Celebrations

Part of what I want to accomplish in the coming year is the making of memories. I already have on my list (though I have slacked in its execution) to take a family field trip once a month -- nothing fancy, just a family outing that doesn't involve going to the grocery store. It could be a trip to the park, or a drive-in movie, or a museum visit. Just something we do together, for fun.

I want more of that. More adventures. More family time.

Santa brought games to my minions, and I want us to have a family game night. I also want us to eat meals around our new (to us) dining table.

These years are short, and I don't want to miss them. I want to stop and notice my family, appreciate our time together as it passes -- not just in retrospect.

I also want to make a bigger deal out of holidays. Christmas gets a lot of attention, but what about the others? They make bibs and clothes and crap for baby's first everything, but then we seem to lose interest. (And apparently "baby's first" stops around 6 months; I can't find any of that cute stuff to fit Kai anymore. He's still in his first year of life! Not one New Year's onesie for him?) Gretchen Rubin says she does little things to commemorate holidays -- special placemats and such for Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, etc. I think that is a great idea. I want to buy or make seasonal/holiday wreaths for the front door, maybe get placemats, or perhaps t-shirts. We could make cookies (or green milk on St. Pat's!), have a special dinner...something to acknowledge the day, the passing of time.

Sure, I want to do the big things -- family vacations, amusement park visits, that kind of stuff. But the everyday celebrations are equally important, I think.

Which is why I bought my girl a party dress for NYE, though we aren't going out. We will drink ginger ale out of champagne flutes and wear party hats and count down the clock.

Happy New Year's Eve! See ya next year.

What I want (the 2016 edition)

I want to get back in shape. In some ways, I am already in shape -- at the very least, I can lift and carry way more than I ever could. And thanks to the pounds I lost to the stomach flu, I can see that yes, there are still abs in there under the loose skin. But there are refinements to be made, certainly. Also, much of what I need to accomplish is maintenance; if I do not exercise regularly, my old injuries flare up. So I need to make time for yoga, for planks, for walks. If I can get my allergies under control, I may even give running another shot.

I want to get my allergies under control. Resume immunotherapy, keep the house cleaner, buy a dehumidifier. I am tired of my itchy eyes and runny nose, tired of feeling bad so much of the time.

I want to feel better. I want to get enough sleep and eat better food and meditate. I don't like the cranky person I have become of late. I want to be a better me.

Because I want to do more. So much of my daily activity is...mundane. Not the kind of stuff I'm going to lay on my deathbed and think, "My gosh, I am so glad I kept my kitchen floor so clean all those years!" I want to write more. Practice graphic design more -- I've been doing some design for my day job and finding I have really, really missed it. I've also been designing jewelry in my head; I'd like to make at least some of it. 

There are other things on my 2016 list. Things like scaling back my debt. But while it is a high priority and I am especially motivated, it's not an interesting goal. Not to me, anyway. It's about hard work and discipline and curbing thoughtless spending. So don't expect blog entries on it, because while it needs to get done, it doesn't exactly melt my butter.

Now, the things I can do once my debt is under control...that is a different story. But those are off on the horizon. I'm trying to rein myself in on the long-term focus. I don't want to get so caught up in 5 years from now that I miss today.

Focus

It's that time again. I don't necessarily make resolutions anymore -- instead, I determine my focus for the coming year. This year, I think a lot of that focus is going to self-care.

Went to the doctor yesterday. My ear started hurting Christmas night, and by Sunday my throat was so sore I could barely swallow. I don't have an infection (thankfully...finding an antibiotic I can take while breastfeeding is not fun), but I do have fluid buildup and drainage. Rain = mold = allergy overdrive. And it's pretty soggy out there these days.

My eyes are also driving me crazy. They are bloodshot and burn pretty much all of the time now, even though I use allergy eye drops several times a day, and I wake with them matted shut most mornings. I was starting to worry that my contacts may be damaging my eyes, but the eye doctor said my eyes look fine. Just allergies.

"Just." Ha. I like that. I "just" can't open my eyes when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I really need to get back on the shots. It just got to be too much for a while there, financially speaking. And also in terms of scheduling. It was so much easier when we lived in Memphis, and even then it was kind of a pain. But I need to get my allergies under control again. I don't have time to be sick. (Don't have the patience for it anymore, either.)

I have the tendency to put myself last. When R has to get up and go to work in the morning, bedtime is a strict affair. On my work nights, it's more a suggestion. Granted, his job is far more dangerous than mine, so it is extremely important that he be well rested. But my health is no less important.

