Walking the Walk?

I just finished a long and serious talk with my daughter; one I hadn't really thought I would be having with an almost-ten-year-old. That is: It's not just your body that's your own. Your time, your energy, your feelings - all your own. No one has the right to demand access to you. Being a girl sometimes means that you will be called mean for being assertive. Many people are threatened or even intensely angered by a girl (or woman) who refuses to be accessible (which is kinda what all those culturally-enforced niceties are all about). That is their problem. Not hers. We talked about boundaries and how important it is not to feel obligated to be available to a person who is actively or passively ignoring your expressed boundaries.

No, nothing horrible happened to her. She's been having trouble for quite a while with a boy who won't leave her alone. Today I witnessed it.

What am I?

Appropriate answer: I don't care. If you do, I don't have time for the fallout.

There are many labels that would accurately describe aspects of who I am. There was a time I clung to them. They gave me a sold-feeling sense of being Someone. I was Mormon. I was strange. I was a wife. A mother. I was bipolar. An attachment parent. A student. A writer. A...

Naming things can help a person make sense of the world and of their place in it.

Relying on the definitions of those names can also cripple a person. Expectations are developed. Assumptions are made that the thing labeled will - must - live up to its definition. While such assumptions can be useful when applied to objects, in people it too often draws individuals to groups of people who wear labels like laurels... and bond by alienating the Us from the Other. The otherness of the Other gets magnified, pointed out amongst the Us with knowing nods and a comfort that as certainly as there is Other, the Us maintains. If the Other were smarter, they would be Us. If the Other knew what We know, they would turn from their mis-thought ways. Whatever the individuals fear, they apply and magnify in their judgement of the Other.

We all do it. Nations. Religions. Political Parties.

And mothers.

Good grief, but I get pissed off about some of the labels mothers use to divide themselves and align in judgement that harms other women. As if the manufactured Mommy Wars weren't enough, I get sick to death of the sanctimonious clucking. Note to all the cutesy-monikered forms of pregnancy/birthing/baby-feeding/child-rearing activists: Actually help people or shut up. Quit using your energy to judge and mock. Mocking the methods your fellow mothers are using to raise their kids the best they can doesn't help anyone. It doesn't prove your dedication to your beliefs or strengthen those around you. It's toxic and demeaning. Stop it.

Think babies deserve breast milk? Nurse your babies. Be the example. When I was a new mommy, nursing in public was nerve-wracking. Early on I fed my baby bottles when we were out because I felt so alone and unsure. Want to know what helped? Being around relaxed, friendly people nursing their babies.

Think babies deserve to be carried next to a parent? Get active in providing slings to people who can't afford to go to websites with names like poshbaby, let alone debate the merits of six popular baby carriers. Many people have never seen a sling be used, let alone try to wrestle a crying infant into one while worrying the little darling will just fall out the other side.

Don't think kids should be spanked? Raise your kids in a way that demonstrates that your methods work. Very little makes me cringe faster than moms preaching gentle/NVC philosophies while their kids are terrorizing every living thing in a two-mile radius. Nobody's kids are perfect, but when your child is the hitter/biter/etc. at that particular moment, please quit preaching. Save your energy for helping your child navigate this crazy world. If your methods are viable, the people around you will notice and incorporate your methods into their own practices. That's it. People can smell smug a mile away and nothing turns them off faster.

So on and so forth about every damn label. The next time I hear someone disparaging "Main Stream" parenting like it's synonymous with child abuse, I am going to scream.

That is all.

Meaningful

This morning I was reading some comments on Possum Mama's blog. One (Renee's) that was both annoying (because of its off-base assumption) and important (because those same assumptions are SO outrageously prevalent amongst Believers) asked about traditions and cultural/moral memes atheists pass down to their children.

The assumptions always seem to orbit around the notion that atheists have neither morals nor any traditions to cherish as part of a family and a society. The former makes me angry. The latter simply baffles me.

To address the moral issue: Morals have nothing to do with religion. Read Richard Dawkin's fine book, The Selfish Gene. Seriously. It's worth it.

Now, for traditions... We may not read the Nativity story in Luke as part of our Christmas festivities, but otherwise our celebrations probably look quite familiar.

