Pardon the format, but my time is so limited lately..

Here is this mornings adventure with me & Eury:

She barked at the cat for 20 minutes. I finally got the squirt gun & shot her in the face
then hid the gun
she blamed the cat first & barked at her
to which she got squirted again

but she was staring at the cat when I got her

so she turns..
and looks at me
in the “Why? WHY would you DO that?”

paces toward me, sees the gun behind the wall, paces back to the cat..

growls under her breath..

looks at me..

looks at the corner at where I am hiding the gun..
and Huffed.
just huffed. LIke “Fine, But the MOMENT you put down that gun..”

to her credit, she did bark again when I went upstairs, but only once
I poked my head out & she was gone

So, I figure I’m save & go into my bathroom to start my hair.
I hear her come upstairs, and then I hear nothing
Then I hear her tromping back downstairs..
and then quiet, then romping.. then quiet..
I poke my head downstairs..
and she is TOSSING MY GIR SLIPPER UP IN THE AIR.
Looks at me up on the stairs, tosses it in the air one more time, catches it, then TAKES OFF around the house.

I tried the “thank you” exercuse to her.. brought her a food piece.. she dropped the slipper for a microsecond, ate the piece, and IMMEDIATELY TOOK OFF WITH THE SLIPPER AGAIN.
Of course, The next thing that usually works is throwing a handful of food at her face, which does work this time, as she needs more than a microsecond to find where all the pieces go.
so I take away the slipper, put it up on the counter.. and in that time, she beats me upstairs to the bedroom.

want to guess what she did next?

Found my other freaking slipper.

*sigh*

She is too smart for me.

For the Hatred of Word Problems

“Numbers and words should never be mixed”
my daughter states
in her fifth grade outrage,
and a part of me cries for all the numbers I’ve loved.

I reminisce with 2 and 4
about all the times we played with pi
the laughter we shared when we created 8.

And I pluck up 6 and 9
and hold them like newborns
listen to them pout that they are not as loved as Bs or Ds.

I tell 3, 5 and 7
that I appreciate their prime reliability
and they salute me and carry on, alone in their duties.

1 cries in the corner
and I tell it that it’s the most important of all.
It doesn’t believe me, but it puts on a brave smile anyway.

Together we dream of hypotheses becoming facts, and backwards creations.
We define circles and build houses, fill in Jell-o molds and change the human body.
We lived ages and deaths, and found answers to it all.

While they will not help me dry the frustrated tears that splash on 5th grade math homework,
I can’t help but wish they could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know I don’t deal well with change.  As it’s coming, I try to steel myself up for it, surround myself with distractions as well as comforts.  I remind myself that there is Xanax & a cookie shop close by.

I usually do better than this.

6 people removed themselves from their world & entered mine to uproot me and plant me somewhere new.  They rustled my leaves & a few decaying ones fell off.  They tore out my roots I had planted, a few in very strategic places, and plopped me down in cold, unused soil.  They showered me with some artificial sun and patted down the soil very, very lightly, and then they were gone.

They did this all for me because I asked them to, and they were kind enough to do so.  It would have been a lot more difficult to do it all by myself, don’t think I blame the people that re-planted me.  I thank them for everything they did, everything they gave up, and all they help they gave.  It is difficult to pull up your own roots completely, and it takes a lot more time, but just as much pain (if not more).

But after they left, I realized I was in shock.

I found myself suddenly reaching into myself at decades-old comforts of destruction, hatred, and guilt.  I yelled and battered my fists on the ground.  I lashed out to hurt anything around me, and consumed anything that would hurt me the most.   My careful precautions were lost amid a haze of grime and dirt, clouds of poisonous words and evil thoughts.

Simple fixes, like walking, a sun lamp, baking, or Xanax were lost amid efforts to over-react and self-belittlement.  The healthy was replaced by destructive, and I found myself wanting, again, to run and hide, to close myself off into a corner & never come back out.

In a normal time, that is where I would continue to live.

Somehow, the voice of reason tugged one root a little deeper.. opened up one leaf a little more.. and a little sun got in.  Of course, that voice of reason is, as always, my only voice of reason I ever have.. my husband.

It’s funny.. if I ever leave, it will be because, at some point, he won’t be able to get into the hard shell I keep trying to create.. and I fear for all of us then.

