My not so baby-proofed house.

When Angel was a baby it was very easy for me to not need to baby-proof my house. She was so mellow and calm all the time and the few things she did try to get into weren't things that concerned me. My method of parenting a baby is simple. I never let them play outside a playpen unsupervised. While supervised I teach them what they can and can not do. I still had people who would ask me "How do you go to the bathroom? Or take a shower? Without the fear that she'll get into something?". Simple, I had a playpen or even better I let their daddy take a turn with them.

Then when I was pregnant with Abigail many people were quick to tell me that I probably wouldn't be so lucky and she might be the one I need to baby-proof for. I, however, don't like to not be able to get into my own cabnets, or lift my toilet lid, or whatever else is locked. Once Abigail became mobile if I was unable to be litterally by her side teaching her what was ok and not ok to touch, I'd simply put her in her playpen with a few toys and go to the bathroom or cook dinner or whatever else I needed to do.

I say teach like that because I believe it's never too early to start teaching your children how to behave. Yes, I said NEVER. They are never too young to start learning. I hear all the time "Well it's ok. They don't know any better". Just because child doesn't know any better does not make their actions ok! "It's ok that my two year old throws her plate of food on the floor every night. She doesn't know any better...." Really? Yes, I heard someone say that to me. You're child will always "not know any better" unless you teach them to know better.

Angel is one of the most well behaved children out there. I still get compliments about that. While Angel is outside playing in the front yard she will come in and ask my permission to play in the back yard. I believe this is because I started teaching her how to behave from the moment she was born.

I will admit that Abigail was a little tougher to teach right and wrong to, but she still follows her sisters lead and will ask my permission before doing things she's unsure of. She's also pretty smart and gets away with a lot more when she's being watched by others. She knows when people don't realize that she DOES know better at the young age of two. She is very stubborn and has a short temper, however, desipite her attitude problem I still have never had to baby proof my house, and I never will. 

Stop Complaining!

Now that I'm back in the working world full force I'm reminded of how many people seem to have given up on life without even realizing it. I recently worked with someone who constantly complained. Everyday there was something new to complain about. A few promotions were given and she didn't get one. She felt that there most be some kind of conspiricy going on with the bigger bosses against her and eventually quit the job.

It seems lately our world is filled with people that bounce from job to job and instead of sticking to something and learning to be the best. They simply complain about it and then quit. Quiting when things aren't perfect has become way too easy. I'm going to assume that's why the unemployment rate is so high while there are so many jobs out there.

Persistant complainers hold grudges like I hold babies. They also aren't good with time or money management. I know this because I use to be one. If there is too much work to do or they don't make enough money, it's obviously the boss's fault. If they are late for work, it's traffic's fault, or their spouse's fault. No matter what their life circumstances become someone's fault besides their own. Complaining then becomes their way of control. They'll complain to any listening ear, and when someone is willing to listening the complaining becomes just in their eyes. (so stop listening to the complaints and they will stop complaining to you!)

A successful person still complains, but the difference is they don't just complain. They see the problem and do something about it. They fix it so they no longer have to complain. They don't quit just because they feel it's not all it's cracked up to be. If you want to succeed, quiting is NOT the first step! If you'd don't want to succeed, please, by all means, QUIT! Complainers give in when things get hard and then look to others to drop what they are doing and come to their rescue after they've been defeated.

Complainers don't know how to love themselves. They have no sense of selfworth. They tend to cling to others who are also complainers or turn them into complainers. Ranting can feel good and it's easy to hear someone doing it and think of reasons why your life might also not be all that great. This creats a downward spiral of "my life sucks worse" competetion. Since these guys have no selfworth they expect the rest of us to show it to them.

Well, here is some news that might surprise you. If you are a complainer than you really aren't anyone I want to be around. When I come around you, I will listen to your complaints for a minute. I won't try and tell you how to fix these complains. I'll simply tell you to smile a little and tell you to be worth it.

 Where I work it's easy to complain. It can get VERY stressfull. Those that are successful and know they are worth it complain for a minute, but then move on. The complainers who feel they aren't worth it don't tend to last and they simply go home. My work day goes by so much easier without the complainers. Complainers don't have my sympathy or compassion. As I've said in many blogs passed if you don't like where your life is you are the only one who can change it. No one else wants to hear about it. 

If You Don't Like It...

Change it!

If you aren't satisfied with where your life is or where you're life is going then change it.

Success is not measured by how much money or things you have. It's measured based on weather or not you are happy with where you are in life. The only thing from stopping your from being successful is YOU.

You're the only person who truly has control over your own life, not your family, not the government, not your boss, but YOU. No one is really going to be able to rescue you if life gets you down. The truth is that it's entirely up to do to do something about it.

