Different worlds

Lately, I have been so irritated with money. How we make it, how we spend it, what a constant topic of conversation it seems to be. "How can we adjust the grocery budget again?" "What will we do with our tax refund?" "How much can we realistically spend on a house and still buy organic dairy products and meat but pesticide-full vegetables."
 When you don't have it, you talk about it all the time. When you do have it, well, I don't remember what you do when you do have it! How do people afford this; I ask myself as I look at our local Homebuyers guide. There are pages of beautiful million dollar properties on beautifully landscaped acres of land. It truly feels like a different world in which those potential inhabitants must live.
 When you live on a tight budget, which so many of us do, money becomes something frustrating, elusive, something to examine and dissect. I actually despise talking about money and somehow feel all things that help us learn and grow as people should be free. (I.E. education, medical care, music lessons and sports team fees.) And while I worry about money, my kids are in ski lessons,  on swim teams and visiting museums, as well as having more clothes (cute ones!!) than they will ever need.
     On the other hand, I wear my sister in law's slightly too long jeans because I refuse to spend money for new ones, clip coupons like a maniac, use a children's consignment sale for Christmas presents and buy my poor dog (gasp!) dog food with chicken byproduct meal somewhere in the ingredients. I think most parents, especially in this intense parenting age, do put their kids needs and wants in front of their own; that's no surprise. What is fascinating to me is the ways in which we choose to spend the rest of it; our spending priorities. What value do we place on the things we consume and the things in which we participate?.
     I've often heard suggested, as an exercise in time management to write down everything you do in a day and put the results in a pie chart to see if your priorites match up with reality. Would this work for finances as well? If we were to chart where our money goes, what would the biggest blocks be? How much would go towards necessities (residence, food, water, heat) and how much would be spent honoring our individual value system and whatever that entails (possibly education, charity work, retirement savings, vacations, gifts). Obviously, money has become, of late, a source of endless frustration and pondering on my part.
     As usually happens in this amazing place we like to call the universe, God had a serious reality check in store for me after all this pathetic focus on money. While sitting on the couch in my 80 degree living room (thank you woodstove) on an eleven degree day, I picked up the latest book my husband brought home from his green library. It's called Love in the Driest Season and it chronicles, within a family memoir, the tragedies of the AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe during the 90's. The focus is on the abandoned children that are in the care of orphanages that have been given 30 cents a day per child for food, clothing and medicine. That's right; thirty cents. Needless to say, many of the children die in a very short time.
     So, in the very recent past and (I'm sure) somewhere in the world in the present, there are children who breathe their last breath in a hospital room waiting for anitibiotics that will never come, while I decide between the (clean, safe) organic almond milk or the (clean, safe) regular almond milk awash in stress over money.

  Thank you, God, for making it so clear how rich my life is and also the ways in which we can enrich others' lives.

Bigger

  Tonight, as I was watching my three youngest children play in the tub, I realized that for the next month I will have a 1 yr old, a 2 yr old and a 3 yr old. My youngest daughter turned one today, all beginning words, zombie straight leg walking and beautiful big eyes. She, lately, has been keeping up with her older siblings, letting her voice be heard, blending in with our big family. Five kids in a three bedroom, one and a quarter bath house. I realize, as I write this , that we are so lucky to have someplace warm to call home, so lucky to have a roof over our heads, a safe place to dream, play, learn, laugh and cry together.  But while I realize that, I am waiting for the bathroom to open up and  tripping over the dogs bed while sidestepping around our table, which needed to be moved into the living room in order that we can all fit around it. Needless to say, we are currently in the market for a bigger house.        

     Today, I walked through a huge, beautiful, potential house,  full of visions of my oldest daughter being able to play with her dollhouse, even during naptime, my oldest son being able to play Legos without having them knocked over and possibly eaten by his younger siblings. Better yet, my husband and I having a conversation with minimal interruptions, minimal finger raising and stern looks trying to make impatient children wait their turn.  When I got home from looking at the house, I was already visualizing what would go where, what we would do with the seemingly extra rooms.  The cavernous house had quickly become my dream house; I was immune to the dry rot around the windows, the water damage on one of the ceilings. All I could picture was enjoying the great room together, with enough space for each person to play and learn to the best of his or her ability.

