Heaven and Pi

workin 9 to 5

2009-08-17T13:03:00.003-05:00

When I was mired in diapers and kids and wanted a little sanity, I would warn Matt that I was going to need to go out by myself for a little while when he got home. Several times I left and went to Oakbrook mall and just walked around by myself. Because that's what I figured I needed. But then I would get sad being without my kids. I would feel guilty for ever wishing to be away from them and I would start to miss them. I would go home early and tearily kiss them goodnight. Even though I couldn't understand the fact at the time, I know now that taking time to myself was a good thing and not something to feel guilty about. Everyone is better off for it.

Now I just started work and being alone at my desk feels like wandering around Oakbrook knowing that I am missing my appendages and wishing I could go home early and kiss them.

Disturbing Ellie question

2009-08-17T12:47:00.002-05:00

Ellie: "Dad, what would happen if I cut someone's head off with a scissors?"
Matt: (very calmly): "How do you think that would make that person feel?"
Ellie: "Dead."

Of Mice and (Wo)Men

2009-07-20T22:09:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading "Loving Frank," the novel about the affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick. Mamah was married to Edwin Cheney when the couple hired architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new home for them. Like most turn-of-the-century women Mrs. Cheney had abandoned her intellectual pursuits when she married and had children, and when she met Frank, her intellect alit anew with a friend who shared her passion for philosophy, art and literature, and of questioning convention. FLW strove toward "organic" architecture--buildings that would mirror the spirit and the materials of the surrounding land. I've heard this word "organic" a lot in interviews with actors and directors as an analogy to the creative process where parts of a script were made up as they went along rather than sticking to something rigid and preconceived. Imagine living in a home that looks as though it belongs to the land, with native plants surrounding it, letting things grow and blossom at their own pace, in their own time. No more chem-lawn, carefully sculpted flower beds requiring weekly weeding, green lawns with a chem-lawn sign warning people of impending doom if they dare set foot on the treated non-native grass. Imagine letting this same free spirit dominate our personal lives, too.

Last winter we had mice. At first I was in denial. "Maybe it's just one" I told myself. I hear this from a lot of people. "We have a mouse," they say. Having one mouse is kind of like having one cockroach. In my post-college days living in a basement apartment, I would go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and see the cockroach that lived in the bathroom. Just the one. Because that's all that was living there, right? Hmmmm. Well, after I watched various members of the colony of mice living with us skitter on the stove and behind the chairs of dinner guests I got serious about the problem and called the Orkin man. The very next day he strategically placed large quantities of poison around the house in little child-proof containers. I actually am a clean person despite having lived with roaches and mice. Do you want some thumbprint cookies that I made myself? Anyhow, my hairdresser is appalled that I conspired in mammal-murder. She lives very organically and allows the mouse in her house. Because it's just one.

Back to the book...FLW designed the organic, hearth-centered open home for Mamah and Edwin Cheney. And then, in an ironic twist, it was in this family-centered home where Mamah and Frank began the illicit affair. In their ensuing years together, they explored this new organic philosophy of living honestly with themselves out in the world. Having their inner thoughts and feelings and deepest desires of life match what they presented to the world became their new law of order. They lived naturally, honestly. But like the lovely thought that we can live in harmony with nature and allow the one mouse in our house, it's not very practical. One mouse quickly turns into 12, a few weeds in a vegetable patch to the total destruction of the vegetables. Mamah and Frank left their families for two years while they toured Europe, leaving a wife, a husband, and a combined nine children who would forever be scarred with abandonment and rejection while the lovers explored radical new ideas and life with each other. What a terrible price to pay for organic living.

Annie and her books

2009-01-30T08:46:00.006-06:00

I signed the kids up for gymnastics for the winer to give them something to do other than huddle for warmth near the vent in the tv room. I was able to get Annie and Johnny into classes that are almost at the same time. John starts at 3:30, Annie starts at 4. For the half-hour that she is waiting, Annie brings a book. The first day she brought Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. A fellow gymnast hovered over Annie's book while she was waiting for the class to start and said, "What are you reading?" Not looking up, Annie answered, "Harry Potter." The girl kept asking questions, all while Annie couldn't be bothered to look up to answer. I imagine she was having a marvelous time in her imaginary world and wished the garrulous girl would just go away. When the girl finally lost interest in Annie, I went over and tried to explain to Annie how the girl was trying to make friends with her. "Books are great when you're alone...take advantage of opportunities to make friends...notice when someone's trying to be your friend...find something you like to talk about together..." I think she heard "wah wah wah wah wah" (imagine Charlie Brown's adult world). Sometimes I think this is how Annie sees the entire "real" world. Just noise in between the reality she finds in books.

Telling Annie what to read is like telling a teenage girl what to wear. She loves the "Little House on the Prairie" books except for some odd reason "Farmer Boy." She has a collection of Little House books in a neat little box that she got from her godmother Caroline. She treasures them and keeps all of them neat and orderly in the box, all except Farmer Boy. Poor Farmer Boy can't live in the treasured box, can't even live on the same shelf as the other books, but has to be kept on the baby shelf with Ellie's books. Last summer at our block party we had a book donation bin for the book walk (think "cake walk" except with books as the prizes instead of cakes). In a dash, Annie ran up to her room to finally have a chance to purge the despised Farmer Boy from her bookshelf. She was finally rid of her cryptonite. So imagine her face when she came home two weeks ago with none other than her school's copy of "Farmer Boy" to read for her next book assignment. I was happy when she started to read it and assumed she had changed her mind about how horrible it was. It sat by her bedside for the next two weeks, and silly me, I assumed she was reading it. Last night before I went out I asked her just to make sure she had read it. "It's due tomorrow," I told her. She assured me she did read it. Then I went out to a church event (I make it sound holy when there was actually a lot of wine and dice involved...Bunco). When I got home Matt told me of the scene that followed after I left. Instead of just taking her word for it like I did, Matt opened the book and started quizzing her on the subject matter. Then the truth came out. "I started reading it, but I DON'T LIKE IT!" And when Matt told her that it was due for school and she needed to read it for awhile before bed, all hell broke loose. "NOOOOOOOOO! BUT WE JUST WENT TO THE LIBRARY I HAVE NEW BOOKS I WANT TO READ ANNE OF GREEN GABLES!!!! DON'T MAKE ME READ FARMER BOY I HATE IT!!!!!!!" And she threw one of her all-out fits that turned her face blotchy and her eyes puffy just like when she was an infant. (Funny how some traits seem to be embedded from birth.) Matt calmly sat her down, talked her down from the ledge, and got her to read it before bed. As a reward, she got to stay up 45 minutes later than usual and watch some of the strawberry shortcake movie she picked out from the library.

Funny how we worry about our kids. They're either not eating enough or they're eating too much. They're too needy, they're too detached. They are pushovers, they are bullies. They are too social and not studious enough, or in the case of Annie, so studious that I worry that she will push friends away. The other day she corrected one of her friends on how to spell something. I cringed internally and tried to gently tell her to be careful about correcting friends. "You can let grownups do that. As a friend, you don't want to be the one doing that." In my head I was thinking, "No one likes that person. Seriously." But then I remembered having a huge argument with a friend when I was 12 about whether Alexander Hamilton, who was on a $10 bill, was a president or not. She thought he probably was. To prove it, I sung her the presidents song to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." "See! Did you hear 'Hamilton' anywhere in that song? Well, then, he wasn't a president!" I also think of my husband, who uses cool logic to defend his arguments like a mother lion would use her ferocious claws to defend her young. And now it occurs to me...am I afraid that Annie Is fated to become her parents? Will she unbendingly argue like Matt? Escape into her books like I escape into my mind? Is all the social awkwardness, all the intensity, all the oddness and sensitivity that Matt or I have experienced due to come her way as well? Maybe the key is not to try to change the more difficult qualities we see that our children have inherited, but to become comfortable with those qualities in ourselves so we can allow them to flourish in our kids. Sometimes parenting calls for worrying less and smiling more. The truth is, I love how much she adores books, I love that she uses big words but still has the curve of a baby face when she takes off her glasses, and I love that I can remember that tiny pink newborn who would throw inconsolable fits while her face grew blotchy. I love watching the miracle unfold of mixing two people and getting one beautiful, unique, spirited child that will grow into her own. God help me to give her the tools and the space to grow into who she was intended to be.

Cleaning lady

2009-01-15T12:18:00.003-06:00

So I was feeling very sorry for myself today. Matt has been gone since Monday, our steps are barely crossable b/c of a leaky gutter over the stairs that drips onto the stairs and then freezes, Johnny split open a styrofoam packaging that he threw all over the basement to make it "snow" inside, and the car battery decided that it was just too cold to work today (I can relate). I haven't even felt up to the task of running the garbage out through the knee-deep snow into the alley, so I've been letting the bags pile up in the mudroom. I had always planned to take them out, just when it's 20 above zero, not 20 below. Our basement is the refuge for cold winter days like these, but even the basement is a little chilly for me, and stuffed to the top with way too many toys. I started to clean out the toys that are broken, have missing pieces, or are just not being played with.

Anyhow, I was looking forward to having the cleaning lady come today. What a wonderful treat it is. I recognize it and appreciate it. Johnny was learning how to say, "mi nombre es Johnny. Como se llama? " I was asking her in Spanish how Christmas was. She spent the holiday with her 6 siblings who all live in Chicago. I asked her if her parents are living. She told me they are, but they live in Mexico and she hasn't been able to see them for 10 years. She finished up just as I was getting Johnny ready to take to school. I told her to please leave the garbage in the mudroom, that I would get it when it warmed up slightly. But when I emerged from the basement, she was out in the mudroom, having cleared it of all garbage. I felt awful. I gushed a thank you while she finished and put on her coat and walked out the front door. Johnny put on his coat for kindergarten and because today is the day we pick up the neighbor through the alley for school, we walked out the back. And on the back steps, I ran into the cleaning lady. Apparently, as she was taking the garbage out, she saw an art set that the kids got two years ago for Christmas and used once. I had thrown it away because it had missing pieces, but she knew her kids wouldn't mind. She looked down, embarrassed, smiled sheepishly with the art kit in her hands, and said in English, "For my kids. I hope it's okay."

Now, I know this is sounding like one of those e-mail forwards designed to make you feel like the rich, spoiled, lazy people that we all are, and believe me I have been feeling like that for the past several hours, but it's not a good feeling to stay with. Being grateful and praying for those who are less fortunate are all very good. We should all do that. But is there something other than gratitude and prayer that can come from this? An action perhaps, rather than just a thought?

Resolutions

2009-01-08T22:24:00.004-06:00

When I make New Year's Resolutions, it looks less like a couple of simple statements and more like a table of contents for a doctoral thesis. There are chapter headings like "Health," "Relationships," and "Professional/Academic." Maybe it's because I hold out hope that if it looks more official, it'll turn out better. Like buying wine with a gold seal. And so goes the doctoral thesis of New Year's resolutions. The titles, the supporting categories, the specific deeds that comprise each resolution have a way of shaping the direction of the following year. I have the last few years' resolutions saved and look back on them. All of the goals are not reached, of course, but a lot of them are! So this year I've started writing the book on what I'll do this coming year. On health and fitness, I wanted to accomplish some bigger races. This serves a few purposes. First, it's nice to accomplish a big race. Second, it's good for your health. Third, I might finally lose that little muffin top that clings to my midsection post-baby #3. Fourth, exercising every day is as good for positive brain activity as antidepressents. I hope the only drugs I take this year are ones I never tried in college. :) Fifth, exercise gives you more energy throughout the day, which could help me be a better home-keeper and a more fun mom.

With a belly full of healthy fruits and vegetables (and tremendous gas), and muscles glowing and energized from the first few "real" workouts in a long time, I hauled my new self to prayer group tonight. Feeling hopeful with my outline of promises to self-improve in 2009, a woman in the group started us off with a New Year's prayer. Here it is:

God's Blessings in the New Year

Every January 1, I ask myself the same thing: How am I going to be better this year? I suppose it's a fair question. We all have room for improvement. But I seem to come back to the same shortcomings time and time again. "This year I will be kinder," I tell myself. "This year I will be thinner. This year I will be more patient."

I am always trying to create a new and improved version of myself--and not just on New Year's Day. In spite of all my resolutions, though, I seem to be basically the same person I was a year ago...and ten years ago. Maybe this year I won't try to reinvent myself. It was God who created me, after all. Maybe instead of trying to fix everything that's wrong with me, I will ask for God's blessings, place myself in God's hands, and trust that God will continue to create me.

Loving God, bless me and keep me in the coming year, however you see fit.

Mean bone

2009-01-08T09:34:00.002-06:00

Johnny's friend Alex is an only child with a very gentle older mom and dad. Over Christmas break, John was playing with Alex while both his mom and dad were at home. John had never met the dad before. Alex's mom said to John, "You'll like Alex's dad. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body." John had a wonderful time. But this idea of "mean bones" I think has been swirling in his head ever since. Last Sunday at mass, John was on my lap and was looking at my hands, playing with my watch, etc. He saw the tendon that runs on the inside forearm and kind of sticks out and whispered to me, "Mom, I think that's your mean bone."

potty talk

2008-12-28T11:18:00.003-06:00

Ellie had a rash in a sensitive area today. When her diaper was off, she was whining about it and pulling at the aforementioned sensitive areas. While doing so, she looked down to examine and was surprised with her findings. "I have a hole in my vagina!" Hooray. My 2-year old now knows what a vagina is.

She is quite interested these days in private part words. Yesterday Matt told me he heard her in the next room singing to herself all the naughty words she could think of to the tune of "Oh come Oh come Emmanuel."

Penis penis penis penis penis
butt butt butt butt butt butt butt butt butt
poopy poopy pee pee pee pee
fart fart fart fart fart fart fart fart fart fart
Vagina! Vagina! Vagina vagina vagina vagina vagina.

I am so proud.

The Circle of the Sun

2008-10-24T14:36:00.008-05:00

Aunt Amy Bridget Vander Zanden Twadell
Born into this world December 2, 1953
Born into Eternity October 7th, 2008

There was a song that my godmother Aunt Amy would sing to me when I was little. She would sit with her legs crossed on the ground and I would sit in her lap. "Put your arms around me like the circle of the sun, you know I love you baby when my easy ridin's done..." I didn't really understand what the lyrics meant then, but liked the tune a lot and loved hearing her sing it as she hugged me and rocked me back and forth. When I was a kid I thought she made it up herself. Everyone in the family thought of it as "Amy's song."

