I Am Proud to be a Theta Mom

Being a mother has pushed me so far out of my comfort zone that I have to wear a safety helmet just to look back at what I have done in the last five years.

I have suffered the indignities of (multiple) trans-vaginal ultrasounds.  I have worn more bodily fluids than I thought was possible to house in a toddler.  I have survived the withering glance of cruel old women in a McDonalds, a glance made because my child's coat fell on the floor, oh the horror!  I have allowed my home to be overrun by Star Wars guys and princess dress-up clothes, by Little People and washable markers. 

But most of all, I have relinquished my meager sense of control.  I know that, despite me wishing, hoping and cajoling, my children are not me.  They are bound -- mandated, even -- to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, and to celebrate their own victories.  They are growing, reaching, yearning in spite of me.

It is simply my job to cultivate the world around them, to make it a safe place for them to test their imaginations, theories, and flights of fancy.  I wield the sword of motherhood, the shield of love, and the helm of experience and I use this armor daily as I fight to keep my children free - free to become a person that is so ultimately NOT ME.

I could, perhaps, try to force them into a life that is as ill-fitting as a pair of outgrown shoes, but has anyone ever looked back and said, "I am so glad my parents loved who they wanted me to be and not who I am!  Really, I am..."

And so I equip them with manners, advise them on how to approach decisions, and help them understand consequences.  In every moment, I leave them with as many tools as I know possible because surely one of them will fit the situation, right?  But in some instances there are no tools, there is no expertise, and my advice is not heeded.  And then I open my arms wide, wide, wide to engulf my hurt, angry, or utterly confused babe, using my body and heart to create a barrier, to hopefully absorb some of the pain, to help them make sense of the nonsense.  On every breath I hope that I have done it right, knowing that I am fighting a losing battle, that there are times when my love will not be enough, not even close to enough.

This is why I am  Theta Mom.  To find out what that means, check out this blog entry over at Theta Mom.

Got My Head Up My...

I think I have my head wedged tightly up my bum.  Seriously...

I totally forgot to call my Dad on Father's Day.  Who does that?  Me...  I did text him when I remembered it, but that was at 10:30 last night -- and he's on EST, not CST like me.  Sorry, Daddy...

And then, I realized that I changed purses and never mailed a Mother's Day card to my Grandmother.  Sigh...  I am clearly not going to win "Most Favored Granddaughter" status this year.  Sorry, Grandma...

What is going on with me?

I think the end of the academic year came rushing at me like a freight train on speed -- recovering from that has left me floundering, my head spinning right round like a record, baby.  When you add in the amazing traveling husband, the t-ball playing, birthday partying boy child and the potty training girl child you get a mama about as organized as my Mom's junk drawer.  Oh, yeah -- there's the chickens, house, laundry, cooking, cleaning, bill-paying, weed-filled gardening and trying-to-lose-weight-by-running, too.

I don't really have an excuse because when said hubby isn't traveling or working a show during the evening, he's a pretty darn helpful guy.  Unfortunately, June has seen one opera, one trip to Texas, and the current week-long sojourn to Nebraska for this poor, overworked daddy.  Poor fella spent Father's Day in a rented van driving through thunderstorms to recruit aspiring thespians. 

And then, when I did get a chance to talk to him, I groused about the four empty ice cube trays in the kitchen.  No one else uses ice, ice, baby.  Just him.  And the wonderful wife that is me took the opportunity to complain to him about it in Father's Day.  Sorry, honey...

So, yeah...  I've got a big ol' head wedgie right now... 

Jock Itch

It should surprise no one that I am not, umm, athletically gifted.  I'm a complete klutz -- and I'm not really exaggerating.  Oh, sure, I have really good body awareness and rhythm -- I did ballet for 15 years and figure skated and have a blue belt in Aikido -- but when it comes to sports involving balls, nets, racquets, goals, or bases I am useless.  I'm totally OK with that.

Scott isn't a natural athlete, either.  He admits to being fairly average when it comes to athletic prowess.  He's fine with that, too. 

Unfortunately, this has led to a deficit regarding athletic instruction and our children.  They don't know the rules for baseball, basketball or football.  They've never played Minnows and Sharks on a soccer field.  Milo has a baseball glove, but has never used it.  He steps with the wrong foot when he throws.  It just hasn't been a priority for either him nor us. 

