What kind of mom?

Picture this:

We are on the lower level of the Lawrence Hall of Science for the New Year's party balloon drop and science craft fair. There are little ones and their parents everywhere. I pass the stairs and see a 10-11 mo old baby on the stairs, the *cement* stairs which lead down to the *cement* floor. The wee one is at that phase where he has just discovered what stairs are, can't get down yet, and probably doesn't realize that falling = pain. He's really tipsy.

To make it worse, he has a little balloon under his belly that is bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. He's mouthing it a bit and each bounce builds momentum. I put my hands behind the baby just in case he tips. A mom sees me; I ask her if the baby is hers and she brushes me off with the, "Phft, what a worry-wart."

My worry was well-justified, a baby much bigger and more stable had fallen not 10 minutes earlier and would have been seriously injured if his mom's hands hadn't been inches away to break his tumble. This little boy's mom was six, maybe seven feet away. The baby was, for all intents and purposes, unattended.

So, no biggie, but it did make me think -- how do I react when people comment on my parenting? Do I brush it off or do I hear the comment? Do I allow the blind stranger feedback to seep into how I parent?

You betcha I do.

Strangers have a unique perspective that neither me or my friends can see. I remember one lady, a generation senior to me, commented on one of my children and while her comment was made without the benefit of "the rest of the story", it contained some great insights. I mentioned to my husband who replied, "Hum. She's right. I can't believe we missed that." It was one of those Big Issues that was completed hidden in our blind spot.

So, how to hear these comments, almost always unpleasant and potentially offensive? Sunday before last, I saw it role-modeled. The teacher brought up the issue of using sarcasm with children to let off steam in a safe, unhurtful way. In direct contrast, one lady commented that sarcasm with children is a harmful, awful thing to do to a child who has no defense against it, ie the child isn't cognitively able to grasp it or reply to it properly. The comment was made as a clearly and as directly as possible, no mincing words, no softening the message.

I didn't hear the message as much as I watched the teacher's response. She didn't run away from the criticism; she didn't embrace it either. She considered it. She respected it. It was so awesome!

So, if you want to win your way to my heart, don't give me chocolate, give me a comment or two that will help me be a better mom.

I would rather be the mom who is --grateful-- when someone points out that one of my kids is about to hit the cement.

What I love about today's people

I gave a presentation / talk today at my church and had a blast doing it. For about 20 minutes I got to talk on a subject of my choosing (Gratitude) and got to see people listening or laughing. It was a delight.

But the best part came after the talk. A thin elderly woman, absolutely vibrant with a big, well-exercised smile, approached me and gently grabbed my arm (probably to keep her balance). She told me is trying to increase her technical literacy: "I really want to learn how to blog... my little sister is 83 years old and she showed me how to do my banking online... I sit with my cell phone on one ear while trying to type... I really want to learn how to blog..."

What an awesome image. I love people who don't give up. I love seeing people whose minds and hearts are open to change, even when it's breakneck change. And to make it all work, I love-a-love-a-love people, such as my beloved, who are already ahead of the curve and are patient and compassionate with those (such as myself) who are trying to keep up.

You know, my husband has not once, not even once, said that the house was messy. It drives me nuts when it is and I'm sure the thought is going through his mind, but he has never actually complained about it. I think I may have lucked out in the husband department. I love that he always helps clean up and I love that he never says we need to.

I also love that my kids, when left alone to their own devices, play and laugh (for today at least). There are so many things that can go wrong with sibling interactions. I'm so glad that enough is going right that their default interactions are happy ones.

Be Clean

Last Sunday we had an amazing lesson by an amazing woman. Topic: "Be Clean"

I have been chewing on it all week.

There was one little part of it that I kept "locked away" during this week. The question was, "How do we prioritize between two good choices?" Example: Saturday morning and you are trying to decide whether to take your child to the library or to the park; which is truly better?

My answer to this conundrum has always been, "First, write your over-arching mission statement, then evaluate your choices against it." In this example, my mission statement includes a bit about conveying a love of knowledge to my kids so, bingo, I would pick going to the library.

Easy, right?

Only sometimes.

More often, the daily choices ressemble a tangled knot, but that's a different post.

During the lesson, I realized that one of the reasons why my solution works only sometimes is because I am looking in the past (a mission statement I wrote in the past) for a decision I am making in the *now*.

The teacher made the suggestion that in order to choose between two good options, we can look forward and consider, "In a week / month / year, which choice will you most regret not making?" This approach appealed to me since I tend to be a pessimistic, roses-through-rain type of girl.

Regret? I can foresee regret. Miss Regret and I are best friends.

So, I tried it a few times this week and wow, the ability to look at both the past and the future makes everything more clear.

I love it when people give out nuggets of wisdom like that, making people around them better and more whole. Her lesson was brilliant.

Reason why: I have had such a hard time making decisions quickly, efficiently, and without an undue emotional tax. Today I was in one of those time-warpy moments when I was making a conscious decision literally every few seconds: "Yes, Aee, you can have that" said while processing two other non-verbal decisions that were acted out with my hands, while communicating another decision to Jee through motion, while actively ignoring two other decisions that are screaming to be made N-O-W, plus (pop) brain cells die from overload.

The choices come at me rapid-fire sometimes and I try my best to keep up. It isn't easy. I need all the tools I can get to combat the negative effects of Decision Overload.

Usually, on a good day, I love decisions. If I can keep up with the flow, I get intense joy from good decisions. I just need the right tools. Backward and forward, look both ways before crossing the street. Ha!

Why is it that the best, most useful wisdom can always be boiled down to such a level of simplicity? Thanks to the teacher who presented it -- you gave one mom a fairly powerful new insight.

I love...

1. I love accounting. It feels oh-so-good to have the details smoothed out so crisp.

2. I love (occasionally) staying up late at night with my best friend. It reminds me of late nights in college.

3. I love the fact that I look forward to seeing my kids in the morning.

At 11pm tonight, "I can't wait to see Jee in the morning. I wonder if he'll remember to water his GrassHead (a science experiment)"

At 12midnight, "I can't wait to see Aee in the morning. How much does she like her new bike?" (I haven't had a chance to see it yet.)

At 1 am, "I can't wait to see Kee in the morning. I bet he'll make belgian waffles for us. Or crepes."

At nearly 2 am, "I can't wait to see Vee in the morning. I bet he'll keep everybody quiet until we wake up."

Ha.

Today's best part: seeing "Siddhartha" performed by a 16 & under actor's troop at The Marsh in SF.

(Note: I'm trying to focus on stronger, more consistent gratitude throughout the day. I think it will help ease the tension headaches.)

Gratitude points for today:

* that I got to relax during the show, letting my mind wander
* that my teenagers liked the show
* that we went with good friends who know how to have fun, relax, and have nourishing conversation
* that my daughter does the most amazing "Mommy, you're home!" when I walk in the door
* that my little son can do heart-warming telephone conversations, "So, Mom, what-cha-up-toooo?"

Ah, headache eased. I needed my gratitude fix.

Shifting the goal?

Berkeley has changed how we do Christmas. This year:

1. We ended up with nothing that could qualify as a "toy". Everything given was purpose-driven.

2. The number of gifts was smaller than ever (but still more than enough, even ask the kids!)

3. The decorations are already cleaned up and packed back away.

Weird, but it was just different. I am looking into taking the big Vee and Kee on a trip to Israel and may schedule that for next Christmas. Now *that* would be a change!

Torque & happiness

Yesterday, Jee and his friend Zee were playing a game and asked "What does 'torque' mean?"

In Firefox, they did CTRL T, typed "w", "i", selected "www.wikipedia.org" then searched for "torque". They read a bit then applied it, exploring the concept using their elbows as the fulcrum, and their arms as the lever, each putting force on the other's arm and judging how far they were from the fulcrum, er, elbow.

This made me so blissfully happy because:
1. they can read
2. they knew where to access this knowledge
3. they naturally applied it

Jee and his friend are both 6 yo, teeny little guys, about 42 lbs of human being each and they are exploring concepts such as this. It made me so blissfully happy.

Once I asked a particularly brilliant Econ professor, "Did your parents do anything in particular that helped foster your love for learning?" The answer was immediate and without even the slightest hesitation:

"An Encyclopedia in the kitchen"

I could see it in my mind's eye -- a set of thick hardback encyclopedias spanning the shelves of the big bookcase in my kitchen, but it jarred my mind enough that I could hear the marbles rolling around in my head.

Clink. Clink, clink.

I can't have an encyclopedia in my kitchen. It's stagnant, a set of knowledge that never changes until I throw out that chunk of tree and get a new encyclopedia.

Hum. I have a bookcase in my kitchen, but it is full of living knowledge, tools for creation: coloring books, origami papers, cookie cutters, journals, recipes in three-ring binders so they can be consistently updated as the family's tastes mature. It is an organic bookcase.

For a comprehensive knowledge tool, I can't do an encyclopedia, but I can do the Wiki. I put a dedicated laptop in the kitchen, but due to power consumption issues, I can't leave it on all the time, nor can we boot up a system every time we have a little question.

I haven't found a solution that sits well with me yet and that's why I was so blissfully happy when Jee and Zee did what I was hoping my kids would do -- ask a question, access the answer. Hum. One of the desktops uses only 2 watts. Maybe that would work...

There's a good chance that if Jee is accessing the wiki at this level at 6, by the time he's older, he might wish to be a wikipedian, contributing.

Back to laying groundwork.

Dancing

Jee and Aee had a performance at their school where all the kids performed dances from various regions. They were fully decked out in dance gear and wow, they were amazing little danceurs.

But the best part was seeing the entire school, from K to 5th, all performing class by class on the stage. Jee and Aee had friends from nearly every class in the school! I hadn't yet realized the breadth of their friendship circles .

Breath

Aee's breath -- right now, beside me, breathing deep and dreamy. I can hear the patterns of her thoughts as her breath changes, sometimes fast (maybe thinking about puppy dogs or dancing?); sometimes slow (maybe dreaming about hanging upside down from a branch?)

