Lisa Leonard Designs Jewelry GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

I can't help myself. I've been looking for just this thing, and *poof* it's on Grosgrain (which is a fantastic blog in its own right).

Lisa Leonard Designs Jewelry GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Hash-Tastic

I'm going to rave for a minute. If you're a vegetarian or you (so unfortunately) don't live near a Trader Joe's, you might want to just ignore this post entirely.

For lunch today I had Trader Joe's new Roast Beef Hash. It's fully cooked in this silver pouch and self stable for like ever (just a guesstimate) which kind of grosses me out. But I LOVE roast beef hash. I grew up eating the kind that comes in cans (so really I should be over this whole shelf-stable oddness). Then I got older and started looking at things like labels and realized that almost every brand contains MSG. That's not something I put on my usual grocery list.

Then I was reading Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer and saw the hash. I bought some and forgot about it until today, when the beef lover in me realized that I needed it. Now. I cracked an egg and some egg whites into it, stirred it all up in a cast iron skillet, and lunched on the most delicious hash I've had in a long time. No MSG, no funny preservatives--just cutely cubed potatoes and real meaty pieces of roast beef.

I love food. There are lots of things that I immensely enjoy. But very few are things that I feel compelled to shout from the rooftops. This was one of them. Now if I can just manage to spend the rest of the afternoon in this house knowing that the second half is waiting in the fridge.

Bob Dole wants his shtick back

M's got a new habit. He refers to himself in the third person. You know: "M needs more water" or "M can do that for you." I don't know why this annoys me so much. Maybe it's because I feel guilty every time I hear it, because this probably came from me referring to myself as "Momma" for the past four years. Or maybe it's because he's supposed to be getting better at sentence construction, not worse. Or maybe it's because he sounds like Bob Dole, and the last thing I need in my day is an aging Republican.

I've tried various strategies to kick the habit, from kind correction ("Do you mean 'I'?) or mild ignorance ("Who?" which only results in M repeating his name over and over) to more involved ignorance ("Oh, is that someone in your class?"). And lately, in terrible mom honesty, I've been doing a lot of glaring and maybe a little growling too. Yes, we sometimes growl in this house. It's been a long time since we had pets, but some things never die.

All of which makes me realize that twenty-one days (you know, to form a new habit?) is going to seem like a really long time. Especially when the habit in question isn't yours, and there really is no incentive or interest in the breaking it. Does that even work then? Well, Momma **growl** er, I am determined to find out.

21 days

I've recently been mulling over an idea, which for a short time was an actual other blog. But then I realized that I don't put enough time into this blog to have a second one, and besides, if people are already here, they might be interested in what I'm trying.

So the idea is that in twenty-one days you can make or break a habit. It stemmed from Dr. Maxwell Maltz's book, Psycho-Cybernetics. In it, he reports that the phantom limb sensations in amputee patients fade after 21 days, leading him to propose that it took the brain 21 days to develop a new pattern. I realized, then, that if I were to pick a twenty-one day chunk in each month, I could conceivably break or make a habit that's been one of my lifelong quirks. You know, those things that you find annoying or unappealing about yourself but have come to believe that they're so much ingrained in you that removing them would be like taking the seeds out of a strawberry. I mean, you could do it, right, but what would be the point?

I'm a week and a half into developing the habit of putting things away. Because I don't put things away. I'm that annoying person that uses the scissors and leaves them on the counter. Or I take off the sticker from an apple and leave it by the sink. Like it would take me THAT long to put the sticker in the trash. But I don't. And then that sticker or those scissors, they breed clutter babies all over the house. You mean that's not where clutter comes from? Oh, try it. Leave a couple things on a clean table and a week later it'll be chock full. Clutter babies.

It turns out this annoys B. Who knew? Ten years of marriage and he jumps at this idea because That does kind of annoy me. So in an effort to kick the clutter babies (and maybe make it another ten years), I've been putting things away. And you know what? It's not that bad. I've slipped a little in the last few days, but for the most part things have gone where they belong and it hasn't even taken me the billions of hours I assumed it would.

The funniest part? The house is so clean! B came home from work the other day and I pointed it out. "Wow, it is clean," he said. "What happened?" "Well, I'm not leaving crap all over the place," I told him. "Oh. That would do it."

So I'll be periodically updating this topic, and whatever habit gets tackled next. But I'm pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to pick up (I can hear the music now, the one that tells you someone is about to get their comeuppance, so I'll say easy so far). But hey, think of what you could make or break in just three weeks time. It's kind of exciting. Or daunting. Or just plain annoying. But if I was annoying before, well, then I guess that might be something I can't break.

What this?