A child of a very large Catholic family, Amy Vander Zanden was raised in a strict but very loving household. Speaking with a giddy cheerfulness when recounting childhood stories, she told of the seven children using an assembly line after dinner to clear, wash, dry, and put away all the dirtied dishes. If you'd ever seen my grandmother cook you would understand the challenge that would have awaited them. The table would have looked as if it were set for a State dinner at the White House; the kitchen would have looked like Hiroshima after the bomb. The seven kids celebrated when their assembly line technique helped them achieve their all-time best record of seven minutes. My Aunt Amy laughed when she told stories of playing loud music with her siblings and holding rolled up paper between their lips when their parents were away to arouse the suspicion and ire of the nosey old lady across the street. She rolled her eyes when telling about her fancy sister buying expensive shoes and paying her little brother (who wore the same size at the time) to break them in for her very sensitive feet.

My Aunt Amy didn't tell many stories of her adolescent and teenaged years. There were whispers of a cousin's sexual abuse and my aunt's subsequent troubled times. She went to college in the early seventies and fully embraced the age of drugs, artists, and rock and roll. My mom described her during those years as soft-spoken, kind, and "a little unsure of herself." She met a long haired, warmhearted lover of art and music and fell in love. Shortly after my Aunt became engaged, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and was given a very short time left to live. The family mobilized and put together the most charming, heartfelt wedding in two weeks time. Wearing a simple, vintage garden dress and adorned with a crown of flowers, my Aunt Amy married Kenny Twadell in a simple church ceremony and a reception at home among a very small circle of friends and family. For my Aunt Amy, this wedding was absolutely perfect. My Uncle Kenny and she moved to a farm in Darlington, Wisconsin shortly after. My aunt talked about that house as her favorite place of residence, a place of peace and simplicity. Eventually they moved to Chicago and my aunt became a social worker, helping children from the city's south side and surrounding suburbs cope with lives broken by abuse and neglect. Never having had children of her own, she poured her mothering instinct into loving her nieces and nephews and caring for the troubled children who sat in her office each day. My aunt became a straight-talking, strong woman while working as a therapist. She excelled in this role and helped dozens of children overcome their own troubled times, but the sadness and brokenness of these children's lives was a heavy burden. She battled alcoholism much of her adult life. I remember asking her once when she was braiding my hair why her hands always shook so much. It wasn't until I was in college that she finally started on the path to sobriety. With the help of AA, she got better and helped dozens of others on the path to sobriety. She made deep, soulful friendships with her AA friends. She began to radiate a confidence and peace like never before. Embracing her artistic and spiritual side in this new life, my Aunt Amy started making gorgeous scarves and shawls on her loom with her now steady hands. Many friends and family are blessed to have a few of Aunt Amy's creations.

My favorite memories with my aunt were at Point Comfort, a cozy little cottage which sat right on the water about twenty minutes away from the town of Green Bay. It was there that I would sit in her lap and avoid the tip of her lit cigarette while watching the sky explode into shades of orange, purple, and red as the sun plunged into the water's horizon. I know she was as happy here as she was as a child or on the farm in Darlington. There, all troubles would disappear and the calm waters and golden sun would hold her in a constant state of peace. Out on the beach in front of the cottage I would happily sit in her embrace as she sang me the song that I now know is an old 20's folk song remade by the Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, and others during the early 70's. The lyrics now aren't so unintelligible to me as an adult. I think somehow when that artistic spirit entered the original writer of this song, it had my aunt in mind all along. Eight years before she was diagnosed with a cancer that would prove to be too much to fight against, she sang this beautiful song to me at my wedding. Now, I sing it back to her.

Put your arms around me like the circle of the sun.
You know I love you baby when my easy ridin's done.
Would you believe I love you? Look at the shape that I'm in!
Would you believe I'm sinking? Look at the hole that I'm in!
Stealing, stealing...nobody's got a hold on me.
Cuz' I'm stealing back to my same old used to be.

My dearest Auntie Amy, rest well in the Circle of God's Sun.

The Bitch vs. The Angel

2008-10-04T14:09:00.005-05:00

I am missing blogging. Someone described blogging to me once (when I hadn't yet admitted to her that I blogged) as a sort of "verbal masturbation." I'm sorry, Mom. And I agreed. It is. Blogs are full of "I thinks" and "me" and stories that attempt to show what a smart writer, cute storyteller, and interesting person the blogger is. But blogging is fun, it's compelling sometimes, and it's a wonderful release to be able to put something down on paper that has been swirling around in the brain. When you tell someone your thoughts, it feels better. In the old fashioned method of calling a friend up and talking about your thoughts, or sitting in a cafe somewhere to chit-chat, you're also tailoring your stories to that one person. If you're like most people, you change slightly depending on who you're talking to. You don't tell dirty jokes to your grandma, you don't talk baby talk with your coworkers, and you soften and lighten your verbage on political views with someone you know does not share your opinions. This last example you might disagree with.

With a blog, you can more easily be yourself. And for this reason, it's sometimes an even greater release of tension to be able to put onto paper in a somewhat coherent manner one's feelings, opinions, and happenings in life. It's like telling a friend, but that friend is the combination of all friends and relatives in the audience. You can't possibly tailor your speaking points in a blog. You have no choice but to be yourself. And for a woman who is accustomed to trying to please many people, it's nice to be able to be yourself. It's nice to practice how that feels, because maybe, just maybe, we should try that a little bit more in real life too.

When I was reading the Betty Friedan book last year, "The Feminine Mystique," the book that essentially got the ball rolling on the women's movement, I remember reading a quote from her ex-husband as he talked about Betty's personality and how it helped lead to the downfall of the marriage: "She changed the course of history almost singlehandedly. It took a driven, super aggressive, egocentric, almost lunatic dynamo to rock the world the way she did. Unfortunately, she was that same person at home, where that kind of conduct doesn't work. She simply never understood this." I feel that if we behave like the woman who speaks her mind and doesn't sugar-coat our words, our home life and social life suffers. As the eloquent Tina Fey put it in an SNL skit when talking about Hillary Clinton, "Yeah, she's a bitch...but bitches get stuff done."

Sometimes when blogging, our own questions can be answered for us. Like this: we love to categorize in black and white, yes and no terms when the world is full of grey maybes. Do we have to be either Bitch or Angel, or can we be a very direct but very sympathetic friend?

There. I feel better already. What a release!

These dresses will make you look really hot

2008-07-01T22:29:00.002-05:00

Not sure yet how to do the swish in the hair. When I find a how-to guide, I will let you know.

http://fldsdress.com/index.php

21-day cleanse

2008-06-19T08:32:00.002-05:00

I'm not decided on whether I'm going to do this Oprah-inspired vacation from caffeine, alcohol, sugar, gluten, and animal products. Mostly, I say what's left? Why would I give up my two glasses of sweet reward at the end of a long hard day where I have successfully made it through playdates, quibbles, parks, and tantrums. And what would inspire me to get up in the morning and do it all again without the taste of delicious coffee laden with tiramisu coffeemate creamer? And what would I replace my lunches of peanut and butter and jelly crusts and crumbs of chips? Now, one of the blogs I check from time to time, dooce, is doing it. Here's what she says about why she's doing it:

I want to be a better wife, a more conscious and present mother, a more loyal friend, and a better listener. I'd like to handle my anxiety better.

Maybe I need this cleanse. I also would like to lose my last pounds of baby fat that have collected around my gut, ass and thighs to inspire me to buy one of those swimming skirts that I swore I would never buy. Ooh, actually I've bought two of them. One black and one brown.

I always thought that having a tan makes cellulite less noticable. But it's hard to get a tan on the backs of your legs when you're not willing to expose them anyhow. Maybe instead of the cleanse I'll just get some of that sunless tanner that will make me turn orange and distract people from the chub.

Malapropism

2008-06-18T15:27:00.003-05:00

Thanks to a friend who sent this e-mail to me, from her help desk at work.

From: Help Desk
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 11:57 AM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Cc: Help Desk
Subject: Thanks, sorry

Thanks Michelle and I would like to apologize for the incontinence.

Little Red Hen Removal

2008-06-17T17:14:00.002-05:00

I have removed "little red hen" from my list of posts. I wrote it when I was crabby. It is sarcastic and kind of mean. I'm sorry if I offended any of my three readers. The point raised was what makes a person "good?" The old way says family values, religion. I just meant to question those old ways because plenty of religious people get themselves into heaps of trouble, and plenty of agnostics lead saintly lives. Or let's be honest, maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel like I can still be good even though I have a tattoo, question religion, and have done bad stuff.

Target hit

2008-05-21T20:13:00.003-05:00

In Target on Monday, Ellie took off her pink crocs in the checkout line. Here's the conversation that followed with the woman behind me:

Woman [holding up shoes]: "Are these yours?"

Me: "Oh, thank you. Yes they are."

Woman [handing me the shoes]: "Gross."

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-12T01:10:00.004-05:00

If only we could sit on a cloud somewhere and look down and try to understand the world from a transcendent angle, we would get the Point of Life. But sitting on a cloud would only allow us to see the world, not the whole universe. And to see the whole universe, you have to be outside of the universe. Do you have any idea how big the universe is? Neither do I. But I am pretty sure it's really really big. So imagine for a minute that you could hold a video camera and point it at the universe and then zoom in on the Milky Way Galaxy, then on our solar system, then on our world, then on North America, Illinois, and finally on my little bungalow. We could keep going, of course, down to the tiny universes that exist within the subatomic structure, but I already just had to look up the word "subatomic" to make sure I spelled it right, so let's just not go there.

When I look in the eyes of my little angels, it's kind of like that video camera zooming in and out of the universe. In their eyes, I see both the DNA and the stories wrapped around those double helix strands. I see that I'm not the first mother who has been frustrated by a whiny and tired kid in church who is throwing a fit (I might be the first, however, to watch that fit be about putting down her bible for communion). I am also not the first whose heart bursts with pride when her son is sweet to his baby sister (fetching her slippers for her cold feet yesterday morning). I am also not the first who has spanked in anger (last week when the same loving boy pinched my butt with Matt's pliers). I have been blessed by three loving, silly, smart, and sometimes naughty little beans. Being a mom, I feel like I have sat upon that cloud and understood the meaning of life. I raise my glass tonight to all those moms who have wept with joy and frustration at their kids, and all the women who look forward to the day that they will, and all who are terrified of the day that they will. Happy Mother's Day!

Life Direction

2008-04-24T14:03:00.003-05:00

I'd like to get the blog up to date...

We went to Gulf Shores, Alabama in late March. It was LOVELY to get out of the bitter Chicago winter and walk barefoot on the beach. Matt and I decided it was a perfect spot to go every spring break. The drive is long (15 hours) and the car smells like french fries and rotting spilled juice by the end of it, but you can actually transport 5 people to a beach destination for under $500. We did the drive mostly at night when the kids were asleep, and as a result had some lovely, long, uninterrupted conversations.

It is so good for the head to get out of the routine. It gave me perspective about the routine. I have some new ideas about career, self, and house. Here goes:

Career: While floating in the hot-tub, I got a message from God about my future routine (half-kidding). "Teach high school religion" was the message. Great hours that match with kids' school hours, in the field I want, can perhaps get kids' tuition for free, will only take 2 years to get certified, plenty of high schools around Chicago exist, and it's a great stepping stone to a PhD at a later date if I feel like it. So yay! Direction!

Self: Volunteer with Church's social committee & kids' public school cultural arts committee, continue Catholic spirituality group and Buddhist classes, start Bob Green diet and exercise program for life, go on a spring break every year and a week long vacation every summer. Go away for a weekend w/ Matt every year.

House: Fix some stuff up now to make house presentable, 8-12 years knock down kitchen wall and make one big open kitchen/family room. This will allow bigger parties!

Schadenfreude

2008-04-24T13:18:00.004-05:00

Long absence. By now all of my two dedicated readers I'm sure have found other blogs and thus other people's strange worlds to peer into and thus feel better about themselves and their own lives. But I'm back, so now the schadenfreude* can continue here.

My neighbor (one of the two dedicated readers) says that living in Logan Square in Chicago was nice because the strange people who lived there made her feel less strange about herself. This is the reason I would never make it in Naperville. Matt and I are simply too weird for Naperville. We would implode when we didn't cut our lawn when it was 1 1/2 inches high, people would stop talking to me when they realized that sticking my foot in my mouth happens on a weekly basis, and I'm certain I would burn in hell if I admitted my fondness for the Buddhist way of life. I seem to be very mean towards Naperville. I'm sorry, dear town of my childhood, you gave me many great memories. Swim team, wide sidewalks for bike rides, and a beautiful church where my love of God was born. Naperville is perfect...so perfect that you can't possibly be friends with it anymore, much less stay in a committed relationship with it. It is as perfect as a friend who only shops at whole foods, exercises daily, has no pimples or wrinkles, is impossibly cheerful, and whose kids are perfectly behaved and clean at all times. A better person would admire and emulate such a person and feel blessed to call them a friend. Alas, I am not always a better person.

Maybe Naperville was right for me, as evidenced by my love for Pottery Barn and Zoloft and my hatred of insects and mice. Yet I know in my heart that it's not good for me to live in a bubble. We only learn and grow when we are challenged. Oak Park challenges me often. But I must admit that it also helps me to not feel so bad about myself when I can see other people who stick their feet in their mouths more frequently, act spacier than I do, or have kids and lawns messier than mine. I am only human, a Catholic/Buddhist/Humanist/Neurotic woman in progress.

*Schadenfreude:pleasure derived from another person's misfortune

I'm sorry poop is so funny

2008-03-11T23:25:00.004-06:00

The apology goes to my brother Chris who doesn't like reading my blog when it has to do with poop. Stop reading, Chris. But for the rest of the crowd, according to Dr. Oz on Oprah, we should be very concerned with our doo. Check out this hilarious article:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/03/12/poo/index.html?source=rss&aim=/mwt/feature

Cathuddishindormanslam

2008-03-11T21:36:00.005-06:00

I was so inspired by this old story I heard from a professor. He heard it somewhere else, it's hardly new. But it's a story about a half dozen blind men that are placed in front of an elephant and are asked to touch it and say what they think it is. The one in front of the trunk says it's a hose; the one next to its leg says it's a column; the one next to its torso says it's a wall. I feel this way about most world religions and each time I'm opened up to a new one I see how when the rules, the words, and the robes and incense are cleared away, they are all essentially the same: a great big grey elephant. But seriously, can't all of them be summed up like this: love, serve, forgive, be thankful. Seems so simple. And then there's real life. Each religion seems to think that they are the one who is not blind. That something about them makes them uniquely qualified to be the authentic way to God.