So on my list of goals for this coming year, I must include taking care of myself. Allergy shots and adequate rest and nutritious food and time for yoga and meditation. And walks; I need to start walking more.

As I proved these past two months, things fall apart when I put myself last. And then nothing gets done.

Update: Cleaning products

This post is an update of my Clean all the things post.

First off, I must admit that I have gone to the bleach side. As I've mentioned before, the fumes from most commercial cleaning products set off my allergies. (I do keep Lysol wipes on hand for poop and pee accidents, because we are going to have those for a while.) After this bout of misery, however, I am willing to spare a little shelf space for some Chlorox spray. Even if it means R has to clean the bathrooms, I think it best that we not leave such things to chance. At least until the kids are past the stomach bug years.

Still, that does not mean that I have given up on my homemade cleaners. I have simply added to my arsenal. I have, however, tweaked a few things in the intervening months, hence the update.

Personal Care
Hand soap
My recipe is the same, but I'm experimenting with making smaller batches; the amount my bottles make starts to smell rancid before we use it up. So I gave the store-bought stuff another try -- no go. I have to water it down so much (the perfumes are so strong!) that I wonder how effective it is, and even then it dries my hands out. Especially after a hand-washing fest like the Great Stomach Plague inspired. Once I perfect my ratios, I will post an updated recipe.

Body wash
I have altered this recipe a bit.

In a small bowl (I use a 4-cup liquid measuring cup, to make it easier to pour into my pump bottle), combine:
3/4 cup filtered water
1 tablespoon glycerin
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
3/4 cup castile soap

Stir. Then stir some more. Stir until your arm gets tingly. This stuff takes a bit to come together. If the last lumps of xanthan gum just refuse to incorporate, you can pour the mixture into your pump bottle, put the lid on, and shake vigorously. But don't worry if you have a few small lumps left over; they will dissolve on their own, with no help from you.

The xanthan gum thickens the mixture nicely, and the extra castile soap helps it be more effective at removing some sunscreens (just not the high SPF ones -- anything over, say SPF 40). Just a little xanthan gum is all you need; do not, as I did the first time out, toss in a rounded tablespoon and think you're going to get that stuff mixed in. Not happening.

The soap is still quite drying, though, so it doesn't work so well for me in the winter months. I'm researching more moisturizing recipes, and in the meantime rejoicing that I finally found a store-bought soap that doesn't kill my sinuses or break me out. (Dove Winter Care, if you're interested. Which says it will be available for a limited time only. Just my luck.)

Household Cleaners
Toilet cleaner
I am sad to concede defeat on the toilet cleaner. If I had time to clean my toilets once a week or more, this stuff would rock. As it stands, though, I am lucky to get to it every other week, and that's just too infrequently for a cleaner this mild. I did find, however, that Lysol makes a nonbleach-based cleaner (using hydrogen peroxide) that doesn't make me wheeze. I can also use Chlorox Green Works. (Though as I mentioned before, for the time being it's gonna be all bleach, all the time. At least until everyone stays well for a month.)

Dishwasher soap
Still using this stuff. I have discovered in the interim that my dishwasher sucks. So the lack of sparkliness is not necessarily the fault of my dishwasher soap. However, I have started doubling up on it, and using 4 T instead of 2 T per load. Still cheaper than store-bought.

Laundry soap
The laundry soap is still working well for us. In fact, I recently broke down and bought some "free and clear" laundry detergent, figuring that my previous reaction to it was probably pregnancy-related and I should give it another shot. Turns out Kai is allergic to it, too. (We find this out after I washed most of his clothes in it, naturally.) So it's back to the homemade stuff.

With winter here, our lack of fabric softener is once again becoming an issue. After doing some research, I tried the simplest solution ever: I line dry the items especially prone to static. (I installed a tension rod above the doorway in my laundry room for this purpose, since I can't very well dry stuff outside. It's extremely handy, and is also tucked away out of sight when not in use.) Some of my most staticky sweaters are still a little shock-inducing after line drying, but nowhere near as much as they'd be if I dried them in the dryer. Plus, line-drying is a sure-fire method to keep soft fleece items as silky as the day you bought them. (See, there are nuggets of wisdom on Pinterest!)

My quest for the perfect homemade household cleaners continues; as I improve my recipes, I will post updates here.

About dropping the ball

Shutterfly just delivered my 2016 photo calendars.

Yes, that is the cover.

SHEESH. Didn't forget anything big, did I?

But I fixed it.

Photo paper and tape = cover.