Vee's breath -- when he was little and I would read stories to him & his bro, Vee's breath would always put me to sleep. Fast. Hard. His breath had a magical, trance-like quality to it. Resistance was futile.

Eee's breath -- he breathes in and I am so glad he's there; he breathes out and I'm so glad he's beside me. For whatever reason, his breath has become louder lately, but it doesn't matter -- it's all a verification that he is near me, with me, and alive.

Kee's breath and Jee's breath -- both of them have ultra-quiet, soft, easy, shy breathing patterns. I don't think I have ever heard either of them breath the deep sleepy breaths. Ever. Interesting.

My breath? From what I hear from the inside, it has a million different incarnations, some consciously driven, some not. Sometimes I direct my breath; sometimes I forget to breathe entirely (and even pass out because of it sometimes). Yes, I have problems. I know.

I think my favorite type of breath is the slow Bunny Breath that occurs when sleeping deeply. When all passages are clear and the sleep is deliciously deep, the breath is so little, so soft that is it that of a bunny, just like Kee & Jee, my bunny breathers.

A way to cover the shfits

Eee and I have been tired since our first one was born and now, only now, have we discovered a way to cover the 24/7 that comprises a parent's range of duty.

He works until 3 am; I get up at 3 am.

Every night when I read stories to Jee and Aee, my eyes get droopy, the melatonin kicks in and I want nothing more than to "rest for a minute". A while back I considered indulging in the urge to fall asleep at 7 pm. It felt wonderful. In the morning, my eyes fluttered open on their own, I had a good, long stretch, and my mind began kicking into action. Wow, that feels good.

For the last few months I have tried this on and off to see if it works for our family. I sleep from 7 pm to 3 am. Eee sleeps from 3 am to 8 am, gets the kids to school with me then sleeps some more.

I wish we had discovered something like this earlier. Every night, when there's a problem in the middle of the night (a child wakes up, the cat tips something over and wakes us up, a phone rings, someone's laptop or phones starts beeping low battery) there is always an awake parent to deal with it.

Night owl meets early bird.

I just wish we had figured this out during the little kid years. Moral of the story = respect your own inner clock. Take societal conventions with a grain of salt. Do what works for you.

Bring it on

We had an amazing talk today about giving and *receiving*. It illuminated a few dark & dusty corners of my mind. It made me think about gratitude (fully accepting a gift, any type of gift) and how that gratitude makes you: 1. healthier, 2. more enjoyable to be around, and 3. open to future benefit.

The talk also made me think (yes, the pessimist came out for a moment): "Well, what if the gift really stinks? What if I don't want the purple sequined blouse with matching sequined socks?" or even worse, "What if I am actually offended by the gift? Like my friend whose husband bought her an exercise machine because, 'Well, aren't you worried about your thighs too?' What if it is an unequivocally yucky gift?"

As the divinely beautiful speaker was filling out the content of her talk (which was far more pleasant than my pessimistic musings in the background), I remembered what Paul said: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Everything and I mean everything can be for our benefit if we so choose.

So, today I choose to accept the massive pile of dishes in the sink as a gift of time with my kids (who will help me even if it kills them).

And I choose to accept the challenge of teaching my children to come to me when they have a question rather than bellow "MOMMY!" (Isn't that typically the other way around, mother bellowing for children?)

I choose to accept my husband and children's help with various tasks as the day progresses even if their help is (from a child-who-shall-not-be-named) "Mom can I help?" then s/he proceeds to goof off persistently while in the work area where others are actually completing the work.

The talk covered "receiving the gift" whether it is socks, a beloved heirloom, or the Atonement. You receive; you are grateful; you are blessed. The whole talk centered around accepting loving interaction with others, perhaps as practice for accepting the ultimate?

So, our SSR time is up. Momma must stop blogging and get on with giving and receiving. Kudos to the dear sister who shook a little dust off of this part of my brain. Thank you.

I received your message to the best of my current ability.

Thank you.

Chocolate headache

One our partners sent us a box of chocolates for Christmas. I ate one. On an empty stomach.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Chocolate reduces your blood pressure, which for most people is a good thing, relaxing. But, for someone whose blood pressure is already too low, maybe not?

Chocolate on an empty stomach makes my head throb. The vessels restrict, tighten, like hundreds of little constrictors in my head.

Ouch.

Ouch.

Ouch.

When will I ever learn to respect my body's unique needs over the cultural norms?

From the wikipedia: "Research has shown that heroin addicts tend to have an increased liking for chocolate; this may be because it triggers dopamine release in the brain's reinforcement systems^[22] — an effect, albeit a legal one, similar to that of cocaine."

And I would make a very poor druggie.

I like veggies, good sleep, good exercise, and that whole moderation thing.

Chocolate? Yeah, I know it's great for most people, but not for me.

So, if you ever give me a chocolate treat and I thank you with an "Oh great. Thanks A LOT." please don't take offense.

Shifting perspective

On a popular blog a few years ago, a lady commented that she found Gen Conf boring.

My reaction was "WTF?"

Yes, it was an inappropriate reaction on so many levels.

My question to her: "Why are you bored?"

Answer: "Because I have heard the same msg over and over again since I was a kid."

My suggestion: "Why not try seeing it from someone else's perspective? It helps round out your view of the various principles. For example, if they are talking about repentance, try to pretend you are Jewish, Muslim, or maybe Buddhist and you are hearing this message for the first time. How would your perspective shift? What would your first, second, third reaction be?"

Answer: "But I'm not Jewish. I'm bored."

Sigh.

The conversation continued for too many messages and I got frustrated that some people prefer boredom over problem-solving. Ew.

I also realized that not everyone wants the multiple lenses. I love the lenses, always have.

Tonight's lens shift -- I'm running with Vee and Eee and I have the music blasting in my ears like the soundtrack to some awesome film. I can see Eee explaining something to Vee as they run. I see the crease in Eee's brow, then I see Vee mimic it. I see Eee's hands motion and I can tell by the gesture that he's probably explaining some concept based in mechanical engineering or possibly chemistry. Eee and Vee are completely enveloped in their mutual thought and since I have no sensory input from them other than the visual, my perception of their interaction is amplified. I can better see how they blend with each other without any voice to distract me. A shift in perspective, a different view of their relationship, and I am so grateful for the glimpse.

Then, later, as we're doing the long run home (a stretch of sidewalk past the scary woods part) I pull out in front and even though they are behind me, the moon is casting so that I can see their shadows on the ground in front of me. I feel like some sort of regal queen leading the way with my warriors flanking on both sides. I run faster. They do too. I pull onto the homestretch and sprint, but start to lose it on the last 50-60 feet. Vee sprints past me and motions, "Come on mom, you can do it." I can't actually hear what he's saying, but his motion is enough.

But I don't have it in me to keep going. I slow down.

Then the lyrics in my ears blast: "I just can't wake up." (Sum 41, "Chuck") Those of you who know me know how much I fought that during the tough years. Like the year when I needed 10-12 hrs of sleep a night every night. Like the day when I slept 20 hours out of 24. Yeah, I know what it's like to not be able to wake up. It feels like being under anesthesia while maintaining consciousness. You can hear everybody but you can't move. Your mind is awake and alive, but you can't do anything about it so your mind slowly starts to shut down. Fatigue bites.

"...just can't wake up." The energy surges because I know fatigue and this, my dears, is no where near real fatigue. I have been lax to not be more grateful for the lifting of it. I can push this supposed limit and I do. I caught up to Vee, again with my lungs stretching, cleansing. Man, that feels good.

It took a long time to walk it off.

A shift in perspective is a beautiful thing.

Sharing a particular love

There are few things sweeter than sharing a particular "favorite" with your children as they grow. With Vee, it has always been music, blast-your-body-until-your-insides-shake music.

I remember my first concert. The Police. In Seattle. I wore stardust jeans and danced near the speakers. My entire self vibrated. I glimpsed beauty. I was only 12 or 13 and I went with my brother and his girlfriend. Ironically, my brother has the same persona as my eldest, same loves, same past-times, same compassion, same approach to religion & politics, same approach to life in general. My Vee. I can see the family genes traveling on through. My bro and loud music. Vee and loud music.

In college. Same bro. Primal Screaming. If you haven't tried it, it is worth the effort. You're not fully alive until you can do a primal scream at the drop of a hat. In public. In private. Fully capable. My bro and I drove up (and down) the canyons in Provo practicing. It took me a long time before I could do it. Now I finally can. At the drop of a hat.

You know what cinched it? The remake of the Tears for Fears song, "Shout" done by Disturbed (or Staind?) We played it regularly one summer when Aee was 2 yo, cruising up (and down) the TX freeways. Aee was a headbanger in those days. A little two year old headbanger full of angst and pain way beyond her years. I played the song. I told them about the mechanism behind the primal scream. They got it, each on their own level.

The other day I had a friend tell me, "So, I saw you and your kids cruising down 580 in your minivan." (pause while I wonder why this busy man would bother mentioning something so mundane) "You and your kids were laughing and talking and it looked like you were all... dancing." (I smile my Cheshire cat grin.) "I have never seen a family so happy together." (Grin drops a little.) He meant it. "I have never seen..." Each word was so carefully enunciated like some sort of subconscious confession, a reaching out. "...a family so happy together." How sad.

There's a pause while the realization sinks in that not everybody has fulfilling family lives. Statistically, few people have happy family lives. It can go wrong so easily for a million reasons and it can go right for only one -- hard work. It's a heap-o-work to build strong, healthy ties.

Tonight as Vee and I were going to pick up his bike from the high school (long story, but sometimes his travels lead him in routes where he doesn't get back to his initial mode of transport). In the car, we blasted the dance tunes loud-loud-and-louder.

