Mother’s Day 2015

An eerie end of days sort of feeling has crept over me, infusing everything I do with some internal knowledge that everything I do is the last time I do it.  Which is actually true all the time, I just don’t always notice.  Later this month will be the littlest monkeys fifth birthday.  Five is very big.  Big enough to do so many things.  Almost every day I want to go for a long quiet walk in some woods and on mother’s day I sort of did.   Although the day was, for me, filled with a desperate clinging to the past and yet a vast and unimaginable hunger for what’s to come. 

What new story will we write together?  I have been a mother for ten and half years now.  I stumble daily.  I laugh, we laugh, I say mean things some times.  I’m never very good at routine.  Sometimes I bring snacks and water and other times dinner is very very late.  

I yell at them to be quiet in the car.  I purposely choose very short books at bedtime so that I can watch a show.  I make eggs for breakfast almost every single morning. I get lost and make wrong turns so often that my kids think it’s normal to do so.  I don’t know what mistakes I will make in the future.  Who can say?  I thought to myself, I have had two four year-old's before, I know what this is like.  But I didn't.  I didn't know what it was like to have this particular four year old at all.  Nor do I have any idea what it’s like to have an 11 year-old.  

 The best decision is one you can change later on.  And you can change anything about your parenting in the past.  I sometimes tell my friends that if I could I would not have children.  But what I mean is, I would wait until I was a little older a little better of a human.  But what I really mean is, I wish I could have been like other twenty-one year-old's.  I wish I could have dated more men.  And gone to more concerts and that when I was awake all night at 23 it wasn't because I was being thrown up on by my own child.   How could I know what I really wanted?
 

my mother's day flowers

That’s just not how it happened.  Instead I got three gorgeous, HUMONGOUS, amazing children.  Who I didn't know I wanted.  Who wouldn't be who they were or have what they have to give, if it weren't for my mistakes.  At least that’s what I tell myself, since I have no intention of not making any more mistakes.  I just think the cuddlefests, and ice cream, the surprises and all the YES makes up for the crap.  

“Chant the beauty of the good” writes Emerson.  And that’s what I intend to do, in this next chapter.  The 5 to 10, 7 to 12, 10 to 15 and 32 to 37 chapter. 

Sunday Favorites

I've been not very inspired lately, but here are a feel interesting things from this week:

 

Celebrating Yourself On Mother’s Day

‘Wouldn’t you do that if a special friend were coming?’ she said. ‘Don’t you make an effort for others?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘Well,’ the old lady said, looking down her long aquiline nose and fixing me with her steely gaze, ‘why should you be any less worthy of such treatment?’

10 Ways to Show Love to the Mom at Home with Little Ones

I dare say these are great ways to show any mom you see her.

There is No Such Thing as a Post Baby Body

"There’s no such thing as a post-baby body. There is just your body. You don’t need to forget about pre-baby you because pre-baby you isyou! You may wear many hats as a mother—caregiver, nurse, provider, etcetera—but you are still the same woman just with a little more experience."

Preach!!!


Hugh Jackman singing the Bacon Pancakes song from Adventure Time

Hardly needs explaining.  I think I've watched at least 15 times this week.

An amazing collection of feedsack patterns

Some of these really appeal to me!

It all started 32 years ago when I was born.

The short story is my husband slept on the sofa because my almost 5 year-old woke-up with a “broken neck” yesterday and had to sleep in the Big Bed with my 7 year old and I.  (Yes my seven year old still sleeps with me.)  Anyway the man would lay on the sofa asleep until, well I don’t know, because I’ve never let it go past 11.  It was 9:30 and I had had enough.  I told him we were going to “that place I told you about the other day”.  I have no idea why I wanted to keep the name of the place a secret since my kids had no idea what The Place was.  It’s Green Lane Park and I just found out about it through a friend.  I thought it would be fun to rustle up lunch and the boats the kids got in their Easter baskets and get out of the house for a bit.  Full disclosure I fucking hate playgrounds.  I want to walk, I don’t want to sit on a bench and have to watch people on slides.  Or, the worst, push someone on a swing.  I will go to playgrounds, I can do it.  I just wanted to walk today in some gd trees and I don’t think that’s a lot to ask.  

Obviously that did not happen or I would not be so salty.  So right, we’re at 10:30ish.  I tell my husband I am getting in the shower and then leaving.  He wants me to cut his hair, which last time was a terrible experience because he is a diva about his hair and thinks I should be able to give him a cut similar to one he would get at Hair Cuttery.  Even though I have only ever give oh, 6 haircuts, ever.   He says, don’t take a shower because you’ll want to wash my hair off.  Okay he’s kinda right his hair is like tiny razor blades.  So I grab the clippers and he has to go to the bathroom.  Does anyone else’s husbands shit schedule just disrupt their life constantly?  It’s maybe the worst part of married life.  So I take a slow slow shower to give him plenty of time.  I washed my hair two times, once again by accident!!!  By the time I came downstairs dressed he was STILL IN THE BATHROOM.  I think he has a problem, I am a smartphone widow.  So he emerges and I cut his hair and he has to shower and dress and walk up and down the stair 100x.  Meanwhile the kids and I are hungry for lunch and have been dressed since 8:30.  The entire point of going to Green Lane for lunch was to have a good chunk of time there since we would have to leave the park by 2:30 at the latest.  Right?  Because he has to go to work.  So we got there at nigh on 1:30. 

We ate lunch in this pretty natural rock garden with little flowers and lichen and things.  The kids climbed on the rocks.  Then I said I wanted to walk a bit and let the kids play in the water with their boats.  And that’s when I fell in the reservoir.  Two out of three kids threw their boats in the water with the string.  The oldest one who was literally tying knots at scouts THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, well his boat came completely off the string.  He’s trying to grab the boat with a branch so I stepped in the water just a few steps, slipped, got the boat, fell in all the way to my chest.  My husband is just watching saying, “get out of the water!”  Then the middle child threw his boat back in the water with the string AGAIN.  And then we came home, hooray!!!!  Did you ever think you could be annoyed just to death? 

For the past two hours (one episode of Midsomer Murders and two of Johnny Test and one Pokemon) I’ve just been obsessively trying to sort out a bachelorette party.  And what hair I’m going to do for said bachelorette party.  I'm thinking of this bouffant ponytail with a braid, but we'll see.  That's my day, how was yours?