Letting Go

I wrote this some time ago and never published it:

Letting go. I need to work on that. I think I've improved over the years as a mom but it is still a weakness for me. Letting go of what exactly? Control. I've always had the hardest time giving up control when it comes to my kids. One of the areas it has been the hardest is in the kitchen. One of my excuses is I don't have a huge kitchen so it's just easier to do it myself. And it really is a bad excuse because I hosted two cooking classes last year with Isabella and her friends and I had five extra people in the kitchen with me and we managed to make it work.

Sunday the girls found this recipe in a magazine and wanted to try it out since we just happened to have all the ingredients on hand. It was for banana split ice cream sandwiches. We were making to cookie part and I told the kids to put spoonfuls of the dough evenly spaced on the cookie sheet. All of a sudden I'm feeling very tense and I'm having a flashback to this episode of the PBS cartoon Arthur that I saw with the kids when they were little. If you haven't watched Arthur (and maybe they do it differently now, I don't even know if they still are making new episodes of that show, my kids never watch it anymore-stupid satellite discouraging my kids from watching PBS) they had this thing between cartoons where they would show real kids doing things. This particular episode showed kids at a blind school making cookies. I remember watching that and as they were tapping the dough off of their spoons onto the cookie sheet the best they could- but of course it wasn't that neat because they couldn't see what they were doing- I felt very tense just watching them do that and that is the feeling I had watching the kids put the dough on the cookie sheet, especially Noah. I know it's wrong, a bit of a sickness even. What will happen if the cookies don't turn out perfect? Nothing, that's what. And I'm not anywhere close to being the worlds greatest baker and I'm too impatient to make things really pretty so I don't know why I care how the kids do it.

I do things on my own timeline. When the girls were younger I picked the next days clothes out for them every night before they went to bed. This went on later into the elementary years than it really needed to. They could have been doing it themselves. But they do just fine now (and learned how to match their clothes, you never saw my kids wearing ridiculous mismatched combinations, not that that really matters in the scheme of things). I'm lightening up a little as they get older. As I get older. I think it was all a defense mechanism since you often feel like you have very little control over your life when you have young kids. That's also why they almost ALWAYS listened to my music in the car, not preschooler music. But they are growing up. They are capable of much and it's my job to help them discover what they can do. This year I will work on that.

Hello Friends

Friends, I need your help. I have a mystery blog visitor who needs to be identified. I know it's probably a friend or relative and I don't mind strangers popping in. I'm just curious about the identity of a particular regular visitor. So if my regular visitors wouldn't mind, could you leave me a comment? You don't have to register with blogger to comment. Just leave it under anonymous and leave your name. Thanks for the help!

2010 part one

I should write on the year. Wrap up 2010. And do many posts on it too because I need more posts under 2010 (as previously mentioned). First of all, this year kicked my butt a little. I started the year excited. School. I loved school! Then I got called to the primary presidency. (That's still a head scratcher.) I was stressed (it doesn't take much) so I dropped the math class. I had this hand pain that made writing a lot difficult too. So I only had the online art class, but I loved it. I finally felt I had direction. I was working toward something. I've had the raising the kids thing going on for years and I really, really love my kids but I needed to go back to school. I've known that for a long time.

So there I was, in school. I had direction, a major in elementary ed., I was being a great example to my kids. To my girls especially. I believe that kids are more successful as adults if they see positive roll models of success in their parents. I love my parents but I didn't have that from them. So I really wanted to be that kind of role model. And don't give me that whole, well being a mom is the most important job there is for a woman. Don't give me that because I KNOW that. At least if you are a mom it is. If you are not then you are just putting down the woman who is not a mom. So I know that and I constantly think about if what I'm doing, whatever I'm doing, is best for my kids. But I wanted to show them I could be successful somewhere else too. I still want to show them that. But I'm a chicken and I worry about a million different things. In the fall I started with three classes and ended up with zero. One was dropped so I could focus on math, which I am scared of. One was dropped because I was annoyed with the teacher and the 800 page book for a two credit class and the fact that I could not get the 800 page book for the two credit class. The whole thing started off badly and it wasn't even because of my own bumbling which believe me happens often enough. So I was down to just the math class and then we found out Isabella has celiac disease and I would have to learn to cook everything without gluten (read: wheat flour). That and I was scared of the class and the teacher didn't know how to teach very well. Psyched out again. So I took the semester off.

