Making Mistakes or you know, it's Motherhood

     In the small town next to our small town, we have a gluten free bakery. It's tucked away in a plaza that shares space with the local sanitary district, an occasional used car salesman and various other businesses that survive for six months and then blow away with the constant prairie wind. 

    Years ago I went to a church housed in one of the bigger office spaces. I don't remember much except they had made a spaghetti dinner for after the service and it didn't smell that great. Now, I have been to many a church function and some of those church ladies, they know how to make a spread. This was not one of them. But it was significantly better than the fundraiser I visited this spring inside a church and the church ladies had made boiled hot dogs. Do you know the color of a boiled hot dog? LOL - not a natural one and Baby Blueberry had to have one. 

    Now, to catch up new readers, I must say that Baby Blueberry is no longer a baby, but instead is a teenager. And if you're a reader from the start, then if you feel old, imagine how I feel? I don't feel old until I realize that my surprise baby from a pregnancy in my mid-thirties is now a teenager. This is why poets and songwriters make art about time slipping into the unknown. It is the most elusive element in science. 

    But I digress, as I often do, even in real time conversations. My best friend from when I was a teenager, we will call her SB, often joked about how we would bird walk in our conversations. When I moved half way across country, we were pen pals for a while and then it slowly died out. I missed her. Sometimes there's nothing as intense as a teenage best friend, besides maybe first love. A couple of years ago I started to get the intense urge to look her up. I would dream about her. She would pop into my head uninvited. 

    And so I looked her up. Her obit was the third down on the search. She had died just shortly before that of cancer. At 43. Grief is hard. Regret of not connecting again before she was gone is harder. 

    She had ended up being a fifth grade teacher. Something she had adamantly said she would never be. And now, I'm teaching fifth grade. Also, something I had said I would never do either. I wish we could joke about that. She would enjoy the irony in it. 

    But again I digress and now we go back to the bakery. This bakery is a must visit if you ever come to my area of the world. The baker has worked countless hours to make goods that taste delicious. Not it's pretty good for gluten free, but actually yummy. And so the other day I had the Husband, who does not get the moniker Hero Hottie anymore, because that relationship is in murky waters, pick up two blueberry lemon muffins. One for Baby Blueberry and one for me. 

    I did not eat it that day. I'm recovering from the second of two major abdominal surgeries - thank you Crohn's- and was not hungry yet. 

    The next day I went to get it out of the fridge and I find one muffin with the delicious and best part of the muffin - the top munched by someone else. I started crying and fuming. How could someone eat my muffin? I angrily toss it in the air fryer and ate the bottom of my muffin. 

    A little while later...Baby Blueberry is searching through the fridge, pulls out a whole muffin, not touched and munched and asks, "Where is my muffin? I was saving the bottom of it to eat later." 

    I stare at the untouched blueberry muffin and then look at her. I look back at the muffin and realized that I had grabbed her saved muffin. I sigh. 

    I tell her what happened and then offer my whole, untouched muffin in return. It does seem rather petty to demand the top of the muffin. The best part. The part she now gets to have two of, but I graciously offer my muffin to her. 

    She shared a bit of it, since she realized I didn't get a whole muffin. But man, I really missed eating my entire treat. So the mistake I mentioned in the title - you thought it would be me confessing to some mistake with my child? No, it's the mistake of grabbing the wrong treat in the fridge, believing someone had taken mine, not bothering to look further because if I had, I would have found it, and then missing out of the best part of the muffin. 

    If only I could have hidden my muffin in my secret chocolate stash in my underwear drawer. I used to hide the chocolate in the cupboard, but they - the children - found it. So it had to go where no child is going to search - their Mom's underwear drawer. 

    Anyway, that is how good those bakery treats are - that I wrote a blog about a missing muffin top. Maybe I should put that in a Google review? 

 And also, having treats and kids is the definition of a paradox. 

When my Children Were Little Their Faith was Simple

A Reminder that Faith Can be Simple and Sincere and Sweet

Welcoming the Baby Jesus

This week has been so busy and I so wanted to write about Christmas because I love Christmas. So instead I will repost a sweet blog about Bean and Abu and their innocent faith being put into action with the help of Barbie, Ken, and a few toy animals.

http://justtheothermoment.blogspot.com/2011/12/day-four.html

Life Lessons from the Motherhood

   Lesson One: Eating your Mother's Day Breakfast

        Okay, lets face it. Breakfast in bed is an awesome gesture, even though you have to spend half an hour shaking the sheets of breadcrumbs afterwards. But if your child is under the age of teenage than you're not getting a gourmet meal. My last meal consisted of a piece of toast piled high with the contents of my fridge on it. Apples, cut with a butter knife. Strawberries, a little bit on the mushy side because they washed those suckers good. And peanut butter, jelly, honey, cinnamon. I'm probably lucky there wasn't ketchup on top.
       They, the small children that allow you to celebrate this holiday called Mother's Day, wake you up after allowing you an extra five minutes of sleep and hand you this plate of food. Then they anxiously wait for you to eat it. Their little faces all grins and smiles and joy.
       And how can you not eat it?
       Simple trick #1:  Nibble on what looks safe to consume. Just don't spit it out when they calmly tell you it's the part that fell on the floor and the dog licked it but they washed it off.
        Simple trick #2: After eating a few bites, keep them talking. Thank them for the lovely gesture, because heck, these little people adore you, take a moment to savor it. But keep them talking. Eventually, they will run off to play and you can safety dispose of the rest of your meal without hurting their feelings.

    Lesson Two: Enjoy your Day of Leisure

         Ahh, wouldn't it be nice to sit back on this holiday, put our feet up and read a book without interruption? I vaguely recall those days. I remember the Mother's Day a couple of weeks before Bean was born, I was huge. Imagine the marshmallow monster on Ghostbusters, yeah, that could have been me.
         My ankles were swollen like balloons, my face was rounded with too much of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (think sixty or seventy pounds of pregnancy weight) and I was experiencing that feeling of being done. I'm ready for my baby, can I have my body back now?
      Hero Hottie took me out to breakfast that morning and the waitress gave me a free dessert, a strawberry shortcake, for Mother's Day. Suddenly, I had been given admittance to this special holiday. Yes, a holiday where I get pampered, and I don't have to do anything.
     Ahh, it was a lovely day dream. Because once you have kids, you realize that there are no more days off for you....EVER. A weekend? What's that? It's just a day that's a bit quieter than the week...MAYBE. But suddenly you're responsible for at least three meals a day...SEVEN DAYS a week. Laundry? You want to take a break from laundry? Not a good idea. Laundry starts to develop into a life form of it's own if left more than a day or two.
    And changing diapers. Yep, those happen on Mother's Day too. Even the really smelly poopy ones that take an hour of clean up time for you and the Baby.
      And when the kids grow old enough to volunteer to take over the chores, so you don't have to do anything. Well, lets just say their standards aren't quite at the same level as yours.
     
