reap what you sow

so, here i am, thirty five years old, burdened by mental lists which i have complete control over... ok? I have complete control over my own expectations and thought patterns. right? sticks and stones are much friendlier foes than my own stupid brain, i am finding.
I've got no problem with bruises and blisters. Bring it on. I'd enjoy the fight with someone my own size. Saw a gym for women's boxing opening up down the road this week. hm. (if someone hits me in the face who is not a kid of mine, do i get to knock them down?)

this is not where i thought i'd find myself at this age, but I can't remember where I thought I'd be....
So, I have five years to get myself to a place where I am more proud and have more ability to look around with acceptance. Or five weeks, or five minutes. I'm tired of my tired out resentments, they really are 'unreal' and I have the choice to feel them, or to at least, examine them and rather than resent the place I am in, just accept what it is.
sure.
I've been a stay at home mom full time for three and a half years, its the first time since I was fifteen that I haven't worked at a paying job. no biggie, but the whole 'not being paid' thing is actually one of the bugs in my brain. I watch the kids for my payback all the time, the way the youngest one plucks at the skin between my thumb and forefinger is about 12 bucks an hour and when my four year old fiddles with my bellybutton in a flashback to his younger days, thats a bonus check...
I am tired, I slept on the pullout bed last night by myself and it was unbelievably good. but I'm still tired.. I think I've got to pile on some vitamin d or have my iron checked. My life can't actually be this draining, right? Why have I purchased toy hammers for my kids? - was that downright dumb? was it? they are hitting everything! dumb? motherly? do we want to investigate? NO.

lists

mental lists have started to take over my life, I've got to start writing things down... I'm losing track of what is mental and what is practical..what is part of some old dream and what is real.
there were lots of favorite things that happened over this past week though.
there was a snowstorm and I had no place to be. favorite.
there were my sister and brother laughing at my kids. favorite.
there was music at a darkened church and kids holding candles all around.
there was no time to take the perfect photo, the time was full of watching.
There was a cardinal.
There was no vomit, and the struggle to bed was that of a four year old listening for hooves on the roof.
There was surprise and delight at a toy chainsaw. really. it makes sound and moves, ah, bliss.
There was shock and awe that the smell of J's 'new' aftershave made me remember first loving him.
there was melancholy for the girl that I was then. so much of that. so much, it overwhelmed some of my day, i tell you.
there was a good good book, Help. it is done, it was Good.
there was a roaring fire and unwrapped boxes.
there were gifts from afar which were magical in their traveling.
there were whole days when the tv was 'broken'. whole days.
there are more days in which to make more lists, but this is today's. . .

happy eve

i went out this morning to sit on the front steps and have a cigarette. yes, i am still disgusting... HOWEVER, a male cardinal alit on the tree before me and as I believe they are signs of God's humor and Grace, I wish you a very merry christmas and a wonderful moment to moment life in all the holidays and all the regular days that be.

laundry

seriously, who knew there could be this much laundry in my life? I have been curious about the differences between wifing and mothering and which one is harder before, but only lately have I realized that I actually think taking care of the house is my most difficult, ridiculous and offensive job. Yes, I said offensive. I am on the defensive here, so there must be some offense, otherwise I'm just CRAZY. which couldn't be.

In the prep for the big gift-giving bonanza that is about to happen here, I've been trying to straighten up and fly right.... meaning that I need to vacuum and move furniture and I am just freaking bad at this whole deal. I tried to fly with FLYLADY, which is an internet based clean-help type deal and while i love my clean sink, I am just overloaded with culch. Kultch... whathaveyous lying all around and in between. It does not help that my teeny tiny entire house only contains two tall-enough closets (one of them is in the bathroom=no help) . the others are small cubby nooks for old fashioned short people. I am one of those but am quickly being outsized by my children and the piles of said culch...
what to do?
send santa a request for a cleaner? no. the work to prepare for a cleaner would be ridiculous.... a request for a husbandly bathroom clean? maybe... the mania with which he cleans is also ridiculous and puts ALL other things on hold while it is being done, something which a mom with two kids can't really get to do.
so, we may have a cluttered christmas over here. you think the boys will notice if they sit on pine needles to open their gifts? or lean back on a dog-hair covered pillow ?
hm.

wooden food

My four year old has just made me a tray full of sliced food, wooden variety platter as it were. He is foresaking naps these days and while I recognize that i AM very lucky that he has taken them for four years, I am completely unconvinced that I am going to survive his transition into kidhood. He is growing right now, I think.. refusing most food and getting real skinny and I am watching him grow up suddenly and I think his conceptual understanding of the world is exploding. He is clingy and full of whine and I think he has recognized that his parents are fallible, vulnerable and so on and so forth and I just am spinning as I watch him do the same... He has just climbed into my lap to "feed" me so I am finishing off the post with one finger. He really is the wonder of my days, sometimes.
I am bulky with food. nourished.

snowed in...

i am always so happy when there is a snowed-in day on the weekend... it makes it so wonderful for all the people who don't have to work, or think about getting to work... I know there are multitudes who are still trying to get there or who are so scared to lose the salary for the day, but here we are... the whole family is home and the cars are tucked away in the neighbors drives (we have no driveway and there is a parking ban so the plows can ostensibly plow -they avoid our street anyways.. but the tickets for leaving your car out are a stiff hundred) and shoveling doesn't even need to happen til naptime... its just great. the kids have been out, my older son thinks its time for a 'sweat' and is running around naked in front of the fireplace/stove... and we have electricity, so i am sitting here in front of the bluelight of the computer, posting so i can go make hot chocolate while still reaching out to the snowbound, computerhappy people that i know...
happy snowed in day...
wifemother

not a nut

I have to say, with all the holiday party that i can stand having just finished... i am not a christmas nut. I admit, I do decorate the day after Thanksgiving, and this year, I had my Santas in place while the turkey was roasting... and I do love Christmas, the actual holiday celebrating a humble birth.... can you believe that? under all that has come since that time? a humble birth?
but anyhow, i digress... I am not a Christmas nut. And I am not talking about people who love to decorate or who are naturally effervescent or passionate, I am talking about the people who think that Christmas (HOLIDAY) parties for preschoolers are a good time. who /why ? I am pleased to announce that I was the last to arrive (due to a near heart attack trying to find a place to park my in-laws TOWNCAR/smallyacht in an urban environs) and the first to go. I could not find HO-HOs.... so I left my two bags of donettes happily swimming amidst the homemade cupcakes that looked like penguins... really. Do you think Donettes feel insignificant next to their homemade rivals? I think the Donettes are roller derby girls, having a riot of a time in their bag with a window... who wants to be pigeonholed in a cupcake holder, anyhow? c'mon.
My kid was overwhelmed too. Handed me his half-eaten donette and read a book while the hundreds of hordes sang their 'name song'...
I LOVE pulling glitter from a dubious ornament out of my kids hair because they've been playing in the corner behind the tree. I LOVE THAT.
I am filled with wonder at the beauty of our christmas tree, every single year, for as long as I can remember.
and I love church on Christmas Eve, it honestly feels like magic and I think its probably in any church, anywhere. O Come Let Us Adore Him' makes me cry, every time.
So. I like it, I admit, but I am going to stay home until the furor out there has passed. right.

let me tell you what

there will be no cookies this year. no cookies.
unless they come from the elves of keebler.
there are many reasons for this but mostly it is my derriere and my realization that this belly i now own is not going away unless i take a decisive action.
another set of reasons would be the two boys in my life who could fight over which shade of blue the sky would be, if you could in fact see it through the murk... all they want to do is press the buttons on the blender and you know what? that has catastrophe written ALL over it. SO. no cookies. keebler elves.
AND, they've both vomited in the past four days and yet again, i am tired. It seems like we are done with the vomits and just in time for the 'holiday' party... sometimes i am just tireed of people not being willing to acknowledge the overwhelming nature of the christmas thing... i'm supposed to make food and I think I may challenge the attachment parenting crowd and provide hohos in a box, making my own extremely witty pun on the whole santa/holiday thing...and now I can't find where the vomit smell is coming from and this makes me very concerned...
and i'm sorry about all the ellipses... sees... what have you... just can't be bothered.

keebler. take me away

Spidey sinew...

