Remembering

It was on a bright day of midwinter, in New York. The little girl who eventually became me, but as yet was neither me nor anybody else in particular, but merely a soft anonymous morsel of humanity --this little girl, who bore my name, was going for a walk with her father. The episode is literally the first thing I can remember about her, and therefore I date the birth of her identity from that day.

-Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance

While I do agree that we are what we eat in the physical sense, in terms of personality I think we are what we remember. I love the above quote because it reminds me of my first memories. A thousand little slices that made up my earliest days.

I have memories of injuries that extend up to, but do not include, the moment of injury itself. My memories then pick up a while later. (My memory of sticking a paper clip in a light switch, for example, ends with "a real bright light," to quote the homeless guy from Terminator. It picks up with me on the couch seeing colored halos around everything.) My brain has thoughtfully edited out the pain, while leaving enough to let me know that it freaking hurt and to never do that again.

My favorite early memory, though, is of a sunny morning when I was around 3. I'd snuck outside early, while the sun was low enough to shine directly in my face, to play on my swingset. As I pumped my legs, I discovered that squinting my eyes created a halo of circular rainbows around my vision. I can remember it all so vividly, even now: The warmth of the sun on my eyelids, the cool air rushing past my scabbed knees, and the rainbows in my eyes.

Age and knowledge have since revealed those rainbows to be merely the sun striking my eyelashes. But I prefer to think I carry tiny rainbows with me wherever I go, and if I squint my eyes right, they will return even on the gray, rainy days.

Fluidity

A fellow Clogger recommended this article, and it's given me some things to think about:

http://themindunleashed.org/2015/11/the-art-of-fighting-without-fighting.html

Love this article. It's good advice to keep in mind when my daughter is pushing my buttons. My favorite quotes:

It is useless to fight against people’s rigid ways, or to argue against their irrational concepts. You will only waste time and make yourself rigid in the process. The best strategy is to simply accept rigidity in others, outwardly displaying deference to their need for order. On your own, however, you must work to maintain your open spirit, letting go of bad habits and deliberately cultivating new ideas. –Robert Greene, emphasis mine

My daughter is very rigid. And I deal with it badly because her rigidity directly affects me. It's important to me to not fight with her, though, so I need to start working on my own fluidity.

Years ago, I dated a guy who loaned me some books on the Tao Te Ching. The part that stuck with me was how being soft is more powerful than being hard; the water will, over time, wear away the rock.

I have been working on my softness, but it's easier said than done. Particularly when I am already stretched thin and my child digs in her heels over stupid things. Because we are both bull-headed control freaks, apparently.

In these moments, I need to learn to flow. Make her laugh. Indulge the whims I can. Or just get over myself. In the immortal words of Bob Seger,*

As you step out in the night, take a lesson from the trees
Watch the way they learn to bend with each breeze.

My second favorite quote from this article is this:

Like E.E. Cummings said, "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

This feeds nicely into my Be Awesome goal. And it's an example I would very much like to set for my children.

In the coming year, I want to focus on these concepts. Maybe I'll have more luck with them than I have been with getting up before dawn.

*"Little Victories." Because everything goes back to either Road House or a Seger song in my mind.

Gratitude

I thought I understood the concept of gratitude. I completed the "List 5 things for which I am grateful" goal -- on both 43 Things and PopClogs. I can pull gratitude out of the worst days, and can find the silver lining in just about any situation. I thought that this meant I had gratitude down.

I do not.

This week has just not gone according to plan. This week was supposed to be cleaning and wrapping Advent gifts and putting together care packages for the Memphis Union Mission and cooking Thanksgiving dinner. We were going to go to Zoo Lights and Starry Nights, have dinner with our families, and I was going to go shopping a couple more times before Freaky...er, Black Friday. I was going to knock out a little freelancing and clean my office and prepare my list for Cyber Monday. I was going to send my daughter to her grandparents for a sleepover so I could go through her toys before Santa dumps another load of them on our house. I was going to get. stuff. done.

And then everybody got sick.

We saw the doctor yesterday; the kids and R have colds, and Kai also has impetigo. Which, given Mom's precarious immune state, means we are on our own for Turkey Day, and pretty much housebound besides until everyone gets to feeling better.