Yes, we celebrate Christmas. When I first left the Mormon church, but hadn't yet finished my journey to atheism, I spent a few years as a Wiccan. Part of what attracted me to Wicca was digging through history and learning more about the roots of our popular holidays (unfortunately for my religious yearnings, studying history and anthropology killed any suspension of disbelief I could muster and left me ultimately admitting to myself that Wicca was as silly as any other religion - just more fun). So for a while I was pretty hardcore about celebrating The Winter Solstice or Saturnalia or anything with less brow-beaten baggage than Christmas. After having G-Rex and feeling a heavy burden to teach her truth, I had to drop cherished religious chestnuts, one by one, until I was left with Atheism. No, not agnosticism. Atheism. When I finally got to that point, I realized that it didn't matter what I called it. My family has called it Christmas for generations, so that's what my kids celebrate.

There are so many good, important things to teach my children. They learn about the Christian Nativity story. They learn about the Solstice and some of the celebrations archaeologists and historians have described. But those details aren't very important.


Important Things I Teach My Children (and specific holiday practical applications):
1. Family is The Most Important Part of Life. Full Stop.
Our Christmases are so wholesome and family oriented, we could make Norman Rockwell tap out. The quintessential American family road trip spirits us away to The Homeland my grandfathers homesteaded where extended families pack into warm homes, nestled in snow drifted mountain emptiness, to eat too much, talk too much, and attempt to fit a year's worth of joy into a week. This is not an easy thing. We have to save money and budget for it. We have to winterize our wimpy PNW cars and traverse icy mountain passes. But it's what we do because it's important. And it has nothing to do with religion.
2. Tolerance matters.
But tolerance is not the same as actively embracing the vivid, intelligent people who might think differently than we do. We love people who disagree with us. And we are loved by people who disagree with us. Homogeny is not necessary and thinking for oneself is not a fearsome thing.
3. It pretty much rocks to give AND receive.
4. History matters.
Those who have gone before leave fascinating legacies. Learning from their strengths and weaknesses can help us more actively and consciously shape the selves and family we are.
5. Solstices are cool.
Astronomy is fun.

There's more, I'm sure, but I'm getting tired of listing and need to go make dinner.

My point is that for holidays, as is true for every other aspect of humanity, nothing of value has been lost for lack of deity. And, for me, an authenticity has been gained that I never would have expected had I not relinquished the safety net of faith to pursue knowledge.

(I'm concerned that the final sentence sounds like I think religious folk have no use for knowledge and that's not what I mean. However, on the search for truth, there is the brick wall of faith... where a person has to decide that there are things they can't understand yet must accept to please God. I defy the notion that accepting anything "on faith" is a good idea. Why stop at faith when, with effort, one might know?)

Thoughts on Crying Babies

Although I have learned much from Attachment Parenting methodologies and other Gentle Parenting and Non-Violent Communications techniques, I have to admit that I have met very few people who utilize some of the helpful information without becoming dogmatic. In that way, they are no better than those who who follow any other philosophy 100%. I'm talking about Ezzo Acolytes, Staunch Ferberizers, and apologists for any other parenting paradigm.

Urban Princess linked to Mothering Magazine's article: Crying for Comfort: Distressed Babies Need to Be Held
By Aletha Solter. Incidentally, I remember reading this missive in its original print issue. Much useful information can be found therein. However, blanket statements like: "Another advantage of this approach is that toddlers who have cried enough as infants (while being held), and who continue to be supported emotionally as they grow older, are calm and gentle. They do not hit or bite other children. Toddlers who do not have opportunities to cry freely can become aggressive, hyperactive, obnoxious, or easily frustrated. These disagreeable behaviors are often caused by an accumulation of pent-up stress, or the impact of early trauma that has had no healthy outlet." are BS! And, like it or not, I think Mothering Magazine consistently undermines the value of the scientifically sound information they provide by publishing hyperbolic interpretations and pseudo-scientific hogwash as if it were based in the same empirical methods as the research (usually medical) it often intends to debunk. That said, I still love Mothering Magazine. Every once in a while, I'd just like to ask Peggy O'Mara if she's trying to marginalize the value of the information presented in her fine periodical by permitting such frustrating errors. *sigh* But, back to the quote, yeah, BS. All it takes is one meeting with your average granola-crunching, bunny-hugging AP or NVC group and I'll wager my favorite back issues of Mothering that many of the kids you see will cry and scream and tantrum and occassionally even hit other kids with toys or bite a beloved playmate or otherwise display some sign of not being the dulcet, complacent darlings that allegiance to these gentle practices apparently guarantees.

