Can I just tell you how very, very much I hate my children's room. The four oldest all share a room (there are only two bedrooms in our house), and I loathe that room with all of my being. I spent an entire day this weekend cleaning it out.....again. It was scary and gross. Two full bags of trash went out of there. Three full baskets of laundry blossomed and added themselves to the laundry mountain. It's like there's some unseen wind in our home which blows all debris into that room, where it then hides under beds and in corners.
It'd be so great to have done all that work and now have a great space for our family to enjoy, but because it's so great now- the kids are spending time in there and without ever constant vigilance (to be read:grumping at them) the stuff just begins to accumulate all over again. Right now in there waiting for me is a tea party, several baskets of play food, dress up clothes all over the floor, dress up shoes lined up against the wall, three bags-with who knows what inside them, and a box. There are some clothes under the youngest two girls' bed.
It looks like it's been weeks since I've vacuumed, despite it being two days. The four year old got into the 8 year old's bed, and took down the things from her bulletin board, took down her chalkboard, seems to have removed her knitting needles and stashed them somewhere. Took a piece of pottery Lucy (the 8 year old) made, stashed the lid for it somehwere. GRRRRrrrrrr....Looks like someone really needs help with boundaries, but I know in her mind it all just looks so neat and pretty and interesting. I also know that I cannot just camp in their room every time she's playing in there.
Bernadette (the 4 year old) loves playing tea party. So does Andrew (the 2 year old). But their ideas are vastly divergent of what makes tea party fun. Andrew will sit and take sips of his "tea" for only so long, before his boy toddlerhood explodes and he feels the need to throw all the cups and saucers. Obviously there arises the need to keep the door closed, so Bernadette can play her favourite thing unmauled...but I also need a surveillance system installed so I can track where everybody's stuff has been stashed. Or a security guard, or GPS tracking. It seems like I just can't keep up with the clutter, no matter how much de-cluttering I do, no matter how much I surrender any expectation for what I think a house "ought" to look like. UUrrrghhh...I hate that room.
Somebody remind me that there is more to being a mom than tasks which need to be done over and over and over and over again. Somebody remind me that there is a point where this part of parenthood will get far less sucky. And for the love of all that is holy--somebody please buy our property or give us a couple hundred thousand dollars so we can have the room we need to make this a little easier!!!!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Interview Me-Fantastiv Five Meme
Colleen over at Martin Family Moments posted this meme. I don't know why it's taken me so long to fill out, though. I am nothing, if not a procrastinator!
Here's how it works:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by e-mailing you 5 questions.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview others.
5. When you receive the comment from another, you will send them 5 questions.
Here are my questions sent by Colleen:
1) Where and when did you meet your husband?
Well-certainly not a story to model ones life after, but it is likely the only way that I would have ended up marrying the man who perfects me more than any other person- we met in 1996 when were both working at the bookstore in Annapolis,MD. I was actually married (outside the Church) at the time, but teetering on the brink of divorce, and he was in a long distance relationship with someone. When I was being interviewed to transfer to that store, he said when I had walked in he just sort of dismissed me , as one of "those people"- meaningsomeonewho if she read, read crappy nooks without much conviction. However as the receiving manager at the time he overheard my interview, and how I talked about the books I had most recently read--and his interest was peaked. We ate lunch together often and hung out as a large group with other employees after work on Sunday night, and he says that he fell in love with me the night I talked about Fitzgerald. LOL! Book nerds through and through. I finally left my first husband, and was really bummed through the Christmas season, and ended up getting pregnant with our oldest son. We actually both tried to break up with each other just after New Year's, but then I found out that I was pregnant. I had already given up two babies for adoption, and just was heartbroken at the thought of giving another baby away. But my (now) husband said that we could go ahead and give it a try to keep the baby and be a family. When our son was two, we finally got married-in the Church, which was now very important to me. It took us nearly a decade, and a lot of hurt, pain and betrayal to get our relationship in wokring order--for many reasons, not the least of which was really bad PPD on my part and lots of healing from past hurts and wounds including PTSD. It is certainly not the relationship story I would wish for any of my kids, but I think that any other story for us, would not have resulted in the overall goodness that is now our marriage.
2) What's your favorite meal (appetizer, entree, dessert and drink)?
Depends on the day! LOL! We joke that food is my love language. I think one thing I could eat nearly everyday and never get sick of is tacos. I also have a serious weakness for Zaxby's fried house salads-with one ranch and one cblue cheese dressing. Oh --and I love soup. I could live on soup- hot soups, cold soups, nut soups, cream soups, veggie soups and meat soups.