Batty's final resting place... would you just look at spidey's legs for a minute here.... this particular toy is jointed all the way down to the toes. seriously, a fabulous resting place for my man Bat. Carol did a check for me on what I expected from a man. Basically, it seems, I'd like to be married to my grandmother. I want someone as a helper, a blanket on my legs whilst I while away the hours by the fire... etc. A cat, maybe. Sex aside, if you can, how many of you out there think you'd like to be domestically partnered with a woman, for the ease of the thing... ? I understand that sex is a big thing to get around, and only occasionally would I want to admit how rarely I even get to experience it, certainly not enough to make it a blog SUBJECT like ms. athena... but geez. (It IS absolutely fabulous, just increasingly unsimple). My childhood dream of entering a convent (yes, i really did, i think it had something to do with the quiet and simple and no, i'm not now nor never have been Roman Catholic...) now has begun to make a lot more sense again... the dream of disappearing... sinking into the simple.

guess who is not feeling very wonderful anymore? the drawback to carol's bathing me in goodness is that showers lose some of their potency... and the next day is always a bitch. and i'm talking publicly about joining a convent or marrying a woman for ease of homelife. my husband LOVES that I blog. LOVES IT.

holy pressure

how does one do this? athena gave me a lovely blog award with rules attached...ark...

and it took me far too long to figure out how to plug it up there but i do know i thank her while grimacing and gritting my teeth because i have felt like such a fake lately and if i knew her personally and could reach her, i'd pinch her shapely arm.

but i am not a fake, i've just been doing the keeping quiet thing ... hubby and i have had one of those experiences that leave a pit of fear and uncertainty in your belly, at least mine... and i am so glad to be on the 'almost' other side of it and I am glad that I saw Chakra Carol today because I feel like I've had the most wonderful bathing time, and my eyes are open to what goodness I have in me, and I'm probably wicked awesome and you really really love me .
hee heeyah. seriously, I feel wonderfully and it is such a welcome change to what I've been doing in this last week . ah, the one certainty is change, right? I bet I'm a better mom than I think I am. I know I'm a better protector than I thought I was... i love my kids and I'm realizing how central they have become to my identity. Not the individuals themselves, but to the part of me that DOES find fulfillment in watching them grow and play... in my own development, they are here and they are forces of life to be reckoned with... and how I deal with them and with my husband is my choice. and all about me, in the end. so who do i want to be? who am i? well.

to follow the rules of the blog award: here are seven things you don't know about me... I make no promises about their interest level, just fulfilling a rule.

1. My first son is named after a very famous musician.

2. My second son is named after a very famous and very stern prophet.

3. I don't read my own posts after they are gone, (so I may have said their names earlier... )

4. I haven't vaccinated my children against anything except tetanus and the meningitis thing.

5. My middle name is my Grandmother's maiden name and I love it to pieces : Hall

6. I love Lloyd Dobbler but would burn his coat and sneakers.

7. I accept without sadness that the part of me that was filled up with joy at John Huston movies is gone.

so there. now I have to pass the award on to five other blogs, which is something I'm going to pass on... I know, like a bad chain letter follower - I am risking all sorts of juju here. but go check out the ones I follow, they are all so wonderful... I like 'this new place' lately... and 'diagnosis:urine' ... And MamaMama and Cheerio Road and The Middle Bit and russell's, if he ever ever posted anything... and I award them... wonderfull-ness all around. anyhow... go looking. there's a lot out there.

love and good juju to you all.

wifemother

so ballsy

well, so much for the daily posting idea. i had forgotten that 'tis the season means that preschoolers are crazed with energy and, evidently, aggression towards their mothers. merry christmas.
also, i've been just overwhelmed by my own life. and because i have been asked and agreed not to share marital stuff here, i feel somewhat stilted and can only complain wierdly and vaguely and its unsettling and whiney to do that. It comes down to being too simpleminded to split myself into categories. there is only one , and having a private life/secret makes me feel all split up, even if its just a secret from bloggoramaville.
also, i've not slept for two nights because the birthday boy decided to get a fever and start throwing up when all the grandparents were sitting around the cake. really. timing is everything... he didn't even get to rip wrapping paper. poor baby.
i smell like vomit.
i did manage to finish my mother's stocking, and the one i promised my niece's mother a full year ago. afullyear.
i go see chakracarol tommorow, so i should have something to say.
unless i fall asleep and miss the whole thing. which is certainly not impossible.

old timer

today was my day to spend in the four year old classroom... love it, glad i don't have to do it for my job anymore and even more glad that i am not the mom to all those kids - just my own small blond hysteric.

but my favorite little girl in the class (and I mean it, she's my favorite... not all are created alike and i am not saying anythingabout all the others but man, she is so damn different and wildlyoriginal its hard to imagine she'll ever be a barbie and that makes me so so happy. ) anyh0ow, miss f. was listening to the teachers story about st. lucia day and how the oldest girl children in the family are responsible for wearing this cool candle headgear and she was upset a bit and kept saying 'I am not Ooold' ... for she is the oldest girl in her family...

and so now I am going to say it, because I think I'd like to be her someday... I am not old. I do not have a thickening middle. I do not cry during yoga. I do not cry on the inside of my face in order to hide from my children my complete emotional wreck self. I do not and I am not old.

I am not.

and there are some days I really buy it, but I think I need to swing to the positive and I am just feeling today and this week as if my feet are on shifting sands and my inability to get a firm foothold is wrecking my armswide float... too many analogies? or maybe i've just made a mistake. firm footholds and catching breezes are not necessarily on the same page of my thesaurus. perhaps I want to wear shoes this winter and someone has knocked off my clog. That bare nugget out there is getting cold and I wish I could get him to put my shoe back where it belongs.

Life is what it is, and ever changing and I want to think its perfect as it is, but I am not there. My toes are cold and I want coverage. ya dig?

back on the wagon

I've been thinking about re-committing to the daily posting idea, even though its no longer noppopo or whatever. I found it really fulfilling to get comments, to see that people were checkin in... I liked having a goal and achieving it, damnit . :)
Yes, it sucked away my time, but should I be spending all my time doing laundry for other people? feeding other people? what?! It is something for me while I figure out this family thing, the marriage thing and the wild and crazy idea that next year I will have two kids in school and two whole mornings per week with nobody to take care of. I have a hard time believing that, but there it is. I won't even have a babysitter anymore. increable.
I've finished Olive Kittredge and liked it quite a bit but also found the ending frustrating, as i tend to with endings these days. too quick, too neat, too banal.
I'm working now on the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, which I like a lot for its adventure and mystery and I haven't reached the end yet so can't tell what it will hold.
look at me, ma... i'm reading...
wish david could serenade me with 'changes' right now.
but no, dragon train is on instead... i mean, dinosaur train.

you can't get a box o' hohos at cvs. (ramble)

really, its true. i love me some hohos. really, most favorite would have to be the cupcakes with the lacey curly q's on top... but no. no boxes. and in this time of strife, i want a box. A BOX. I would even take twinkies. or laffy taffy... anything with obscene ingredient lists and topped with sugar would do.

today was a snow day but nothing was cancelled, i just kept the kids home and let them play in the almost 4 inch accumulation that already is being turned into slushmuck... well, we had our first authentic snowball fight and the little one had his first experience with cold pinkfingers. it was a joy and we came in to make popcorn and watch sesame street. c'mon, you love it, you want to be me. you do. you probably Are me. thats my guess... a world of mirrors out there. it would make sense.
except for all the wackos. except for them.

Icarus

I can't remember if Icarus bites it in the end, I'm sure he does because the myths are not exactly PC stories for today's intellectual pansified children... but I've been raising boys in a windstorm lately and Icarus is on my mind. The glory of the dream, the dream of acquisition, adventure, exploration, ownership and mindblowing experience ... and the slow melt of reality and the inevitable crash when we realize we are not 18 anymore, we cannot do magic like in the movies, and we may not, in fact, be the good guys.
Icarus, where are you now? Had you learned the lesson that has been preached about you all these years? or was the fall as glorious as the upswing?

