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Dirty Little Secret #14

Talking about myself makes me gleeful. That's right folks, it is all about Me. That's meme. This is thanks to my sister.

I AM: resilient.

I WANT: to be peaceful.

I WISH: to be as good a person as I think I am.

I HATE: bigots and those who promote intolerance as a family value.

I MISS: my daddy.

I FEAR: disease. And tornadoes.

I HEAR: an internal litany of tasks that I must finish.

I WONDER: what I'll be when I grow up.

I REGRET: being angry with my father the week that he died. I refused to believe that it was actually happening.

I AM NOT: humble.

I DANCE: with my children.

I SING: fairly well.

I CRY: often.

I AM NOT ALWAYS: in control of my temper.

I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: baby gifts for children I do not know.

I WRITE: to keep my sister company.

I CONFUSE: wants with needs.

I NEED: to get a grip.

I SHOULD: be more patient with my spouse and children.

I START: each day believing it will be better than the day before.

I FINISH: my Schwan's Praline Crunch Sundae cone. Every time.




I don't have many bloggy best friends, yet. That being said, I'll shoot the moon and ask GGC to do a meme/hehe on this one.

Dirty Little Secret #13

I have imaginary friends. Or maybe it's better stated to say, "I know you, but you don't know me...."

You see, I am a regular stalker on many of your blogs. I think it's actually called "lurking," but sometimes the ferocity of my cravings for your sights and sounds overwhelms me and an otherworldly force drags me to my computer to refresh my bloglines and escape my own experience for yours.

Like a wallflower, I spent my first few weeks around the blogosphere reading. First a little here, and then a little there. I shied away from comments, feeling not so sure that I belonged here. Most of the women, while about my age, are first-time moms with little teeny-tinies.
I am a graduate of that class already: my daughter is four and a half and my son teeters on the verge of two. I no longer have babies, or sleepless nights. I no longer fret over milestones, ages, and stages. My days of mommy-and-me-classes, play groups, and the social hierarchy of the playground are mostly past. Of course, there are other worries now and a whole new set of rules for mommy interactions.

Luckily, I have access to a wonderful community of parents at my daughter, L.'s school. Every Tuesday afternoon, while L. and T. are in fabulous nursery school classes, I sit with 13 moms and 1 dad and DISCUSS. EVERYTHING. We even have a lovely facilitator who talks us down off the ceiling after our pre-schoolers start pooping their pants again, picking their noses, and wetting the bed. My husband, Dirk, calls it my Tuesday Fight Club: the place where we all bash our spouses and children with no recourse. And let me tell you, I heart Tuesday Fight Club.

All good things, my imaginary friends, must end. May 23rd our class will celebrate the end of the school year with a potluck at a local park. Then 14 other parents will spend the summer looking forward to next year's Fight Club. But I am going home, even though I'm told you can't do that again.

At the end of June, my husband's eleven years of medical training will finally come to end. Back when L. was first born and my Dad was still alive, we decided that we place ourselves on a trajectory towards Upstate New York, where I was born and bred. I have not lived there since the summer I turned 21, when I moved to Boston and met Dirk. He's not a native to Upstate, but after life in Boston and NYC we decided that we should raise our kids in a place closer to stable family - a place that was especially more attractive due to a reasonable cost of living. And even though I am going home to a place where everybody knows my name, I am losing my community. I'm losing Tuesday Fight Club.

Oh, wait. I was talking about you guys. You see, there is a logical segue, even though this appears to be all about me. You, YOU are my new Tuesday Fight Club. But the best part is, I get to see you every day! And just like my Tuesday moms (and Ralph), you offer me new perspectives on parenting, marriage, and life. I often laugh out loud when reading. Sometimes I cry, and that's a good catharsis on my bad days. I remember what it was like to have babies, not kids. I don't always agree with you, but I kind of like it that way. What better way to think than to be confronted with something that provokes one's strong reaction? It gives me more to talk about over dinner what I heard on MPR.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the single most important woman in my community of parents. My sister is a writer by training and profession. I pushed her to start a blog because I am bossy. No...well, maybe that's true. No, why I really pushed her to write in this forum is that I sensed she needed a community. The kind that proves it really is going to be okay. The kind that's suffered the same kind of losses we have and worse. The kind that shoulders through tough times. The kind that holds themselves up to a tougher kind of scrutiny because they believe they're better for it. The kind that sheds its ashes everyday in the thousands of words and images held up to the light for all to see. The kind that rises anew amongst these precious words, straps on the Baby Bjorn, and keeps on truckin'.