I feel okay. A little scratchy throat, a barely there headache. Probably more allergies than illness, as I have been dusting that which has not been dusted since I got pregnant with Kai. But I am seriously bummed that my big, beautiful week isn't shaping up as I'd hoped. I've been planning this crap for over a month. I took time off from work. Of course it all fell apart.

That's fine. Disappointment is fine. The trick is to be grateful anyway.

I may not get everything done, but I can get most of it done. The rest can be rescheduled.

The important part -- the family togetherness -- will happen regardless of whether or not we check off every box on my list. It just may be more hot cocoa and jammies and Netflix than lights and music and outings.

And isn't that what my list is really about -- spending time with my family? Doing fun things with them?

So I will suck up this internal pouty lip and get over myself. Be grateful for the time I have with my loved ones, even though our activities may not measure up to my highest hopes. And I will enjoy Thanksgiving no matter how we end up spending it.

I hope you, too, are having a pleasant Thanksgiving.

The people in my neighborhood

One of the unsung benefits of working from home is that it gives you insight into a world you miss while you're at the office: Your own neighborhood. All the people that keep things rolling while you're away. I'm coming to appreciate these people in a way I never did before.

My mail carrier has a smile and wave for everyone. When my daughter was a toddler, she used to love waiting in the driveway around mail delivery time, and our mail carrier never disappointed her. When I worked in an office, I couldn't have picked my mail carrier out of a lineup.

One day recently, we didn't get the mail out soon enough and missed pickup. On her way back past (we live on a dead-end street), she noticed our flag up and did a U turn to collect our outgoing mail.

I've heard bad things about our trash collection company, but aside from the fact that we never get pickup on holiday weeks (even though our collection day is Thursday, which is almost never a holiday...sure, that makes sense), I have no complaints. Once, R didn't get the can to the curb in time, so the truck passed us. R ran out to set the can out, and one of the collection guys got out to help him manually empty it into the truck. Another morning, some trash fell out while our can was being emptied. The collector (same guy) hopped out to pick up the trash and pop it back in our can before moving on.

These are little things, sure. But they're things that keep my household going. Small acts of consideration. Evidence that people in often thankless jobs do, indeed, give a crap.

With all the negativity we are bombarded with on a daily basis, I need moments like that. And if I worked in an office, I'd miss them.

I'm thankful for the big things, sure. Job, home, family. But you can't overlook the power of little acts of kindness.

On transparency

This is stupid, but travel discount websites annoy me. Deep down, I think there should be one price for things. I don't have issues with standard discounts, like AARP, but otherwise I think things like room rates and airfare should be the same no matter where you pay for them.

See, I told you it was stupid. "No, I don't want to save money! Please charge me more!" But I don't understand why you pay one rate for a hotel room on their own site and another on a different site. It's the same room. What does it cost for me to stay in it for a night? If I can't afford that, I will stay somewhere else.

I feel the same way, incidentally, about haggling. I can't even be in the room with someone when they are haggling. It makes me queasy.

Store sales and coupons make me feel manipulated, but at least I don't have to go to a third party to take advantage of them. That part makes zero sense to me.

Secret menus also bug me, though not as much. I just kind of feel like all available options should be on the menu.

Yes, I realize I have issues.

Eat days

This year marks a momentous occasion: I am taking over part of the Thanksgiving preparations.

Not just kicking in a casserole or lending the use of my oven. In addition to baking my homemade mac and cheese, I am making the dressing and the pumpkin pie.

The pumpkin pie, especially, feels sacred. Like it's an honor to be allowed to prepare such a dish. I feel like a kid who gets to sit at the grown-ups table at last.

Part of this new order is just shifting our thinking. Though I am not just an adult but a mommy (and middle aged, for pete's sake), my parents still think of me as a kid. (And always will...I have no illusions about that.) So I have to remind them occasionally that I've been feeding and housing myself, paying taxes and keeping the lights on, for 20 years now. And occasionally, I have to say things like, "I'm making part of Thanksgiving dinner this year." Because they're not going to ask me to do that...I'm just a kid.

Mom's RA is better this week, but she has her ups and downs. She's in a bad flare lately, and winding down on her latest prednisone pack. Which means she never knows from one day to the next if she will be able to dress herself. I figure asking her to cube a loaf of bread and roll out a pie crust is a bit much, considering.

Also, I've come to realize that Mom doesn't really like to cook. She likes traditions, and food is one of those. But the actual act of cooking is not one of her favorites. I, on the other hand, love to cook. (It's washing the dishes I'm not crazy about.) So it just makes sense that I take some of the load.