Things started out great then suddenly I was back to square one, actually more like square negative ten or something like that. I was unsure of myself, I didn't know if I was doing the right thing with school. I'm still not sure. There were other obstacles too. After a while you begin to wonder, are these obstacles something I'm supposed to be persevering on and fighting my way around? Or are these obstacles telling me to go in another direction? My thoughts were, well screw it all, I'm just going to go get a job at Barnes & Noble. Because I've always sort of wanted to work at Barnes & Noble. But I'm not about to get a job (if they'd have me) at a store that is at least 30 minutes away from my house, depending on the location, just to be paid minimum wage. So I've been thinking, thinking, thinking. I've come up with an idea. I don't know if it is the best idea. I'm beginning to think there is no best idea. I've wondered if it may be settling. But is there really settling or is there just making choices and trying to come up with the choice that makes the most sense? I don't know. The one thing I do know is the biggest reason this is so hard to figure out is because I've got these three young people in my life and how it affects them for the next ten years is of utmost importance to me. Making everything a hundred times more confusing than it would be otherwise. That and money. Money always complicates things too.

One More

Another video, because I'm still bulking up 2010 on the blog and this was my favorite song going into 2010. Sad and beautiful. It came out in 2006 though. I like music on my own timetable. Maybe in five years I'll be into Lady Gaga. Hahahahahaha! I don't know who's video this is. I'm pretty sure it's not the Decemberists. It cracks me up when people make their own videos for songs and stick them on youtube. It reminds me of when I was in third grade and we'd make up these elaborate lip sync performances to songs from Grease.

Home

There are only a couple of days left in the year and I've only done thirty or so blog posts this year. I keep thinking maybe it's the end of the blogging road for me but I still have something to say that I haven't said yet. I'm not exactly sure what that is though. It's facebook. Too many one liners. There's nothing left to expound upon after so many of those. So I need to start bulking up the blog; and I need to get those singamajigs off the page. They were cute at first but rapidly grew annoying. I'll start with this video.* One of the funnest songs of the year. I've always liked hippies. Have occasionally wanted to be a hippy. I could never reach hippy status though because I'm too uptight, straightlaced and I insist on shaving everyday (legs get too itchy otherwise.) I miss my old hippyish next door neighbors. They brought balance to the place.
*Don't worry, this blog isn't going to turn into a showcase for youtube videos.

Peace, Love and Understanding

One of my favorite Christmas songs that isn't actually a Christmas song but should be, and a good version of it too.

Thanksgiving!

I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. And it had been about five years since I last cooked a turkey. I'd like to thank all the people who offered up the Reynolds Cooking Bag suggestion (if I had a dollar for every time...) but I decided to to go with my mom's tried and true foil pan meets foil tent covering method. You can't really go wrong following mom's advice on Thanksgiving, right? And that green bean salad showed up long after I left home so I don't have to incorporate that. Okay, I think that was really my sister's contribution, but whatever. So we had Brent's dad and step mom Karen over and Brent's sister and her boyfriend and their little Gabby girl over. The kids loved playing with little Gabby. The girls love babies and toddlers. I happened to watch the Ellen show for about two minutes with Isabella a couple of days before and she was giving away Singamajigs. Cutest, funniest toys I've seen in a long time. Then I ran into them at Walmart the next day for $9 each so I used Gabby as an excuse to buy one. So the kids could play with it with her. Well it's a lot cheaper than having another baby of my own just so I can buy little kid toys again. If you haven't seen these things:



Mine is a little more ghetto looking than these and I think it's probably best to have a chorus of them, but one will have to suffice. Anyway, we all had a good time and the food turned out good I thought. All indications point to no food poisoning. Now I don't want to get rid of the extra table. I kind of like the table for ten sitting in the middle of the living room. But it's going to get pretty tight once the Christmas tree shows up. I think my table setting would have impressed the editors at Country Living magazine (except I had disposable dishes, I should have scoured antique stores for coordinating dishes. But again, whatever.)