In fact, it pains me to admit that - at this point in my parenting experience - the most messed-up, freaked-out kids I've met were all spawned by ardent followers of the AP/NVC ideas. So there.

I suspect that each Church of Parenting provides doctrine that speaks to particular parents on the point of a specific issue... Most probably have some helpful tidbit at some point. So it is then up to the parent to decide whether they've added a helpful tool to the toolbox or whether to define themselves as ___________ (pick any method with a support group or some other form of congregation) and begin the tumble into fundamentalism.

Harsh? Maybe. I'm not feeling particularly charitable today.

But on this I think I'm right: as soon as a person accepts the comfort of a label, accepting the notion that I am this, they begin to shut off many complementary and competing notions of who they are and what they can or can't do.

I do it all the time, unfortunately. I'm getting better about recognizing that (I hope) and subjecting my assumptions of self to the light of skepticism.

My point is that sometimes that blotch on the wall is just mildew, not the Virgin. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a Mom just needs to put a crying baby down, still crying, so that Mom won't lose her mind.

And on a slightly less curmudgeonly note: I think many AP/NVC rules work best (or, in some cases work only) for families with one child (or two children, tops!) who have the luxury of a parent at home full-time.

(OOooh, I can just hear Urban Princess's knuckles cracking as she prepares to blast me with links and tear me apart for all my errors of logic and rhetoric - that's why I love you, sista!)

Nevertheless, I agree that kindness and sympathy and understanding are the optimal characteristics to convey in our relationships with our fellow creatures (except for wasps... they all need to be squished!), especially our children.

Here's a thought, though - in all our kindness and sympathy and understanding, how often do we (do I) actually teach them that a parent (most often a woman) is a martyred doormat who must always defer her needs to the needs of someone else? This isn't about comforting a crying newborn -- but at what point - and how - do we begin to teach our little ones about self-nourishment, self-control and self-value? This is not a rhetorical question. I really struggle with how to grow and develop the parent-child relationship so that my daughters will grow up to pursue their own goals and not lose themselves if they choose to have children of their own. Obviously, I must model what I want them to do and be. They will naturally assume my limits as their birthright if I don't break out of old habits and gender role traps.

Currently that means that, a few times a week, they have to attend childcare at the Y while I take a yoga class (even though they cry and don't want to do it). And occassionally it means that I put a crying baby in her crib or a tantruming pre-schooler in time out so I can assert some personal limits. In the case of the crying baby, I'm not trying to teach her to respect my limits or anything. I'm just trying to find a limit for myself so that I don't totally lose my own hope and vibrance. Yes, it is that big a deal.

Best of all, maybe I can lose that sense of guilt (with it's companion alter-ego of superiority) that dogma always fosters. I'm not a good AP parent. I'm certainly not a good authoritarian. Maybe I can be a good me and just be a good enough parent.

Cool Resource

Yesterday I was done. After hours of cuddling and nursing and attempting to soothe a fussy 8-month-old, I found myself placing her gently in her crib, telling her I loved her, and leaving the room. She fussed. Then cried. Then wailed. I felt horrible. But nothing I had tried had made her feel any better. More than anything she needed to sleep. More than anything, I needed a few minutes to breathe. But everyone from Harvard to Dr. Sears have told me that letting a baby cry is akin to inflicting brain damage! Or at least being a generally neglectful parent and bad person. Right?

Listening to her cries broke my heart. But she really needed to sleep and holding her seemed to make it worse, rather than better. So I decided I should do more research on how bad it really is to let a baby cry in a crib for 10 minutes (which is what it took for her to fall asleep). Well, I still felt bad for making her cry herself to sleep for the first time in her life... but on the bright side, I stumbled across a great resource: AskMoxie.org. Most reassuring was this entry: Ask Moxie: Babies and CIO. Make sure you also read her post about sleep regressions.

