just the way you are

One of the hard things about loving someone, is accepting them and loving them the way they are, not the way you want them to be.

Case in point: Annabelle's room.

Annabelle's room is a pigsty. There. I said it. I am not proud of it. I am not sure if this is a bad thing or a good thing, but as people are fond of saying, it is what it is.

She plays with gusto and with heart. She has a big imagination and plays and plays and plays. And her play involves lots of things that have little pieces. It involves scissors that cut off barbie hair and my little pony hair. It involves water, markers, legos, string, ropes, hair bows and play necklaces. All at the same time.

This is not how I played. I played with lots of imagination, but no toys. We had a play room, which was a bit of a mess, but my bedroom was actually very clean. And I never cut the hair off my barbies, only Audrey's Brooke Shields Barbie doll, but that was just to piss her off. I was actually careful with my toys. If someone gave me a pack of stickers, I would put them in a special box I had, and ration them out only for special occasions. I would not stick them all over my body the second I opened the package.

And if I was careful, well you can just imagine how Hyphen played. He actually claims to not have played. His toys are all still in boxes somewhere in the shrine that is his room. Seems about right to me.

So when we walk into her room, we try, very hard not to have a breakdown. We (me) have tried cleaning at the end of the day, mini cleaning breaks throughout the day, and of course, the old tried and true "I am getting out the trash bag" and even letting it get really, really dirty. Nothing seems to motivate her into keeping it clean.

I don't like to correct her play. I don't like to say, "okay, no, you can't wash your teddy bear. This is how you play with a teddy bear you hold it, you don't get it wet," because I really don't believe in stifling my kids' imagination or telling them that what they are doing is wrong, unless of course it really is.

Enter grandma. Now, grandma in her day was a hell raiser, but that was all outside when she was a kid. Inside, as a mom and grandma, you have to color in the lines or she will bite your head off. And now she is here, getting mad at Annabelle for washing her brand new bear in the bathroom sink and at me for letting her and I am realizing that a lot of the ways we parent is in reaction to something our parents did.

I let Annabelle do whatever the hell she pleases, because I never could.

And now I am paying the price.

But I am my mother's daughter. And after spending a good chunk of my day yesterday sewing a Pippi Longstocking costume (from scratch no pattern, I might add) with my torn acl, I was not in the mood to learn that when my mom gave it to Annabelle to hang so it would't get wrinkled, she decided to stuff it in a small box and hide it behind the curtains in the living room.

I don't want to micromanage. I don't want to control. I want her to be herself and to know that that self is loved, adored and welcomed in this house, just the way she is.

But we are tired of stepping on legos. Just the way we are.

down and out and down and up

I tore my acl. Playing volleyball. Me. Volleyball. A sport I have not actively participated in since the 8th grade. It was for a tournament for Annabelle's school. Fellowship, fun, volleyball, torn acl. All those good things rolled into one. We showed up in the morning and with H and I our team had seven people. The other team had uniforms and cheerleaders. When I went down, H had to sub in, so we would have enough people. Unbelievably, we won the game--and then ended up winning the entire tournament so that is a silver lining.

I knew it was something bad when I went down, because I couldn't stand. But on Monday, when I saw the doctor, he said it didn't seem like I tore anyhting, just that my kneecap came out of place. But on Friday, we got the mri results back. Torn acl and we have to go back on monday to see what lies ahead, which the nurse hinted was surgery.

So now, my mom is here. Helping out, but mostly we are just bickering. Tallulah says "knee hurt mama?" whenever she sees my brace. Annabelle says she hope my knee gets better tomorrow and H says that you can't expect two toothpicks to hold up a cinder block. One day I am going to hurl that cinder block at his head.

Camping trip, seaworld, hot air balloon fest, round top, all that fun stuff I wanted to do in October is out.

But, as my dear friend R_________ pointed out, it can be fixed and there are much worse things, and God is in control.

So down and out. A little down. But getting higher. No where to go but up.

sticky fingers

Today, I was upstairs, cleaning the tiny, windowless room that I call a guest room, but my sister calls the torture chamber. Anyway, while I was dusting, I found a plastic watering can under the bed. I put it in the take-downstairs pile and I heard a kind of tinkling sound in it. Inside was a barbie shoe, and my locket necklace that I thought was lost in the dry-cleaning debacle of last winter (don't ask).