The lyrics vibrated right through me: "...sick and tired of always being sick and tired..." and I knew with that deep surety that I simply had to run tonight. I needed to run. We got home and 60 seconds later, we were back out the door, dressed in good running gear with one son babysitting and another son walking out the door with Eee and me, all on the dark sidewalks running in sync.

I ran until my lungs burst. One full song. My lungs felt so fully open, stretched, cleansed. It was awesome. There is something about the music vibrating that motivates my body to move and I am bolstered by the fact that my son, my baby, is similarly motivated.

Then the coolest thing happened, a shift in perspective... (see next post above).

Code Monkey

A song that plays in our house several times a day is "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton, a crazy-good musician who releases his songs freely.

Seemingly unrelated: Vee and Kee love their Latin class. With a passion.

Even more unrelated: I need to get back in shape. I'm realizing that my brain is as mushy as my calves.

Possibly related? There's a marathon in Rome. Wait, no, Rome is where THE marathon concept began. (Feel free to mock me for my initial ignorance there.)

Related, unfortunately: I tried seriously plunging back into running again.

Horribly related: Yesterday we went out running: me, Kee, and Jee (little one on a scooter). With ear buds in each person's ears, we stretched, warmed up for a few blocks, then Code Monkey came on for my player.

My thoughts: "Hey! I can run for this entire song, no problem. The rhythm is perfect for running." My words: "Come on kids, keep up!"

Half way through I was breathing very hard, remembering what it was like to really push it. A bit further I was wondering how long the blasted song was. (Three minutes and seven seconds.) By the end, I thought I was having a mild heartache, but I made it and ended with a flourish (sprint). New goal = try to run through the "Code Monkey" song without keeling over.

Pathetic in a geeky sort of way.

Now, let's see if I can tie all these unrelated bits of life together in one sentence:

We're training to run the Rome marathon in March 09 and Code Monkey is the initial get-off-yer-bum motivation.

Ha!

Dream come true

I want to do this so badly, more than anything.

Why?

As a child, my favorite stuffed animal was a squirrel. Yes, a squirrel. Looks like I can get my own squirrel suit now. (New York Times piece)

My 2nd favorite stuffed animal was Dumbo the elephant, you know, the one with the feather that helped him fly?

And if it could possibly get better, my dearest just sent me this. "...une nouvelle dimension..." How appropriate. Ha.

Self-driven action

Those of you who know me understand I am a nut about self-driven action.

I thrive when I am surrounded by people who know what they want and then work towards it.

I am sad when I am around people who don't know what they want and work towards... whatever.

So, this morning, we were (per the last post) all semi-asleep and highly incoherent at 6 am this morning when Kee got up for school. He was like the last man to the battle field, looking around at the wounded stretched across couches, chairs, even the floor. He walked around, saw we were all fairly useless then went and:
1. made his own lunch -- bravo!
2. did his morning chores -- what? and
3. got out the door in time -- three cheers for punctuality-driven behaviors! Kee biked to school fully prepared and thoroughly under-supported. I was so proud.

I think I mumbled something at him when he walked near me this morning. I had one eye open at half-mast with Aee sleeping on my chest, Jee in the crook of one arm and two bowls at the ready for any incoming liquid missiles.

I have a vague recollection of Kee asking if we had any bread so he could make his own sandwich for school lunch. No, we didn't have any bread. Normally, this would have registered as an Action Item in my mind that would have shot enough adrenaline through my body to make me stand up and get to work. But with two kids in arms, I didn't budge and my adrenal gland didn't budge either (thankfully).

The end result (again, gratitude rocks!) was that Kee had a great experience in self-driven action. He could have feigned sickness and none of us would have been the wiser. He could have been "too tired" (biking to school is actually a bit of a feat, all uphill, have to leave early), but no, he took his day into his own hands and molded it.

Lab in the morning, school all day, debate team in the afternoon, work a bit at his job after that. What a cool young man.

There is something so comforting, affirming, and rewarding about being near someone who is able to make good choices.

A feast to remember

We had a splendid Christmas feast on Saturday night as a huge ward family. The place was packed and the food was haute cuisine with fine china, the works.

Unfortunately, 24 hrs later nearly everyone we had dined with was sick. It hit us in the night. First Aee, then Jee, then Vee (Kee was oblivious to it all). I guess the shortest intestines had the shortest fuse on their little exploding tummy timebombs.

Eee didn't get sick. "I'm made of tephlon, hon. That's why I eat all those preservatives. Germs can't grow in me. Have you ever seen a Twinkie mold?"

Can't argue with that logic.

I'm not sick either. I didn't have time to eat. I was gathering kids to the table, arranging things, reminding them that green beans are not projectiles and that under-the-table footsies are only funny if you are kicking your brother, not the gentleman sitting near you who is probably at this moment complaining about his bruised shins.

About 10 minutes into the dinner, I had to leave to take Vee to babysit for a family we know and love. After I get back, I had a full 60 seconds in my seat to catch my breath, relax in my chair and contemplate taking a bite when berrinngg, Vee on the phone. He forgot his book in the car and heaven forbid he should spend an evening without a 400+ pg book in-hand. Must read. Now.

I zoom back and forth until whoops, the dinner has been cleared off the table and I am glad because now I won't be tempted to overeat at such a scrumptious dinner.

The grateful heart is often rewarded.

By about 5 am this morning, the puke has covered six blankets, ruined three pillows, trashed one bed cushion, and made four nasty carpet stains that we took turns scrubbing.

In hindsight:

1. I'm glad I didn't complain about not getting to eat.

2. I'm glad we went to the party even though we paid dearly. It was a memory none of us will forget. It was officially our First Family Puke Bug. (We look forward to the First FULL Family Puke Bug someday.) I got to spend the entire day snuggling with Jee and Aee, bliss. I got to have my husband home all day. (He did 99% of the nighttime care from 11 pm to 3 am and was too wiped to go to work, teehee.)

3. I got to get up early in the morning hours to care for the pukers and I *love* the morning hours. I just have a hard time getting up that early because it's so tempting to sleep and call it "meditation" or "prayer" or justify why I need to rest for one more minute. I got a lot done between 3 am and 4 am and even got some work done inbetween incidents in the 4 to 7 am time slots.

So, I'm thankful. It's beyond pathetic, I know, but I'm thankful.

Trying to be jerky just to fit in

I have a pet peeve. When people start saying, "Teenagers are so ___ (insert unpleasant adjective)... they go through such awful phases... rollercoaster... so moody... "

I have tried various forms of defense:

* "What? Teenage hormones are tough? Have you ever been PREGNANT?"

or

* "Life is just a set of phases, each one unique in its own right. I wouldn't say one phase is inherently more difficult than the next."

or my favorite:

* "Assuming they will be tough only puts the kids in a lose-lose. What if we tried assuming that the teenage years could be a vibrant, productive time?"

So, yesterday afternoon as I was snuggling with my daughter for reading time, an article in Scientific American caught my eye. It talked about how there was no scientific evidence at all that said that teenagers had to be ornery during those pubescent years. It said that our current American Teen is very much a cultural anomaly. They showed how teens in various cultures didn't have the angst and unpleasantness that we tend to assume teenagers have.

--sigh of relief--

And that teenagers from other cultures who move to the US quickly become whiny, entitlist twits. It is a matter of cultural expectation rather than pure physiological cause.

--vindication--

So, I stand a bit more firmly in my belief that the teen years *can* be sweet.

Next time Vee or Kee does something so "normal" like offer to help with chores that aren't theirs or take a new class just because it sounds like fun, instead of feeling that little glitchy worried feeling of, "I wonder... teenagers aren't supposed to be this nice. Is something wrong?" Instead, I'll try to remember to sigh with relief at their ability to not cave into certain societal pressures.

How bizarre is that that we pressure certain segments of our society to be twits?

What did you say?

My sons are setting the dinner table, telling jokes to each other in Latin. I am fairly sure I heard "pater" and "mater" in their somewhere.

My daughter is watching her favorite princess movie in Spanish and I see her little mouth singing along with the tune.

My youngest son is writing in Mandarin Chinese on the white erase easel in the kitchen.

My husband emails me something that looks like gibberish until I look closer. It's tech-ese.

My e-mail inbox has a message from a French client: "Ravi de parler en Francais avec vous!"

And I wonder why I have a hard time completing a sentence in English.

The three year itch

We have never lived anywhere longer than three years.

It is now coming up on three years and I am itching to start packing the boxes. Technically, it has been one year in a rental and a year and a half in the current home, but still, there is a conspicuous little itch.

This time, I want to stick around and resist the impulse to move until Vee and Kee are out of the nest. Plus, we have not seen everything there is to see in the Bay yet. (That is usually our reason for moving.)

So, how to resist the call of the winds for three more years? Harumpf.

Wha...?

Do you talk in your sleep? If so, what type of thoughts go into your unconscious mutterings?

Every night as I tuck Jee in, I tell him a story about the mystical Knight, his dragon, Dragonini, and the Puffles (little fuzzy creatures). For whatever reason, tonight Jee requested:

"Please don't let there be anything scary in it. No attacks, no scary things. Can they just solve a problem tonight?"

I reassure him, snuggle in and tell him a wonderfully sweet story.

One problem -- I am exceptionally tired and begin to doze off.

But my mouth can still work while I'm asleep / nearly asleep.

From what I understand, I tell some wicked good stories in that state of semi-consciousness.

In this particular situation, I was awakened by Jee: "No! Mom, stop! You said nothing scary would happen. The dragon is invincible, right?"

Of course, in his little world the dragon is still invincible and his momma will always be there to protect him from harm. I ask him what happened in the story since ___ (the part I last remember consciously telling him). Wowza. He is fairly good at retelling and he wove quite a story of power, deception and guilt. (I had just finished "The Kiterunner" whose main theme is guilt.) As Jee retold the story, I felt very much like I was on the therapist's couch and my little son was telling me exactly what I was worried about and why.

Of course, it was all cloaked in dragons, knights, and puffles, but still, it was transparent.