Knowing what I'm dealing with won't help her sleep any better, but hopefully it will make it more tolerable when I remember that this is truly a phase and I will get through it. That my almost-nine-month-old will not sleep is probably not a sign of my own personal incompetence.

:o)

The End of an Internal Argument

Being prone to romanticizing the inherent (supposed) wisdom in the innocence of children, I often waffle on the notion of children being capable of self-regulation. Mostly, out here in the uber-liberal Pacific Northwest, I sit feeling a little uncomfortable - feeling like a control freak - while parents who seem to know more than I do tell me about how children should be able to use their innate wisdom to govern themselves.

I have felt almost ashamed of the way I've developed rules for my kids. I don't allow them unlimited TV or computer time. I don't allow them to eat whatever they want, whenever they want. They have a bedtime.

But tonight, being Halloween, I decided to try something a friend of mine claims worked with her kids - I let my kids eat as much of their Halloween candy as they cared to eat. With self-regulation and natural consequences, how bad could it be? A tummy ache followed by an understanding of the need to consume less sugar?

Ha.

Here's a "natural consequence": I'm no longer going to allow myself credulity when parents toss that nonsense at me.

They aren't the ones scrubbing gummy candy puke out of my carpet while my three-year-old alternates crying about her sick tummy and crying because she still wants to eat more candy.

Granola Bar Irony and Other Nonsense

For those who asked, I used Alton Brown's granola bar recipe, found here: Alton Brown's Granola Bar Recipe on Foodnetwork.com. My add-ins were pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried cherries and chocolate chips (which melted but I still stand by that choice).

I love these granola bars. Mr. Geeky likes them. The kids won't eat them. Heh.

Flashback to my childhood: My devoted mother almost never bought convenience foods. We rarely ate out. So my sister asked for "storebought" (i.e. Wonderesque fluff with pseudo-crust) bread for her birthday. At school I'd trade the homemade chocolate chip cookies for twinkies.

Lest anyone think I am crunchier-than-thou, I thought the rest of today's blog would begin my confession:

I prefer processed peanut butter over the "natural" kind. I have tried to cultivate a more "refined" preference, but I just hate the whole experience with natural pb. I hate how the oil on the top splashes out when I'm trying to stir it up and gets everything all greasy. I hate how it has to be stored in the fridge and is then so rock hard it tears up the bread and won't stick to celery. For the last several years I've bought the natural kind because I felt I should like it. Well I don't like it. When I was at the grocery store, last week, I bought Skippy and since then I've been stuffing the natural pb chunks chipped out of that last jar into the dog's Kong... but it turns out she doesn't like it either. I'm going to have to wash the peanut butter brick out of the dog's chew toy. Go figure.

I will pay extra for organic dairy products but I just can't spend the money required for organic/free-range meats. We are eating more vegetarian meals. Punctuated by fast food about once per week. And not high quality fast food, either. The kids love Mickey D's. I feel guilty about sending all those stupid happy meal toys to the landfill, but I throw them away anyway, when I'm pretty sure the kids won't miss them.

I won't cook or bake for myself. If Mr. Geeky won't be eating with us or if I'm by myself I will neither cook nor go out. I will eat one of those meals that comes packed in a little plastic tray. FYI - Ethnic Gourmet's Chicken Masala with curried brown rice and peas is actually quite good. Anyone looking through my trash would call my foodie bluff and I'd have to admit that I'm as lazy as anyone else. But then I'd totally tease them about digging through my trash, so it would all work out in the end.

Tough

I just got back from the gym. Did weights and then pushed myself HARD on the cross-trainer. Interval course. 30 minutes. How far did I go (in elliptical miles - not sure how that translates to actual road miles)? 4.05 miles. Yeah!

But what really makes me feel tough? Fighting off a dog.

Last night I was trying to coax the baby to sleep. Usually this is accomplished by strapping her to my back in the ergo and then cleaning the kitchen. She zonks out and I move on to wrestling the other two kiddos into bed. On this particular occassion, kitchen cleaning didn't do the trick so I headed out for a walk around the neighborhood.

That didn't work either because, about four blocks from home, we were attacked by a Boston Terrier. Yeah. Thank goodness it was just the terrier. Its friend was barking madly behind the fence and sounded much larger.