 

The next day  the kids were about to have their sugary cereal that they only get on the weekends for breakfast and I thought, Hmm, pumpkin pie and fruit salad would probably be healthier than that. So...

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Zoe's Eleventh

Yes, Zoe's birthday was a couple of months ago and I never posted anything on it. At least we celebrated it on time, huh? So here's a little now. She's 11 now! And she had a sleepover/late night party with a few of her friends. I'm pretty sure they all had fun and they are all good kids who aren't too crazy so it didn't drive the mom crazy having all those girls sleeping over.

You're All Welcome Here

Euuugh. There's the made up word of the day. That and withdrawling. I just saw someone use that and it struck me as funny. So life sucks right now. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Oh, the expounding I would like to do right now. But sadly my personal issues need to stay tucked in my head, or at least thrown up all over Brent for a while. I need like twelve people in twelve categories to be able to vent to. You go in the category of politics (which would probably be pretty easy because I've been working on my apathy). You, over there, you take religion. You take paranoia and hypochondria. And what do you want? Hormonal induced depression? Or, what am I going to do with my life crisis. Or, what am I doing with my life crisis. And you. You get gluten free bread.

Really it's just one of those funks or fogs or something that will eventually lift and all will be fine-ish again. There was a glimmer of the fog lifting yesterday. There was also this good line in a song I was listening to: "Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know, he's got his own blog." Funny. And I almost feel a little better now. Plus Monday I'm going to start working on Project: Holy Crap I'm Going To Be 40 In About Six Months So I've Got To Get It Together in A Good Way Before Then. Yeah, I'll probably go down that sad little path a little.

I truly believe that being happy all the time is overrated. No, you don't want to walk around all the time like you can't get over the disappointment you met in your teenage years but I think it's good to embrace life and all the emotions it brings. With the caveat that you are still a functional human being and able to get done the necessities and not beat your kids or bug the crap out of your husband. (And yes, I may use the words "crap" and "sucks" too often.) But I see people say things like, "I have decided to allow nothing but happiness into my life." Sure happiness is a choice but you can't remove all pain and unpleasantness from your life. Unless, perhaps, you are very shallow and not capable of feeling a range of emotions or doing anything productive with those emotions. This takes nothing away from those who are naturally optimistic. I see them out there. They are a mystery to me but I know they exist. It's kind of like when I was reading this ADHD forum once (when I was convinced I had ADD, not ADHD though. I've never had enough energy to claim ADHD). Some of the people were debating the pros and cons of medication. Some were of the opinion that they did not want to be on medication because it masked their true personality and forced them into a mold that would make them fit in with society, making themselves sort of a shadow of their true self. I think there is definitely a point there. (*Disclaimer, I am in no way qualified to tell someone with ADHD what to do.*) I think those of us who occasionally go to "the dark side" (and I'm not talking about Satan here so relax) should embrace that side (and really, this is everyone at least once in a while). Like I said before, don't embrace it so much that it is all encompassing and you can't function. Also, too much of that can get a bit self involved and narcissistic. Embracing the good and the bad brings about a clarity I think. See, I was feeling quite blah when I started writing this and I already feel better.

Don't get me wrong. I know I have a good life. Got the husband, kids, etc, down in a good way. But sometimes the crazy- it's there. I don't want to feed it too much, but I want it to know he has just as much right to be here as happy and well adjusted do too.

Halloween 2010

Isabella is a dead princess if you can't tell and friend is Annabeth from the Percy Jackson books.

Noah is brain injury boy

nerdy Zoe and nerdy friend

I Remember