What's that racket?

I have not been cool in ages (if I ever was) or up-to-date on what's hip and hot in music, but browsing through MP3s on Amazon.com just makes me feel like a relic.

Some of the songs I recognized were because I had heard the Chipettes sing them on the Squeakquel soundtrack.  Some of the songs I know because N listens to Pandora sometimes and tells me who is singing what....Selena Gomez, for example.  How pathetic that my 6-year-old is guiding me through pop culture these days.

I was surprised that I actually knew some Katy Perry songs.  I was also surprised at just how sucky Katy Perry songs are.  Teenage Dream?  Seriously, what grown person would write about or deign to sing such stuff?

My kids throw grand-mal fits if they have to listen to my music, which I admit is fairly moody and weird.  Flaming Lips, Black Keys, Jeff Buckley.  So I try to buy music that is trendy/catchy/danceable for the kids, but is also something I don't mind listening to.

This evening I bought the clean version of Empire State of Mind, just because I like it.  The kids can deal.  And then I purchased Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me and Selena Gomez's A Year Without Rain because I can tolerate them, and N will be thrilled and think I am the world's greatest mom for 30 seconds until I do something totally lame.

The hardest part was finding clean stuff.  Most of what was out there is explicit.  When N was two, I played Hollaback Girl and told her the, "Ship has bananas.  B-A-N-A-N-A-S."  But she is way too savvy now to fall for that.  Listening to Pandora on Sunday I was waiting for her to ask me what a disco stick was, thank you Lady GAGA.

I'm gonna go crank up my gramophone now and do the fox trot.

Elastigirl

In the movie The Incredibles Helen Parr whips out her Elastigirl arms to separate her two oldest children during dinner as they try to kill each other under the table.

But Carrie as Elastigirl feels pulled and torn between children on one side and husband on the other.  Everyone wants me to be on their side, wants me to meet a need they have.  Everyone grabs an arm and stretches, using me in their game of tug-a-war.

Both my mother and Ayelet Waldman have said, "Love your husband more than your kids because one day your children will leave you but your husband will still be around."  At it's most basic, I agree and get it, but I think trying to equate one's love for a husband to one's love for one's children is flat out stupid.  There is no comparison---two totally different kinds of love.

My love for my kids is primal.   I would kill for them, and I would die for them.  I carried them within my body, I suckled them, I am with them constantly----there is no other relationship that will ever compare to this.

But they will leave me, and because they are children and I am their mother, they can never fulfill me completely on an adult level.  As children they are immature and whiney and annoying a good portion of the time, which is why I have my husband (although most women I know could and do say the same things about their husbands).  I also have my friends and this blog.  And things I want to do in the future.

I am not in love with my children, but most of the time I also do not feel in love with my husband.  Maybe it is due to being Elastigirl.  Trying to keep the kids quiet and getting frustrated by how impossible this is to do so D can sleep in on the weekend (being pulled by his needs).  Getting the kids a snack for the 11th time in one day even as I'm trying to prepare supper and their dad is sitting right there and could easily do it instead of me (being pulled by their needs).  Being tugged on and nursed on and hugged on all day and then knowing my husband has physical needs as well.

Elastigirl can only stretch so far.

Ugh.....holidays

For as long as I can remember I have never liked holidays.  As a kid, I absolutely hated being cooped up with my family, unable to do any of my normal stuff like play with friends or go to the mall.  I just felt bored, disconnected.  I was always thrilled to get back to normal life.

So it's not surprising that I still dislike holidays for much the same reason---I am cooped up with my family, unable to enjoy the normal day-to-day routine of my life.  Except now I'm the mom, not the kid.  Which makes me think that the problem is me.  Common denominator and all.

A 4- or 5-day holiday like Thanksgiving, which drags on from Wednesday through Sunday, is tolerable for about 3 days.  But after that, I seriously start to lose my mind.

My routine with the boys is completely off-kilter with N and D being home.  I mean it is their home and they should be able to enjoy themselves here and relax.  But this home is also my 24/7/365 place of employment from which I never get a break.  When they are home, they don't have to mess with homework or project deadlines, be well behaved in class or answer questions from colleagues.  But I still have to do laundry, fix supper, give baths, pay bills, clean up toys, go to the grocery, etc, all the while watching N and D enjoy their "days off."  And I'd be lying if I said it didn't totally piss me the hell off.   Especially by days 4+.

