My morning challenge

See these little maniacs?  My children. I love them. I love looking at their faces.  I love the way they smell. I love listening to them eat. I love when they slip their little hands into mine. I love hearing their voices talking in the night, to each other, thinking we don't hear them.... 

But I'll tell you what I don't love.  I don't love the way they get ready to leave the house in the morning.  I don't love sitting with them at the table, when my breakfast could have been eaten three times over and they are still sitting there with half-full plates. Coen, with a spoonful of cereal in midair, will remember something else he wanted to say about his dream and put the bite back in the bowl.


Am I hanging on his words, wondering what dreams fill my beloved child's subconscious?

Hell no. I'm thinking, just take a bite already!  EAT!!!  We have to GO soon!!

And when they are pulling on their snow pants, boots, coats, hats, scarves, mittens, and hats... I don't love that.  When Lucy, in all silliness and fun, wants to put her legs through her arm holes and she walks around like a penguin and giggles...  Do I look at her with love and adoration, thinking about how funny she is? I absolutely do not. I am looking at her with annoyance, saying "Lucy...put your coat on right.  We have to go."

Coen and Lucy, taking for-ev-er to get ready to go? Yeah, I don't love that. At all.

But, it seems that to laugh about Lucy's coat antics and listen to Coen's fifth and sixth incantation of his dream last night... Those things usually don't really take all that long to just enjoy before we get going.

So, since you, my dear readers are reading this as I am blogging this, I hereby promise to try on Wednesday morning (tomorrow) when I take the kids to school, to take deep breaths, to get us moving twenty minutes before we really have to leave, and to try and enjoy them, EVEN in the morning.  Since I have heretofore promised such a thing in front of how ever many of you happen to click on my blog post today, I shall be held accountable. And Wednesday's blog will be the account of the morning and how it went when I just settled the eff down and tried to be cheerful.  About getting out the door.

WISH ME LUCK!!!!




See how I did here.

Mondays are really not so bad.

I have always been of the mind that Mondays are really not bad.  It's Tuesdays that I don't like.  Tuesdays are NO GOOD. But a day like today, Monday, the first day of the week, especially after a lovely lovely weekend...I'm still just pretty happy.

Friday I picked Lucy up early and pretended for the afternoon that I am a stay-at-home mom. I love pretending that.  I don't think I'd be very good at it, but I love to be home with my kids for an extra day, half day, or a few days beyond weekends.  Lucy and I threw an impromptu play date.  I picked up Lucy and Zef (our neighbor and Lucy's class mate) and when they got in the car, Zef said, "Can my eat lunch at your house?" and Lucy said, "Yeah, can Zef eat lunch at our house?" So we stopped at his place and asked his mom if he could come over.  And then my other neighbor who is home on Fridays came with her two younger kids. And then my other neighbor called and said "Can we come play too?" Of COURSE! 

Saturday, Coen went to play practice while Lucy and I went to hang out with my sister and her kids.  In the afternoon we went to Winter Fest at the Urban Ecology Center in Washington Park.  It was sooooo fun!

The kids ice fished, sledded (twice), had hot cocoa, pie, and baked potatoes, saw sled dogs, played snow soccer, and watched a jug band.  We ran into countless neighbors and school friends and I wore snow pants and therefore never tired of being out doors for the whole three hours we were there.  The event made me feel proud and happy to be part of such a community.  And the day ended with me going out to dinner with friends.

They didn't catch anything, but there was a lot of pretending to have caught things.

Yesterday, we had breakfast with my parents and then we all went to see a Wave game.  It was a work event for me, and I had my girls from my girls support group there.  We got to be on the jumbo tron where I was interviewed about our programs and our girls groups.  I love being on the jumbo tron. I love seeing my girls.  I love work events where my family can be a part of it.  It was love all around.

I know this blog post isn't particularly amusing. It might not even be interesting.  But it was a really good weekend.  And this morning, MONDAY morning, my kids got ready to go without an issue.  Tad and I were pinnacles of patience.  Collaborators of calm. 

I hope your Monday is okay too.

Sending out the right intentions....

