Balancing Acts Article - perfect for today.

The other day, I managed to track down an online journal that I started on the day I found out I was pregnant.  Not the day I found out about having twins, the Double Blessings Day (which I had blogged about last time), but the day I took the stick test.  I'm so glad to find this journal as I thought the site was gone and so were my musings and updates written in the voice of the baby(ies).  What a kick to read through the many months of carrying the little luvvies (tadpoles, I called them then), and the next two years after they arrived.  As you can imagine, a busy schedule kept me from keeping the journal up, which is truly a shame.

In one of my entries, I found an article I had written for a featured column called "Balancing Acts."  This newsletter is circulated to the twins club we belong to.  I wrote this in November of 2008, so the girls were just about to turn two.

Here it is, I thought I'd post it in honor of the day of moms.  Let's not forget the things we learn from our kids, whether they are 2 or 42 years young.

Happy Mamma's Day!

-----------------------------------------
Balancing Acts
By Rowe Lapiña Hoffer

Just yesterday, a colleague and friend of mine were chatting in my office about how crazy and frazzled we had been feeling. She and I are both moms to twins (mine are 2 on Dec 21), and both working full time at corporate jobs that require us to be “moms” at the office too. We were “gabbing” about the routines we have, the schedules to keep (and sometimes, break) and the endless planning ahead day in and day out. We tired ourselves out just by talking about them!

Then within the same breath, we talked about how insanely happy we were as moms, and to twins at that, and how we feel so blessed to have double the joy.

This article is about balance, being moms to multiples certainly require skills of balancing (picture: on one’s head, while reaching out with one hand to a distant object, carrying a heavy load on one foot – same time giving lots of kisses to our luvvies).

As I write this article on the day before Thanksgiving, and feeling some relief that our plans for tomorrow are quite easy and low-key, I am finding myself changing the content of this article from how and what I do to balance (a corporate job in high-tech, running a family fitness company, ramping up my own styling biz, keeping to some form of fitness regimen, keeping the house from becoming unlivable) to actually writing about how I am recognizing that my children are the ones that give me and teach me balance!

Becoming child-like again, rediscovering the simple joys and pleasures, appreciating kind gestures and displays of affection, these are traits I have relearned from my girls. These are wonderful traits that keep me from losing sight of what to be thankful for, even when I am constantly faced with “things” and events that exasperate and frustrate. These little creatures of joy, without them even knowing it, balance out the +s and –s of being an adult, and the responsibility of having to be an adult with kids added.

When we shriek with laughter as we play in a puddle balances out the hassle of the chores to do (oh the many loads of laundry!). Looking up at the sky while we lay on the grass, pointing out birds and clouds as we sing a silly song balances out my weeklyinconvenient visits to the allergy clinic (I’m allergic to a lot of things, grass being one of them - might as well roll in grass with them since I’ll be getting 4 needles anyway!). Coming home from the office in time to be there as they wake up from a nap balances out the working late every night after they have gone to bed to catch up on the work. The rewards of hugs and kisses and faces that light up each time they see me balance out all the frenzy, chaos, stress from strings of days and nights when you are just exhausted and feel like everyone wants a piece of you.

There are so many wonderful/difficult days and nights and I continue to look forward to new ones each day. If not for them coming into my life, I wonder if I would be "well-balanced" enough to be able to look up from my computer this morning, look out the window and think to myself, “it’s raining…ugh!  But with rain comes puddles…yipppeee!”  I don't think that would have been my reaction to rain before my kids had given me the gift of seeing things through their eyes.