It’s going to take months to get our roots growing deeper again, until our leaves open up completely.   All three of us are going to need to remember our coping mechanisms.  Hopefully, together, we’ll get it.  We have the next 30 years to perfect it.

Mornings with her, however, are hell.  It’s what I like to call “Good Idea, Bad Idea”.  Take this morning, for instance:

1) Good Idea – letting the puppy lick your daughter awake.
Bad Idea – Letting the puppy out of your sight before it has pooped.
Good Idea – Not letting the puppy out of your sight again.
Bad Idea – Chasing the puppy back into daughters room, resulting in puppy landing big-fat-paws first on daughters head, and daughter crying as her eyes open for the day.
Good Idea – Making puppy lick daughter better
Bad Idea – Screaming at puppy when it doesn’t lick daughter, but begins piercing daughters hand.

2) Bad Idea – letting puppy bite poop-picker-upper bags.
Good Idea – taking puppy outside to play & bite sticks.  Also, puppy poops! Horray, have a potty party!
Bad Idea – using fore-mentioned bitten bag to pick up runny poop.

3) Bad Idea – puppy chewing on nice furniture
Good Idea – spraying Bitter spray on furniture legs to stop puppy biting
Bad Idea – then licking spilled coffee off hand, to find it is in fact Bitter spray.

4) Good Idea – giving puppy dog-specific things to chew on
Bad Idea – realizing that the puppy toys are EXACTLY like daughters prized plush animals in the eyes of a puppy

Every time I look at that picture, it feels like I’m looking ten years into the future.

I see beautiful makeup that she has spent 30 minutes applying, a boredom with the banality of life, knowing that she’ll be going out with her girlfriends soon to dance, to drink, to flirt shamelessly with life.. to beleive in herself and her future and the excitement of the world. To learn about herself, her choices, what is important and what can be sacrificed.

To experience all the things I see when I look back ten years.

I’ve been terrified for that moment, and at the same time unbelievably excited for her.  It’s a hundred times better, and scarier, than when I went through it myself.  It’s knowing that it is coming that makes me talk to her about sex, drugs, maturity, boys.. all the things that turn her red and plug her ears and say “Mooooom”. But I would embarrass myself a million times, make sock puppets, and bring it up every day for the next ten years, if it saves her even an hour of the hardest part of those years that feel like you’ll be young forever.

Everyone says parenting is hard.  They never explain really WHY.

My aunt said it was because you never really remember your life without your kids, once they are there.

My mom shows me her anguish, thinking that her forgetful or brash actions influence my brothers or my choices now.

I say it’s hard because every choice you make, every word you say, is done with them in mind.  And not just them now, but future them.  We bought a house by the best school in the valley  so High School daughter will have the best possible schooling.  I bought a reliable car 6 years ago so that 16 yo daughter will have mine…in 6 more years.  We have a new Husky puppy so 14 yo daughter can stay home alone and know she has a companion that will scare off intruders.  We put away money every month so that the girl in the picture will be in college when her age catches up to that picture. We sent her to theater camp, soccer camp, technology camp, choir camp, art camp, science camp, anything we can, so that 28 year old daughter will know that whatever career she has chosen is the right one for her.

In the end, I want her to somehow surpass how happy I am.

Which is silly, isn’t it?   I was not raised the way I am raising my daughter, and I am happy.  Rob was not raised well by any stretch of the imagination, and he is happy.  Yet I see people out in the world that are not happy, and they were raised with more money, more chances, more friends, more possibilities.

The result?  Oh, I don’t know.   There are books leaking out of every crack in the library saying how to raise children, stories of failures and successes.Nothing in childhood guarantees your success nor failure.  A large part of me knows that.

But you know, I’m still going to give her every chance I can.

I can’t help it.  I’m her mom.  And to me, she is the most beautiful wonderful exceptional fabulous EVERYTHING thing in my entire world, in every sense of the word.

“I know.”

My sleep-addled brain takes in the words, their meaning, and the millions of hidden meanings that could be in there.  It’s 6am.  I was up 4 hours ago to take the new puppy out, and I haven’t done anything wrong in over 5 years.

There is a lot she could know, but I’d say that if she does know, then my daughter has a right to know whatever it is.  I think quickly.. talk is pretty open on sex, maturation, drugs, education… nope, I got nothing.

I look at her.

She’s beaming.  OK, that’s better than angry.  She’s proud of herself… I haven’t seen her this happy since she made that REALLY good shrimp salad after watching food network for the last few months.  Whatever it is, I’m going to have to be proud, too.

