Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts

Confession of a Marshmallow Mom
7:38 AM - Posted by christina - 3 comments
Our daughter got invited to go boating today. It's the last weekend before she starts high school, she's completed her summer reading logs and has already emailed them to the teacher, and it's supposed to hit 100 degrees. There was no reason to say no... except my own jealousy.

So I agreed, with the condition that the clean her room.

Imagine my surprise when I went to wake her.
"It's 7:00," I said rather gruffly. "And I thought you were supposed to have cleaned your room so you could go."

She just blinked at me.

I used to teach parenting classes. I do know about consequences and follow through and how kids need rules and boundaries. I know she needs to know that when Mom says something, she means it.

I'm also aware of the 14 year old tornado that would have been released if I had done what I should have done, and not let her go. I know how disappointed her friend would be, who I'm sure was only allowed to invite one friend and she chose Kennedy. But these are just excuses.

At times, I am a marshmallow mom, and I'm sure that has contributed to fact that our home often looks like a frat house, that our children often argue and fight, and the fact that I do way more chores than anyone else.

And I'm gonna crack down, really. I've already announced that stuff left in the living room will be dumped outside. With school starting this week, new chore responsibilities will go in to effect. Bedtimes will exist once again... at least for the younger two...

I post this not seeking any support or condolences, but more as a reminder to myself that I really do need to get a little tougher. Most of you are probably guilty of the same behavior, at least once in a while (except for you, Lisa Souers), so maybe you need the reminder too.

I'm also hoping that Kennedy will get wind of the post and suffer a little embarrassment at the picture. Feel free to send her a note :-)










#apieformikey
8:24 AM - Posted by christina - 2 comments
photo by http://mybakingheart.com/


Are you a person who "feels hard?" In situations where someone else might say, "Oh that's so sad!" you are moved to tears? I have always been one of those, and a couple of my kids are too. We're sensitive...perhaps to a fault, because socially, it's not ok to just burst out crying when you see a dog get hit by a car or hear of someone else's tragic misfortune.

I must say, Prozac has helped me with this. I'm not depressed; I love my life. But I really have to be careful and filter out a lot of the "bad", because it can get almost paralyzing. As I flipped through twitter this morning, I kept seeing #apieformikey on a lot of tweets. so I investigated a bit. Within minutes I had the story.

Jennie, a successful food blogger, married and mother of two adorable girls, suddenly lost her husband Mike to a heart attack this past Sunday. I don't know her, but they look to be late 30s-40-ish. I think the girls are 4 and 8. There was no warning. Looking through her stream, I saw she had tweeted Sunday that she had 13 days to get ready for a family vacation, then the next tweet was how she couldn't believe he was gone.

Until today I had not followed Jennie. Didn't even know about her. But her story set me back this morning. Especially the quick video of dad and daughter that she at some point had taken a moment to record on her phone. Take a look. How treasured has that suddenly become?

To help Jennie and her girl's through their grief hundreds of people are following her wish: “make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love… then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on."

On my surprise day off (thanks, boss), I am deeply saddened, perhaps more than most. But I am also reminded how important today is and how we all need to let those we love know just how much we love them.

Blessings to you, Jennie.


Boy to Man
3:32 PM - Posted by christina - 1 comments
Yes, I know I write about my kids a lot. They are pretty much my world, and I am proud of them for not just what they do and accomplish, but for the people that they simply are.

The other day, our oldest, Michael, did something that spoke volumes about who he is, and I nearly drowned in a swell of love for him.

Last Tuesday he took my car to get it serviced at the Honda place by Walmart. Ten minutes after he got there he called me at work .

“You didn’t say it would take an hour,” he complained. “What am I supposed to do for an hour?!”

I told him to go wander around Walmart. Look at videos. Buy something to eat.

Grumbling, he said something about Burger King and hung up, and I went back to what I had been working on.

About an hour and a half later, he showed up in the office. He wasn’t grouchy anymore, and as he gave me the car key he said he was going to a friend’s.

