Thursday, December 3, 2009

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Back in the Saddle Again

Today I am supposed to send thank you notes to five people that I appreciate. This was a really hard task, not because I didn’t want to write the notes –I could have written volumes. In fact, I love nothing more than sitting down to write, well, anything. I also didn’t have any trouble coming up with people I could thank. I could have written ten cards with very little thought. What I didn’t have was time. I didn’t have the kind of uninterrupted time, the kind of cognitive awake time, the kind of un-worn out time that would allow me to adequately appreciate another person. The reason? The reason makes a convincing impression of a screech owl running its talons down the chalkboard while watching a cat fight. Only louder. It’s not full on crying, just the sound of complete and utter discontent. Repeated.

It’s not just a baby with an undesirable soundtrack, it’s a baby that needs to nurse all the time, because in God’s infinite “wisdom” (and this is where you imagine my seven year old using air quotes) He thought that it would be a great idea to give everyone a great big ol’ mouth full of teeth and then make it a total body thrill ride to get them. It’s like Space Mountain, but instead of pretty lights and that whooshy, exhilirating feeling in your stomach, there’s a crowbar trying to hack its way through your gum-line. What little dignity you have is then whittled away as the Niagra Falls of drool pours over your bottom lip and your poop turns green. Finally, just to cap it off, how about if we repeat it with EVERY SINGLE TOOTH! I love God. I really do, but I can tell you that teething, it’s on the list of things that I am NOT afraid to take Him to task on when I die, right after morning sickness and right before mosquitoes.

So here I am. Profoundly sleep deprived and questioning my religion.

I did get those thank you notes written. The writing may not be pretty. But, I can promise you that just thinking about writing them made me grateful for the people in my life. It made me wish that I could tell them all the time. Write them notes all the time. Have annual parades in their honor. Or at least, take them on Space Mountain.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Where's that Leasing Agent?

All I'm saying is that when you bring your Lego Clone Trooper minifigure to the coffee shop and you lose his head, it seems remarkably unfair that your mom needs to be involved in that fallout. And there was fallout. I said I knew that was hard. I said, "No, I will not buy you a new one." I said "You will have to pay for that yourself." I said that while I didn't like the way he was behaving, I sure did love him. I invoked the "energy drain". I should have gotten an award from the Love and Logic folks...gold and shiny...with a key to my own apartment. It wasn't until the end, when things began to unravel, that I threatened military school -the one without Legos. I said I didn't care which one of us went but someone was going to go. Do you think they're going to ask for that key back?

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Blue Eyes of Happiness


Olivia is still vying for the distinction of being the only one in the family with blue eyes. Hope they stay that color.
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Gratitude Challenge, Day 7

Today I am supposed to post a photo of something that makes me feel grateful.

Right now I am home taking care of a sick 7 year old and a baby who was vaccinated yesterday. Last night was not a fun night for any of us. In fact, it was a bit like one of those scenes where the girl in the horror film tries to flee the house, but there is danger at every exit. She screams. The audience screams. Last night, the audience was screaming.

This photo is not just a reminder of how grateful I am for such an amazing partner, read "cell mate in the fiery pits of parenting," and two beautiful children, but also a reminder that terrible colds and fussy babies will pass. I already know that someday I'll see this photo and miss the the look of the baby's chubby fingers wrapped around a stick and the sun-bleached hair of a second-grade boy outside under the tall trees in our backyard.

Post script for Dave: No one says we can't miss those things from first class seats on British Airways. Just you and me. Flying far far away. Missing the kids. How many years away is that now?
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Monday, October 12, 2009

Gratitude Challenge, Day 5

Take five minutes to write about how grateful you are for all of the wonderful things that you currently have in your life. Don’t long for what you don’t possess—instead, take stock of all the blessings you already enjoy.”

A list is all that I have time to post right now:

Our dog: She puts Christian to bed now. As Dave says, she's finally earning her keep.
Beautiful children: What would my life be without them?
A warm house in the cold of Fall.
Enough to eat.
Clothes to wear.
The Roku: I'll likely never see a commercial again.
Not paying money to Comcast for overpriced cable: Priceless.
No traffic.
Cuddly babies.
A wonderful husband: My soul mate. The cliché is true.
A snuggly baby.
A wonderful family that doesn't live too far away.
My Honda Element: It's cool and functional.
Coffee coffee coffee.
Barista.
Pastry Chef: He usually only comes at Christmas time like Santa,but Santa doesn't leave hot chocolate croissants.
Books.
My friends near and far.
My gray Converse tennis shoes.
Free speech.
A college degree.
A sleeping baby.
My sister: The finest auntie. Also someone who knows how to do things and how to say things with little explanation, because we're related. I've rarely been able to shop with anyone else and have as much fun!
Sunshine.
Homemade chicken noodle soup.
Hot showers.
Fluffy, down comforters.
The smell of Olivia's head.
ipods.
Our next door neighbors.
Good health.
Taylor, the Latte boy.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Gratitude Challenge, Day 4

Today I am supposed to write about being grateful for some of the difficult things in my life:

Dear Colorado,

I still don't love you. Moving to live in your state wasn't the best or worst decision we ever made. I think we can be friends.