When Anya was younger, she told Mimi that holidays are "eat days." Nobody goes to work; everyone goes to Mimi's house to eat. Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the eating season. Hopefully I (and my oven!) are up to the task.

Boredom

Looking back, I think much of the angst I experienced when I was younger was a product of boredom. Not that busywork cures boredom -- more like the more you try to accomplish, the more you want to accomplish, and before you know it, you're too focused on what you want to achieve next to be bored.

Or maybe that's just me.

And of course nothing fills your days like being a parent. I set out immediately after work the other day to do a little early Christmas shopping for Thing One, because I can't very well shop when she's with me (and she is always with me). So I snarfed down a bowl of cereal at 3 to tide me over, dashed into Cordova, shopped Michael's and Target, then zipped home ahead of the storm. Hugged my babies, fed Kai, showed off the non-gift purchases I made, ate a little dinner, showered, and went to bed.

Today will likely be more of the same, only with added guilt because Mimi and Kai will be going with me.

So between the must-do list and the want-to-do list, I am rarely bored. And I am still not doing everything on the want-to-do list. Currently falling through the cracks are my daily yoga and meditation sessions. I've been too tired to get up and do yoga, and haven't had time to sit still long enough to meditate.

The funny part is that after I returned home last night, my daughter complained "Where'd you go, Mommy? I missed you. I was so bored."

I'm actually kind of jealous of her boredom.

Childhood is weird

I've been thinking a lot about the things we do to kids lately. Like Santa. I almost didn't do Santa (for reasons I have discussed before), but I'm glad I changed my mind. Santa is a lot of fun. For me, anyway. Well, the Christmas morning part. The rest...hm.

We took the kids to see Santa (aka HoHo) at the mall this past weekend. Didn't get pics taken, because I want the kids in their Christmas outfits for that. But Anya wanted to say hi. They're friends, you see.

Anya walked right up, sat on his lap, and they had a little chat. HoHo was in a walking cast, so of course she had to check on him.

Kai has watched all of this from the safety of my arms. At one point, HoHo looked up at him, and Kai reached for him. So I placed Kai on HoHo's knee.

Kai reached up and gently brushed HoHo's beard. HoHo looked down at him and smiled.

"Well, hello there," HoHo said.

Kai's face crumpled, and he began to cry. I immediately rescued him. Too soon. I figured as much. I didn't take Anya to see HoHo until she was 2, and even then she cried the whole time.

Then HoHo asked Anya what she would like for Christmas. She shrugged.

"A loaf of bread?"

 She nodded, a small, unsure smile on her face.

"No," HoHo said. "You don't want bread! You want a toy, right? Maybe a doll?"

A more enthusiastic smile this time, and vigorous nodding. But no elaboration -- which is unusual for my gregarious girl. She was starstruck.

They chatted for a few more minutes, then he gave her a candy cane and they said goodbye.

All the while, I pondered how odd the whole scenario is. Each year, we take our kids to stand in line so they can, for a few brief moments, sit on the lap of a costumed stranger and tell him what goodies they would like to receive. The kids are supposed to be totally cool with this, even though in any other context the costumed stranger would be accused of pedophilia. We then have the opportunity to pay a ridiculous (really, it's highway robbery) sum of money for a photograph of the occasion. How does this make sense again?

Life is weird, I guess. At least HoHo is good weird.

Old and improved

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but my daughter has varying yet specific uses for the terms "old" and "new."

a) The usual: "Mommy, this car is old. You need to buy a new one." (Because it has a leak we can't fix. And to her, it is an old car; when I bought it, she was in utero. But she says this about everything. Why fix something when you can buy new? How very American of her.)

b) New equals young: "Mommy, you old. Anya is new." (Anyone older than, say, 10 is old.)

c) Old equals sick. "Mimi is new! I can stay at her house!" (She loves sleepovers with my mother.)

I get a kick out of her telling me I am new, but of course that is only in the context of illness. In all other contexts, I am so very old.

