My children especially my oldest and third born have been bickering and unkind to one another. There has been some group dynamics in the house lately which have made me dread mothering.
Mostly because, I hate feeling like I am blowing it.
Mostly because being the center of the Universe, I naturally have a single hand in the character and development of my children.
Some idiot put that in my pipe early in life and ohhhhhh, if I didn't smoke it.
A lot.
Their discord and my own maternal Kung Fu grip on the Center of the Universe thing got so dismal, the outing they had planned for the afternoon, didn't happen for them.
That's an hour I should have recorded.
Yup.
Right after the words: 'That's it. You two are staying home today' I should have hit 'record', dubbed a few and sent them on to Iraq so my guys could have used the recordings for interrogation purposes. It was biblical I tell ya...talk about 'wailing and gnashing of teeth.' One listen to that and all those jihadists over there would have been agreeing to a new Middle East accord.
So the day happened.
My second born, Ethan, he did go on the outings. My littlest, Matthew, succumbed to a nap about the time it was time to depart so he stayed home,too.Maybe he would forget about park day.
Maybe the nap would just wipe it right out of his mind.
Nope.
Wake up time for him was_not_pretty, but I didn't think of recording that either...actually I couldn't hear. My ears were bleeding by then.
Email got read.
Posts were made.
A yard got raked.
Furniture got moved.
A trip to the post office made.
Things I no longer need were thrown away
Troop donations were sorted into the right boxes
and a computer full of documents got sorted into files.
What has settled into my mind tonight is how none of those things happened without the grace of another person.
Early on Earthmama emailed to check in as I was trying to decide how best to take my Bickerers out and make it look like an accident. A simple 'how are you?' reminded me to check in with myself. Yeah...how the hell WAS I?
My inbox included items which needed my attention and decisions I hadn't made yet, but it also included friends accepting invitations to play, visit or come to a class. It included belated birthday wishes and news of how those I hold in thought are doing.
At lunch most days my husband comes home and today he was prepared to take Bickerer #1 with him to the office for the afternoon before I was able to tell him I had called another dear friend who agreed to watch Ethan, our RNOD (Resident Non-Offender of the Day) at his outing and to bring him home.
Tony watched the other kids on his lunch break while I drove over and had a few minutes to drive and look at the sky on the way back IN SILENCE. ahhhhh.
When I returned Bickerer #1 was raking the lawn and his counterpart was in the livingroom. Cleaning.
Holy crap I thought.
Just so they could see mom with no oxygen going to her brain they went for the Trifecta by not only NOT fighting for the rest of the day, but finishing the lawn T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, unadvised.
I had to sit down for a minute.
Seriously.
I sat down and peaked out the window at their two heads in the sunshine bent over copper piles of pine needles.
In awhile my mama friend drove up with Ethan and stayed for a few minutes. A few minutes equaling how long it took her to help me move furniture and to catch up on our lives a little after a long week of momminess.
At the post office I ran into a lady who has made donations in the past for shipping. Her seeing first hand how her organization supports our folks across the pond was--well I can't sit here forever trying to explain how awesome THAT was, but I have smart friends and readers, I'll let you work on that.
In the evening still another couple of friends stopped by and while I had dreaded sorting and reorganzing the mess my living room had become from this odd day, having guests made the task more enjoyable. In fact so much was done, the topic turned to computers...well mostly becasue I whined...'Hey Mike, can you help me with this stupid computer since you are here? Did he ever. Man! I am squared away now...I'm too cool for color TV I tell ya. LOOK out, Steve Jobs!
I started a day pretty disgusted with the house, the kids, my level of participation in life in general. Now while tired and not done, I feel blessed by those who have been with me in mind or body today.
The day rose and fell and rose again.
I was grateful for
the walk
and the view
and the company.
"One day God will have enough of your foolishness and demand that you hit your knees before Him. You can either do it willingly or He will put his hand upon your head and shove you to them."-Marie Lane
I was out in the blogosphere tonight and from June Cleaver after a Six- Pack I came to a site called Shoved to Them. I found the above quote in her header. Now I would like to say I merely was intrigued by the name...but truth demands I admit while intrigued, I was also on an ego trip. This mama from Shoved to Them liked a comment I made at June's so naturally I had to go and see who this mama with excellent taste was.