What an interesting little phenomenon.

Grateful for groceries?

I dislike grocery shopping. It is painful to be around so many people moving so slowly.

Tonight, the farmer's market (which usually has all we need) was closed and I needed lunch fixin's for morning. I cringed and did the dirty work of slogging up and down the big box aisles.

Grocery shopping is hard, but coming home and having to unload those groceries adds insult to injury.

Ironic enough, that's where the silver lining is -- when my kids were little, I trained them how to carry in the groceries, checking the car for all 14 (or however many) bags, checking to make sure nothing fell out in transit, closing and locking the car, wiping feet off at the door, carrying the bags into the kitchen. I also trained them to look inside the bags of groceries so that if they were overcome with an irrepressible desire to whack their brother with a bag, they would do it with a bag of bagels, not a bag of eggs, or worse, a bag of cans.

Last night as I came home from grocery shopping, I was excruciatingly tired. Beyond tired. In that land where you forget what it feels like to not be tired. Where every bone and muscle screams and the mind goes numb. The last eight days had drained me on every level. During those days I had looked evil in the face and stared it down. I had won, but it was shallow, too heavy a price.

As I pulled into our pathetic little strip of pavement that we call a driveway, I was so relieved to know that my sons, my wonderful children, would jump up and run out as soon as they heard my car pull in.

They would unload the groceries.

You have no idea what a relief that is.

The Schedule

So, I like to schedule out my days.

I don't know if this is a healthy way to approach life, taking the best advantage of the time I have been given, or if it's some bizarre neurosis.

It drives me nuts to not have a schedule.

The thought of "just winging it" makes me panic.

I am most miserable on days when there is no defined goal, no path to travel, just a flat and lazy existence. The thought of relaxing on the beach in Tahiti sounds fairly unpleasant.

My favorite days have been ones where I took a step back from the day, looked at the breadth of possiblities, examined their relative importance and then assembled them like multi-dimensional puzzle pieces. So many factors to consider, so many possible combinations and when it all fits, I get a rush of ownership. It's a beautiful thing.

Lately, life has been chaotic. What I would give for a bit of stability.

Fog

This morning, Vee went out for a run. When he walked out the door, it was a wall of fog.

So exhilarating.

He came back on Cloud Nine, explaining how the fog condensed on his glasses and he ran into a trash can because he couldn't see two steps in front of himself. Without the glasses, the fog condensed on his eyelashes. When he came back, he was soaking wet and so thoroughly happy that he gave me a big sloppy hug.

I love fog.

The White Towel

Our eldest walks into the living room where we are all sitting, working on our various projects, and with a white towel in hand asks, "Hey Dad, can you get the files off this? I need to give it back to Jaimy tomorrow."

All of us just sit there stunned. Did he just ask us to download the files off a white towel?

Dad: "Uh....."

Kee: "Yeah, right."

Me: with my mind racing for what I have read lately about various smart substances in bendable form, "Vee, what are you talking about?"

We're all searching for a cable sticking out or a wireless sensor on it when Vee laughs, pulls out a hard drive and says, "Sorry, can you get the files off the hard drive. The towel was just so that I could get it home safely."

You know, when I was a kid, I would write notes to my friends and swapped those. When Eee was a kid, he would occasionally bring a floppy disk to school. Vee & Kee? They use flash drives and, for bigger tasks carry around 160G hard drives.

Maybe for Jee and Aee it really will be a flexible substance that can carry the data, but for now, it was just a hard drive in a towel. Ha.

The part of this that gives me whiplash is that their educational environments (all of them) are anti-tech. What does that communicate to a kid? I am beginning to see how the original hacker community was born.

Landing spot

You know that feeling when you have worked a tremendously hard, long day; you feel like you have given every last little ounce; you walk in the door to your house and you... collapse. And if feels oh, so good.

I love this feeling. It seems like everything is blissfully good in that environment which is "the safe spot to land".

Clean floors

Why is it that a clean floor makes me so blissfully happy?

It's so bizarre.

What a Geek

Imagine this: My son is in his car seat, eating an afterschool snack. He's reading the packaging. Cool.

"Mom, this has 0 Gigabites Trans Fat."

I park the car and turn around to see what on earth he could be talking about. The snack package says, "0 G Trans Fat".

Ha!

I was so proud of myself: "Honey, the abbreviation for gigabites is usually GB. On a food package, a little g by itself is a gram."

Jee laughed his sparky little laugh and we began a discussion about how the package should have had a lower-case g rather than an upper case one and how that was what confused him.

Transparent replies

Remember "Harold and the Purple Crayon"? The book about the little boy who could draw his entire world with a single, simple magical writing utensil?

I had the privilege of reading this book to Aee's peer group today, a group of seven girls in her Kindergarten class. At one point in the story (my favorite part actually) Harold draws a dragon which is too scary even for him. Harold backs up with his hand shaking and the wavy line is, you guessed it, water. Harold falls into the ocean.

For whatever reason, this scene elicited the "What would you draw if you had a purple crayon" discussion and I was delighted at their honest and transparent responses.

Girl 1: "I would draw a princess!" (She is on the forefront, ie the one most likely to say her dress is the latest design. Interesting.)

Girl 2: "I would draw a princess!" (Girl 2 loves and adores Girl 1.)

Me: (I can't help myself.) "Why would you draw a princess? What for?"

Girls 1 & 2 shrug. Blanks looks.

Girl 3: "I would draw a fairy." (a shy little girl, very delicate)

Girl 4: "I would draw a DRAGON. (she stands up while saying this) It would breath fire on your fairy and k..." (She doesn't actually say it. I laugh. She has older brothers, yes she does.)

Girl 5: "I would draw a plane." (Her home is on the other side of the world. She is completely unaware of her transparency.)

Girl 6, my little Aee, whispered so that only me and the Dragon Girl can hear: "I would draw -- the -- world ---." I can tell by the whisp in her voice that she is serious. She is planning out how she would build a world of her own.

Girl 7 who always comes to school hungry: "I would draw an apple pie."

Ha. Kids are so funny.

Sexism summed up by a 15 year old

"Girls are a lot smarter than boys, but they talk about things that are far less useful."

Ha!

Yes, No, or Maybe So

One of the coolest things about having kids is that you don't know if your parenting strategies are going to work out until *after* they are fully implemented and the repercussions are seen.

It's a leap of faith every day.

You do your homework, read parenting books and the various "Bay Area Kids" type magazines to find all the enriching things to do around town. You build a comforting routine and structure into their school week so they can be relaxed and prepared when they enter and exit school. You build exciting weekends so that your kids can have unique experiences to broaden their horizons. And then you wonder, "Is this too much? Not enough? Should I be filling her/his days with fun-ness or let him/her self-direct playdtime at home?" You (I and nearly everyone else I know) second-guess the process constantly. Balancing. Hoping.

So, all the kids from V to A have their school schedule down pat. Today is the best, hardest, most enriching day of the week (besides Sunday of course). Vee's is usually 6am to 10pm: seminary, school, study, and a game session with friends downtown that is (delightfully) taking the place of potential dating and dancing. (Big whew.) Kee does something similar, but usually spends his Friday night home either teching-out alongside Eee & Me or babysitting so Eee and Me can have a datenight.

But my favorite part of Fridays is Jee and Aee's days. They both have a good breakfast, head off to school and Jee stays at school for a Lego Robotics club. It has lit a fire under little Jee's bum and he is building more intricate structures than ever. For Aee (and this is huge, if you know her, you know this is huger than huge), she goes to school, then spends a well-structured playtime at Kids Village: Legos, snack, story time. Then (deep breath) she gets to go to yoga class with her friends. She is so relaxed, so exhausted, and so at peace after that class.

And me? Lucky me. I get to focus on work, slamming through the heaviest projects of the week since I have 9:30 to 4:00 free. During these hours, I have my best friend, the one I happen to be married to, chatting with me in IM, being present with me.

Even though it feels like I have arrived at that Place of Balance, I know that I won't see the effects until later. Right move? Wrong move? Too much? Too little? Who knows.

All I know for sure is that I love Fridays, not because they are the day before the weekend, but because they are simply Fridays. It is a day we have built and I like the way it looks and feels. I like waking up to a Friday and I like going to sleep on a Friday night knowing that everyone in our nest has had a good, fulfilling day.

What was I thinking??

I encouraged Vee and Kee to join the Debate team, one of the most professional, rigorous, competitive Debate teams on the West coast. I thought it would be excellent for their public speaking abilities. I thought it would help them grow stronger spines and be more aggressive in fine tuning and stating their personal beliefs.

Silly me.

I did not bother to look at the cost of this all. I now have two teenagers in house who debate over --everything--. Extemporaneous Debate is now the normal form of dialog in-house. They shift to Policy Debate whenever the topic of household chores is mentioned.

Mom: "Vee, can you take out the garbage?"

Vee: "Is there an inherent value in me in particular taking out the trash? Three main contentions: Why me? Why now? Why do we place our trash inside the house in the first place rather than outside? Like, why did we move to indoor plumbing either instead of outdoor outhouses?"

Mom: "That reminds me, you need to clean the bathroom too."

Vee: "Um, you have the burden of the affirmative. You need to..."

And so it goes. They remind me very much of fresh little puppy dogs cutting their teeth on a new bone.

Ambivalence

I wish my Vee and Kee were home after school, but now they're off doing sports, study groups, and playing games with friends.

I wish my Jee was still the sweet little snuggle-bunny he used to be but instead, he's off and running on his own, fully independent. Some mornings I wonder if I could just sleep in and he'd still get to school on time (with breakfast eaten, clothes put on properly, lunch packed).

I wish my Aee was fully independent, confident, and strong, yet I don't want to miss a minute of these years while she's still light enough for me to pick her up in my arms and comfort her.

Ambivalence. 

Winning?

Played a board game as a family tonight and when Vee and I took last place, Vee said, "Hey, we won last!"

How optimstic. I love that. "We won last."