Life isn't always rainbows and sunshine, and it's not supposed to be. We were designed with emotions for a reason. Those emotions are there to tell us weather or not what we are doing in life will lead to success. It's like the engine light in our car. When it comes on it doesn't mean that our light it broken. It means that there is something wrong with the car and we need to fix it. Likewise when our mental engine light (our emotions) comes on it doesn't mean there is something wrong with our emotional make up. It simply means something in life isn't working and needs to be fixed.

If you run into a light poll with your car, you can't expect to hit your accelerator and expect your car to just go no matter how much gas you give it. You are stuck. You can't move forward. You could yell at your car for not moving, but blaming the car does you no good. You might have swerved to miss a dog, you may have been distracted, or the poll may have appeared from space right in front of your car. No matter who's fault it is that you hit the poll, you are still the driver and blaming those around you isn't going to get you less stuck.

Feeling bad about life doesn't always mean you have some sort of emotional problem and that your mentally damaged. Feeling down simply means your emotions are working! You're supposed to feel bad when life gets hard. You  take those emotions and use them to tell yourself " Ok, life isn't what I want it to be right now, and if I don't want to keep experiencing these emotions I need to change how I'm living."

Many times when we feel down we think there is something wrong with us. We think "My brain is obviously depressed and broken." We take the info our emotions are giving us and act like it's a negative thing and not a normal part of life. Then we try and fix the problem with therapy and drugs. That's like thinking something is wrong with your car simply because it ran out of gas. Your car is supposed to run out of gas! Could you imagine having it towed to a repair shop simply because it was out of gas? The mechanic would probably think you were nuts.

I'm not saying that therapy and drugs are wrong, but it is just a quick fix to a life issue. Our emotions help keep us on the right track to success.

If your emotions are telling you that life isn't where you want it to be then do something about it. Don't wallow in your emotions. Change them. Make something happen. It's all up to you.

Love What You Do.

When I was in the 2nd grade I made the decision that I wanted to be a teacher. Most of the time when 2nd graders tell you what they want to be when they grow up that idea changes thousands of times before they actually grow up, but not for me. Yes I had other things that I would settle for but in the end every time I was asked my answer was always the same. I wanted to be a teacher.

It was no question that once I graduated high school and went to college that I majored in education. Truth be told though, sometimes you just have to take life as it is handed to you. My college path was a slow one, and once I had Angel it only got slower. After having Abigail finishing a four year college degree became nothing more than a dream.

It was really hard to run into people I went to high school with telling me they'd been teaching for 5, 6 or even 10 years and here I am with nothing more than an associates degree. I use to let that get to me, until I started looking at life a little different.

The thing is I have my whole life ahead of me to be a teacher. I know it would be a little more ideal right now, but it's just not a possibility right now. Instead of dwelling on that while I was staying at home I made it a goal to be the best work/stay at home mom I could be. It seemed like just as soon as I'd gotten the hang of being a great work/stay at home mom we needed a more steady income and I had to go back to work.

I work in a grocery store bakery. My official title is cake decorator, but due to recent events I haven't been able to decorate as much lately. Instead I've been filling in anywhere we might be short handed. The other day while I was singing and dancing all alone in the back freezer of our bakery I started to think about how five years ago I wouldn't have enjoyed freezing all alone in that room trying to organize our supplies. Five years ago I would have complained and possibly even cried the whole time reminding myself that this is NOT what I want to be when I grow up!

The difference is I've since learned that no matter how old I am as long as I still have life in me there is STILL TIME for me to be what I want to be when I grow up. I'm still going to be a teacher one day. The cool part is that meanwhile, I've learned that I'm a great writer. I'm a great illustrator. I'm a great artist. I'm a great mom. I'm a great cake decorator and good bread baker (still working on making that great!). I am not only good at all these things, but I love them! I love singing and dancing in that back freezer because it's all part of who I am. It's part of what makes me ME.

If you can't do what you love... Love what you do...

Just Dance

We all have bouts of emotion. Some are more extreme than others, but none the less we all have our good days and our bad days, our happy days, our sad days, mad days, ect...

Personally I've always been a little more on the extreme side as far as my emotions go. I don't have "good" days I have "great!" days and I don't have "bad" days I have "Oh dear God kill me now!" days. While great days are.. well.. great... the opposite isn't so great at all and frankly I was tired of it.

