ha ha” They snicker under the crib, in the toy bins, on the shelves while I mutter those words I so carefully otherwise avoid using in my daily life.

How else do you explain that very rarely does a kid steps on any of this little hazards but we adults do it all the time? Is it a toy conspiracy, another type of magical gnome at play or just my tired mind trying to blame it on something else besides the fact that I can’t hardly focus when I just woke up and without my glasses ?…

I have a feeling the last is not the explanation, because I know there are many of you out there in Parentland that have suffered such incidents. You may not be willing to admit it, but you know you too have let the “dirty” word out a time or two.

Despite all this, I do not mind them having all this little things. To watch and listen as their imaginations take over makes it all worth it. Nothing like their proud smile when they show you their latest creation, or listening to the magnificent stories they act out through their playing with them.

So next time I feel the temptation to grab one of those little son of a gun toys, and throw them out the window, I will picture my kids happy faces and remember the sound of their laughter. After all they are only kids once and it does goes by to fast, and better yet, one day it will be them smothering their ill chosen word or two!

So until them, remember, sometimes it pays to look down :)

Copyright of Marielena Rosa-Harrison

The Pacifier Mystery



My youngest, Coral

There is a mystery I have encounter with most of my children through the years. I have six children. This unexplained phenomena has happened with four of my children. It has me believing in mythical mischievous creatures. The latest occurrences have been during this past year with my 18 month old baby. So what are we talking about here? The disappearing and reappearing pacifier mystery.


When you have your first baby, everything is new and exciting, you sterilize everything, wash their little clothes a hundred time to make sure they are germ and allergy free for them. Then you bring your baby home from the hospital with a pacifier thinking how angelic they look soundly asleep sucking gently on it. What nobody tells you is that , the very angelic baby you are looking at is going to turn red in the face when that pacifier falls off into another dimension. So you are probably thinking, ‘what is she talking about, another dimension?” And that’s where the magical creatures start playing with your sanity. Or maybe is the endless sleepless nights confusing your brain. Either way , the results are the same. You or someone else is going to the 24 hour drugstore in the middle of the night to get another pacifier while your child screams and cries for it like they lost their best friend. And you better hope and pray you find the same kind they are used to at the store. The consequences of getting a different kind merit a whole separate post.


So where is the mystery in that? The mystery lies in the fact that when the pacifier disappears, no matter how hard you look most times you can’t find it. You go out and get more. Then another day when your child is happy and content and in no need of the pacifier, it suddenly reappears in the most obvious spot right in the area you looked for it before! So, I have to believe in little gnomes who come and take them into their realm and laugh while they watch us desperately looking for the pacifier. Then they return it to that spot a few days later just to mess with our heads. Because if I don’t, then I would have to admit that I am loosing brain cells and blame it on my children and what sort of loving mother would I be if I blamed those innocent babies?


So my advice to you is, buy several packs of pacifiers for your baby, have extras in diaper bags, cars, house, grandparents home, daycare etc. Because you never know when this mischievous gnomes will attack!


Copyright of Marielena Rosa-Harrison