One of my last "firsts"

When I picked Aee up from the bus stop today, she was chilly. The shaking of the bus acts as a sort of primal momma-bouncing-her-baby sensory input and Aee's eyes started to droop and her body temp dropped fast. So, she swaggered off the bus, felt the cold rush of 65 degree air and shivered. She asked for a coat, but I didn't have one for her.

I can't carry her because of that blasted slipped disk in my back.

So, we stop and snuggle on a bench for a minute and I realize -- ka-ching! -- she can take my jacket! She finally has broad enough shoulders and a tall enough torso to handle my jacket. She slips it on; I zip it up; she's ready to go! She takes off running with her arms swinging the excess arm length wildly back & forth. The jacket comes down to her knees, but it doesn't fall off her shoulders.

And I realize this is the first time of hopefully many that my daughter will wear my clothes.

What a relaxing root canal

I was looking forward to my root canal this morning because I knew that:

1. I might catch a nap during it.

2. The endodontic surgeon has an extra-comfy leather-ish chair.

3. The dental hygenist gives me a pillow for my neck, glasses to shade my eyes, and a fuzzy blanket to keep me warm.

Sounds like a great thing, right? Sure. Only now the novacain is wearing off.

The sad part is that the most relaxing part of my day was my early morning root canal.

Funny Sleep

Aee is fighting off the onslaught of germs she encountered when she went back into the public school system. Last week, it was one thing; this week it is a "scritchy throat" and a "bletchy tummy".

She heals like her pappa does, so this afternoon she fell asleep on the couch. We were snuggled up side-by-side and before I knew it, her breath was deep and slow. Her temp started climbing, her brow beaded with sweat and every time I tried to cool her off, she just grabbed the covers up around herself again.

A few times, I tried to move her, but she wanted to stay on the couch where Jee was playing his Wii games loudly, where Vee and Kee were doing their homework. Kee sat on her a few times because he didn't notice that the lump of blankets had some hair sticking out from it.

Then later, I had to go pick up Eee from work. (His car is in the shop. Again. It hates us.) I was gone for 19 min, the exact length of time it took the Hamburger Helper to cook. When I walked in the door, I saw my little Aee had slipped off the couch, but caught herself on her knees and was still asleep.

So, my daughter was sweaty, sick, without a mother, fell off the couch and no one noticed that she was now sleeping while upright. I had Eee grab her and get her set up in my arms. (I have a slipped disk in my back so I couldn't very well pick her up myself.) I snuggled in with her and started feeling that nagging little momma guilt that my sweet little one was so ill-cared for that no one noticed the sweaty sleeping child who had fallen off the couch. And then I saw the brighter side, "Any child who can sleep on her knees at 5, is bound to be a great prayer-sayer."

I love that image of a 5 yo asleep while kneeling.

Underestimation

Conversation while tucking Jee in bed:

Me reading from an Earth Science book: "...is a liquid called magma..." I pause, look in his little eyes and try to elicit some good vocab / pronunciation work from him. "Say m-a-g-m-a."

Jee: "Lava" (big giggles)

Me: ??

Jee: "Well, it's magma when it's inside the earth, but... (little twitch) it's lava when it comes out!"

How do I so consistently underestimate my kids? What is up with that dynamic? I thought I had my sights set so high, building a vision of successful futures for each of them, yet time after time, they do stuff like that where they swoop in under my expectation-of-the-moment and blast it to bits. He was way beyond vocab work on that one.

Like at the library earlier on today, we're picking out books. I picked out a stack of early readers, Level 2 for Jee while he's over "goofing off" at the spinning racks of books-for-middle-schoolers. He has picked out a stack of five (he knows the limit) books ranging from 48 pgs to nearly 200 pgs. I try to encourage him towards the 10 words per page L2 books, but no, he's back to looking at the paperback racks.

I get distracted and when I reconnect with him a good 30 min later, he's several pages into a very heavy book. Maybe he'll end up like Vee, devouring so many books (and hearing the big words used in context so rarely) that he ends up using the big words in his daily speech because those words are so familiar and so well-loved for him, yet "mispronunciating" them.

Magma --> lava. I didn't know that.

Brutal Days

Man, today was brutal. I guess when you start your morning out by a car accident at 5:55 am, you know there's a teeny chance it might be a bad day.

Car accident = for the last year I have wondered why my DH would park his car a block away where there weren't any street spots left on our block. Since I get to park my car straight in the driveway (leaving a parking space worth of room behind my car), I spent the last year asking him, "Why not park behind me? I don't mind moving your car for you when needed. I like it when you park behind me. It's like you're protecting your family."

He hasn't parked behind EVER, except for last night. He came home from SF in the am after having pulled a full day at work and another full day setting up a server for a school in SF. He was in that zombie state beyond tired. And he finally parked behind me.

So, this morning, I get up at 5, do all the regular morning work, jump in the car with my kids and the hot, full breakfast that they made for their friends, and --crunch--.

And after that, the day only got worse.

I won't bore any one with the ickies. It's a horrible list. I don't want it to eat up another bit of mental space.

Suffice it to say that this morning a friend met me at the building and did a good bit of exercise with me. Exercise gives me a buffer and a good bit of resistance to trauma. I can handle so much more when I have had good exercise.

There were a few points today when I thought I was going to crack, just completely lose it. I drained all the tears, but never did crumble fully. Now I'm back to that Zen state of simply not caring anymore and that's a great place to be.

So, to that one friend who got up so early to walk with me, Thank You for coming this morning. I had no idea how much I would need it!

"Actively Engaged" --or-- Too Much?

My sons' schedules:

5 am up for breakfast, showers, school prep

5:45-6:15 bike to seminary

6:15-7:00 Seminary

7:00-7:20 bike to school

7:29 Lab for AP Chemistry (fun!)

School

3-4-ish Homework at a cafe downtown

4:15-6:00 Cross Country

6:00-6:15 Bike home

6:50-8:45 YM

Too much? Or just a great, full life?

Components of the Ideal Office

* Cat sleeping on desk beside my screen

* At least four computers all going at once, each has it's own purpose

* Quiet

I Never Knew it Could Be this Sweet

You know when you're awake with your infant at 3 am and you think, "Nobody ever told me it would be this hard"?

Well, I'm hear to tell you that it can also be so sweet. Today there were Spikes of Sweetness, when I literally gasped, stepping out of the situation mentally and looking from a distance at what was happening.

--> driving in the car, turning on my 15 yo's favorite music. Classical. Yes, classical. Angry violins enter the piece and he blasts it, doing air violin (think: air guitar). I am overcome with joy. My 15 yo likes Classical. Does it get any better than this?

--> at REI tonight, shopping for cross country gear. Of course, Kee picks the $40 pair of running shorts and the $45 pair and I can afford it. That feels so good, not because we get them, but because in his eyes and in his words, I can see and hear that he understands the depth of commitment it takes to earn a good living. He wasn't spending frivolously; he was calculating, "Hey, I'm going to be an adult M for a long time. If I buy these $40 running shorts now, they might last a good 5 to 7 years. That's a pretty good ROI." Yes, he knows what ROI means. It's a good thing, overcome with joy again.

--> this afternoon, when Jee was being bothered by a bully, little Jee didn't back down, didn't give in. He said, "That's not right! It isn't right and I'm trying to figure out how to solve this problem!" He understood so many dimensions about the situation -- motivation, anger and its many expressions, compassion, the modulations of friendship, all those nebulous little negotiations that occur in any interchange. Jee walked away with tear stained cheeks, having struggled and not actually won, but having gotten stronger. My heart burst.

--> Vee, when he came home late tonight had the look of a tired man. It was a maturity I hadn't seen before. I asked him how his day was and he actually told me all about it. Joy.

--> Best for last, right? Kee and I ran into some friends at REI tonight. The mom, a physician who takes exceptionally good care of her own children, asked Kory, "So how do you like school?" and I could tell she was expecting a ho-hum response. Instead: "It's great. I love it. I've got great teachers..." (sound of physician's jaw hitting the floor). After a few minutes of discussion, we all had a mutual feeling of "Yeah, this is how it should be. Teens should love their school. This is how it should be."

There is such sweetness is knowing what you want, working for it, and actually getting it.

Darn it, there's one more I wanted to capture. Tonight we went out on a run, Eee, Kee, and Me, all three, in the dark, each with our own music motivating us to run, not walk. Eee takes the lead. Kee actually follows. I get to stretch my legs and remember what it was like to really run. At one spot, I see Eee and Kee in the streetlamp light and just gasp, not because I am out of breath, but because this is something I always wanted, but never thought I would get -- a husband who jogs with his sons; a son who jogs with his dad. This is it. If only I cold imprint this full force on my mind

Tricked Ya!

Imagine this: I spent last night packing lunches, setting out supplies, working out every last little detail. We have the morning departure schedule down to the *minute*, not the five minute segments, but the actual minute.

The kids are dressed; Aee's hair is combed to perfection with a cute little clip; Vee & Kee have their cell phones, house keys, bart cards, bike locks, lunches, money for pizza after school, etc, and so goes the checklist. Jee is in the mix, being so responsible and remembering the routine so well. Shoes on, even with socks.

And get this... everyone is actually fed. gasp.

And fed well. double gasp.

Oatmeal bowls, toast, bananas, bagels, ramen, meatballs, hashbrowns, eggs, blueberry juice, carrot juice, vitamin supplments, wowza. We did it! Good food has been consumed and everyone begins their physical move out the door.

Vee and Kee are biking away exactly 2 minutes before their scheduled time which gives us an extra 120 seconds of breathing room to get Jee and Aee in the car (will be ramped up to biking / scootering by mid-next-week). Eee is standing on the porch steps, saying bye to his sons when he hesitates...

"Where's the minivan?"



Yes, I am so not kidding. The first day of school, when I really, really need to set the tone of peace and prepared calm for the kids and... my parking spot is empty.