Are we doing him a disservice?  Milo has never expressed any interest in learning athletic things, but I'm starting to feel like I need to give him a crash course in Catch to keep him from being the last kid on the bench.  This weekend he had a playdate with a preschool classmate, who stands a full head taller than Milo and probably outweighs him by 15 pounds.  And throws a football better than either Scott or me.  Definitely better than Milo, who was embarrassed and frustrated. 

As a kid, I had opportunities to participate in group athletics, and I did, though I greatly preferred my music and dance lessons.  I had more fun chatting with my teammates and cheering for them than I did actually playing the game.  I wasn't aggressive or physically competitive with the kids and my hand-eye-coordination was appalling.  I suffered through gym class the way other kids suffered through spelling. 

We have tried hard to model for our kids that there is not one be-all-end-all defining characteristic in people -- that just because you enjoy doing something it doesn't mean you can't enjoy doing something else, too.  You can like BOTH swimming and playing the guitar.  You can go skating AND like painting a room.  We do work at a liberal arts college and have always connected with the liberal artist's mindset -- that learning about everything in the world is better for your mind and spirit than just focusing in on one thing.

I'm pretty sure that we're raising a couple of nerds-in-training, but I guess I'm hoping that they won't be the last nerd chosen on the team.  With that in mind, I think I'm going to have to find my ball glove and teach the kids the very, very little I know about sports.  So they can soundly kick my butt in any game they take up.

Milestone: 100th Post

I've hit a milestone!  My 100th post.  So, in honor of that, I thought I'd try a blog hop today.  Although it is doubtful I'll grow my followers from 20 to 100 today, I'm aiming for a 50% increase so that I get to 30.  As always, I reciprocate and love commenting!

I've also decided to point you toward some of my favorite posts.

It's Raining, It's Pouring is my reaction to the news that a good friend had (yes, HAD -- now she has a lovely pair of C cups that I covet) breast cancer.  It's might not be as funny as some of my posts, but I think it one of my most revealing posts.  I still tear up over this post.

Sidewalk is one of my most wistful and bittersweet posts, also the post where I feel like I really hit my stride and started singing most clearly with my voice.  It is about my darling Violet.

Lessons is about my Milo.  It is also the moment when I started tagging my posts "Mom Lessons" when I realize I'm learning more than my kids.

Laughter is the Best Medicine might be the best window into my sense of humor and the relationship I have with my family.  It makes me giggle when I read it, so I hope you like it, too!

Hosted by One 2 Try, Hearts Make Families, and Midday Escapades.

Decision

Yesterday was a lousy day. Seriously rotten. It started with me waking to find one of the dogs had an accident overnight and ended with me crying myself to sleep.

Actually, aside from the poop, the morning was fine. Work was good, I had a good lunch (well, I had a root beer float for lunch and it tasted good), and getting Milo to school was all fine. Then it went downhill.

As you may have deduced, we are trying to conceive our third child. Yesterday, it was obvious that I am, again, not pregnant. Per my doctor's orders, I called her office, chatted with the nurse for a little while, then was transferred to scheduling to make an appointment. The scheduler said, Thursday, April first and I blinked. I said, "The first is on a Monday." And it is -- in February and March. But it is on a Thursday in APRIL. Two months from now. I stammered, "B-b-b-but I'm an established patient..."

I can't recall much of the rest of the conversation as my calendar started swimming before my eyes and my heart started pounding so loud that I couldn't hear. "Nine or two thirty?" Nine or two thirty for what? I answer, "Nine." My desk seems far away, like my arms are telescoping. All I can see on my Outlook calendar is April first and the nine o'clock appointment I scheduled for that day, two months from now. I am crying on the phone to a scheduler and I feel like I'm about four inches tall. When I hang up, I cry hard for about twenty minutes before dragging myself to a meeting across campus. I am actually thankful that the wind is gusting so hard because it hides from my co-workers the fact that I have been sobbing.

The meeting is a blur. I race back across campus to pick up the kids, who protest leaving. Milo, in particular, doesn't want to stop playing with his best friend. I can't blame him -- anyone was more fun than me yesterday. We get loaded into the car and start for home and I drive into a blizzard. Three times the driving snow completely obscures the road and I held the car steady, hoping that we weren't on ice. Three times we emerge from the squall still squarely on the road and I thank my instincts.

