Oh, the 'fours'

So I have to say I mostly write (blog) when I'm stirred up.  If you're looking for some picture of my day-to-day (and seriously, let's not be a weirdo, huh?) then this is not the place.  If this is the only place you get input from me, then I may seem a bit like a drama queen: see my previous "stirred up" comment.

Luciana is nearly one whole year old.  No, really.  And I may have said this 10 times before, but I LOVE this age.  It is my favorite.  I might cry when it's passed.  Scratch that- I WILL cry when it's passed.  She's sweet, her needs are simple, she's snuggly, she's silly, her laugh is joy.  I would have babies over and over if only to have this time with them.

Rosanna is four.  She's FOUR.  I love her, therefore she still sucks air.  I think the person who coined, "terrible twos" was unclever and thought alliteration was more important than accuracy.  I'm bitter.  The "twos" are a memory, and the "fours" are fawful.  Or farty.  Fickle.  Fitful.  Fussy.  Every conversation is laborious.  Her ears absorb everything.  I say to you, you do not know how sloppily you speak until there is someone to call you out on your inconsistencies and to mirror all of your lovely speaking habits back to you.  She talks.  Endlessly.  She asks a question, keeps talking and then asks why you aren't answering her.  She swings from mood to mood like a monkey in the trees.  Her feelings are hurt, she's fine, she's found a new friend, they aren't friends anymore, she's fallen from the top of the steps and is ok, she's bumped her shoulder on the chair and is yelling in pain.
My grown-up brain is not wired to spin at this frequency.  Not all the time.  It freaks me out.  I have the patience of a crotchety old dog being bombarded by a puppy.  The effort it takes to be a 'good mom' is less and less available to me.  And I don't know what to do about it.

Then there's Luci.  She wants milk or she's tired.  Those are the two biggest issues I face with her.  Haha!  "Issues".  The kid doesn't even care if she sits in her own poop for a bit (not that I would do this purposefully...she's just not one to cry about a diaper change).  Rosanna's challenges are really just the difficult side of some really great characteristics: outgoing, exuberant, inquisitive, thoughtful.  I am grateful for these attributes (she says to herself over and over and over and over).

To all this I say: OYE.

TLC Hoarders: brain edition

Coming home today I felt like I needed to exhale.  A dramatic, cleansing release of breath that is paired perfectly with sweatpants and a flop upon the couch.  These last two days have been a bit crazy, a bit nutty.  Just look at the lack of naps two days in a row.  Driving us home today from a sweet little holiday shindig, I was lost in a future scenario...the one where I counted the minutes until bedtime and would then have the house to myse- wait.  We have a dog.  GAH!  The cat is pissed about the dog.  The latest addition to my resume is: let the animals work it out, but don't let the dog get too beat up.  Oye.  I've only had this job for 24 hours and I'm already over it.

Anyhow, this line of thinking meandered around for a bit until I came upon this little tidbit: why the exasperation?  Why go around acting like my current state is taxing and nigh on unmanageable?  My acknowledgement, or my statement out loud (verbal, physical, see: eye rolling, sighing, etc.) that my life today is more than I'd like to be handling is making it true for me.  The thing is, it's not true.

If I want to have a spotless house and take care of my other obligations today, then I could be stressed out.  If I want to get the grocery shopping done today and take care of my other obligations, then I could be fed up.  If I want to be crafty and make all of my Christmas decorations and have some time to be still, then I might be short tempered.  So the question is, why?


"Tension is who you think you should be.
Relaxation is who you are."
Chinese Proverb

"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than how you think it should be." Wayne W. Dyer


The path to freedom and happiness is letting go, it's being good with what the day brought and being thankful for it.  I tend to do the opposite.  I dwell on the things I didn't get done and the way my house doesn't look like a magazine cover.  The funny thing is, nothing actually changes between those scenarios besides who I am then capable of being.

Mind: blown.

Ball smashing

Every day my wee-one asks to do an art project.  Today, a rainy frigid sort of day, was the perfect time for a 'project' that took a bit more effort.  So, upon consulting one of my Pintrest boards, I found it.  We were gonna smash some balls.

Goods required: cotton balls, flour, water and food coloring.  Check, check, check and check.                    

                    

       

                     

 


Basically, you mix equal parts flour and water, add food coloring to your liking and douse a cotton ball in the mixture.  The you bake them at 300 degrees for 45 minutes until they are hard.  Then....you smash them.  Crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle.

It was fun for a minute.  They were kinda hard to smash and I was reminded that I did get this recipe/idea from a site that was promoting ways to keep your boy-child amused.  My girl-child isn't so interested in smashing stuff.

She is interested in other things....

We still smashed all those suckers.  Oh, the destruction, oh the humanity!

Love and headaches

As my friend Ashley would say, let's bring it in for the real thing.  This era of parenting=the most challenging time of my life. 