I spend 10 seconds looking for the elephant in spots where the elephant really couldn't be hiding. Alongside the house, along the other side of the house, um... Nope. It's not where I put it.

Thankfully, Eee has a great ability to maintain calm (I was in poorly veiled panic) and backtracked to last night when I took the BART downtown then got a ride back, leaving my car, you guessed it, at the BART station.

As we're figuring this out on the way to Jee's school, little Jee pipes up, "But someone could have stolen it from the BART parking lot too you know."

Gee, thanks a lot little guy.

The minivan was at the station. Just a funny little hiccup in our morning.

To be honest, I would like to have my adrenaline back. "Where's the minivan?" was so not worth it.

Free as in FREEDOM

Tomorrow morning at 9:01 I enter that bizarre neverland of a recently released-from-duty parent. I will have a full day to work and I am unapologetically excited for the transition.

Technically, I never stopped working, but whatever.

So, for the last 16 years, one month, 11 days, and two hours, I have been in the 24/7 mom mode. I have been "On" full-time. When the kids walk through those beautiful school doors tomorrow morning, one at 8:12, another at 8:20, another at 8:29, and the last one at 9:00 sharp, I will be completely and utterly...

empty?

free?

switched to the next task?

I have been dreaming about what I would do at that pivotal moment that marks the rest of my life. One parent I know went home and slept until time to pick her kids up from school. Another went out shopping on that first day of freedom and spent an obscene amount. I can't imagine either of those working for me. Go running? Go for a detoxification hike in Tilden? Go to Half-Moon Bay and chill my feet? What does one do when presented with such an abrupt life transition?

Wait, it's actually not that abrupt. There's a good chance that someone will forget a lunch and at 11:30, I'll get a call. There's also a chance that the house will need cleaning (ack! vortex incoming!)

Hum... pivotal moment. What to do....

Planning Parties and the GTD Princess

You know how kids pick up on every little nuance of their parent's behavior?

Aee has been having "tea parties" and "planning parties". Planning parties? Where did she get that term? She doesn't watch modern media and I am fairly sure none of her friends would think of having a "planning party".

Did she get it from me, the compulsive list-maker, schedule fine-tuner, the GTD queen? Has she become a GTD princess? Is this a good or bad thing?

I asked her, "What do you do at a planning party?"

"We write things down and talk about them!" (bouncy glee)

"Is the planning part fun?"

"Duh!" (said in a tone only used by siblings of teenagers) "But it is hard work you know."

"Really?" (pausing) "But it's fun?"

"Yeah! We write things down and then we get to do them. We put the thing we like most at the top and we do that first! It's im-por-tante." (hard to capture that in print)

So, we have a little planning party and I realize that she has mastered prioritization and scheduling. She knows well how to identify what she wants most.

Now if only I could get her to be more kind to her brother. =/

Calm as an Effect or an End-all?

K, still thinking about this one.

I have always perceived a calm state of being an an effect of work, not as a be-all, end-all.

Even in various meditation practices, you have to work fairly hard to get your body and mind into a state of calm, ie correct your breathing, get the right body posture, work, work, then, as you get everything in line, you achieve the calm.

I wonder if that holds water that calm is an effect?

Aligning Desire and Direction

Scenario 2:

Why do we crave quiet?

K, I have a really good one for this and I wrote it all out, but it had the wrong tone so I deleted it all. It really is a great concept, but I just can't publish bad tone.

The bottomline logic is:

--> there is a general cultural message in most nations (Asia and a few other spots excluded) that says that we need to slow down, relax, have a calm day

--> does this message gel with what I want out of life? Not really. A while back I wrote out what I wanted out of life and part of it was a list of minutiae that I knew would make each day satisfying. After I had this list it was infinitely easier to do what I needed to do each day. What I, myself, personally wanted and what I actually did each day were in line. I got what I wanted and I recognized it. Huge ah-ha all things considered. Anyway, here is an updated version of that list:

* I want each day to contain one fire, one particularly scary emergency, because I know that when I don't deal with scary things on a regular basis, my ability to handle them becomes weak. I actually become scared of the scary things. But, if I deal with it daily, it's like a muscle. Something awful happens? No problem. I can do this because I did it yesterday and the day before and the day before. The fear is gone.

* I want each day to contain at least five moments of bliss, you know those moments when you look in your child's eyes and you see a really brilliant person blossoming inside. At least five moments, whether it is an exceptionally good breath of fresh air, a runner's high after a good run, an ah-ha moment with a good friend, whatever. Moments of bliss.

* I want music, but not too much music. I want running around, but not too much. I want storytimes, table times, floor times, and dinner times. But it is excessive, so when it gets overwhelming I focus on the fact that one of these days I am going to blink and my kids will be grown and gone. Blink. One blasted blink and they'll be gone.

* I want (oooo, this one is my favorite!).... It requires a little background. One of my college professors once said, "If you do not go to sleep every night completely exhausted, if you don't walk in your door and collapse on your bed from sheer exhaustion, then you haven't tried hard enough. God gave you that body and that mind. Use it! When you do give it your all, you will be blessed beyond measure and you will find time and time again that you had more strength than you ever thought possible. You may not finish each day's work, but when your head hits the pillow, you will have that utter sense of calm that you gave it every last ounce of energy you had. Fulfill the measure of your creation, whatever that may be."

Fulfill the measure of your creation. Sounds delicious. I think I shall go do a few more things before letting my head hit that pillow. ;-)

OK Mister, you asked for it

You really want to know what I think about the "common cultural knee jerk wish for quiet"?

Scenario 1:

For one minute, follow along with me. Use your imagination to see if this scenario sounds good to you.

What is....

* quiet, utter quiet, so quiet you can hear your own heart beat

* consistent, day in, day out, no surprises, always calm

* no one can bother you. no one can yell. no sounds interrupt your thoughts

* there are no obnoxious smells. the only smell that you can remember is a bland whiff of regular air

* no one can spill juice on your pants

* you have no financial responsiblities. none. not even for yourself. no taxes, no paychecks, no doctor's bills, no rent or mortgage, no surprises

* no one depends on you for anything. you don't fix breakfast, do bedtime, clean up, nothing. not a single responsibility is on your plate, not even for yourself

* the roof over your head and food on your plate are simply taken care of

* your living space is never messy because there is nothing to mess it up, no one to mess it up

* life is utterly free of responsibility

What is it? Can you name it?

Yeah, you got it. Solitary confinement.

Underestimation

I underestimated Jee's ability to handle trauma. He acted like it was an everyday affair.

Needles? No problem!

It was a great day. I should wipe the calendar like that more often.

Just kidding. To be honest, I saw the bottom of the barrel today. It was so quiet, so uneventful that it made me realize again and again and again that



that I actually built the life I wanted.

I like my everyday life.

Yes, I want to have lots of exciting things happening around me all day. Wishing for quiet is only a common cultural knee-jerk reaction. Sure, it's nice to relax, but it only feels good if it is not a constant. Plus, there is exactly 62 seconds of relaxation built into my every morning. It's called brushing my teeth and it is perfectly calm, meditative time and it is more than enough thank you.

By the end of the day, both Jee and I were cured of any desire to take it easy. Life is too short. Death will probably be too long. But I really should ask Th about that. He would know.

BTW Th, if you are reading this, my kids "wrote" a funny book yesterday after we found out about the impending surgery. TMBG's ABC album spiked it and before we knew it we were writing (verbally):

D is for Death and Disease (how fun!)

Back up, A is for Appendicitis like E had! And AIDs! And Apples! (that last one from a kid who didn't quite get what we were doing)

B is for (you don't want to know)

C is for cataracts and cancer. Yes, CANCER

D, we covered D

skip a few

G is for Grave's disease and goiters

H is for Hypothyroid and Hyperthyroid at the same time! And hernias! Hernias that are bursting!

It went on and on and on until we had covered every sad and disgusting medical term they could think of. It might have been a cathartic way for them to relieve fear & tension. I'm not sure. I just know that we had a heap o' fun.

Snowball Effect

Don't you love it when things start snowballing in a certain direction until it all gets so big that you just know it's going to squash you? And you know that when you first formed that snowball in your little hands, it was so adorable and promising?

Today's snowball ended with the doc saying my little Jee has been scheduled for emergency surgery in the morning. If only that had been the worst announcement of the day...

So, on the particularly bad days, I try to find the silver lining:

1. When Jee is sick, he will snuggle for hours. I will get to read to him for most of the day while the anesthesia wears off, forgetting about the appointments on the board.

2. I don't have to ask anyone's permission for time off to take my son to the hospital.

3. I have a really cool new laptop to play with while Jee is in surgery and there is a teensy little chance (but still a chance!) that it's uber-ness will give me a few moments of respite while my son is being brutally ripped at. Maybe a few seconds. I doubt it, but maybe.

Ok, fine there are not many good aspects of this sort of thing, so maybe look elsewhere:

4. My daughter adores me. I adore her.

5. My eldest son is fully capable of yelling at the top of his lungs in front of everyone, "I LOVE YOU MOM!"

6. My husband is my best friend, my closest confidant, and by far, the most intelligent person I know. Still.

Top Three OWTFBITFOSP

Top three biggest bang-for-your-buck ways to feel better in the face of Officially Stinky People:

1. Do NOT give it any brain space.

2. Run around with your kids. Laugh. Run like your bum is on fire.

3. Lose yourself in service for an hour or two. Just dive on in and help someone willingly. Don't hold back; let go & express love.

And before you know it, aaahhhhh, it feels so much better.

Ouch! Ouch? Cranial Elasticity

What I would give for more elastic cognitive processing.

One minute -- "Mommy, where's my snuggly?"

Next minute -- "...you're gonna need to have an injection mold tooled, about $5 to 10,000, cost depends on the number of cavities, so if you do four cavities per mold, you get a lower unit cost, but it increases the cost of the tool... you probably want ____ (term I have never heard of, I doubt it's even English) plastic and ___ (again, not English) coating or maybe you want to do pad printing..."