3) What's one thing nobody (or almost nobody) knows about you?
Nothing that I can think of, I tend to tell everything--whether people want to know or not. Except for what I don't tell. And lol! I'm not telling. Such a Gemini...
4) If money wasn't an issue, what job would you like to have?
I honestly don't know. It would be cool to write for money. I think I'd be a great high school teacher (and have taught at some co-ops and things). If I didn't have children, I think that I would like being a foreign correspondent in areas of conflict.
5) Of all your beautiful children, which birth experience was your favorite and which was your least favorite?
I think probably my favorite would be my homebirth with our oldest daughter, Lucy. It was so peaceful and awesome. Nobody touched me the entire time I was in labor. It was just the midwife and my daughter's Godmother and my husband there. My post partum time with her kinda stunk- and she was like my worse sleeper in a long stretch of bad sleepers--but her birth was pretty awesome. One of my other favorites was my youngest daughter, BErnadette- but for a vastly different readon. Her Godmother was there, a young woman just about to finish college and get married--and she got to see my in hospital natural, prayful birth--and then went on when she had her own baby to have her own natural , prayerful birth and successful breastfeeding relationship...and I like to think that I played a part in that. Another was my middle daughter, who came with all kinds of trouble--but was a chance to revisit ALL of my previous birth trauma, but to meet it in an empowered way.
My least favorite, by far, was the second baby I gave up for adoption. It was a nightmarish experience, literally like the awful bith scenarios they always choose for TV show plotlines. I was bleeding, they wouldn't let my mom come and be with me. No one would actually talk to me as I tried to get information, they kept me in a blood soaked bed for like 8 hours. They were a few seconds away from putting me under for a c-section, when I told them that I had to push (which they didn't believe, until I forced them to look down and see, they gave me a ginormous episiotomy which never healed right. It was just awful, awful, awful. But it did make me realize that giving birth without medication, was defintiely a doable thing.
Here's how it works:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by e-mailing you 5 questions.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You include this explanation and an offer to interview others.
5. When you receive the comment from another, you will send them 5 questions.
Here are my questions sent by Colleen:
1) Where and when did you meet your husband?
Well-certainly not a story to model ones life after, but it is likely the only way that I would have ended up marrying the man who perfects me more than any other person- we met in 1996 when were both working at the bookstore in Annapolis,MD. I was actually married (outside the Church) at the time, but teetering on the brink of divorce, and he was in a long distance relationship with someone. When I was being interviewed to transfer to that store, he said when I had walked in he just sort of dismissed me , as one of "those people"- meaningsomeonewho if she read, read crappy nooks without much conviction. However as the receiving manager at the time he overheard my interview, and how I talked about the books I had most recently read--and his interest was peaked. We ate lunch together often and hung out as a large group with other employees after work on Sunday night, and he says that he fell in love with me the night I talked about Fitzgerald. LOL! Book nerds through and through. I finally left my first husband, and was really bummed through the Christmas season, and ended up getting pregnant with our oldest son. We actually both tried to break up with each other just after New Year's, but then I found out that I was pregnant. I had already given up two babies for adoption, and just was heartbroken at the thought of giving another baby away. But my (now) husband said that we could go ahead and give it a try to keep the baby and be a family. When our son was two, we finally got married-in the Church, which was now very important to me. It took us nearly a decade, and a lot of hurt, pain and betrayal to get our relationship in wokring order--for many reasons, not the least of which was really bad PPD on my part and lots of healing from past hurts and wounds including PTSD. It is certainly not the relationship story I would wish for any of my kids, but I think that any other story for us, would not have resulted in the overall goodness that is now our marriage.
2) What's your favorite meal (appetizer, entree, dessert and drink)?
Depends on the day! LOL! We joke that food is my love language. I think one thing I could eat nearly everyday and never get sick of is tacos. I also have a serious weakness for Zaxby's fried house salads-with one ranch and one cblue cheese dressing. Oh --and I love soup. I could live on soup- hot soups, cold soups, nut soups, cream soups, veggie soups and meat soups.
3) What's one thing nobody (or almost nobody) knows about you?
Nothing that I can think of, I tend to tell everything--whether people want to know or not. Except for what I don't tell. And lol! I'm not telling. Such a Gemini...
4) If money wasn't an issue, what job would you like to have?
I honestly don't know. It would be cool to write for money. I think I'd be a great high school teacher (and have taught at some co-ops and things). If I didn't have children, I think that I would like being a foreign correspondent in areas of conflict.
5) Of all your beautiful children, which birth experience was your favorite and which was your least favorite?