*edit: Icarus is the dad, Daedalus, the son...

so sorry

everything around here is so sorry lately. the strain is freaking unbearable. This marriage relationship is private, deeply private but it is leeching out like a bad dye job, which makes sense to me as its such a big part of my life. . but I am tired and home is where the heart is and all that. *I'm not a very nice person when it comes right down to it, I think. what used to be attractive in all that wit and reparte is just not attractive anymore.

but! silver lining is that babyboy#2 had his ears checked today and he got the all clear. and i am so relieved that I want to vomit all over the place. really.(it is worthy of a large cosmic smile) I can't tell you how much it will kill me if I have passed something on to them that is like what I have . . . I am supposed to be their protector, as C says...
*and I need to call Carol, again...
i need a resting place. no kids and no husband and since yoga has started to make me cry, and I want to stop smoking, I'm not sure where to go for it. or how to take care of myself in a more meaningful and sustaining way.

problems of duality and a loss of humor

i think the problem is the twosidedness of me. in general, hearing goofiness aside, i present as a common sensical straightforward woman. with maybe some sharp edges. inside, as in, currently, i am a lump... with little prospect of cleaning up into some David type miracle. all i want to do is crawl into a hole and stay there and it really doesn't make for a happy home and its been a couple days now. I do get out of the hole, but spend a lot of time thinking about how to get back. I'm taking the kids stuff (the stuff: scratching biting almost two and a freshtalking, whining, striking out four) WAY too personally, and thats the sign to me that I am off my game yet again... there has to be some sort of cycle that i am in, the moon turning me all werewolfian as I am getting so damn angry at my kids instead of my husband and i keep wanting all these good things/ good parenting skills and yet I just can't get myself to that place and keep hanging around all angry and pissy all the good goddamned time.

I fully admit that I cannot manage our current bedtime arrangement on my own. I am overstressed about it and every single night has become a thing of dread. Tall boy of mine is a powerhouse of will and while that makes me proud on the one hand, on the other hand I am slapping myself all night long. He IS sleeping in his own bed now, but not going to sleep until 9:30 or 10 pm and he is completely foregoing naps and I cannot stand the sound of his voice as he whines for the last hour of the ridiculous 'bedtime routine'. yes, i did type HOUR. seriously, I cannot stand to hear the voice and I am worried that I will lose my hearing again because I am challenging a gift of the universe. boy, i would be screwed. and that is a monumental understatement, with no humor of any type involved.

can't watch tv

on fridays my older boy goes to school and stays 'late', so i have until almost two o'clock with just the young one. we putz, do some coloring or playdough and I watch some tv that usually comes on after 8 at night, at which point I am usually a mean zombie mom with no selfcontrol so i am on the way to bed... or to 'bedtime' which is quickly becoming the dungeon of my nights...think chains and moldy bread.
anyhow. with the exception of sitcoms or fashion shows, all the things that I think I am going to enjoy are filled with violence, foreboding, grotesquery, or aggression. It makes the world look so unbelievably scary and I am not in a place to be able to handle it. At first glimpse, these adult shows look sort of like adventures or mysteries to be figured out as we are allowed more and more information or development, and they are well written because we are on the edge of our seats. but why are they so dark? is this how we, in the post 9-11 world, seeing our Selves or our men? the only time there is a full light on a face is when its a woman, and there is also a shot of her perfect legs somehow...
do we, as a tv watching society, think our men are shadowy figures? tricksters? masters of manipulation? slaves to their demons? liars? is yours? is mine? those deep foreboding wells of aggression- are they what lurks behind...?
I can't do it anymore. I'm sticking with Project Runway. otherwise, my dreams of running with scissors make me a wacko unfulfilled. :)

Farmville is for girls

Ok. I play the stupidest game in the world. really. and what is most embarassing is that I know lots and lots of smart other people who do it to, and I think there are multiple layers of too much thinking that have enabled me to say, farmville is for girls.

there is no competition but you can see other farms and judge their setups...

things will wither if you do not tend them at regularly scheduled times...

you grow whatever you like, can pick 'perfect' bouquets and share them and yet, cannot actually 'make' anything with what you grow, or eat it.

also, for all the moms out there who feel unrewarded by all of the child raising they are doing, you get ribbons as you grow more and more. ribbons!

and there is money up the wazoo that you can buy decorations with. money. wazoo.

plus, nobody chases you down the street if your strawberries wither on the vine. or calls DSS if you forget to buy eggs for breakfast.

my almost two year old loves to hear the sheep low and the ducks quack.

family values, family values.

Spidey is afraid

Spidey is frozen in his 'alert' mode, suction cups at the ready...

today is quite a bleak day weather wise, and at the end of yoga I was crying. luckily for me and my privacy issues, everyone had their eyes closed so I may have gotten away with it. Its a crap day and I have a headache. suction cups at the ready. . . I would like someone to remove my frontal lobe. I've been having these weird swings of anxiety in which I see something horrible happening to one of my kids or my husband... and I'm awake, daydreaming- so I am aware of choice and mindfulness being turned off because these things are allowed into my day visions. I'm not worried that I am suddenly psychic, I'm just not feeling mindful and therefore out of my body and elsewhere. like those beige pants up there, i'm starchly polyester. maybe that was my stripper name, Starchly Polyester. seems fitting, in a nonfitting way.

(addendum: full moon and ovulation make her INSANE.)

sidetracked

one of the downfalls to this whole daily posting thing is that i really haven't done anything else with all those minutes to spare that I have... so today i put out the santas and gave the sewing machine a work out and almost finished two year-old gifts. seriously, a year old. but - almost finished and i even started something before the twoyearold menace approached the quickly moving needle at a very fast pace...

i am going to miss the feeling that someone knows what pieces of my life are like. this 'stay at home mom' thing is so damn isolating. damnit.

ah.

goodnight.

november rain

when my husband and i were courting, i got a letter from him in which he compared my eyes to the november sun on the ocean.

have i said that already? probably. it certainly bears repeating, right?

november is finished, i am ready to take a break from posting but because i have a serious lack of inner resources, i'll probably be back at it bright and early tommorow morning, when i continue my utter disregard for the laundry problem growing in the corners. all of the corners, ALL of the corners.

today was one of those days... a 'late night' for my husband, no nap for the four year old and a futile attempt at cleaning the kitchen... look at my fridge... tell me what you spell with that crackhead collection of letters.

and then, the blur moves in... and its all over. the fat lady has sung and left the building.

Life in the Pictures

over the weekend we had the uber-family dinner (yes, sweetpotatomarshmellow showed.) and my folks had made a big spread of photos and papers that noone could part with but no one knows what to do with. There's so much history and nobody can absorb it all.. what do we do with all of our grasping, afterall? Many times I've told myself that there aren't any 'things' which can truly represent a relationship, not rings, not quilts, not photos... but damn, look at my grammie as a young woman here.. a child, a young mother... what is amazing to me is that I can still learn about her, through conversations and yes, through these photos... and I can also learn about my aunts and uncles as they talk about, avoid, negate and discuss their own places in these photos... large places, even if their role is to give a name to a face. who wields the pen? and so forth.

I love the food, I love the prep, but I mostly love sitting around afterwards and talking or listening as the case may be. I love my cousins, but I love my older family members very much.

(they have learned about this blog so its really a test case to see if they did read it... wonder what love I'll get this year... hehe. ) but not really.

tiny

so i'm double posting and ruining my chances of saying anything witty tommorow - but i just went outside to have a cigarette (bad mommmmmmy) but the sky is clear and the moon so central in the sky over my world. . . we are so small here, my whole world is just a tiny speck in the whole. i just spent ten minutes looking through space to a gigantic white orb sitting in the universe, reflecting the sun's light from the other side of the earth.
the kids are watching the princess bride, and all is right with the world.
just thought i'd let you know we're in expansion mode over here.

recipes and a reading list/stack

ack! the onitons: tablespoon or so of minced ginger, same of minced garlic... i just used heaping amts, not really measured... in a bowl with peeled pearl onions and some sesame oil - can use peanut oil too but I didn't have any. Then you roast them. AH JOY! when they are done, 15-20 minutes depending on your heat - I think we were at 420 but we had a bunch of stuff to roast so it cooled and slowed us down...
when they're done, drizzle with soy, toss and eat. oh dearie. bliss.
and i'm reading Shalimar the Clown by s. Rushdie... I don't know where its going to go but so far, I'm skimming the too much talk parts and rushing to the action. Its well written but I think with the advent of motherhood or maybe just adulthood, I don't have the patience for long narrative descriptions. I'm almost a knights and dragons type girl at this point. But I also have Olive Kittredge waiting on the stand and when I was flying around to Wisconsin at the beginning of this month or maybe last month, it was, i think . geez, pam. anyhow. when i was flying around, every single flight had some interesting looking woman on it, reading Olive Kittredge. we'll see. In the past three days I've/we've gotten the four year old to go to sleep in his own bed.
i know, get yourselves to your knees! holy miracle of miracles.
sorry this post is like a bad email but i almost forgot!
also, soon i plan to take a pen and paper and write down all the titles everyone gave me a while back and make a whole expedition out of shopping them... soon , jaguar, soon.