I think you're beautiful in the Fall, but you are one of the hardest roads we've ever traveled. I still don't love you. But, in the end, my family has learned more about everything since we moved here. We've had the Chinese Wall of character building. The Titanic ocean liner of character building. We have been forced to bloom where we are planted, make lemonade, live in the moment, rely on each other, redefine ourselves, find ourselves, and learn to find real, true joy in any situation or any place. And, in the end, even though we still may not completely understand why we're here, we are undoubtedly, inestimably better people now. We have evolved!!!! Do you see how many exclamation points I'm using there? I may have even made up some of those words.

Thank you for the sunshine, the fantastic public schools and the virtually nonexistent traffic. It's also lovely to live near family. Colorado, we are still going to talk about our deep, meaningful relationship with Washington. Washington, you are the Tom Hanks to my Meg Ryan. You are the steamed milk in my Latte, if I could have dairy. You are so sophisticated and shiny and beautiful. I miss what we had together...

Colorado, I think Jerry Maguire said it best, when he said, "I am out here for you. You don't know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?"

Pride swallowing siege, indeed.

Love,
Rebecca

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Gratitude Challenge, Day 3

Today I am supposed to write about something I feel grateful for in my life today. Since I didn't get a chance to write about this yesterday, I have had a lot of time to think about the subject of this post, and in two days it hasn't changed.

My son Christian was born just a little over a year after my mom died after nearly a decade of battling a kidney disease. A good part of that year was spent in relief that she was no longer sick. Then, I was preoccupied with being pregnant -something that I felt utterly unprepared for, to be honest. I wanted more time out of the shadow of a terminally ill parent. When Christian was born all of the grief that I hadn't even begun to feel hit me like a tidal wave. A very big tidal wave. It wasn't postpartum depression necessarily, but grief. Only it was grief with a new born. It was grief very very far from any family members. It was grief and a new needy baby when very few of my friends had babies. It was grief as an isolated, stay-at-home mom. And finally, it was grief that I was suddenly a mother without the benefit of having a mother.

I didn't realize, until I had my son that when you have a baby you need your mother, most certainly for concrete day-to-day help, but you also need your mother as a launching pad of unconditional love. You actually need someone to love you so that you can go forward with confidence and love someone else in the same way. A mother is a helper. A mother is a safety net. A mother is a comforting phone call. A mother also is someone who can share in the magic of this new human being in a way that no other person on earth can. A mother can invest herself in your child, because she is first and foremost invested in you. A mother can be a source of strength by nurturing you when you have to do the big scary parts of parenting.

My friends with mothers could tell me, I'm sure, that their mothers didn't do every one of those things. No mother is perfect, but I do know that I didn't have any of those things. Sometimes, because I don't know any other way to compartmentalize those feelings, I at least feel a sense of pride at all that I have been able to do without the benefit of having a mom. A mom that I talked to nearly every day on the phone since the moment that I left home.

I also know that many of the best parts of my mothering come from my mom. She was unfailingly patient. She was warm and funny and affectionate. She was empathetic to a fault. She could make ANYTHING, and I mean that. Anything. Prom dresses to playhouses. She could listen, endlessly. She had a fantastic imagination, so she could play. She was very capable of being silly and indulgent, too. She would have absolutely gone to the coffee shop in her pajamas with me! She loved kids -all kids and babies. She would have been an amazing grandmother.

Christian is nearly eight, and for most of his life I have in one way or another felt like I was mothering with a sort of emptiness. Sometimes it's bigger than other times. Sometimes I forget it's there. I don't grieve my mom the way that I once did, but I am still utterly and completely fascinated with and envious of the relationship between my friends and their mothers now that they have children. The thing that I miss the most out of everything, however, is being able to call my mom.

I miss being able to call to tell her something funny Christian said or how much Olivia weighed when she last went to the doctor. I want to tell her how I think that Olivia's eyes will stay blue or that Christian can make his sister laugh. I miss that feeling that you have with your mom where you don't have to sound smart, or worry if you're taking too long to tell a story (like now), or feel bad about the constant interruptions of children.

The other day, though, I had the closest thing to having that conversation that I've had since my mom died. I talked to a dear friend on the phone that I haven't talked to in A. VERY. LONG. TIME.