I would like to say I shrug this off, but when actresses younger than I am are hawking old lady cream, it gets to me. Especially since I am starting to see some signs of aging. Probably not so many as I think, but this face is not my face, and I can't blame it all on the breastfeeding baggage. That merely erased my cheekbones. No, this face has more underchin than my face. It is developing undereye bags at an alarming rate. (And I already had dark circles to deal with.) My eyes themselves are red most of the time -- not sure if that's age or allergies, but it doesn't help. And then there's the lingering melasma and fine lines, which I had almost made peace with, dammit. Add my crazy hair, and half the time I'm not sure who the heck is looking back at me in the mirror.

I have total mom bod. I will have mom bod until I finish breastfeeding, which as far as I am concerned is nowhere in the near future. (No periods vs an extra 15 lbs...gee, I wonder which one I should choose?) I have postpartum hair, which looks extra weird to me because I colored it. (I like the color...it's just still a shock to have hair this dark. Even with no gray, my hair wasn't quite this dark. Or maybe it was just shinier?) In short, I look in the mirror and am mildly disgusted by what I see.

I guess it's not necessarily bad, any of it. I just don't look like me.

I don't feel as old as I look in the mirror, though. Which makes it that much worse.

I know I just need to adapt. Find some decent concealer, maybe pick a new hairdo, get some clothes that are a little more flattering to my new figure. Stop wishing I looked like I used to and start working with what I now have.

But man, I miss me.

Nobody said anything about four

I'd been warned about the Terrible Twos. And how they become the Trying Threes. Nobody prepared me for when the Twos started around 18 months, though. And no one bothered to mention that the Threes would last til 5, but that looks like the card I drew. Welcome to the Feisty Fours.

Initially, I blamed this behavior on the new world order. This year has been eventful -- new baby, Mimi's illnesses, Daddy going back to work -- and it's understandable that she'd act up. But she seems to have adapted to (and even embraced) her baby brother. Mimi's rheumatoid arthritis, and her weakened immune system due to the treatment, take a bit more getting used to...but she's doing okay with that. Her nightmares have slowed, at any rate. And she's even adjusted to Daddy "popping out of bed" (believe me, the man does not pop) at 4 a.m.

But she is still ornery as hell. Independent and bull-headed and bossy and aggravating. Some days, she is my sweet, loving, helpful daughter. Others, I truly worry that her teens will be the death of me. They warn you about the teens. Nobody says anything about 4.

I really hope 5 is better. I could use a little breather before Kai turns 2.

Fall mornings

Some of my favorite mornings are those in which the house is chilly because we forgot to switch the AC to heat the night before. This only happens in the fall, and that's why I like it -- because it's a fall thing. If I were to wake up in December to a house that was 67 degrees, I would whine. But in October or November, I'm happy to wake up with a cold nose.

No, I don't really understand it, either.

One theory is that I love fall so much because I hate summer. I'm happy to wake up cold because for far too many months, cold was a distant memory. But I also remember feeling this way as a child, when I lived someplace with more evenly balanced seasons and thus did not have such strong feelings about summer. I even kind of liked summer. Probably because triple-digit days were a rare occurrence.

Thinking back on those childhood fall mornings brings up a wave of memories. Nothing specific -- no people or events, no particular outfit,* just a feeling of what it felt like to be me as a child. The dusty smell when the heat kicked on. The crisp smell of the air outside, tinged with the smoke of burning leaves. The chill in my chest and nose when I breathed in. The warmth of the sunshine through the chill. Soft flannel and warm sweaters, cold ears and fingertips. I loved them then, and I love them now.

It occurs to me, looking back, just how many fall mornings I have experienced. And, if I am indeed at or near my halfway point in this life, how very many fall mornings I have yet to look forward to. 

Yet somehow, it doesn't feel like enough. It will never be enough.

*Family joke. When I was a child, I had a near-perfect memory of pretty much everything that had ever happened to me, down to what I was wearing at the time. When I started to lose details in these memories, I lost the outfits first. So I would describe an event or a memory to my parents, then ask them what I had been wearing. They found this extremely amusing. I didn't truly see the humor in it until I became a parent myself.

Be awesome

One of my goals on PopClogs is "Be awesome." My adding it to my goal list was completely tongue-in-cheek, but I find it a good tool for focusing my intentions.

What does it mean to me to be awesome? First of all, it is to be genuinely myself. Which means to take others' feelings into consideration. To refrain from saying or doing something that would intentionally or unintentionally hurt someone else. It is important to me to treat others as I would be treated, and this is a huge first step. I sleep much better in my own skin when I do this.