I think I need to take a short break from blogging. See you after the holiday weekend. If you celebrate it, I hope you have a merry Christmas! And if you don't celebrate it, I hope you have a pleasant weekend nonetheless.

Be the water

So this past week has had me thinking a lot about the coming year. I'm finding that I need to make some changes in order to "be the water," so to speak. Some of it sounds very Serenity Prayer, but there's a lot of wisdom in those lines.

I need to accept that certain people are going to treat me a certain way. Always have, always will. It may not be fair, but there is no changing it. Nor I cannot cut them out of my life, so I need to adapt how I react to the treatment instead of stewing over it and then getting all bent out of shape over little things. Some days it feels like everyone is against me. This is not so. (At the very least, Baby Kai always has my back.)

I need to accept that my family's priorities are not necessarily my priorities, and do what I can to compromise rather than becoming Crazy Germaphobe Harpy Mommy. This may mean I do more work than they do. But it really is a priority to me to keep the kitchen clean, for instance, so I will just need to make time for it.

(They do need to pick up after themselves a little better, though. I found a string cheese wrapper under the bed, for Pete's sake. And an empty soda bottle behind the recliner. Like I said...compromise.)

I need to accept that my personality is a large part of what makes me so stressed out, and work with that energy rather than against it. I spent so many years wallowing in apathy that it's nice to have so many interests now. But if I let my frustration at my lack of free time rule me, I will go bonkers before the kids start school. I must resist the feeling that I am running out of time. My time is finite, yes, but odds are I have many good years left in me.

I need to take more responsibility for my own calm. Because I'm on the merry-go-round now, and it won't stop for a couple of decades at least. What's going to happen when the kids start school? Driving? Dating? College? How will I handle moving? Getting a new job? I cannot control the stresses that enter my life, but I can control how I handle them. I need to make yoga and meditation a higher priority in the coming year.

I was doing really well spinning my plates, but then I came apart emotionally when they fell due to circumstances beyond my control. I tend to assume that if I want something bad enough, I can just make it so. Sheer grit and determination, while useful, do not guarantee a win. Sometimes my bullheadedness works for me, sometimes not. I need to work on dealing with disappointment when my best efforts fail, and give myself credit for doing all I can regardless of the outcome.

So that's all nice and vague, huh? Thus far, my 2016 credo consists of "All life is precious" and "Be the water." I basically want to be Morgan from TWD, sans all those zombies and personal tragedies. It's a nice goal, but I have no idea how to translate that into a resolution list of any sort. I still have a little time for that, I guess.

Shoulda coulda woulda

After spending much of last week trying to pull off several last-minute Christmas tasks, I finally stopped and asked myself why I was making myself nuts. Would the people I was killing myself to please even care if what I was doing did not get done? The answer, I think, is no. Would the absence be noticed? Again, likely not. And if it were noticed, it would at least be understood. So...why? Why am I doing this?

Because I felt I should.

Not that I need to, or even want to, but because I am afraid of what people might think if I don't.

Much of the pressure I put upon myself is self-inflicted. I have always held myself to crazy high standards, and I have not improved with age. I'm getting worse, actually.

So...I'm dropping the ball this year. As an experiment. To see if the world keeps turning -- and, when it does, if I can live with that.

At least my house is clean now

Once again, this year is proving that I should not make plans. Even my scaled-back schedule has been demolished. This time by a stomach bug.

Last Sunday (not the one that just passed), Anya vomited much of the day. We thought it was an isolated thing; her doctor even chalked it up to an upper respiratory infection. Nobody else got sick, so we thought the matter was finished.

Thursday night, Kai threw up several times. Friday morning, it was R's turn. I spent Friday cleaning up vomit and diarrhea, and Saturday cleaning the house. Sunday was going to be my second shot at my to-do list, but I woke with stomach cramps at 4 a.m. and spent the day learning what used veggie egg rolls taste like. (Not the worst thing I've ever puked up, but yergh.)

No Zoo Lights. No Build-A-Bear. No mall activities (train, carousel, play area, cookie the size of Anya's head). No shopping. No photo books for presents, because I didn't have time to order them; calendars will have to do for this year. And the Memphis Union Mission gifts are still sitting on my counter, and my recycling bin overflows. I desperately need to dig through the gift pile and find Anya's remaining Advent gifts.

Some of that stuff may happen still. If everyone can get well, I might be able to pull off a few activities between now and Christmas. But some of it just won't come to pass. And I am sad, because I have really been looking forward to the activities this holiday season.

