Sense of self
I used to say that everything I ever needed to know about having good self esteem, I learned from my son when he was not yet 5. His continual belief that he was, in fact, all that and a bag of chips AS WELL AS a chocolate milkshake and TWO cookies, has long since been the stuff of family legends. And while Monkey’s particular road has been a little bumpy of late, his essential belief that he rocks seems to be inborn.
Chickadee, on the other hand, is more delicate. Part of it, I’m sure, is that she’s a girl and girls are relentlessly cruel to one another in a way boys seem far too busy rolling around in the mud together to bother with. Another part of it is simply that she’s of a different constitution; it has always mattered to her that others affirm her worth, her beauty, her purpose.
This makes my heart ache for her. The world is a harsh place for those who need reassurance from without rather than finding it from within. I know this because I used to be the same way, and it’s taken me half a lifetime to thicken up my skin. While I won’t deny that it “builds character,” it’s not the sort of thing I ever would’ve wished on my child. read more…
There’s a hole in my desk. . .
… dear Otto, dear Otto… a hole in my de-esk, dear Otto, a hole.
Dear Otto. Dearest, darling Otto. He’s the one putting holes in my desk, by the way.
Okay, I probably need to back this up.
When I first started freelancing, I marveled at the wonder of being able to make a job out of late nights spent hunched over my laptop in the middle of my bed. This is GENIUS, I thought! Who needs an office?
Eventually, though, I moved operations down to a desk in our family room, lest I end up a chiropractor’s dream. And as time went on, I dreamed of having an actual office; a room where I could concentrate on work and close a door between the children and myself when necessary. Surely THAT would be perfect.
Then we moved to this house, and I got my office. And I shared it with Otto, and I liked that, because I am rather fond of that guy. But Otto is tidy and I am perpetually disorganized and eventually he moved out of our office in a snit. read more…
Dubious praise
Me: So now that I’m putting this stuff in her water, have you noticed a difference in the Death Breath? I mean, do you think it’s working? I think maybe it is.
Him: Well, I think now it’s more like Terminally Ill Breath than Death Breath. That’s an improvement, right?
Read my hips
It’s Friday, and that means I’m over at Five Full Plates with support and inspiration for this whole “getting fit” thing.
Or maybe I’m just gnashing my teeth and rending my garments.
Or maybe I’m still coming to terms with the reality that it may be time to pony up and buy a decent scale. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good scale that’s not too pricey?
Alternatively, does anyone have some chocolate they’d like to give me? I’m just trying to keep my arteries clear, people.
Love makes a statement
When the children were little, we had a set of alphabet fridge magnets, as is mandated by law for all middle-class suburbanites with children. I never got rid of those magnets—at least, the ones that were left, as several disappeared over the years—until we moved to Georgia. I took them off the old fridge and just… tossed them in the trash. Why pay to move a partial alphabet when my kids had pretty much outgrown that sort of play, anyway?
Shortly after moving in to the house here, though, I came across a set of poetry magnets that I thought might be fun to have out on the fridge. I went ahead and put them up and spelled out a sentence and then waited to see what would happen.
What happened was flat-out literary warfare: One child would “write” something, then the other would come along and steal words for their own sentence. Then there would be crying and yelling and fighting, and I couldn’t stand it. After two days I took the magnets down. read more…
Definitions
retribution
-noun
1. a justly deserved penalty
2. the act of taking revenge
3. sudden recurrence of somnambulance the night after your wife writes a somewhat cranky post about you
true love
-noun
1. a sweetheart; a truly loving or loved person
2. bond uniting soul mates
3. not kicking your husband in the nads when he wakes you out of a sound sleep TWICE on the same night: first to insist that there’s something in the room with you, then later to noisily inspect the far wall because “I know it sounds crazy, but there’s a giant hole in it and there’s something in there!”
(Today’s lesson brought to you by three cups of coffee and the letters W, T, and F.)
Huuuungry
The fact that I am constantly hungry is my excuse du jour for why I am cranky. I have no OTHER reason to be cranky, really—the children are taking turns being rotten, as I’ve always taught them to do; work is somewhat under control; no one in the house is sick or having a crisis—so it’s only this stupid “getting in shape” and “always being hungry” thing to blame for how grouchy I am.
Make no mistake, I am incredibly grouchy. If someone were to stuff some Godiva chocolate into my whining yap I’m pretty sure it would improve my mood immediately and significantly, but alas, that cannot happen. For one thing, I see no one willing to perform such an altruistic act. I spend the day with the dog and the most SHE’s willing to do is lick me after she’s done licking her butt, so, you know. For another, eating little more than spinach and lean meats and vegetable soup are causing me to lose NO WEIGHT AT ALL, so eating chocolate would surely catapult me into obesity.
So I’m a little tense, is my point. read more…
Even though I know better
It’s a standard joke ’round here that the first thing out of the mouth of a child who just did something ill-advised is “But I just—” I’m never sure where they think that’s going to take them; somehow that phrase is meant to be justification and yet, it never is. They do persist in using it, though.
Otto and I have adapted it as well, and it has more or less come to mean “Wow I did something dumb and inexcusable but by saying this phrase I shall communicate that I’m hoping you might not notice.” It is amusing to us.
[Note: Not quite as amusing as the still oft-used “Gorgonzola!”, but close.]
Anyway, I seem to be having an awful lot of “But I just—” in my own life, lately. read more…
Progress, sort of
It’s Friday, which means you should check out my post at Five Full Plates for the week.
(Spoiler: I’m down almost two pounds.)
I thought I’d feel all fit and healthy and be dancing around pulling out the (massive, gaping) waistband of my pants and stuff, but so far I’m mostly just tired and hungry. Which is not all that different than how I felt two pounds ago. Hmph.
And now, I have to go celebrate with rice cakes and a cup of tea. Don’t be jealous!
Love protects
Otto and I have now been married for coming up on three years; I’ve been divorced for almost seven. My point is that there has been plenty of time for my “new life” to become the new status quo, and no matter how I look at it, there is no angle from which anything about the existence I now enjoy should be surprising or new-feeling.
Except.
There were bad years before the divorce, bad time DURING the divorce, bad years after the divorce—basically plenty of time in which my life marched along to misery and broken dreams and just the tiniest sliver of hope for better days ahead. I always said that kind of hope was torture; there were times when I wished for acceptance, instead, rather than what seemed like such an unattainable state.
And it turns out that THEN still impacts NOW. read more…