Happy Falker Satherhood - EDITED

My original post was full of TMI angst and Blah Blah Blah... Bottom line is:

In the meantime, Happy Falker Satherhood to all the falking sathers out there, letting us do the heavy lifting and leaving yourselves all the good parts.  You're awesome.

Its Own Reward

This week, D told me that he wasn't sure he wanted to be a parent when he grew up, because it looks really hard to him. 

"You're always tired and we make work for you to do all the time, plus you have a job.  I just think it looks really hard."

After I had a moment of being ashamed of myself for making my boys think they are a burden and that my life is crap because I'm a parent, I told him that yes, parenting is hard work. But it has one fabulous, built-in reward: the children. 

My rewards:

• A boy who loves to visit with me, to sit on the sofa at night and just chat.  About what's going on with friends, his weird thoughts, his dreams (not aspirations, mind you -- long-winded descriptions of his nighttime adventures.  Payback for my own childhood, I guess...), contemplations on the cosmos, fears, hopes...  I know that it won't always be like this.  Someday soon, he'll grow up into a teenager and I'll miss these talks.  So this is my reward, being paid forward.
• A boy who wakes up in the morning and smiles and says he slept "great!" and sits up and says "You're beautiful today, Mom."

• Good grades and good health, even if maybe not always good manners.  (That's my fault, I know...)
• Creative minds growing in my home.  Such fantastic drawings and stories being made!  Although, when they are making them up together, they always end up in some idiotic song or scatalogical humor.  But that's part of the Boy Charm, right?

• Boys who understand that when you pee somewhere other than right into the water, that you need to clean it up right then.  (You're welcome, Future Daughters-In-Law)
• A boy who tells me that the reason I'm the Best Mom In The Universe is because I cook him delicious food, just the way he likes it.  And he doesn't like anything.
• A pair of boys who love each other, and aren't afraid to show it.  They pass each other in school and say "Hi" and even hug if they can. 

And today I got the sweetest note from Mom about my kids, and maybe that's a different - also very wonderful - kind of reward: knowing that the mother you respect, who raised some fairly fabulous kids of her own (cough, cough...), thinks your kids are pretty great, too.

Thoughts on Motherhood

I found this piece that I wrote last year, and thought I would share it with you...

August 22, 2009 - I just took a survey online about motherhood. It asked the question:

Mothering In Your Own Words...

Would you please share with me your thoughts and feelings about your mothering experiences and your goals, hopes, and aspirations for the future. Please respond in whatever direction you'd like. These are the kinds of questions I'd like to consider:

What do you want for yourself and for your children?

Where does your mother role or motherhood fit within these plans?

What choices do we have as mothers?

Do you believe that if women CHOOSE motherhood, we are supposed to give up other areas of our lives? What if we don't?

 My response:

I want my children to be healthy and happy and safe. I want them to be responsible, caring, considerate, productive, compassionate, loving, trusting adults. For myself, I want to be balanced and healthy. Happy would be nice. I'm none of those things. I think I pour all of myself into taking care of and providing for my kids and have nothing left over for me.

I don't think that when we choose motherhood we should be expected to give up everything else. Yes, some things we have to give up - they are frankly incompatible with responsibly raising good people. Bad habits, bad behavior, long hours away from home, a certain degree of freedom (to come and go as you please, for example). Even people who can hire other people to help them raise their kids should give those things up. But we should not be expected to give up our jobs, talents, hobbies, interests, enthusiasms, joys, health, looks, laughter... I don't think that people expect moms to give up those last items, but the first ones are looked at as either/or propositions and since you do have to make sacrifices for the sake of responsible parenting, then I have found that the latter items fade away, too.

That sounds grim. I think it wasn't really that way so much when I was married - bearing the full burden of everything does make you lose all else. Motherhood is isolative enough, but you add on modern American life, and it's downright desolate.

Good thing I love the little buggers.