We get home and, though only about an inch of snow has fallen, there is a three-foot drift between the garage and the house. I guided my car gently into the garage and told the kids that I would be taking them, one at a time, to the house because the wind and snow were so bad. Milo was too heavy to carry, but he gripped my hand tightly as we started out toward the house. The wind was at our backs and it actually blew him a few feet on the icy driveway, which he thought was fun. We navigated through the drift and to the house. As I let him in, the door flew inside so hard that it nearly took my arm with it. I realized that the garbage cans were tipped and blown across the front yard. Thankfully, they were empty, so garbage wasn't scattered, too.

As I made my way into the wind and back to the garage for Violet, I understood instantly how early prairie settlers could wander into a storm and become lost forever. I couldn't see, the wind was blowing so hard that I could barely breathe, and the only thing guiding me across the drive was the light from the garage door opener. I unbuckled Violet, bundled her and told her to bury her head in my neck as I carried her across the driveway. After setting her safely in the house, I made my last trip back to the car for all of the incidentals -- backpacks, snow pants, purse, shoes, etc. I locked the car and made my last return trip back to the house for the night, thankful that I didn't need to be out any more.

I was greeted by chaos when I get inside -- both kids wanted their winter gear off, the dogs, who had been home alone since morning, wanted out. I was trying to figure out what time it was, concerned that Scott was driving his little yellow car because it doesn't handle well in the snow. As I opened the door to let the dogs out, I see broken glass everywhere. Our recycling bins had been tipped, emptied, and bandied about by the wind. The back yard was glinting with glass, the plastic and cardboard were long gone, swept away by the harsh wind. How ironic that the tubs we were using to keep the environment clean had vomited their contents all over that same environment. Aluminum cans rolled by like sagebrush. I knew that this clean-up would take much time and I wasn't comfortable leaving the kids alone in the house long enough to do it myself, so I apologized to the yard and told the mess it would have to wait until Scott got home.

By the time I got the dogs out and back in, both kids had gotten their winter gear off and Milo came running to tell me that the dogs had gotten into my bathroom garbage again. And they had. There were used tissues and used ovulation predictor kit strips strewn over the floor. I didn't leave this mess to Scott, who was finally pulling into the driveway safely. I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to see him! He bundled up and attempted to track down the garbage cans and as much recycling as he could gather. We had a casualty in that two of our bins were nowhere to be found, we're assuming that they have gone to live the rest of their lives in a cornfield. It took him about an hour to collect as much as he could.

I was pretty teary most of the night, but my children were extra loving and kind, so I am grateful for that. Both took time to snuggle me, both listened well and were on their best behavior. I couldn't be happier about that.

I did come to a decision about my blog, though. In between my phone call with the scheduling nurse and the meeting across campus, I received an email from an Iowa blogger to whom I had sent a few questions about taking a blog public. She responded with a few tips and suggestions, for which I am grateful. Unfortunately, one of her suggestions didn't land well with me in the emotional state that I was in after talking to my doctor's office. The suggestion was to tone down the site so that it would be more family-friendly because most advertisers wouldn't feel comfortable with mt content. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad suggestion, but at the time that I was reading it, I was so vulnerable and hurting so much already that I felt rejected with a capital R. I fixated on this comment for hours. I heard myself thinking, "If only she'd said 'I read your posts and enjoyed them, but...' before she decided I was foul..." In my mind, I worked up a scenario where the Iowa mom blog fairies were all sitting back, laughing at me because the people reading my blog were deranged, immoral criminals or something. That what I write isn't user-approved or recommended by nine out of ten dentists. That, once again, I didn't fit in. It was crushing.

I cried over that almost as much as I cried over not being about to see my doctor for two months. I cried a lot yesterday. A lot. And this morning, in the shower -- that place where all Good Ideas visit -- I decided that if I wasn't able to take a bit of free constructive criticism, I wasn't going to be able to take reader comments on my very real thoughts and feelings. So I am not going to take this blog public to anyone who doesn't already know and love me. I don't want people who don't get my humor to read this and be repulsed. I don't write for them, I write for me. I know that I am a good person, I know that I am kind to those around me and tolerant of all people. I don't need to fit in anywhere but my own life, and, at 36.5 years of age, I'm so OK with that.

So, if you're reading and love me, great! If you're reading and don't love me, great!