This exclusivity has been the hardest part for me about being a Catholic. I just don't want to believe that my Jewish friend who does way more community work than I do, or the agnostic who is much more understanding and compassionate, could possibly not find favor with God.

My own view of religions is that some cultures are just more receptive to certain ways. God understands that cultures are different and had to adapt His message to suit the culture. But what happens now that our cultures are getting all mixed up since the dawn of the era of easy communication and cheap travel? I'm guessing that we end up with a whole lot more people like me, who have one foot in their religion, but are open to other ideas also. Maybe we're headed for a hybrid religion that combines the best elements of all of them. "Cathuddishindormanslam" we could call it.

Latest funny quotes

2008-03-08T15:05:00.002-06:00

Ellie:
with a chicago accent: "Pabi" (pacifier)
"Pooby" (poopy)
"Poppie" (potty)
"Moomy" (movie)
"Copi" (coffee) always followed by "Hot!"

Annie to Nana:
"I have a headache slash fever today."

Johnny to Nana during a sleepover where he woke up at 6:30am and watched two cartoons. After a cereal commercial he said,
"Speaking of food, when are we going to eat breakfast? You know, Nana, we can't watch TV all day."

And my favorite:

Johnny to his friend Owen:
"Did you know that my dad is 32 years old and he's NOT EVEN DEAD YET!!"

Response from God

2008-03-08T14:58:00.003-06:00

Dear Annie,
Since your dad was nearby, I decided to have him use his pen to write my words to you. I love you so much my dear sweet angel. You mean so much to me! I've watched you since the minute you started growing inside your mom's tummy. You grew and grew and were finally ready to be in the outisde world. And the day you were born, I left your mom and dad to watch over you for me, since they would always be close to you. That's how I make sure you are always cared for--by giving you a loving family to help you grow. When I need to talk to you, it's easier for me to have your mom or dad or grandma or nana say the words to you. That's how I do things! :) So I'm having your daddy write this for you. You will forever be my special Annie Teresa McGillen!
Love, God/daddy

Note to God

2008-02-28T14:22:00.002-06:00

The tooth fairy always leaves a note to Annie when she loses a tooth. Annie started to have a lot of questions about the tooth fairy and a few months ago I found a note by her bed for the tooth fairy. It read, "Dear Tooth Fairy, What do you look like? Are you a boy or a girl fairy?" The tooth fairy responded that she was a girl, but that there are boy fairies also who she is friends with. A few weeks later a note was left for Annie's guardian angel asking what her job was. The guardian angel responded that she was Annie's special friend in life whenever she needed a little help.

Last night I found a note written on the back of the slip of paper entitled, "My life Goals." It read:
Dear God,
I love you. Please reply.
Love,
Annie

Now I'm in a pickle. Respond or come clean?

Inspirations from the Ice

2008-02-17T22:26:00.006-06:00

I finished a long conversation with my sister tonight. She was telling a story about when we were little and very much in passing said, "and Mom wasn't paying attention to us older three because I think she was busy taking care of you littler ones..." I thought this was funny because I don't remember my mom playing with us on the floor or teaching us to draw or standing behind us on the ladder at the park. I don't know if I assumed she was paying attention to the older three or what, I just remember my mom as a presence in the background of my life; there to make things run smoothly and help in case of emergency, but not a constant playmate or an emotional manager. Very different from the typical parent of today. I have this memory of a parent I once saw at a party playing with a shape sorter on the floor with her one-year old. The kid started to cry when she could not force the star into the circle hole of her shape sorter. The mom put aside the toy and said with a concerned and empathetic look on her face, "Maya, are you feeling very frustrated? Can you say 'frustrated,' Maya?" When I'm feeling blue I actually think about the lack of parental playtime or emotional management to justify the pity party I throw for myself. If only I were part of one of those perfect little two-child families I would be a different person! I would have had all the parental attention that I needed and all the friendship that I wanted with another sibling. Never mind that if my parents had followed my wish and only had two children, this fourth child wouldn't be here to complain about it in the first place. By the way, just to come clean, that parent was me, and that child's name wasn't Maya, it was Annie.

A few words about my mom...she belongs to a very small minority of people on the planet who believe wholeheartedly in Catholicism AND Astrology. The movements of the stars and the signs under which people were born have organized my mom's life decisions and the way she deals with people in her life. I am an Aries, the natural-born leader who is also sometimes a bit self-centered. Who, me? I rolled my eyes every time I heard my mom utter a sentence beginning with, "Now because you're an Aries..." But, fast forward ten years and I think I am becoming a believer. At least I read my horoscope every day and always find truth in it.

Anyhoo, back to the story...after I hung up with my sister I kissed the kids goodnight and put on my coat for a walk outside. We've all been cooped up in the house for a few days with fevers and I wanted to get out. It was warmer today and even rained--strange for a Chicago February. The air was cooler than it was this afternoon, but still mild, and I was enjoying the sounds of being alone outside: the faint buzzing of the streetlight, the sound of my foot occasionally catching on an uneven bump in the pavement and echoing in the empty night. I love nightwalks. Places which bustle and brew the day's affairs look different from the emptiness and solitude of night. Sometimes walking these familiar streets at night gives me a feeling of owning and understanding everything all at once. The rain that had fallen earlier in the day froze over on the sidewalks making a glistening sheet of ice on each square. I had to walk carefully not to slip. After a few blocks of setting one foot down carefully in front of the other, I began walking faster and more heavily on each foot. And then, I slipped and fell. I sat there on the ground a minute to make sure I didn't re-damage my tailbone as I did a few weeks ago when I slipped down our front stairs. All butt bones seemed fine, so I stood up and proceeded again carefully on the dangerous ice. Someone could KILL themselves on this stuff! And then suddenly a memory shot into my head.

I remembered days like this as a kid when the rain would freeze on our driveway and make a slanted skating rink. My mom would lace up our skates and send us outside to play. She would stay inside and do what? Take a nap? Read a book? Just the sort of thing I would like to do, but feel like I shouldn't because maybe they kids would slip and hurt themselves and I wouldn't be right there, or maybe they'd get stolen from the front yard, or maybe they would slide into the street (if we had slanty driveways in our neighborhood, which we don't). I guess my mom figured that whatever challenges came our way we would figure out on our own. When we couldn't solve our own problems, we could help each other out. When we couldn't help each other out, we could come inside and get her.

And I realize now that this was a good way to do things. I learned to do a lot on my own, and with time I have learned to be a good sister and be a friend to my siblings. And when all else fails, I still call my mom. Being a kid of five and having the wonderful opportunity to nearly brake my ankle or slide into traffic made me self-reliant, independent, brave, and able to share time and attention with four other people. None of that would have happened without my mom, who was probably not taking a nap or reading a book when we were out skating. Can you imagine the laundry and ironing with a household of seven? And the food required to prepare? God, I think I need to take a nap. And I smiled as I looked up at that buzzing, annoying street lamp, that being the fourth of five kids was a very good thing for me, the self-centered Aries. God Bless my Mom.

Annie's life goals

2008-02-12T15:23:00.000-06:00

I just found this written on a scrap of paper when I was cleaning up Annie's room. Spelling has not been changed.

My life goals

ride a horse
jump of the high board
meary Grant
kiss Noah K. on the lips.
live in 20013

:)

Wanting what we don't have

2008-02-10T15:49:00.000-06:00

I always reserve the right to change my mind. Whether it's my religion, my hair color, or whether I'm working full time, part time, or no time. A few months ago when I was deciding whether or not to take a part-time job, I made up a list of pros and cons to help me decide whether to take it or not:

o. money (a wash in this case, as it would have paid for childcare with almost nothing left over)
-. juggling work and home (I am not very good at multitasking)
-. missing the kids (I would especially miss out on mornings with Ellie alone, something I had really looked forward to)
-. added chaos from having more going on and less time to do it all (not good for the old anxiety)
+. break from the kids (yes, please!)
+. identity outside of the family (badly needed)
+. career direction (ditto)

As I declared several months ago, these factors all have different weights, so while the list of pros and cons is even (see + - o notations), they might not be equally weighted. Added chaos is a weighty factor. I have a hard time even remembering to change Ellie's diaper on a regular basis with all that we have going on. But I think I have changed my mind. Not that I'll do any better with chaos, but I am feeling like a break from the kids, and an identity outside the home (perhaps I should add something to do with my mind outside the home) are also weighy factors that might trump chaos.

So I have begun the process to seek part-time employment. But not so fast. The moment that I started sending out resumes (1-2 each week), I suddenly felt my kids and my home pulling at my heart when I picked Johnny up from school and smelled the delightful smell of tempura paints. Could I possibly exchange that for the smell of printer toner? We could of course get into all kinds of other smells that would be much better in an office than at home.

Anyway, I gave up sweets for lent and never in my life has the candy in the checkout line looked so good or the kids' valentine's candy been so tempting. I even looked at the can of whipped cream in my fridge and wondered whether it would be legal of me to squirt some directly into my mouth and whether that would be satisfying or not. Today is Sunday, 4 days after lent has begun, and I just binged on the candy that my in-laws just brought over for the kids. It was delicious.

Do we always just want what we don't or can't have?

Poopy Playdate

2008-01-22T21:56:00.000-06:00

Johnny had his friend Ryan over today after school. The nice thing these days about playdates is that the kids can entertain each other, so I am rarely needed during a playdate. Except when I am needed, it is usually not good.

Ryan[From the bathroom]: "JOHNNY'S MOM?!!!...I NEED HELP!!!"

There's only one reason someone needs help in the bathroom. And after wiping many, many bottoms, I understand why the Europeans have bidets. I slowly finish up what I'm doing, as I'm not looking forward to the bottom that awaits.

Ryan: "JOHNNY'S MOM! I REALLY NEED HELP! I POOPED IN MY PANTS!"

Now knowing that this is a true emergency, I stop what I'm doing and break into a trot.
Me [entering bathroom and trying not to inhale]: Okay, Ryan, stay here while I get some wipes and new pants from upstairs.

I hurry upstairs to get said items. However, I'm not fast enough for Ryan. As I descend the staircase, Ryan is waddling naked through our living room, chunks falling to the floor.

Ryan: "I NEED NEW PANTS!"
Me: "I KNOW you do! That's why I told you I was GETTING THEM and for you to STAY IN THE BATHROOM!"

Ryan got his new clothes, and John got his new clothes (he chose this time to urinate in his pants as well). Content in their clean dry clothes, the boys sat down to play computer games. There is one game that Johnny loves that features puttering cars. To a little boy's ears, though, the puttering sounds like gas-passing. Ryan bursts into laughter.

Ryan: "Hey, those cars are tooting!" [Not getting the pun.]

He almost sounded superior the way he said it, like he couldn't imagine anyone breaking wind in front of anyone else. And it's times like these that I wish that there were another adult around to laugh with, so I actually went into my room to say the words out loud to myself, "THIS from the kid who just POOPED all over himself and made his friend's mom clean it up?!!" I am a good audience, because I always agree with myself and laugh at my own jokes.

I just know that Karma dictates that this had to happen. At least a dozen times I have retrieved Johnny and Annie at playdates along with a plastic jewel bag of soiled clothes. And on one awful occasion picking up Johnny from a playdate, the front door was opened for me to reveal my precious boy in the background, standing at the top of the basement stairs with his pants around his ankles, urinating down the steps. His excuse was that he couldn't find the bathroom.

Johnny's first handout

2008-01-10T22:09:00.000-06:00

Last night in the bathtub I hear "eeeewww! Mom!" I rush in from laying out pajamas in Johnny's room to find out the problem. Annie elaborated: "Mom, Johnny just threw a toot at me. He tooted on the washcloth and then threw it in my face!"

Complications

2008-01-08T15:43:00.000-06:00

Isn't it funny how when you're thinking about something, it's like the universe knows it and sends you messages about just the thing you're thinking about. Or perhaps you're just better tuned into it. Anyway, I'd like to share a quote from the book I'm reading, Atonement. The quote is from Briony, a very intense little girl with a vivid imagination and an incredibly sensitive heart:

"Was everyone else really as alive as she was? Fore example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Did her sister also have a real self concelaed behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it?...If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had." (p. 34)

As I wrote about a few days ago, the voice of my professor has been bouncing around in my head, "embrace life's complexities," and this quote from Atonement I think further explains this sentiment. To be fully mature, we must understand that there are two billion voices, histories, prejudices, hopes, needs all striving at the same time. And to be fully alive, we must not feel as though we might drown in irrelevance amidst all the voices, but rather stand tall and take our place beside them.

Obama

2008-01-04T09:08:00.000-06:00

OBAMA WINS IOWA!!!!!!!!
This is a moment in history. I could be proved wrong, but I believe this guy is the inspirational character of our time, the person who will be known forever as changing the course of history. I remember when our friend Sophie invited us along to the election night party to see this still fairly unknown guy named Barack win the Senate election. Matt and I stood in awe of this guy who radiates charisma when he enters the room.

Every empire has its heyday, every empire falls when its hubris grows too large, it takes its favored status for granted, and becomes entangled in internal disputes rather than understanding its place in the world at large. ( I think this is the theory of one of the books that Matt recently read that I just pretend that I read also). I feel like we need saving from our empire falling. Barack can be our savior! No, but seriously, I think he could really help us reestablish our footing in the world as a respectable nation.

Some quotes from his website www.barackobama.com:
---------------------------------------------------------

The American prospect's Ezra Klein writes...

Obama's finest speeches do not excite... They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it.

The New York times' David Brooks writes...

Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this. An African-American man wins a closely fought campaign in a pivotal state. He beats two strong opponents, including the mighty Clinton machine. He does it in a system that favors rural voters. He does it by getting young voters to come out to the caucuses.

This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance.

Iowa won’t settle the race, but the rest of the primary season is going to be colored by the glow of this result. Whatever their political affiliations, Americans are going to feel good about the Obama victory, which is a story of youth, possibility and unity through diversity — the primordial themes of the American experience.