    Simple Trick #1: Enjoy the day anyway. You're a Mother and it's awesome to have a day when your children give you cards that are simply decorated with their hand prints. I know, you see plenty of those on the walls and the windows everyday. But when you're older and your Bean is turning into a young woman, than looking back at those tiny hand prints...well, it causes your heart to burst with all sort of emotion.

    Simple Trick #2: Clean the house the day before, plan easy meals, and do something fun with your kids. And if they promise you an uninterrupted bubble bath...DON'T believe them. That just means they hold off for ten minutes instead of five before they're pounding on the door and asking you if you're enjoying your uninterrupted bubble bath.


Lesson Three: Appreciation

    Ahh, it's that moment when you realize, as your four year old and your two year old, hand you a bouquet of dandelions from the yard, with grubby, chubby little fingers and grins that are the sweetness expressions you have ever seen...that being a MOTHER is AWESOME!

    There isn't a job, or a talk, or a book that can prepare you for this task of raising another human being. There should be something though.
    A book that warns you of the effects of sleepless nights because Baby Blueberry is teething. Think sleepwalking at this point.
    A talk given on how to balance the needs of more than one kid. Because one size does not fit all. And once you realize that sayings applies to everything, from the way you discipline, to the way you help with homework, to the activities that they like to do, life will be so much easier.
   Now LOVE, that should be the same. Kiss them and hug them and love them in the same amounts, even when you have a Bean. Who likes to test boundaries and the word NO. OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Because at the end of the day, she still needs a hug and a kiss and a reassurance that no matter what you still love her.

Simple Trick #1: Sometimes a day can be overwhelming. The worst moments of parenting for me were the potty training moments. I didn't do well with potty training. And I'm not even sure why. A lack of patience on my part, hating the power struggles that can occur, frustration over accidents in public places. But I know I don't do well with this task...so with Baby Blueberry I'm going to step back and not worry so much. Obviously, your kid eventually moves from diapers to using the toilet....and then they have entered big kid territory and they have grown that much more.
        So I can't say I will enjoy potty training any more this time than with Bean and Abu, but I won't allow it to frustrate me so bad that I miss all the other great things going on during that stage of development.
     Don't concentrate on the crappy moments in parenting, you'll miss the good stuff.

Simple Trick #2: Appreciate the woman in your life that mothered you. Sometimes this isn't your biological mom but someone that fulfilled that role.
    Now, you can understand why they were always cleaning (think YOU) and why they drank four cups of coffee in the morning (think YOU again) and why you never ask them "What's for dinner and when it is?" unless you were ready to see steam coming from their ears. Now, I understand why. After three meals a day, seven days a week...the question gets old.
    "Food.  You get FOOD. What else do you think I would be feeding you? And if you tell me that the new chicken dish was not food, than you're grounded."

     This week I couldn't decide on a gift for my Mom. So I spoiled her with a week of Mother's Day. The first day was a bouquet of flowers (not dandelions), second day was a caramel roll, third day was candy bars, fourth day was potted plants, today will be a small, cute garden ornament, and tomorrow will be a picture of the grandchildren. Nothing fancy, but just small tokens of appreciation.

    So this motherhood thing isn't easy. It's causes sleep deprivation, loss of patience, bouts of meltdowns that aren't from the kids, boredom from doing endless loads of laundry and cooking thousands of meals, and feelings of inadequacy. 
    But I tell you what....every card with their handprint on it or simple poem written in it, every baby grin, every dandelion bouquet, and every Mother's Day breakfast, is the BEST.
   Every new development, from their first crawls to their first dances, is a reason to celebrate.
   My children bring me endless joy and so tomorrow when they bring me breakfast in bed (I cheated a bit, I bought cinnamon rolls for them to serve) and they hug me and give me their gifts, which are usually handmade and oh, so precious. I will be giving thanks in my heart.
    
   Happy Mother's Day!!!

There is a Brachoisaurus in my Shower

Abu's House (copyright Christy Hammond)

    As Abu tries to zip up her backpack this morning, she grins; a mischievous look I haven't seen in weeks; and says, "I have too much useless stuff in here, Mom. It won't zip up."
     I frown, peering at her backpack. "Isn't it full of your homework from last night?"
    Her grin widens. "Exactly. Useless stuff."
    She waits for me to laugh at her joke, her expression barely shifting away from her humor, but it's there, a slight crease in the smile as she waits anxiously for me to respond.
   I chuckle, because it is funny, especially if you look at it from a kids' point of view and not as a parent. How many of us have briefcases full of necessary 'useless stuff'?
 
   Her expression relaxes and she finishes zipping up her backpack; her mood light and cheery. Score a point for Mom this morning.
    I grew up as the bossy first child who knew (knows) everything. :-) I wasn't the middle child and I certainty wasn't the baby of the family. I was so opinionated about things, that I didn't even believe that there was positions of childhood.
   Until Baby Blueberry came along. And Abu slipped into the role of middle child like it had been hers for the taking since she was little.
   But I'm not going to talk about how difficult that place has been for her; not today anyway. I'm just going to simply share the wonders of Abu. So one day, when she's old enough, and she comes across the crazy, zombie filled ramblings of her blogger Mom, she will finally realize what I see in her.

   Abu came into this world like lightening. And that is what I tell her. Out of all my labors, hers was by far the easiest and quickest. Six hours of light pushing and laughing, anxiously awaiting baby. Forty minutes of hard labor and there she was. Adorable, cute, and with such a petite nose.
    The next day we took her home, where an excited Bean was so overjoyed to have a baby sister. And over the next two years, while Abu grew into toddlerhood; I spent a lot of time chasing after Bean and Abu and cleaning up after all their antics.
  Bean was the instigator. But Abu wasn't innocent. She would quietly watch, and laugh, and clap her hands, loving every idea Bean came up with and happily joining in the trouble.
  