If you haven't read her post from today and you are a mama, especially, you really need to do yourself a favor and read it.
Hi-freakin'-larious,
but this is really not why I am talking about her...
no
it's all about me actually...
Ever since I posted the question nay demand, 'tell me what you learned this year' I have been trying to decide just what that looked like for me and I couldn't.
Mostly because, if I say I learned it, there is an underlying suggestion I won't trip on the same kind of question on another test...now that would be stupid wouldn't it? If I were to trip up, I can only hope the next exams wouldn't be posted for everyone in the free world to see and the Universe would certainly set that up, if I make a big stink about learning it in the first place. Right?
If I say I have come to terms with something then I don't ever get to whine about it again...ewww...that kinda sucks, too. Why don't I just give up a half a bottle of wine every other night while I am at it?
The fact of the matter is both demand far more accountability than I am comfortable with providing.
Oh yeah, and I don't do resolutions.
I used to.
I got in fistfights with myself until about the end of February, licked my wounds until May, made excuses and basically determined none of these resolutions had any veracity until the end of summer, had them annulled by October then suffered short term memory loss through the holidays so that by December I felt the pull to slip back into self actualization mode forgetting the self inflicted black eyes and split lips of late winter/ early spring all together.
It was a sick little game I played with myself.
I was in a really bad wreck,
I lost a couple of good friends, got brave and earned one back,
met some really fine people like B, D, Katana, Sgt Grumpy and J
and
found a deep passion for milsupport.
My friends who go through the angst of knowing me face to face
walked me through
a cancer scare
crisis es of faith
insurrections
and some really great Mother's Nights Out
with the flat of their sword or well spoken word knights and poets taught me a few needed lessons I hadn't signed up for while my husband always returned me to tone.
None of it in this order and with some repeats, I lived through it all.
It didn't kill me.
I was pretty sure it would
and I still have a healthy respect for life's ability to want to be clear about it's intentions especially when my neck is so stiff I can't look up or down at it to see what it is trying to tell me at times.
I have no answers for where I have been or even if I clearly recall what all those places were without revision or embellishment.
I am sure that my biggest weakness is self love and that my greatest strength is love of others.
What I have for my 'tell me' is it is easier to love myself if I am not so willing to take my own word for it as much as I am God's. I don't know that I trust Him anymore than I did before, but I know I want to trust Him more and I know that he has sent me some really great people so I can practice.
Who knows what 2008 will bring, but I know whatever it is it involves practice--lots of practice.
Bring it.
I thought of The Dwarf Slayer when I read this piece and all my dear ones I am lucky to have around...okay enough with the awwwwwws. We're done here.
True Friendship ... None of that Sissy Crap
(Author Unknown--well... you could probably google it)
Here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship. You will see no cutesy little smiley faces. Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.
1. When you are sad -- I will help you get drunk and plot revenge against
the sorry bastard who made you sad.
2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.
4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get.
5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining.
6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.
7. When you are sick -- Stay the hell away from me until you are well
again. I don't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsy ass.
9. This is my oath.... I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask;
'because you are my friend'.
If this post is to make too much sense and you haven't read my last post you may want to bone up now:::snort:::that verb choice will be even more relevant in a minute.
OHMIGOSH.
So while on the phone with a friend today my new foraging habits come up and I explain about my recent acquisition of magazines still sitting in their box this morning next to my desk.
She asks something like, "So what are you doing now?
"Oh I'm putting new covers on these mags so they know what they have."
"Why?"
"Because, the bookstore rips all the covers off before they throw them out."
"So? They can figure it out."
"So, I'm OCD. Okay? I want it to be easy for my Marines to look through them."
"Well are you coming to park day?"
"Oh yeah. I'll just take this box along and finish it there."
"Well hurry up!"
So off I go to Park Day with my big box of magazines.
I'm a little late and most of the mamas are there and make a hole for me at the table to lay the box down.
