Panhandling

In general, I try to be a compassionate person.  I spend a great deal of my life thinking, "There but for the grace of God go I."  I recognize that nothing is guaranteed, that I am extremely fortunate, that everything I have could be taken from me in an instant, and so I am very grateful.

But I also believe the idea that, "God helps those who help themselves."

Which is why is rankles me that twice now in less than two weeks I have been accosted by someone in a parking lot, when I am clearly in the process of getting my children into or out of the car, and asked if I can spare a few dollars for gas money.

The first time this happened, two Caucasian guys driving slowly in the parking lot stopped and asked for gas money.  I politely told them no.  I wanted to tell them that if they'd quit cruising the parking lot they'd have enough gas left to get their asses home.

Today it was an African-American woman with a cane.  And again, I politely refused.  Fortunately M was screaming his head-off so me saying, "I can't because I've got a screaming baby" wasn't just a way to get her to skidaddle.

I hate to think that these people are skammers, but, really, did you not look at your gas tank before you left the house?  Is there no one else on the planet, like family or friend, that you can contact?  Although I dislike being a suspicious kind of person, I think some people are suspicious.

It makes me want to type up a small list of local charitable organizations that these people can contact, so that when someone asks me for money, I can say, "No, I can't spare a dollar for gas, but I can give you this."  That would be along the lines of teaching a man to fish instead of handing him a grouper, right?

Weekends suck and my strategy for summer

Since having N almost 6 years ago, I have had "issues" with weekends, primarily because in the world of a stay-at-home mom there is no weekend.  D doesn't have to go to his day job on Saturdays and Sundays, but I still do.

There is no day of rest from the cooking, laundry, butt wiping, and other sundry mommy work.
Therefore, my panties usually get in a twist at least a couple times between Friday at 6:00 p.m. and Monday at 8:00 a.m.

Recently I have become aware of how much I harp on N during the weekends.  I feel like I'm constantly saying, "N, please don't....." and "N, I asked you to stop doing....."  And it finally dawned on me---now that she is in school full-time, she and D are the ones who upset my routine on the weekend.

I spend most of the week not being with her, so on the weekends I'm all out of sorts with her asking for stuff or whining or making demands.  She's not being particularly difficult, or more difficult than at any other time, but I just don't know what to do with over 48 hours of her being around.

The other thing is that as an almost 6-year-old, I guess I have some expectations about what she should be able to do.  Unfortunately, though, she has a serious case of the putzes.  The lollygags.  The dorking arounds.  I don't imagine she is any different from other kids, and I think I expect more of her simply because she is so much older than G and M (which is unfair).  She probably feels like I get on her more than G, which I do because he is 2, and I could say things to him all day long but as a relatively new 2-year-old, he just don't get it.

Today when G and M went down for their naps, she asked me to play Polly Pockets.  Last weekend I played Barbies with her.  Let me state that while I am "playing," D is in the basement with the Xbox, which is also called his time "unwinding."  Let me also state that I find it very difficult to play pretend dolls for very long because.....well, because I am 36-years-old.

A part of me wants to tell N, "I will play Polly Pockets with you for 20 minutes, and then you can play by yourself for awhile (so mommy's brain cells can re-grow a bit)," but I feel stingy saying that.  Stingy with my time.  But when I don't put a time limit on it, I zone out and am not a very good playmate anyway because I know I'm gonna be playing Barbies for 2 hours.

I always ask N if she wants to read books, or do a Pixo project, or draw in her doodle book (things that I would find more enjoyable than playing dolls), but she always pooh-poohs these suggestions.  And again, I feel like since it is her weekend, her "down-time," I should do what she wants to do.  But at the same time, I feel like if I was a child playmate, I would say so if I didn't want to play dolls every time I played with N.

So all this rumbling around in my head makes me think it is gonna be a LONG ASS SUMMER if I don't get a strategy together.  For over 2 months I will be out of my routine and lose whatever "me" time I get in the afternoons on the rare occasions that G and M nap simultaneously.

Therefore, I have decided to come up with an Activities Chart, listing all kinds of things N and I can do together both now on the weekends and in the summer.  She can pick anything she wants, but she can't repeat an activity until 7 days have passed.  So if she selects playing Barbies with me on a Monday, she has to pick another activity for the next 6 days, like painting, coloring, reading together, making cupcakes, playing card games, etc.  Now she can play with her Barbies by herself as much as she wants, but we are going to rotate her activities with me.

Because otherwise my brain will be even more addled than it already is.
And I will find myself resenting my girl.

Gimme Whipper

I discourage my children from getting the gimmes.  My refrain is, "You can ask for x, y or z for your birthday or Christmas."  Those are the times when you get stuff.

Lord knows, my kids don't do without.  They have clothes, and they can always finagle books out of me.  But I don't buy them toys or other things with any regularity.

