Wasting Time

It's a chilly morning, mid-February.  I'm on my couch in my silky pajama pants and a fraying hoodie while my kids, dressed about the same, but with shoes, are running around in the yard.  Snow was enough to keep them inside for a few weeks, but frozen mud?  They're undaunted.  If you can see the dirt, you can eat it.  That satisfies their requirements for a play-outside day.

I'm kidding!  Only one of them eats dirt.......and gets caught.

The baby just went down for her morning nap, which usually isn't a long one.  That means that I am now in my window of opportunity.  If I hurry, I can work out now.  If I really hurry, I can even shower before 2:00 this afternoon.  So, obviously, I'm here, instead, typing up a semi-coherent, irregular blog post.

?????????????

I should mention that, athletic ineptitude aside, I really do like to work out, when I can manage it.  The question marks make more sense if you know that.  And me sitting on the couch, typing this makes less.  But here I am.

Over the days of stay-at-home-parenting, I'm learning a lot about myself.  One of those things is that I'm either rather lazy, or not very good at managing time.  I prefer to believe the latter.  Something I miss from my former life - the one without children - is having clear tasks and expectations before me, and having someone to make sure that I do them, and to evaluate how I did.

Yes!  I miss having a boss!

Because with external criteria and external critics to define them, and to define me, I could take the very objective list of things I had done on a given day, and easily decide: I did well today.  I am efficient, productive, competent -- other days, not so much.  A big 'A' on my paper or a 'C+' on my exam allowed me to bypass the need for all this introspective evaluation.  This is how I did.  This is what kind of a student/employee/person I am.  See?  It says so right there in red sharpie.

Child-rearing is a different creature.  I have three small people to nurture, a house to maintain, and any number of tasks, defined and otherwise to accomplish with various, rarely established due dates - if any at all.  I'm learning some tricks to it, of course.  Some things can be sorted into check-lists and charts.  Some things can be scheduled and regulated, if I will take the time to mastermind that scheduling, regulating, sorting, listing and charting.

Time is something that I want desperately to catch and tame.  If I could just grapple that wily whatever-it-is to the ground, get onto its back and establish a good, white-knuckle grip, then maybe things would be different.  Maybe then I could dance to the zany music that has become my life, rather than always stumbling a step behind it.

I've begun to ask myself, when I have a free evening, 'what do you want?  All you need to do is decide what will make you happy.  You have the ability, the resources, even, yes, the time to make it happen, if only you will.  So what do you want?'  And my answer if always the same - I don't know.

*****

I should add a disclaimer here: this post is acting like kind of a downer.  I know that I come off as pessimistic more often than I actually am, and usually, I try to end with some redeeming perspective in my posts to counter that.  Today I'm not going to.  I'm just going to say that in the biggest, most important things, I am happy.  I know that.  Not for an instant do I regret the life I have chosen.  My little people are delightful and so much more, and you should see the things they're teaching me!  I have everything I need and everything I want, really.  The only thing I lack is me.  I want vibrancy, color in my life, and I know it's there.  It's all around me.  The only deficiency is my will, my ability to look up or reach out at just the right moment - there's that time thing again - to seize it.

Carpe diem - how cliche am I?  But many, even most cliches have their foundations rooted in more truth than we comprehend.  That's how they got to be so annoyingly well known.   That's how it is according to Caitlin, anyway.

Ahem.  My point is that I'm not sad right now.  I'm not wallowing in all the things and experiences I don't have.  I'm just sitting thoughtfully, even bemusedly on my couch, observing my life for a few moments, and gauging whether or not I still have time for that workout.

Part of This World

*To the tune of “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid* Pretend the meter is right on. ;)

Look at this fam,

Isn’t it sweet?

Wouldn’t you think

My collection’s complete?

Wouldn’t you think I’m the mom -

The mom who has everything?

Look at these girls,

So cute in curls -

Look at them dancing

And see how they twirl?

Lookin’ around here, you’d think:

Sure.  She’s got everything.