    One time when Bean was four and Abu was two, they decided to decorate the couch. And not just a little bit of it, the entire back seat of it. Eight long, irresistible feet of white floral fabric apparently just asking for more color.  Hero Hottie and I walk into the living room to find them standing on the couch, fiercely scribbling away as quickly as their little pudgy arms would go. The entire length was 'decorated' with blue and RED crayon. They grinned at us and showed us their Artwork. Two chubby face smiles, dimples in their cheeks and joy in their eyes.

  Abu, being only two and discovering the joy of crayons and color decided to do more decorating around the house on her own. We had just moved into our house and finished hanging up all the picture frames. One day, there is a drawing underneath one of the them.
     In black crayon.
      Bean insisted that she didn't do it. But Abu won't confess either. The next day, again another drawing underneath another picture.
   Bean is my main suspect because she's four and usually tries to find trouble when I'm not looking.
But she's still insisting it's not her.
  A few more days, this goes on, which is difficult to believe because I don't hardly ever leave them alone in the room, just while moving between rooms and cleaning. But there are scribbles under nearly every picture in the house and still I can't find the black crayon.
   Or the culprit.
   Then one day, I leave the room and wait a few minutes. Quietly, I sneak back into the living room, and there she is...
    Abu, black crayon in hand, underneath a picture, adding her own art to the walls.

    Abu of a thousand expressions, always making faces for my camera. Always passing out smiles to those who have lost there's.

   When Abu was five she had her first loose tooth. And the joy she found in that one simple event is the spirit of her and something I hope is never destroyed or tainted.

   But one day, while she was eating breakfast, or at least attempting to, she stops, frowns and says to me, “There’s something wrong with my tooth. It hurts.” At first I thought that her chipped tooth had worn down enough to cause her pain.

            “Open up.” I said and started looking at teeth. I wiggled one of the front ones. Nothing. Then I wiggled the one next to it and it wiggled. Just a bit, but enough.

            I grinned. “You have a loose tooth.” 

            She grins back, “I do?”

            I nodded and watched her grin grow. “I have a loose tooth.” She says and feels it with her finger and her tongue.

            “This is such a happy day for me.” She says. “I’m having a happy day.”

            And she whirls around the living room, smiling and talking about her tooth.

    

    The other day I go to take a shower and there is a solid plastic, eighteen inch brachoisaurus in my shower. I'm not sure what the creature was waiting for. All his other dinosaur buddies were on the other side of the tub, taking up valuable floor space in our tiny bathroom. But there he was, as if patiently waiting for another bath time. 

   Abu is slowly outgrowing play time with toys. Less and less, she spends time with toys, and so for many years, I cleaned up toys, straightened toys, put away toys, yelled at children to put away toys and then one day, the house was not being taken over by Barbies, dinosaurs, and Polly Pockets. 

    I grinned at the dinosaur in my shower and was glad to see him there. Just a small reminder that Abu isn't totally grown yet and I have time to enjoy her childhood. 

   She drew me a picture of our house. A house that I feel is too small sometimes, or missing character, or isn't quite my dream house. 

   But when I look at that picture...I see something immensely wonderful. I see how the pine tree out front is given a bit of the spotlight, because she has spent hours playing under its branches. I see the light colored door ready for its family to arrive home. I notice the furniture inside where we have dinners together. The hose container out front, which holds the hose that we play with in the summer. 

    I see an inviting house. 

    A house full of love and spirit. And it warms my heart.

    And that's what Abu, if she should ever read this, needs to remember. Part of that house full of love and spirit comes from her. 

   Wonderful, joyful Abu.

  

Day Twenty Four- The Rhythm of the Heart

The Heartbeat

  
     The sound of Bean's heartbeat from the Doppler fetal monitor filled the hushed silence. For a wonderfully still moment, recorded in my heart for all time, her fetus heart pounded out a quick galloping rhythm. And suddenly, after this pregnant woman had questioned herself time and time again in amazement, wondering if a little life actually grew inside her -I could hear her.
   It would be a little while longer until I would be able to feel her movements, her kicks, and hits and her stretches and her bouncy movements to music but before all that I had heard her heartbeat.
   It was strong. Steady. Miraculous.

   Every doctor appointment I held my breath while the doctor pressed the Doppler fetal monitor against my chilled belly skin until the wondrous sound filled the air, bringing a reassurance that Bean was still safely snuggled within my womb.
   What we shared before she was born was the rhythms of our hearts. For, as I could hear hers- nestled within my body, she was listening to my steady adult heartbeat every moment of her days.
   Beat after beat she could hear the familiar drumming of my heart as she grew, as she slept, as she moved in her tiny world. How important is this sound to our babies? Some researchers have tried to studied it, to measure the value of hearing the maternal heartbeat and of course, it's difficult to form a concise statement of importance. Newborns can't explain what they heard in utero and or explain what was important. But place that babe against your chest, with their tiny ears pressed against you and I have to wonder, as they settle down, if they aren't listening to our hearts, to the familiar rhythms that have surrounded them since before they took their first breaths.
  
   Late in the night, as Bean would wake asking for milk, I would feed her and then cuddle her against me, watching her chest move with the beating of her heart, with her even breathing, all working together in the rhythm of life.
   This would never change either, checking to see the heart beat, the breathing moving through her. Even as toddlers and young children, I would quietly tip toe into their rooms at night, before I went off to bed, watching these movements of life to reassure me that Bean and Abu were alright. They would roll over in their bed or flop around, clearly okay since they were moving and still, I would have to see that beat of their heart and hear their breathing before I felt like things were right in the world.

   And then I would cuddle with hero hottie, my ear pressed to his chest so I could hear the strong, masculine beat of his heart.

   From the moment we can hear we are surrounded by the heartbeat. When we are still and quiet, we can pay attention to our own, feeling it beat continuously, sometimes controlled by our emotions, for surely there has to be something about the heart being the center of our emotions. When I'm happy, my beat is sturdy and relaxed. When I'm excited or hyper, it beats frantically, as if to join in with my joy. Fear will make it race. And sadness or grief will make it feel heavy.
   Scientists will explain that the different hormones we produce in relation to our emotions affect the heart. There are physical explanations to all these different things. Regardless of this information, our hearts play a momentous part in regulating the beats of our life.

  We give our hearts away when we are in love...our hearts our broken when love is not returned...our hearts are bursting with joy...our hearts are fragile and vulnerable.
  