                This evening, in the living room of our actual small, but loved house, my husband and I tried to have a conversation about whether the potential new house was a possibility, as my oldest daughter twirled in the middle of us in her fancy dress, my oldest son lay by my side, laughing hysterically while my youngest son tried (unsuccessfully) to pull of his long soccer socks, and my two youngest daughters took turns drumming each other and sometimes the real drum too. As these games usually do, the sock removal progressed to a noise level that was unacceptable to my level of patience, so I banished everyone to the bathroom to brush teeth. It became relatively quiet and my husband and I had an uninhibited line of sight to each other, the conversation continued for a record five minutes with zero interruptions. The relative quiet was a welcome change to our loud, loving chaotic typical night. More space was sounding better and better.

   But as I watched my children in the tub, I wondered if bigger would really be better, or just bigger. The (five!!) bathrooms in the potential house would go mostly unused for now; our children are young enough to be immune to issues of privacy. They would still choose to bathe together,  fighting and laughing from one minute to the next as only siblings can. The bedrooms (one for each!) would probably mostly sit empty, our children gravitating within a ten foot radius of where we are.  This crazy, tactile togetherness is a fleeting time. How much longer will my eight year old let me rest my chin on his head while we each read our books? How much longer will the kids want us so intimately involved with every detail of their lives that they have to wait their turns to fill us in? How much longer will we all dance in our tiny living room together, twirling around and stepping on each others’ toes?

     While we continue to look for a bigger space to make our family’s home, I am going to try to appreciate every second of this squished together, overflowing house and remember how lucky we are that our kids want to be with us, want to share their lives, want to be close. No matter where we end up,  I hope the feeling that when we are close together, we are home, will remain.

In Year 6, She found TV and it was good

In addition to ranting, venting and general outlay of personal philosophies, I am now going to add guilt assuagement to my blog repertoire. (Don't look "assuagement" up; it is not a real word but I firmly believe it should be.)
So, that little voice in my head (i.e. my mom) recently told me that I should stop limiting "screen time" so severely with my kids. Over the Christmas vacation, I decided to give it a whirl. At first, I would hang out near them watching Dora or TUFF Puppy, asking thoughtful questions about the characters' motivations. Occasionally, I would throw in the Spanish word equivalent to try to add a bilingual aspect to Arthur. After the less than enthusiastic reaction to my discussion questions, I would slink off to the quiet kitchen to make dinner, feeling horribly guilty about the tv watching going on.
This went on for the first week or so. Then, all of a sudden, in my guilt ridden state, I realized I had actually gotten through making turkey meatballs without washing my hands fifty million times to remove something from someone's mouth or stop someone from poking someone else with a chopstick. It was really nice; I'll be honest with you. I started thinking this tv thing might have some real perks.
On Saturday of the first week, I turned on Penguins of Madagascar for my oldest son while the younger ones napped. I decided to workout in the room he was watching to see what kind of horrible debauchery was going on in the show. You know what I found out? That cartoon is freaking hilarious. I rarely laugh out loud during movies, and I think I laughed three times in the half hour segment. It was seriously funny. There is a ring tailed lemur character with an Indian accent who could do stand up on the Comedy Channel. I couldn't believe it. The show I had put on to entertain my 6 year old was actually entertaining me!
Needless to say, I learned a few things during my sojourn into tv land. I'm not saying we're going to have a screen time free for all in the house from now on, but I will say that I like an hour of peace and quiet in my day and that there is inherent value in laughter. And, if I'm having a rough day, I might just sit down with my kids and laugh next to them at the silliness on the screen. Thanks Mom.

Wake up, wake up, wake up...it's the first of the month.

Sorry, a little rap reference in the title. I couldn't help myself.