Before the attack, I saw it running toward me. I wasn't terribly concerned, at first. I've always thought of Bostons as being quite sweet and people-friendly. Then it jumped and bit me right above the knee. I was so surprised and the adrenaline hit so fast that it didn't hurt. My thinking just went into slow motion as "Crap! The dog is biting me!" began to process. I shook it off, but it kept jumping, biting at my leg. For a few more seconds I continued to react defensively, but the last jump, higher, was too close to the baby.

I side-kicked the dog in the chest. Hard. While saying, "NO!" in my loudest, deepest voice. The dog still jumped and paced and barked, but out of range. So I slowly turned and walked away.

Twice I heard the clicking of its nails on the sidewalk behind me, but I didn't turn and it finally disappeared.

Now I'm trying to process the event. I have never kicked a dog, before. I have always liked dogs, in general, and while I have been wary of some dogs in some situations, I have never been bitten by a dog. I have no bruises. I was not actually hurt - and I can't help but think that if the dog had actually wanted to hurt me, it certainly could have. So what was going on? Did I react appropriately?

If the second dog hadn't been going nuts behind the fence, I would have knocked on the owners door to let them know what happened. But I wasn't going to risk it, so I didn't.

It could have been much worse, but it wasn't. So part of me wants to just let it go and assume that there won't be a problem again.

But what if the baby had been in a stroller and not on my back? What if I'd had another child walking with me? What if the next person to walk by is scared of dogs and screams and runs, inciting the predator instinct?

What a pain in the butt (ha!).

Hmph.

The Female of the Species is More Deadly than the Male

I'm not a big bug fan... insects, arachnids, whatever. Not my cup of tea. If you want to see me jump into helpless-female-stereotype behavior, just watch me send my husband off spider hunting as I huddle on the sofa, eagerly awaiting news of its demise.

Above all I hate - not just dislike, HATE - wasps.

So there's a busy yellowjacket nest hanging in the eave above my bedroom window. Mr. Geeky McEngineer destroyed the nest the last nasty little monsters built outside the kids' bedroom window. With that threat abolished, we got a little lax about the new nest.

They may not know it yet (but I wouldn't put it past them to have read my mind and formed a plan to gird their skinny waspy abdomens for battle), but their lives end tonight. Why, you might wonder (or not) am I suddenly all motivated? Why is this nest MINE?

Because apparently there is a hole in the screen of my bedroom window. I wouldn't have noticed it, but when I was putting laundry away, this morning, a waspy intruder was busy exploring my baby's basinette, leaving who-knows-what kind of nasty pheremone trail in her wake.

Game on.

Note to all bugs in or around my house: you may think I'm a wimpy pushover, but that's only because you haven't crossed the line yet. You know you have not crossed it because you and your little buggy family still live. As long as you keep yourself out of the way when Mr. G and his shoe-of-death are on call, you're golden. But the second you set one sticky, buggy little appendage on my kids' sleeping surface, your life is forfeit. You meet the Ms. Hyde to my Dr. Jekyll. I promise the introduction will be brief but thorough.

Don't believe me? Ask the dismembered, smushed up wasp now residing in my HEPA filtered vacuum bag.

Or, if that doesn't convince you, witness the annihalation of a whole wasp colony and the nest of corpses it leaves behind.

And stay off the basinette. Got it?

(Edited to add: Title references poem by Rudyard Kipling.)

I'm so bad!

So tonight, as I was singing bedtime songs to G-Rex, she showed me a little cup of beads she had accumulated and told me that she had drawn out three in a row - all red!

I couldn't resist.

I told her, "You know, if you take that cup downstairs and say, 'Daddy, will you teach me about probability and statistics?' I bet you'll get to stay up for an extra hour!" I made her practice saying "probability and statistics."

Sure enough.

Mr. Geeky McEngineer had to get all involved in a lesson... but managed to pull away so he could play StarCraft with his brother. G-Rex is still up. And probably will be for a few more hours, playing with her cup of beads, surrepticiously watching the Olympics.