“What did you do while you waited?” I asked.

“Well, I walked to Burger King and I was kinda hungry so I got four hamburgers. But I didn’t eat them because on the way to Walmart I passed four homeless people. There were four between Burger King and Walmart! I gave each of them a burger.”

Then he just kind of shrugged, said he’s text me later, and left the office.

I watched him leave and my heart caught in my throat. My little boy, my baby…

I know he’s almost grown. He kind of has a beard! I know my time left with having him as my child is almost gone.

But that afternoon, I was struck by the young adult he has become, and I realized that, as parents, we must have done somethings right.

Matthew 25:40

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’



The Real Mother's Day Wish List
2:48 PM - Posted by christina - 1 comments


“What I Wanted for Mother’s Day”… I came across this title the other day over at the Tales from the Mommy Track web site. It was sweet—deliciously so—and I highly suggest you take a moment to read. Anyone who has ever been called Mom will appreciate it, the rest of you might learn something.

Walking later that afternoon, sans ipod (amazing how much you can think when you turn off the noise) I began to compile my own list of what I had wanted for Mother’s Day.

Wait! Don’t get me wrong. I did have a lovely Mother’s Day! The judge gave me the beautiful Citizen watch I’d been eyeing for the last month or so, and I received two beautiful, detailed bird houses to add to my collection. After presents and brunch (at the restaurant where our oldest was working!), we went to the Cowiche Creek Nursery, loaded up on plants, and came home, where I puttered around the yard for most of the remainder of the day. It was pretty perfect.

Birdhouses and jewelry and plants are often on my wish lists, because I like them and they are possible. But like Risa Green on Tales from the Mommy Track, there are a few other “gifts” I’d love to receive.

My Top 10 Gifts-for-Mom

1. I want everyone in our house to be in a good mood. For a whole day.

2. I want the dog poop in the yard to be picked up. Weekly. And not by me.

3. I want to be able to find the super glue/duct tape/flat head screwdriver when I need it.

4. I want my children (teens) to stop insulting each other with phrases like, “You’re a vagina!”

5. I want everyone to quit saying, “It’s not mine,” when asked to put something away.

6. I want to have all three of my babies (again, teens) lounge with me on the couch.

7. I want everyone to stop coughing and be well.

8. I want to get the kinds of gifts my babies used to make in school, wrapped in wrinkled brown paper bags that have been carefully sponge painted with rabbits.

9. I want all the dark laundry to be brought to me before I do the dark load.

10. When they go to bed at night, for the rest of their lives, I want my babies to always know how much I love them.

Really. Is that asking too much?



Round Two
4:18 PM - Posted by christina - 4 comments


My morning once again started calmly enough, until we left for school.

I wondered if the anti-school levy signs would still be there. Surely other Selah peeps had the same thoughts of removing them as I did, right?

Just past King’s Row, I saw that indeed, the signs were there. And so were three or four people! Dressed in faded jeans and plaid shirts and worn jackets, they waved homemade signs that were even more direct than the ones stuck in the ground. “It’s OK to Vote NO on Kids.”

That’s all it took for my buttons to be pushed. I wanted to honk—rudely. I really wanted to stop and say something—nasty. But of course, being the kind of person who strives to be understanding and nice to everyone, I did nothing.

Looking back now, it’s good that I kept to myself.

They were old people, just as I suspected when I first saw the signs yesterday. I said “Shame on you,” to myself when I realized I had made that assumption. I thought I was basing my theory on nothing, and felt bad that I had such a prejudice inside of me.

But after visiting today with someone way smarter than me (yeah dude, you know who you are), I realized where my older-people hypothesis came from, as well as a few other things.

1. I’m not such a bad person. In my experience, it is senior citizens who are most often living on fixed incomes. These individuals don’t have the options of taking second jobs, or moving up in the work force to make ends meet. If anyone is going to be against raising taxes, it’s going to be people like this; those with limited, fixed incomes. So in saving face (even if just to myself), I discovered that my shame-inducing initial assumption was not perhaps so shameful, and was actually based on knowledge. Whew!