I could take that one step further, though. Go out of my way to say and do things to make people feel good. That's less passive, though. It sets me up for being rebuffed. Takes me out of my comfort zone. But it would mean so much more than merely doing no harm.

As a parent, my goal is to be the kind of mom who steers her children with love and gentle humor. I am not this kind of mom right now. I am more the bribe-and-bark sort of mom, with the occasional guilt trip and threat thrown in. I have a very headstrong daughter, and barking orders is efficient. But it makes me feel like a heel. So I am working on this.

I'd like to do more than that, though. I want to be the mom who helps her kids fly, not just the mom who keeps her kids safe. I could stick them in a hole for 18 years, and they would be perfectly safe. But what kind of life would that be? What kind of life would it prepare them for?

As a citizen, I want to take a more active role in my town, in my community, in the world. Recycle. Reuse. Repurpose. Give. Get involved. I don't know how I am going to go about this when I can barely stay on top of the laundry, but I'm giving it thought. If I want to live in a good place, I need to do my part to make it a good place.

It's a tall order, being awesome. An open-ended prompt. I could never possibly finish being awesome.

I like goals like that, though. It's satisfying to create a to-do list and check it off, but you don't grow that way. You grow by setting a bar that you can never stop raising.

Anya's new friends

In case it hasn't come across loud and clear here, I am a total helicopter mom. I was an overprotected child, but compared to my childhood, my kids are wrapped in (sanitized) bubble wrap and locked away in Rapunzel's tower. I may not be the most protective mom in the world, but I'm certainly an also-ran.

And I make my daughter crazy.

There's an awesome park near our house with a 2-story slide. I say awesome not because I play on the equipment (I'm too afraid of heights for that nonsense, though as a kid I'd have lobbied to live there), but because my child adores it. And I don't really mind it; it's got that nice foam rubber stuff on the ground, shaded picnic tables, a mister for miserably hot summer days, and decent cell reception. As far as parks go, it's pretty swanky. Just don't ask me to go down the big slide. Or even climb up on the walkway. I'm getting wimpier as I get older.

My hesitation is that the play area is marked for ages 5-12, and my child is not. She's 4. Big for her age, but clutzy like her mom. Also, big kids don't really tend to take as much care with my little miracle as I'd like. They think she is a stupid baby, and even those that don't physically play rough with her end up hurting her through their indifference. I think mean thoughts at these kids who blow off my beautiful, sweet, friendly daughter, but otherwise what can I do?

Burn. I sit there and burn. For Anya, and for all the kids who were ever snotty to me. Which was kind of a lot...I wasn't the most socially adept child.

So when we pulled up to the park the other day and it was full of middle school kids, can you blame me for insisting we go to a different park?

I made it up to her, though. We returned to Awesome Park the next day. There were still older kids there, but they were not as old.

Anya sees these kids and shouts, "Look -- it's Anya's new friends!"

Oh, my heart.

Of course, that is not how it worked out at all. The kids thought she was a stupid baby and wouldn't play with her.

But all was not lost; some of her true friends showed up, and a good time was had by all. Because while I am often right, I am not always right.

And that's a good thing. I like her view of the world better. I'd probably be happier if I thought of strangers as new friends.

5:30 a.m. sounds so much better at bedtime

When I go to bed, a 5:30 wake-up sounds utterly doable. I'm going to bed at a very reasonable hour these days (9-9:30). I just haven't been getting much sleep. Kai is in power nurse mode, and has also been incredibly gassy. I'm thinking the culprit may be all the dairy he's eating. (Which would just figure; I bought him a bunch of yogurt at the store last night.) When my alarm goes off, I mentally give it the finger and snooze until time for work/Anya wakes me.

Kai is never the first one up. He is nothing like his sister in that area.

But even when nobody is kicking me in my Cesarean scar (Kai) or attempting to stick their little toes up my nose (Anya), I don't get up. Because my kids tend to make a cozy Mumma sammich while they sleep, and that feels pretty darn nice. I know that it won't be too long before they no longer want to snuggle with me, so I'm soaking it up while I can. Me time can wait.

That's all well and good, but I need to squeeze the yoga in somewhere. I'm working on it.

Or I will be, once I get a little more sleep.

So...yesterday was Monday

And there was no blog post. Oops. This weekend was...ugh. Anya has been in Purple Minion mode, which means I was tearing my hair out by Sunday night. I totally forgot about the blog until just now.

