In Search of Myself

Good to be back.

Well, we are back.  We had a really fun weekend, but now I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.  I am SO tired!  Between my cousin Kim's 3 kids and Jake, we had 4 kids under the age of 4 in an apartment for 5 days -- and NONE of them sleep through the night!!!  The weekend really made me admire Kim more than ever for all she does with her kids -- she takes everything in stride, doesn't lose her temper, is always calm and patient.  I asked her about it, and she IS just as frustrated as you would expect with kids ages 1, 2.5, and 3.5, but she deals with it so well.  Her days consist of cooking, feeding the kids, cleaning their messes, changing diapers, doing laundry, giving baths, grocery shopping, then doing it all again.  It's a never ending cycle.  Not to mention taking Isaiah to his appointments and trying to help him find a way to deal with the world despite his autism (and learning sign language to help the process along.)  That alone is a huge challenge.   

I will write more about our trip soon -- today is a catch-up day from being gone from work.  I took a ton of pictures and I need to edit them (and I forgot the disk this morning.  I'll get started on that tomorrow.)  December is going to be extremely busy and I'm trying hard to be happy about the holidays instead of completely stressed.  There's never enough time or money for things in December!  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving -- I missed you all while I was gone!!!

Looking forward to Thanksgiving

Well, already this morning I've dealt with a clingy, crying child (again), a horribly rainy commute, a student threatening to call Dr. (University President) because we didn't get her toilet fixed within 2 hours of her calling us, and more work put on my desk than I can possibly get to.  But you know what?  I don't care.  I'm going to sit here and plod through my work and be happy that after this I have six, yes SIX, days off of work.  (I'm taking two vacation days to accomplish this.)  Today can't possibly be as bad as yesterday (which was capped off by a very frustrating piano lesson with Alexis -- that child is driving me crazy.  I love her, and I know it's hard to be 11, but drop the attitude!!!)  Some time away from my life is always good for me, and I'm looking forward to the change of scenery.  (Even if that means dealing with crazy relatives for a weekend.  I don't see them much and I miss spending time with them, crazy or not.)  I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving -- safe travels!!!  We'll all start out next week with houses perfect decorated for Christmas and all our Christmas shopping done, right?  (ha ha ha.)

To read a poem I wrote about Thankfulness, click here.

P.S. New entry up at Weighing In: Dreading Being Seen.

How can a day suck so bad by 9 a.m.?

Jake had a hard time going to sleep last night and he was up several times.  We're both a little sick.  This morning he cried and cried because he didn't want to go to Nana's house (and he LOVES Nana's house.)  He pitched a fit when he saw me put Tylenol in his juice cup, so I had to pretend to pour it out an refill it.  I put sweatpants and a sweatshirt on him every morning so he's warm for the drive over (because it's pretty cold at 5:45 a.m.), and this morning Jake cried and cried because he didn't want the sweatshirt on.  He had a doggie on his shirt and he couldn't see it with the sweatshirt on and he was freaking out.  Finally I took off the sweatshirt and told him I didn't care if he froze.  (Aren't I a great mom?!)  It wasn't very cold today, and I did throw a blanket over him. 

Feelin' Christmassy

Ok, I'm FINALLY going to write about why I'm feeling Christmassy.

After my Christmas ponderings post from a few weeks ago and the great responses I got from it, I figured out a few things I can do this year to make Christmas special for Jake.  One of them is to let him have his own little Christmas tree.  I finally found some at Walmart for $4.88 (gotta love those random prices), so I bought two: one for Jake, one for me.

Time for duct-tape

I love my child.  Really I do.  (You can tell you're the mother of a toddler when you have to start out every other paragraph with that disclaimer.)  He and I are having serious issues, though.

You know, I'm proud of him that he's dexterous, could put together puzzles right after his first birthday, can operate locks and electronic equipment.  I think it's great that he can turn on any electronic machine he finds, even ones that aren't obvious, and operate some of them.  (Ok, I hate that he DOES it, but I think it's interesting that he has the ability.)  He can work the clasps to buckle himself in his high chair and grocery carts.  I was told by some church workers that they thought Jake would be an engineer when he grew up, because he was the only kid out on the playground who could figure out how to open the gate -- and he kept opening it again and again.  His newest trick? unbuckling his seatbelt.

