Let Me Count the Ways...

Oh dear, dear social media....How I love thee...and hate thee...and make fun of thou users so, so frequently...

I know it's wrong to judge in any situation, but Facebook just makes it toooooo easy.

Our first official snow day is on the books for today.  Along with many other moms, I find it annoying that there is no actual snow on the ground.  School was cancelled due to the anticipation of driving conditions.  I've always been a fan of how they did it in Ottawa.  They would cancel school bus transportation but not school.  So, if a parent needs to go to work anyway, they can drop their child off at school and pick them up.  I'm not sure if the day counted against a student who could not make it to school but I'm pretty sure it was unexcused.

Anyway, back to social media.  I still find it remarkable how social media has the effortless ability to reconnect people from all stages of life and all parts of the world.  Because of Facebook, I have been able to reconnect with my childhood friend who lived down the block and an entire community of people I went to camp with when I was a kid (Diabetic camp can wait for a future post).

I also find it equally remarkable that so many people use social media to commend themselves for how awesome they are while inadvertently criticizing the moms that are not organizing closets and making schedules for learning activities and teaching quantum physics.   And while I may be admitting my own inadequacy, I refuse to post my family accomplishments and act like it's just another normal day.  I think I'm a pretty fantastic mom, but I guess I just don't feel the need to broadcast it online since I feel that it does more harm than good.  At the same, I won't "un-friend" these people for some reason.  Maybe its my fascination with people that are very hard to like.

For example, we have spent no less than 2 hours of the morning working on a pretty bad ass shoe box diorama.  And I may go so far as to put a pic on Facebook of said masterpiece.  But what I won't do is post the picture and include a quote that says something like, "So excited about the shoe box diorama that Meghan chose to do after she completed her math practice first thing this morning!, this kid just doesn't stop with her intellectual development!".  What I will probably post is, "Check out Meg's sweet shoebox diorama, control freak mommy had a hard time keeping my hands off of it!".  What's the difference, you ask.  The difference is that I'm proud of my kids, without a doubt.  But the only thing bragging about it does is make other moms feel like crap.  They are reading through Facebook updates with coffee in hand and kids watching TV and thinking "ugh, I should probably do a better job today". When the truth is, that its a snow day.  And all of our kids are going to be fine whether they watch TV all day, practice math problems, or fight their siblings all day.

Which by the way, I'm pretty sure my kids will be accomplishing all three.

Cooking

We just got home from a week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina with three of our favorite families. It was a great week of beach and kids and laughs and a few cocktails. In past years, each family has taken a night to cook dinner, with a few nights leftover for take-out and restaurants. This year, however, we changed it up a little and two families shared one night, leaving more open time to go out or do whatever. As my husband was making crab cakes and seasoning chicken and potatoes and running up and down the stairs to the grill, I realized that while I might be an exceptional sous chef to my own personal iron chef, I should probably try a little harder in the cooking department. So as fall sneaks up right around the corner and school begins and schedules ensue, I'm making it my goal for the school year to actually cook meals for my family. No more frozen pizza and chicken nuggets. I'm publicly proclaiming to the 4 people that subscribe to my blog that I WILL COOK! My plan is to plan. I need to get my act together on Sunday and plan what I'm going to cook that will work with our schedule and that uses realistic ingredients. And of course it needs to taste good. Not great...just good. I was inspired by the fact that I just watched the movie based on Julia Child called Julia and Julia, but I'm not planning on any coq au vin for the fam. With my friend the crock-pot and Pinterest as my guide, I will conquer the kitchen. Or at least a small portion of it. Stay tuned!

Quickie on Cars!!!

Just a quick update! We painted with Matchbox cars on Thursday after school and it was fun! Maybe only for ten minutes but I'll take it! Today we are at the beach and MT had her 6 year old check up... So I showed up with munchkins when I picked her up from school... Not proud of it but I think it counts given the circumstances and she was pretty psyched. Even said to our doc that "we pretty much do something special every day." Which made me pretty happy!

Re-LENT-less!

While I would not call myself a dedicated Catholic, by any means, every year, I try to honor the Lenten commitment by doing something to better myself. To the discontent of my husband, I have given up coffee which makes me completely unbearable and maybe only slightly healthier, I've given up caffeine resulting in the same effect, and I've got lists of other "sacrifices" that I've been both successful and lacking.