I was thinking about relationships today and how we behave in them. Why is it that so many of us save our best selves for the cashier at Dunkin Donuts and then come home and act grumpy to our spouses? Is it some kind of safety mechanism? Maybe we save the stresses we all carry and take them out on the people who we know will love us no matter what.
I would like to put forth the theory that this is neither good nor helpful. It seems to me that we should be doing our best work with the people whose judgments really matter; our family, our close friends. These are the people whose lives we have a vested interest in and to whom we should feel an allegiance. Shouldn't we want to make them smile, to feel good? Shouldn't we use please and thank you with them just as much as we would a waiter?
I'm not saying you should start being that curmudgeony patron that makes his or her serviceperson cringe. That would be hypocritical, considering I have what one friend calls a "civility dysfunction." (I.E. When someone bumps into me, I say "sorry, excuse me.") No, what I am proposing is continuing to treat everyone you meet with kindness, but making sure you have some saved up for the end of the day when you get home too. Home is where the best, most positive aspects of your personality have a place to shine. After all, your family and friends already think you're pretty great. Just imagine if you give them all the same simple kindnesses you hand out on a daily basis to those you don't know. It could be pretty amazing.
Clearly, this is one of my resolutions in the "general" category. I'll let you know how it goes. But for now, I have to go yell at my husband for failing to remove his coffee filter from the pot this morning... :)

Resolve, resolve, resolve...

Here it is: December 31st and I am doing the same thing thousands upon thousands of other people are doing right now...
No, I'm not freezing my $%^@ off in Times Square, I'm writing a list of resolutions for the coming year. Not just any list of resolutions, mind you. I am an all-or-nothing person and my lists match this personality trait, for better or worse. My resolutions are multi-faceted, covering all aspects of being: mental, physical, emotional, house* as well as the general category of "other." Most of my resolutions are pretty standard (get back in touch with a friend, book a dermatology appointment, lose 10 lbs) but some are purely creative, spur of the moment inspirations. For instance, in July, under the "mental" category, I wrote "paint something outside." Why? Because I believe painting can be therapeutic. It shouldn't stop me that nobody on earth will recognize the painting I do of the glorious view out our front window (and that includes my family that looks at it everyday). Among my other planned feats for the year: Find a one day workshop that interests me, complete a crossword book, write a note to 10 people for whom I'm grateful, journal more, etc, etc.
There's a reason so many people pick January 1st to make positive changes/steps in their lives, it's the proverbial "clean slate" date. It's fresh; out with the old, in with the new. So, I will join in and see how I fare with my goals.
By blogging my progress, I will be killing two resolutions with one stone. (Yes, February's goal is to blog regularly.) So, here I go. I'm off to a good start. Now, I better go finish that leftover Egg Nog before the year starts...

*Doesn't everybody include "house" as a resolution category?No? Hmmm...they can come help me with mine, then.

Concerns about smotation, and other important thoughts

I hate forwards. I think I hear "Amen to that, sister" coming at me through the computer lines that cross our fair nation. (That's how email works, right?) Yes, I'm pretty sure that most of you hate forwards too, unless you are my father-in-law, the most notorious forwarder in the Northeast. I can say that because he won't read this; he's too busy reading and then forwarding on whatever emails he has gotten today. He's probably throwing caution to the wind again, completely ignoring his intended forward audience, or, as other people call it, "the world." That being said, my complete abhorrence of forwards is not the subject of this blog. However, if it was, it would be a long, bitter one.
Anyway, the subject of this blog reminds me of one of the ten forwards I have read over the last few years. I'm sure each of you has received it; you know, the one about friendship. We have different friends for different times in our lives, they come in and out, etc, etc. Most of us probably don't need to read the email to understand this concept, we probably just need to look through our address books. Here's how I know this: I have a lot of friends. I am allowed to say that, I think, right? I try as hard as I can not to take this for granted and I am so happy to have found so many kindred spirits. I am so lucky to have one of each of those friends that other forward about female friendship recommends. For instance, I have a Martha Stewart friend. Among many other feats of domesticity, she papier maiche'd her son's pinata. (oooh la la, french and spanish in one sentence-tres bueno!!) Her house is amazing, her parties talked about for weeks afterward and she does it all serenely, somehow. She is awesome and she knows who she is, although she might not finish this email because she has to go buff the fall leaves she just waxed for her new table arrangement. (Clearly, I have no idea what it takes to be a Martha Stewart friend. No offense to any Martha Stewarts out there who might be scoffing at the idea that you buff waxed leaves when it's clear that they just need a coat of organic, homemade polyurethane instead.)
In addition to my Martha Stewart friend, I also have my kvetch on the playground friend, my friend who always gives me good stories to tell, despite the fact that I didn't actually live them, my friend who's following her dream and her heart in a far off place (actually I have a few of those), and many others. Some of them even possess multiple qualities from the "necessary friends" list. I even have a BFF. I have no qualms saying this, despite the fact that I'm not 12 and/or Paris Hilton. She rocks my world and I hope she knows it (my BFF, not Paris Hilton.) So, I'm a lucky girl. No joke.
But, back to the point (which got lost somewhere around paragraph 2). While forwards can tell us generalities about our lives, we should already know them from living it. We should know what friends we need and how lucky we are to have them. We should know that people can do amazing things when they put their heads and hearts together. And, lastly, we should know that Irish yoga is going to involve some sort of drunk person passed out in an odd position. (the subject of many a fine and informative forward.)
So let's all agree to stop sending those forwards and go live them. Plus, then we don't have to worry about all those email lines becoming overloaded and crashing down to earth and smoting us all.