Meditite: One of my favorite Pokemon of Coen's

I was thinking about yesterday's blog post a bit today while I went to do my daily meditation.  (This is an assignment given me by my therapist and it really does help my daily state of mind.)  This morning was one of those hard mornings.  Tad and I were unconnected and easily hurt by each other's words and observations. The kids were slow. We were impatient.  I left without kissing him which happens rarely and leaves me feeling a bit wrong.

I see how hard it is to be a teacher in January. If my son's quick-to-cry, slightly rude, over-the-top mood is any indication of the rest of the student body right now--all cooped up inside and full of energy bouncing around with no place to go--I do not envy anyone who must wrangle and attempt to teach these young people at all....

I went to an open house at Kanyakumari Ayurveda last month and was talking about how stressed and guilty I felt about not being able to do more for my friend Harald...  And the wisest thing that someone said to me that night was that when I feel that stress and worry, THAT is what I'm sending to my friend. Not the love and healing that I really want to be sending....

It got me thinking about how when I feel guilty for being gone from my kids at night for work or for Zumba...when I feel bad for taking a work trip...or going out with friends...   When I am frustrated with Tad's mood and want it to end... When I'm impatient and guilty like that... THAT is what I'm sending. What I want to be sending is this:

joy when I'm off doing my own thing:

trust that Tad can be with the kids and they can be without me...  

patience for moods that are forever going up and down, up and down....

That is the ebb and flow of life.

And I want to have my own life.  When my kids grow up and away from me, which they do more and more each day, I want to have also nurtured myself.  And given myself room to grow and develop and have hobbies and interests and things that give me joy besides parenting.  And then whey they leave me, which they will, I will be uncrushed by my empty nest, but ready to spread my wings.  (Don't get me wrong, I will of course miss my little birdies, but what I want is that missing not to overtake me)  I have to focus on myself and on Tad, and we must grow along with the raising of our children if we want to bring that with us...

So today when I meditated, I pictured Tad and all his stress and deadlines (grades, homework, etc..) and all of it slipping away. And the strangest thing happened, the music that came on was slightly edgy, beautiful and gentle underneath, like him. And then when I was done picturing the stress falling away, the music changed to a rainstorm and I was able to send him love and patience and warmth.

I know I am being extremely gooey today.  My life is all full of strange changes and growing and figuring things out...who's isn't, I suppose.  Here's a cartoon to end this post.  I love it. I wish I could do this:



Have a happy weekend.

Didn't I used to be more fun?

This month has been a busy one with social activities with my friends.  Chicago the first weekend with old friends, New York the second weekend with Peace Corps friends...  And when I was with those friends, I got this overwhelming feeling of...well...myself. 

Just look...

That's me, right? I'm loud and funny and silly and creative.  But sometimes I feel like as a parent, I forget to be those things.  Now I will give myself (and all parents) this.  Parenting is hard. It's work.  It is nothing like being out on your own with old friends at a bar until 1:00 in the morning, obviously...  But there are fun things about parenting, wonderful things about my kids and the more myself I am, the better parenting is in the long run. So why do I forget to just be myself?
I think I get so structured in what needs to get done--get in and make dinner, get jammies on, go to bed... As a working mom, that's all I get.  I get the rush off to work and school in the morning and the few short hours before bedtime.  And weekends.  So on these nights when we're getting pajamas on and Lucy starts putting her legs into the arm holes and laughing, I forget and I get impatient and frustrated. It's time for bed!  But can't I just laugh? It only takes three or for extra minutes and its happier for everyone.
I think the other thing is that I am such a push over at heart that I really do have to work hard and go outside myself to have boundaries for my kids.  To demand politeness and set limits.  And its hard to step back from that to being my fun self again.  When I can do it--go from telling my child to ask for something in a nice way or stop wanging his/her sibling over the head with that stuffed monkey...to tickling a child or chasing them around the house for minor infractions--it feels really good.
I think the other thing is that I am a creative person...but its hard to be creative in the ways I want to be with the rush of work, and dinner preparation, and getting kids ready for school and for bed. I have not painted, sewed, played my guitar, or sang (besides lullabies) in so long...  And the other day when I was playing outside with the kids, I made two really great snowmen. One of them had a mowhawk. And the kids wanted to knock them down and I found myself getting mad.  What is my problem? I wondered. And then I realized, that was my first creative expression in a long time.  I MADE those snowmen.  But in the end, I realized, its all in fun. Art is art whether it stays forever or gets kocked down by little children the moment it is complete.  I let them go nuts knocking them over.  And then, Coen threw a snowball at me.  Thinking I had to get his roughness in check, I scolded him.  And then I stopped. And I thought. And I remembered.  So I made a snowball and pelted him too, stopping to remind him that we can't hit people above the neck and then pelting him again in the middle of the back.  We ended that afternoon in a heap of giggles in the snowy front yard.  Myself.  My kids. Much better.