I've always had a bit of a temper and there have been times when I've simply snapped sometimes at the wrong person for the wrong things. This is why so many say "Don't keep it bottled up. Learn to release your anger". TV and media paint a picture that those who can't let out their anger tend to snap. Which leads people in the same boat as me to beleive that we need an outlet for our anger.. something to make us calm down and feel better. Alternatives to "snapping" are things like squeezing stress balls, ripping paper, screaming into pillows or even smoking or drinking.

When I started back to work I knew I'd have stressfull days. In the past I have had too many stressful days and lost it. I didn't want to lose it here. I looked for alternatives so that I wouldn't "snap". I absolutly didn't want to take up smoking and I shouldn't even have to explain why on that one. Drinking on the job would only cause me to lose my job. It's really hard to decorate cakes while squeezing a stress ball or ripping paper, and it didn't seem logical to hide a pillow in the freezer for occasional screaming purposes.

That's when it hit me! Expressing anger even against inanimate objects doesn't make me less angry. Yes, it makes me feel better for the moment, but doesn't take the anger away at all. In fact, if you think about it... we as humans get addicted to things really easily. The nice way of putting it is that we all have "habits" weather it be good or bad. If screaming into a pillow is going to make me feel better then I'll have a new habit, and therefore will look for reasons to scream into my pillow. I'll look for reasons to get angry so that I can run into the freezer to grab my pillow and scream! When we find something that makes us feel good we want to do it, and we want to do it often.

Basically I'm saying that getting angry can in itself become an addiction and finding a "healthy, feel good" habit to release it makes anger feel good! It's like an alcoholic drinking a beer in order to control the urdge to drink.

I'm not saying that it's bad to get angry. Things happen and it's ok to get mad. It'd be weird if you didn't, but it's not ok to get mad at little things. Most of the time when you get mad at little things its really just masking what's really bothering you. For instance I have a little brother who is truly one of my best friends. A few years ago he moved away almost in the middle of the night. I got mad, and lots of things made me mad while he was gone. I could blame my anger on the little things, but the real truth is that I missed my brother dearly, and I was angry at myself for letting him go. He is back now and I can put that anger behind me.

I started back to work six months ago, and some days every little thing would get to me. "I can't believe I've got to make this cake today!! ahhh!!!" When I looked deeper into it I noticed those would be the days that my mortgage or my electric was due, so really on those days my anger was a build up of the fact that I was feeling like I worked so hard but still couldn't provide for my famly the way I wanted. Sometimes while Angel and I are working on her spelling words and she keeps insisting the the word "name" clearly has a "B" in it somewhere I might begin to lose patience... when I usually wouldn't.. losing patience because deep down I might feel like if only I were home more she would know that there IS NOT A "B" ANYWHERE IN THE WORD "N-A-M-E". More anger that deep down is really towards myself...

While I started paying closer attention to my bad days I also started paying attention to my good days... what makes them so great?? Well.. brace yourself.. this WILL sound silly... but.. I.. DANCE! Seriously!! I dance. Either to music playing or if there is none I'll dance to a song in my head. You can always tell when I'm having a good day because I'll just start dancing and sometimes even singing.

A couple weeks ago I decided to test something. Monday December 31, 2012 I walked into work DANCING. I encouraged others to dance with me. Some did and some didn't, but either way I was dancing my heart out. The more stressful the day seems the more I danced to keep the air positive. I've made it a point to do this every single day I walk into work. It's something I can do while working, while driving (I can bob my head a little), while cooking or cleaning, or even while helping Angel with her homework. The atmosphere at work and at home turned into such a positive one that these little things... were just that.. little things...

Of course there are still things that can, do, and will happen that will cause me to get angry and stop dancing for a moment, and that's ok. It's good and healthy to get angry when really bad things happen, but it's not ok and it's NOT healthy to get angry over the little things, so instead I've decided to just... dance!

The pursuite of Happiness

My daughter, Angel, loves dolphins. We live on the north side of a large bay that is full of dolphins. I drive across this bay just about everyday multiple times a day. Almost every day I see dolphins swiming in the bay. Everytime I do I think of Angel and wish she were there with me to see them. It seems like everytime we drive over the bay together we never see them, but we always look for them.

Recently someone asked me if I'd ever felt lost with my life with no sense of direction. My heart really went out to her at that moment because I absolutly had felt that way before, and I'm sure most people in the world feel that way at some point in their lives. I felt like that a lot when I use to be a stay at home mom. Some days I just didn't want to get out of bed. I'd acomplish so much in one day and the only ones who saw it was a baby who couldn't talk and a four year old who didn't care. When I did call someone up to talk about my day I didn't have much exciting to say "Oh well I folded laundry and made lunch and dinner all in 3 hours!" Usuaully whomever I was talking to wouldn't be as excited as me and usually felt the need to offer me a cookie...