Inside the lockets? 5 hershey kiss wrappers.

things that are special to me

Today is the day that a boy gave Annabelle an acorn at school. Kind of like Peter Pan and Wendy. She told me about it after it fell out of the small pocket in her middy blouse while she was cartwheeling. She carefully put it back, gave it a pat, and said:

"R_____ gave me this. I put it in my pocket because it is special to me and I want to keep it safe."

I know what she means, but my pockets aren't big enough.

holding on to summer

It's raining today and that means we couldn't play outside.

Normally, when September 1st rolls around I am breaking out the fall wreath and trying to restrain myself when I see pumpkins at Kroger's. I move stuff around on my mantel and put out my cranberry colored bedspread. I start to think about chili and meatloaf and homemade bread. Because September 1st means that it is almost over, the unbearable humidity, humidity that you can only imagine if you live in the tropics, the heat that bites and the mosquitoes that drain (and kill)--all of these things are about to end and I break out the corduroy and rejoice.

But not this year. This year, despite its many meteorological pitfalls, I have loved summer. Well, not loved, but really enjoyed. Maybe it's because the last true two weeks before Annabelle's school began were eaten up with a sick baby, or maybe it's because I am getting older and appreciate every season more--it doesn't matter. We have about 9 days left and we are trying to savor it.



this is something they have invented called the spitting game, where the drink water and then, well, spit it at each other



monkey do



all wet

what catholic school substitute teachers think when they can't find their students

School has started and that means that everyone's favorite substitute teacher is back...


Sub: well, the class was being real quiet and that didn't make sense, because of J____ (castroville version of turd kid) and I was thinking where the shit is he?

There you have it folks, integral formation of the entire Christian youth, mind, body and spirit.

mistakes were made

So, it was my 20 year reunion and I was thinking of a haircut...

H: what are you doing?

Me: wondering what I would look like with zooey deshanel bangs

H: like zooey deshanel, of course.


I chickened out and opted for red nails.


But based on this conversation, I decided to get bangs. Despite the fact that I saw some really bad ones at the reunion.

Now I have bangs. And I have this hair issue where my hair is getting unrulier with age. And so they do not lie flat, they do not swoop to the side and when I try to wear them like Zooey deshanel, they make my forehead hot. The reason her eyes pop out so much is because she is thinking "shit my head is hot. why do I have these stupid bangs?"

There is no picture to accompany this post because they look terrible. I look like I didn't stop believing, and held on to that feeling... of having high school bangs.

use of the word aye as the affirmative in the language development of the non-scottish 22 month old

Rule number one of parenting siblings: you are not supposed to compare your kids, because they are two different people and it isn't healthy and fair and makes for sibling rivalry and all that bad stuff that makes people need therapy as adults.

Umm, ok, I am not sure what idiot made up that rule, but since I know no other kids I do it all the time.

When Annabelle was this age, she was talking up a storm and I remember specifically one cute thing she said at almost the same age"I scared of da bug mama" referring to a fake scorpion she saw at my sister's house (cat toy, of course, my sister and her husband are those people with all the cats).

So first person, emotion, preposition, noun. Lots of cool stuff.

Tallulah? Not so much. She says something like, "bee, bee mama!" no bee, no bite my."

Our doctor, at her 18 month check up, basically told me that as long as she could say 12 words, she was normal and in his opinion, she was ahead of the curve, and "annabelle talking that much at that age, that wasn't normal. Tallulah is fine."

We are catching up (not to annabelle, of course, because I am not comparing them, just to some imaginary child out there that talked a lot), slowly. Go, see papa? Papa, go pool. where quack-quacks mama? My turn.

But one thing she still can't say, is yes.

She says aye instead.

As in yes, "Tallulah, do you want some milk?"

"Aye"

Or for all right, "Tallulah, let's get you out of this high chair and go change your poops."

"Aye"

And sometimes, when she is really content, drinking her milk, a deep throaty, "Ayyyee" after a couple of swigs.

Thankfully, all of the time I have spent reading the Outlander series and ignoring my kids has paid off in my understanding of its different meanings.

We have; however, mastered no. It was, in fact one of our first words, right after mine.