Saturday morning.

The mom, having made her fresh coffee and hung the ornaments on the ''chandelier'' to keep them out of the almost two year olds mouth, is sitting at the typewriter for the obligatory daily post. The dad, still naked because he has yet to get out of the bed, has a four year old balancing on his hip and an almost two year old carrying halloween ornaments approaching the 'snuggle cave'. this mom has cold toes but can't get back into the bed without getting kicked or accidentally pummeled by the wild boy action happening in the bed. can you believe it?
boys.

:)

one of those things. . .

I completely stand by the roasted sweet potatoes wrapped in proscuitto. COmpleted me, they did. In the future, the wedges should be more temperately sized and that is all. Also, on the story of the roasted onions? (which you know nothing about because that is all part of my interior monologue) fantastic w garlic, ginger and a drizzle of soy at the end.... and ultra scarily simple. SIMPLE. It was an incredible dinner. really.

I'm hoping that Saturday with the big family spread gives me more of that childlike feeling of thanksgiving though. When I'm hosting I'm too concerned with timing, husband's sobriety or lackof, forgotten food items, children's behavior or lackof, etc. yah? Its not anyone else's agenda but mine own, and it still manages to get away from me.

So I'm hoping that Saturday I can be more relaxed, a second chance to ignore the kids and gorge myself on simple goodness and hear my dad tell the story of the pitcher he picked up at my table, that he recognized only in the physical memory of picking it up as the same he'd had at his own childhood table. I picked it up off Grammie's glassware shelf after she died and they were cleaning out the house. nondescript but for its beautiful shape. hallelujah for instinctive grabs.

okay, i'm off to decorate the house and make brownies for the neighbors with the boys in tow... maybe baby_ maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving

thanks buut I'll get back to you on what actually happened today, if there is time.

this is me cheating and writing a post ahead of time and 'scheduling' it to post on the day of Thursday. . .

let me just say, roasted sweet potato wedges wrapped in prosciutto for the last 15 minutes of the roast.

let me just say.

happy thanksgiving...

eat well.

love someone well.

fly your own damn helicopter.

roasting things...

i am in love again. with the smells of roasting squashes. i know, sort of strange. I spent my entire childhood doing all that I could to avoid anything containing or related to squash and now, now my friends, i am preparing to make the best soup ever. squash and potato soup and I have seen the light. anything is good, if it is roasted. Maybe thats why we're all so much happier in the summer . or when people who love us have enough insight to roast us in good humor. Its a sign that they know us, see us clearly, and still love us in all our warty ways.
I wish I had a picture to share of my culinary genious but no, I'm fighting to keep the almost two year old out of the oven. he thinks its a play spot. oh lord. danger has entered our lives in a large fashion.
I'm so happy that its Thanksgiving. we host the first of our meals this year and go to my mothers on Saturday for the humoungous meal of extended family- the first without Grammie, so we'll see if it rings true. I think it will, as the mess of our lives still moves on... and there'll be no end of the talk about her, so I'm even looking forward to it. She'll be shaking in laughter as she watches us avoid the obligatory sweetpotato marshmellow thing that shows up every year.
I am full of love. so you get some today, and thank you for reading! or for being doubtful that I look like a stroke victim, just because I have good legs... :) yes, I do...
THANKYOU.
wonderful food and blessings to you all....
wifemother

Gams

really, not half bad. or, at least.. this is all you're gonna get because the rest of it is simply unspeakable.
but yes, my husband loves them anyways.
men are suckers. easy suckers.

two friends

last week i had two friends tell me on the same day how much they liked to read this thing. it was awesome, but a bit intimidating as they are both very smart women whom i admire (for VERY different reasons). Posting every day has clearly tapped my wit and my subject matter and kept me glued to the computer at weird times while I've tried to think of something to write about besides my kids antics. I mean, I like them..even love them most of the time, but I started this thing to try and figure out my role in my own life. How much has my identity been overhauled by motherhood? quite a bit, as it turns out.. and I don't think I had realized it til this year and from what I read, it changes more and more, particularly as the kids age. I've been a stay at homer for three years now and I am very okay with not working but not so okay with not bringing home my own bacon. I don't really have 'freelance' options :) and congratulations to those of you who do, you are some lucky bitches.

what to do? I was trained as a teacher of preschoolers and kids with special needs and I can't really tell you how little I want to do that again. I did that in 'assistant' capacities for several years and then was a sub in regular elementary classes for FOUR years. I certainly don't want to do THAT again, although I was very good. Having my own kids has soured me a bit on my native abilities, as I can't seem to bring it to fruition for them... the whole dream of 'not raising my voice' has paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssssssed. so far gone its not visible.

and while I love to work with kids in crisis, I can't exactly say I want them to stay in crisis just to keep me happy...
maybe my lack of inner resources should just be addressed finally. but no, do'nt be silly.. couldn't be that.
chakra carol anyone?

too much with us

late and soon.
its a refrain that always rings around the rosy of my head after a long night and a spousal fight.
in this case, i was fighting by myself... yelling at the kids trying to get them to bed by 11. yes, thats right. 11. p.m. children, 2 and 4 years old. they completely kicked my ass and i lost my mind. when my hub came in from his 'walk down the block', i was screaming, felt like throwing the little one into a wall and could not stop the scream. i slept on the sofa, i was so upset- with myself, my kids and my J.
and i am not a single mother.
i'm not.
i have felt overwhelmed... certainly. but, at the end of the day... there is someone coming home. and that is all the difference and so here's my shout out to anyone who is a single parent and has not killed their child. and not only have you not killed your child, you have managed to love them, and let them know of your wild love... I can't believe it. You should all be given warm cookies every day, an enormous hug full of love and sustenance for those long nights and maybe a bunch of money. a bunch.
and then, more love. you should be given more love, and time to do with it what you will.
so rockon mammas. (and dads too, if you be out there) .

Fourteen again

After an afternoon spent in tears, and wondering when I lost sight of myself and wondering why people that I love haven't spent their days telling me to hide my face, I am on my way to okay.

and my husband's comment... "oh, so thats why those women commented, 'you're so brave'... when they heard you say you were doing this.." actually sealed the deal. It WAS brave, but I just didn't know it in advance. I wasn't thinking about all of the things I don't like about my middle-aged body when I made this appt., nor was I thinking about my natural inclination to smirk or twist my face into pincherlike puckers. I was just feeling generous to my inner wahoo self, and trying something out that I thought I'd really like. I didn't, I wasn't right. but I did it, will have very sassy pics to show my kids when I'm wicked wicked old...

and junior high was no fun. and that's where I spent the afternoon, agonizing over the fact that I did not have the right Esprit clothing or the right Tretorn sneakers, only the Bean boots of preppie dreamers everywhere... so the choice, on my part, to browse the untouched photos was a choice made without thinking- of my pleaser self, of my analytical self, of my nervousnelly awkward girl self. I wonder if the other women who have done this have had similar reactions or if they are just more fearless than I ?
Once I figure out how to do it, I will share. until then, I'm not looking at any photos. or any mirrors, for that matter.

beauty

ok, so i got the photos back. and i am actually very upset. i think that, all along, i've thought that (forgive me ahead of time, i feel CRAzy punctuation problems coming along) the way I felt inside was somehow reflected on my outsides. hence, my inner pinup girl needed a photoshoot opportunity .

well. evidently, my exterior is not quite as clear on that as I had thought. or maybe my interior is not as clearly pinup as I had believed. its clearly unclear. i had a friend once who called me an ostrich and i thought it funny as i do have a small face and so on. today it is not so funny.

i look like an ostrich. my face, in the 8 hundred thousand pictures I just browsed through is pinched, puny, and very birdlike. I have always had a smile which drifts towards my good ear.. 'the better to hear you with my dear' but in photos I look somewhat handicapped, as though I've had a stroke. I wish to god I were kidding.

so there it is. its not that good a day to see yourself like this. i need a little more time to process it and then i'll share the non-face parts of the photos because i have great legs. if nothing else, i have great legs.

still bored, but posting AGAIN anyways.

one of the difficulties of this writing every day thing is that it does not allow one to anonymously take those few days off that one needs when you know, life goes to hell temporarily. and it sure as hell does go to hell rather frequently around here. I'm glad to be doing it, this writing thing, but I feel a bit forced ! and that is just part of a MUCH larger problem of being the 'pleaser' type. even though i feel like i've spent much of my adult life moving away from that... its still there. (I think I was thinking of that with the whole plea to Disney. Girls have it bad enough without having to watch the split-up of the psyche on tv. leave us alone.)

its one of the blessings behind my hearing loss, while it is extremely difficult for me, sometimes to interrupt or to beg for repetition... it does have a way of begging for straight talk... no bullshit. I don't have time or the inclination to struggle to understand someone if all they are going to do is talk 'namby pamby'. can't waste my life with that today. don't make me fucking waste my life.

i'm tired. my kids have 'itchy' bums... still no flu so i guess we are fine or something. but evidently, itchy bums make one have fitful sleep, and there is a four year old who sleeps in my bed and boy is fitful. FIT FULLLLL..