I’ve got Ellie who can get

Into anything.

I’ve got Addie who’s sweet

To the core.

You wanna man who does the dishes?

I’ve got one of those too - and he sings.

But who cares?

No big deal.

I want more....

I want to be

Where the nurses are.

I want to get -

Get that ep-i-dur-al.

I wanna hear ‘em saying --

What’s that word again?

Oh yeah.  ‘Push.’

When you’re in someone’s womb,

you can’t get too far.

Birth is required for jumpin’, dancin’,

Not to mention, you’ll get to --  

What’s that word again?  Eat!

Out here you can breathe,

Out here you can play,

And no one’s bladder gets in the way!

Wigglin’ free,

Don’tcha want to be

Part of this world?

What would I give

If I could break

My water?

What would I pay

To spend today

In L&D?

It seems to me,

When I’ve got three,

I’ll have less

Energy than daughters.

But right this minute,

I’m just in it

To end pregnancy.

And I’m ready to breathe

Like a normal person.

Ready for ankles

Around which nothing orbits.

Eat my dinner and not have it--

What’s the word?  Burn!

When’s it my turn?

Wouldn’t I love -

Love a few contractions to speak of?

Come out of me,

It’s time to be

Part of this world!

Dex

A few months ago, this eight-legged guy appeared beside my front porch.  I don't have a photo, but picture this: black, white and yellow stripes, each leg at least an inch long, angular body - majestic in a terrifying sort of way...

Despite my strong aversion to spiders, I decided to let him stay with an unspoken understanding that, so long as he kept his distance, he wouldn't see the bottom side of my tennis shoes.

I decided to call him Dex.

Yes, I even gave him a name, maybe because it made me feel like I had a little control over him or something.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  If he had built his web in China, I would have felt much more comfortable with the situation.

About a month ago, he moved right up behind the front door.  OK, Dex, I thought, but come no closer.  You're on thin ice.  I don't think I've passed once through that doorway without glancing his way.  And shuddering.

I mentioned him in a conversation with my spider-loving friend the other day, along with the mysterious disappearance of mini-Dex.  Her response (it was over text, but I just know she was elated): "Then it's a she and she'll have babies soon :)"

Oh.

She has plumped up in the last few days, huh?

Eew.  It makes my skin crawl, and not in a good way.  I don't think that phrase has ever been used with a positive connotation, but just in case it has, I want to clarify - in a bad way.  I hate spiders.

My conscience: Are you sure?  Hate is a strong word.

Yes.  I hate spiders.  And one big one living in plain sight and close proximity is more than enough.  How did Charlotte's Web make an arachnid invasion seem so not-creepy?

Be afraid, Dex.  Be very afraid.

Tale of Woe

Once upon a Saturday, we set off on an adventure.  I had recently discovered a library in a town an hour away (everything is an hour away from here.  It's weird, like we've got a one-hour radius in every direction and then - *poof!* - civilization!) that serves everyone on the reservation.  Yes, that includes me!  In exchange for a short application, proof of ID, and proof of residence, I could have access to a library at least three or four or five times the size of the one that sits just below to mesa here.  I guess that's still relatively small, but can you see how excited I was?  And with good reason, too.

Well, we packed ourselves into the car and rode off.  Ben read to me as I drove and all the while, I daydreamed of all those books, packed neatly onto row after row of shelves.  Fiction, non-fiction, picture books, children's literature, and of course the Native American Collection.  I felt that I was about to be admitted into a new and yet familiar world that was not confined to my little neighborhood on the mesa, to a big, blue sky speckled with crows, or to my daily routine of home-post office-library-home.  Oh, can you imagine how lovely that thought was?  Lovely.  Very.

As we drove into town, turned right and then left, parked, and approached the door, beyond which waited the museum and library, I was all anticipation.  With Ben along to watch Addie, I would be free to browse contentedly, without worrying about the little hands that are always so eager to remove books by the handful.  The door was unlocked.  We had done our best to find out the library hours.  They weren't posted anywhere obvious online, but Ben had found a slightly aged page on the website that reasonably reassured us that we would find the place open.