And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?

Obama has achieved something remarkable. At first blush, his speeches are abstract, secular sermons of personal uplift — filled with disquisitions on the nature of hope and the contours of change.

He talks about erasing old categories like red and blue (and implicitly, black and white) and replacing them with new categories, of which the most important are new and old. He seems at first more preoccupied with changing thinking than changing legislation.

Yet over the course of his speeches and over the course of this campaign, he has persuaded many Iowans that there is substance here as well. He built a great organization and produced a tangible victory.

---------------------------------------------------------

And I can't help but feel like when he speaks, anything is possible, not just in our country, but in ourselves, in myself.

***

Crazy

2007-12-20T09:26:00.000-06:00

One of my old college professors would constantly tell his students "engage the complexity of life." Quotes like these sometimes go way over my head for many years, and then one day, I get it.

Where I grew up, the streets were clean and well-maintained. There wasn't poverty or the accompanying problems. Crime was low, schools were great, and it was sited many years in a row as the "best place to raise children." By most standards I had an ideal childhood. But when I was in high school and my mind began to expand to understand a little bit more of the world outside through books and personal experiences, I remember a particular incident. A friend of mine who was way smarter than I was and had a pretty different growing up experience went out with me one night. While most other high school kids were making out with people in driveways (and I probably should have done a little more of that looking back), I was talking about theories of the universe with my friend until 2am. My very smart friend could talk talk talk about his theories, and I was a perfect audience because it was so interesting to me. Is the point of life to be happy? To live without problems? How can a person become whole with only one experience? Can God be seen only through the good or is God somehow in the bad also? Why do good people do bad things? I think my mind was totally blown by his new way of seeing things and I just started bawling. I really had no idea why at the time, and I think all I said to him when he was completely confused was "it's just too much. It just feels like too much." Poor guy had no idea what to do. That was the first time that I really believed I might be crazy.

Anyhow, now looking back at one of my many mini-breakdowns between high school and today, I completely understand the incident. The bottom had dropped out of my life. The rules of the universe that I had lived by for 18 years had just stopped working based on the new things I was hearing and learning. I had a peek inside of Pandora's box and it was scary, crazy, and I didn't know how to live in that world. I quickly shut the lid on the box and tried to keep it that way, but college, living with a Spanish family, and marrying the smartest man I think I know has bit by bit helped me to look inside Pandora's box and know that it's okay if that box is opened. And now I can say something honestly to myself: I'm not crazy. Just kidding. I am crazy, but it's okay, b/c so is everyone. And my new favorite song illustrates this sentiment perfectly:

My new favorite song, by Gnarls Barkley

"Crazy"

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you're out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly [radio version]
probably [album version]

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably

Uh, uh

The gift contract

2007-12-16T22:10:00.001-06:00

In this season of giving gifts, I would like to propose a radical thought: gifts are not all about the person receiving the gift. They are a contract between the giver and the receiver. The gift can be a signal of closeness to a person if it is personal, can be all wrong if it's personal but not fitting for the recipient, and totally inappropriate if its way too personal. A gift should be met with a look of surprise, excitement, and gratitude to fulfill the gift-giver's anticipation.

I have a few stories. First, my grandmother when she was alive used to give very expensive presents to everyone on her list. She gave my Dad $300 shoes, which he said were nice, but about $150 too expensive for him. He wore them with exercise pants. My mother in law asked us a few years ago what we would like for Christmas. Matt told her a gift card would be lovely. She refused. It is impersonal and tacky! (She gave them anyway) My aunt one year decided to give all the boys in the family blue blazers. One son-in-law told her he already had three and really didn't need another. But at the end of the day, he was at the tailors getting fitted for a blue blazer along with the other boys.

I totally agree with having standards about what you give. I don't buy video games, parental advisory music, or fart books for my Godson even though he would love to get them. As a side note, my kids play video games and think farting is hilarious, but these are things I would like to try not to encourage. No inappropriate music yet but I just told Johnny all about periods. I'm afraid this tangent deserves its own paragraph:

Johnny was hanging on the tampon box at a public restroom and asked what it was for. I blushed, and then collected myself and cheerily explained in simple terms, "Babies need a soft bed of blood in a mommy's tummy to sleep and grow in, and when there's no baby, the blood all comes out of a mom's vagina. That's what a period is!" This mostly only served to shock and appall as I could see by the disgusted look on Johnny's face. "Do babies really sleep in a bed of blood?"

Anyhow, back to the point, I think I wrote a previous post about how really a Godmother's only responsibility is to give cool presents at Christmas and birthdays. By this standard, I am failing miserably with shitty gifts. I am unsure about this year's gift. I got a dartboard and a pop-up book about the human body (which may or may not contain information about farting).

We just really want to get something for our loved ones that we will be happy with, they will be happy with, and that will appropriately mark our relationship with them. Is that so much to ask?

Johnnyism

2007-12-11T22:46:00.000-06:00

Johnny: Mom, I was reputation you today at school.
Me: What?
Johnny: Don't you know what reputation means? [scowling, annoyed] It means what someone thinks of you.

Can I keep him this age forever?

Johnnyism

2007-11-27T22:31:00.000-06:00

Our van is being fixed, so my in-laws helped us cart the kids to Des Moines and back by taking one in their car. Annie went with them on the way there, Johnny on the way back. Apparently, Johnny had been looking out the window once it got dark at the big night sky. He then asked my in-laws, "How hot is Uranus?"

Compassion

2007-11-27T21:46:00.000-06:00

Last night I went to Buddhist Mediatation class, where the topic was compassion. I think probably every class will be on some aspect of moving outside of our self-centered world, and last night was no exception. Perched on her cushion and adorned with her maroon and gold robes, the Buddhist nun spoke of the energy that we use worrying about our hair, our clothes, and our job title that could be better spent being a caring friend to other people, which is what will truly bring happiness.

She told us how the space we were sitting in was remodeled before the opening of the center, and a new, handicap-accessible bathroom was installed. Only out of forgetfulness, a mirror was not installed at the time, and for months new students thought to themselves that mirrors were forbidden in Buddhism. They aren't, she told us, but looks had so ceased being important for the nuns and monks running the center that the lack of one wasn't a concern. Hmmm, I thought, looking at her crew-cut and no makeup. Maybe just a small mirror would be helpful? But seriously, I have also thought how liberating it would be to not spend a half hour doing my hair and makeup in the morning or picking out clothes (I'm counting the days that I actually shower and put on something other than exercise pants with the shirt I slept in). Think of all you could do with your half hour if you had a crew cut and ceased wearing makeup. You could meditate EVERY MORNING! And then as I looked at the crew cut nun, I could see how her face had almost no lines. It was an open face, inviting, peaceful, and really very beautiful. No botox, no revlon color-stay or eyelash curlers, just beauty from the inside out.

Anyhow, I came home and told Matt how I was still having a little bit of trouble how to resolve the "think about others more" with "spend more time on myself." I told him I knew in my heart that it wasn't a problem, but I was having a hard time wrapping my head around why it wasn't a problem. And Matt had a truly illuminating comment. "Stop thinking of it as a zero-sum." That's right! If I'm taking care of myself, it doesn't mean that I'm not taking care of others. When I was off meditating, the kids weren't locked in a 5x5 cell mumbling to themselves until I got back, they were having a rockin' good time with their Dad putting them to bed! And he loved having the alone time with the kids, too!

I had further corroboration of this point that caring for others and caring for self were not mutually exclusive entities. I was reading another self-help book about raising self-esteem and got to the chapter about compassion. The more compassion you have for yourself, the more you have for others, and vice-versa. It's like the golden rule can hold true in the inverse as well, "do to yourself as you would do unto others." And once you treat yourself as you treat others, your life is much more in balance.

Not that I want to ditch my eyelash curler. And I really do like the new red "wine" lipstick I bought. Well, perhaps Buddhism like all the others has its high points and low points, and I can be proud to be a cafeteria Buddhist, Catholic, Episcopalian...

Spiritual Enlightenment

2007-11-25T20:11:00.000-06:00

In my quest to be a happier, more positive person, I started on my path to spiritual enlightenment a few weeks ago, going to a Buddhist meditation class and attending a women's evening of reflection at Church. I would like to share my experiences. First the Buddhist class, then the women's evening of reflection.

The Buddhist class was organized as such: welcome and breathing meditation, discussion by Buddhist teacher, small group discussion, closing and more breathing meditation. The topic of the evening was "Training in Humility." One of the things the teacher talked about was how infrequently we think about or really even regard other human beings that we don't know. For example, we'll walk by the bus stop and not regard a person any more than the lamp post they are standing next to. This is how most of us go through life. She continued by talking about becoming other-centered instead of self-centered. When we broke into small groups, there was something that I was having a lot of difficulty with that I decided to bring up. My whole purpose of coming to the class in the first place was to do something good for ME, and here this Buddhist guru was telling us how we need to stop thinking about ourselves and become less self-centered. So I brought it up and immediately after felt like maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. Maybe being new I was just supposed to close my eyes a lot and talk about chi and agree with everything people said. Nobody in my group had a solution to this problem, and it was time to end the small group time anyhow. We did our final breathing meditation and said goodbye. As I was putting my shoes back on (we all had to remove our shoes at the door at the beginning...not yet sure why), someone from my small group stopped me. "I was struck by your question and didn't have an answer right away, but then an image came to my mind. It's when the flight attendant tells you at the beginning of a flight that you need to put your own mask on before you can help those around you. Don't know what kind of help that image is for you, but that's what came to me." Even though it was kind of awkward, I was grateful that the man had stopped me and shared the image that he received and I thought about it over the next couple of days.

Four nights later, I went to the women's evening of reflection with Bridget Sperduto as the key speaker. She has a lot of jobs in the Church and outside it that she does that I could list, but the best title she holds is "Kickass Spiritual Speaker". I had heard her before at the last women's morning of reflection. The topic for the evening was to be "Taking Care of Yourself." The first thing that Bridget said when she got up was "You know how when you get onto an airplane and before you take off, you are instructed to put your own mask on before you help anyone else with theirs?" *WEIRD* I got a chill as this evening picked up exactly where the Buddhist class left off. Bridget continued, "If we give of ourselves too much, there is nothing left to give, and then the people around us have nothing, and we have nothing."

I had one other strange thing happen during this evening. One of the readings was of the woman by the well. Bridget read the story and we were supposed to envision ourselves in the story. I was trying hard to feel a connection with the woman who had five husbands, but I was only really having success envisioning the husbands I would choose if I could have five. Then I was trying to feel a connection with Jesus, but I just couldn't. But then when we reached the part in the story when the woman draws up the bucket, I suddenly jumped into the story. I was myself (my neurotic, angst-filled, peace-seeking self) sitting at the bottom of the well, at the bottom of the rope, being pulled up by the future me (peaceful, loving, kind, patient). I think I had that image because I recently finished the book Eat, Pray, Love where there was a scene in the book where the author talks about the future her (and the better version) pulling the present her (the more broken version) along through time. Like she couldn't do it alone, but nobody in her life could help her but HER. And so that was the image that I was given as I heard the woman at the well story.

And so how do these tales come together? Well, I imagine that the person at the bottom of that well is sitting there filling up that bucket over and over again for everyone in her life. Jesus calls down to her that he can give her living water. She decides to hop on that bucket and take the ride up that well by Jesus. When she gets near the top she realizes it was her future self that was pulling on that rope. But her future self looked like her, but had the hands of God. Somehow everyone in the story was one in the same person, able to cherish and care for self as well as others.

If that last paragraph (or last four) didn't make any sense (or if you skipped through all of that shit and are contemplating your own five imaginary husbands), no worries. All I'd like to report is that I feel well on my way to becoming my best future self.

:)

There it is

2007-11-08T23:28:00.000-06:00

Long absence from blogging generally means stress or family party. In this case, both. My mom's 60th, which went well! It was a surprise, all the kids gave toasts, and I think she felt really happy and appreciated. Success.

When I get stressed, I tumble into a vortex of anxiety and negativity. I thought I hid this pretty well (please contain laughter), but I have recently realized that I wear my neuroses on my sleeve and in fact occasionally I even invite other people into my vortex. Or maybe it's not so much a vortex but a vacuum that sucks up anything happy. Okay, a paintful realization, but the good news of this all is that I can change it! Happiness is a choice, after all, right? So, I hereby apologize to the outside world for being a pain in the ass Debbie Downer from time to time. I will work on being a cheerful human being and minimizing stress so it never gets to that point in the first place, you can all work on not letting me get away with being a pain in the ass. And if anyone has ideas on how to choose happiness, I'd really like to hear them.

For week one of my quest to be a more cheerful human being, I went to Sprituality group tonight. Down the hall from where we were meeting, a group of school moms were busily working on plans for a Christmas fundraiser. I saw them and they implored me to bring down a sign-up sheet for cookie bakers for the bake sale. I did, went to the group and had a grand old time (and I do mean "old"...median age 83). I realize that it's kind of a kooky thing to do, but I love it. It fills me up. And at least no one from the outside world has to see me reading poetry and telling the group who in my life comes to mind when I hear the words "faithful companion" (if you're reading this, you fit the description). But at the very moment that I am standing around a pumpkin-scented candle in the convent dining room with the bluehairs singing "Lord of the Dance," my friend from down the hall arrives to pick up the sign-up sheet. Busted. I guess it's time to fly the freak flag.

Circle of Life

2007-10-21T23:06:00.000-05:00

I just had this great conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about parenting. Before I had kids, it was easy for me to sit in judgement at a kid having a tantrum (or worse, a parent yelling at or spanking their kid). I even remember harboring a lot of resentment about the way my parents did things (I didn't get enough attention, they yelled too much, blah blah blah). This isn't new information, I know I've written about this before, and how now that I'm a parent I understand how hard it is to be patient, not spank, etc.

My new revelation on the topic is that this judgement and subsequent "oh, now I get it" is part of the amazing circle of life. If we live long enough to come around to the point in the circle of life where we can finally understand in one circumstance (parenting), then we can apply that same knowledge to any number of difficult situations where we feel anger towards a person for something they did to us. And to me, that's the point of life and why we were put on this earth, to understand and forgive each other, even when a person doesn't know they need forgiving.