I think probably my favorite would be my homebirth with our oldest daughter, Lucy. It was so peaceful and awesome. Nobody touched me the entire time I was in labor. It was just the midwife and my daughter's Godmother and my husband there. My post partum time with her kinda stunk- and she was like my worse sleeper in a long stretch of bad sleepers--but her birth was pretty awesome. One of my other favorites was my youngest daughter, BErnadette- but for a vastly different readon. Her Godmother was there, a young woman just about to finish college and get married--and she got to see my in hospital natural, prayful birth--and then went on when she had her own baby to have her own natural , prayerful birth and successful breastfeeding relationship...and I like to think that I played a part in that. Another was my middle daughter, who came with all kinds of trouble--but was a chance to revisit ALL of my previous birth trauma, but to meet it in an empowered way.
My least favorite, by far, was the second baby I gave up for adoption. It was a nightmarish experience, literally like the awful bith scenarios they always choose for TV show plotlines. I was bleeding, they wouldn't let my mom come and be with me. No one would actually talk to me as I tried to get information, they kept me in a blood soaked bed for like 8 hours. They were a few seconds away from putting me under for a c-section, when I told them that I had to push (which they didn't believe, until I forced them to look down and see, they gave me a ginormous episiotomy which never healed right. It was just awful, awful, awful. But it did make me realize that giving birth without medication, was defintiely a doable thing.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Happy 250th Birthday, Robert Burns!
Did you know that tomorrow is the 250th birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns? I didn't either, but it turns out that tonight there is a concert in celebration of that nativity by a Robert Burns' cover band, Bob Hay & The Jolly Beggars. Most of their songs are songs transcribed by or poems written by Robert Burns.
I think my husband and I are going to try to ditch the kids and go have fun literary geek style!
(Here's a sampling of the music of Bob Hay & The Jolly Beggars (on their website linked above, there is a nearly complete selection of music), try to just ignore the random dancers, lol! The song, is a tribute to Jean, who Burns knocked up with twins when he was 27 , but whose father refused to let the lowly farmer Burns marry. In order to gain some money to emigrate to Jamaica, Burns wrote a volume of poetry, which turned out to be wildly popular. In the wake of the popularity of that volume, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Burns traveled and met much of the literary talent in Scotland, including James Johnson who was compiling a collection of Scottish folk songs. Burns would eventually write and contribute hundreds of songs, both his own creations and traditional melodies.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Apparently the Oath Has been Re-done!
Sorry Republicans, it really is official now. Here's the story.
So is Obama President or Not?
With the debacle of the Swearing-In Ceremony--Obama hasn't said the words put forth by the Constitution. Even after the bumbling Roberts corrected himself when Obama paused at the incorrect words, Obama still said the words incorrectly. Here's a query for the Constitutional law scholar, now president and the Roberts, another Harvard Law Review Editor--is he or isn't he officially president? Can he now lawfully execute his office or not? What say you? (edited to add- My 8 year old just asked "Is that the first time it's ever been messed up? Anyone know?)
(Just an interesting tidbit- "Obama" trips the spell check)
.
Here's what the Constitution reads:
(Just an interesting tidbit- "Obama" trips the spell check)
.
Here's what the Constitution reads:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."Here is the transcript of the swearing in:
ROBERTS: Are you prepared to take the oath, Senator?
OBAMA: I am.
ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama...
OBAMA: I, Barack...
ROBERTS: ... do solemnly swear...
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ... that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully...
OBAMA: ... that I will execute...(he pauses)
ROBERTS: ... faithfully the office of president of the United States...
OBAMA: ... the office of president of the United States faithfully...
ROBERTS: ... and will to the best of my ability...
OBAMA: ... and will to the best of my ability...
ROBERTS: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
OBAMA: ... preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Simple Woman's Daybook
FOR TODAY January 19, 2009
Outside my window... it is grey and cloudy and chilly. But not quite chilly enough to snow. grrrrr
I am thinking... that I want to take a nap, and that I wish I could find a paperback of the book I have checked out of the library, because the hard back is turning out to be non-bed reading friendly
I am thankful for... my husband being on vacation this week, AND that I am not fertile the entire time he'll be off. Last year eaach and every time he was on vacation, I was fertile. Okay, maybe TMI--but I am thankful for that!
From the learning rooms... lots of talk about the inauguration and about how the government works- it's structure, etc.
From the kitchen... tonight steaks from Angel Food Ministries, with snap peas and sweet potatoes. Hopefully to bake some kind of goody this week.
I am wearing... my jammies, even though it's 2:30. It's a reminder that it's a vacation day.