We're getting a lot of "What this?" questions from K lately. I think it's great, because for so long we were just getting statements and responses. It's like she suddenly discovered that you can put a little lilt on the end of these statements and find out something new. Yeah!

But then I find myself explaining things that I wouldn't normally explain. And it makes me start wondering a little. Like the following:

K: What this?
Me: These are earrings. Sometimes people like to poke holes in their bodies and put jewelry in them.

The guy at the bike store (Why yes, we were buying bikes at the time. With two children in tow. We're nothing if not ambitious) laughed out loud, adding, "That does make you sort of wonder, when you put it like that."

Yes, it does. Or how about this one:

K: What this?
Me: This is eyeliner. You put it along your lashes like this, and see how it makes them a little darker.
K: Yeah. What this?
Me: It's eyeshadow. See, you brush a little on and your eyelids are all sparkly.
K: Uh-huh. What this?
Me: This is mascara. I'm going to brush a little on one eye, and look--the lashes are very light on one side and on the other side the mascara has made them dark.

All of which makes me realize that make-up is a bit idiotic. I'm suddenly shamed to be training my child at the tender age of two that somehow dark and sparkly is the way to go. When K turns out to be a stripper, I'll only have myself to blame.

The trouble for me is that I hear myself sounding idiotic, and yet I continue to wear earrings (on occasion) and make-up (okay, regularly). Have I been programmed? Have we all been programmed? And is there any way to not program her, preferably without me having to feel all plain Jane for the rest of my life? Or maybe I want to embrace plain Jane because she's so much less, well, ridiculous. Or maybe, as I tried to explain when she (of course) asked to use the eyeliner and shadow and mascara, it's just something she'll decide to use or not when she gets older. But did I mess up her free choice? Or do we ever have a choice?

I know! Maybe I should just put on my make-up without her in the room. Oh wait--managing to get ready without a small child watching my every move? Now that's ridiculous.

Music Shmusic

I took K to a music class today. I'm not into music classes. Besides the fact that I get bored within approximately 30 seconds, I find it irritating to pay for something I could reasonably accomplish with a CD and some of the real and play instruments we have lying around the house. But my friend takes this music class, and when you can't make a session, you can send someone in your place. Which, in this case, was K and I.

I worried that maybe she would really like the class, which I had no interest in continuing whatsoever. Then we had this exchange:

K: Mama, we get ready go?
Me: Yes, in a few minutes.
K: Me go get swim suit?
Me: No, remember, it's a music class.
K: They have pool there?
Me: Nope. Only music.
K: (thinking) We go swim?
Me: No. We're going to play music today.
K: (thinking, again) Me go get swim suit?
Me:(trying not to get frustrated) No swim suit. No swimming. We're going to music class.
K: (smiles) Then we go swimming!

You know how toddlers are: the NO gets so quickly lost in translation. So unless there's some underwater music class I don't know about it, I guess it's safe to say we're all in agreement on this being a one-time event.

(By the by, K did indeed enjoy the music class. And I did indeed get bored within 30 seconds. So looks like I'm going to be doing more music at home, with CDs, in bathing suits. Because that should keep everyone entertained.)

Seasonal shifts

So it's truly fall in our house: the garden has been almost completely dismantled, the kids are back in their respective preschool and swim classes, and we all have our first cold. While I'm preferring to focus on falling leaves, apple pie, and Halloween candy, they all still seem a long way away, and the cold is, well, very present. So long summer!

All that's left is Serenity

So remember that store we talked about, the one you went to and shopped at and eventually realized was just the wrong store for you? And remember how any reasonable person would eventually own up to their mistake and make their way to the right store?

Yes, so imagine if you will, that you left that store, finally, with great trepidation, anxiety, embarrassment, etc., only to have the manager declare that the whole store must subsequently close. That's right--Target didn't have what you needed, and because of that, Target will now be closed. For ever. Regardless of who else might be shopping at just the right store at just that moment.

Of course, we're still not talking about Target. But imagine if that happened? Imagine if your leaving meant that everyone else was ousted by force (in case it's hard for you to imagine, I'll just go ahead and tell you that it feels like crap). Then imagine if you were blamed for it? Even though it wasn't my fault, even though someone has taken over and the group will be just fine, I'm still the person who gets the comments (or hears them from behind my back) that I blindsided people, abandoned them, and basically ruined everything. Talk about amping up the ordeal to the Nth degree.

See, I'm a people-pleaser. I might as well wear a t-shirt it's so obvious. That's why I stayed where I was--didn't want to disappoint, didn't want to be alone, didn't want to reject what was obviously a coveted spot. But I finally get the courage to do what I needed to do--horror of horrors: just for me--and it turns into this firestorm. It's a people-pleaser's nightmare. The worst part? Because I'm not in the group anymore, I can't defend myself. I can't explain myself. And I can't go back and change anything so that it all happens differently, the way I somehow imagined it in my head. So I just sit here, people-pleaser style, and fret.