Dinner Tonight

Photo courtesy Twicefivemiles on www.thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen

Tonight dinner had me in a quandary. First, I thought I would take it easy and just order pizza. But really... What kind of mother am I? So I turned to my favorite gal, the Pioneer Woman, for inspiration. She has this fabulous site (see my "most excellent links" at right), and among other things there is a sibsite called The Tasty Kitchen.

I had a toss-up between pork chops (from the site) with three-cheese risotto (me) or spaghetti lasagna (also from the site)... The Italian won! I've never made it before. The author/contributor promises that it is loved by all, so I'm counting on it. I didn't have a green pepper fit for cooking (and T wouldn't have eaten it anyway), so I left it out, and I added black pepper and Garlic Garlic seasoning to the cheese stuff. Can't wait to taste it.





In the meantime, I'm headed out to watch Netflix movies via my Roku box with the boys. Looks like tonight it's The Toy. Haven't seen that in about 30 years!

Chasing that White Rabbit

Here's what I've done since I got home from work:
1. Listened to my latest Jack Reacher novel, "The Enemy", while sketching/doodling on the sofa.
2. Ate a hot dog.
3. Talked with my mom, telling her I am too tired to go to dinner -- forgot I had just eaten a hot dog and that's why I wasn't hungry, really.
4. Decided that a hot dog wasn't a nutritious dinner and had some grapes.
5. Wondered about my taxes.
6. Continued to listen to Jack Reacher defy The Man. Whoops - the iPod is running low, so I have to plug it in. Crap. Now it's automatically syncing (hate typing that word) and I've lost my book. Maybe I'll go and...
7. Read my Yahoo news, which took me down the rabbit hole...
8. Went to iTunes to look up Kanye West stuff (due to Yahoo reading), and ended up downloading Kanye as well as Kelly Clarkson, Jason Mraz, Glee soundrack vol. 1, John Mayer, Lady Antebellum, and P!nk. Couldn't bear to even think about poor Britney - what a train wreck. And that voice... that horrible, tinybaby voice.
9. Read posts about American Idol from 2008 and 2009. Learned what Danny Gokey's been up to.
10. Learned all about The Runaways, including Lita Ford's Twittered sex life (ewww), Joan Jett's undeclared sexuality, Sandy West's unfortunate demise, and Micki Steele's inability to deal.
11. Learned that Leather Tuscadero was really Suzi Quatro, and that she had a real live rocker career, and that she sang "Stumblin' In".
12. Had to do a double-take at Jim Gillette's package -- good Lord, jeans were tight in the '80's.
13. Found a blog, "Soup is Not a Finger Food", which looks mildly interesting. So far it's no Pioneer Woman or Manic Mommies...
14. Remembered that I had a blog, too!

You're welcome.

Gaaahhhhhlitter!

Will post later the pics of the ginormous mountain Dean and I are creating. It's a geography project he's doing for school.

He's pretty handy with a glue bottle and a pair of scissors and my styrofoam carving skills are likely to make any 4th grade teacher stop and go "hmmm..." (and then likely question just how much of this project was done by her student). But really, Dean did all the research, came up with the design, the concept, the idea of the little snowboarding dude (very awesome), and laid down all the grass and most of the shrubbery. He created all the signs, came up with the general concept of how to get all the required elements onto this crazy project... I handled the sharp objects and the stuff likely to spill and ruin my carpets. (Please note irony, below)

And at the end, I thought it would be super to sprinkle just a little fairy dust glitter over the top so it sparkled like actual snow does. (Look, I have two boys and I need a little glitter in a project from time to time and this was a perfectly justifiable use of it. So don't question the glitter!) The only problem is that when I opened the package, I ran into a little bit of a design flaw on the big 3 oz jar of fairy dust. See, the top works like a sprinkle dealie: you twist it and shake fairy dust into a satisfyingly invisible sparkly aura. But on the bottom, when you take it out of the package it's hung in, the damned thing pops off and dumps everything in your lap and subsequently onto the carpet.