I am creating... hopefull a sort of blanket-y , wrap thing. If I can get my stitches to stay on my needles. I resorted to using duct tape, and as with all things, duct tape has made it better.
I am going... to a university gymnastics meet with my oldest two daughters in a little while
I am reading... From Here To Eternity by James Jones
I am hoping... that we won't spend the whole week fighitng colds.
I am hearing... the oldest two fighting over their chess game. The youngest two destroying the living room as they "watch" Blue's Clues (do television shows get quotations or italicized?)
Around the house... our laundry is caught up. I am hoping to work on the closet project I've
undertaken this week
One of my favorite things... though I almost never do it- is sleeping in. My husband got up with the smalls today and let me linger in bed for another hour. Can't tell you the last time that happened!
A few plans for the rest of the week: same ol', smae ol'. School stuff, gymnastics, violin starts. I am hoping to play more with my kids this week.
Here is picture thought I am sharing...
Join in the Simple Woman's Dyabook here:http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/
Sunday, January 18, 2009
My Own Mothering Adventure
Over at Reading to Know, Carrie wrote a post entitled The SAHM Adventure, which really got me thinking. What do I want my children to think about me when they're grown?
I know what I want for them. I want them to grow up to be people who love learning things--whatever it is whether it's art, or crafting, or encyclopedic knowledge of pirates, or quantum physics, or music, or topography, or reading or writing or fashion design. I want them to be passionate about something and carry with them curious minds. I want them to be compassionate and honest people. I want them to be people who balance honoring themselves with honoring others. I wan them to be selfless and humble, but not weak doormats. I want them to be competent at household things like banking, laundry, cooking, home repairs, etc. I want them to be comfortable around all kinds of people and in all kinds of situations. I want them to be comfortable with who they are, and yet always trying to be the best them they can be.
It's harder for me to pinpoint what it is I want their perceptions of me to be when they are adults. I think mostly I hope they'll forgive me. I know that I am very far from being a perfect mom. Sometimes even very far from being a good mom. I don't even always try my best. But I hope they can look back and see that mostly I was trying, trying to always be a better person, a better mom. I hope they will think that I was a good friend to others, and ready to help when others were in need. I hope they will think that I was not hypocritical to my faith or to my ideals. I hope they will look back at my motherhood of their childhood years and see that it is possible to work through some serious defects of character. I think most of all I hope they will look back and feel that they were unconditionally loved.
In a lot of ways it is very helpful to concretely spell out my hopes for them. Yet at the same time, it leaves me seriously convicted, because I see so many ways in which I think I am falling short of leaving them with those thoughts. I am going to revisit this post from time to time and assess how I am doing and try to make some short term goals, and see if I've met those goals. I think my first set of goals will be:
I know what I want for them. I want them to grow up to be people who love learning things--whatever it is whether it's art, or crafting, or encyclopedic knowledge of pirates, or quantum physics, or music, or topography, or reading or writing or fashion design. I want them to be passionate about something and carry with them curious minds. I want them to be compassionate and honest people. I want them to be people who balance honoring themselves with honoring others. I wan them to be selfless and humble, but not weak doormats. I want them to be competent at household things like banking, laundry, cooking, home repairs, etc. I want them to be comfortable around all kinds of people and in all kinds of situations. I want them to be comfortable with who they are, and yet always trying to be the best them they can be.
It's harder for me to pinpoint what it is I want their perceptions of me to be when they are adults. I think mostly I hope they'll forgive me. I know that I am very far from being a perfect mom. Sometimes even very far from being a good mom. I don't even always try my best. But I hope they can look back and see that mostly I was trying, trying to always be a better person, a better mom. I hope they will think that I was a good friend to others, and ready to help when others were in need. I hope they will think that I was not hypocritical to my faith or to my ideals. I hope they will look back at my motherhood of their childhood years and see that it is possible to work through some serious defects of character. I think most of all I hope they will look back and feel that they were unconditionally loved.
In a lot of ways it is very helpful to concretely spell out my hopes for them. Yet at the same time, it leaves me seriously convicted, because I see so many ways in which I think I am falling short of leaving them with those thoughts. I am going to revisit this post from time to time and assess how I am doing and try to make some short term goals, and see if I've met those goals. I think my first set of goals will be:
1. to spend some one on one playtime this week with my middle child who is seriously getting on my nerves right now
2. to spend some family playtime together this week. We'll aim small for now- how about 2 hours of just play with all of the wees ( though I am around all the time, it's unusual for me to just set aside all chores and things to just play)
3. maybe three nights this week to involve all of the oldest kids in preparing dinner. They all love to do it, but I get annoyed because our time is so pressed. But I am going to try to just start earlier- when possible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)