From Dec 7, 2008

You know that blissful silence that rages through the home when the kids are back at their mom’s?

I’m totally trying to meditate on that memory.

It’s not working.

From Dec 6, 2008

Not grumpy today.  Which is good.  I’m often grumpy on a Saturday morning with the kids.  They wake me up around 7 AM running up and down the stairs.  They’ve discovered that when they do this, they can get the dogs all hyped up and on hind legs hoofing each other.  Like deer.  Yes, they’re that big and they play like that.  The dogs, that is.  The kids play by make believe in the morning.  I hear them establishing the rules and they spend their entire time playing about what IS and how they’re going to play it.  They never really get to the acting out what they say they’re playing.  I learned what this is called in my developmental psych class, but I just woke up and can’t recall it off the top of my head.

Raine’s asleep in the basement, and the kids and dogs are pounding their feet on the floor.  Dammit.

I have to remind them every half hour that they need to use their indoor voices.  In between getting after the kids and letting the dogs in and out, I sleep in.

Ahahahahaha.

Finally, I drag myself out of bed, usually grumping, not this morning though, and I make coffee for the household.  I don’t drink much coffee anymore.  It seems that any amount of coffee in the morning will keep me up later at night.  Ten o’clock rolls around, and I’m half an hour past my bedtime, and cursing my decision to drink coffee at five the morning earlier.  Sucks getting older.  Or something.

Shortly after coffee is made, I feed the kids.  During the week they get oatmeal with brown sugar and milk.  On the weekend, it’s often a “special treat” to give them honey nut cheerio knock-offs.  I know, cruel to withhold the sugar cereals during the week… but they behave “better” when they’re not loaded up with junk.

Soon after the coffee is made, Raine is up.  And the kids are eating.  And I’m thinking about parenting solutions.  The thing about kids is that it’s a never-ending challenge.  You can’t expect results over night.  It’s about consistent, constant consequences.  It’s exhausting.   They’re good kids.  In fact, they’re better behaved than many of their classmates.  They’re just stubborn and extremely strong willed.  They think they’re the bosses of themselves.   Heh.

Now, as I’m trying to finish up this post, Tyler’s sitting next to me trying to sound out the words that I’m writing.  Yep, we’re screwed.

From Aug 3, 2008

Kora and I were folding laundry together yesterday.

She says, “I’m going to be a mom someday.  When I grow up, I’m going to have a baby.”

“Not me, kiddo,” I respond.

“You already ARE a mom, Ash.”

“Oh yeah?  To whom?”

“To us!”

*melts*

From Jul 13, 2008

The kids will not leave me alone.

They keep talking to me. And asking me questions.

And they keep saying, “Ash?” and then when I respond, “What?”

They pause and say, “Um.”

And they forget what they were going to say.

*sigh*

Crawling on me, tapping me, pestering me.

“Ash?”

“Ash?”

“Ash?”

“Aaaaaaash?”

Everything that they do is accompanied with their talking noises.  They say out loud EVERYTHING that they think. They talk just to hear themselves talk.  This is a cardinal difference between them and me in my childhood; perhaps that’s because I was raised as an only child.

My inner monologue was perfected very early in life.

“Ash?”

I just want to wake up slowly, in quiet. The kids, the 200 pound dogs barreling through the house, the trash strewn all over the floor because the dogs got into the trash…

“Ash?”

*grin*

Where’s my coffee?

From Jun 7, 2008

Yesterday was Tyler’s graduation from kindergarten.  It was pretty awesome… though completely sad that Landon wasn’t there.  I went with his family, and sat with his mom (my other mom). Overall it was a great experience, even though about half way through I could tell that I’m getting a little hormonal… I started getting all teary through several of their songs.

It’s interesting being back in the church I grew up in.  Or, rather, one of the churches.  It looks different– though it still holds such a familiar feel.  Interestingly, I thought it completely absurd that they taught these kindergarteners the Apostle’s Creed– mostly because these kids really have no clue what any of it means, and even if that’s the belief system these kids choose to believe in, they’ll not know what it means until they’re FAR older (confirmation happens in eighth grade, and that’s when they teach you what it means) and you never really appreciate/learn those things you originally learned from rote…  Also, one of the songs Kora’s class sang had the chorus line of “O is for Obedience, and that is what I’ll be.”  Um.  okay.  I mean, I appreciate obedient preschoolers– I really do.  But I appreciate it when they do it because they appreciate the positive consequences of listening to what they’re instructed… not because those are the words to a song they sang for a performance.  Maybe I’m just being picky… I dunno.   It’s just a little weird, that’s all.  A little too brain-wash flavored for my tastes.

Meh.

It’s a good education and there’s nothing wrong with teaching them solid Christian ethics, right?  *sigh*

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised (again) at how well the kids’ mom and I get along.  She and I are totally cool, which is fabulous, because that just makes EVERYTHING easier.

After the program, I came home and drank coffee with Marilee (Landon’s mom).  What a wonderful blessing to have company!!!!  We played around on the net with this program that shows you what you will look like with a new hairstyle.  At this point in the story, if you’re not wondering when I was attacked by body snatchers who know the password to my blog login, you don’t know me.  We did it, though, and it was a bonding experience– totally fun.  We found the most amazing hairstyle for her… and I bet the next time I see her, she’ll have a whole new look.

She spent the night, and all day today helped me clean up the house– cleaned up the kids’ rooms, watered the gardens, got the whole house back into a nice shape.  She even ran errands with me: a trip to the recycling bin, Good Will to drop off stuff, and Home Depot to return/replace the hand pruners I got a few weeks ago (they broke the day I bought them), and to check out all the beautiful plants on sale there.  I love plants! Downright giddy over them.  I enjoy running my fingers through the bunches of leaves… I love feeling the different textures, appreciating the rainbow of colors, and basking in all the many scents you get when you put such a variety of plants in one place.

In between errands, we came home to rest for a bit… I was looking through the cupboard to see if I could convince her to take some of the canned goods off of my hands and came across one of the esoteric foods that I’ve had for a while, but never really knew what I would do to rid myself of it.   Most food drives aren’t particularly interested in Banana Blossoms in brine.  It’s something I inherited when my dad moved to Puerto Rico.  He cooked with interesting things like that.  I, on the other hand, only store foods like that.  Well, Marilee convinced me we should open the can up and see what they were.  Now why didn’t *I* think of something like that??? Hee hee.  So I did, and we both tasted them, and honestly, the closest thing I could compare it to was artichokes.  Mmm.  Artichokes.  So now I have an open can of banana blossoms that taste like artichokes… and what next?  Well, before I know it, I’m finding us at the grocery picking up the fixins for artichoke spinach dip.  Yep.  I made banana blossom spinach dip today, and it freaking rocked.  You can’t tell it’s not artichokes.  They taste the same, and when those blossoms are cut up, you can’t tell the difference.  The neighbor liked it, even.  Not too shabby for someone who’s never made the real artichoke spinach dip!!!

So now… Now I’m sitting on my couch alone, listening to a little Olive, wasting the rest of my evening by telling you all about the last 24 hours.  I can totally tell how lonely I’ve been– I just hadn’t had time to realize it until after I’ve had someone to talk with.

I don’t know how many more days… but I’m still counting.