Slow Start

OK,

The last few days have been huge, for me, in the realm of personal growth and actualization, but I'm not ready to sit down and tell everyone all about it. Too much processing left to do, you see.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: Kids are people, and actually MEMBERS of SOCIETY!!! :o)

--(Required reading for discussion!)--

Et Lux Perpetua

It's been a while since I hit the gym. Oh, don't get me wrong, I've gone to the gym every day.

To take the kids to swimming lessons.

Last week I didn't even bother making childcare reservations. I knew I didn't have it in me to honor the commitment. It was all I could do to just get through the week.

Over the course of the past two weeks, I've been overeating, not exercising... and journeying from the high of having a billion family members join me in my home for a week to the low of trying to reclaim home and routine after their departure (a departure that is depressing independent of all the other factors) whilst GERD-Girl's affliction (see moniker) seemed to increase in frequency and volume.

So Sunday night found me puffy, heavy and depressed. I didn't want to face the Bayba Swimming Ordeals. I was tired of smelling like vomit. And I had reached the point where I wasn't sure I even wanted to be a wife or mother anymore. Not an optimal place to be at the end of a weekend.

Yesterday I asked Bayba if she wanted to continue swimming lessons. (Backstory: Her regular instructor had to leave, mid-session, to return to school and was replaced by a young man who appears to be an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, Bayba FREAKED OUT, insisting he was too scary and refused to participate in her class at all.) She said she didn't. She'd rather wait on the deck while G-Rex completed her swim lessons. OK. We sat through the session. Bayba behaved beautifully. At the end I asked her if she wanted to go back to class tomorrow. She calmly said No, she'd rather wait again. I'm fine with that.

So I made reservations with the childcare facility for the younger kids every day this week. I didn't really feel like working out. So I know this is a crucial crossroads. Am I going to push past the inertia? Am I going to succumb to excuses?

This morning I was so tempted to get back in bed and oversleep accidentally on purpose. I didn't. I forced myself out of bed, showered, and dressed for the gym. All the while I found excuse after excuse to just stay home.

I couldn't think of good arguments against the excuses, so I just observed them as they assaulted me... and continued to prepare the kids. Step by step, we all ended up at the gym. I checked the kids into childcare and trudged up the stairs to the yoga classroom... still pelting myself with reasons why it wasn't worthwhile.

Throughout the hour I moved from pose to pose. Breathing. Trying to still my mind. But I just wasn't feeling it.

Nevertheless, the end of the hour came quickly.

The lights dimmed. In Savasana I squirmed and twitched, trying to get my body aligned and symmetrical. Tried to relax.

Then I breathed deeply and gave up on the idea of stilling my thoughts. Towards the end of the practice, the teacher had commented on adjusting the position to maintain balance and I realized how silly it was for me to struggle to find stillness.

Poses are not still.

Somehow I always thought that the point of each pose was to find the balance and stick, unmoving - all still and serene like the yogis in the magazines.

But it's impossible not to move. The heart still beats. The lungs expand and contract. As each muscle fiber twitches, the mind and body must continually re-evaluate and adjust. I am not failing the pose by being human. I am not failing myself.

Yes, this is profound for me. Acknowledging that something so simple - so DUH! - is such an overwhelming lesson made me laugh a little at myself (internal laughter, of course - I'm not a Phillistine) and reminded me of a friend good-naturedly poking fun of me for my enthusiasm for Buddhism 101 - style discoveries.

Which led me to the realization that this friend has been dead for almost a year now. Yes, it's been nearly a year since I started this particular journey.

As I somberly acknowledged the tweak of pain that came with the remembrance, I also recalled the greatest compliment I've ever received. Yes, from this friend.

Amidst much noise of other discussion he said, "My God, what you can do with a phrase."

It's difficult to maintain Savasana when one's temples are suddenly tickled by surprise tears.

When Depression Isn't

Turns out I wasn't depressed, yesterday. I was appropriately wary of the situation-to-come. But I guess, instead of allowing myself that (and the admission that my kids can be a pain in the butt - hey, I love them, but they totally can!), I set myself to a well-worn diatribe of ought-tos and shoulds.

When I have the distance to laugh about it, I'll blog about the pool hijinks. Right now I just want to breathe a sigh of relief that it's over and enjoy my one day of the week at home.