   Home is where our heart feels safe and loved.

Day Eighteen- The Wonders of Grocery Shopping Alone

   Since winter arrived today and I'm missing the nice autumn-like weather of the last two weeks I'm going to write a bit of humor today. So yes, I'm grateful for grocery shopping by myself. It is so much easier to accomplish buying groceries when you don't have your own personal helpers to point out everything you  should be buying; like ice cream, cookies, chips; you know, the healthy foods. 
    Shopping alone and in peace, well almost in peace. It's difficult to ignore the piped in music and the harsh glare of fluorescent lighting otherwise it's almost like a spa day or like a mini vacation.
   Almost...if I wasn't going to Wal-Mart. 

Great things can happen on a solo shopping trip.

1. You actually can shop without it becoming another chance for the children to test your patience level. Of course, you still have to deal with shoppers that turn their carts horizontal across the aisle while they're shopping and talking on their cell phones. And you still have to avoid grouchy old ladies that will literally push you out of the way with their carts. What do they do with their cars?
     But you don't have to listen to kids complain about going shopping with you. And when you get up to the check out lane, you don't have a dozen unplanned items that you don't need.

2. You can buy a treat for yourself...and you don't have to share because they don't know about it. The chocolate is finally all yours.

3. You can blare the music in the car while you're driving and its not Backyardigans or the sound track to Shrek. You can play... grown up music.

4. When the hunk in the convertible glances your way, you know its because you're one hot mama and not because the kids are making weird faces that involve straws and nostrils.




5. You can purchase underwear and other unmentionables without your child broadcasting to the entire store personal information about the size and color of your underwear.

   There's plenty of reasons to shop solo. But if I didn't have a budget, I wouldn't go at all. I would hire one of those grocery services that deliver to your door and I would sneak off to the spa instead. Now that's a mini vacation.

Day Seventeen- Abu the Great

   Abu is a character of the funny and cute sort. That kid spreads joy where ever she goes. I remember one time we had gone to her regular dentist for a cleaning and it was right after a friend of his had died and Abu, who was seven at the time, took one look at his long sad face and must have decided to spend the next half an hour trying to cheer him up. She was goofy until she worked a small smile from him and then she was really goofy until he actually laughed. Around the dental equipment she would keep grinning at him until he had to respond because her joy was contagious.
   I'm not sure if she knew why she felt the need to cheer him up but it worked. And she wasn't afraid to either. How many times have been around people lost in grief and didn't say anything because we were afraid of saying the wrong thing?  She was just herself.
   And I have to say I feel blessed to be the Mom of a kid that possesses such a beautiful heart.

   She also has a quirky sense of humor that I would like to share.

When Abu was five, she raided the bathroom for some lotion. I had given her permission to use some. I should have known better. :) 

           Abu comes out, telling me she used all the wonderful colors of the lotions she could find. It had blended together into quite a strong smell but she was excited about something so I hid my grimace. 

            “Smell me, Mommy.” She offers, holding up her leg.

            I smelled it appreciatively and told her that her leg smelled nice.

            “I smell like a rainbow.” She says.

            “Why?” I ask.

            “Because I put all the different lotions on my leg. So they would smell like a rainbow.” She grins.

    One time Abu was eating a bit of Cool Whip, when she comes into the bedroom, white, fluffy Cool Whip was over her face and the biggest grin from ear to ear. And she throws out her arms and proclaims,               
      “Powered by Cool Whip. I am Powered by Cool Whip.” 
    
     (I have seen the power of a kid hyped on Cool Whip. It's too bad they can't bottle the energy of an over sugared kid. It would be cheap, clean and efficient energy.)

   We have a wonderful art cupboard for the girls. I knew Abu thought it was great because her pencils, paints, stickers and paper were in there but I didn't know just how wondrous it was until one day Aunt Stacey and her are searching for a pencil. Abu stands in front of it, grandly gestures towards it and tells Aunt Stacey. 

    “This is where the magic is.”  

   We were getting ready to play math games when Abu says, “I have a little idea.”

            “A little idea?” I asked with a slight chuckle, because my girls never have little ideas. 

           She shakes her head,  “Pretty much a big idea.”

      Ah-ha, now that sounds like the Abu I know. 




   I'm grateful for people like Abu, who pretty much always have big ideas, they believe in the magic of imagination and they're powered by Cool Whip. :)
   Us adults, we're fueled by coffee. And sometimes lots of it. Cool Whip sounds much tastier.

Day Thirteen- Halfway There and Further Away

  So we're halfway there, a couple of days behind schedule and I feel further away from finding an answer than I did before. But I think this is what happens when you get close to some new understanding, obstacles are put in your way. On purpose, I'm sure of it. By who, I can't say. It is God, the universe, ourselves? But why it is when it rains, it pours? Or when we're so close to success, everything goes wrong that could? Like Murphy's Law but with a cosmic twist.
    I had my furnace quit on me. It decided that it couldn't break down during tax refund time or perhaps even after Christmas, it has to go on hiatus two weeks before the holidays. And not only that but it was taunting us. We had air blowing, except it was cold. There's nothing like blowing cold air in a poorly insulated house when it's twenty degrees outside. Brrr.
   The furnace is stuck behind the coat closet, so I emptied out the space into my hallway and living room. How did that much stuff accumulate into one tiny area? And who keeps bringing these things in that we don't need?
    I have a sneaking suspicion of who the culprits are and it's funny how as a Mom, we are prone to believe guilty until proven innocent. But after all, Bean's favorite saying is, "It was an accident."
    Today, I found a bucket of bird feathers under Abu's bed. I'm not sure what the intended purpose of them is or if that is even healthy but they had obviously been carefully collected and saved. Why is this info important, probably because children notice the little things in life that we have become too busy and hectic to pay attention to. Finding their little treasures reminds me, to use a cliche, stop and smell the flowers. Or if I don't have time to collect bird feathers with Abu than I'm probably doing too much. Just like most Moms. Just like most parents.
   But how hard is it to find time when life falls apart around you.

    Luckily with hero hottie's uncle working in the repairing business our furnace fix was cheaper than it could have been. It was only $450 instead of $800.  The gift of heat is priceless though.
    This number will either make you cringe for me or you'll shake your head and wonder why this is such a big deal for me. Money is based off perception. For people that have plenty of it they don't understand that obtaining the basics is a struggle. Daily. Relentless. Without break.
   The movie, 'In Time' tells this story for survival quite well I thought. And I'm not even a big Justin Timberlake fan, I thought the movie was fairly well done. Sad though. Just switch money for time and it's no different.