To put this in perspective, I babysat her beautiful daughters when I was probably 13, 14 and 15. I'm 36 now. She has known me since I was 11. I loved her then. She's just a really wonderful person -kind and sweet and funny and loving. She's a great mom! I know this, because she has 3 wonderful daughters to show for it. We found each other on Facebook, and we've been corresponding via E-mail since shortly after Olivia was born. And here's the thing. She writes the most encouraging notes. And it's eerie, but they are often exactly what I need to hear. She champions my choice to stay home with my kids. She gives me bits of advice. She was concerned about Christian's recent double ear infection. And here's the best thing, she mothers me!

Of all of the ways that Olivia has brought my family together, of all of the things that Olivia has brought into my life, this is certainly one of the loveliest things. I am so very grateful and humbled by the way that in this one small way the empty place in my heart has been filled a bit.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Gratitude Challenge, Day 2

My A to Z Gratitude List:

A: Always having enough to eat.

B: Barista. Love how he makes that freshly roasted coffee every morning.

C: Christian

D: Dave. We are so very fortunate to have found each other, and I am amazed every day at how much I love you.

E: Evette. Because you are the first friend I made when I came to Boulder, and you listened to me when I hated it, when I liked it and during everything in between.

F: Friends and Family.

G: Grass beneath my feet and outside my window. Green grass is such a luxury!

H: Home. I love home. What a blessing to have a home at all, especially such a nice one.

I: I'm grateful for that feeling of snuggling up in bed for the night after I've had a really hot shower.

J: Julie, because we just know how to do things together that would absolutely need explaining to other people.

K: Kids.

L: Lemonade. Literally and figuratively.

M: Making the baby smile.

N: The sweet little noises the baby makes when she's “talking.”

O: Olivia

P: Pie and Pie Day. I always seem to be at Pie Day with people I care about. Plus, pie is one of the things I can make well.

Q: A quiet house.

R: Reading. It is my absolute favorite thing to do.

S: Scout. The very best dog, ever. I can't believe we have a dog.

T: Traffic. I am so grateful to live somewhere where there isn't any traffic.

U: Underwear -clean ones. I am so grateful for my washer and dryer and folding clean underwear.

V: Vases of fresh flowers.

W: Water. In showers and baths. Drinking a cold glass of ice water. The ocean. Lakes. Streams. Watching my son swim in it.

X: X-ing the street with my son when we walk to school or home from school. Are you groaning at the stretch, there?

Y: Yellow leaves. So lucky to live in the Rocky Mountains in the Fall.

Z: Zombies. How wonderful it is to have a new book to read: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by, Seth Grahame-Smith.

Gratitude Challenge, Day 1

Inspired by other folks who's blogs I read, I am starting the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge sponsored by Tiny*Prints. It is a really neat program that you can read about here: http://www.gratitudechallenge.com/. Plus, all their marketing is, as usual, so beautiful and swanky that if you decide to try it, you'll just feel cooler.

Anyway, I am feeling pretty happy and grateful in my life right now. I believe that this is mainly induced by frequently smelling of the top of Olivia's head, but I also know that just about anyone who's accomplished anything throughout history, yeah, I mean Oprah, says that the biggest secret to their success and happiness is being grateful. Every day. In every thing.

I also want to teach my children to be grateful. They have such full lives that they are going to need some practice in gratefulness. And since my son actually loses rather than gains brain cells when I give him little informational lectures on various topics that are important to me, like why I think cheerleaders should be playing the sport not cheering for someone else to be good at it and that's why your sister will never be one, I hope that I can become a better Model of Gratefulness, too. The odds are that my son will learn better that way -and probably Olivia, too.

She'll also probably want to be a cheerleader. Because some day when she gets tired of my informational lectures, Christian is going to take her aside and say, "You know what would really piss mom off...?" And, I'm going to need to know how to be grateful for that, too.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Confessions of a Real Mom

I use disposable diapers.

I let my kids watch TV.

I love my kids desperately, but I love my husband more.

Sometimes I'm bored.

Sometimes I love being a stay-at-home mom.

I really hate to cook, except sometimes when I don't have to.

I hate nearly every variety of music specifically made for kids, and I rarely subject my children to it.

While I can remember the bliss of playing make believe games when I was a child (loved being Laura when we played Little House on the Prairie), I find it harder than I thought I would to play them with my son.

I love to build forts, play games, read to my kids and be silly.

Sometimes I let my son eat ice-cream for dinner or have a pajama day that lasts all day.

Once we went to the coffee shop together, and we both wore our jammies.

Sometimes I don't buy Organic food.

Sometimes I want to get my own apartment that I can go hang out in when I need a break from being a mom.