And now I had to take off my pants in the dining room because otherwise I was tracking enormous amounts of glitter through the house. But I didn't want to add to the glitter problem in the carpet, so I reached over and grabbed the clean sheets (why are there clean sheets in the dining room? Come over to my house sometime and it will become immediately apparent...) so that when I stood up, the bulk floated down to the navy sheets.

The vacuum was awesome. It's mostly plugged up with the vacuumed remnants of the mountain carving, so the glitter was coming up, but slowly. And you know that little draft that puffs out ahead of the vacuum? It was softly blowing fairy dust all over my dining and living rooms. Beautiful in daytime, I'm sure.

Long story short: Now my house has a trail of fairy dust from the dining room to the back door (where I took the pants & sheets to shake them out), and I suspect that all the laundry done in the house for the next week or so will come out with sparkly glittery fabulosity all over. Which is not great if you're a 4th grade boy. Or a kindergartener boy.

But my socks are kind of awesome to watch here in the light.

How does she do it?

I'd just like to point out that I made it through an entire day today without my iPod. That's a potentially catastrophic situation, people, and I handled it with charm and aplomb. (I'm not actually sure what aplomb is, but I'm sure I handled it that way.) A new batch of podcasts came out over the weekend, with more to come tomorrow night (after LOST!), so the fact of the matter is that I really need my little appendage.

I wonder if TiVo can tell that I have a new love interest? I've loved TiVo for so long - almost 8 years and I still use my original unit. I think they become sentient after a time. I think they eventually know just who you are and whether you are slacking in viewing time. That's when they probably know something is up. Things just aren't what they used to be. You don't spend the time with Oprah and you've cut Grey's Anatomy from your list. Something is up. What is this Dr. Who and Caprica nonsense? It's time for me to go spend some time making TiVo feel better by watching some Project Runway and Daily Show. Manic Mommies can wait until tomorrow.

The best laid plans...

It was going to work so perfectly. I had it all figured out. We had too many commitments for the time allotted and I had figured out how to do it all.

D had a birthday party today that was going to take him an hour away, to Weston, MO, to go sledding at the ski area. Right in the middle of that, though, he had a basketball game back here in town. The last game of the season, and two kids down - so if he didn't go, then no subs available and nobody would get a sub.

So the plan was to send him up with the kids to go sledding (snow tubing, really), and then drive an hour to go get him, an hour back to be there in time for the game, and then back to the kid's house for the sleepover part of the party.

All went without a hitch. We were even 5 minutes ahead of time when we rolled into the school parking lot.

The game is tomorrow.

Smile, Valentine!

T got some red Pla-Doh today at his class's Valentine's Day party and made some big lips that he then turned into a giant smile.

Everybody could use a smile like this.

Deep Thoughts

So I'm not sure what direction this blog is going to take. I think They say that a blog should be a good reflection of yourself. So if that's true, then get ready for a train that jumps the tracks a LOT.

The thing that finally prompted me to start this up (after ruminating over the possibility for about 4 years since I shut down my last, homemade blog) was a conversation I had this morning with my 9-year-old son.

We were at the doctor's office for a checkup, waiting in the exam room for the physician to show up (ahem). D was looking out the window, with this thoughtful look on his face. I asked what he was looking at, and he said, "Just the trucks moving around outside." So I gave him a little window tour...

"That building right there is where I went to nursing school. Well, the actual buildings where I had classes are mostly gone, but that's where they were. The one you see there is new since I went there. And that building there, across the courtyard? That's where my new office is going to be."

He chewed on that for a few seconds and then said, "It's hard to think that you've come so far as a nurse, but you're so close to where you started."

"You never cease to amaze me. That was really deep, dude." I couldn't keep from calling him "dude" -- seems right if you point out that someone made a deep comment.

He then told me, "Yeah, you know, there's usually a lot going on up here," pointing at his head. "Like, when I'm thinking, it's usually about blasting things or locking doors."

My genius.

He completely shattered that moment. I love that, though: blasting things and locking doors.