Dear Disney,

Please, I want you to consider what is happening to the little girls and boys of the world under your watch. I want you to look at the shows you are making and the characters you are creating with a more analytical eye. For boys, nothing but jokes and slapstick, no heroes at all. And I am not talking repetitious remakes of cartoonish heroes of yesterday, I'm talking idols, people to look to as walking 'dads'... heroes... working, loving, laughing, crying, playing, teasing, all of it. For girls, I want to point directly at the hannah thing. What is happening on that show is also happening or has happened to the girls you have hired to play these characters. They are so split into two by the belief that 'good girl' and 'REAL' girl are separate things, that they completely fall apart when they hit their own lives with the joining... does that make sense? Its the dichotomy that is killing them, cracking them up... and if its wrecking the actresses? what about the audience? why can't the two be joined? Don't you understand that women/girls ARE both, and at the Same time? Please can you get me more Topanga? a curvy smart sexy girl? or Winnie? the pretty tomboy girl? Maybe some more WonderYears boys? Could you please get Walt back and talk to him through the clouds... I think he'll know what I'm saying.
Thank you,

wifemother

i've got nothing.

obligatory posting here. I had been pre-planning and/or organizing and sending them out to be posted first thing in the morning, which is nice.
but, evidently, nice is OVER.
we have no sick kids, technically... and no flu. just facial rashes and bum rashes. I think i've passed on my overly sensitive skin to them. but vomit and poo ARE rather harsh skincare items, i must say.
i've really got nothing. i am in a struggle with something i cannot change and I'm tired of it, again. so here:
go see Cheerio Road today...
and i'm supposed to get those damn photo things soon and I both dread it and want to know so i can just share the glee/horror.
again, i suck, i'm sorry.
give me something to write about.
i've got a book list, I just need to get to the library and get out of the kids section. . .
again, i suck. i'm sorry. maybe nonomomo is just too much for me.

digital is not better

so we have all become digitized. crazy progress. right? except for my tv. my poor beleagured tv that the kids know how to turn on, so i can no longer tell them its 'broken'. its not that its old, its that the poor tv had 'basic' cable, which garnered us enough to get free pbs sprout shows when we wanted, like sesame street and roary the racing car, and the beloved fireman sam, without having to wait til the designated hours... and guess what was no longer free when we all went digital? Can you explain to me how public broadcasting can not be free? the lady on the Cox phoneline (i know, i can't believe they've kept that name!) COX phoneline (repetitions intentional) kept saying,literally... 'well, it is FREE, as long as you are a subscriber'. I pointeed out the dichotomy but she just repeated the above sentence. Thank you for using COX. SO. now we have 5000 channels in an attempt to make my life easier, and goddamn it, I cannot get PBS sprout unless I get 5000 more. seriously. We are making do with the Jonas brothers, of whom I have very serious doubts. I cannot stand how sick I feel when the tv is on too much, I think it releases some kind of stupid after an hour or so... spritzer for the damned.

The real issue I have is with my hearing aide. I know it is not a universally interesting subject but they used to be all analog, with cute little volume control knobs and great hinged doors and guess what? nobody makes them like that anymore... so i hear. the extremely expensive ($2K each!) digital hearing aides do not let you control the volume. they 'do' it for you, adjusting, as they say, to the environment... so lets imagine... you walk into a crowded preschool classroom and the hearing aide automatically reduces the amount of sound it lets in, so the physical reality is that you walk into a wonderfully dynamic romper room and are suddenly deafened and when the teacher talks to you, you have to lean in, squint your eyes and beg forgiveness from God for whatever it is you did in your last life... THANK YOU PROGRESS.This is my old analog, which I currently wear. The door is not supposed to come off, thats the battery thing/door there on the table. If you look, you can actually see through the backside of the plastic, under the 'hinge'metal road thing which has been superglued into place. And of course, the wonderful volume knob, which lets me hear the teachers' comments but lets me 'just say no' to anything coming from the wiggles.

I'm not sure people are supposed to mcguyver hearing aides. I'm really not.

here comes the new one: paid for with a loan from my parents... which I will not wear, but which looks real pretty... and because I spend so much time with a four year old who really thinks he knows everything ... it looks like someone in the Clone Wars... useless. and all i've got left if my little pretty goes awry. . .

apologies o enlightened ones...

sorry about last night's boring post. i did warn you. it sucked. and its not even the flu that has hit here, though it may be a forerunner...vomit and poo, distinctly and from separate boys... which may be a blessing for them. and i'm supposed to be writing every damn day so I wasted a double posting on one day and now i'll be lucky if i make my own self-imposed mediocrity goal. agoodgoddamned.

*and i know now that the word i really like is 'biding', and so what I really like is not the 'imperishable truths' of abiding, but the adjective, i think adjective is right. maybe adverb..., a biding. i'm on hold, a waiting, a holding on, a dream of patience in there somewhere, a 'standing by'... maybe even holding the space, the time, for someone else beyond my own selfish self. maybe.

plus, my husband bought my kid a watergun. i know, harmless... a water pistol even. but this was after several conversations of 'i don't see why we should support the making of 'toy' weapons for the kids with OUR money, they make them themselves out of sticks, toys, etc.... , especially guns... there's no reasons kids should 'play' with a gun, no reason... '

at least, i thought they were conversations.... but no...

way, way early on i wrote really nicely about why i would never write about my husband. its here....
and its great, and i stick by it.
and
*& @# spit, spit, uppercut- uppercut. groin kick.
walk away with a swagger.
my job is done.
the weapon has been 'lost'. . .

BORING-do not read.

no inner resources. kids napping again! although this time they have vomits and shits. WAHOOOO. and i am so tired i should be lying beside them but I am unwilling to be awoken by vomit or poo. I am what I am .
and i am crazy bored. all day i have been pinging, doing vomit laundry, changing diapers left and right and then again. I am also crazy tired. crazy. there is nothing on which my brain will snag so it just keeps pinging between items that are also basically, boring. whats a girl to do? shite.

serving up eggs

I was the egg server Saturday morning at the pancake breakfast for my son's school. I love doing it, its my second year and I have a great deal of fun teasing and cajoling the folks who want to eat my wares. really, i do. I am alone, with adults and food... its not bad. But this year, after 3 hours, the din was trying to kill me. Sometimes my ears and eyes (lipreader extraordinaire) literally hurt from all the concentration it takes to figure out what is going on, being said.
My hearing lately has been really bothering me... my lack of it playing a larger than average role in what I feel is an overwhelmingly awkward woman/mother person. In general, people are very generous and don't mind repeating things to me but it is all the off the cuff-ness, the riff and raff that I miss... so I often miss the actual personalities in the people around me.
I have a 23 month old boy who does not do very much talking, still preferring 'eehn, ehn, un...' type stuff. My older son was also late to talk well but had done it before this point. The young one does say mommy and daddy and 'duck' and truck and dog and so on but it is sort of worrisome and I need to have his ears checked and his lead levels re-checked. But every time we are away somewhere, other people hear him say a bunch of words that I have never heard him say. like a full 'apple'. I've heard 'app', which sounds like 'up' and 'help'... but never app-le.
I hate that my hearing crap is causing me this anxiety and may be affecting how well I can communicate with this boy baby who is lightning quick, entering his twos.
I've been telling myself and everyone else that I'm going to wait until he's the full 24 mos. before I seriously worry because I have a gdammned degree in early childhood and I know thats the end of the average range for speech acquisition... but jesus. what if its because his mom can't communicate with him? how much am I missing? so.