   Bean, Abu and I are going to make ornaments this weekend- in between getting ready for Christmas and finding time to catch up on my blog entries. Sorry about my daily blessings being a bit behind. It's ironic that I'm writing about finding faith but then I get so busy I'm having trouble finding the time to practice it. And if the furnace was the only thing this week I would dismiss it but since it's only one of a long list of things that have gone wrong, I almost feel like it's a challenge. The universe is asking, "Are you serious about finding faith or can you be easily dissuaded if a few more problems come your way?"
   I would have to answer, "It depends on the problems. I would have to bow out if I have to eat rotten cow brains, like on Fear Factor. Yuck!"
   Joking aside, I think we all have times where we feel like things grow tougher when they're already tough and I don't know why this happens. There has to be rhyme and reason to it but it's a question I don't have an answer for.

  So sometimes I have to say having faith feels like a game of Fear Factor. Which I'm not sure if it's proper to compare it to a game show but that's just the mood I'm in right now. You have to have humor to make it in this world without turning bitter in the end.
   Perhaps a little glitter on the floor, left over from our ornament making, will remind me what's important.

Day Eleven- Casper the cat and his sad start

    It was nearly summer in Oregon. And we actually had a bit of sunshine. The house we had moved into during my fifth grade year was in a cul-de-sac, so although across the street on one side was the horrid railroad track; on the other side of us, between the two houses built in the arch of the cul-de-sac was a gate to the city park.
    What kid doesn't love having a park next door to them. It didn't have a playground, but it had a track, baseball fields, tennis courts and big trees to climb.
    Lining the park was a eight foot chain link fence, separating the houses from city property. They didn't have much privacy but it was difficult for people to trespass into their yards. One of my new friends lived in one of these houses and I spent quite a bit of time over there, especially since I could walk to her house.
     Her name was Sam and she had wild, tangly yellow curls, was willow branch thin and jumpy like a popcorn kernel in oil. We played Barbies in her huge, old- fixer up house, that had more old than fix, and out in her yard where her Dad let the grasses grow as tall as her we played pretend. We would keep an eye on the park and when we saw someone we knew we would struggle through the grasses to reach the fence and chat for a while. If middle school was awful, at least the friends I had made around the neighborhood were great.
 
     One day we were skipping through the wilds of her backyard when a five year boy named Laser started yelling at us from the park. He was always roaming the streets on his bicycle; left alone and lonely; he lacked compassion because in his own short life he had been shown very little. Always finding trouble, he was constantly showing us small toys and candy he had stolen from either the store or other people's houses. This time he was carrying around a square metal lunchbox that had been clearly taken from someone else. But it was what was in it that would end up being quite shocking.
     "Hey, come here. I have something to show." He hollers, starving so much for attention that even as a fifth grader I could sense the desperation that clung to him. But there wasn't anything I could do for him.
     I looked at Sam and shook my head. "It's probably stolen."
    She nods, "Let's go see."
    We get to the fence and he's kicking the lunchbox around. Then tossing it up in the air or throwing it across the grass. Each time it lands with a thud. Each time something rattles inside it.
    "I have something in here." He says and gives it another hard kick.
   "Okay, so show us." I said, rolling my eyes. I rather be playing with Sam then playing a guessing game with a five year old.
   Sam agrees with me. "What?"
   He smirks. "I have cats in there."
   We both frown. "Yeah, right."
   He squints his eyes, his dark eyes completely serious. "No, I have baby cats in there. I took them from their mom. I killed the other babies. Drowned them in a puddle of water. But I have two left."
   I froze, staring at the lunchbox lying on the grass. It's grimy and dented from being tossed around. Was there baby cats in there?
   "Show us." I say, wishing the fence wasn't so high because I would simply grab it from him if I could. Instead, I had to convince him to throw us the lunchbox. Sam looks at me, and her wide eyed shock says it all. We have to see if he's telling the truth.
   "They're still alive." He boosts.
   "We want to see. Throw us the box." I smile.
   "You won't give it back." He grabs the box and holds it tight.
   Sam shakes her head. "No, we'll give it right back. Just let us see them."
   "Throw us the box. We'll look and give it right back." I act like I'm not lying. A feat that's difficult for me. I'm not a liar, but if he has cats in there...we have to get them. We have to save them.
    It takes a few more minutes to convince him that we will give him the lunchbox right back after we take a peek. He's eager to show us his 'prize' and is fairly easy to win over. Finally he agrees.
   "Catch it." He tosses the lunchbox over the fence. As it flies through the air, I'm praying that I won't drop it and then it lands in my arms and the breath I had been holding rushes out.
   We quickly kneel on the ground, with Laser on the other side of the fence watching us intently. Sam gives me a look, an expression that matches my own. We don't want to see what might be in the box. The thought is horrifying.
   Then we hurry to unlatch it, flipping the lid open and peering inside. We are stunned into silence. A thick feeling of dread and horror fills me as I hesitantly touch the two, incredibly tiny baby kittens, nestled together with an alarming lack of any movement.
   We look up at Laser, who isn't saddened by what he has done but is smiling, now that he has shown someone what he has.
   "Are they dead?" Sam whispers, reaching out and stroking the kittens. They are no bigger than the palm of my hand, their eyes shut tightly and their bodies fuzzy but not furry. Their tails are naked and they barely look like cats. I've never seen a baby cat before and the sight would be amazing if it wasn't for what had just happened to them.
  "I don't know." I touch the soft black and white body. The kitten is warm...and breathing. "Yes. Oh, my gosh. Sam. They're alive."
  "What do we do?" she asks, picking one of them up and holding it close to her warm body. I pick up the other one and snuggle him between my palms. They make small mewing sounds.
   "Hey, give them back." Laser demands.
   I look at him and shake my head. "You are not getting this cats back. Go. Go home."
   Angry cuss words stream from his mouth but we ignore him.
   "My Mom will know. She has had kittens before. Hurry." We run to my house, holding the kittens close and burst into the house, our frantic story tumbling from our lips in such a rush I don't know if she understood at first what has happened but she sees the helpless creatures in her hands and goes right to work.
   She pulls out a box from the garage, sets a heating pad in the bottom, followed by a blanket and sets them in there. A small towel becomes their blanket, an eyedropper is used to feed them. Over the course of the next few days she spends hours with them, a boy and a girl, keeping them warm, wiping their bottoms so they can poop, and feeding them one drop at a time. Their mews grow louder, their movements stronger... and then they start sneezing and their mews grow faint again.
    The girl kitten dies and we bury her in the flower bed.
    We take the boy kitten to the vet, who diagnoses him with pneumonia and shakes his head sadly. He explains that the kittens were only a few hours old when Laser stole them from their mother. The kittens didn't receive much, if any, of the valuable colostrum milk and this last surviving kitten's chances were near zero. He gave him an antibiotic shot for free, compassion in the gentle way he handled him and sent us home.
    The boy kitten who we named, Casper, struggled to breathe. Mom kept feeding him, getting up every couple of hours to nurse him. I spent time petting him and talking to him but we still didn't know if he was going to make it. 
   