Nuff Said

 

While reading "The Fourth R," I came across the following quote:

The moment a mere numerical superiority by either states or voters in this country proceeds to ignore the needs and desires of the minority, and for their own selfish purpose or advancement, hamper or oppress that minority, or debar them in any way from equal priveleges and equal rights -- that moment will mark the failure of our constitutional system.  -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

New from Jen's Portrait Studio

And you know, when I say "Jen's Portrait Studio," what I mean is a piece of black velvet hanging from the entertainment center in my living room. 

Priscilla brought the girls over and wanted me to try to get some pics of them and her mom, who was in town until the next day.  We got a couple that were ok, but Elauna didn't want to sit still, and Aowyn was fussy -- it was quite the ordeal. LOL

In these pics, Aowyn is 7 weeks, Elauna is 20 months, and Jake is 26 months.  Jake was getting a little jealous, so I had to snap a few of him, too.  

For the life I me, I can't get Jake and Elauna to sit together for a nice picture.  I think they're going to be FOUR before we get one of those! 

For every great picture I got, I had to snap 5 to 10 average, filler pics.  The hardest part right now  is my camera takes like 3 seconds between pictures to reset, and that's an eternity when you're trying to have a "portrait session."  I want a new camera so bad!!!

I went on Amazon.com today to look for books on photography -- that search brought up 75,701 titles!  Holy cow!  There's even one called "A short course in Nikon D70 photography" (that's my dream camera.)  I can't find crap in the local libraries about photography, and even the bookstores are pretty limited. 

(For the life of me, I can't figure out how to get Jake to stop making that obnoxious face in the first pic of him!!!  He's been doing that for over a year and he thinks it's hilarious!)  Hope you like these pics.  ;o)

Happy (late) Veteran's Day

  Thank you to all of the veterans who have served the U.S., in both combat and regular duty.  My dad served in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1956.  He was stationed in Germany during the Korean Conflict, but "never went into combat, thank goodness."  Had he been called to, he would have gone, proud to serve his country.  I don't talk about it a lot, but I think about our soldiers overseas all the time.  I watch the news a little closer than I used to, afraid to once again hear of an old friend who has died in combat.  Regardless of how I feel about politics, I love and support our fighting men and women.  And I hope they all come home safe.  My heart goes out to the families of those who don't.

Just an Average Kid

Sitting in bed reading books with Jake last  night, I realized that I am very grateful that he's an average kid.  His intelligence isn't stunning or amazing, he's just normal. I dare to say that he is even behind in a few areas of development, but the amazing thing is: I don't care.  I know that he'll catch up eventually and in the overall picture it doesn't matter when he hit the milestones or who hit them before he did.  I still have momentary lapses, of course -- moments of panic when I, for example, hear from Cara that Liah knew all her letters by 18 months old.  Now at 26 months Jake knows almost all his letters, although there's about 10 he hasn't figured out yet.  But what I'm thrilled about is that he enjoys learning about the letters and gets excited when he sees A's, E's, or R's in the course of his day.  I love drawing letters with him on his Magna Doodle or watching him play with his fridge magnets.

I can be happy for Liah for being a remarkable kid and I don't have to let it affect how I think about Jake.  This alone is a huge leap of progress from my mother's thinking.  In her world, if I wasn't the brightest and the best at everything, life as we know it might just end.    I believed her there for a while, but gradually came to realize that just because Catie (my childhood best friend -- the blonde)was always a little smarter and a little taller than me, I didn't need to beat myself up for it.  The curse of being "exceptional" is that for some parents, it's never enough.  Children are defined so early with the gifted label and their parents make it a personal mission to push push push even farther than is necessary.  Anything less than the best just isn't good enough.  I know we all want the best for our children, and we want them to make us proud, but really: is the quest for #1 the only goal we can reach for?  Isn't it sometimes ok to just have a kid that behaves fairly well, is sweet and loving, learns well and does the best they can, even though in relation to some other kids that makes them just "average"?

Christmas ponderings . . .

  One of my favorite writers wrote about the craziness of the Christmas holiday, this year starting not on Thanksgiving, but on Halloween.  It really made me laugh, so click here to read it if you have a chance.

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas lately.  It's hard to know as a fairly new parent what to do about the holidays.  The things we do, especially around holidays, affect our children and stay with them for life (as you will read later in this post.  Remember, I'm not being whiny or bitchy, just trying to sort through my thoughts.)