To the left, the museum had little traffic.  We headed to the right, to the glass doors that stood between us and the books.  They were closed.  The space beyond them was dark.  The hours were posted on the door - open Monday through Friday.  Closed Saturdays.

I know I'm being a little melodramatic here, but...closed Saturdays?  What else are Saturdays for, but to go to the library?  To sit on the floor among the shelves and browse among the books?  To take in the delicious scent of delicious words?  (Yes, I've always had a thing for smelling books.  Something about the inky, papery smell of the pages and the binding...  Anyway, so now you know.)

And there you have my tale of woe, and a little bit of what's been going on in my life.  Don't worry, though.  It's not all bad.  I'll try to post something more positive tomorrow.

A Little Taste of the Meaning of Life

When my mom was about twelve, her family moved to a lovely piece of property in the southwest.  Behind the house, there was a small pecan orchard.  Every December, as I understand it, my grandpa would hire someone to have the trees shaken so that he and his family could harvest the nuts.  My grandparents lived in that house until I was about ten years old and I spent many a Christmas wandering that backyard and finding many a nut on the ground.  Along with a fondness for my grandparents' small town home, I came to love pecans.

For Thanksgiving, Ben and I trekked back down that town, where many of my Dad's family still reside.  As we sat at the crowded table, and I raised my fork to dig into a slice of pecan pie, I turned to Ben, gestured to the pie, and said (tongue in cheek, of course), "This right here is the meaning of life."

"What?  Pecan pie?"

I shrugged.  "Or just pecans," I replied.  Since then, Ben has wondered aloud whether pecans were the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.  It's unlikely, but the thought makes me smile.

Anyhow - the following month, as Christmas approached and I tried to answer the questions my husband and family posed about what I wanted to find under the tree, I found myself at a loss.  Finally, I told my mom, "All I want this year are some pecans.  And maybe some honey."  I guess that means that I'm either a very content person (in spite of my constant whining from beginning to end of the Christmas season...hmm, that doesn't add up) or that I'm lacking in creativity.  If I'm going to be completely honest, I'll have to admit that it was probably the latter.

However - after arriving home with the not one, but two bags of pecans I received for Christmas, I decided, this morning, to knead a handful into one of my loaves of bread.  While doing so I popped a couple in my mouth and do you know what?  I don't regret my request one bit.  They taste just like the meaning of life.

Coming Back to Me

Hello?  Anybody there?

Whether or not I meant to be, I've been more or less unplugged for the past couple of weeks, ever since we came home for the holidays.     Not only have I taken a vacation from my kitchen, my usually-messy house, the sights and sounds and wind of home, my habits and daily routine - I have inadvertently taken a vacation from myself.  I find that, at my parents' house, a strange and rather undesirable thing happens to me.  I tend to regress into the person I was when I lived here.  If, in any posts in the near future, I seem to be channeling an up-tight teenager, you'll know why.  By the way, I'm also apologizing now for any spelling errors or incoherent wording in this post.  I'm not completely in my right mind at the moment. :)

Every time I make the trip to my parents' home, full of anticipation and idealistic expectations, I am convinced that I've finally left my past self behind.  That teenage girl won't haunt me this time.  Yet, every time, it takes only a matter of time, and then the adolescent angst, irritation, and the all-around sensation of being lost inside my own head set in.

It's given me something to think about, in those mature moments right around going to bed and waking up.  I believe very strongly in a person's ability to change - and not just externally, but really an sincerely, through and through; yet after years of approaching and re-approaching this rut, after cumulative hours of meditation and prolonged, determined efforts to leave it behind, I find myself here once again.