But my house is clean. (Except the bathrooms; they need cleaning again. :/) Really clean -- not just tidy. So there is that.

Why Santa is bringing my son a doll for Christmas

Having kids has made me super sensitive to the things people say and do. The word "retarded," for example, grates my nerves worse than ever now. I know Anya's apraxia isn't exactly a huge developmental delay, and her speech is getting better all the time, but the fact is I've spent the past few years getting funny looks from strangers because my daughter is big for her age yet has the speech capabilities of a younger child. I want to slap people who use "retarded" to describe a long line or an irritating coworker or a new sitcom. Words can hurt.

I'm not innocent of the casual slurs, either. I tend to cast aspersions on the size of a man's genitalia based on the speed with which he departs from an intersection, and I have said "because he's a man" in response to questions about why my partner/my father/some random male acts against a woman's wishes. I'm trying hard to clean up my language.*

And yes, there are differences between men and women. Duh. But there is a difference between noting these differences and male bashing. Just as I am even more of a feminist since I gave birth to a daughter, I am ever sensitive to negative male stereotypes since I gave birth to a son.

I am not one for strict gender stereotypes, obviously. I am the breadwinner and the major decision maker in my household. My partner has long hair, and his favorite article of clothing is a skirt -- a manly skirt, but a skirt. So, you know, we're not all he-man/girly girl around here.

But I'm not sure how he (or the rest of the males in our family) will like the fact that I bought his son a doll for Christmas.

Look, the boy loves dolls. And his sister is not sharing hers. Most of her dolls are for ages 2+, anyway. So when he found a doll for babies while we were shopping for his sister, I bought it. It's cute -- a soft-bodied doll with a rattle in it. It's even kind of unisex -- instead of being dressed in pink, it's "wearing" an orange sleeper. And when he saw it, his little face lit up. So Santa got it for him, and anyone who can't deal with that can just take it up with Mama Bear here.

I am not planning on wearing a different parenting hat for my son than I do for my daughter. My goal is to raise children who are kind, honest, responsible people who are proud of who they are and who never feel ashamed to come to me about anything. That's a pretty universal message, I think -- no need for color coding. I do not believe that "boys will be boys" is a viable excuse for obnoxious, immoral, or dangerous behavior. The only thing I think not having a penis truly prevents my daughter from doing is writing her name in the snow without messing up her shoes. Sexual consent is not a lesson that only my daughter needs to learn; I don't want either of my children to rape or be raped.

And there's more. Always more. A million little assumptions and stereotypes and prejudices that make up our everyday experience. Each day I uncover another one.

I expect my son to do more around the house than earn a paycheck and do yard work. And if he provides me with grandchildren, I fully expect him to do his fair share of child care. Dolls allow children to pretend to care for a baby. So why shouldn't my son play with one?

If I don't teach my children to buy in to the sexist rhetoric I grew up with, perhaps they will have the chance to overcome it.

At the very least, if I can deal gracefully with the blowback from making unpopular decisions, I will be providing them an example of how to be true to themselves in the face of adversity.

*I am, in fact, far more concerned about slips like this than I am the occasional (or not so occasional) f-bomb. If the worst thing to come out of my child's mouth is the word "fuck," well, I'll take that as a sign that I win as a mother.

Twisted

So I just read this article, and finally have a label for the problem at hand. I cannot unwind. Ever.

The list of things that has me wound so tight is never ending. The house is disgusting, and because we are always here, I cannot even make a dent in the gross. There are ants all over the kitchen sink and hairs all over the living room floor and piles of clean and dirty laundry everyfreakingwhere. I could spend a three-day weekend just putting things where they belong -- and then the house would still be dirty. I ate a peanut butter sandwich for dinner last night because the minions ate dinner without me while I worked. This happens more often than not. Even though work should be winding down because of the holidays, it is not, and I finish each work day with knotted shoulders and a stiff neck. The baby is teething and also learning to eat solids, and as such is alternately adorable and irritating and my breasts are covered in scratches. I'm currently not speaking to my father and things are tense with my mother, and I don't really ever get to see anyone else.

That doesn't even get in to my frustration with my leaky, moldy car, or my leaky, moldy house, or my leaky, moldy bank account.

To top it all off, I don't even have a vice to indulge myself in. I gave up all of my vices but sugar already, and gorging myself on candy only tends to make me feel worse. I don't smoke and I can't stand the taste of alcohol and I no longer have the energy to stay up til 2 a.m. binge-watching television; I fall asleep somewhere between 9 and 10 most nights listening to Alton Brown describing in detail how to cook foods I don't eat. My vices are going for walks by myself and showering by myself. I don't get to do either often enough.