Don't feel bad. I also forgot my flu shot. For which I'd even made an appointment. Things fall through the cracks when the Purple Minion comes to visit.

But my garage is cleaner now. I can park my car in it. We even bought a garage door remote that doesn't require reassembly to use. (The old one got dropped a couple times. It did not take kindly to being dropped.) So while the car is still leaking and moldy, at least it won't get more moldy while we figure out where the leak is. That's a load off.

Now I just need to figure out why Kai is nursing half the night, so I can get some sleep and get back to my 5:30 wake-ups.

And hope that the Purple Minion's stay is a short one. I miss my sweet girl.

November 2015: Never say die! (And be grateful, bitch.)

The above is the title of the November 2015 PopClogs Bootcamp. If you're not on PopClogs, the Bootcamps are basically a set of monthly goals we set for ourselves. Largely fitness related, but not entirely. Each month has a theme. I'm particularly fond of this one, because it captures perfectly my current mindset.

I had big plans for October. Through no fault of my own, I did not accomplish everything I set out to do (or even most of it), but I am not giving up. I have refined my list and added to it (probably too much, to be honest), and am approaching November with a Goonies "give-'em-hell" grin.

Despite my big list, which I will refrain  from sharing so you can't laugh at me a few weeks from now, my main focus is to get my mornings in order. I've found that when my mornings go well, my whole day goes well. So it is my goal to achieve the following each morning:

• Get up at 5:30.
• Practice yoga.
• Meditate. (Even 2 minutes would be nice.)
• Write a blog entry.
• Write a paragraph on my book.

I have a weekend cleaning routine going, finally. The house does not get 100% clean every week, but I get the big chunks. The laundry gets done -- sometimes it even gets put away! Each Saturday morning I get up, practice yoga, and clean the house before we do anything else. Sundays are free days, or I repeat the Saturday process if there is still cleaning left to do. I've been doing this for a few months now, and it's finally become routine; even Anya is into the "clean on Saturday morning" groove. So now I just need to get my weekdays in order, in order to accomplish the things I want to before the work day starts.

This is my focus for November. Everything else is just gravy.

Speaking of gravy, some of my subgoals this month are to work on teaching Anya about gratitude and taking over some of the Turkey Day preparations. I'll talk more about both later. Should be interesting.

Everyday photos

Going through the memory card on my camera is always an adventure. Ever since my daughter learned how to use the camera, she's become obsessed with taking pictures. And she learned how to use the camera before she turned 2. Yay point and shoot.

At first, what I ended up with after one of her photo sprees was 200 blurry photos of kneecaps and far-away faces. I still need to clear a lot of those out. I can probably free up a gig or so on my hard drive that way.

Now she's taking better pictures, but her subject matter is still...interesting. I just discovered that while I was making those mini pumpkin pies, she took 12 nearly identical photos of my mug tree.

There are also 20 or so photos of my rear end, taken while I was searching for the leaf cookie cutters. Which I will not be sharing, thank you. (Though I must say, it doesn't look as large from her angle as I thought it would.)

But then there's this adorable selfie.

And this slice of everyday: Her brother letting me know he wants out of the high chair.

Pictures like these are why I let her use the camera. It gives me a taste of life from her level.

I delete the blurry pics, and the duplicate pics, but leave the rest. The mundane images: The kitchen cabinets. The couch. The floor. These images are of her childhood home, and someday she may want to remember it just as it was.

Some of my favorite pictures are those that show what my world looked like when I was small. My mother's yellow kitchen curtains. My parents' cars, parked on the gravel driveway I dug through looking for rocks with fossils in them. The tree outside my bedroom window. I don't have photos of some of the things I wish I did: Mom's daffodils, for instance. And the sandbox my grandfather built for me. Those exist only in my mind now. But there are other photos. Little scraps of the girl I was, that someday I will share with my own kids.

Everyday things matter. Which is why I let my kid take photos of them.

Well-behaved kids

At first glance, this post on FB made me smile.

Even though there should be a hyphen after "Well."

Then I reconsidered. My kids occasionally have bad days -- in outsider-speak, they "misbehave." I have bad days, too. And good ones. Do I get a discount when I am having a good day? No. So why do I get one when my kids are?

If you said "Because you are being blamed for their undesirable behavior," you get a gold star.