Next minute -- "Mommy! I need to pee! Girls pee together!"

Next minute -- "Can you do 10,000 keys for me? A key compatibility chart? Sure, let's send free keys out to everyone who helps us test."

Next minute -- "Mom, look at me!" (he's touching the ceiling with both hands, using his legs in the doorway to hold himself up)

On a good day, when I get a good run in, then I can flip back and forth and it feels oh, so good. On a day when I don't get that exercise, then the flipping just feels like whiplash.

Worshipping Intelligence

I love our family tradition of going to the library on Sunday afternoons. There is something so blissful about being inside those walls where all different shades of truth reside.

So, today, with the Top Tier of the family gone camping, I got to take the little ones to the downtown library all by myself, strolling down the sidewalk slowly, entering the library with that brisk little rush of much-appreciated cold air. Man, it feels good to walk into a library.

The best part -- I saw my littlest get that little glimmer in her eye for the first time. You know that glimmer. If you are a library lover too, then you know that glimmer. She didn't say anything about her love-of-the-library other than the typical, "Let's get this!" but it was there, growing just like it did with me.

I spent a good chunk of my teenage years on a bicycle, pumping about 40-50 miles one-way to the University of Washington just so I could slip into their main library and disappear for the weekend. I would eat a sandwich at about 5 am, whole wheat, peanut butter, banana slices, sunflower seeds and raisins. I wouldn't eat anything while I was at the library, but I would head home in the early evening, stopping by a market and get a head of lettuce and an individual serving bag of Doritos. I would put one Dorito inside of each lettuce leaf then eat it. Crunch. Sitting on the sidewalk, letting all the day's books sink in.

I couldn't check anything out from the UW library, but just being there... Why are libraries so thrilling?

Purpose throughout Life's Cycles

I am uncomfortable around unemployed post-mothering women. Up until yesterday, I had no idea what caused that unpleasantly edgy feeling. The coin flipped too quickly:

Heads -- mothering (and fathering) are The Ultimate professions. You are allowed to retire at some point.

Tails -- What? Your youngest enters school and then you do what exactly with your time?

It seemed so sad to me. Maybe it is just because I love working, I love my job, and I can't imagine not being purposefully engaged. When I had two bouncing babies in my shopping cart as I hunter-gathered my daily necessities, I saw these ghosts of former mothers wandering the aisles of the stores during the day and honestly, I couldn't look.

But it all makes sense now. It was an acquaintance's sig line that provided the ah-ha.

"In the absence of a clearly-defined purpose, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia."

Ka-ching!

When you have kids you have purpose with a capital P, well, a lot of pee in general really. When those kids are gone, they leave a void and you can quickly become "strangely loyal" to things that simply hold no meaning for the greater good.

This isn't a criticism per se -- I suspect I will spend tonight strangely loyal to at least one act of trivia. It is simply an observation. Now that my youngest is entering Kindergarten, I am aiming for purpose with a capital P.

Man, now that I look at it, I am strangely loyal to all sorts of junk that doesn't mean much.

Owned!

As my teenage son sits snuggling his fuzzy cat, he smiles at me and I can't help but mutter, "I love you."

Such a reply:

"I love you MORE. You've been TOLD."

How does one respond to that? "I love you despite your adorably abrasive, potentially competitive, highly unpredictable verbal outbursts of professed mutual adoration."

I actually just said that back to him and he did that divine laugh that makes his hair jiggle.

Ah, the joys. A great read: "Between Mothers and Sons: Women writers talk about having sons and raising men".

Geeking Out

In the car, eldest son is driving me looney with his weird remarks. I put up my hand up in a "talk to the hand" gesture and he thinks I am high fiving him.

He high fives my reluctant hand and says, "Interdigitate!"

Of course, in my feeble, fumbly brain, I slowly split out the word: prefix = inter, root word = digit. Interlocking fingers?

I should have said an energetic "Cool new vocab word V-man!" but instead I mutter, "Stop geeking out on me. Interdigitate yourself."

Which of course he does and all his siblings follow suit with a round of "Look I can interdigitate!" "I'm interdigitating, whoo, whoo, look at meeee."

And I'm slowly driving down Cedar thinking:

I have the geekiest car on the road right now.

If I open the window so people can hear what is being said, will they stare? (I opened the window. People stared.)

What if I just cave into this, gave up my lazy, hazy approach and try it? Sure enough, it's way more fun to join a hand to another hand (whether it is yours or someone else's) when you call it "interdigitating".

And yes, I guarantee on the first day of school this year, each and every one of the kids will use the word "interdigitate" along with other equally geeky words and their teachers will have a moment of "Wha...?"

I can see it now.

...with the Brakes On

We went with friends to the Marina tonight to shoot Koosh balls & golf balls out of a potato launcher. First launch = 200 ft; second launch = lost.

Vee & Kee's friend built the launcher and since we are friends with the Dad and Jee & Aee have never seen a pototo launcher, we thought we would all tag along. What a great night; what a great show. They were launching from the big dirt piles area by the bridge over 580. Pictures on Flickr soon.

The wind turned cold and Jee & Aee huddled in the chariot (the little trailer thing you pull behind your bike). While everyone was looking for the lost projectile, I realized that I needed to take my shivering little Jee & Aee home. Jee and Aee normally split up with one riding on the tandem and the other in the chariot. But, I needed to get them both home as fast as I could and I can only pull one bike, so they both piled into the chariot.

Note that no one in the family has pulled both kids in the chariot which now adds up to about 140 lbs of kid & trailer. Somehow I thought I could support this on my own wobbly, geeky legs.

As I was leaving, Tom pumped up my tires for good measure -- the chariot tires were completely flat, possibly because I thought that pulling a chariot with non-flat tires would just be too easy.

Nobody thought I could do it, but they didn't want to do it, so they weren't volunteering, just showing doubt. Gee, thanks a lot. My parting comment was meant to be reassuring: "Never underestimate the verocity of a mother caring for her children."

I pulled my not-so-little ones up the bridge. Since I was on Kee's bike-with-bad-brakes, I went down the other side with the brakes on. Once I hit the streets, I slowly realized what I had gotten myself into. Even the little hills were painful, but it was getting dark --fast-- and I wanted to get my babies home. Adrenaline with a boost of momma-power.

After a 1/2 mile, the dark hit like a blanket & I stopped to get the reflective vest out of the chariot. The kick stand didn't hold & bang, the bike hit the pavement. When I picked it back up, the brake was jammed ON.

Now, how am I going to get two freezing little kids home without leaving all my gear (bike, trailer, all the equipment inside)? Walk the bike? I tried pushing it and it barely budged.

What would you do?

What solutions come to mind?

Stuck in a dangerous part of town, dark out, with some expensive gear (expensive camera, obviously cheap bike) and two little kids who would have me carry them. Hum.

M.U.'s talk flashed, "When you are biking, you can always go just one more inch.... endurance... you choose when you stop." There wouldn't be any giving up for me tonight.

But what to do?

I threw the bike back down on the ground to see if that would fix it.

Yeah, I know the rest of you would have tried fidgeting the brake, kicking the tire back into alignment, but you see, I know this bike. I know how screwed up it really is. And I know that it hates me.

So I threw it back down with a, "You won't defeat me" flick of the wrist.

And then I kicked it, "How dare you mess with a mother trying to get her kids home."

And here's the cool part -- when I picked it back up, the tire was back in alignment.

Sorta.

I'll spare you all the gory details of how badly messed up this bike is. At least I could move forward, but the brake was still technically "on". As long as I could move forward.... Now what did M.U. say in her talk? You choose when you stop.

With my legs screaming, "Hey, you set the resistance too high! Back off or we're going to send you some nasty lactic acid!" I started praying pretty hard. As I got close to each intersection, "Oh please, tell the people to stop for me."

They did.

At every light, "Oh please, let it stay green or turn green. I don't care, just let me see green."

They were all green.

I didn't stop once and I was able to get going at a fairly good clip. It was at the razor edge of "...never give you more than you have strength to bear." Never too hard, but I couldn't stop. I knew that if I stopped, I would change my mind and I don't know, ditch the bike? Try to carry the kids home? It sounded so much easier than what I was doing grinding the tires one rotation after the next.

When I pulled onto our street, I could hear J & A cheering for me out of the chariot, "Way to go mom! You made it!" With my legs shaking, I pulled into our driveway and...

...hit our minivan. The brakes didn't work at all. I already knew that the right brake was disconnected, but the left brake handle hung off like some child's nearly-lost tooth hanging on by a thread. I hadn't noticed that the brake wasn't where it was supposed to be because I had never felt for it to use it.

A lesson in endurance? Painfully so. A lesson in gratitude? No doubt.

Dysfunctional Writer -- Four Reasons

One of my many quirks is an inability to look at the fact that people read my work. Is it because I am painfully shy? Is it because of some fractured attempt to hide parts of myself? Who knows.

I opened up comments on my blog today. Those of you who have known me for a while realize this is no small baby step. I think I have kept my pen name / no comments / hidden address for so long because:

* Information management -- If I had published under my real name in the 1998-2004 time frame, I would have suffered a deluge of mail and other nasty intrusions that would have disrupted my life as a mother. One book in particular got an enormous amount of attention, became required reading at several universities and the international mail, well, I learned about places I had never heard of before. It was weird, like some monster banging on the other side of the wall.

I am so glad I put that wall in place. There is nothing I hate worse than an interruption when I'm playing Go with my boy (mostly because he moves pieces when I'm not looking). If I am private, hidden, secure under my pretty little pet rock, I do not have to mess with the publicity that flows from that work. Nice. Hear the quiet?

* Purity -- If I could die before anybody read my work, that would be ideal. I would not have to worry about anyone pointing out flaws. When you publish a work (at least traditionally) it is far past the editorial phase. When I am in the editorial phase, I actually get all the editing I need, thank you. Why would I want someone pointing out a flaw in my logic when it is too late to change it and it will be another year or two before they do a reprint? That is just not fair.