I've drunk the KoolAid, and it is good.

Dirty Little Secret #12

Often, I have an amazing lack of focus.

If you've been faithfully checking my blog every day, or if you cross your fingers every time you refresh your bloglines page, then I'm afraid that I have disappointed you. (And yes, I'm writing for an audience I know may be fictional. But I was a high-school drama queen, and I still need an audience.) My blog is just another project on which I cannot follow through. I have yet to even take the opportunity to really introduce myself.

I often make excuses for myself on why nothing around here gets done/finished/started. They go like this:

"I own a business, and getting my work done so that I can assist in supporting my family needs to be the first priority." But last night, when I had five baby t-shirts to monogram, I went to bed. Now I'm furiously sewing while the children are still asleep. My kids will usually sleep as long as I will let them, so I could conceivably stand at my sewing machine until 10 o'clock.
Doesn't that sound like a dream? Trust me, I'll pay for that on the other end.








"I don't have time to clean the house because I was working." But really, I was reading your blogs.

"As a work-at-home-mom, I have to care for and play with the kids, take care of business, and keep up the house. One of those has to go, and for me it's cleaning the house." This sounds like the best one, and trust me, it's pretty sanctimonious when dripping off my lips. But it's likely the one that's most untrue. Half the time I say I'm playing with my kids, I'm sneaking off to plug a shirt in the machine. Or just quickly check my email. Or refresh my bloglines. Or call a friend or my sister on the phone.

Fifteen minutes into any game or craft, I suddenly find laundry to fold. On Monday, I promised L. that I would not do any work, but that I would spend all of her quiet time playing with her. You see, L. suffers most from my work. Every day, I need two hours or so to complete a certain number of orders from my queue. T. naps during that time, but L. is four and hasn't napped since she was twenty-seven months old. Every kid needs quiet play time, so I never felt too badly about the fact that every afternoon she wanders around the playroom by herself, with the TV on. The playroom is connected to my office, so I'm really right there with her.

Until yesterday I was okay with that. But at Tuesday Fight Club (or my facilitated parent group that adjoins L.'s pre-school) I learned that while the other parents also insist that their kids take quiet time, they only have them do it for half and hour. HALF AND HOUR, and I have poor L. cooped up for two. I try and try to convince myself that it's different, because the other parents in my group are actually stay-at-home-parents, and I am not.

I proudly wear my work-at-home status to avoid doing the other things I should be doing, like spending time with my children.

Now, ultimately I know that my dramatic statement is an untruth. I am home. I do play often and well. I don't clean my house often or well because I'd rather spend what free time I allow myself actually with my kids. But my innate and deep-seated feelings of guilt illustrate for me that nothing is ever perfect. Yesterday, Dirk arrived home to recount a conversation he had with a colleague about how she'd like to stay home with her kids, rather than continue her training to be an oncologist. She's reading The Mommy Wars; confused rather than enlightened, she asked Dirk and another male colleague if their wives enjoyed staying home and how we made it work for ourselves.

Dirk told her that I have a pretty good gig going. I've got my kids home. I've got a connection to my brain via my business. I have a supportive community of parents via Tuesday Fight Club. He strongly feels that in the four years since we started our journey as parents that we've got this thing figured out pretty good. Most of the time, I agree with him.

There's always a but. I still think I could do a better job. I still believe that I could be more efficient with my work in order to be more present in the moment when I am playing with the kids. I think I could be a better housekeeper. Because even though it appears that I'm doing a fine job, and I am often praised for what I do accomplish and how lovely my children are, I still think that I could be doing a better job. Because just beneath the surface, most of my tasks are only half-done. You see, I have an amazing lack of focus.

Yeah, well, my dog can sing...

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Dirty Little Secret #11

I may need to work on my parenting skills.


Yep. That's T. standing on my sofa table. Did I tell him to get down? Nope. I just grabbed my camera. Later that afternoon my well-meaning neighbor pulled me aside in the driveway to say, "I think I saw T. standing up in your front window this morning..."