Driving used to be a way for me to unwind, but driving is different when you have kids. The other day, I left early for the doctor -- 45 minutes early. I was having the kind of day in which I had cried my eyeliner off by 10 a.m. and needed with every fiber of my being for the kids to nap for 20 minutes. So I put on the sleepy Spotify playlist and took the longest way there, and of course the little buggers didn't nod off until 5 minutes before we arrived. Which means my drive consisted of my daughter questioning every single thing in existence, three times over, while I tried to lower my blood pressure with belly breathing and at the same time worked to keep the baby from eating the various tiny toys his sister's filled the back seat with. I've had worse drives, but that one did nothing to soothe my nerves.

R occasionally tries to give me shoulder rubs. I appreciate the gesture, but I have at least one kid attached to me almost 24/7; if I have the opportunity to not be in physical contact with another human being, you can be damn sure I am taking it.

I no longer know how to unwind. And even if I did, I don't have time to unwind. There is always, always something I have to do. Something that is more important than me.

So...yeah. I'm wound kind of tight, too.

You call this wonderful?

Don't get me wrong; I love Christmas. Everything about it -- food, presents, lights, music, silly shirts, jingly jewelry, overdecorated everything. I love the cold weather and snow that we never get here. (Still not crazy about the cold, foggy drizzle that usually takes its place.) Peace on Earth, goodwill...bring it. I am down.

But I am noticing that I get really frickin' grumpy right before Christmas.

I'm not sure why. Am I stretching myself too thin? Perhaps. Is it because we all seem to spend the holidays sick? Could be. But it also seems that everyone around me gets really damn critical of me around the holidays, as well. And I don't deal well with that when I feel like crap, my kids are sick, and I am stretched too thin.

I had hopes for this year, but it looks like things won't be any different. Damn it.

Know what I want for Christmas? For everyone to get off my back already. I am doing the best I can here.

Ups and downs

The weekend started well. A great breastfeeding photo session, with a photographer I really clicked with. Anya had a great time at her friend's birthday party. We had dinner with Mimi and shopped a little.

Early Sunday morning, Anya started vomiting. Poor girl was sick all day, and puked hard enough to develop petechiae. Today I took her to the doctor just to make sure her lingering cough wasn't somehow to blame. Just a bug, it turns out.

Kai has been crabby and clingy; teething is my guess. Anya is alternately crabby and lovey. And select other family members have been grating on my nerves. I am in no mood to deal with outbursts and criticisms. The longer it goes on, the more irritable I become.

I'm past pissy, and nigh on to bitchy.

But this evening, I did finally complete my Christmas shopping. My girl can keep some food down. My baby is asleep on my breast. So there is some light in my evening.

Somewhere to belong

One recent Sunday morning found me in my car, running errands. Usually I do not make it out of the house before noon, but on this particular morning, Anya was at her grandparents' and Kai and I had been up since dawn. He needed a nap, but wasn't going down without a fight. I needed to get something -- anything -- done. So we ventured out around 8:30 a.m. to deposit a check, do a little shopping, and (most importantly) drive long enough so he could snooze for a bit.

It was a beautiful morning. Cool, sunny, with downpours of amber leaves. It was neat seeing all of the people in their Sunday best walking into churches. I hadn't realized before just how many churches there are around here. And I felt a pang, just for a moment, that I didn't have a church to go to.

I am not religious. I don't even have much of a spiritual streak, though there are a few threads taking hold as I get older. My beliefs are blunt and matter-of-fact and tend to offend, however inadvertently, the religious people I have discussed them with, so let's just call me an atheist and leave it at that. There isn't a church for people like me, at least not one I'm aware of. There is no group I can join on a Sunday morning and talk about life and philosophy and love. No meet-and-greet afterwards. No brunch.

And until now, I never missed it. I'm not a joiner. In fact, I am your textbook introvert; send me to a party, and you'll find me in a corner reading and checking the time. (And how convenient is it that I can now do both on the same device?) Back in my single days, it was a pretty common occurrence for me to go all day without using my voice at all. And I was cool with that.

But now, I'm a little lonely. I participate in groups on the internet, and stay in touch with my friends (and "internet friends") on social media. I just don't have any face-to-face friends I see more than once a year (or three). And part of me misses that.

How nice it would be to have a place to go in which the other people there believed the same things I do. My kids would have people their own age to play with. We could make friends, and talk about things that matter, and find support from people who care about us.