creeepy numbers

so, i'm trying to make up my mind about this statistics counter thing that you can add to your blog. i added it originally at super sister's suggestion because she kept telling me that people WERE reading it, and even liking it. BUT now, I check it almost more than I check who has written what, or how the laundry is doing, or whether the kids are Really hurt or just faking... really. and this is what makes this creepy. I can find out who it was, or at least, from what address... I just discovered this the other day, I can click on a button/line item and see a map of where the people have come from... hello BRAZIL!! Bom DIA!
but also, when playing, saw my sister's law firm pop up. Now she's so cool she's not even a lawyer or a secretary but that IS where she works, and that sort of creeped me out. If I can do this (who barely owns a stereo, no iPod ((although i blame hearing for that one)), no wish to understand twitter and no real understanding of why people like Wiiiiiii.) than just think what technologically savvy people can do... I'm not a crazy conspiracy person really, although I do worry about the encroachment of GPS on our lives... :)
So, I'm thinking about it... and I'm seriously committed to the every day in November goal, but I am really out of things to say. Maybe I'll just talk about my kids and the funny things they say.
hahahahahahaahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

No poo and an ode to sugar

we're trying to give up shampoo over here, part of the 'no poo' movement which does not involve constipation of any type. Since I only shower once a week (I am not kidding. it is a choice.), hubby has born the brunt of 'our' new routine of baking soda shampoo with a cidervinegar rinse once a week or so. . . he looks clean to me. I look the same. but hey, it cleans our hair and the drains all at once, how can this be bad? Cost is literally the least of reasons to do it, its for the health of our hair and while I am quite devoted to Pantene, I cannot make out the names of all its ingredients and somehow that just seems wierd to do to our household. I am working on simplifying. -go ahead and ask me if I've ever read the ingredient list on the swedish fish. go ahead.
duh. no. i'm no moron. I don't even want to know, I'm a junkie... I just want the sugary chew ... the hope everlasting... the promise of a better day, a better way...

*today i overloaded on the strawberry jelly and a tiny box of milk duds. I'm on my way up the mountain, getting better but not quite at the top..

Abiding as word choice

ABIDING. wonderful word. wonder if it exists? for me or for others ? wonder-full word though.

imperishable truths

how do i love thee? whilst the screach from below echoes through the rooms? let me count the ways. . .

i wish i could keep it up and stun you with some sort of wit and shakespeare. but i really can't . the boys are in the second hour of their group nap and i am literally stunned into inaction. I made a pot of fresh coffee and read a bad book from the library and refused to do any pick-up/dishwash or laundry. screw that. I am stunned.

and abiding.

Also, I think I am so tired of waiting for everyone to get sick. without wishing universal action on that statement. I have been on high alert since the beginning of October and what with homeopathy, extra shirts, excess of orange juice, gummybear vitamins and vitamin D pills, the kids are just not sick yet. ! CHIRPY, this mama is, i know, CHIRPY.

wanted to show off about how old I looked with all the makeup from the photoshoot.... see why my ego was not in fact bolstered?! holy . . .

fake eyelashes were cool though. wish i could've had fake non-nursing boobs too. really, like two bags of down... shite.
yet, my husband still loves them. what the hell is that about ? talk about chirpy.

the posting every day thing is making my internal dialogue sound sort of similar to my writing -- is this how it goes? madness seeps in slowly, in full view of the distant strangers whilst my children and husband are the last to know?

although, really, i highly doubt that last bit.

i am in love with onions (part 2)

to combat my wild boredom and presumed ensuing menstruation, i am going to tell you what else I love.

Julie Andrews.

is there anything more perfect than maria outside the door of the palace with her guitar and her hand on her hat? is there?

yes, I love her. unabashedly. even the princess stupidhead movies, c'mon, she's the queen of zenobia or something like that... she surfs on a mattress... (the previews showed it, i swear). but mostly because of the feelings she inspires... thank you to Athena for reminding me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k

here is some gloriousness that would not happen without mary poppins and maria vontrap...
actually, I think you need to go to Athena's site, which is linked above because I don't know how to put videos in here, evidently. YAHOO. i DID IT, I think. . .its from youtube and kid-friendly. Athena's site is not kid-friendly (supah sexy!) but this posting definitely is! enjoy.

BAD MOMMA

today is one of those days where I am constantly asking myself... what the hell is wrong with me? I am completely out of my mind with rage/anger/overreaction/unrealistic expectations ... and right now I am trying to control my breath, notice my emotions, and stay the hell away from the kids. I just finished yelling at an almost two year old who doesn't want a nap.

yes, you see, that is CRAZY. and sort of creepy. and showcases the out of control mom.
I have been trying to make pumpkinchocolate chip cookies for a month, yesterday i roasted the pumpkin and today I made the mix. tonight we eat. WHY? So i could tell someone (Grammie-in my internal dialogue that we have, still ) that I finally used the sugar pumpkin/that i made a homemade treat/that I provided for my children a wonderful bettycrocker moment? and prove myself a good mother? ??!! because it was hellious, from beginning to end- what with my rage and all and the amount of flour that hit the floor may in fact be criminal... I should have just thrown in the towel, abandoned the project and thrown my own flour.
but it was not to be, today i was full of resentment and sugar*.

I feel today that the number of things that have been abandoned has become too large. the projects, the laundry, the dishes, the floor, the vaccuum, the books, the letter, and so on..That list is wavering slightly in the air above my head- what will it matter if I find that all this anger was hormonally motivated. what does it matter? the list does not actually change. only my perspective. I had a bad day. bad.
*I seriously have to remove all the candy from this house, and yet I cannot. Literally cannot. When husband gets home from work, I am taking him on a tour of my stashes and he will clean them out. If I do it myself, I will dig it back out of the trash after the kids go to bed. yes, I will. and because I have typed it here, when this posts.. he will . (because I will 'forget' to ask him to do it, because I must be insane if I need help to get rid of the peanut butter cup BAG in my underwear drawer)
this is why I am not a big drinker. that, and the lifetime of being surrounded by alcoholics. o baby. -although the four pm beer is becoming more of a mainstay.
meanwhile, in the other room that I can watch as I type: my older boy is trying to teach his younger brother how to climb 'back' into the crib. giving slow and wonderful directions. dear god. laughs and smiles all around after he just pulled him on in, afterall.
joy. then he kicked him in the head.
ah, done here ..

abiding

i'm struggling with my boredom lately. trying to write every day here has been both more and less of a challenge than I'd thought. Its easier than I thought because I am a good bullshitter. and its harder because I try not to give into my baser instincts, most of the time. I also want to impress myself, be proud of what I write, or see if I can make my husband laugh out loud. But everyday the kids go down for a nap, IF they do... I sit here and browse and browse and really, don't think I'm all the better for it. Feel mostly bored, wait around for someone to post something on one of the blogs I already follow and my god, even this right here, as I type, is boring.
but what i do know is that I will never have a television in my bedroom and that I am starved for books... please please. tell me something good to read. that the library has, so it can't be too new. or your favorite book, or the most interesting story of late. and then I can fill my time with something besides browsing and maybe fill my head with something to write about.

sharing exposure as a sub-urban stay at home mom

so husband met Chakra Carol this morning. and i wasn't there, and I feel sort of bereft that the one thing that is mine is now shared. and I think it is lame of me, and irrational and its not as if I don't like my husband (although that does sometimes happen) but geez. I DON'T WANT TO SHARE MY CHAKRA CAAAROL.

ITs part of the larger issue of the lameness crisis I've found myself in. I went to do a completely rocking photo shoot as a birthday present for said hubby. I love him, I do. but I ALSO thought the photo shoot would make me feel like a rockstar . and it did not..so far quite the opposite.

first of all, there were two other women there, a tiny slip of a latina goddess, and an ACTUAL derby girl. a fucking derby girl. seriously. a rollerderby girl. fishnets and tallness and all.

and then me.

between the two raging extremes of womanhood, i may as well have been wearing a sweaterset and pearls.
lets just say i lost my mojo...

