Farting Unicorn Love Note

Yesterday, Roo came home from preschool with an awesome picture that she presented to me.  The picture itself was spectacular.  The thinking behind the picture was beautifully creative. I immediately wanted to share it with the world.  Matt wanted to share it with the world too.  We had a conversation about the picture that went like this:

Matt: I'm putting this on Facebook.
Me: NO! I was going to put it on the blog.  If you put it on Facebook, our mutual friends will see it and that'll ruin my blog post.
Matt: Instagram, then? I'll put it up on Instagram.
Me: Okay, you get Instagram and I get the blog.  No Facebook. Deal.

It crossed my mind that there was something wrong with that conversation, but then I pushed the thought aside because OH MY WORD, GUYS!  LOOK AT THIS:

Roo drew us a picture of a farting unicorn battling a cyclops. Those are her words. That's how she explained it. And then she wrote "I heart You" across the top in the clouds. Now, I can understand why you all may not be impressed, but I have to tell you- the fact that one of my kids drew a mythical creature fighting another mythical creature, and then made one of those mythical creatures gassy, and then said to themselves "Hmmmm, this picture adequately expresses my love for my parents! I think I'll let them know it!" and then proudly presents that picture to us at home, well..... it tickles me to the core. It gives me butterflies. I'm not even being sarcastic. I can honestly say that Roo's farting unicorn warms my heart.

Farting unicorns warm my heart, and I'm sharing it with the world.

I realize this may be an "obnoxious parent-moment".  Thanks for being a part of it. 

Before and After

Dear Gracie Kay,

     Tomorrow you will turn ten years old.  This astonishes me.  Earlier in the year, your grandfather (my dad) left a comment on this blog jokingly requesting that I not discuss the fact that I'll be turning 40 this year.  He said he was afraid that the realization may give him a heart attack.  At first I thought he was being over reactive but the fact is, your tenth birthday gives me a little of his perspective...... if the next three decades of your life go as fast as this first one did, the idea of your fortieth birthday may very well give me a heart attack too.
     Now, it's not that I'm purposefully turning your birthday around so that it's all about me (except I've heard that I happen to be good at doing such things), but I can't help but reflect on how a decade of motherhood has changed me.  It's been ten years now that I've been living my favorite quote; the exquisite terror of seeing my heart walking around in another being(that's you).  It's been ten years of unexpected moments of joy, moments of pride, and moments of inadequacy.  It's also been ten years of wonder, ten years of guilt, ten years of self-doubt, and ten years of reflection.  Ten years of watching you grow, and ten years of feeling myself grow and stretch into the uniform of motherhood- the most  unconventional uniform in the history of the world and one that's made of time's softest, most well-worn fabric.  
    I don't think I've ever told you how much I love the company of the women who wear this uniform.    You wouldn't understand it anyway.  You'd probably roll your tweeny eyes at me and give me a look that says "Whatever, mom".  So I don't think I'll try, but I will hope that maybe someday you'll find out for yourself.  I will say that this community of mothers is the most diverse, wise and powerful company I've ever had the honor to be in.  There are so many stories to tell here.  And you know, PG, how obsessed your mother is with storytelling.  It occurred to me recently that mothers give birth to generations, and the generations give birth to the stories.  So, you see honey?  Of course, of course I love mothers.  Mothers and storytelling go hand in hand.  For me, it's a love that is meant to be.
     That said, here, Gracie Kay, is the story of your birth:
     Ten years ago tonight, I was in the hospital waiting for you.  It felt like I was anchored to the hospital room by miles and miles of tubing and wires; never before had I experienced such a thing.  I had a tube coming out of my arm for an IV, and another needle in another arm that was pumping me full of pitocin.  There was a huge elastic strap around my enormous belly monitoring your heart, and yet another wire somewhere that was monitoring my heart.  I was too excited to sleep, and even though I knew that this was it- my last chance to get a full night's rest- I spent the entire night wide awake in that weirdly glowing room listening to our heartbeats beat out their rhythms on the monitor beside my bed.
     The next day, your birthday, was so strange.  It felt very, very long.  I remember feeling irritated at your dad for eating a hamburger in front of me when I hadn't been able to eat for the past 14 hours (Feel free to give him a hard time about that.  I figure I still got at least another ten years of mileage on that one).  I remember wanting to cry, people-pleaser that I am, when the doctor said "Push, Tacy. You really have to push." in a tone that suggested I hadn't been trying to do exactly just that for an entire two hours.  I remember being scared when the doctor told your dad to put away his camera and the room suddenly filled up with doctors and nurses.  You were in some kind of danger and to this day, I still don't know what that was about.  In the end, everything obviously worked out.  I'll spare you the (truly) gory details.  You're welcome.
      But Gracie, do you know that I was such a silly person, that I actually thought labor was going to be a little bit magical? In my defense, movies, books, and even childbirth classes do sort-of give that impression.  There's always the music, the built up excitement, the close up shot of the newborn, the mother's ecstatic reaction..... I went through my entire labor subconsciously looking for that kind of magic, but the truth is there was only work and frustration and exhaustion with a little bit of hopelessness mixed in. I wish now that I had realized that that was what motherhood was going to be.  Because when it was all over and I would retell the story of my labor to myself, (Isn't it weird that I was compelled to do that? It must have been my way of processing it.) I realized that the magic I was looking for was in all that work.  All those events came together and they didn't feel magical at all.  They felt gritty and too bright and weird and strange... but in the end they all added up to the line that divides the before and after.  Before, I wasn't a mom.  Then they put you in my arms, and suddenly, I was.  And in that, my sweet girl, and in all the beautiful things that came when you joined our universe, is magic enough to make my breath catch, to make my heart swell, and for tears to swim in my eyes.
     You are magic.
      You are.
      You.