Mommy McLame-O

I am sitting in my chair, surfing through every email account, social networking account and all the local news sources. I am not actually interested in any of these things. I am avoiding.

What horrible event am I avoiding (you may be dying to know)?

Swimming. I kinda told the kids that I might let them stay in the pool after today's swim lessons. It's family swim, so GERD-Girl and I will don swimwear and join them in the pool. I really really really really don't want to.

How lame is that?

I can't think of an excuse to skip it... and I've been desperately sorting through the emergency files of my brain to come up with some other plan - no matter how extravagant.

The worst part is that I don't really know why I'm feeling this way. So I'm doing everything I can to suck it up and not give in to what seems to be some anxiety/depression combination. I don't want my kids growing up with a billion memories of the things mommy *almost* did with them. I don't want to be a person who doesn't follow through.

It disgusts me that I'm freaking out so much about going swimming.

Why is it so hard to just turn of the computer and go make my kids happy?

Ain't No Love Like A Sister's Love

Today Bayba and I sat on a blanket on the livingroom floor. I was lightly supporting GERD-Girl, who was struggling to sit on her own. In the midst of generally benign conversation, Bayba leaned forward, looked directly into GERD-Girl's eyes and whispered...

"Get out of my house... NOW!"

I chose not to react, simply continuing with GG. Emboldened, Bayba concocted a speech about how we were going to throw GG out of our house HARD . We were going to throw her as high as we could so she'd never come back. Maybe a good mother would have been shocked or upset. Not me. I fought back a giggle and asked her (as seriously as I could) why we should throw her sister out. Bayba grumpily replied that GG was mean like a puma. Hm. So much for deep insights. The subject was concluded when I said that I love all my babies and I would never throw any of my kids out of the house - even if they were mean like pumas. Immediately Bayba shifted gears and asked if she could hold GG. I helped Bayba hold her sister and no one was thrown out the door.

I wish I could peer into Bayba's mind and see what happened in that interaction. I suspect it was a significant event - but I could be reading way too much into it.

Good Enough

It's been a rough day. Nothing horrible. Just one of those days. I woke up with my usual morning enthusiasm (yes, I'm one of those annoying morning people), but was shortly stymied by the realization that Bayba's night-time Pull-Up had been breached and there were puddles on my bed and in hers (that she shares with G-Rex). Then, later, she wet her pants as I was trying to shovel everyone out the door so we could run off to GERD Girl's 4 month well-baby check up. After the check up I took the kids to lunch at Burgerville. Apparently the presence of speaking children offended the older women who occupied the booth across from us because, after much huffing and grumbling, they removed themselves to an outdoor table, looking daggers at me through the window. I still have no idea what offended them - even Bayba was well-behaved - other than (possibly) the discussion I was having with G-Rex about how petroleum, OPEC, and U.S.-based oil companies affect our local economies. Whatever. Then we went to the library... and I hate to admit this, but no matter how much I like the library for my own selfish purposes, I find the kiddie segment of the library to be a bit wearing.

Anyway, blah blah blah. Fill in the rest of my day with potty training accidents, a three-year-old dumping out half her bath water on the floor, an eight-year-old disgusted by not being allowed to play with her friends unsupervised (long story), yadda yadda yadda...

Oh yeah, and some seriously impressive vomiting from GERD girl...

*sigh*

As soon as Mr. Geeky McEngineer (my husband) walked in the door, I handed off the younger kids and G-Rex and I ran away to Whole Foods... a 40 minute drive.

Now, as a little background - y'all know I have some body image baggage. So, yes, in addition to my nasty little gym addiction, I've been... ugh... yes... d i e t i n g. Serious Calorie restriction. Get off my case. Yeah, I already know better.

Anyway, we had a little time left over after GERD Girl's appointment, so the ND asked if I had anything else. So I brought up some issues I've been having with splitting fingernails and some other such miniscule complaints. Turns out I seem to have some mineral deficiencies. And I probably haven't been getting enough fat. OK. So, at least for today, I decided to eat whatever-the-heck I feel like eating.

So what did I eat for dinner tonight? Why... a spinach salad, of course. Followed by an intense Spanish cheese on cranberry whole grain crackers accompanied by a Petite Syrah that's really growing on me. I find it amusing that what I eat when I have no limits is probably exactly how and what I should be eating.