    Then the sneezing stops, the runny nose dries up and his mews grows strong. He starts trying to move around and he's eager to wiggle against Mom when it's feeding time. After a while his eyes open. He's growing and turning into a kitten, walking and rolling around. His black and white fur grows fluffy.
    A bit more time passes and he survives. He's a full grown cat, healthy and sassy and he lived a long and happy life, thinking he was a real boy not a cat but that was because he didn't know how to be a real cat. 

    I look back at Casper's rough start. It was a terrible way to join the world. And what must have happened to Laser in his short life to cause him to behave with such cruelty? What must he had done after that? Children that are cruel to animals are prone to take that cruelty further. I think teaching children compassion towards animals is highly important. It's part of the bigger picture, acting with compassion in all aspects of our life.
   It was lack of compassion on so many levels that almost killed Casper. It killed the rest of his siblings in a horrible, violent manner.
   But it was compassion from a few different people that saved him. Humanity can't function without compassion. And it starts with teaching our children as soon as they're born.
   The human race needs compassion, without it we can't even find the road to our faith.

Day Nine- Middle School Hell

   Some times the things we don't realize are blessings at the time end up being some of the most important events in our life. They're path changers. Forks in the roads. Speed bumps so big they threw us onto another street. And often times that's what it feels like too, a kick in the rear.

   
    Half way through fifth grade my family had to move. The rental house that we had lived in, the one right across the street from my elementary school, was being sold. I had been attending this elementary school since half way through first grade and I had friends, buddies, boys that I had known for years that I like to beat at wall ball and math. It was a decent school and I was finally inside the building for class. I had waited years to be a big kid.
    (Fifth and Sixth grade were in the actual school building, they had lockers and a warm hallway. The other grades opened to the outside and you had to travel across the courtyard to reach the music room, the library, the office and the lunch room.)
     But all that didn't matter. I had to tell my teachers and friends I was moving, pack up my room, sit in the trees in my yard one last time. The trees that I would spend hours in. Sitting in their big, beautiful branches reading books, or playing pretend or waiting for Mom to get home from the grocery store because I was so high up I could see the road she would be driving on.
    It was change and I thought not such a great one, especially when we had to move to a completely different town to find an affordable rental house. My Dad's commute was now longer and we would have to ride a bus to school, instead of just walking across the street.

   Next to our house, right across the road and then a small field was a railroad track. That night in our new house, Dad laid all our mattresses on the living room floor, since he hadn't had time to put the beds together. It was strange, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the new house. Watching the odd shadows play on the walls. And then, the Amtrak train, traveling at around eighty miles per hour, rumbled past our house. The windows shook, my mattress vibrated and the sound roared loudly in the ears. My parents sighed and I knew they were just as unhappy about the move as us kids were.

   The schools in this district were divided differently than my last school. Fifth through eighth grades were in middle school. Suddenly I went from being an elementary student to being a middle schooler. Yikes. My fifth grade teacher was crazy. She had a metal stool she liked to pick up and smack against the linoleum when ever she was upset with us, which was just about every day.
   We had gangs in the school, luckily not into a lot of on-campus violence but there was more than enough vandalism, thievery, and bullying to keep the school in a constant state of tension, fear, and anger.
   By sixth grade, the battle field lines were drawn between the girls, you were either on one side and popular or you were on the other side and clearly not popular. I made things complicated by being friends with JD,one of the popular girls at the same time while also being considered teacher's pet because I enjoyed school.
   This wasn't an ideal situation and pretty soon JD wasn't my friend and I was deemed an easy target by the other girls. I was still a kid in sixth grade and not ready for the 'Mean Girl' environment. I only had one bad teacher in sixth grade, he came to school high on something and unable to teach math. We scrapped by just enough to count for test scores.
   By seventh grade I had a knot in my stomach every day before school. I had an hour bus ride in the morning and whereas I had a funny bus driver, his jokes were highly inappropriate and dirty. On top of the way he would flirt with the high school girls, it was not a great bus ride. My brother would get on the bus with me but he had to stay on longer than I did and was picked on horribly as soon as I wasn't there to protect him. In school he was losing ground in math and my sister was being taught that you can spell a word any way you want and it's correct.
   The girls were horribly cruel to each other and all the jokes were demeaning and heartless. The P.E. teachers were sadistic if you weren't athletic and my science teacher would threaten to kill us and stuff us in the cupboards if we didn't behave.
    It was not an ideal learning environment. And probably not even that safe.
    So I suggested to my parents that they should home school me. A couple of weeks later, when the situation had reached a boiling point for all of us siblings, they decided to take us out of school and do it at home. I'm not sure if my siblings were in full agreement, my brother didn't like school no matter where it was and my sister liked being around other kids. But the school district had failed us in so many ways and we couldn't transfer some where else.
 
   Home schooling was easy for me. I was already a good student, it wasn't any different at home except it only took about three hours a day to finish my work. What kid doesn't mind being done in less than half the time as before? We took field trips, studied things that were important and interesting, my Mom read Mark Twain to us, I read the other classics, and we volunteered at quite a few places to interact with people and the world. I wasn't stuck in Middle School Hell anymore, I was out in the real world and it was wonderful.
I didn't even wake up with a stomach ache anymore.
    I had freedom to be myself. I had time to think, to learn, to feel safe. I still had friends, but I didn't have bullies.
   At the end of that year I was testing beyond the high school level. The person administering the test suggested I skip high school and move right into college. I didn't because I wasn't ready emotionally for such a huge step but it was a confidence boost for my parents.
   They took us out of school and took on the task of being our teachers. Especially my Mom. She didn't have a background in teaching but she was going to take that leap of faith and cross her fingers that it worked because she knew we couldn't stay at the schools we were going to.
    It took courage and faith. And sometimes in life we have to take that leap. Sort of like Indiana Jones when he has to cross the bridge except he can't actually see it...he just has to have faith that it is there.
   We can make all the plans we want but when it comes down to it, sometimes the best things are the changes we make with nothing more to guarantee that we're on the right path than our faith.
    That's a tough one to follow but I'm sure glad my Mom did.