“Oh yeah?” Non committal, I’ll go with that at 6am, & keep making coffee.

“Last night.. well.. so.. you know at school .. well, my tooth.. it was hurting, so.. Ipulleditoutlastnightafteryouwenttobedandputitundermypillow AND”

and she pulls out the little white stub of truth.

“The Tooth Fairy Didn’t Come!” she announced triumphantly

She’d busted us.

I smiled at her, and knew that if she was smart enough to figure it out, she’d have to say it.

“Oh really?”

She sighed. “You’re the tooth fairy.”

I laughed and breathed a sigh of relief.  I hated being the tooth fairy.  Getting under your childs pillow while they slept was invented by someone that hated parents, not children.

“What now?” I asked. “If you know, then I don’t have to pretend, and I don’t have to pay you for your tooth anymore.”

THAT realization took just a minute more. She stammered just a little.

“Maybe you can…” but she knew, there was a price of knowledge.

“Maybe we can not tell daddy, and he can pretend to be the toothfairy.”

We tried that for a day, but Rob forgot, and we both knew that omission was somehow some form of lying.  THough, at one point, she did actually wink at me behind Robs back, when she was talking about putting the tooth under her pillow.   That wink will bring me years of tears in my eyes through laughter.

The next day, after he’d forgotten, she tried to get her $5 out of her dad, but ended up just spilling that she knew.

an hour later, she was sitting on the couch.. turned to me .. and made the next connection.

“That means you’re Santa Clause & the Easter Bunny!  And Cupid!” she accused.

I laughed “There was never a cupid!!” but she put together what had happened when she knew there was a tooth fairy, and we were all quiet for a minute.

“Maybe you can forget?” Rob suggested.  She thought about it for a minute.

“yeah, I think I’ll try to forget before next year” she agreed.

2 years.

It comes and goes so fast.  It’s waves, it’s a river, it’s a blur of sunsets, and sand through your fingers.

I like sand through your fingers the most.  Each little grain is brilliant and shiny or dull but colorful, each has a million stories, all it’s own, but if you take the time to look at one particular one, then you miss out on all the others that are falling through your fingers.  you just get to look at them as they go through, and appreciate each one for what it is.

This year… lets see.. what did we do this year?

We went house shopping.. we didn’t like any of it, so we built a house.  It’s like picking out a sugar cookie… you get a cutter, then you get a sugar cookie that you have to wait for it to bake, but picking out the cutter was really hard, but you figure “yep, this will work for my family” and you think you’re done, you just have to wait.  And then you’re informed that you need to pick a frosting, and a color of frosting, and what design you want, and what color of design, and if you want a trim on it, and a face, and anything between the frosting and the cookie, and any flavors anywhere, and you’re responsible for EVERY SINGLE DECISION THAT YOU HAVE TO LIVE WITH FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS!!!!  But that isn’t even the WORST PART… about 5 minutes before it’s done cooking, you smell it, and you’re pretty sure it’s done.. but it’s not.. and you’re STARVING at this point, because you’ve put so much work into every choice.. but no, it’s not yours..and then, when it’s done cooking?  YOU STILL AHVE TO WAIT FOR IT TO COOL.

SO yeah, fuck building a house.

WOw, I really haven’t written in forever.  The 10 has learned fact from fiction, but I should write on that another day.  She is growing, and getting so much smarter.  You can see her putting it all together, all of life, all of how we live it, and she is weighing the choices everyone makes.  This is the age I watched the people in their cars & thought “I don’t want to be them”… Of course, I think I probably am them..but I fought it for as long as I could.

The world gets to me some days, and others I get to it.  Neither of us is right, but I had an epiphany last week that I traded one culture I don’t belong in for another that, again, I don’t belong in.  Maybe I just prefer not to belong?   Is that an option?

My husband is still the light in a sea of darkness.  I never knew a simple touch could bring you back down to earth.  I never hoped that one voice or a whisper could scare away personal demons.  And, I never thought that Love was something that truly belonged in you, even if you don’t believe in it.  I wonder if this is what the misguided religious people think of their silly god?  Is there a religion to your spouse, when you believe in them with everything you are?

And, I learned I miss the sight and sound of my mom.  Somehow, just seeing her smile and hearing her voice makes breathing easier.  If I ever move home, “Home” will be wherever she is.