I understand that this was what I had to do, that God has wanted me to do this for some time. So I have to hope that this trial--this special kind of silent suffering I'm enduring--is a lesson both in character building and in the consequences to not listening in the first place. But it is heartbreaking. While everyone else lost an organizer, I was admittedly never part of any of their "inner circle" (a phrase I've heard way too much recently, especially considering that we're all supposed to be grown-ups). But I've lost a group I've been a part of for most of my children's lives. I stare at my empty calendar and miss my lost friends and hate knowing how they think of me, the one who caused it all (however inadvertently). It's a tremendous loss that has left me lonely and sad and shaken.

But that's a good thing, too. Right? Because sometimes you have to let go of everything to have free hands for something new. And what a way to break the people pleasing habit to be in a place where you can't effect what people think about you. But it seems like this week has been a bit heavy on the lessons, and heavy on the heart. I want to perk up and move on and enjoy the holiday weekend. But I feel a bit like a beaten down dog fighting the urge just to lie on the ground. And I'm pretty sure that's not the place God needs me to be either. But while I'm on a roll with a mistakes--a roll that has been going on for way too long, no that it's anyone's fault but my own--I might as well lie down for a while anyway.

I know, I know. I'm getting up. But it was very tempting...

Fifty thousand

That's the number of baby spiders I saw tonight. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But I'm getting a little tired of the swarming insect scenarios. During another dinner party, no less. I go to wind up the hose, watching all the time for the giant scary spider I'm sure must be hiding in the hose box. So it takes me a minute to notice the little line of bugs crawling up the spider web next to me. Except they're not bugs. They're baby spiders. Crawling out of the very handle I was turning. Thousands of them (again, exaggeration. But it seemed like thousands).

I take a step back and see the little guys everywhere, moving at a frantic pace in every direction. M was kind of enough to point out the ones that had made it halfway across the patio already. Which meant they were all over already by the time we whipped out the nasty spider spray and ushered everyone inside the house.

That's right. I caved. No eucalyptus oil this time. We sprayed every possible surface. Then we sprayed them all again. I don't care that I'll have to go out and wash all those surfaces down before we can play out there again. Because you know what came out of that very handle where its babies hatched? The one that I was turning so carelessly? A big fat black widow. A big fat black widow with all its little tiny black widow babies. Blech. I never thought I'd say this, but I want the ants back.

Zero

That's the number of times that I complained about the ants that finally invaded. Maybe it was all that preparation, or maybe it was just the lack of energy I had left by the end of what was clearly a time-vortex super long week. Instead, there were several observations about how industrious those little guys were to work their way across the whole house to find water at the kitchen sink and how sad it was that they were so pathetically thirsty.

It would have been nice, of course, if the ants hadn't chosen to gather while we had guests. I covered brilliantly with this cheerful dodge: "Why, we've never had ants here before!" As if that makes the swarm around the sink, where you're trying to wash your little girl's hands, any less disgusting. As if, really, that's any explanation whatsoever.

But we blithely ignored them until our friends left for the night (the human ones) and then ushered our uninvited ants out with eucalyptus soap and water (for the record, a very effective ant killer). Blocked up the entry point and--voila!--no more ants. Yet. But they were very industrious and probably still thirsty. But I'm getting pretty good at this blissful ignorance thing.

Three

That's the number of errant ants I've found in my kitchen. Which is just enough to know that there are more coming. They're waiting for me to make a mistake--say, leave an empty ice cream bowl on the counter, or the uneaten crust from a PB&J--and then they'll strike. Oh, I know, no matter how diligent I will be, it'll happen. I'm on a roll with mistakes lately. And then there will be a rather unpleasant post about the ant attack. But now that we're all prepared, at least it will come with an Eeyore-ish sigh instead of those muttered curses I'm still trying to avoid.

Wisdom to know the difference

Let's suppose that I went to a store, needing something important. Suppose that I walked around looking for whatever it was, and the longer I looked, the more I realized that I wasn't in the right store. It might have had what I needed, but it was too expensive, or just out of my reach. Which meant it didn't have what I needed. But I'd gone all the way there, and after a while I'd spent so much time that it seemed like a waste to go somewhere else. Where else would I go, and how could I know the same thing wouldn't happen?

But I know I'm not supposed to be there. I know it. And I think maybe it's not a big deal. I think maybe I'll just keep walking around like I know what I'm doing. Except that if I'm there, I'm not where I should be. And if I'm not where I should be, then I'm not in a place where God can use me the way that He wants to. And unless I leave, I'm not ever going to get anywhere else.