Yes, I realize that I discover and relearn this ever other month. *sigh*

So now I think I'll have a little slice of mint chocolate cake and ponder how I managed to get to the end of a long grumpy day and still feel good enough.

Good enough for what isn't the point. I just generally feel OK.

Works for me.

Not the Sharpest Tool...

Today I performed a ridiculous act of stupidity.

When it was time to go to the gym, the two older girls were playing sooooo nicely together. They didn't want to interrupt their game to go out into the 90' heat. The baby was sleeping. So I thought, hey, the best thing would be to cancel the gym thing and just stay home and enjoy the quiet.

The kids were thrilled. So I called the Y and cancelled the childcare reservations.

As Murphy would have it, the girls were at each other's throats about 5 minutes before I would have surrendered them to childcare - had I stuck with The Original Plan. Their fighting woke the baby.

So now I'm in a house without A/C with a restless teething baby and two girls who want me to referee every 5.8 minutes. I feel fat and grumpy and cheated.

When will I learn to make sure I take care of myself? Everyone would have been so much happier today if I'd just stuck with my original selfish plan.

And the Oscar Goes To...

And the Oscar goes to...

***drumroll***

The mommy in the red minivan for appearing interested and involved as her eight-year-old decided to count, out loud, to 500... in ROMAN NUMERALS! ("I. I, I. I, I, I. I, V...")

And if that mommy will keep walking stage left, she can snag her Patient-Mom-Of-The-Year award for keeping her composure as her three year old refused to leave the pool at the end of her swimming lesson... This three-year-old clutched her water toys and high-tailed it to the center of the pool, always just out of arms reach of her swim instructor and avoiding the mommy who, clutching a baby in a sling, ran around the periphery of the pool, attempting to corner the little darling. The mommy managed to sort through eight million potential tactics and scenarios without damaging any important brain cells and was able to avoid jumping into the pool, fully clothed, to drag the little cutie out of there by uttering the simple warning, "If you don't listen to your teacher, put your toys away, and come out of the pool now, you won't be able to come back for any more swimming lessons." After this warning was put forth, the three year old very calmly and sweetly returned the toys to their proper place and climbed out of the pool as if complying had been her idea in the first place.

Somebody give that mom some CHOCOLATE!

Escape From Candyland

Despite my frequent assertion that parenting is the most intellectually challenging task I've ever taken on, I have to admit that it's not all philosophy and brain games. During one of my going-back-to-school episodes (one of my pre-med incarnations), a fellow mom and I got together to study for an Anatomy & Physiology test. I've never been the studying-for-grades type, so the afternoon quickly meandered from studying to chatting about school and lives and kids. It was one of the most humorous conversations I've had since becoming a mother.

I don't care how equal a child-raising partnership is, parenting requires so much time and effort that necessity insists each individual parent play to their skills and pick up the slack of their partner's weaknesses. So, despite all my feminist thinking, my husband and I have gravitated into rather cliche roles. I do most of the domestic stuff - to the point that we ultimately decided it would work best for everyone for me to stay home and take care of the house and kids. That this has actually been a very healthy and stabilizing choice for me brings some chagrin, but has been a welcome bonus.

The downside is that the majority of my day is spent in absolutely exhausting, mind-numbing kid-land. Now, I know that life is what you make it, and I've gone through periods of librarying and zooing and children's museuming until I thought my head would explode, but while that provides wonderful entertainment and distraction from "real" life, it does little for Me.

Anyway, I still remember fondly discussing the little mental games we played with ourselves through the course of mundane days to keep our brains occupied lest we lose our minds altogether in the bubbling miasma of toys and diapers and spit-up and poop.

I was reminded of this today as I realized that the folded dishcloths and towels in my kitchen linens drawer have been arranged into a rather elaborate parquet pattern. I wasn't really meaning to, but hey - it all has to fit in there somewhere, right? Often what looks like OCD is really just a mind rebelling against smothering atrophy.

The World's Worst Mom?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/133103?GT1=43002

She sounds pretty sane and reasonable to me. So here's a link to her blog. It's where I'll be spending my precious reading time for the next few hours: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/