I tell myself this is one of the problems with being a stay-at-home mom, but I don't know that it would be any better or different if I worked.

I would likely be even more ticked off knowing that I was technically "off work," but still having to do all my mom work while N and D got to relax.

One just can't seem to win in this mom business.

Last things

(Seriously, is November almost over?  I'm getting tired of this daily blogging business.)

The last...

thing I ate----chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream

thing I drank----hot chocolate

thing I watched----Winter's Bone special feature on the making of the movie

chore I did ---- put clean kitchen towels away

(fun) thing I did with my kids---- sledding at the park this morning

thing I bought----lunch for myself and kids at Pizza Hut

thing I read----the kids' children's bible Christmas story chapters before bed tonight

thing I will do before going to sleep---take half a Unisom

time I took a bath----last night, I think....(let me sniff my pits)

God, that was immensely boring.
4 more days to go.

Blissed out or exquisite calm

I guess because hubby has a cold (again) and the past 2 nights M has slept in bed with us pretty much all night due to barking seal cough and G threw a temper tantrum before leaving Mamaw's house after our Thanksgiving celebration.....maybe this is why I started thinking about occasions in my life when I have felt either blissed out or insanely serene.

Because as thankful as I am for my life and everyone in it, sometimes the day-to-day drudgery requires one to harken back to the biggest moments of greatness or calmness or joy or love that one has felt.

For certain I can't pull all of them out of my brain at one time, but there are some that consistently stand out.  Tonight I remembered standing on top of a hill in Wales when I was 19.  It was nearing dark, and it was extremely windy.  I don't know if I was alone or with someone, but seeing the clouds move and the sun set, the rolling hills....it was just amazing.

Another was in 8th grade when my class put on a Good Friday play.  I was the "set director," I guess, and I recall standing in the balcony at the back of church watching the part where Jesus is nailed to the cross.  We had a big wooden cross and one of the Roman soldier actors used a mallet against the wood.  The whack-whack-whack echoed in the church, and I felt startled.  It was overwhelming to me, and perhaps the only time I ever actually felt a god-like presence within a church building.

Of course the instantaneous flooding of love and tears when each of my children were born stands out in my head.  That is a feeling I wish I could turn on and off like a faucet.  Sometimes when I'm dealing with tantrum #467 since breakfast (and it is only snack-time), I would like to feel flooded with love so I don't knock someone's head off.

At the time I didn't feel particularly blissed out, although the memory of this does it for me now---walking through Sorrento Italy as well as the Isle of Capri with D.  I just remember little blips of the narrow streets as we walked and walked, and it brings a smile to my face.

I think because I am guilty of over-reflecting....chewing on stuff for way longer than necessary and then blogging about it....I tend to always be pretty cognizant of the little "big" things for which I should be thankful---health, a family, a home, food in my fridge, being educated. etc.

Sometimes it is nice to be thankful for those "once in a lifetime" experiences and the feelings that went with them.

What my real Christmas letters would say.....

The hardest thing about sending Christmas cards is finding a little nugget of our lives that doesn't sound (a.) pathetic, (b.) boring, (c.) depressing, (d.) TMI or (e.) braggy and offering it up to friends/families to digest until the next 365 days roll by.

Here is the little ditty I have been jotting down with pictures of the kids included:

Merry Christmas!  Hard to believe it is this time of year again.....


We are well.  N loves 1st grade and is becoming a better reader all the time.  The boys are finally playing nicely together, and M is walking now.  Chaos reigns over here.  


Hope 2011 is good to you.


Love, 
C & family

Here is all the stuff I don't mention because it is either a, b, c, d, or e.

Merry Christmas!  I cannot believe that this year has flown by as quickly as it has given how little fucking sleep I've gotten over the course of these 12 months.  Even if D hadn't been snipped in April, you better believe there wouldn't be any more kids because we are too tired to do it very often.  


M is perhaps the world's suckiest sleeper.  I have friends with newborns who sleep better than he does.  And when I try to do all the things the "experts" recommend he just screams ad nauseum so I eventually stick a boob in his mouth because I can't stand it anymore.  