It's hard to admit that you've made a mistake. It's hard to admit that you haven't been honest with yourself, and that you haven't been listening to God, either. And it's hard to walk away. I think about all the time I've invested, willing things to change. But as I tell my kids, you can't change anyone but yourself. Target will be Target, Wal-Mart will be Wal-Mart, etc., etc. But it's no wonder that my kids don't understand this concept, when I clearly don't always understand it myself.

We're not talking about Target, of course. But you knew that already. I've left my big moms group, the one that I've been part of since M was less than one. It had nothing to do with the group, which was filled with these amazing, awesome women. I didn't know it was possible for a group to have that many fantastic people all in one place. Which I think was why I stayed for so long. I wanted it to be the right group, because it was such a great group. But I never was part of it in the way that I wanted to be, and trying to make myself the right person wasn't letting myself be the person God wants me to be. I lost focus, and I came to believe that it was about me and not about the fit. For a person with low self-esteem, that's not a good thing. Even more than that, for a person who claims to be seeking God's will for their life, it was a serious case of selective listening.

Round peg, square hole. Right list, wrong store. I tell myself this to temper the sense of loss I feel. There is a round hole, and a right store, and a place God wants me to be. This time, I'm stopping to ask directions first.

Back to School

Yesterday was M's first day back at preschool. I gave him extra hugs in the morning, then took K to the park with her little girlfriends, where I promptly announced that I was thoroughly depressed about the whole thing.

"Um," said very concerned friend, clearly trying to understand my emotional outburst, "this isn't his first year, you know."

No, it's not his first year. But it is the beginning of another year. I feel the passage of time as though it were traffic on the interstate, and I'm standing right in the middle. This was the one and only summer when the kids were two and four, when they had those little tiny sweaty hands in mine nearly constantly and the best entertainment chalked up to lazy afternoons in the pool and cleverly spotted work trucks.

I was at dinner with friends the other night when this topic came up, and I silenced the table with my (slightly white wine induced) monologue about time, how precious this time is and how quickly it's passing, how I try to enjoy every last minute because I know in the end I will never, ever have time to enjoy it enough.

"Um," said another perplexed friend, directing her words to the rest of the table, "most moms get burned out when they stay home all the time and never get a break." Then they all looked pointedly at me as if to figure out (a) what was wrong with me, or (b) what I was hiding.

Let me be clear: I'm not that mom. If for nothing more than the countless muttered (okay, in total honesty, sometimes clearly shouted for all to hear) curse words, I'd have been gong-ed off the Mom Show a long time ago. Just this week I claimed to have two #1 all-time pet peeves: stepping on my feet and repeating statements. Which really are just minor annoyances in the grand scheme of things. Plus I muddled my way through the following:

M: I'm all done with lunch.
Me: Okay. Do you want to take the rest of that carrot stick with you?
M: (Dramatic sigh) But I'm all done with lunch.
Me: That's fine. I was just asking.
M: But I do want to eat it.
Me: Okay. Go ahead and eat it.
M: Why do I have to eat it?
Me: I never said you had to eat it. I said you could eat it. And hey, I forgot to get your plum out of the freezer. Did you still want it?
M: But I was going to eat the carrot.
Me: You can eat both. Or neither.
M: Why do I have to eat them both?
Me: You don't. I was just offering.
M: But I DO want to eat it.
Me: The carrot stick or the plum?
M: (another dramatic sigh) I don't know.

I still have no earthly idea what was going on there. And seriously, getting through lunch with your four-year-old shouldn't be a Mensa challenge. I feel many times like I'm failing motherhood, in big and little ways.

But the thing is, motherhood isn't a reality show, and it's not a Mensa test. It's just motherhood. There are no gold medals, no prizes, and no right answers with confetti and balloons. In the end, there's nothing at all, aside from, hopefully, a fairly well-adjusted (or well-therapied) adult. All those little mementos--the crayon drawings, the hot glued sea creature, the tiny little newborn socks--won't ever compare to the actual moment. So I try to remember that if I can't take it with me, I might as well enjoy it while it's here: insanity, sentimentality, big and little events, confusing circuitous lunch discussions, hastily glossed over curses, and the simple joy (or, if you were K and didn't see it, raging tantrum) of a plain old garbage truck.

So M had his first day of preschool yesterday. Again. And it was hard to let him go, and joyful to pick him up. To see him playing with new friends, to watch him trying new things, to see his new room and workbook and cubby and move with him through the traffic of life. Maybe if I feel myself moving with it, it won't sound quite so loud.