We could belong.

A baby's tears

I am not the cry-it-out type. I won't say I never let Kai cry; there are instances in which that happens. When we're driving somewhere and either close to our destination or on a schedule. When I'm almost finished with a task and he starts fussing. When I just need a minute to collect myself. But mostly, I respond to his cries.

Before they can talk, babies cry. It's how they get our attention, let us know that something is wrong. The more urgent the issue, the more urgent the cry. Humans are hard-wired to respond to that cry, too -- even Anya can tell if Kai is hungry or tired or scared or just crabby, all from the sound of his cry. To ignore that cry is to ignore the baby's distress signal. Which creates more distress, escalating the problem instead of resolving it. So I try to make sure that when I do have to let him cry, it's for a damn good reason.

We went to get Santa pictures the other day. I knew from our dry run a few weeks back that Kai would probably not be down for it, but I brought a Christmasy sweater for him and gave it a shot. His little face crumpled the moment his tush hit Santa's knee. I gave him a moment to adjust, then immediately took him back when he continued to cry.

The crew at Santa's chair were stunned. They fully expected me to insist that we take the photo anyway. (They were trying to make Kai smile first, of course. But they didn't seem to see tears as a deal breaker.) But I don't see the point in that.

Mind you, I pushed the issue with Anya; her first Santa picture includes me, and she still looks miserable. But Anya was two. She had some concept of who Ho Ho was.

Kai hasn't even experienced a Christmas yet. Why the hell would I force him to sit on a stranger's lap and take a photo? What message does that send to him?

My social media lately is filled with photos of crying babies on Santa's lap. We laugh, we awww. And we continue to insist upon such photos, despite the blatant distress of our children. I am not innocent here; I've done it, too.

But no more. I am Kai's mother. It is my job to love and protect him. He trusts me to do that. And I try not to damage that trust any more than absolutely necessary. Vaccinations? Necessary. A Santa photo op for the holiday card? Not so much.

So I have a Santa photo with just Anya. It's gorgeous, of course. And next year, we will try again with Kai.

Why is dinner so hard?

I have a goal to eat dinner as a family. But getting my family to wait until dinnertime is only part of the problem. The other part is what the hell to fix.

My children and I are vegetarians. (Not that this is a huge issue with Kai at the moment.) So our boxed-crap options are pretty slim. And I'm sick of them all. I love pasta, but am burned out on store-bought sauce. And that's pretty much the food industry's answer to prepackaged vegetarian food, at least at my grocery store. (Oh, Schnucks, I miss you.)

My daughter thinks macaroni and cheese is a food group.

My partner thinks ramen and freezer burritos are acceptable meal options.

I have a collection of recipes that I am working to expand, but right now it's pretty small. And when I ask "What do you want for dinner?" the answers never come from my recipe box.

I tried making a menu planning board. I put the names of recipes we all like on cards and put the board in the kitchen. All we have to do is select and post a handful of recipe names each week. We did that once. The same dishes have been up there since around June.

I created a similar list on my phone. The names and recipes for all our standby meals are all there -- I just have to pick a few, then go to the store and buy what we need. But apparently even that is too much work.

When I lived alone, I made a pile of new recipes and planned menus around them. I shopped every two weeks, and tried out 4 or so recipes between shopping trips. I planned the menus to reduce food waste but still afford myself a little variety. I ate healthy food, dropped a few extra pounds, and felt great.

Suggesting we try a new recipe to this crowd is about as popular as suggesting we play a fun new game called Russian roulette. Even when I promise we can go to Sonic if it sucks.

I am not completely innocent here. I hate going to the grocery store so very much that usually I buy whatever we used the week before, toss in some healthyish junk food for Anya to nosh on, and call it done. So my pantry remains full of pasta and tomato sauce that I don't want to eat.

I need to get a handle on this before Kai is old enough to grab snacks on his own, or it'll be anarchy around here.

Love and money

Couples often fight about money. It's been an issue in past relationships for me, so I understand. For instance, that was the main reason offered up to me by my wasband when we had a pregnancy scare and he asked me to consider abortion. He didn't want the child cutting into his spending money. (I wasn't pregnant, so it turned out to be a nonissue. And a year later, I wasn't married anymore, either.)