    

Day Six- The Blessing of Being a Parent

   I was pregnant with Abu and tired. It was winter and bitterly cold outside. This meant I had spent an entire day stuck in the house trying to entertain Bean, who was just a toddler.

    And if there is one thing I realized quickly, is that as soon as my kid could walk; parenting in nice weather is a heck of a lot easier than in bad weather. We love being outside. My girls practically live outside in the summer, cutting down on our chances of being bored.

    But back to my parenting tale. Hero hottie and I decided we were going to watch movies for the evening since he was exhausted from working all day and I was pregnant. Sitting down and doing nothing sounded great. Wonderful. Blissful.

    We bundled Bean in her thick winter coat that makes buckling her car seat nearly impossible and we were off to Blockbuster.
     Slowly we made our way down long row of  New Releases with Bean toddling slightly ahead of us and looking at all the video cases at her eye level.
     Towards the end of the row she pauses and frowns heavily.
    All day I had ran around chasing her, or telling her 'no' or feeding her. Her list of things to accomplish for the day hadn't included a nap, she had been so active. But suddenly she was looking quite pale and just a bit green. What had seemed like just normal tiredness was suspiciously looking like something a bit more sinister.
     Then, without any sort of warning, she projectile vomits over the video cases, the shelf and the floor. Hero hottie and I gasped. Puke is all the place. And we're shocked that someone so little could produce such a foul smelling mess...and so quickly.
     It takes us a moment to collect our wits. How can one small toddler contain so much puke potential in her tiny belly? I can't believe how many video cases she has managed to cover in one powerful shot.
     Hero hottie finally snaps into action and goes looking for some cleaning supplies while I use some baby wipes to clean up Bean's face. She looks like she's going to throw up again and I have a feeling we better head home quickly.
     The clerk at the desk is young, under the age of eighteen and you would think that he has never dealt with vomit before because it appears from the revealing shade of green he has turned that he's experiencing some shared queasiness.
      Hero hottie cleans up a bit and the -ready to puke- clerk heads over to the spot to finish up.
      Luckily, Bean manages to make it home before vomiting anymore. By this time she's sick and fussy and demanding.
      I sigh. At least I have hero hottie to help me care for her.
      Or so I thought. As we get home and settled in, changing Bean's clothes and cleaning her up, he rushes for the bathroom.
      At least he didn't puke in Blockbuster.
      The rest of the evening was spent between two sick rooms and cleaning a lot of buckets. Oh, life.

 
      I thought about starting this blog article with just telling you that being a parent is a blessing even though some things stink. But I decided on using humor to show  you that some times being a parent really does stink.    
      Literally.  :)

      It's a hard job, being a parent. The hardest. In what other job are you responsible for the happiness, care, growth, general well being and forming of a decent human being? Not just part, like what a school teacher does, or like a nurse or doctor, but for practically every thing?
      It makes you stronger being a parent. You have to be or no one would get fed, or dressed, or have school papers signed. Thinking back to my pre-parent days I know without a doubt that young Christy couldn't juggle every thing I have to do as a parent. And yes, not all of it is fun. Dishes and laundry could do themselves and I would be so over joyed. I'm so happy that Bean and Abu are getting old enough to fold laundry and dry dishes. It makes life easier. (They disagree with that statement.:)
       But I LOVE being a parent. Even on the worse days, like when my kid is using puke as a weapon to stink up the entire Blockbuster, I enjoy and cherish every smile, every I Love You, every hug and every drawing. The things I have learned from being a parent are incredible.
      Being reminded of childhood and all the innocent joys of it, while being allowed the special privilege of traveling the beginning part of Bean's and Abu's journey, is priceless. There is not a single thing in the world I would ever trade in exchange for being their Mom.
     
      So being a parent is a blessing. I've learn so much about:
      love, (a baby curled under your chin while rocking them to sleep is one the best things in the world)
      curiosity, (because your head will get stuck again in the rails if you try it a second time)
      strong wills (thanks Bean, who when told to stay sitting on the chair in time out simply moved her chair to reach her toys),
      humor (Because there's something uniquely funny about a child's humor in the fact that burps, gas, and sneezes are always something to laugh about)
      patience (because for as many times as you can say 'no' they still manage to ask one more time)
      laughter (they know the secret to managing stress and it has to do with belly laughs)
      priorities (children remember what is important in life- taking time to play, laugh, and snuggle)


     Children are blessings. No doubt about it.

     - I just hope Blockbuster cleans their video cases from time to time. :)

Day One- Teenage Parents

  


  I seethed with all the rage my fourteen year old self could muster...which didn't amount to much as I was the good sibling. So a very unflattering glare, accompanied by a loud, childish stomping tantrum up the stairs was my rebellion.
     Followed by slamming my bedroom door.
     There. That would show them.
     Those uncaring, non understanding, always telling me what to do-
     PARENTS!!

    They simply didn't get me. I know they didn't. How could they? There were old and couldn't understand what it was like to be a teenager. Especially if they were going to laugh at me while I was trying to make a statement with my purposeful stomp up the stairs.
    I threw myself onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling, clearly experiencing the most horrible of ordeals- A teenager trying to talk with her parents.
     Were all parents so tough to communicate with?
      They didn't even speak the same language as me.
      And they weren't any fun. All they did was work, clean and drive us kids around.
     I flipped on my music and ignored the happy family sounds coming from downstairs.
    After a while of pouting I was bored but unwilling to leave my room. What to do?
    I idly sifted through my special box. Silly things, precious things, just a small collection of my first fourteen years of life. Nothing real special. And then...photos of my very young teenage parents, smiling shyly into the camera, looked up at me.
     My Dad wore a blue long sleeve shirt with a seventies styled print on the front. He was barely eighteen and was already taking on the responsibilities of a wife and child. But he smiled.
     My Mom was beautiful in her high school photo, wavy blond hair, much like a Charlie's Angel, dressed in a blouse of red, brown, and orange. She had taken her glasses off and her brilliantly blue eyes sparkled.
    They had been teenage parents back when society wasn't quite as demanding, as say the fifties, for having to wed just for the baby. But it was still expected and assumed.
    My Mom said they didn't marry just because I was coming along though. They married because they were madly in love with each other. I always thought that was cool. Probably the start of my wildly romantic notions.