Latest Funnies

2007-10-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

Annie and Johnny have been working on certain behaviors. For Annie, it's solving her own problems (attempt to minimize the whining and demanding), for Johnny it's following directions (attempt to minimize the tazmanian devil with no ears). They've filled out their "reward boards" (thanks to my sis for the idea). At Target, I let them each pick out a toy from the $1.99 bin. The poor things don't know what a cheapskate their mom is, because they got so excited about it they could hardly choose. But after some very tough decisions, Johnny selected the parachute guy, whose main purpose is to be thrown from various heights. $1.99 doesn't get you a parachute with a very high threadcount. If you wanted to watch the parachute guy make his jumps, you'd have to look really fast, because the air whipped through that parachute so fast that poor parachute guy had to endure many very rough landings. Nevertheless, my $1.99 bought Johnny an hour of fun.

Before I get into what Annie selected, I have to begin by saying that whenever I have brought Annie to the store with me and given her a vote in what I get for her, I can always count on her to choose the most hideous thing out there. Two years ago at the fabric store we were buying a patch to mend her jeans. Among the pink hearts, the rainbows, the purple butterflies, Annie picked out the brown deer. When selecting t-shirts this summer, the colors of choice were navy blue and brown. And at Target, among the rhythmic gymnastics ribbons, the light-up spinny thing, and the squishy balls, Annie picked out the "fossilized dino egg." The kit included a magnifying glass, chisel, and brush to unearth the plastic dino from the "dirt" encased in this egg. So while Johnny was busy hurling parachute man from the stairs, from the couch, and then just finally throwing parachute man up in the air to see what would happen if he hit the fan ("no, Mommy, I'm not TRYING to hit the fan"), Annie chisled away at the dino egg. I made her put it away at bedtime last night, pulling her away from the green dust that she was so carefully brushing away from the plastic ankles of the stegosaurus. You might have thought that I was pulling away a nursing baby from her breast with the way she carried on. It was most definitely the first thing on her mind this morning. She came down the stairs, didn't even say good morning, and went straight over to her post and finished excavating the stegosaurus.

I am certain that this strange intense behavior only comes from her Dad's side, but I must say how glad I am that she marches to the beat of her own drum. I love that she hates the color pink, loves soccer and short hair, but also loves painted nails and makeup (she stole my red lipstick today from my purse during a wagon ride and I looked over to see a clown mouth pretending she didn't do a thing). She already has her own sense of what she likes and what she doesn't like. Pretty cool for a 6-year old.

Can't we all learn a lot from our kids?!

Feminine Mystique, Part 2

2007-10-09T12:10:00.000-05:00

I'm really enjoying Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique. It's an opinion/history book, meaning that it is an opinion book that uses (sometimes manipulates) historical facts to support the opinion. At times it is abrasive and angry (actually it is mostly abrasive and angry), but I think probably it is necessarily so. It might not have attracted so much attention if the text didn't shout as much. Betty F. said some pretty insightful and powerful things in it that for sure helped out her own and subsequent generations of women recognize the unfairness of the society they lived in.

Just a little history on the book so far. By the way, she published this in 1963, so cultural references are made according to this time period...

---------------------------------MY SYNOPSIS SO FAR------------------------------------

"The feminine mystique says that the highest value and the only commitment for women is the fulfillment of their own femininity." (p. 43) And according to Betty, society tells us that femininity IS passivity, caretaking, gentleness, children, husband, and suburban home. "...the root of women's troubles in the past is that women envied men, women tried to be like men, instead of accepting their own nature, which can find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love." (p. 43)

So another generation of women grew up, got married, had children and tended to them at home and somehow felt a longing for something more. Friedan writes about the typical housewife. "As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself this silent question--"Is this all?" (p. 15) Friedan calls this silent dissatisfaction, this yearning among suburban housewives, "the problem that has no name."

God forbid the woman does anything about this silent dissatisfaction, for "They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights..." (p. 16). So what to do about this "problem that has no name"?

"In a sense that goes beyond any one woman's life, I think this is the crisis of women growing up--a turning point from an immaturity that has been called femininity to full human identity. I think women had to suffer this crisis of identity, which began a hundred years ago, and have to suffer it still today, simply to become fully human." (p. 79)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now y'all don't even need to read the book, cuz there it all is. And the reason I think that this book is brilliant is because it holds water even today. True, we've gone through women's liberation, there are as many working moms as stay-at-homes. But everybody comes into adulthood with certain cultural biases of what they should do. True movement into adulthood is examining these biases and breaking them if necessary. We all need an identity crisis to become "truly human."

And indeed, Betty had one of her own I think when she wrote this book. She, too, married, had 3 kids, and then at age 42 was inspired to write this book. A few years later she divorced. Her ex-husband was quoted as saying, "She changed the course of history almost single-handedly. It took a driven, superaggressive, egocentric, almost lunatic dynamo to rock the world the way she did. Unfortunately, she was that same person at home, where that kind of conduct doesn't work. She simply never understood this." (From Wikipedia).

God bless strong women. And God bless every person who needs to go through an identity crisis to become fully human.

Tears of a Clown

2007-09-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

On the windows outside Johnny's classroom for the first few weeks of school have hung self-portraits the kids did the first day of school. God bless preschool teachers who spend their extra hours cutting out construction paper and buying all sorts of crap that even the youngest can easily assemble and feel like Monet when their art project turns out just right. The kids got to glue the appropriate color construction paper eyes and string hair to their paper plate faces to make their likenesses for the world to see. Johnny gave himself green eyes and black hair. I support this decision, as I myself have recently decided that my God-given hair color need not restrict me. Just yesterday I got my hair cut really short and requested pumpkin-orange highlights. An early midlife crisis. Much cheaper than a car. I actually like it a lot, except that a good friend of mine has a similar hairstyle (we have the same stylist) and I am beginning to feel a little bit like Bridget Fonda's friend in Single White Female.

Anyhoo, today the kids in Johnny's class replaced their self-portraits with clowns for "C" week. They got to glue the eyes, nose, and smile on to a clown. I got there a little early and was admiring all the smiling clown faces, when I noticed that there was one clown whose smile was upside down. Perhaps just a gluer's error, but upon closer examination, there were tears coming out of the clown's eyes. One crying clown among all the happy clowns. Yikes. That poor kid. I thought of how anxious I would feel if that were my kid who did the sad clown for the entire school to see and wonder to themselves, "Is there something going on at home?" So I walked over to see who the depressed 4-year old was whose name announced the dysfunction. "Johnny M." Holy shit!! MY JOHNNY?!!! Oh my God!!! I knew that the transition to a new school year would be hard, I know he doesn't have the same friends as last year, I know sometimes I yell too much at home, but I had no idea it was THIS BAD!!

When Johnny got out of class he ran up to me with a big smile and hug and he showed me the self-portrait that he was allowed to now bring home. That gave me the lead-in to ask what was up on the windows now that the self-portraits were gone. He took me over to show me his clown. "Why is he sad?" I asked. Johnny replied, "He fell down on the way to preschool this morning and scraped his knee." I gave Johnny's knee a little kiss (as he had scraped it on the way to school this morning) and asked him if it felt better. "Yep!" He assured me.

Adorable Little Nietzsche

2007-09-25T23:31:00.000-05:00

In Johnny's preschool class, his teacher has an sweet little thing she does with the kids. She says, "Who loves you, Baby?!" And they all shout, "God does!" (Despite this shout-out to God providing evidence to the contrary, we are in fact Catholic). I've tried to replicate it at home with my dear little Oedipus-boy.
Me: "Who loves you, Baby?"
Johnny: "Mommy does!"
Me: "Yeah, but what about God?!"
Johnny: "God is dead."

Feminine Mystique

2007-09-25T23:13:00.000-05:00

I began to read "The Feminine Mystique" during my whole should-I-go-back-to-work crisis. It's the Betty Friedan 1963 book that caused a national sensation and arguably got the ball rolling on the women's movement. The book challenged the notion that women can/should only find fulfillment in their family role in the home. I haven't read enough of it yet, but I'm wondering if the book is headed in the direction to say that if a woman works, she can find the fulfillment and satisfaction that she was missing at home. I have no idea if this is what Fridan means to imply--that a woman can only find her identity through work. If so, boy did I have an awful identity immediately prior to children.

I understand that it's not fair to say that every woman is going to find her fulfillment in the home, but I'm just not so sure that it's fair to swing into the other direction and say that a woman will find this missing fulfillment through work, either, unless that work is humanitarian relief through the Red Cross or something similarly saintly. It made me think that there are two types of fulfillment.
1. A sense of accomplishment and pride
2. Satisfaction of some deeper meaning in one's life

Do you feel fulfillment in your life according to these two meanings? (Rhetorical question, answer not necessary :)

Job

2007-09-18T23:22:00.000-05:00

About two weeks ago I applied for a job at Loyola that looked interesting as a part-time education policy data analyst. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw it (I checked the jobs site after fantasizing about getting a theology degree at Loyola). Anyhow, I brushed up the resume, sent it in, got a call a week later, interviewed last week, got the job on Monday and then had to decide whether I wanted it.

This job was similar in many ways to my old jobs doing number crunching (first job was data work for education policy, second job was data work for direct marketing). At my second job, I did number crunching to eventually come up with an equation which would predict likelihood of being a customer. Example:
(Age 25-35)w + (0-2 kids)x + (income 50K-100K)y + (customer at other small home goods stores)z = likelihood of being a customer at Pottery Barn

I'm kind of out of practice, but you get the idea.

I had to call up managers at my previous two jobs to ask them to be references to me. The one manager, a 60-year old woman with no children and no close family whose life was dedicated to her career told me I was very wise to go back to work so I'm not out of it so long. My other manager, the 30-something dad of 5 whose wife home schools them all wondered what I was doing going back to work with "all those little kids at home." In fact, I got mixed reactions from a lot of people, muddling up my decision. I started to realize that I really had to determine what it was that would make ME the happiest person and the best mom.

My mom gave me the idea to make a list of pros and cons. I started to do that. Here it is:

o. money (a wash in this case, as it would have paid for childcare with almost nothing left over)
-. juggling work and home (I am not very good at multitasking)
-. missing the kids (I would especially miss out on mornings with Ellie alone, something I had really looked forward to)
-. added chaos from having more going on and less time to do it all (not good for the old anxiety)
+. break from the kids (yes, please!)
+. identity outside of the family (badly needed)
+. career direction (ditto)

I think it's important to note here that there is no such thing the perfect situation when deciding to do the stay-at-home thing or the work thing. As it is, I stay at home and am around my kids all the time. So, I get annoyed by them easier and take them for granted more and let them watch too much TV and don't always do very productive things with them. Working moms mention working mom guilt, but I think there is also stay-at-home mom guilt. That shameful feeling of wanting to punt your kids every so often b/c you've had enough of them.

Back to the list of pros and cons. As you can see from the above list, the first factor is even (no money made), the next three were negatives for going back to work, and the next three were positives for going back to work. But, they are not all evenly weighted for me. This was becoming a mathematical equation of the sort that I used to do for work! Each variable has a weight, and sometimes there are one or two variables that carry almost all of the weight. This exercise helped me to determine that the negatives for me were weighted slightly higher than the positives. After a lot of thought, I turned down the job. In the end, I do think that is going to make ME a happier person and happier mom.

Time will tell if this was the right decision. At least two good things have come out of this I know:
1. I discovered that if I want to, I CAN get a job. Hooray.
2. I discovered that each person can have her own equation for a problem, and it is wrong to determine the answer to someone else's problem using your own equation. Whether that's for working or staying at home, or something altogether different.

And that's my deep thoughts for the day...

Saint of Darkness

2007-09-05T22:10:00.000-05:00

Mother Teresa had crises of faith, too. If you haven't heard anything about it, please read:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070830/cm_csm/eteresa_1
In her letters to confessors and superiors, recently published, Mother Teresa's soul is laid bare as she admits to profound moments of isolation and abandonment from God and even doubt in heaven or the Creator himself. In fact, she struggled with these feelings for 50 years while she continued to minister to the poorest of Calcutta.

I think this is so interesting for so many reasons. As this story is published, stories of other saints and good people having profound moments of doubt surface. Doubt might be more normal than we think. I also think that feelings come in pairs. What does "happy" mean if there's not a "sad" to give it context? Profound spirituality and communion with God and profound isolation and abandonment might come as a package deal. No one can feel floaty and peaceful and God-filled all the time, just like no one can be jolly and spritely all the time.

For me, this only elevates the status of Mother Teresa. She persevered through moments of doubt and tried to see the good in it. One of her advisers told her that her abandonment gives her greater understanding of Jesus on the cross feeling abandoned. She said in one letter, "If I ever achieve sainthood, I should be known as the Saint of Darkness." (my rough quotes). Given the number of people suffering from religious doubt or other versions of abandonment in their lives, I think our world certainly could use a Saint of Darkness.

The Tail

2007-08-30T22:09:00.000-05:00

Today Johnny called me over to the bathroom, presumably to help with the wiping situation (because even when your kid is potty trained, you still have daily proximity to poop for several more years). I obligingly headed to the bathroom to see my little boy, naked, with a wad of scrunched up toilet paper between his butt cheeks. "Look, Mom, I have a tail!"

Time travel

2007-08-29T00:24:00.000-05:00

I was digging through old papers to find a hard copy resume (brushing it up for that perfect 2-day a week dream job that is just around the corner). Anyhow, I spent the rest of the evening reading old journals, letters, and report cards. To open those same notebooks that I frantically scribbled my moment's drama, to turn those same pages I cried over and rejoiced in!! Not only did I write my thoughts, but stories of that time, complete with dialogue, as well. It was a magical transport to a younger self!

When Matt and I first started dating, I remember one night we were up so late talking about meaning of life type stuff. It had gotten so dark and we never bothered to turn on lights. Not even a street light shone into the room it was so black. All we could hear were each other's voices emerging from nothingness. The subject matter and the fact that it was about 2 in the morning all contributed to this feeling that we were not bodies sitting on couches talking, but two souls floating in space.

And that's how I felt listening to my former self's words. A teenage soul floating above the page. Anxious, unsure, naive and overwhelmed by seeing the bigness of the world for the first time. It certainly wasn't all bad, and I was even happy to find out that the things I was interested in then are still interesting now. But permeating the beginnings of a woman excited to meet the world was a teenager scared of making a mistake, scared to be something other than what was expected, scared of her own sexuality, needy and wanting to be loved. Much of what I wrote about was petty garbage, who I liked, excuse me, LOVED, that week, who snubbed me, and why it was always the other person's fault. If you've never read your own journal, proceed with caution. It's a very humbling experience.

