Multiplying Two Negatives Gives You a Positive (Your Negative Moments Will Be Cherished)

The other day I shared a blog on how we shouldn't always feel bad if we aren't cherishing every single moment with our children.  This took a huge weight off my shoulders!  It had mentioned that time goes by fast.  People always say, "Cherish the moments, even the bad ones, because some day you'll be sad they are gone."  Basically, the follow up was, that's a bunch of hog wash!

After I read that I was complete relieved of all my guilt and misery around not enjoying the troubled moments I have as a parent.  The times when I feel like a complete mess and I can't even function because I'm so stressed out and the kids are driving me absolutely insane!  

Before then, I was thinking, I need to enjoy this more.  I need to relish this time, because before I know it, it's going to be gone, and it's already going by too fast.  Meanwhile, my tired brain and body were telling me, give yourself a break.  Your kids are screaming at the top of their lungs, the house is a mess, there are a million things I need to get done and I just can't handle all this noise and commotion.  

Then an epiphany hit me! 

It's not the moment that I always need to cherish.  The moment only lasts a second or two.  It's not the moment that I will cherish ever again.  The moment is gone.  It's the memory of the moment that I will cherish!  

When I was in college I was trying to tell a story to my friends about how I fell off my bike and cracked my head open.  I was trying to ride no handed down a hill and hit some gavel.  I fell off my bike, and of course I wasn't wear a helmet, and my barrette stabbed me in the head.  Blood strewn down my face and I cried from the shock of what had happened.  At that moment I was not having fun.  I was terrified and even more terrified my dad had told me the Dr. was going to shave my head to put in stitches!  Of course that didn't happen.

But telling this story in college, I was laughing so hard I could hardly tell it, and I couldn't spit out the words.  It was cracking me up so bad I was having one of those moments where you start laughing uncontrollably and can't stop.  It wasn't a funny story.  But the memory of it was.  

Looking back through some of my notes I write about my kids, I laugh at the moments that made me cry and cringe when they were happening.  For instance, my son falling out of his stroller at the post office and everyone gasping in horror as he hit his head.  Me thinking I'm the worst mom in the world and everyones gasp confirming it!  Now I can look back and laugh.

While I was up for the sixth time in the middle of the night wondering how new moms are so happy and perky.  Where I wanted to crawl under a rock.  Wondering how all these parents had "Katie Couric Syndrome" where they were perky as hell 24/7.  Where I had stupid kid cartoons and nursery rhymes stuck in my head that wouldn't turn off.  Instead of having "Katie Couric Syndrome" and being perky about my situation, I was instead wondering if "Peter Piper could be a Perky People Eater!" 

Then I would look at my one month old, who had his middle finger on his chin most of the time, and I would think he was mocking me!  He of course knew I was dying, but he thought it was funny.  Obviously he didn't even know what he was doing, but I was sure he was mocking me!

And then of course there are the baby books.  The things we look back on now to remember the memories!  I wouldn't have remembered half this stuff if it weren't for these baby books.  Heck, moms need maternity leave just so they can fill out the baby book!  How time consuming this task is!

Here are some more not so funny at the time moments I can look back on now and laugh.

• Cleaning poop out of the gasket of the front-load washer.  How did poopy underwear get in the washer without my knowledge?
• If God cared about pregnant women, he'd let them keep their big boobs!  I was completely serious with my thought of this. 
• Why do men act like morons in the middle of the night when the baby needs up?  Women have to be on their game when the man is half asleep thinking the cat is meowing and not the baby.
• How in the hell did I get stretch marks with my second child and not with my first?  What kind of mean trick is that?
• When I swaddled my baby why did I feel like I was putting him in a straight jacket?
• When I put the turkey in the oven, I didn't feel like eating it any more because it reminded me of changing a baby's diaper.
• Taking my parenting cues from Animal Planet after watching the baby gazelle kick the mommy gazelle multiple times while trying to breast feed.  Thinking to myself if the baby bites and kicks me this is OK, because if the animals on Animal Planet can take it, so can I.
• Thinking my life is easier than the animals on Animal Planet, because at least I'm not the tiger  searching for her babies in the middle of the night.  One who climbed up a tree and couldn't get down and one who just about got eaten by a crocodile.  All while she sways and staggers around because she's so flipping tired and her dumb kids are strewn across the jungle!  

So looking back, and as I'll look back again and again, as years go by, these times are cherishable. But it wasn't the necessarily the moment that was cherishable, it's mostly the memory of the moment that I will cherish.   Of course I remember the good times and can easily cherish those.  Rocking my kids to sleep.  Reading them books.  Playing in the yard.  The list goes on and on...  But I don't remember every single one of those moments either.  But I do remember that those are all good times.  It's the sum of all the moments that is to be cherished.  Not each single moment.  And to remember that the bad times can all sum up to good times eventually, too.

The awesome thing about memories are they can be passed down to others and through generations.  My daughter always says "Remember that time when I was a baby and I did ..."  Of course she doesn't remember when she was a baby, but she remembers me saying how I remembered when she did ... and thought it was so great.  Or it wasn't so great at the time, and I can look back and think it's funny because now she thinks it's funny.  I remember things I did as a kid that my parents didn't think was funny at all, but we can all laugh about it now.  

So, don't worry if you're not thinking this moment is great or yesterday wasn't either.  It's the memory of the moment later that will end up good.  It's the sum of all things that you will cherish.  In math, multiplying two negatives gives you a positive.  In the end, you'll end up with a positive even if you feel full of negatives.  Math is a fact.  So if you can't wrap your head around what's happening at the moment.  Remember the facts of math, and you will automatically be in a positive place.