And, secondly, I am not a natural in front of the camera... no. who knew? I thought I looked like my mother at first glance, and this was not a rockstar inducing moment. (my mom is fine-looking, but nobody wants to look like their mother, especially when trying to pose for their husband, ok?)
thirdly, what I thought was the cost of the whole thing was just a deposit and I owed another TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS at the the end of the wierd lameduck experience. AH.
I had to run home and transfer money around just to not bounce a check. go ahead, add to the joy.
who am i ? when do i become a roller derby girl? If I get knocked on the head its possible that I lose my ears again, and so I could never do it. not worth the risk just to have some fun. right? i mean, i know it. but i feel old for my fear, and my acknowledgement of risk and priority...hm.
but! never fear. i will show the appropriate pictures when I see them, as I am the sort who has to talk publicly about things I am embarassed about... I can't abide the secrecy. so there.

naptime action, and not of the sexy sort

check the times on the blogs you read. how many of them are written while a mom/dad is alone for 10 seconds while someone is napping? geez. for that matter, when are you READING? seriously, room of one's own? HAHA. i say HA HA, to you. All we need is 10 seconds and we are strangling ourselves to reach out.

and when the hell does the laundry get done? vacuum? feed ? cook? think? write? paint? breathe? 10 seconds seems like short shrift now. I'm verry tired right now, faced again with the dueling expectations for myself of supermother and housekeeper. I don't seem to be doing either very well and its wearing on me. I have a babysitter !! and all I can really manage to do in the four hours that she is here is go grocery shopping and browse the internet. it seems like something meaningful is missing. Maybe I, like so many others, need to limit my computer time and do SOMETHING.
Yesterday my old boy had his long day at school and I watched a movie of the cheesyromanticpop sort. Those things never actually leave me with a good feeling, I am always slightly depressed and missing the parts of me that used to believe in that crap. LOVE, yes. Romance? no.

but look at these shoes... this is what i wore on the night that didn't work out... now, think about what that could mean... and you'll be very very wrong. . . but i've had to struggle with a major self-identity overhaul. turns out, i am not a roller derby girl.

not even close.

so what the hell am

I?

why i do love yoga anyways

not because it is so fun to say 'om' or to investigate belief in namaste...

but because, when asked to 'press down your left heel'... you have to think about your body in its specifics. because your body does not actually do what you ask it to if you just repeat phrases in your head. you know? so the connections between thought and action are re-forged in the body and- i think that i'm learning about how my body works, finally, after 35 years or so. its a pretty powerful thing, and it is changing how i do the dishes, how i drive the car... and even how i eat. (admission: i have realized how bad sugar is for me lately. SOOO bad. makes me an evil screaming bitch. but halloween has just been here and i am eating peanut butter cups. so there. )

I am never going to know what the poses are called because I can't hear the instructors. ever. I know that just about everything ends with 'ana' or something something pose ..but all I can do is concentrate on my thigh muscles and avoiding an overrelianceupon my knee joint, so I cannot concentrate on lip-reading an 'ana' pose name. Someday, maybe. but probably not.

and my classes are almost all women. have you looked at women's hands lately? they are so ridiculously beautiful . my god. and even i, the awkward queen of the jungle, have hands worth noticing.

I love the breathing that it is instilling in me again. breathing. so damn simple. should get me through these days of 5 am wakings.

and there is something in the air for me these days, the not-sleeping is JUST me... i'm up. i take a bath at 5 o'clock in the morning because i am just wiped out by the waiting for dawn... and i think, maybe a bath will help me get an hour of sleep. christ almighty.

right?

SLEEP?!?

BREATHING!!

DAMN SUGAR!

NoMo PoPo

I'm going to try and post something every day this month, as it seems like there are tons of contests and so ons for bloggers to do something like that. They all have wierd names like NoNoWriMo or somesuch and since I really can't join a group that stands by or under a name like that, I am just going to see what it is like to have a goal and use it as a crutch. (I've gotten some kind of ticket each week for the past few weeks and that is why I am all in favor of NoMo POPO)

Yesterday was Looong and the day before that? even longer. I have been battling against the desire to get things done. and by that, I mean, the kids have been battling against my desire to get things done. IT took me nearly 30 minutes to get plastic, and cover the bathroom leakyair window. This is a small window, the process of taping the plastic up is one I could do with my eyes closed because I have done it so many freaking times. that said, when the almost two year old decides to help by investigating the materials. . . oooh scissors, lets see what happens if i put the tape into the toilet, oooooh plastic. . . this mom nearly lost (forget that, totally DID lose) her marbles.

and its my own damn fault. why the hell did I care whether the freaking plastic got on the window, Right then? why? who the hell gives a shit if the plastic is on then, or maybe the next day when said babyboy actually naps? stupid expectations! stupid!

chill out.

plan maybe, but stop freaking losing your shit . thats me talking to myself.

Maybe this'll be the shortest term goal of the month, i'm not sure I want to hear myself spontaneously blather, like, did you read the last few posts? my GOD, i'm not sure I want to hear myself spontaneously blather! awkward girl must make some sort of plan. must.

and then last night i did a wild thing which did NOT work out the way I wanted it to. I'll have plenty to write about for awhile. lets leave it there. and someone get Chakra CaROL on the phone.

loong day

i called my sister last night --after digging an old cigarette out of the ashtray (of Grammie's car!! the horror...), hiding on the front porch while my kids screamed inside, inches from my crappy ears on the other side of the door. there is something about the changing of the clocks and the quality of the light that are combining to make the 4-6 pm hours a wierd and wild version of mommyhell.

there was also the parent-teacher conference, the wildly expensive soup-buying extravaganza at the grocery store. one would think they were predicting a blizzard.. but no, just the flu. we will succumb soon i am sure but are currently fighting the good fight of health. i hadn't even gorged on candy and yet I was COMPLETELY LIVID that my husband had finished off the last beer the night before and I could not complete my picture of wild mother insanity on the porch by throwing a bottle into the street. I could have thrown a vase but it would have been soooo suburban of me.

can't have that.
anyhow. god bless my sister. she takes my calls. i love that about her. :)

i am in love with onions.

seriously, baked. fried. baked. sauteed. raw. diced, minced!, chunked. anyway you think of it, i am in love with the onion. all the types. the sweet vidalia, tangy red, tiny pearl. there is a special place in my onion heart for the shallot. oh lord. and to think of carmelizing is literally to set my mouth asweat .

oh god. ROASTED! how could i forget roasted? in the pan with all the fantastic vegetables, under the roasting meat?!! oh my god.
i am on the floor.
drool.

NONES?

I think it may have something to do with that little man on the inside, the statuette who has begun again to shimmy and shake with golden flakes ... not tony the tiger but -something like. The title of this post is a link to another woman's post who talks about the religiously unaffiliated and those who chose the 'none' religious category. She writes well and was referred to by Karen Maezen Miller, whose blog I also read and like, Cheerio Road.

For me, belief is a way of tapping into a much larger passionpool... and I don't want to give it up and haven't liked my moments when I haven't had a choice in it. . . its a way of seeing a wider pattern in the wildness, a motivation behind the craziness of a cardinal and I get a great deal of joy and wonder from it. I think the author of the link is a Buddhist so there is the connection there to a much larger communal mass, yes? and can't joy and wonder, even if they are not called faith and belief, be all considered within the same frame?

I don't mean to obsess, but want to hear how other people handle it, or if there is no belief system, what gets you through tough and glorious times?

Maybe it is the mess of misunderstanding the difference between Religion and Faith? Does one need a book, after all, to BELIEVE? in something or in the natural world as proof of divine intervention? creation? but then again, my definitions of these things are clearly suspect, as I'm all about sensation and faith, and not rules or definitions. huh, figure that one out.
I am clearly on the look out for passion, magic and possibility... all of which are easy to find if you are up for it. EASY.

take it.

right now i would trade my children and all the experiences of having them for the wild idea of getting that extra hour of sleep that people claim is possible with this goddamned daylightsavings fiasco. on halloween, the morning after has become something of my wierdest wildest nightmares... these kids are literally spinning, and according to the f'ed up clock, they woke up at 5:30 this morning. so, all of you smug grownups up there... take my kids, take the birth story, take the midnight/allnight nursings and shove em up your ass.

i love you and wish you well, too.

:)

closing the curtain

geezus. the fall thing is killing me today. the same struggle as always, with family and husband and weather and aches and pains and too much time on my hands and all the meaning in the world being in those same hands...the center of the universe really.
and then not at all. just a speck in the myriad universes.

yoga is breaking my knees. and I am working my thighs like nobody's business but my knees are on fire . and that means I am old. OLD. because i have a post about aches and pains of the external sort. i think my grandmother would tell me to get on with it, get something done. but i can't hear her that well today. . .