    My fourteen year old self sighed at the photos. They weren't much older than me and suddenly they had found themselves trying to raise a baby without any higher education, or great job prospects.
    The idea of it was frightening. I could never imagine being such a young mom. Ever.
    I flopped back on my bed, still mad at them but wondering how they did it. How did they raise me while being kids themselves? It must have been so difficult.

    Years later, I look back at my young self and my lack of understanding. Without having the experience of being a grown up and having my own children, answering those questions wasn't possible at the time.
    How had they done it? Through the rough start, poor paying jobs, crappy apartments, health issues and not much family support, how had they pulled it off?
    My answer leads me to love. It started with love and it is what has driven most of their decisions.


    They met in high school, surprisingly I live just a mile or two away from it even though I spent my childhood 1100 miles away from where the path of my remembered existence started.
    (I don't recall the time before my birth. Although, I would love to. Abu, when she was a toddler would always tell me about the angel house she was waiting in before her birth. Probably just fanciful stories of a small child but I will always wonder...)

    Anyway, it was a typing class that changed their life. I'm not sure if they learned how to type in that class or if they were too busy exchanging giggles, blushes, and grins.
    But I am completely grateful that they were forced to take that class together.

   From there, they were together and some time when my Mom was seventeen I was on my way. Ready or not.  With a great amount of courage and stubbornness and with the help of a special teacher my Mom graduated from high school.
   I will always feel gratitude towards that teacher, even though I never met her. She was there for my Mom, helping her accomplish something that was important for my Mom to be able to say 'I did it.'
    Angels come in all shapes and sizes.
  
    My parents married and from there on out it was full speed into motherhood and unfortunately the eighties. :) Luckily, her taste in music was hard rock not Madonna or Tiffany. Thank you Mom!

   Until I became a parent I never realized just how tough it must have been for them. How many hard decisions and difficult times they endured all in the name of love.
   Love for each other.
   Love for me and then my siblings.

  So on Day One of my blessings I find that the path to reclaiming my faith starts with love.

  I think it might even be the main ingredient.

  I thank my parents for giving me that firm and unshakable foundation. I hope and pray for my readers that they had someone in their own childhoods that gave them that same starting point. If not a parent; perhaps a grandparent, teacher, coach or neighbor.
   Call them, if you can and tell them thanks.

   I wish my fourteen year self had known just how important and tough her hippie wannabe parents were... if she had, she wouldn't have spent the next year finding trouble. (grin)

All Tickets Have Been Sold for The Sanity Boat

     Hero hottie is a great guy. He's helpful, playful, and always tries to do the right thing.
     What he isn't though is...patient. And maybe it's a guy thing, since males always seem to be loud and active and building things or tearing things down. Or perhaps it's a parent thing, we get so busy we can't seem to slow down.
      And maybe that's just the way he is. But he tries to hide it, contain it, not let it control him.
     'Tries' is the word here.
    
      Children though...they know and they're not afraid to tell you like it is.
      
      So one day, about a year and a half ago, hero hottie, CT and I were at Borders. (Ahh, I miss that bookstore.) We were browsing and lingering and not in any great hurry for once. But it didn't matter, CT goes toddling over to her Uncle, with the most serious look on her face.
      "Here is your patience, Uncle." She pinches her fingers together like she's picking something up from the palm of her hand and carefully, as not to drop any, hands it to him.
     "What?" He asks, studying her tiny fingers.
     "I have some patience for you, Uncle. Here take it." And she tries to hand him the invisible patience that she held so delicately in her hand.
     He laughs hard and lets her put the 'patience' in his hand. She grins at him, clearly satisfied that he has some patience now.
    Lesson learned.

  

   The other day I was busy. So busy that not even coffee could help, nor chocolate.

   Perhaps a personal assistant. I would have taken one of those.

   I was watching four children all from the ages of 10 years down to a year. While I was trying to feed them a snack, keep them entertained and keep Bug from eating every thing off the ground, because she truly hopes it's a bug and she will try to eat it...I was also taking photos of my sister's Christmas crafts. (You can see a few pics below.)
    What this crazy? Yes. I had a long sheet of paper hanging from my entertainment center to a tray. I had my professional camera perched on top of  my tripod in the middle of the living room which is normally alright and safe for my equipment, except when you have Abu and CT trying to sneak under the legs of the tripod to play.
      I had fake garland strung from my curtain rods and tied around a chair which sat on top of my table. My sister was helping with the kids but it was still a bit chaotic.
     The children didn't mind at all. They were loving it. There were cool houses to play with and decorations to touch and just so much to help with. I was wrong, I have four personal assistants, I don't need another one. :)
     Stop shaking your head at me and muttering under your breath about crazy women trying to accomplish too much. I was using natural lighting for the photos. And no matter how much I pleaded with the sun to stay up a few extra hours in the evening so I could take the photos after the children weren't around, it strangely wasn't listening to me. Go figure. (grin)
      It was all going pretty well until I couldn't find something. Then frustration started to kick in.
      "What are you looking for Aunt Christy?" CT asks.
      "My sanity."
      She jumps onto the couch and looks at everyone in the room. "Everyone get on the sanity boat. Aunt Christy come ride on the sanity boat."
     If only there was a boat for that.
    But then I'm sure all the tickets would be sold out.

    Later I'm talking with Grandma about our busy afternoon.
    CT joins the conversation. "Grandma. Aunt Christy didn't find her sanity. She was looking for it but she couldn't find it." Then she sighs and shakes her head slowly as if to say poor Aunt Christy.
    
    I guess the boat left without me this week.  :)



Here are some pics....

                 I think the photos turned out well considering I didn't have any professional lighting and I had four personal assistants. :)

 The children kept pulling the top off this one because of all the spooky decorations inside.

I think they wanted to eat the fake candy canes. Luckily they weren't real otherwise they would have disappeared. :)