Archive for July, 2010

five finger shoes and brand new things.

Friday, July 16th, 2010

I got these tonight! Which means I got to cross off #42 on my Mighty Life List. I like them so far but it feels really different just walking around. I expect my feet to adjust to them over the next week or so.

scrabble night.

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

I finally tried another game of Scrabble.

This is the one board game that I’m not a fan of at all and it’s mostly because Daniel is amazingly good at it and plays words that I secretly think are ALL LIES.

There is also drama surrounding this game because we played it on our honeymoon and it got so fussy that I walked out on the game, out of the room, and left my fresh new husband sitting there thinking, um, what just happened? YOU PLAYED ZA. THAT is what happened.

But we all played a game last night and it was quite fun (except for Drew who was trying to go to sleep and kept coming out to announce that he just couldn’t do it).

Steve and Cassidy brought cupcakes that were delicious. And as we ate more, the night grew more silly.

And don’t let this picture fool you. Even though Daniel is Srs Bsns on his iPhondle, he was just a kooky as the rest of us.

And then it just got weird.

OR DO I MEAN AWESOME?

parenting in the present, with joy.

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

One of my online friends, Annie, recently linked to an article on Facebook that discusses joyless parenting. After clicking on the link about a week ago, I read the first two paragraphs and then had to add it to my Read Later file because I already had tears in my eyes and my stomach ached.

It ached because I’ve said “I love Drew but I hate my life” so many times that it breaks my heart. Each time those words slip out of my mouth I spend the next five minutes desperately clammering to Daniel I HOPE YOU KNOW I LOVE DREW and DO YOU THINK I’M A BAD PERSON? He always smiles so sweetly to me and calms me with things like yes, you’re a good mother and a good person. You’ve just been through a lot. You’ll adjust.

That’s all well and good but after I finally got the courage to read the entire article, I knew that I couldn’t just wait for Someday When I’d Adjust. I’m not suffering with crippling depression anymore and mothering for me isn’t so much about resentment (as it was during the most horrid days of depression) anymore as it is about joyless repetition. I know that’s horrible. 🙁 It hurts to type that.

It isn’t through any fault of Drew’s though! He’s the most genuine, loving, happy little boy and even if he WAS a fussy kid, it still wouldn’t be his fault that I have succumbed to the lie that modern parenting is drudgery. I haven’t thought it was all drudgery though – we have had these AMAZING moments lately, when the stars are aligned, in which we’re all three HAPPY and SWOONY and I suddenly think, wow, parenting is fun! But it’s as though my brain has categorized mothering as something I have to live through and that it’s mostly difficult, fussy, and I may have one or two days a month that are wiggly.

But that is not what I want at all. I want my relationship with Drew, for as long as we each have breath (and my hope is that we’ll be able to giggle together until we’re both old and wrinkly, wondering where time has gone), to be wonderful, delightful, fun, and dreamy. I want to walk with him, while being emotionally and physically present, as he learns about the world.

Realizing all of this has made me face the reality that I’ve been holding Drew back quite a bit. He turned three in April and for the past six months, he’s been mentally and emotionally moving ahead and yet I’m still treating him like he’s younger. Our list of Things To Work On includes teaching him better table manners, play dates with other kids, getting completely rid of the high chair and sippy cup (he uses a booster seat at the dining room table and a regular cup at the table but the high chair is used a lot for pizza night, movie night, or when I’m just lazy – and he uses the sippy cup at night-time and for most of play-time and I’d rather just get him a water bottle to carry), lots more structure in his day-to-day, and POTTY TRAINING.

I’m always pretty aware of parenting fads, and when Elimination Communication became the Thing To Do (Drew was less than a year old), I bought the book + a baby potty chair. And the potty chair sat in the corner, with dust, because the reality was that I was fighting depression and there was no way I could deal with potty training an infant.

Around two, we bought a real potty chair and pull-ups and had a few conversations with Drew (and attempts) about what should happen and he was pretty upset about it to the point that I decided to wait a month or so. Even though my Granny was calling and writing letters to me about how I should have him potty trained YESTERDAY, I knew that he wasn’t ready.

And then, at some point, we crossed into the reality of Drew being completely ready and his mother ignoring the issue. I’m not sure where that line is and when we crossed it, but we’re totally there. He wakes up with dry diapers each morning, I absolutely know when he’s going to poop or pee and he talks about it all matter-of-factly. But I haven’t been ready. At all.

And when I started pondering the reality of my joyless parenting, I realized that this is a huge opportunity to place myself back in the present of walking with Drew as he encounters these big, new changes. We brought him into the world over three years ago and were SO happy and thankful to have him here. I’m not going to hate myself for going through thick depression and severely struggling with the balance of parenting, but now that those dark clouds have lifted, I’m having to kick myself pretty hard to get back into active mothering and being prepared for constant change.

So, my current plan, if all goes well, is to make this weekend the weekend of Change. We’re spending the next few days talking about it all, re-doing his bedroom and closet, buying pull-ups, big boy underwear, his own soap, and wipes for the bathroom. And then making cookies together as the reward for having met his goals!

But, I’m smiling while doing it. 🙂 I’m really eager for this. I’m aching for it, to be honest. I love Drew so much and I feel like he’s really lost out on wonderful parts of life in the past year or so (just as I have) and I want to make it up to him by showing him that part of growing up is learning all these new wonderful things and that even if it feels overwhelming at times, that I’m going to be there with him, every step of the way.

After breakfast this morning, we sat on the couch and talked about potty-training for a few minutes and I explained that we were going to be talking about it a lot over the next few days and I asked him if he was excited about learning to go in the potty all the time and he said, “no thank you.”

So, if he ends up peeing and pooping all over the carpet, I’m just going to eat all the cookies, have a good cry, and keep trying.

lazy days, tape roads, and delightful things.

Monday, July 12th, 2010

We’ve mostly had a lazy Monday. Our weekend was full of games, movies, food, and hanging out with Steve and Cassidy so as everyone else went back to Work and Responsibility, we slept in until 11am and ate spaghetti for breakfast.

In fact, the only productive thing I’ve done all day was to hit the grocery store this evening and even then, Daniel was with us, and I found myself wandering around the aisles pretty often thinking oh, yes, I want to eat this. And this. And that.

After we put the groceries up tonight, I got out the masking tape because of something I read on Alicia’s secondary rain-day blog. Her idea is something I knew Drew would love and goodness, it’s CHEAP and CAR RELATED.

Drew helped me make the masking-tape roads and throughout the evening he’s added houses and hotels from Peanuts Monopoly as well as train tracks.

And, he’s taken to somersaulting over it all as well.

I love that he can crawl all over it without messing it up and that even after the toys have been put away for the evening, it will be here in the morning for him to play with again. I probably won’t take it up until I vacuum again in a few days. ^_^

And here’s the delightful thing I found this evening:

how do you work this thing?

Monday, July 12th, 2010

It feels like one of those nights where I could stay up for hours and write, write, write but my eyes keep blinking rather slowly every 5 seconds so I’ll make this quick. Also, Drew keeps telling me that he needs a Shiny Sparkly Hug, and a Tiny Friendly Hug, and a Very Big Squeeze to help him go to sleep (can you tell he’s fighting sleep tonight?) so the sooner I close my laptop, the better.

I really just wanted to say hello with a tiny post so that I can move past the weird stage of um, so, how do you work this thing?