I think moms need to feel less guilt and more joy!

Most of the time, I really LOVE being a mom, and I think I'm pretty good at it.

A Broader View of the World


...creating dissatisfaction at home.
Recently we rearranged our furniture. This gave the dog something to sit on so that she could look out the window. There's nothing more painful than watching a dog stand in the middle of your living room on her back legs in effort to see out the window. I don't think she'll believe us now when we tell her they took the outdoors away.
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Fall Update 2009

Dear Christian and Olivia,

Christian, you just started second grade this year. It excites me to no end to watch your world get bigger -to see all the ways in which you are different from your dad and me. I love that you are finding your own way. You ask for what you want and what you need. You find new things to you love, like P.E. and playing tether ball and science. You just started skateboarding, and while you are a natural, my coordinated little boy, it simply makes my heart skip beat after beat watching you. The myriad of pads and the helmet don’t help me feel better. I pretend that it doesn’t scare me. How am I doing?

You can read! READ! Can you believe it? You work so hard at school and that little part of you that is conscious about rules makes you an awfully good student. And yet, you find school interesting, and I think it makes you happy. A good part of that is because your school is amazing. It‘s easy to see how much they love their kids. It generally takes an amazing amount of self-control on my part not to hug your principal Every. Single. Day. Truthfully, the only thing that stops me is the not wanting you to be the kid with the crazy mom who‘s always hugging the principal. It’s just that your dad and I feel so fortunate when we think about your school, and we’re grateful for the people in it. For the record, I don’t think your dad wants to hug the principal.

You are such an enthusiastic learner. You want to know about EVERYTHING…RIGHT NOW. It’s so exciting to watch you learn and grow. We are so proud of your persistence! Also, you are an amazing big brother: loving, affectionate, sweet and funny.


Olivia, you are almost 4 months old, and we are so lucky that you are here. Most certainly there have been bumps in the road as your parents fumbled around like sleep-deprived zombies. But you are here, and nothing that I feared before you were born has come to pass. What has happened, dear little one, is that you are magic. You are simply a warm, smiling, soft, beautiful force that has come into our lives and made a space for yourself in the tight little circle of our family. You have brought us to where we were always supposed to be, and it is magic there. We are us, only bigger. And we are so very happy you came.

Your beauty takes my breath away. Is there even a way to describe how good the top of your head smells? Seriously, bonding and glue -that comes from the way you smell, little girl. Christian loves you. He was unbelievably excited before you came, and to be honest, I thought by now he would be tired of you. He’s not. He loves you. He remarks all the time on how cute you are. He loves to make you smile and laugh; which you do. You are all about the smiling right now. You already believe in sleep in a way that your brother never did. I love you for that.

The other day we stopped in at Christian’s old preschool for a visit. When the director came to gave us a big hug and took you from my arms, your lip began to quiver and you screamed with such a red-faced, angry fury, that we had to go down stairs and then eventually leave. Wow! As crazy and unnecessary as that was, I can only hope that you keep that voice and that assurance of what you want your whole life through. And, I must mean that, because it’s only going to make my life really, really hard.

Still Olivia and Christian, I want so many things for you. Most of all I want you to have resiliency. I know that you’re going to need it in this world. I also want you to have the MOST AMAZING ADVENTURES! I want you to have the deep satisfaction that comes from being brave and seeing the world. I want you to know the absolute joy of wandering the streets of a tiny Italian town after a long dinner with your best friend. I want you to see the sunrise in as many places as you can, or if you are your mother’s kids, as many sunsets. It sounds cliché, but if I could give you and your brother anything, it would be the world.
Each new place broadens who you are, how you are, and most importantly, the way that you see others -your tolerance increases, your empathy increases, your wonder increases, your joy increases. This will make your life richer than anything else that you will do -anything that is, other than your family.

Thank you for making us a family!

Love,
Mom



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Yet

This isn't my first blog. But it is my first blog entry, in a new blog, since having a baby almost 4 months ago. Even now I am wondering how I'll ever have time to sit down and get all of the posts out of my head an into this bl...
...og. I just changed a diaper, dressed the baby, and let the dog in so she could eat breakfast. I'm just about to start the laundry. Olivia is fussing, because it's time for her to take a nap and it's been delayed by said poopy diaper changing and dog letting in. Yep. I did just end that sentence with a preposition. It's a good thing that in my copious amounts of spare time, I sometimes read this blog: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/, and sometimes I even listen to it. Look up prepositions. It's a heated debate.

So you can see that there is more to come, and some of it will be coherent. Some of it will be interesting and some of it will be total crap, because I am sleep deprived. I am breast feeding. I drink a lot of coffee, and I know that I don't get enough exercise. Yet.