My kids are normally very gracious. The big one says "please" and "thank you," and keeps tantrums/messes to a minimum. She says "hi" to everyone she meets, and has since she could talk. She'll charm the pants off you if you talk to her for five minutes. The little one is so chill, he once fell asleep in Pump It Up. And he, too, is a little charmer. He loves to make people laugh, as well.

But they have days. Days when the big one throws a hissy fit because it's Wednesday. Days when the little one will not be appeased no matter what we do -- walk, sit, rock, nurse, play with toys, nothing helps.

I can take credit for neither of these things. I do what I can to elicit publicly acceptable behavior, but the big one is just now grown up enough to comprehend that there is such a thing. The little one answers to himself and himself alone. As most 7-month-olds do.

And my kids are neurotypical. I cannot imagine how posts like this sting for parents whose kids are not.

At the risk of flagellating a deceased equine, children are people. Not pets. I have not trained mine to do anything. If you want to award gold stars for parenting, reward me. For not losing my temper when my daughter empties 5 packets of Splenda into the salsa bowl...again. For gracefully dealing with a jackkniving son whose antics are flashing my nipples to everyone in a three-table radius. For cheerfully accepting that I might have to eat standing up while nursing a baby and entertaining a preschooler, which means I don't really get to eat at all. Reward me for dealing with all this with a smile instead of vague threats and sharp words.

After all, unlike them, I am old enough to know how to behave in public.

Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?

When I told my daughter that Poppy was going to be 68 today, her reaction was comical.

"Ew! Yucky!"

Yucky?

"I no like 68! Yuck!"

"But that's how old he is."

"No! No 68!"

"Okay, how old should he be?"

No hesitation. "Four!"

I'll give her that. Four was an awesome age. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

"But so many good things happen when you get older. If I'd stayed four, I wouldn't have you. If Poppy had stayed four, he wouldn't have either of us."

"Sixty-eight is yucky!"

I personally can't speak for 68; I have a few years before I get there. But the ages I wouldn't repeat are far behind me, and the ages I'm becoming keep getting better and better. So I have high hopes for 68. I hope it's half as good for Poppy as my 40s have been for me.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Kids need a better publicist

Now that I have kids, I see kids differently. Before, my only experience with kids was being one and babysitting for other people's. Neither of those experiences really gives you insight like giving birth to kids does.

Since having my own kids, I'm growing ever sensitive to how we talk about them. And it's kind of horrifying. Basically, we act like children are little shits, deliberately setting out to make our lives difficult.

Before having kids, I bought into this view of kids, even though I knew better. (I certainly never set out to give my parents a hard time.) Worse, I supported it, without thinking. Found humor in it, even.

I'm not saying I am innocent even now. I poke fun at my kids' idiosyncrasies. I act like they are trying to make me crazy. I post photos they will kill me for later. I talk about them like they are not there. I bought my kid this shirt.

Granted, it's true. But it's not her fault.

I feel bad about it all now. I get that sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry, but at what cost? So I'm working on improving my mindset, and trying to take into consideration how it makes my kids feel when I say things like "You are making me crazy."

But the rest of the world says stuff like this, too, and worse. Unapologetically. And it's starting to piss me off.

Like the carpet commercial from Home Depot. Look, kids are messy. You don't have to tell me that. I wish I could shampoo my carpet, because after 4 years of my daughter and 7 months of my son, it is beyond nasty. (I can't shampoo it because it's all bunchy, which is another rant entirely.) My living room alone bears several red blotches (not blood...red Kool-Aid and juice), some gray grime, and too many spit-up spots to count. It, quite frankly, smells. And it's mostly the kids' fault. But the commercial calling the kid a professional carpet stainer, the one that implies this kid lives to stain the carpet, really irritates me. If we say, even in jest, that kids do this stuff on purpose, don't we -- and others -- end up treating them that way? Don't they start to think of themselves that way? What the hell kind of start in life is that?

You want to know why kids act the way they do? Imagine talking to your friends, your coworkers, your boss, your parents the way you talk to and about your kids. Imagine if everyone spoke to you that way. There's part of your answer right there.

Kids are not small adults. They are people in progress -- emphasis on in progress. Sometimes they say and do things that create more work for us, irritate us, even destroy property. It's not intentional most of the time. (And if it is intentional, you have bigger issues to deal with than a muddy carpet, my friend.) But they do have feelings, understand more than you give them credit for, and are listening to your every word.

Use those words carefully.