This year I decided to go double duty. I went simple with self-improvement and vowed to drink at least 64 oz. of water daily. It's something that I always want to do and for a long list of excuses, it never gets done. The second half of 40 days and 40 nights is something that is definitely not a sacrifice but a commitment.

I am determined to do something fun and special with my kids every day. While this should not be something that a Catholic tradition should be forcing me to do, I realized that I need it. With the dawn of the Pinterest phenomenon, there is no reason why I can't find something intriguing to do with my kids every day. My road is very solidly paved with good intentions, so in this glorious Lenten season, I plan to make Pinterest my bible and make it happen.

My six year old has been a little lacking in the behavior department lately so I also feel that this will be a good way to set a better example and to keep my from yelling and correcting as much as have been. So we will see! I like to call my project, I mean my religious re-birth, "40 Days and 40 Sites". I couldn't really think of anything more clever. That may be because I just finished cleaning up dog barf from the carpet and my creative juices are not exactly flowing. But if I come up with something better, I'm sure God won't mind if I make a slight adjustment.

Day One was an overachievement! After a quick visit to the dentist to make sure there was no permanent nerve damage to Justin's tooth we came home and made corn muffins with sprinkles. Justin decided to take a header into the tile floor the other night while wrapped in a towel after bathtime. He is very quick to tell you that Meggie was chasing him and that it's all her fault, proving his quick learned ability to be an annoying little brother. I think he is going to easily fine tune that skill as the years progress.

Back to the corn muffins. I had originally planned on making a scratch batch of muffins with healthy things like apples and pumpkin and then I remembered that Justin is 2. So I got the box of Jiffy corn bread mix and we went to town. After 14 minutes in the oven, it was dry, cardboard, slightly corn tasting delisciousness and Justin got to tell Meg that he made something for her!

After we picked Meg up from the bus stop, we came home and enjoyed a corn brick and proceeded to make paint from water, corn-starch and food coloring. We made it in the same muffin pan that the bricks were baked in and painted the driveway a little. Even though the painting only lasted about 15 minutes, Meg was excited to do something special and the first thing she said after coming inside was "thank you." Mission accomplished for the first day! It was also an unexpected 60 degrees today which did not hurt!

For dinner, we made pancakes shaped like bunny rabbits with white chocolate chips. I'm not a big fan of pancakes, but the chocolate may have changed that a bit! Again, pancakes were Bisquick, people. Don't be too impressed.

And to finish the night off, we watched a show in our jammies and the dog barfed on the carpet, two inches away from the hardwood floor. And yes, I do think that at 11 years old, she should know that its much easier for me to clean up off of the hardwood as opposed to the carpet.

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone! I plan on updating each day (or every other day, realistically) with what I accomplish. More because it will make me follow through with my promise and hopefully you will all get some sort of weird enjoyment out of it. All 3 of you that follow this blog. Whom I love dearly for making me feel important : )

Still Learning...

As I reflect on the month of September and how quickly it passed, I feel exhuasted in every way imaginable.
The month began with a lot of tears and ended with a lot of sparkle, with retirement and anniversaries and many other events plunked in the middle.

Summer came and went without my being able to prepare myself for the giant yellow school bus coming my way that was literally and figuratively taking my daughter away. And unlike lots of other moms who were so looking forward to the start of a new school year, I spent two full hours crying uncontrollably on the night before Meg's first big day. My tears were only interrupted by my husband's sporadic warnings to not let my daughter see me in such a state the following day or he would seek professional help and question my ability to be home during the school day with my two year-old.
So, as the bus pulled away the next morning, I smiled and waved and felt a sense of pride that I have never felt before despite the other feeling of complete emptiness that was still creeping around in my heart. I realized that the previous five and a half years were mine. Mine to teach and learn and mess up and laugh and cry. But most of all, they were mine. I was the one that was responsible for all of the good and all of the bad (within reason, of course). And now all of these other people were involved, most of which I didn't even know. And all of those other people didn't love her 1/100th the amount that I love that little girl. (And so begin the tears again as I type.)
How would they know when she was upset and why? How would they know that she was nervous when she started asking a million questions? Or that she is tired when she starts to twirl her hair? And what would happen if someone was mean to her? How had I lost control of everything so quickly?