I've never been in a relationship in which my partner and I saw eye-to-eye about money. But with one brief exception, I've always had my own money, so it's not been as big an issue for me as it is for some. And in my current relationship, I have what may be the perfect scenario: I make the lion's share of the money, and my partner is more frugal than I am. (In most ways, anyway.) That means I get to make most of the big financial decisions, and don't have to rein him in much. We have had some silly arguments, mostly about how long leftovers are still good (I would never, ever bring home fries from a restaurant to eat later, for instance, and consider most refrigerated leftovers contaminated after three days). But for the most part, he trusts my judgement and doesn't blow my budget.

Now if we just had a little more money, we'd be in good shape. But who doesn't think that?

I won't say we don't fight. We do. Just not about money. It's...nice.

A long December

So it's December. Where my life usually veers wildly out of control. A poorly balanced diet and erratic bedtimes and extra freelancing and holiday-related craziness. This is the month that I send the rent check late and oversleep and totally forget important appointments. It's only the beginning of the month, and I am already dragging.

Our bootcamp theme this month is "Wrapping up 2015 with Great Balance and Poise." I've not done yoga once this month. Haven't meditated in weeks. Other than the walk I took on Thanksgiving, the only exercise I've gotten recently has been shopping. And shopping with my daughter is not the greatest example of my poise. (Especially when she runs off and hides in the clothes racks.)

In a way, I am glad for the disintegration of my routine. It usually means I slide into January head first, begging for some structure to my life. I hit the ground running January 2, and uphold my resolutions faithfully...oh, until March or so. But some of them do stick, so it's not a completely wasted effort.

For this month's bootcamp goals, I'm knocking out a lot of holiday-related tasks, but also looking ahead to those resolutions. My big three (exercise more, sleep more, eat better) will of course be on there. And working on my debt -- that's a biggie. But more and more, I'm beginning to realize that I need to rein in my gaze. Instead of always looking out ahead of me, I need to look at the ground I'm standing on. Make more time to do special things with the kids, even if it's just a walk to the local playground. Put a little more effort into making the house look nice; Anya can't stop talking about "Anya's beautiful house" since we've put up the Christmas decorations. Find a way to add a little more peace to my days.

It's so easy to hop on the work treadmill and fix my gaze on the horizon -- buying a house, getting a larger vehicle, getting married (yes, that is on my radar, though not an immediate goal). Plow through the days and weeks and months with little thought beyond my long-term goals. But the process of achieving those goals will be far more pleasant if I spend a little effort on the here and now. I just need to figure out how I want to go about doing that.

Flattery

The other night, after our shower, Anya was watching me brush her hair.

"No, like you," she said, indicating I should part her hair on the side, like mine. So I did.

"I should trim your bangs," I said. "Get them out of your eyes."

"No!" she cried. "No cut hair." And started flapping at me to drive me and my implements of hair wrangling back.

"Okay, okay," I conceded. "I'll leave you be."

As I put away my brush, I watched her carefully pick up a chunk of her bangs and position it so that it fell in her eyes. Just like mine is always doing, because I tend to put off trimming my bangs for at least a month longer than I should.

This child is such a little fashionista. I buy her outfits, and she mixes and matches the pieces to come up with even better outfits. I buy her shoes, and she pairs them with her outfits in surprisingly sophisticated ways. I don't often allow her to play in my makeup, but at 4 she is every bit as good with lipstick as I am. (Which, admittedly, is not saying much. But it almost always stays on her lips these days.) She shops for jewelry and handbags like other kids shop for toys. The fact that she wants her hair to look like my overgrown mop speaks more to her opinion of me than any words or gestures ever could.

Makes me think perhaps I should give her a slightly more attractive role model.

The lying game

I've caught my daughter in a lie. Not our usual scenario -- she is hurt or sick and doesn't want me to know, so she says she feels fine. No, this is an irrefutable lie: She got into the Advent present bin and opened presents. (All of them. At least the bin was small enough that she only had access to a few.)

I've suspected as much for days. She offered her brother a toy I was certain I'd not given him yet (before she figured out the wrapping paper was color coded). Also, I was seeing more Shopkins baskets than I believed she'd received. Before that, she was getting into the Advent tree and filching candy. I put the tree up out of her reach until December 1...but I guess I didn't address the sneaking part strongly enough.

Today I caught her playing with a toy I knew she had not received yet. Checked her room, and sure enough, there was the Advent container, the wrapping paper, and the toy packaging. No denying it now.

Man. I was not ready for this conversation.

Today, of all days, too -- today I am swamped. So I gave it a quick "lying isn't nice/Santa is watching you" and went back to work. But I know I need to do better than that. I just...don't know how.