When you get into a funk like that it can be pretty hard to get out of it. It's too easy to look at the big picture and think "So this is it... this is my life..." Stop doing that! In this moment. Right now. This IS your life, but life right now is NOT the big picture. There is so much more out there going to happen and so much more that can and will happen as long as you make it happen.

Whilist I was in my funk I started several life changing things. I started writing this blog which was a way for my to truly get my mind out there. I illustrated a series of children's books and now you can look up "JD Kurtz" on Amazon and see them. This was the beginning of something new. My new goal in life was not to simply be ther mother of my two wonderful girls. While that IS my life right now it's not everything I am and I do intend to make a real different in this world. Weather it be through my art, my writing, or simply through my children.

Secondly I started getting out of the house more. Even if I didn't want to I'd make myself get dressed every day and I'd take the kids to the park, to storytime at the library, to the free movies in the summer time, or to the beach. I'd do anything to get out and socialize with adults. This meant I drove over the bay with Angel many more times, and she finally got to see dolphins! The day we finally saw dolphins together I pulled over on the side of the road probably looking foolish as I grabbed my six year old and let her sit on the car. I held her still as the wind tried to blow us away. It took her a minute, but I kept pointing them out and then they jumped up right in front of us. That was one of those moments when I said "Yes, this is my life, and my life is GOOD!"

You've got your whole life to do whatever you want with it. Don't let this moment ruin your future! Sometimes you have to just put yourself out there, your creativity, your thoughts, your dreams, your goals, or whatever. Sometimes you've got to get out of the hosue more. Sometimes you've just got to stop and see the dolphins. 

My Teacher, My Hero.

I've been struggling weather or not to write a blog concerning the events from last Friday. I had mostly decided not to until I started seeing and hearing comments from fellow parents saying things like "That's it! I'm homeschooling!" or "My babies will never leave my side again!".

It's truly heart breaking. This whole thing. When I saw the first detailed news report I noticed how this school doesn't look much bigger than my little Angel's school. This town looked no different than my little town. I too thought "That could have been MY first grader!" That's when I saw the story about Victoria Soto and her heroic actions. She reminded me so much of Angel's kindergarten Teacher, Jeanna Meyer.

I truly couldn't have asked for a better first teacher for Angel. Angel didn't adjust well to school, and Ms. Meyer loved on her just a mother would when she stuggled. She would tell Angel daily that she loved her and would give her hugs and assurance. Angel sometimes called me Ms. Meyer, and likewise called her Mommy. It made me laugh all the time, but also showed me what kind of teacher she had. Angel truly was just as much Ms. Meyer's baby as she was my baby. She had a teacher just like Victoria Soto who would have without question hidden our baby and told the gunman she wasn't there. I believe without a doubt that Ms. Meyer would have taken and will take a bullet for any of her babies.

The summer after kindergarten and it was time to meet our first grade teacher I knew there was no way the person I was about to meet would ever compare to Ms. Meyer. I was very concerened that whomever this was wouldn't be able to show the love and compassion that my daughter needed. Then I met Tonya Matlock. It was as if this woman were hand picked to teach my daughter first grade. We truly work as a team in teaching Angel and by seeing how far she's come since the begginning of the year I'd have to say we make a great team! I'll never forget the phone call I got from her when she said "OUR little girl isn't doing so well." That's when I knew for a fact that she had another Ms. Meyer. Ms. Matlock would have been like the teacher Kaitlin Roig, who crammed all of her kids into a bathroom telling them how much she loved them and how they were all going to have christmas. She wouldn't even let police in until they showed her their badge under the door. Yes, I believe Ms. Matlock would do whatever she had to do to keep her children safe.

And of course we can't forget the teachers' assistants. Angel has a special woman Ms. Glass who helps Angel when things get really tough. I've only met her a couple times and I don't even know her first name, but Angel talks about her so much that I know she's made a solid impact on Angel's life.

While what happend Friday is horrifing, I can't imagine Angel's life without her amazing teachers. Teachers in my opinion have always been some of the greatest most life changing people out there and it takes a truly special person to be a teacher. I've always had faith in our teachers and after Friday my faith in them just grows stronger. You can't hide your kids from the world. You just can't. If you notice all the surviving teachers from Sandy Hook Elementary, when speaking about their students, don't call them students. They say "my children" or "my kids".  It's something all teachers do. Each year they don't get "new" kids they simply get MORE kids. Let's continue to let our schools help us shape our children.

I'm so grateful for Freeport Elementary School and everyone there who is helping me raise my daughter to be the wonderful person that she is inside and out. A special thanks to Ms. Matlock, Ms. Meyer, and Ms. Glass.