Whipping the gimmes out of myself is also something I've done for years and years.  And I'm so good at it that when I do decide that I really, really, really want something.....like new flooring on my main floor of the house....it is like a constant battle in my head.

The Gimme Whipper has plenty of ammo to discourage me from getting the floor.  The earthquake in Haiti is a constant reminder of how wasteful it is to get new flooring when so many people have nothing, absolutely nothing.

The Gimme Whipper also uses possible health care scenarios as fear tactics to make me reconsider flooring.  Like if M has to have tubes put in later this year (since at 3-months-old he is on his 2nd ear infection).  It would be more prudent to hang onto the money for surgery expenses than a new floor.

But I really want new flooring.  And I keep telling the GW that I'm not going into debt so I'm not being irresponsible.  And that getting rid of the carpet might actually help our allergies (since G and M are likely going to have problems with allergies as well, if they don't already).  And that I'm being very diligent about trying to really save so that I won't deplete every penny in our account to get new flooring.

Gimme Whipper doesn't care.  He just keeps beating and beating the desire right outta me.

Thank god for dairy cows

If it wasn't for dairy products, my 2-year-old would waste away to nothing.

I recently switched him back to whole milk and whole milk yogurt since he's lost a couple pounds since September.  Since he refuses to eat any vegetable and most fruits, I have resorted to V8 Fusion and yogurt- and chocolate-covered raisins, which are the bastard step-children of really healthy stuff, but I gotta do something.  He had been on Juice-Plus, but now he refuses that.  Sometimes I am able to mix some of the granular Juice-Plus (from a capsule) into his yogurt, but that is about as good as it gets.

He gets a multi-vitamin every day, and I've been on the lookout for sorta healthy foods that he might eat.  Or, hell, to be honest, any food that might put some meat on his bones.

Anyhoo, all this focus on G's diet got me thinking about how obsessed I am, and a lot of parents are, with getting our kids to eat healthy.  I certainly would rather be this way than buying junk food and not giving a darn what my kids eat, but I think I lose perspective in my quest to get my kids to eat an optimal diet.

For example, it is a recent phenomenon for people to be able to get fresh fruits and vegetables year-round.  Humanity has survived a long time on people eating very basic staples....not the vast variety of brightly-hued produce that will allow us all to live to be 100.

N and I have been reading a Unicef book about kids from around the world that our neighbor gave her.  Seeing how children in other countries dress, eat and live really makes me think about the goofy things I allow myself to stew over.  Like my kids eating 5 fruits/veggies a day.  People in other parts of the world eat the same bowl of rice and beans day-in and day-out and survive.

And that is the basic tenet of parenthood since the dawn of man.  Get the kids to survive.

Like his father and uncle, who barely eat any fruits/vegetables, G will probably be fairly healthy and grow to somewhere between 6'2" and 6'4".  On dairy products.  And air.

Why I used to not want kids and why I now do

One of my cousins friended me on Facebook and reminded me of how I always said I didn't want to have kids, or at the very least, didn't know if I wanted to have kids.  And it is true--when D and I married, we really didn't know if we wanted kids.  If we decided to have them, we knew we wanted to wait at least 5 years.

We had N when we'd been married almost 6.5 years.

But I think the real truth is more complicated than just that I didn't want to.

Let me explain something about my personality.

When I was in high school, I dated the same guy from sophomore year on.  And many members of my family asked me if he and I would get married.  I HATED this question because I was a teenager.  I was going to go to college, not get married.  By the time senior year rolled around, I knew I didn't want to be with him forever.  Not because he was a bad guy--he was a good guy.  But I was 17-years-old and needed to play the field and grow the heck up (which I am still currently working on).  By second semester freshman year of college, I was so over being tied down and broke it off with him.

When D and I married, I opted to keep my maiden name, and the reason was because I HATED the assumption that I would turn into Mrs. D as soon as the ring was slipped onto my finger.  It felt to me like I was going to have to work really, really hard to keep my identity as Carrie once I married.  So keeping my maiden name felt like my way of thumbing my nose at becoming a "we" and losing "me."

Plus, it was such a hassle to change credit cards, Social Security cards, etc.  I wasn't up for all the paperwork.

Do you see a trend here?

So when D and I married, it wasn't 20 minutes before people started asking, "When are you gonna have babies?"  And I HATED this question because I was 24-years-old.  A baby myself, to be honest.  Maybe I was afraid of losing my identity as "Carrie" once I became a mother (which has certainly happened.)?

Maybe I was scared of the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing?  (True)

Or maybe I just really get off on saying I'm going to do the exact opposite of whatever it is I think people want me to do????

I'm a little ornery that way.

But having my kids.  Well, like the Grinch, my heart grew three sizes upon having my babies.  And I can't imagine my life without them.  Because without them I wouldn't experience things like.....