* Editorial Hell -- There is something torturous about not being able to actively edit your work. Once you put it out there for the world to see, you can not pull it back. At least, in some forms. (In this blog, I can edit to my heart's content so maybe that is why I am opening up?) When I give a presentation, I suffer at least a week's worth of obsession over, 'I forgot to include..." and "That sentence was poorly structured. It should have been..." and then in my tired mind's eye the words copy & paste, dancing around as I see the presentation restructure itself, but there is no release. I have been tempted more than once to ask that a meeting reconvene just so I can get it right. It is agony, sheer agony, I tell you.

* I question whether or not I really want to know what others think. One one hand, I crave that social-emotional high that comes from people recognizing and responding to me. In particular, I crave the confrontive commentary that puts those particular pieces of my brain in the refiner's fire. Oh, how I love that fire. On the other hand, they are my ideas and when I put them in print, I claim them. Keeping a pen name is a bit of a "Back off. I have enough voices in my life already, thank you."

Now, with that warm welcome, I open up comments.

Being Early

I walked into my dentist's office at 11:50:23, so dang proud of myself for getting there early for my 12 o'clock. I strutted over to the receptionist: "Hi! For once, I'm early!"

She laughed: "Oh, sweetheart, your appointment was last Tuesday. You're a full week late."

And I thought I was such hot stuff.

Flittering

Best moment of the day today: Reaching Grizzley Peak after having climbed (not walked, climbed) straight up Marin.

Even better moment: Having made the walk with a friend at my side. I walk so much faster with a friend. It doesn't hurt as much either.

Best lesson of the day: Our home teacher's co-lessons that Harry Potter showed 1. acceptance of all and 2. love.

Sweetest hug: From my daughter at night after I read her a good story.

Nicest words of the day: From my husband, "Nah, this is easy," when he took over pulling the trailer (about 100 lbs extra weight) as we biked to a friend's house for a farewell party.

Prettiest moment: Seeing a lady in church who I had helped invite there. She actually came!! I had a part in that! So cool.

Biggest hurdle: Staying focused. Knowing what to give attention to and what to ignore. Having so many tasks that are all so, so good.

Best sight: Sitting in church and seeing so many delightfully interesting people, ie people with personalities. Relishing the feeling of lack-of-mold (referring to a mold that makes identical objects, not mold as in gee-it-has-been-damp-in-here-for-25-years).

Saddest moment: Looking at my eldest thinking that I have only 36 more months left with him.

Scariest moment: Biking up a steep hill today realizing that I have not given enough to life lately, recommitting to bike harder, faster, stronger.

Best laugh of the day: The combined laughter of my sons & their friends, heard when I got home from an afternoon party, friends sitting at the big kitchen dining table playing Settlers of Catan.

Best words out of J-boy's mouth: "Mom, can I read you a story?"

Now, that's what I'm talking about -- read *me* a story. In every parent's life there comes a time for payback.

GeekBaby

You know how kids make spoof lyrics off of songs they enjoy singing? Kee made up this:

"The programming colors are one, two, three,
red, green, and blue..." (because that's how light interacts with emissive colors)."

Little A sings it that way in primary and the coolest part -- she knows what it means. Ha.

An Open Source Life

I am so inspired by this video. I love how they are so deep in the struggle of how to manage mass collaboration. I love their lack of greed. I love how Linus has his kids running on stage and making it impossible to listen to Stallman's great speech.

I have spent the last few days listening to it over and over again, thinking about how it could work that general philosophy into the daily mix of things.

GamerGirrl

Picture mother & daughter sweetly snuggling together at night, reading stories, talking about the day.

Daughter: "I'm thirsty."

Mom: (jokingly) "Thirsty? I'm thirsty too... I think I'll drink your hair..." (goofing)

Daughter: "No, *I*'m thirsty."

Mom: "You're thirsty? Oh... eat my hair then." (offering hair)

Daughter: "No, mom, I'm really thirsty. I'm low life."

Low life?

If you get it, you must be a gamer!

And yes, I know that technically, it is "low mana" for thirst and "low health" for hunger, but: 1. she's only 5, and 2. she was so tired.

Sweet Tax Night

Filing taxes last night was so nice. Really. No, really! We got all the kids to bed then spread out our massive piles of books, receipts, notepads, and laptops. Going over the receipts we laughed about all the craziness of last year until that magical moment, 11:54 when E pressed Send.

Maybe it was so nice because we rarely get stress-free nights like that. (Yes, relatively speaking, taxes are now peaceful compared to other things.) Maybe it was nice because we got to see 2006 at a glimpse -- we did so many great things last year! I love finetuning life so it was fun for me to see what choices we had make & debate whether or not I would make the same "mistakes" now. We made a lot of great choices last year and the choices that didn't make good sense tax-wise were good choices morally. There's something so powerful about making lots of good little choices. They accumulate. What is that called? Compound moral interest? There must be a great economic term for it.

It was really encouraging to see the year in one breath like that. Usually, on a day-to-day basis when I am struggling through the goo of the day's mismanaged schedule, I feel highly unproductive, ineffective, like I am making a long list of poor choices. But, when I look at the big picture, I can see that a lot of that discouragement is just the naturally feeling of trudging through goo. Big ah-ha for me.

The Obsessive Click

I can't stop checking my email, looking for those orders that coulds, should (if only they would!) be pouring in. I know it is because we have done minimal advertising, no one knows about us yet, but on the other hand I had this magical, mystical belief that if I built it, it would explode into success without me ever lifting a finger for marketing.

Time to grow up.

the Web Fairy

The Tooth Fairy has been outdone.

I have a Web Fairy. Every night I go to sleep with some random wish that some part of my website will be fixed. Last night it was part of a product page; tonight it is that I wish my FAQs page will be fixed, not just a flat html page like I set up, but a fully formated pretty page like the rest of my website.

I wish the wish and when I wake up, my web fairy will have granted my fondest dream.

Of course, I suspect my web fairy is a middle-aged old guy with bloodshot eyes, messy hair, and a certain stench who doesn't sleep much because he's always fixing the web site until the early morning hours.

I love my Web Fairy.

Cranial Elasticity

We are at a 1,798 on the stress-o-meter scale. If we don't crack today, we never will.

What is there to stress about?

* car stolen -- husband has been with a car since he was 15yo, without this source of comfort, he's very unhappy

* son off in WA using big, sharp tools such as circular saws and chainsaws -- me so nervous

* starting of new company, ordering heaploads from suppliers, hoping that if we build it, they will come

* stupid allergic cough has me in nasty fits throughout the day

* 06 taxes due soon. We do it ourselves. Always. Not enough time

* property taxes just doubled, actually more-than-doubled

* a kazillion other little things that I should worry about, but don't.

When the stress hits, such as "oo, look, we just got a $2,500 bill for increased property taxes. Wonder where that's coming from?" ... when that hits, I just take a breath & remember:

"The strong woman is one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind," and I intercept, intercept, intercept. After all, I have four little sponges around me -- it's ok to be yucky myself, but yuckiness x4... yikes.

So, I intercept with, "Car stolen? This should be interesting..." and "Son gone to WA? At least I miss him (so, so much). Imagine if I didn't miss him. That would be sad." Intercept. Bright side. Moving to a better neural path.

Reminds me of my oldest, Conquerer, who ranked super, super high on an optimism test. He ranked so high that he was classified as the type of person who says, when the sky is falling, "The sky is falling? It's raining? I like rain! Mmm... feels good."

I'm so lucky.

Happy Visions of Big Kids

To distract myself from the insurance paperwork and the impeding IEP meeting in a few hours, I started thinking about what it was like when Vee and Kee were wee ones. They were so fun. When they were little, I carried this vision of them growing up to be smart, creative, powerful young men someday and sure enough, that's the direction they're headed.

So, I was thinking that I could finally put a check mark in that little mental To Do box -- they actually did get to their teen years intact & healthy. Done. Check.

On to the next one.

But the vision for the next 10 years is so much weaker, partly because I'm hesitant to create that vision when they are about 80% in charge of all aspects of their lives. (I'm still providing housing, food, survival stuff, but they're doing the other 80% such as time management, transportation, education...) It's not my job to create a vision of their future once they're on their own. That's just intrusive.

But they're still kids & I should probably fill out my vision a bit more. They really seem to sense it and appreciate it. Here is what my vision was 10 years ago:

What they were: They were two high-energy brilliant little boys who ran around the house like their bums were on fire. They enjoyed school, but prefered home. They could hold a happy conversation as long as it was about swords, computers, or collisions.

Vision: Sitting around the dinner table talking about the latest news of the day. Them saying, "Actually, that's not how I see it..." then explaining their views clearly and compassionately. I saw in my mind's eye that they were confident, strong, and self-directed. I pictured us sitting around the table doing homework together and later, around the computer desks playing games together online. I had this super strong image of them at school being gentle, kind, funny, in the background a bit, answering questions, asking questions, and having a strong sense of "I'm here only because this teacher has something to give."

So, we're there, but what's next? I have looked around my pool of friends for inspiration & have found all sorts of traits, but most of them are taking different paths. I haven't found a good vision that fits us. Argh. Any input? I'm working towards the grown-and-gone picture. What do you want for your kids? So far I have this:

* I don't want them to grow up to be office drones.
* I want them to have good global awareness.
* I want them to be smart but humble (not quite the Irish self-deprication, but close)
* I want them to have a solid grasp on their personal finances, but never experience worry about them
* I want them to create a safety net (a college degree)

Enough daydreaming.

Random Acts of Stupidity

Somebody stole my husband's car yesterday out of the office building parking lot, mid-day, in full view. It's a 95. That's ancient! It's so old that the leather seats have worn entirely through. It needs more in repairs than its actually worth. Who would steal a 95 when there are nice cars in the parking lot?

So stupid.