I know it sounds dramatic.  And it's the truth.  We're talking about another person's life here.  My actions, reactions and basically any thing I do is a learning moment for my daughter.  This sucks.  Like, a lot.  I'm working on a 50/50 ratio here of  "Ro I can handle" and "Ro I wanna throw out the window".  This computes to: half the time I think I'm a pretty kick-ass mom, half the time my blood pressure is spiked, my head feels like it's going to explode and I'm wrestling with yelling awful things.  Rule #1: don't say things to a toddler that you don't wanna hear back.  Oh, yeah.

I'm also working with a pregnant body/brain.  Who knows if I could pull this off beautifully if not for hormons.  It's not even worth considering because that scenario doesn't exist.  However, now I'm freaked out that my unborn child is getting all kinds of stress hormones and will come out colicky and impossible.  It's a fact- stressed out pregos often pop out babies that are more prone to being stressed.  Time to take up meditation.  For reals.

What I really want...no, need is a day or two to myself.  Last year I went into the mountains, did yoga and ate delicious healthy meals 3x a day (that I didn't make!) for a few days.  It was a struggle for me then, it wouldn't be now. 

Oye. 

Vegans are annoying

I hate labeling myself.  I don't want to fit into a category.  I cringe when someone says that I am this one thing or that.  As if simply the word associated to my person will now give you a context in which to communicate with me.  I'd really rather you just spoke to me the way you intended to, before I acquired all sorts of labels.

Some of my (least) favorites: stay-at-home-mom (SAHM).  This is one I wear with pride.  I adore staying at home with my truest love.  There is a stigma, however.  When someone I barely know finds this out about me, they look at me through SAHM glasses.  This goes one of two ways.

1-"oh, you are so lucky!"  Let's be clear here.  I am NOT lucky.  I did my homework.  I married a guy who thought the same thing I did: having a Momma at home with the babies is super important.  We make sacrifices to have it this way.  Scratch that.  We make choices to have it this way.  I don't feel like my life is lacking.  We bought a house when both of us had income.  Continuing to pay a mortgage, property taxes, credit card debt, utilities, gasoline, blah, blah, blah, wasn't an option on one income.  We filed for bankruptcy.  Our pride was kind of a whiny little b*tch during this time, but we got over it.  It's just "stuff".  Now we live in a place that is one third the size, we all sleep in one bedroom and our back yard is shared.  We got rid of so much "stuff" that I cannot really describe to you the volume.  We are goldfish.  We chose it this way.

2- "I could never do that".  Well...you could.  You'd have to make the choice to.  Please let's not act like I have a super power here.  I think my job is super important and rewarding.  So much that I choose to do it instead of doing something I'd get paid for.  It sucks for me when Moms say they couldn't stay at home.  It usually boils down to either they think their family couldn't survive without her income or that they believe they couldn't be with their kids for so many hours.  They think they'd go crazy.  Or some such nonsense.  Then they have short lived, snippets of time on the cusps of waking and going back to sleep to spend time with their babies.  This is their complaint, not one I made up for them.

Are your toes stepped on?  Are you feeling defensive?  I love you anyways.

Another one: vegan.  EEK!  Maybe it's because I am so new at it that I feel like my ammo is lacking.  Notice I went with the word, "ammo".  That's right, I feel attacked pretty often.  I see that it's my interpretation, when people give me a "look" and I see, "you're kinda weird".  A month and a half ago I was no such weirdo.  Today the bartender at our lunch venue did the full eye roll, said: "oh god, I can't even talk to you" and walked away.  In an attempt to be.....funny?  Ugh.  I don't even wanna talk about it with anyone, because it becomes a thing.  I wanna eat my food and you can eat yours.  Why is the conversation always about how you (you are the other person in this imaginary conversation) could never give up **insert favorite animal-derived food here** and therefore could never be vegan?  GOOD FOR YOU.  Somehow, just by being a person who has made a food choice, I am now an outsider who is strange.  If you wanna give up junk food or wheat- you're noble.  But I'm a crazy person.
My conclusion here is that vegan people get really passionately into veganism.  I get it.  What's not to be passionate about?  It's so awesome that I want the world to choose it too.  But it seems that this passion comes off as annoying or pushy, so there is a preconceived annoyingness that the receiver of such conversation is armed for.  And thus, I am now annoying.

I want to have preferences and passions without carrying their labels.  I'm not a stay-at-home-mom.  I am a mother whose full time job it is to raise my child.  I am not a vegan.  I am a woman who eats only plant-based foods.  How does that land?  They are less weighty, right?  Less connotations associated with them? The media and who-ever hasn't spoiled their inherent loveliness.

It's my goal to be this non-judgmental person who enters into communication with another person and speaks to that person...not that person's labels.  Won't you join me?