So in typical control freak manner, I did frequent and VERY slow drive-by's of the school, filled the teacher's inbox with lots of detail-oriented emails, volunteered in the classroom, chaperoned the field trip and still considered pulling her out of the school and moving her somewhere else.

And then one day at the Y, I heard myself talking about my struggles (emphasis on the MY since Meghan seemed to be managing pretty well), and what I heard got on my OWN nerves. And it was then that I realized that the teacher and school were not going to determine my daughter's success. It was those five years that were going to do that. Those years that were mine to teach and to learn and to laugh and to cry now needed to start to pay off. I needed to be confident in Meg's ability to thrive in any environment and confident in the last five years of my parenting to make her that way.

I read all of the parenting magazines about helping your child transition to school and how to let go and it all sounds so obvious and easy. But none of those prepared me for the true feeling of moving onto this new stage of both my and my family's life. But every time I start to feel that pit in my stomach, I remember what my sister in law told me the day before school started.

"We do the best we can do so they can fly. Let her fly tomorrow. She will be amazing."

And tears. Again.

It's Been A While

I had to take a little sebaticle from blogging in order to carry out my obligations as a matron of honor which included satisfying my obsessions with party planning via spreadsheets and checklists.
So as the school year came to an end and the summer took it's first breath, so did I. I was excited about the idea of not having to get up every morning and head to school. That excitement faded very, very quickly and I found myself searching desperately for a mantra that I could repeat in my head to get me through just the first hour of the morning. And then I realized something. I had my summers and my cartoons and my free time.

This is their time now and this is my job.

So there it is...my mantra...it's kind of boring and not nearly as introspective as I consider myself, but it is what it is. This is my job. When I used to work full-time, I couldn't just yell at my co-workers because they were testing my patience and getting on my nerves. I had to walk away and take a deep breath and focus my frustration elsewhere. This is my job. Add the emotional aspect of my co-workers being my children and take another deep breath. This is my job.

Now add the reality that the stress of summer may be impacting my 5 year-old substantially more. Said stress is manifesting itself in a recent and pretty prominent eye-twitch along with a consistent tendency to drop things on the floor (a full bowl of cereal this morning) and melt down within 10 minutes of getting out of bed. OTake several deep breaths. This is my job.

I lOVE my kids, I really like my job, my co-workers...DEEP BREATH :)

Car Trouble...

As many of you probably do, I spend a lot of time in the car every day. My kids are usually in tow, so I try my best to make the car as enjoyable and exciting as possible, but there are only so many games of "I Spy" that can be played. And every once in a while there is a prolonged moment of silence in which I can contemplate very important questions that I have about the universe. Those navigational deep thoughts are actually what made me want to start this blog in the first place.

Not too long ago, someone in the tri-state area had the brilliant (insert sarcasm here) idea to print personalized white stickers meant to be adhered to a portion (sometimes a rediculously large portion) of one's windshield. I have seen said stickers with anything from a cartoon peeing on a Ford emblem to a full obituary. It's the latter that I really have an issue with.

While I'm sure that all of the people who have decided to pay tribute to a loved one have the most sincere of intentions, is it really necessary to broadcast, not to mention distract, to the entire driving population that you have suffered a loss? Call me insensitive, but do you really think that the deceased is going to be truly touched that you dedicated your windshield to them. Or is it that these people haven't realized that that is precisely what they are doing.

People purchase park benches in the favorite places of the deceased and display a lovely plaque stating the seat is in loving memory of that person that is gone. Someone even wrote a book about benches on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk and placed images of the deceased being honored on their respective bench. Those friends and family members probably did so because of that person's love of that vacation spot.

So does that mean that the person you are dedicating your windshield to loved to sit on your car. Even if they loved to sit IN your car, isn't there something else you could do, other than support the living of some guy who figured out how easy it is to print windshield stickers?

Again, I don't mean to criticize those who may have experienced a tough time recently, I just find it strange that they actually thought that would be a good way to honor someone that they obviously cared so much about. Or is it also possible that there is a small part of the sentimental driver that wants the attention drawn to their selfless gesture. Ok, that's pretty insensitive, but it's exactly what I think everytime I see one of those stickers. And the more elaborate the more selfish I think it is.

So for all of those I love and care for, when I'm gone, please do not feel the need to immortalize me on your mode of transportation. Just spend an obnoxious amount of money on a pair of great shoes and then every time you wear them, think of me.