Minivanning in to the 21st Century

Last night, Tad and I were sitting on the couch together--the new (to us) couch that we got from Tad's parents at the end of summer.  Looking at our new television, playing a Nick Drake station on Pandora.  We had just put the kids to bed after having returned from purchasing a new (used) minivan.  Tad looked at me and said, "I feel like I want to melt myself in a pot of newly purchased technological goo."

And how.

We have been on rather a spree lately.   Tad and I have always had mostly used furniture and clothing and household items and automobiles.  It's nice to have a few new things, but also a bit overwhelming.

Nonetheless, we are the new owners of a minivan.  Tad's Subaru, 14 years old and with his family for most of that 14 years has served us very well.  We have taken good care of it and put some money into its maintenance and occasional repair.  This spring, we received notice that the license plate was about to expire and I sent in the $95 dollars.  We got a letter back saying that we were "not in compliance" because we had not tested the emissions and "failure to do so" would result in "immediate action" and on and on. And I said to myself 'Well!'  They didn't give me the emissions reminder which they usually do, do they not?  So I wrote a letter back which was very indignant and I said basically that I was very unhappy about having been reprimanded and that the letter to us was extremely scoldy and I would be happy to be "in compliance" if I knew what I needed to do to be "in compliance".  I would have ended the letter with a humph if I could have, but I did not.  I think I ended it "respectfully yours,".

So then I got a letter back from the DMV and it was very apologetic about the oversight.  They sent my stickers too! And said that I'd still need to go get emissions tested, but they apologized for the tone of their last correspondence.  I was satisfied and took the Subaru to get tested.

It failed.

Crap!

So I took it to a shop--not our shop--as ours is not a "qualified emissions" place and the shop I took it too charged me $100 just to check it and then gave a quote of $1500 to fix what they could fix before they even told us about the emissions problem.  Well, we were not in any position to spend that kind of money at that point, so we took it to our own guys.  They (for FREE) told us all the problems with it and what we could fix for about $800, but that still wouldn't take care of the emissions problem.  We did nothing.

Shortly thereafter we received another letter from the DMV saying we were now operating our car illegally until the emissions passed.

Crap!

So we've been driving this Subaru around illegally, the saving grace being that we already had our stickers thanks to my complaint letter, but I was feeling guilty about the environment and terrified every time a police officer was behind us. 

"I can't live like this!" I said to Tad, very dramatically the last time I thought we would be pulled over. And finally we made the decision to trade in our Subaru for  a new car.  Having two children and all the hauling and carpooling that needs to be done, a minivan seemed the best option. 

So here we are. Minivan owners.  And two people who are now pledging to stop spending money on anything at all except perhaps a nice vacation when summertime comes.

This was the only picture I could find of the Subaru.  Here is me and some friends in Madison,
preparing signs for one of the rallies last winter right around this time.

Will the nation's tall please stand in back?

Last night Tad and I had a date night and we went to see the Lemonheads play their iconic album "It's a Shame about Ray" from start to finish.  I was very excited.

When I was a freshman in college, I used to walk around campus with that tape on my walkman, Evan Dando singing in my ears.  His voice and the Lemonheads music was sparkly and made everything look cool to me. I would pretend I was in a movie, about me, starring me...and that tape was the soundtrack.  I planned on the show at Turner hall making me feel 19 again.  Instead, it made me feel all of my thirty-six years (maybe even a bit more).