Blog #3 (where writer exhorts herself for having written 3 kid-free blogs and then goes on, shamelessly, to use their lives for fodder)

Due to the giant public outcry (Mom), I sit down at the computer during naptime once again...

After reflecting back on my first two blogs, I realize I have managed to get a lot of words down with very few references to my kiddos. I find this amazing. Even my screen name alludes to the fact that I thought these blogs would be all about them. I assumed they would include the topics of poop, messes, embarassing public statements and funny things that happen while driving a minivan (of which there are many.) However, it has become clear to me that I do have other things to write about. Or, at least, sometimes I do. Today, however is not one of those days. So, I will resort to the always entertaining anecdotes about poop, messes, embarassing public statements and funny things that happen while driving a minivan (but not necessarily in that order.) Also, as a disclaimer, some of these topics occur within the same story. For instance, there are some funny bits about embarassing public statements regarding the subject of poop. Read on, dear friends, read on...

Top Ten (originally ten, now due to looming school pick-up time, just four) things my kids have done to make me laugh hysterically

1.) Character: my oldest son (who, at the time, is 3) and a really old lady who is changing into her bathing suit across the bench from him
Setting: a community center locker room

(Really old lady bends down to pull on her bathing suit, exposing her naked back to my son.)
My 3 year old son: (said with gusto, loudly) "Wow, that's a really big hiney!" (pause, for effect) "And it looks like there's a poop coming out!"

2.) Character: my two year old daughter (who is quite a character!!) and was potty training at the time
Setting: our living room, where my husband and I are trying to have a conversation

Daughter: "I'm gonna' take my pants off and pee on the rug!"

(Husband and I look at each other trying not to laugh hysterically and look very sternly at daughter in way the parenting books recommend)

Daughter: "Just kidding!"
(She exits stage left really fast among fits of laughter coming from parental figures on couch.)

3.) Character: my then-3 year old son and me (Mommy)
Setting: our living room rug, where he is playing blocks quietly

Son: "Mommy, will you come play blocks with me?"
Mommy: (politely)"No, not right now, Mommy's trying to clean the kitchen."
Son: (politely) "Okay, Mommy, I'll punch you in the face then."
(Mommy enters stage right with stern parenting-book face after taking two minutes to calm down shoulder-heaving laughter)

4.)Characters: 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter
Setting : my bedroom floor, dangerously close to 7 pm (which is mommy time)

Prologue: After much, and I do stress the word much, preparation, son is finally ready to perform the puppet show he has been setting up for what seems like hours which is good because mommy is ready to put both son and daughter in bed

(Son holds up some non-specific stuffed toy who is giving a Shakespeare-style monolog)

Daughter: “Is dat a hermit cab?”

(Son ignores daughter and continues monolog)

Daughter: (louder) “Is dat a hermit cab?"

(Son continues on while giving daughter nasty look.)

Daughter: (very loudly) “Davin, is dat a hermit cab?”

Son: (Frustratingly) “No, Claire, be quiet.”

Daughter (in a whisper to mommy) “I sink it is…”

(No answer from Gavin)

Daughter: (loudly, in voice used for proving point) “Gavin, I sink iss a hermit cab.”