The answer, or the best one I can come up with at the moment is that change is simply difficult - and that is a profound understatement.  I wonder if that's why so many people doubt that character can actually change?  Willpower is a difficult power to harness because it's so closely linked to desire.  And finally, there's the fact that no amount of willpower can bring about all the changes that are necessary, even for one person, to be really and ultimately happy.  To be truly Christian is to believe resolutely in the possibility of change, to hope for it unfailingly, but also to acknowledge that we need help.  It is to give one hundred percent, or as near as we can muster, but in the end to trust in a Savior who can do what none of us can.  It is to believe in a God of second chances.

I haven't set my New Year's resolutions yet, partially because I'm notoriously bad at keeping them, and partially because I'm waiting until I know that I'm in my right mind.  While I wait, though, I'm learning, probably for the millionth time, how to get back up, dust myself off, and move forward to a goal no less glorious for my having fallen in its pursuit.

Christmas Rhymes: A Rant

OK, I know that pretty much everything I've posted this month condemns me as a miserly Scrooge-y, grinch-y type, and I know that this won't help my case, but I just have to say something about it.  Publicly.  Because that makes all kinds of sense.

Right, so during the last few years, I've started paying closer attention to Christmas songs, and there is one rhyme that almost EVERYONE uses that has never sat quite right with me: 'mild' and 'child.'  I have a bone to pick with that rhyme and pretty much every song that uses it.

First off, many of said songs describe the newborn baby Jesus as 'mild.'  I really don't think that he is ever described biblically as being 'mild.'  In the King James Version, at least, it doesn't happen.  It just alliterates nicely with 'meek.'  Secondly, according to my dictionary, 'mild' means "gentle or kind in disposition or behavior."  Very well, touche.  That description probably does fit Jesus very well in the Christmas story, but then again, what newborn couldn't be described that way???

Secondly, and this includes the lyricists who have described Mary and/or Joseph this way, what ever happened to creativity?  I thought that was what poetry was all about!  How about 'smiled,' 'un/defiled,' 'un/beguiled,' 'riled' 'piled,' 'exiled,' or 'trialed'?  Yes, most of them are probably not as clear cut as 'mild' and 'child,' but you could work them in, right?  If you wanted to get really crazy with it, 'filed,' 'wild,' or 'dialed' would also work.  Or here's an idea - don't use 'mild' or 'child' at the end of a line at all.  I can't stop applauding whoever wrote 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing,' for rhyming 'mild' with 'reconciled.'  *Looking it up...*  Charles Wesley - bravo, well done, sir!

Alright, alright.  I don't mean to be irreverent here and despite all I've said, I really don't mean to be a Scrooge.  I love Christmas songs, and particularly Christmas hymns.  I love the message that they relate and I love to sing and hear them again and again and again.  I'm just writing this for any up and coming poets who might happen to read my blog and are planning to write the next classic Christmas song, to let them know that this caroler is ready to celebrate the season with some new rhymes.

Where are you, Christmas?

Christmas this year is kind of a first, in some ways.  It's the third I'll have spent with my husband, but the first in which the pressure has really been on my shoulders to 'make Christmas happen.'  For our first Christmas, we were living a mere twenty minutes from my in-laws' and about an hour from my parents' home, so while I did my best to come up with pajamas for the two of us and a little something to place under the tree for my husband, our frequent visits to both families made up for the atmosphere that our little apartment lacked.  On top of that, we were both attending school and were working, so our workplaces and the campus also contributed to the yuletide ambiance.

This time last year, I was about thirty-eight weeks pregnant, was working full-time and had just finished a grueling semester of hybrid schooling (part online, part face-to-face).  Ben was working full-time too, so in the midst of our business, although we were constantly looking for Christmas stories to read and gifts to wrap, and although we even took the time to thread thousands of pieces of popcorn onto a length of fishing line, Christmas was largely overshadowed by the fast-approaching arrival of our first child.

This year, all of that is different.  We live too far away to borrow Christmas from our families.  I am not working outside of my home, so I haven't enjoyed any of the seasonal rituals kept by most or many employers.  And finally, I am awaiting no enormous and palpably life-changing event to take my mind off of Christmas itself.  I found myself asking, as we raised our wiry tree, 'why don't I feel Christmas-y yet?'  I was singing right along with Cindy Lou Who.