Don't get me wrong. I had fun. It was great to be out with Tad and Even Dando sounded as good as ever.  But anyone who knows me knows that I don't have much of an attention span.  At all.  And this concert with it's three openers (yes, THREE!!  I said to myself...will this ever END?!!) and Evan's two long acoustic sets in between doing the album...it was a long night.  We didn't even make it to the end.  When they finally went off stage for the first time before the encore (or however many they had--why has the encore become a standard with three or four extra sets?  Didn't encores used to happen only when they were crowd demanded?), it was midnight.  And my back was sore from all that standing (oh boy am I not 19 anymore!)  I figured they'd come back out and do Mrs. Robinson and some other happy poppy numbers and we'd all be on our merry ways. But they came out and started really rocking out. 
"Okay" I said to Tad, "We can go. They're getting all testicle-y now!"
"Testicle-y?"
"Yeah, you know, all boy-ish, rocking out, getting all hard core about it..."
Tad laughed.  "Okay, let's go." 
So I didn't even make it of for the whole SHOW!  But you know what?  I had a great time. I loved hearing the songs and it's okay with me if I didn't get to hear Mrs. Robinson. 

But there was one thing about the show I was upset by (and this shall be my pettiest blog post up to now and hereafter).  I am a short person, so I don't really have to worry that someone won't be able to see if I stand in front of them. And I understand that at most shows, everyone is standing on the floor and people can't help being taller than me and standing in front of me. I mean who ISN'T taller than me? But anyway, last night I found a spot along the edge of Turner Hall on a step! And I was standing there, so excited that I could actually see.  And I stood there for the whole two hours before the Lemonheads actually came on stage. And then right before the show started, a woman, at least a head taller than me, came and stood DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME! On the step. Directly!  Her boyfriend who was like sixteen feet tall, stood next to her. I was very annoyed.  But I tried to move over a bit to see around her, but then she said something to him, and walked away and then HE STOOD DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF ME! He was so tall, I was looking at the middle of his back, I am not kidding you.  She must have asked him to save her spot.  Save her spot!  I don't usually get mad about little stuff. I'm generally a fairly laid back person about most things.  People cutting me off in traffic? Doesn't bother me.  Someone skipping in line at a busy store?  No problem.  A server screwing up my order? Doesn't even raise my blood pressure. But do not stand in front of me at a concert if you are tall. I get mad.
I got myself in a position where I was between them. I figured, if they were on a date and wanted to touch each other, maybe that would be more important and they'd get out of my way.  They knew I was there. The man even kept looking down at me.  I held my ground.  Tad was laughing; he said I was being macho.  Finally, when she had walked away, I moved to my original spot before he could save her space again.  And I could see.
Anyway, my title is from a news in brief that I cut out of the Onion. It is hanging at my cubicle at work.  I sure wish concert venues would ask the tall to stand in back.  Or at least hand out step stools to the short people at concert venues to even the score.

Pickle fingers

A few weekends ago, Tad and I went to his work holiday party.  We were to bring a white elephant gift worth about $10.  I put together a package of all kinds of goodies: a tin of enlighten-mints, candy, and some novelty items. My favorite item I put in there was a "pickle finger".  What is a pickle finger, you might ask.  Well, it is a plastic pickle-shaped thing that you can put over your finger.  It's fun! It's weird! I love it!

So when my recipient opened her gift and pulled out the pickle finger, everyone was full of laughter and elbowing and double entendre talk.  "I'll KEEP this one!" she said and everyone laughed.  Later when we were talking bout who gave what, I insisted "I hadn't even thought of it that way at all! Honest!"  She gave me a pat on the head.

I was relaying this story to everyone in Harald's room at Pleasant Valley Nursing Home last weekend and they just couldn't get over the fact that such a thing existed. 

Today, six packages will head out from the post office to Argyle, NY; Baltimore, MD; Madison, WI; . San Francisco, CA; and Chicago, IL.  Each will contain a note and a pickle finger.