• G pointing to me in the car and saying, "You kay-zy."
• M spitting up after a nursing session and all of it running directly down my cleavage.
• N singing "If you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it."  

Breastfeeding odds and ends and opinions

I have spent nearly 30 months of my life nursing a baby, and I still have (hopefully) many months to go before I end my reign as a breastfeeding momma.  And over the years, my perspectives on breastfeeding have changed.

When I first had N, I wanted to nurse her for 2 years.  Of course, I had never had a child so I really didn't know what a 2-year-old was like.  When she was 7 months old, I developed a ductal yeast infection and mastitis in my right breast, and the poor ole girl on the right side of my chest was never the same.  I had a rash on my nipple that didn't go away until months after I'd weaned N.  So breastfeeding from months 7-12 was a right royal PITA.  But I did it because 1. N wouldn't take a bottle, and 2. I am extremely cheap, and 3. I think breast is best.

I was a lot more militant about nursing than I am now.  Very judgmental of women who didn't nurse at all or who only nursed for a short period of time.  Time and age and having multiple children and medication have mellowed me out.

With G, I set 6 months as my goal because I just didn't know how things would go down.  The first 2-3 months of that time hurt due to my sensitive skin.  But eventually we got into a groove, my girls toughened up, and I nursed him for 14 months.

And now I am at entering the 4th month of nursing M.  He has finally learned how to nurse well, and, again, my girls have regrown new, tougher skin.  I haven't set a goal with M.  Whatever, ya know.  I'll wean eventually, and hopefully later rather than sooner.

I'd be lying if I said I still don't retain some judgment about women who chose not to breastfeed.  But I also make a judgment about women who get their baby girls' ears pierced when they are infants.  And women who circumcise their sons just to make their boys matchy/matchy with daddy, without actually researching the procedure.  And women who make their sons Juniors.  But my opinion is only really valuable to me.

Still I do think it is sad that more babies aren't nursed longer.
But I can understand why they are not.
Had I chosen to continue teaching or if I'd had to continue teaching, there would have been no way I could have nursed past maternity leave.  An office job is more conducive to pumping.  I don't see that it would be feasible to even attempt pumping as a teacher.

And most women aren't as eager to be in pain as long as I have been in my nursing adventures.  I have always enjoyed a challenge, and I have had my share of breastfeeding challenges.  The truth is I am either an extremely persevering individual or downright stupid.  For me, though, I was willing to put up with pain and ointments and such because of allergies on both sides (mine and hubby's) and my simple feeling that there is nothing better than mommy's milk for a baby.

Mind you, at first and to some extent now, I thought breastfeeding would cure all ills.  I thought my kids wouldn't get sick, like, ever.  They wouldn't have allergies or ear infections.  But breastfeeding can't negate a family history of sinus, ear and allergy problems.  But I like to believe that nursing my babies, even if they do have ear problems, don't have as severe of problems as they might have had I not nursed them as long as I did.  But who knows???

As my children get older, I realize that nursing, though important to me, is only one small piece of the things I do as a mom to help my children become independent, caring, responsible, decent human beings.  N knows she was breastfed and hopefully, if and when she becomes a mom she will opt to breastfeed her children for an extended period of time.  And my sons will know they were breastfed and will hopefully support their wives if they chose to breastfeed.

Despite my struggles with nursing, it is a cinch compared to the relationship and behavior challenges every momma faces when raising someone from infancy to adulthood.

They're all my favorites

Sometimes I can't help but have my favorite child.  Of course I love them all with a fierce motherly adoration.  Still there are times, moments, days, even weeks, when one steals a special place in my heart. But today they are all my favorites.

My favorite almost 6-year-old girl

You're my favorite because.....

• you got into a "fight" with the playground equipment and lost.
• you are such a kind child to others (and got a Kind Acts Award as proof of that generosity of spirit).
• you have such a funny giggle.
• you are sometimes so sweet and thoughtful to G, like holding his hand going down the steps or hugging him when something on tv scares him.
• you read me books and things you've written in school, and I am so proud that you are learning and becoming a reader.
• you have been trying really hard to give up your paci.  

My favorite 2-year--old boy

You're my favorite because...

• you've been sickly and whiney and have lost weight, and I can't help but feel sorry for you.
• you are the middle child and feeling rivalry with your little brother (which explains your constant petition, "I wanna nurse.")
• you are a little imp and tease.
• you reply "Right dare" and point to it when I ask "How's your nose?"
• you say, "My ear botherin you."
• your love of and fascination with cars knows no bounds.

My favorite 3-month-old boy

You're my favorite because...

• you have those wonderful rolls of fat.
• you smile at me with such trust and joy.
• you coo and squeal whenever I talk to you.
• you were a surprise.
• you are usually a very easy-going baby, happy to watch your brother and sister.
• you kick your legs and are endlessly fascinated with your fingers.

There is no question.  I have been immensely blessed.  And I am immensely exhausted.