Now, if only I could take myself now, or better yet, my self that I am aiming to become, and float that soul above the page to have a chat with the 17-year old, we'll be all set. Except that when you're 17, you don't listen to anyone. :) Better to take that old soul who knows no boundaries and set it firmly into my 31-year old self to dissolve the last vestiges of self-doubt.

New Furnace

2007-08-22T12:08:00.000-05:00

We have air, for the first time in almost a month. Ahhhhhh. I think I'm going to stand in front of the vent all day.

Shoes

2007-08-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

So I just ran to Target and bought some shoes for Ellie. She is no longer a poor neglected child.

Marshalls

2007-08-17T12:29:00.001-05:00

Ellie hates shoes. She takes them off when I put them on her. So I don't. I think a barefoot baby is just fine, so I haven't given it another thought. Until today, when I was shopping for socks and underwear at Marshall's. She was really angry at being in the cart, so I took her out so she could play with the socks while I looked for what I needed.

A saleslady walked by and said in a terse voice, "She needs shoes." And walked away.

So then I'm wondering, does she mean she needs shoes to be allowed in the store? Does no shirt, no shoes, no service apply to babies? Then I suddenly realize that she is looking at us thinking how sad it is that there are parents in this world who don't buy their kids what they need and the poor babies have to go without because of the stupid parents. And then the smoke starts pouring out of my ears and my face turns red with anger. I have now had three babies who hate shoes. I didn't put shoes on a single one of them as babies, and I think they have turned out just fine (well, most days anyway). If someone else feels the need to always have shoes on their baby, that's fine with me. But I don't need to have someone imposing that on me.

So when the saleslady returns, I say to her, "I guess that's your theory that she needs shoes. I don't think she does."

And she quickly corrected herself, saying, "No, I mean that there's a lot of pins on the floor that she could step on."

I immediately feel stupid and terrible for jumping to conclusions that she is criticizing my parenting. "Oh, I see. Sorry, I'll put her back in the cart."

Then the saleslady walks away and mumbles, "I would never let MY child be barefoot." My ears perk up and I say, "What was that you just said?" Eyebrows raised, tounge in cheek, she did not respond.

"You would never let YOUR child be barefoot?" I say. She looked at me and dared me to go on. I accepted the challenge. "I think I'll talk to your manager about this."

"Good. She'll probably say the same thing to you."

I talked to the manager, blah blah blah, this kind of treatment doesn't make me want to patronize this store (yes, this fine establishment with pins on the floor and clothes you need to dig through to find what you need). And then I told her I would like an apology from the offending employee.

What a bitch I am! Not for standing up for parents of barefooted babies everywhere, but for demanding an apology. I guess I went a little too far. Lesson learned: let the steam out a little at a time instead of all at once. And I realize how insane I am as I'm standing there with my purchases (because after spending 45 minutes picking out socks and underwear, I couldn't just leave it there. I had to buy it and then complain about how NEXT time I won't patronize this store). And so, as the manager was talking to the employee to try and get her to aplologize, I told the cashier there was somewhere I needed to be (a lie) and quietly made my exit.

Ellie walks!

2007-08-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

Just one step last week when we were on vacation, then yesterday and today she has taken multiple steps. Hip hip hooray! Everyone in our house can walk!

Heavenly Cottage

2007-08-14T09:27:00.000-05:00

We just got back from a little 10-day vacation. We went to my in-laws in Door County for the weekends, and I spent the weekdays in Green Bay at the cottage where my family vacationed in the summers. The cottage is a true cottage, with thin walls, 3 tiny bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a living room and dining room with windows all around to look out onto the bay. From the yard, you can sit and watch the sunrise, the sunset, and an inky black sky speckled with millions of shimmering stars. The waves lull you to sleep at night and provide endless entertainment during the day with the help of some very nice friends down the street and all their water toys. Each year as the car approached the bay, the birds grew louder and the air felt cleaner and my heart woud beat with excitement to experience the yearly ritual of swimming, skiing, getting sunburned, watching the sunset, and sleeping on cots.

Over the last decade, I have become much more of a city-girl. My fear of spiders has grown as my tolerance of dirt and mismatched furniture has shrunk. One might say that this is an irony, considering the 100-year old house I live in, with hand me down furniture and dirt that never seems to come out of some of the crevices of the floors. Fodder for future post. Anyway, something happened this time at the cottage and I connected with it in a way that I haven't in a decade. Or maybe ever. Returning there, I walked in to see the same baskets hanging on yellow walls in the kitchen, the same green sea lantern that provided soft light for midnight bathroom visits, the same map on the wall that announced permanancy to the location. I was comforted by those walls that held the stories of my childhood, the waves that have been and will continue to be the heartbeat of the shore. As my mom and I stayed up late one night and looked out into the milky way and contemplated the size of the universe, I remembered a little picture hanging on one of the walls inside, "Heaven is a little closer in a house by the sea." And I think it's true.

Deep Thoughts, by Annie

2007-07-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

Annie is very proud of having lost 5 teeth. I haven't warned her that it's the only time in her life that she gets to be proud of having a smile with missing/variable sized/multicolored teeth. If she still has this smile in 20 years, we will call her a hillbilly. Or British. Some of Annie's friends have not lost teeth. All their teeth are the same size and roughly the same color. Poor things. But Annie had a bright idea to cheer them up:
"Maybe if they feel bad that they haven't lost a tooth yet, they could put a raisin on their tooth and pretend that they have."
Good thinking, Annie.

Poor Brit

2007-07-27T09:58:00.000-05:00

Brittany almost dropped her baby! Brittany drives with baby on her lap! Brittany was holding hot coffee and baby at the same time! Brittany had a breakdown and shaved her head!

Why are we obsessed with Brittany and what a headcase she is?

And then yesterday as I was waiting for my kids to finish gymnastics and chasing around after little miss curious Ellie, a mom doing the same thing with her toddler confessed her pent up mom anger to me:
"I didn't know before I had kids how much it was going to feel like I am a slave to them...and I think the expectations of parenthood are worse now than they used to be...I feel like everyone is watching me and judging me...I feel like shouting a big 'Fuck you' to some of these people."

And we wonder why Brit shaved her head.

Note on my car

2007-07-26T22:04:00.001-05:00

The other night I was racing to try to make a 6:45pm exercise class that my friend was teaching. I had all kids in tow as Matt was going to be late that night. We bought a Honda Odyssey a year and a half ago. When looking for minivans, we were pretty much guaranteed of getting an Odyssey as Matt has a love affair with Honda. So we did, and I do love it. However, I still have not gotten used to its ginormous dimensions (yes, I can use the word "ginormous" because it is now in the dictionary). So when turning right, I often bump the back tire on the curb. When parking on the street, I often have two wheels in the grass. So the other night in my haste to make the exercise class, I did not do my best parking job. I think I was inside the yellow lines (or at least on them, which I consider "in" to follow most sports rules). But upon my return, there was a note torn from a yellow legal pad stuck to the winshield.

"Dear Sir or Maam
Your bad parking job made it very difficult for me to get into my car. What if I was disabled?! I hope in the future you take others into consideration when you are parking your car.
In Peace and Understanding"

At first I was really angry and felt like writing a note back (except there would be no car to pin it to). But that won't stop me. I will do so here.

"Dear Peaceful and Understanding Person,
Your smug note upset me. What if I had good reason to do a bad parking job, like having Irritable Bowl Syndrome?! I hope that in the future you consider others' circumstances before you jump to conclusions and write nasty notes.
In Forgiveness and Acceptance
PS-If you were disabled, I would hope that you would park in a handicapped spot. That's what they're for."

There. I feel better.

Johnnyisms

2007-07-25T09:36:00.000-05:00

Woke up early one morning while I was feeding Ellie on the couch. He comes downstairs, hops up on the couch, leans back with arms behind head, turns to me and says, "So, Mom, did ya do anything intersting this morning? Go for a run? Go to the gym?"

While eating blueberries Johnny instructs me, "Mom, open the hatch." I comply and open my mouth. Johnny pops a blueberry in. "Now chew it." I begin to chew. "Chew it like you mean it!!"

Religion

2007-07-24T11:39:00.000-05:00

When I was little, there was a Christian church about three blocks from my house where I would ride my bike from time to time. It was a simple white box with a steeple on top--the kind of place I imagined a pretty white wedding taking place. It lacked the flying buttresses, gothic ceilings, and enormous stained glass windows that our Catholic Church boasted. I wondered why we drove three miles away to church instead of going there. "It's not a Catholic Church" was the reply. This didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time. So what if it's not Catholic. I was sure there was the same altar with men dressed up in robes, trilly singers, and boring readings. The unbroken chain of Church fathers, long thought out doctrine and adherence to Church dogma just would not have made any sense to me at the time. And even now, I think some of this Church doctrine gibberish is a grownup's version of "my Dad is stronger than your Dad." We haven't lost any of our fighting arrogance that we had when we were little, we've just disguised it better with well-worded epistles.

I am all grown up now, but I still long for the simplicity of that white box. The only problem being I'm not sure I love what's inside the white box. So I set out to find a church that I loved. A structure that was simple and beautiful, a people I could both support and be supported by, leaders who inspired me, and a means to do good works and give back to the community.

For lent this year I decided that instead of giving something up, I was going to try to determine which religion I am. Easter was about three months ago, and I still don't have a religion. I have been doing some reading in religious subjects (thanks to my religiously-inspired book club), I've prayed about it, and for two Sundays I become a traitor to the Catholic faith to attend an Episcopalian and a Unitarian service. Both had things that I was very drawn to, but both lacked something as well. I guess I'm looking to belong to something that I am 100% in support of, which completely expresses who I am and what I believe in. And generally when you belong to a group, that's just never going to happen. Part of being in a group is losing a bit of yourself. I'm afraid I'm just not ready to do that. So I've decided that it's okay to be in a state of indecision for awhile, to not totally belong to something, but instead to take the good from many different sources and let all the ideas settle. Just because I don't have a church I'm totally committed to doesn't mean I don't have a God that I'm totally committed to.

Milestones

2007-07-12T22:49:00.000-05:00

We completed the birthday and anniversary extravaganza. Annie's birthday on June 28 was followed by our anniversary on July 7 (7 years on 7-7-07!!), Johnny's birthday July 8, and Ellie's birthday July 11. If I see another piece of neon-frosted cake I think I might hurl. Matt and I went over all that has happened in 7 years of marriage. Here's the review:

7 of the best years of my life
6 little hands brought into the world
5 moves (3 apartments, 2 homes--I am a serial mover)
4 jobs held
3 cars purchased
2 mortgages
1 happy happy family

I can't believe it's all there on paper, but there it is. Hard to believe we were just 24 when we started down this road. Mere tadpoles. I suppose we've been busy. And although I will always look back and think how much easier it would have been if we had a house first, or been more vigilant about savings, or understood what we were doing before we did it, I also realize that for two doubting Thomases who are sometimes thickheaded to good advice, reinventing the wheel is a chore we inevitably must complete. I also realize that what has happened has made our kids who they are and has made us who we are. Happy 6th, happy 4th, and happy 1st to our sweet cherubs. And thanks to all of our friends and family who have been with us through this meandering but purposeful path. We're blessed.

The latest

2007-07-05T08:46:00.001-05:00

Just a few snippits from the last few days...

The kids birthday party where one of the boys yelled "Mrs. Incredimom [referring to me] is stinky!" over and over, did the opposite of "Simon Says", and then finally grabbed my boob when I was the stoplight in "Red Light Green Light." I nearly spanked him.

Annie's birthday--she was so happy with her tinkerbell cake and all the fairies that she got. Never mind that Barbie's Fairytopia fairies look like hookers. I can't decide which look trampier: the fairies or Bratz dolls.

Playing 20 questions with the kids. The kids had narrowed it down to an adult male living with Grandma.
Annie: "Is this person black?"
Me: "No"
Annie: "Is this person brown?"
Me: "No."
Annie: So it's not Grandpa?

Johnny loves when people are afraid of something. I told him I was afraid of bugs one day when we were sitting at breakfast. Under the table he knocks. I say, "Who is that at the door?" John answers "It's a bug." Today while Matt was reading the paper and John was eating cereal, Johnny asks Matt what he is afraid of. "Inflation," Matt answers. And of course, knock knock knock, "Dad, I think that's inflation at the door."

When out to dinner downtown with my mom, I got a little turned around, and in a tizzy of getting to the restaurant on time, I missed the signs for speed bumps ahead and flew over them at 20mph. Plastic flap covering the underbelly came down. Took it in, and it turns out that zip ties can do wonders. Total damage only $31.

The Pool

2007-06-20T17:36:00.001-05:00

Today I told the kids we could go to the pool. After feeding them, searching the house for the lost swimsuit bottoms, changing Ellie's poopy diaper and then giving her a bath because it was THAT bad, slathering them with sunscreen, packing snacks and sippie cups, and digging through Annie's old clothes bins for the sunhat I needed for Ellie (which she then subsequently would not keep on her head), we were ready to go. It took only an hour and a half from the time we said we would go to the time that we actually went. Ellie was sleepy and needed a nap by the time we got there, but I realize that if I gave her every nap at home, we would truly never leave home.

The kids have had swim lessons on and off through the years, but we haven't really pushed the swimming agenda. To ensure their safety, I prefer instead to stand one foot away from them and shout "Not past this line!" "Hold onto my hand!". I have thought this method the appropriate next step from last summer, when I insisted that they hold onto my swimsuit bottoms even at the peril of giving unsuspecting 5-year olds with diving masks an eyeful. I'm afraid I have imparted my worrywart ways on them. They wouldn't dare put their heads underwater, and when they get splashed in the face they immediately demand a towel. So as I was in the water today clinging onto Ellie and shouting directions at the other two, the kids saw their friend Sarah. Ellie suddenly grabbed my glasses and threw them in the water. They sank. Sarah, who is four, dived to the bottom, opened her eyes, retrieved the glasses and swam to the top, triumphant and proud. I realized at that moment that my kids were in danger of becoming namby pambies for life.