Otherwise… I would climb inside myself and be perfectly happy.

Last year, the world was giving me hints.  My shirts weren’t fitting me in a way I’d like, and my Mii on my Wii was looking chunky.  I was doing some light exercising, but my arms were bigger than I wanted, and when i slept on my side, I didn’t like how my skin felt.

In March, my employer gave everyone free Weight Watchers meetings, if you continued to go.  In other words, I had nothing to lose but a few pounds, and I had an incentive to simply attend every meeting.

Seemed easy enough, right?  Well, the first week, I stepped on the scale & it informed me I was 156 pounds.

156.

I’ve never been light.. but 156?  Really?  Burgeoning on overweight?  I knew it was a good time.  So, I listened during the meeting.

The concept was simple: Stop eating so much!  Everything has “points” and I could eat 23.

Then you start looking at what you eat… plain oatmeal is 1.5 points, but Maple oatmeal is 3 points.  a cookie is 3 points, vegetables are free, an egg is 3 points and milk is 1.5 to 3 points per cup.  Cheese, just a slice, is 4+ points.  You start realizing that just because you got a coke to drink with your meal, that coke doesn’t “Not Count”.  That coke is worth almost as much as your small fry.  Snacking on your chips because your bored meant you better have eaten less dinner, cuz they count too.

Me?  I had a lot of revelations.  A Lot.

1. I was competing with Rob for food.  He requires 33 points, I required 23.  I didn’t need venti white mochas, large fries, and a huge hamburger.  My body just doesn’t need to eat that much.
2. Rewarding yourself with food is bad.  I don’t get a cookie because I was good, or a coffee because I’m having a bad day.  I am actually still looking for something else to fill this void, but I’ve got a good start with “Yes, I _do_ deserve something sweet as a reward… but I don’t require the actual consumption of it as a reward.”  It helps, the acknowledgement without the act.
3. When I’m bored, I have an oral fixation.  I’m gone through a lot of pens now, and I know to keep things around me that are zero points, like Coke Zero, mushrooms, and rice cakes.  Those help a LOT.
4. If I need something, craving it is worse than actually eating it. Fine, eat it, but recognize that sometimes just the first few bites are better than eating the whole thing.  If I want a bagel, I get it.. but I am constantly asking “OK, am I full now?  THen put it away.  It will be there later.”
5. There is no shortage of food.  Wasting it by eating it when you’re not hungry IS just as bad as wasting it by throwing it away.  Next time, just don’t buy as much!

That being said.. right now, I am craving Drinking Caramel from Coastal Mist.  Unfortunately, I think what I am really craving is sitting in Bandon, relaxing in the sun, drinking the sweet caramel with my family, and smiling.    So many of our events are food-related, and the emotions are triggered by consuming that same food.

Think about it.. Turkey with cranberry… pumpkin cookies… wassail.. cheeto’s…mac and cheese … grapes.. egg nog … champagne.  So many events are commemorated with food..

I’m not sure how to get around this, but it is good to at least acknowledge it, and recognize when you are fulfilling foods TRUE purpose, or if there is another one, and if maybe something else can fulfill that same purpose.

I used to believe I was alone in the wide world, and one day some part of it would rise up out of the unknown and swallow me whole.

This I used to believe.

I once beleived that if you didn’t feel so strongly that you were on the verge of bursing with joy or passing out with sadness, then you were numb.  I believed that being numb was the worst crime a human could make, and every moment should be filled with emotion.

Of course, I was also a little bi-polar.

I used to believe I was alone.  I believed there was no love, just illusion, settling, and confusion.  I used to believe it was all a lie.

Of course, I was also a little jaded.

I used to believe I was a scared little girl, and I had to have a shell, so that no one would talk to me, no one could hurt me, and the best way to save myself was to run.. to just keep running.

Of course, I was … wait, I still AM this.  But I find I don’t have to run away.. now I run home, where it’s finally safe.  Home, where there is love and warmth.  Home, where there is no hiding, no being scared, no harsh words, no objects being thrown, no one out to hurt you.

I used to believe I would never be happy.

I am now happy.

I am whole.  I can see the beauty around me, in me, and in others.  I can see their worth, as I can finally see my own.

I know I am still a work in progress, and I am okay with that. .. and I know my love is okay with that too.

I am not alone.  And if the world swallows me.. well.. It’s not as scary of a thought when you know you’re not alone.