I found the feeling I was looking for, of all places, in Walmart.  The store was crowded beyond belief and, unable to find that item that I just had to have (I know, I know), I was just about to have a meltdown.  I've since decided that, along with store greeters, Walmart should invest in store psychologists for just such episodes.  I can't be the only one, right?  Luckily, I had something better.  As I was weaving my way down the crowded baking aisle, no doubt looking murderous, my husband found me.  He listened sympathetically to my woes, put an arm around me and took the crying girl (because who wouldn't be indignant at being told that they mustn't stand, facing backward in the seat of a grocery cart?  Yes, she was wearing the seat belt) from my cart.

Somewhere between then and the manic check-out lines, I felt a little change of heart, or maybe the change of seasons finally registered with my heart.  Leaving the store, and still feeling somewhat like a train wreck, I realized that it now felt like Christmastime.  Yes, of course, Christmas doesn't come from a store - yes, Christmas is indeed a little bit more.  Doctor Seuss and his Hollywood followers taught all of us well.  Nevertheless, it's one thing to accept mentally and another thing to internalize it, and I guess it's something I have to do a little bit each year.  I've come to the half-solid conclusion that the bustling store did the trick because it provided the atmosphere, complete with cheap decorations and cheesy holiday tunes that I would never allow on my Pandora Christmas station, that I was lacking.

What is the message I am sending here?  That Christmas will never be complete without commercialism?  No.  That's not my intention, anyway.  The gaudy ornaments and overflowing toy aisles don't make Christmas what it is, but I wonder if the throngs of people all flocking to that crazy supermarket for the same purpose as I was - in preparation for a common and well-loved celebration - do.  Maybe the mayhem of thousands of people all seeking to bring their families together for Christmas brought it to life for me.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...?

I'm coming to a daunting realization about motherhood (yes - another one!), and that is that Christmas is largely my responsibility now.  As a 'stay-at-home mom,' it is up to me to get Christmas wrapping, Christmas Eve pajamas, stocking stuffers, and everything that Santa will leave under the tree.  In addition, any Christmas cookies, fudge, or other goodies are also up to me to provide.  I say everything, but that isn't quite fair.  It's more like 90%.

The other day, as I wove my way through Walmart crowds and sparkly red and green displays, I found myself complaining aloud to my husband.  "No one told me this about motherhood!"  Yes, I had fully expected to get spit-up, boogers, poop and every other bodily fluid or goop on my hands, face and clothes (and those expectations have been realized, I assure you).  I anticipated long, sleepless nights of taming wiggles and banishing nightmares.  I was amply warned about the perpetual messes I would spend my days chasing from one end of the house to the other.  But no one told me that the magic that my kids will anticipate all year round, the magic that is Santa Claus, would  be mostly mine to forge.

In the midst of all of this, I also heard a little voice in my head, reminding me that I've only got one child, and she isn't old enough yet to know what a present is, or to care.  If I'm stressing now, am I ever in trouble!

And then, there was last night, as we raised our Christmas tree, our modest little shrine to the season.  Taking the advice of many blogs and magazines we'd found online, we began to decorate by putting the more fragile ornaments up top, and the ones that could stand a little almost-toddler investigation down low.  As I hung little stuffed Santas, felt candy canes, and bulbous silver jingle bells on the lower plastic boughs, Addie decided to pitch in, removing each ornament as soon as I had moved on to the next.

I realized that if I can focus on those little things, the memories and photographs of my almost-year-old's first real Christmas (last year didn't count), somehow all of this manic buying, baking, planning and wrapping will all make so much more sense.  It's a thought that's made it into my mind, but I haven't fully internalized it yet.  Maybe that's what I'll focus on this month.

Goodness - and I thought I had already learned that Christmas isn't about what's under the tree.  I guess I have a lot to discover yet.