The kids soon found their school friends. I faded into the background as their faces brightened and their feet quickened. I stood at the side of the pool with the other moms watching them get splashed and not ask for a towel immediately afterward. At the rest period I decided to go retrieve their goggles from the car to see if they'd go underwater. I left them in the charge of my friend while I ran out. When I returned, John was nowhere to be found. A 5-minute panic ensued, with all the school moms looking in the sandbox, the kiddie pool, and scanning the water for Johnny. We finally found him parked on the potty, suit around the ankles, singing.

cottage

2007-06-18T08:39:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night, before we left for the cottage, I was up with a sick Ellie. I attributed it to the massive amounts of asparagus I gave her that night. Surely it wasn't the stomach flu. She was fine the next day, so we proceeded to the cottage. I really did not want to miss our trip, especially because my sister Katie cancelled her trip to Spain in favor of spending some family time in Green Bay. The cottage is a definite rustic vacation. After mowing the lawn, spraying for the thousands of mosquitos in the yard, and burying the dead cat found under the canoe, we were ready for fun! (PS-I did none of the dirty work, preferred to leave that to my brother-in-law.) Wednesday was fun, we swam in the fly soup, I mean the Green Bay, and went for nature walks. Thursday the kids skipped rocks in the bay and my sister's 7-year old stepdaughter got hit in the head with one. After some theraputic screaming and the necessary icepack, she was fine. We had a fantastic barbeque that night and went to the frosty tip for an ice cream treat. But that night, at 2am, the 7-year old woke up vomiting. My sister rushed her to the ER, thinking she had a concussion from the earlier incident. She was kept for several hours and had a cat scan, which showed nothing but a healthy head. It was concluded she had a stomach bug and was sent home at 5am. Right around then a mysterious 3-foot figure appears at the foot of my bed saying, "Mommy, I threw up!!" Johnny then had it. Several hours later it was my niece Sara, then Annie, and finally, Matt. So in the end, we had unleashed the stomach flu on 5 people. But I'm sure that my sister is glad to have paid all that money for the cat scan to know that her little one has a perfect head, and my other sister is glad to not have had to cross an ocean for an adventure.

Ellie and my babies

2007-06-17T10:06:00.000-05:00

Ellie now crawls, which is so exciting, but it also comes with challenges. We have a mad dash now of childproofing to do, and I need to change my thinking now to encompass things that would be intriguing but dangerous to an 11-month old. I can no longer just put her down with a few toys and go take care of dinner or go to the bathroom. It's funny, because I've already had two kids go through this stage, but I forgot what it was like to suddenly have a mobile baby.

And as life has suddenly become busier and harder with a crawling beanie, I think back to her newborn stage with a very tender heart. We were still finishing our kitchen remodel, we were trying to potty train Johnny and were cleaning up accidents several times a day (and still are, hmmm...), and soon after her birth we dealt with the kids' anxieties of starting preschool and kindergarten. It was super busy and super challenging, but at the same time we had a tiny warm bundle of flesh who would curl up on my shoulder and sleep. She knew me by my scent and for the two hours a day when her eyes were open, she would study my face as if she were imprinting the image into her memory.

Ellie has now tripled in size and babbles, stands, eats people food and recognizes all the important people in her life. Just a few days ago as I was rocking this 11-month old giant to sleep, I looked around in her room fantasizing about the color I want to paint it and making a mental note of the holes I wanted to fill and the colors in the bedding I wanted to buy her. Then I looked down at the chubby angelic face and I thought of how my two older kids can't be held in the crook of my arm anymore. I thought of how they once were 11-month olds who howled through the night when their teeth were coming in and felt safe when I picked them up and held them in that rocking chair. Then I thought of the shitty apartment that we lived in when Annie was a baby and the tiny house that we lived in when Johnny was a baby and I remember how much I wanted to move. As my kids grow bigger, I love them as babies even more. I would trade my soul to the devil to shrink each of them back down to babies and rock them to sleep in their shitty, tiny rooms, just so i could kiss them and inject as much love and affection into them as I possibly could.

When Matt and I were in pre-cana classes before we got married, one of the couples gave a talk about having children. I remember so clearly what the woman said about how it felt to have your own kids. She said it was like pulling your heart out of your chest and watching it walk around with its own arms and legs. And I guess now having gone through this three times, I can finally see that it doesn't matter what color my walls are or how many holes I need to fill in them, my kids will never be this small again. They will never be as dependent, and never be as willing to love me back as they are at this very moment.

My friend's dad was telling me about when his kids were babies. He expressed how hard it was, but he said, looking back, the best years of his life were when his kids were babies. I know this to be true. For me, this is the reason I live. I understand life through my parents' eyes now better because I'm living it, and I can understand my kids better because I've been one.

"There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands." (John Mellencamp)

PS- And yes, I know that I am a schmaltz ball.

Ellie's thighs

2007-05-30T14:33:00.000-05:00

The rest of her looks fairly normal
But then you see those thighs
There are knee-dimples
A crease instead of an ankle
Many folds and dimples
No discernable muscle
Just squishy soft baby thighs
I can't decide whether to slather them in butter and eat them
or dive into them and swim
Is that so wrong?
She'd better enjoy them
It's the only time in life when the fatter you are the cuter you look

Weekend at the cottage

2007-05-28T10:41:00.000-05:00

We just returned from my Grandma's party weekend in Green Bay. This was the weekend that 17 people were supposed to spend the night in a 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom cottage. We made hotel reservations, my mom sprang into action at the threat of us not being on-site wtih the others, and offered us the guest cottage. This is a small cottage next to the 3-bedroom one. We gratefully accepted.

The guest cottage has one large bedroom and a little bathroom. In the bedroom (15x15) is a double-bed, two twin beds, a bunkbed, and a dresser. You might wonder how all these beds fit into a tiny space. The answer is, not very well. And I see from these arrangements that other families have the same biases in favor of cramming as many people as possible into a tiny space.

Tenement-style living quickly turned crabby as kids got wild, adults reached their noise-level max, people stopped obeying the friendly reminder-notes left throughout the cottage ("take off shoes!" "don't use this door!"), and only a few were helping prepare the meal for 40 while the rest sat in the living room became smarter and funnier and louder than ever with the help of free-flowing booze.

I know I sound really crabby, and I guess I just don't do well with the chaos that a big family brings. But coming home and falling into my own bed was very, very nice. And I'm looking forward to a wonderful, relaxing Memorial Day.

weekend highlights

2007-05-23T22:53:00.000-05:00

1. The woman I sat next to on the way to Dallas for my 3-hour layover offering to get me into the Dallas Admiral's club. The other half does live better.
2. My brother-in-law cooking delicious, perfect fish and grilled asparagus the first night I arrived. Served with the most delicious wine ever
3. Buying a dress that I would normally never buy if I weren't on vacation
4. Returning said dress the next day.
5. Going to a benefit auction for the San Francisco Children's museum. A spectacle. I declined to bid on the $34,000 vacation
6. Watching the Bay-to-Breakers race Sunday. Lots of naked people. It's really funny to see naked people wearing shoes and socks and sunglasses.
7. Walking up hills, which don't exist in the midwest. I discovered that I indeed have calf muscles, although my leg is shaped like a wrapping paper tube from knee to ankle.
8. Playing with my adorable and hilarious nieces.
9. Feeling brilliant when I thought of a way to make one niece stay in bed at night (the nightime fairy will bring a treat in the morning if you stay in bed all night).
10. Feeling really bad when brilliant idea backfired and niece clutched at me and cried in fear of the strange "Fairy" (insert SF gay joke here)
11. Spending lots and lots of time with my beloved sister and bro-in-law
12. Chuckling to self as security asked if I would take off Ellie's booties and put them through the scanner. Ellie the shoe-bomber. I mean bootie-bomber.

pope's book

2007-05-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else think it's weird that the pope came out with a book? Does he do book tours? Signings? Go on the talk show circuit to promote it? It's obviously going to sell well because, well, he's the pope. The idea behind his book is that many who study the bible via the historical-critical method (deciphering the passages within the context of the time, the author's bias, mistranslations) are limited in their studies. The Catholic way, he asserts, should be to approach the bible and everything in our religion from a loving, faith-filled background. In other words, faith must come before biblical study, because biblical study can not logically lead to faith. If that makes sense. Anyhow, I fell asleep twice while trying to start the pope's book. And I'm sure anyone who reads this is already asleep also.

What's new

2007-05-14T12:31:00.000-05:00

Last week I had the kids outside at the witching hour. The witching hour is actually more like 3 hours from 3-6pm, when I have nothing left in my Mary Poppins arsenal, when threre are no naps left in the day, and all I can do is try to have the kids not kill each other while I anxiously await the return of Matt so I can exit promptly for a decompression walk around the block. So the kids were outside in fight mode and I was trying really hard not to physically or emotionally abuse them. Out strolls a neighbor with her one child (who happens to be perfect). She starts talking about how she really isn't sure she wants to have another baby because of what it would do to the perfect first child. And, she said, there is always the chance of having twins, which would be a REAL disaster! And here I am, yelling at my kids to quit beating each other, and knowing that she is observing what is happening as the disaster she would be faced with if she had two more kids. Then she's talking about how she's a professor and how she's working on her dissertation, which she wants to turn into a book. And all at once I have two feelings: 1. I LOVE my three kids, and of course it's hard sometimes, but I would NEVER trade this and all the fun and love they get from each other. And 2. I would give anything to have a life of books and research and writing and teaching. And it dawns on me that this is what I want to do with my life. Not that I haven't fantasized about getting my PhD in theology and teaching for a living, but it has been closer to the coffeeshop fantasy in reality terms. But I think I know now that this desire to learn more and to write about my thoughts in the matters I read about is something inside that I MUST do. It's more than a passing fantasy, but something that really has to happen for me to feel complete.

So now I'm trying to figure out how it can happen. First step is to research grad schools around Chicago, second step, figure out what I can do with a degree in theology if I don't happen to have people begging me to accept a tenure track position at their Chicago University. There's always the money tree in the backyard, which will also finance the landscaping, new windows, bathroom remodels and master suite addition that I'd also like.

I have become the estimate bandit around Oak Park, requesting estimates for the following items:
new furnace
patio/walkway/landscaping in back
windows in front

...without doing a thing about any of these. Because all of them cost approximately 10 times what we can afford. Again, I know I need to consult the money tree.

I also had my family over on Sunday for brunch. As usual, I had pre-family-party freak out, where I get to be a really horrible person to live with and start thinking irrational thoughts. But it's over now, the food was great (a repeat of Easter brunch).

So that's the update, sorry for dropping out of society for awhile. I tend to do that when I get freaked out.

Thursday begins my vacation to San Fransisco to visit my sis. Can't wait!

A day in my mind

2007-05-07T16:19:00.000-05:00

Over the last month or so, John has upped his usual maniac ways. His emotions have been turning on a dime, we have daily power struggles, and he has requested a new mom. (John: "What does 'fired' mean?" Me: "When you loose your job." John: "If you were fired, who would be my mom?" Me: "I don't know." John: "Maybe Mrs. Murphy could be my mom." Me: "Maybe." John: "Mom, you're fired.") He has also been having accidents up to 4 times a day, and has been wetting the bed frequently, even peeing on me once when I was in his bed when Matt was away and I didn't want to be on a different floor than the kids (terrible habit, I know, hello, Oedipus). But in the middle of the night one of these nights when Matt was away (after peeing the bed), Johnny asked for a glass of water to make his legs feel better. Weird. So I immediately think something is horrible wrong with him and look up his symptoms. I become convinced that he has diabetes and tell Matt that we must make him an appointment for a screening. Matt, used to my alarmist ways, requests that I wait just two days until the new job starts so we won't have any trouble with pre-existing conditions if it turns out that he does have diabetes.

I had the appointment last week. They do a test right there in the office. No diabetes. However, they said that his white blood count levels were up and they were sending it to the big lab for testing. I go home and look up what happens when white blood count leves are off, and I become convinced that John has a condition where his body is attacking his organs, and he will eventually die from this. I become completely depressed and think of life without Johnny. At least I will still have my two girls, and maybe then we'll have another baby. Maybe it will be a boy and his middle name will be Johnny. Annie will have the hardest time with Johnny's death because she adores him (although they fight like Shiites and Sunnis). I'm not sure I could have a regular funeral, standing up there in a receiving line with all those people coming through, trying super hard only to let the appropriate amount of crazy show.

Well, the pediatrician called today. No diabetes, no weird self-attacking disease. John will live. No funeral. No baby with Johnny as a middle name. Thank goodness I don't have to stand up in front of all those people trying not to be crazy.

But now, there's no disease that excuses his maniacal ways. That's just HIM! So I called my Dad for guidance, and he tells me that John is just a normal boy. As he gets older, his boy ways will be louder and bigger. God help me.

new theory of mine

2007-05-02T23:16:00.000-05:00

A healthy marriage requires just a little bit of denial.

Self Help Book Binge

2007-05-01T13:33:00.000-05:00

LOVED the enneagram book. I made Matt self-diagnose what type he is as well (he's a 5). We read the chapter for him and alternately howled in laughter and were stunned into silence at the accuracy of the statements regarding people in his type. Anyhow, it opened up a conversation and has helped both of us understand how the other's brain works.

Now I am on to the next self-help book, "Fear and Other Uninvited Guests" by Harriet Lerner, a funny, smart, open and honest PhD in Psychology. She shares her own stories of dysfunction which I love. Something about another person's humility and openness that makes me want to listen to them even more. There are some wonderful quotes in this book which I'd like to share here:

"Every human life is unique, and every human life has value. We're not meant to be anyone else but ourselves. We all face the challenge of living the life we have, not the life we imagined having, the life we wish for, or the life we are quite certain we deserve. "

"Finding is losing something else. I weep, even mourn, for that which I lost to find this."

"Our society doesn't promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn't sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now."

Just some interesting tidbits. Hope you like them, too.

National Turn Off TV Week

2007-04-27T08:57:00.000-05:00

Annie came home from school the other day with the news that this week is National Turn off the TV week. I had heard this but declined to participate as Matt would not be home until Thursday and I was fairly certain that there would be blood shed if I could not use TV as a bribe tool, a babysitter, or an emergency "save me from these kids right now" tool. So when at the beginning of the week Annie announced the news, I told the kids that from Thursday through Sunday we would not watch TV. Yesterday morning, Ellie woke up early, and I plucked her from her crib, got her a bottle, and plopped on the couch with the remote. I turned the volume way down, though, so I could barely hear it. Johnny's ears I think have supersonic hearing, because he immediately woke up when he heard the buzz of the tube. As he's coming down the stairs, he scolds me, "Mom, I thought we talked about this in the car yesterday. No TV." Busted.