OLD.
sometimes the part of me which is embittered is all on the surface, the little man from the inside who is usually skipping and dancing about is all stillness and grey. statuette. and today i am there. right there. in the still and the grey . and it is hard to get my kids up for their costumed hysteria and it is just hard to see how hard it is for me.
maybe my old is compounded by my lonely.
maybe i should fly back out to wisconsin.

boy joy

this is the morning... these are the red creatures that I lay claim to.
(in the kitchen-which i blame on someone else)

the boys are currently: laughing and pulling each other up onto the 'mummydaddy'bed...getting under the blankets and giggling wildly. this, interspersed with the wild sword waving, will surely lead to a moderate disaster. and yet I let it go, as I type, for there really isn't anything better in the entire world. and i hope i get to say a sentence like that everyday for the rest of my life.

and then there is this: twice in the past week my older son has done this: (two semicolons, ike) 'i can't be the mom, i'm a boy.' in the house corner

or

'i don't want the princess cup, thats for girls.' these are the same cups he himself selected not four months ago. . .

this is NOT an okay thing to hear from my darling sugarbutt boy... changing tides! hard for me, dismissive of my role, heightening/showcasing my familiarity with the very VERY same feelings... how long does it last? what will he think of me when he is a man? where the hell am i ?

as if i need to worry about what one more person thinks of me. but he IS an important one.

working on it, still.

true, rue the fall

here it is, the melancholy of the fall... was here before will be again .
and so forth.

but i'm still feeling the simple, all over.
simple, simple.
symbol.

the smells of damp leaves. leafs.
books dug out, titles searched, covers coveted. . .
the boys are asleep and i'm letting them go and go and go
in the hopes the flu will pass this house by ... no vaccines mean mama's not feeling risky with the exposure gang.

so - forth.

Believing or not*

*don't read this if you feel like taking offense today:



I think that oneof the things that bugged me about 'that woman' is that I was caught off guard. I had thought she was a whole lot of things and now I think she may be one of those people who believes in nothing but wears the trappings of many things.


and I think that somehow equates living a passionless life.


and it wigs me out.
(i'm still thinking about this woman too much and that wigs me out too)


Mama Mama Quite Contrary commented to me: Your post has me thinking about religion as a cultural identity. Do you think for a person to identify themselves as a certain religion they must believe in god? I'd love to hear more of your take on this. .



yes, there is 'cultural identity' ...

there is tradition, history, ritual. if you don't Believe in what backs it up, the faith that caused all the beliefs/miracles/struggles, then are you in fact, of that religious faith? how could you be? right?
but history/tradition/ritual, are real, strong, beautiful things. . . and identifying yourself with those things of beauty is fine by me. but that is different from a belief system. i guess its probably academic semantic blablah.
I'm leaving out all capitals for the proper nouns as it evens things out for me . for me.

there is semite, one whose lineage traces back to a specific region of the world. and then there is jew. the chosen people are the chosen people because they believe in the ONE. the original christians are jews. since then, the christians are christians because they believe in a radical god-born jew. so. -no belief? culturally attached but not religiously. i'm a stickler. I hesitate to call myself a christian because i like the whole jesus thing but its not a very DEEP part of my faith, just a familiarity... like i'm part of the 'tradition' but I'm so old testament. SO old testament. in talking with my husband about it, I realized how real it is for me, the escape through the red sea with Moses. I don't know if there is a huge community of people anywhere who identify strongly with that. Maybe its the Jews. . . (I should check with Chakra Carol... find out if she thinks I was ACTUALLY there..) :)

Its not the 'chosen' aspect of it, but its the fleeing, the miraculous escape part that I call my own. . . the flight into a rough but passionfilled and dangerous existence. out of childhood into adulthood.. the risk of a nonsensical faith that somehow fills one up and provides bread to the soul.

*I'm definitely of the old school, have no need to mess around with the pronouns of God... in my head I turn all stories of gods, goddesses, spirits, flows, into one lump sum of God and I use a masculine in my language. thats all. . . I find it all fits just fine.

also, correct me if need be.

my god, this may be my most rambling and incoherent writing yet. rockit.

some of what i believe..

lately i have bumped into a woman that I do not really appreciate. It is a pretty rare thing. I call her 'that woman'.. she has made me unbelievably angry at times and often I feel that there is some 'miss' in her psyche and I am just generally uncomfortable around her. add to that, our kids don't play well together. Ok? so. on the last playdate, and I mean it, the LAST. I told husband that I would not do it again, I do not care to spend my lovely time on this earth being polite through my teeth. that is not what it is all about. (this may cause difficulty for my husband, as there is a professional connection here.) anyho. the last playdate circled around how great the church/temple can be for community building but really, all she wanted to do was chant and beyond that she had no connection with the religious community in which she was raised. I CANNOT understand.


I am aware right now that I do not want to talk about her anymore. It is bad juju.
-------------------------------


GOOD JUJU:

I BELIEVE in many golden Bright and glowing things. . .

I Believe in the light which is in me, which recognizes the light which is in you. (most of the time, even'that woman', she probably has it. i mean, she does have it. ar.)... yes, namaste.

I believe that the biggest blessings are often the most difficult.

I Believe in the the belief behind the actions...

I believe in ritual if it is mindful and habit can be a powerful ritual and back and forth... and back and forth.

I believe that you must try hard, almost all the time.

I believe that my grandmother went to heaven when she died, and is currently playing scrabble.

I believe that clean laundry is a sign of love , doing it is an act of love. here. , someone has said THAT way better than I .

I believe that my husband and I are equally committed to our struggling relationship...

I believe that my boys are growing up so incredibly fast. and I am learning, I am moving at that speed too.

I believe my job may be as simple as loving the kids for the majority of the day, and feeding and clothing them.

I believe that cardinals are a sign that God loves beauty, and sparkle, and frivolity.

there is a hell of a lot more.

what about you?

simplicity

my dad is good. a good one, now. he was at some sort of church gathering and they all had to talk about what they were personally doing to make the world a better place. I have no idea what my dad said. but what he recounted was a husband/father guy who stood up in the crowd of several hundred and talked about how he had decided that it was his mission to make sure his kids and wife all started their days in happiness and peace. He was taking charge of the mornings, making lunches, taking the 'rush' out of the breakfast scene and by creating these swirling oasises (oasies? idonno) of peace, sending them happily along their merry way, he was potentially changing the world for the better.
so, right on.
of course, the cynic in me was scREACHING ... they're already in school?!!where the hell have you been til now? what the hell?!
and then, i stopped screaching and thought about how nice it was and how simple it all is. to relax, to look around and have some faith that it is all so simple. what is good is really what we have going on. we are where we are meant to be, doing what we are meant to be doing. what we are Meant for? you have to sort that out for yourselves, as I have no idea... but i've been digging around and looking it up. its evidently not on facebook, though you can get messages from God there. seriously, check it out. you can.
i'm really out of my mind bored with blogging and need some impulsive inspirations. I'm not sure that my posting randomly and impetuously is the best answer to my selfexpression.
but i'm a plugger.

i'm going off to hum the simplicity song. . .
you know, 'tis a gift to be simple.. tis a gift to be free...tis a gift to come down where we ought to be...and when we find ourselves in a place just right.. to bow and to bend shall be our delight...

OH Lord, it is fallaflame...

Yesterday and today have been the most perfect days in the world, in the weather department. The colors are just breathtaking and there is just something about the light, the sun, the smells .. it is astounding.

AND, I hired a babysitter.

I know, I know, you say, subject change ahoy! but no, not really, because I HAD said babysitter, I actually saw this weather with my own eyes, without the filter of.. 'oh, I need to make sure C hears the leaves rustling... I need to get E. 's mouth off the leaves... ' Oh.

It was cool. I ran around like an extremely nervous fowl when they left for the park and did all the weeks chores in about 10 minutes- which, either begs the question 'why does it take me so long otherwise?' OR 'how crap a job Did I do?' but I'm not going down that path . I'm just amazed at the day and the fact that it has been four years since I've seen the fall like this. four.

I've got to start opening my eyes more often.

I also had yoga again, it is good to sweat outside of the house sometimes. very.

Otherwise, I've got nothing to type and am working on this post just to feel connected to the process ... maybe i'll go for a walk, a zoo trip... something when the nap ends to get the kids to do all that rustle-listening and leaf-eating after all.