I remember being caught in my first lie. I climbed a tree that was too small for such treatment and broke a limb off. At my babysitter's house, no less. She was really good about how she handled it, but I still felt ashamed. (Still feel ashamed, as ridiculous as that sounds. Nearly 40 years later.) I'm trying to follow her example, and handle this firmly but gently. I don't want to ruin the Advent tradition for Anya. As I suspect I have ruined her enjoyment of that Elsa doll.

Much as I hate to do it, I know I need to not replace those Advent gifts. If she still gets a present every day, she's going to think that this behavior is ultimately okay. And it is not okay.

This opens the door for a bunch of crap I really don't want to deal with. Not with this child. I was timid and people-pleasing and constantly worried about doing what was right. All you had to do to make me fall in line was be disappointed in me. My kid doesn't have a timid bone in her body, and is too headstrong to consider what others expect of her when she wants something. No, I need to nip the lying in the bud.

But how to do it with love...that's the issue.

My little mirror

My daughter is speaking more, and more clearly, than ever. To my delight and horror, depending upon what comes out of her mouth. Because it's almost all me. Oh, there's some Daddy in there, and Mimi and Poppy, and a fair sprinkling of Hobby Kids. But most of it is me. And I'm not always pretty.

But sometimes she moves me to tears, man.

Like last night. Mimi and I were going shopping after work, and it was for Anya, so of course Anya could not go. But I couldn't tell her that, because Santa/childhood magic things. So I was upfront, but vague: "Mommy has to go somewhere with Mimi and run errands. I'll be back soon. You need to stay here, because reasons."

She was cool at first -- one lone tear, which is downright stoic for my living anime character. But then she called me into the bedroom. Patted the bed and told me to sit.

"Listen. Listen, Mom."

I smiled. "I'm listening."

"Remember that time when you went [somewhere...I didn't catch that part]? Remember? When you were gone?"

"Yes, baby. Mommy hates to leave you, but every so often, Mommy has to. I'll bring you a treat when I come back, though."

She put her hands on my cheeks and looked deep into my eyes. "I missed you, Mom. Really missed you. Don't go. Stay here and play with me."

No tears, no yelling, no lashing out. Just simple, quiet, rational discourse. From my 4-year-old. About how she can't bear to be away from me -- even with the promise of a treat.

Note that she wasn't begging to go. She wasn't objecting to being left behind; she was objecting to being away from me. Nothing like a coating of Mommy Guilt to make an outing complete.

And she did it not by using my worst behavior against me, but my best. The mommy I wish I always were: Calm, gentle, thoughtful.

Oh, Santa was good to her last night. Yes, indeedy.

Hoarding redemption: Oatmeal boxes

(Sorry for the missed post; Monday turned out to be extraordinarily hectic, and it just slipped my mind!)

Ordinarily, I am not a hoarder -- in fact, I am the trash-happy member of this household. ("What did you do with my whatever?" "Oh, did you want to keep that? I pitched it. Sorry!") But every now and then, something takes hold of me and I hoard. The strangest things, too -- butter tubs, hangers, cardboard toilet paper tubes. This goes on until R teases me, at which point I realize the extent of my foolishness and stop. Usually. (When we moved into this house, with us came a large moving box full of nothing but empty hangers. Seriously.)

 

Lately, it's oatmeal boxes. I eat oatmeal like crazy now -- I go through about a carton a week. And I have been keeping those cartons, because they look cool. I'd thought I would make flower arrangements in them, since my salt box arrangement turned out so well. Which was fine for one or two boxes, but my collection was a bit bigger than that. The problem is that once I save one box, I have a hard time justifying throwing away subsequent boxes. If I needed that one, why don't I need these five?

Yes, I have issues.

I started scheming about a collection of seasonal arrangements. However, the arrangement wasn't quite tall enough for the carton, so I moved it to a vase and repurposed the covered oatmeal box to an advent present container.

Which left the rest of the stack. Thankfully, inspiration struck: I could use them to pack gift boxes for the homeless at the Memphis Union Mission. They ask that you put toiletries, gloves, and little treats in a wrapped shoe box, but I don't have any shoe boxes. However, the oatmeal container is about the same size as a shoe box, and can be wrapped in such a way that the paper need not be ripped off.

Cover the bottoms and tops.

Wrap the sides, leaving a small
overhang at the bottom.

Curl paper over the bottom edge.

Fill!

So I made a bunch of packages, which we will drop off sometime in the next week or so. And have depleted my hoard, which is also nice. 

But I'm almost through with this week's box of oatmeal, so the pressure is mounting.