G is so 3 it's not even funny.  He screams at the top of his lungs often---I am "this" close to ripping out his larynx.  All he will eat is vanilla yogurt with sprinkles and breakfast cereal.  He poops constantly which I assume is due to all the live & active cultures in him.  He might have the world's healthiest colon.  And he has absolutely no desire to potty train.  


N loves school and has finally gotten a little better about entertaining herself, which is awesome.  I like her most because she can dress herself, wipe her own butt and she knows not to scream.  But now that she knows how to read I can't write what I really want to write on Facebook because she is always looking over my shoulder.  I thought parents were supposed to censor their kids....not the other way around.


D still has his Xbox and plays regularly.  He keeps getting colds from the boys, which just means one more annoying person to listen to honking and snorting for weeks on end.  We don't talk too terribly often because by the time the kids get into bed, we just want to be left the hell alone and do our own thing.  


I continue to do my little blogging thing and have written some for a local magazine, which is cool.  I got all my hair cut super short so G and I are twins, and I've been working out with a trainer to help build up my strength so I can continue to lug chunky butt baby all over creation, since he is starting to walk on his own but nowhere near ready to do it on a full-time basis.  


The cats have been permanently relegated to the basement.  Annoying little fuckers just meow for food when they have the opportunity to come upstairs, and I can't handle any other living creature hollering at me for anything.  


Hope you and yours are well and continue to be throughout the coming year.  I'm just hoping for some longer stretches of sleep I can count on.  I would love to rejoin bookclub but can't focus on reading anything longer than a 2-page magazine article due to fatigue.

Prayer. (Huh) What is it good for?

I grew up saying formal prayers---The Hail Mary and Our Father.  "Now I Lay Me" at bedtime.  "Bless Us O Lord" at meals.  The Apostle's Creed at church every week.

(Side note here:  Am I the only kid who was completely freaked the hell out by "Now I Lay Me?"  What child wants to think about dying before they wake???)

But eventually it started to bother me that I didn't feel any meaning when I said them, although I now understand that just saying the prayers in a "seemingly thoughtless" way is actually sorta meditative in its own right.  I don't know what I thought I should feel, but I wasn't feeling anything.

I also didn't (and don't) subscribe to the idea of praying for something means what you want will happen.  Sometimes I hear people say, "God is good," and I often wonder if they would still say that if "god" didn't make whatever they wanted to happen, happen.  I don't often hear this phrasing used when someone's tire goes flat 15 minutes before a job interview.

Whatever "god" is....evolution or higher power or karma....is far, far smarter than any human to determine what is "best."  Eventually I just kinda made a blanket one-time prayer to "Let whatever is supposed to happen for the best occur and give me the ability to deal with it."

Whenever a friend asks for prayers for themselves or a loved one, I never say anything on the order of, "Dear Jesus, Redeemer of my Sins...." because that just weirds me out whether said aloud or inside my head and heart.  I tend to think of sending good thoughts/vibes to another person as my favorite, most comfortable kind of prayer.

I also really want to and try to live my prayer.   For example, we don't say grace at mealtimes, but I donate food to food banks occasionally.  And I try my darndest not to waste food, even if it means making beet bread.  And I support CSAs because I think this is perhaps the best form of thank you for my food---helping the farmers who bring it to my table.

Self-reflection seems to me a pretty good form of prayer.  Reviewing what you have said or done, examining your desires, grievances, joys, sorrows, seems to me a pretty good way to show thankfulness or make amends (the next time).

Prayer can be used as an insult, I think, although to the one who offers it I don't think it is meant that way.  Someone once said they would pray for me because I haven't accepted Jesus as my personal saviour and given my heart to him.  I know this person strongly believes in Jesus and wants to share that good feeling, but I do believe in god/higher power/karma....and I do believe in historical Jesus (just not died for our sins Jesus).  And I am ok with that.

Is there ever any feeling of longing in my heart?  Well sure.  But even the most "in-tune with Jesus" person feels that way.  I think it's called the human condition.

So being offered what felt like a "pity prayer" (as in Carrie's soul is in such need of repair) really bothered me.  Because I thought it was "god's job" to judge my heart and soul and determine my overall worthiness on this planet.  And that is why I am a little suspicious of prayer.

But I don't doubt it's power.