Enneagram Obsession

2007-04-25T20:36:00.000-05:00

I checked out this book a week ago as a total self-help maneuver to understand myself a little better and to figure out what to work on to grow personally and spiritually. It's called "Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types". The idea is that there are 9 general types of people. So I've taken several tests to figure it out. I was getting totally frustrated by these tests, unsure how to respond to such questions like:
I've been
a. romantic and imaginative.
b. pragmatic and down to earth.
What if I am both at different times? How do I just pick one? Or here's another problematic question:
Generally, it's been
a. easy to "get a rise" out of me.
b. difficult to "get a rise" out of me.
What if sometimes it's easy, but sometimes it's difficult? What if I have a split personality?! Oh my God, I think I'm schizophrenic! Or manic depressive!

Trying to figure out my personality type in order that I might improve myself and find more peace in my life was causing me a LOT of stress! But that did not make me put down the book. Oh, no. That would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, I stayed up late, worked through the frustrating times just to find out which one of the nine boxes I would fit into. Darn it, I knew it would be one of them. I think I'm probably a mix, with one dominant kind. Here they are for you, in abbreviated expanations:

1 THE REFORMER
The Rational, Idealistic Type: Principled, Purposeful, Self-Controlled, and Perfectionistic
2 THE HELPER
The Caring, Interpersonal Type: Demonstrative, Generous, People-Pleasing, and Possessive
3 THE ACHIEVER
The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious
4 THE INDIVIDUALIST
The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type: Expressive, Dramatic, Self-Absorbed, and Temperamental
5 THE INVESTIGATOR
The Intense, Cerebral Type: Perceptive, Innovative, Secretive, and Isolated
6 THE LOYALIST
The Committed, Security-Oriented Type: Engaging, Responsible, Anxious, and Suspicious
7 THE ENTHUSIAST
The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Distractible, and Scattered
8 THE CHALLENGER
The Powerful, Dominating Type: Self-Confident, Decisive, Willful, and Confrontational
9 THE PEACEMAKER
The Easygoing, Self-Effacing Type: Receptive, Reassuring, Agreeable, and Complacent

For more info, go to:
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com

I think I'm a 4 and a 1. I am loving this thing, though, because the more I read the more I am agreeing with it. I am turning over a whole new leaf. Watch out world, the new me is coming! (As a kid I always loved corny lines like that).

Kid humor

2007-04-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

One of Johnny's friends came up with a nonsense rhyme a few days ago. They stand on their chairs and dance and sing:

"The big big Johnny that you've ever seen
He has a big booty and he's very smelly!"

And then they collapse into laughter.

Johnny

2007-04-24T22:03:00.000-05:00

Johnny has been acting goofy ever since Matt went out of town on Saturday. Pushing me, hitting me, growling at me, in short, Johnny is HATING me. He told me yesterday that I was "fired." Then he asked what fired meant, and when I told him, he asked, "if you are fired, who's going to be my mom?" I told him that was a good question. Pause. The wheels are turning in Johnny's head and he says, "Can Mrs. Murphy be my mom?"

Am I crazy?

2007-04-23T21:52:00.000-05:00

My Grandmother's 83rd birthday party is Memorial Day weekend in Green Bay. My mom and her sibs have rented a boat for 100 of our family members for the occasion. 4 cottages have been rented near Green Bay to accomodate out-of-towners. 17 people from the Mary family plan on being there and are supposed to cram into one of these cottages. 8 adults, 9 kids. 1 bathroom. Yes, 1 bathroom. When I expressed concern that this might be troublesome to get ready for the fancy party with only 1 bathroom and 17 people, I was told that I am "crazy."

Long John

2007-04-23T13:41:00.000-05:00

I have tried to be a little more careful of divulging too much personal data on this website and have felt fine until now about the public nature of blogging. However, a few days ago I received an interesting comment on the last entry, "Money Pit." A commenter calling himself "Long John" wrote: "Who are you going to show your new underwear to? That's a good question. Remember your old friend John from school?" I clicked on the link "Long John" which showed a picture of a very long penis. Nice. So, I immediately changed the settings on the blog so that I have to approve the comments before they show up. I also changed the settings so that this blog is public (anyone can get to it if they have the address), but it's not published in the blogger.com directory. Hopefully, this will save me from future "Long Johns." By the way, if Long John is reading this right now, there were no Johns in my class, and I hope you realize it is sick and wrong to proposition a lady with 3 kids and white cotton brief underwear.

Money Pit

2007-04-17T08:27:00.000-05:00

So we have a little bit of money from our tax return that we'll do something with. We got an estimate on landscaping the backyard. Some light landscaping plus a patio and brick path to the garage would run about $11,000. Hmmm...maybe we'll do something else this year.

We decided to look into replacing the windows in the front of our house. There are 10 of them, and they are narrow little windows. 6 in the front, 1 on the side facing the door, 3 on the side facing our neighbors. And it will cost anywhere between $7,000 and $14,000 to replace them. So I'm thinking about covering up the windows on the sides (the 1 facing the door, the 3 facing our neighbors) and making it just plain wall. Advantages of this are: less air leakage I think, more wall space to put a piece of furniture or art. Disadvantages of this are: less sunlight from the sides, no more being an exhibitionist for neighbors (who will I show my new underwear to?). I don't even know if this would save money (savings of $2800-5600, but what is spent on new wallboard, stucco, etc?--it might be a wash).

Golly it's expensive to fix up a house.

Matt update

2007-04-15T11:51:00.000-05:00

Matt found a new job! He has been way too busy and overworked for the last couple of years, getting worse after his company was bought by a ginormous company and those above him cared even less about his unfortunate spot. Matt is better suited to a smaller company where he feels like he is worth something. He will beat his head against a wall for ages before he finally gives up, however (annoying to me when the thing he won't leave is a horrible company, good for me when the thing he won't leave is me). But when he finally turned in his notice, the black cloud lifted and the enormous burden of his position went away. Ahhh, Atlas shrugged. He starts in about three weeks. He's taking a week off at home, and he's going on a fun-filled trip to England for the Champion's League Finals (soccer, or "football" if you prefer the British). Hooray.

Kiva.org

2007-04-13T11:26:00.000-05:00

I want to pass this on to those who haven't heard of it. Microlending is "the extension of very small loans (microloans) to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty who are not bankable" (from Wikipedia). Very very cool concept if there is any hope for the poor (esp those in third world countries) to have any hope of raising themselves out of poverty. Here is the site:
kiva.org

My big fat Irish family

2007-04-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

I am Godmother to my nephew. I am not exactly sure what a Godmother is really supposed to do except hold the candle at the baptism and give cool presents at birthdays and Christmas. I feel like it should be something more than this, especially because I think the presents that I have given my nephew over the years have sucked. Mostly because I have not stuck with his Christmas list which includes all things violent (he asked for and received a gun from his Dad two Christmases ago--they go the range for a bonding experience). Anyhow, in an attempt to be more than the Aunt who gets him boring books and sensible sweaters, I wanted to take him to the museum of his choosing for a special day yesterday (he is on Spring Break). He wanted to go to the Planetarium and see an Imax show.

I check out showtimes and I'm getting really excited for our big day. Annie is in school, so Johnny and Ellie and Cole and I would go together. Then my mom calls and wants to go. Then my brother from Wisconsin calls and says he's here for the week and he's coming too. Then I find out that his three kids will be with him. My mom and brother insist that my Dad come also because this is a "family outing" and he can't not be there. So, I set off on my special outing for my Godson with my mom, my dad, my brother, his three kids, and my two kids. The Grizwolds take the Planetarium. So much for an intimate special time with my nephew. It costs about $150 for all of us to get in and see the show and the kids just ran around screaming and banging on shit the whole time. Next time we're going to McDonald's playland. :)

Mattress Story

2007-04-08T21:01:00.000-05:00

I was the happy recipient of a two year old mattress from my Aunt who was moving. Finally Annie's 35 year old mattress could be replaced!

On Thursday last week I picked it up. I hauled the new mattress upstairs and decided to give away the old one. I would drive it to salvation army. Now I was quite occupied and not paying good attention when I stripped the sheets off the bed and hauled it down the stairs and outside. But once the thing was leaning up against the van I took a step back and looked at it in the bright sunlight. I was unprepared for the sight. I know that from time to time there might be accidents of various sorts on beds, but this looked as though someone had been shot on this thing while dying her hair and drinking hot chocolate. And I didn't think I could bear to give it to salvation army in this state. It had to be thrown out.

Neighbors of ours have rented a dumpster to clean out their basement. I looked down the street at it and decided to ask them if I could toss the mattress in. I walked up to the door to ring the bell and before I could even do so, the door opened and what appears to be a 19-year old young woman with long dark hair and gaudy blue eyemakep opens the door. But then the large features and the atom's apple appear and I realize that it is, in fact, a dude. That didn't stop me from my goal, however, which was to find a way to dispose of this unfortunate mattress before a cop drove by and asked to inspect my Honda Odyssey for any dead bodies.

"I was wondering if I might be able to throw something in your dumpster?"
"I don't care. Go ahead." Teen transvestite walks past me to the car and I wonder if there are other she-male teens that hang out in front of the Lake Street theater and Ben and Jerry's.

Dumpsters are supposed to be able to open from the side, but this one was locked. So I spent about 10 minutes trying to hoist the mattress high enough to push over the top. I couldn't even get the thing off the ground it was so heavy. I tried tipping it onto my head (until I realized my head hurt before the whole thing was even on it). I even tried tipping it on my back like a beast of burden to get it lifted up. It was quite a sight, and if any of my neighbors were watching that day, I'm sure they were laughing their asses off watching me try to push this blood-soaked mattress into the dumpster.

I actually stood back from it a moment and remembered grade school science class. What I needed was a simple machine. A lever. No levers in sight, but I did see a couple of plastic lawn chairs. Fulcrums. I set them up to face each other and then tipped the mattress up on one end until the other end was high enough to reach the chair seat. I then lifted the other side to the other chair and presto! I was able to get underneath the mattress with my shoulder and hoist it over the top. In what seemed to me like slow motion, I watched as the terrible beastly mattress began the descent into its new home. And then, I heard the satisfying "thunk" that signaled the end of a mattress' life.

lessons from Mary

2007-04-08T19:52:00.000-05:00

Now that Matt is feeling better for the most part and now that Easter is over, I am no longer a single mother nor a raging lunatic (which is how I get before a party). Did I mention I had Easter brunch at our house with Matt's family? It was my first holiday to host. I actually love making brunch. It's low-key, I love all brunch dishes, and I don't have to feel weird about not serving meat.

Now, I come from a mother who LOVES to entertain. I don't mean simple entertainment either, I mean anywhere from 22 (the number in my "immediate" family now) to 65 (when she throws a big bash). She gets out every piece of silver (the really old fashioned fancy type where the tarnish gets caught in the scrollie little groves and is really hard to rub off when you're an 8-year old performing slave labor before a major holiday). She taught me how to fold a napkin on the table so all you have to do is pick up the corner of it and let it fall on your lap. From her I learned the rule "serve from the left, remove from the right". She taught me that a proper meal should be colorful and include a balance of rich foods and more simple foods. She taught me to fill the coffeepot when you're preparing for a party so all you have to do is turn it on halfway through dinner. Cocktail hour should be just that--one hour to allow for the time it takes for your meal to finish cooking. In short, my mother is the hostess with the mostess. In my family, we tease her because she finds it appaling to put a bottle of anything on the table. As a result, when I was growing up, katsup and jelly always went in little serving cups. Cookingware never went directly on the table; food was always transferred to serving dishes before being placed on the buffet or the table. And we 5 kids were kept busy at night doing dishes. Hmmm...maybe that was the point. I kid you not--to this very day it takes 5 kids plus 4 spouses about two hours to complete all the dishes from Christmas.

Unlike my mother, I become a complete basketcase when faced with the chaos of a fancy dinner party. Chaos and complication are not my cup of tea. But the opposing force at work is my upbringing: all I've ever known of "proper" parties is FANCY FANCY FANCY! And it was my first Easter to host my in-laws. I came up with a brilliant plan. Buy half of the stuff for brunch from Williams-Sonoma (I had a gift certificate that I needed to use), assign duties to everyone to bring one thing, and then I was only responsible for making two dishes from scratch. I consulted my mother the pro on the food. With my mom's coaching, I made everything ahead of time, set the table the night before, and even borrowed pastel bunny servingware from a friend for an adorable table. It was a total hit!! Here was the menu:

Veggie fritata with red pepper sauce
Blueberry coffeecake with lemon curd
Lemon coffeecake with rasperry sauce
bagels with cream cheese
fruit salad
tomato, cucumber and onion salad
Coffee
Orange Juice

I think I'm going to do Easter every year now!

single mom

2007-04-04T13:13:00.000-05:00

Matt has been sick for a few days now, and I must say, it SUCKS to do everything by myself. I have like 30 seconds before doing the next thing, so just a few observations:
1. I realize just how much my husband does now to keep our household humming (or at least chugging)
2. I have new respect for single parents
3. I don't understand people who get divorced with little kids...
My 30 seconds of freedom is up.

New Blog, New Look

2007-04-01T21:46:00.000-05:00

Why "Heaven and Pi"? Well, I have occasionally fantasized about opening up a cafe that would be conducive to book clubs, artists, music and politics. I also realize that the Buzz Cafe has kind of done this already, and it's a lot easier to just go there. But if anything ever happens to the Buzz, be prepared for "Heaven and Pi." Heaven because I am intrigued by all things Godly and Spiritual, and Pi because my favorite dessert to make is blueberry pie (and I'm a dork and love the play on words). But beyond that, Pi is such a mysterious number (the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle). Pi is based in math and should be logical, but has many characteristics which make it so strange: it is infinite, it doesn't repeat, there is no seeming pattern to the digits that comprise it, and it shows up everywhere in nature.

You might think that using an irrational number whose exact value is not fully understood would not be wise, but it is the exact number required for many of math's most complex equations. I just love thinking that Something infinite, not able to be calculated, not fully understood is just the thing we logically minded people need to solve some of life's greatest riddles.