Much curiousity ensues. Some get up to look in themselves and those that read my blog go "ohhhhh...are those are the magazines?
"Yup"
More chattering ensues.
"Hope, where are the kids?"
"Huh? Oh...they're in the car. They gave me a full 20 of minutes of pissing and moaning on the way over about something or the other and wouldn't stop when I told them to--- so now I am taking 20 minutes from their park day."
As I am explaining and the mamas are laughing at me, I am taking crap out of the box, not paying a lot of attention and still yammering away when I notice one of my mama friends .
"Uhhh--Hope. Uhhhh. (rapid finger flicking)...what is that?"
"What?"
I look down and in my hands is a PLAYGIRL MAGAZINE. I remember looking at it, looking at her... A BUNCH of mamas heads whipping around...I dropped it like it was something out of the oven and me without my mitts.
Mama friend said again, "WHAT IS THAT?!"
Heh heh hehuuumph...yuh...pretty embarassing...well crap I didn't know it was in there?!?!?! None of that stuff had covers on it...I told the mama I had been on the phone with earlier, who was laughing the loudest, "Yeah yuk it up! You are the one who thought we should just send them as is, remember?" She just laughed louder.
So we sit there all clustered around and looking at the box, wondering what to do next when another mama comes up to sit and says, "Oh are those the magazines you were talking about..?"
"Uh huh..."
"Whadja get?"
"Ummmm...(looking around at the other mamas...shrug)go ahead and take a look."
She looks in, sees the porn and PICKS THE MAGAZINE UP OUT OF THE BOX. I looked around to see where the kids were.... She starts looking at every picture and I swear other mamas were craning and giggling-- I was cracking up.
"What are you doing?!"
"What? Haven't you all looked at this yet...oh lookit THAT......"
I coulda crawled under a rock.
Luckily there was not anymore of that kind of thing in the box, but I felt like part of an ordinance detachment going through the rest of it. I was sweating man...s-w-e-a-t-i-n-g...
So all the covers get replaced and labeled and the day all and all was pretty nice--considering..::eyeroll::.
Fast forward to eveningtime...
When I get home. I am late and Tony wants to know how the day went. The look on my face prompted a "What?" from him.
"Ummm, Tony, remember that box of magazines? "
"Yeah... what about it?"
"Well--- uhhh let's just say there were some unusual magazines in there and I inadvertantly shared them with 10 of my closest friends."
His ears perk up, he knew EXACTLY what I was talking about...well not exacty....but he sure thought he did..."Oh yeah?- insert big dirty grin and dancing eyes here- "Wherezit at?!"
"It's in the car, but..."...my voice trails off and I start to snicker...
ZIP...too late anyway...he's out the door...(ok so I didn't try TOO hard to stop him heeeeee)
He comes back in a couple minutes later and booms..."Hope! That sh** ain't right. That just AIN'T RIGHT.
Should I mention now that my dear husband is big on personal retribution?
JMJ
It is raining here. Hard. Thunder makes my youngest jump a little, but Lassie is on and he is dead set on helping Lassie tell Timmy the sheep are out.....
Today I am grateful for:
a trip out of town
a job I may be able to do at home
the idea that leaving town sans children will give me a chance to wean Matthew
the thought that gone I won't get to embroiled in my own head about things that will eventually work themselves out without my interference--it may be that the sanest and most balnaced naturally carve out this kind of time on a regular basis and so come by this balance naturally...may have to work on that when I get back...
that all the kiddos at present are healthy
that I think I can finish this house up before I go and leave Tony in good shape
a wide circle of friends that all bring different things to the table...learning you don't have to eat what they bring --it may be that you are full, or allergic or just not in the mood for it..just being at table is enough to maintain the ties that bind---if I may go on with that little table analogy
mostly I am grateful for Tony who waits patiently and always for me to return to tone. I can take a theme and run variations redundant or unimaginative and not ever hear a cross word from him because I do. He just waits for me to figure things out and goes on living our life and getting things done. Thank goodness...nothing worse than mindfucking yourself in dirty clothes...