2. Anti-tax is not anti-kid. I am ranting that our kids need quality education. They’re stating that they don’t want more taxes. While the two are intrinsically tied, they really aren’t related. (I think I just bitch-slapped myself!)

3. Wasted effort. My outrage at the anti-tax campaign is doing little—if anything—to help pass the school bond. I would bet that 90% of you who read my rants already vote. I’m not changing any minds… just preaching to the choir. The only way for Selah to succeed is to identify MORE pro-school voters and make sure they vote.

That said, I’m still angry. We still need to look to the future, and PLAN for it, by teaching our kids the best we can, and helping them reach their full potential. That means computers. That means state-of-the-art technology. That means investment.

But to get involved in a pissing match is a waste of time and resources. Plus, it makes certain mom’s really grouchy.


Vote NO on the Future
7:57 PM - Posted by christina - 9 comments


While driving two of the kids to school today, I notices new yard signs lining the main street of Selah. I paused long enough to read one:

I don't normally use such terms, but WTF? There were 25 or more of them, placed alongside the Vote Yes for Kids signs.

It was startling, really. I've never seen a group go out and actively campaign against a school levy. Someone or some group spent money to have the signs printed, and then surreptitiously put them out in the middle of the night. They didn't even have the courage to do it when someone might see, stop, and ask them about it.

Our own children don't go to school in Selah. They attend a parochial school in Yakima. I realize that we are fortunate to be able to choose where our kids are educated, and that not everyone is in that position.

But never have the Judge or I voted NO on a public school levy or bond.

Today's youth is our country's future. I thought everyone understood that. Don't we want to prepare tomorrow's leaders as best we can?

My head ranted about this all day. At one point I decided I would go downtown tonight and quietly remove the signs. But that would make me as chickenshit as they group behind all this.

Who ARE these people?

OK. I think I'm done now.


Random
5:46 PM - Posted by christina - 5 comments




This will hopefully become a new feature, encouraging me to blog a bit more.

Random will be those, um, yeah—random—topics, that don’t really fit into any of the areas I feel I am supposed to be writing. I say supposed because I’m still struggling with the point of my blog. I’m still reading how I need to find my niche, and have some expertise—or at least some good experience—in it. So far it’s been mommying. And getting old. And playing in the kitchen. No expertise in any of those, but experience.

But today is random. So I’d like to introduce you two my two little friends.

Yes, they are lady bugs. They may very well be man bugs, but I can’t tell—and I really don’t care—so they are my lady bugs.

I discovered these two little friends well after the nights had grown very cold last fall. Before the weather had turned, and the days were still spiking 70 balmy degrees, I had carried numerous neighbors of theirs (perhaps even family members) to the back door, dumping them gently on to potted plants outside.

Somehow, these two evaded my detection, until one day I spotted one moving across the ceiling. Hmmm. I watched it and thought about the fact that if the lady bug were a spider (male or female) I would be running for a broom-like weapon to eradicate all traces of life from the creepy thing. But she wasn’t, and since lady bugs are just so darn cute, I just couldn’t bear the thought of putting her outside, when she would FREEZE TO DEATH within 12 hours. Shortly thereafter, the second one revealed herself.

My daughter thinks I’m a little odd, keeping two bugs in the bathroom over the winter, but she has no desire to kill them either. We wonder how they are still alive, and what they’re eating (once I put a rice crispie near them, but I don’t know if they ate it or not).

Fortunately, one of my houseplants has come down with a few aphids this past week. This morning, while spraying it with insecticidal soap, my little light bulb went off. Lady bugs thrive on aphids. PING!

Now I’ve moved the rather large houseplant to the bathroom. No one uses the bathtub in there, so it’s not in the way.

Dinner is served!