Happy Tenth Birthday, Gracie.   I love you so much.  Thank you for making me a mom.

New Year, Old Me

Happy New Year, all!  Hope your holidays were filled with rest and relaxation.  Mine were- but that's because I learned several years ago to let go of the checklist and just do what I can.  I like to think that this attitude makes me sage and wise beyond my years-like I have things figured out ahead of the rest of y'all.  Then again, it could just be that this is my coping mechanism for when my back is up against the wall and the pressure is on.  I secretly dream that one day people will gaze at me in wonderment and think to themselves, "That Tacy!  Is she as wise as I think she is, or is she just incredibly lazy?"

I'll never tell which it is.

Speaking of sage and wise, 2014 is the year that many of my friends and I turn 40.   The number 40 as an age doesn't really bother me as much as what other people's perceptions of forty are.   While chatting with a group of moms at the park before preschool a few weeks ago, a young mom mentioned that she felt ostracized by the older moms at her son's previous school.  And then she said-and I swear to you that this is a direct quote- "I wanted to tell them 'Look!  I'm sorry you waited for such a long time before you had kids, but it's not my fault that I'm young.  Can't you be pleasant about it?'"

Now. I'd like to take a moment and ask all my fellow rickety, old, ancient parents in your late thirties and 40's out there..... what would you have done in this scenario?  Because my response was to laugh.  Don't worry, I didn't.  But I really did want to say "Are you sure it was your age that they had a problems with?"  I kept my mouth shut, and instead crossed my eyes in the direction of my friend sitting across from me (who then laughed and spit out her coffee).  Young spring chicken mom continued talking and had no idea of what was going on.

I'm telling you all this as a way to lead up to this article I read last Monday.  The title sums it up well: "40 Things I Can Do at 40 That I Couldn't Do When I Was 20".   I encourage you all to click over and read it because it was really eye-opening for me.  In fact, I had a little mini-epiphany over it:

Every year when my kids have a birthday, there is usually some discussion about things they are either looking forward to doing (later bed-time, start having overnights, etc.) or things that they already can do currently that weren't possible for them a year earlier (riding a bike, reading, anticipating when they're about to push their mother over the edge, ha!).  I realized they always view getting older as a positive thing because it means they are getting better/smarter/more independent/more mature.  After reading that article, I had to ask myself.... when was the last time I saw a birthday as a reason to celebrate my own self getting better/smarter/more mature?

The answer is that it has been a long, long, LONG time.

That's why I loved this article so much.  I needed to hear someone list all the positive things aging has given her in life.  I love that she listed "going out without makeup" as a perk of being forty.  I do that too, but I forgot the reason why- which is that I realized that makeup is for when I want to put it on, not when I feel that I have to put it on.  That affirmation would sometimes slip my mind when I'd do preschool drop off with a bare face and see the young pretty moms in full makeup.  My insecurities would rise and I'd tell myself that I was letting my looks slip in my old age.  This article reminded me of what I'd forgotten- that when it comes to beauty, there is no winning.  The best you can do is take ownership and mark your own course.

See?  I didn't know that when I was in my 20's. Damn, I've gotten smart.  I may even have that above statement stitched on a pillowcase.

Let's see.... what else can I do now that I couldn't at twenty?

I know!  I love that I don't feel the need to battle every battle nowadays.  My empathy has grown.  I know that everyone comes to the party with their own baggage, and that it's not important that people necessarily do the best they can, but that they do what they can with what they've got.  I don't hold them to the best they can, because honestly, I could probably do better every day if I wanted to, but that's kind of exhausting. I get it.  So doing what I can do and accepting the same from others is good enough for me.  Anything extra is a bonus.

Also, I can go to bed at 9:30 and not be embarrassed to admit it.  (Okay, I'm a little embarrassed, but not as much as I would've been when I was 20.)

Here's another one: I can see that when other people don't like something about me, it's usually a reflection of their own hang ups.  For example, going back to the makeup thing... if someone wants to judge me for not wearing makeup in public, it's because it's important to them to look their best all the time.  That's not my problem.

Oh yeah- I'm better at seeing when things are not my problem.

Also, I can see drama from a mile away and steer AWAY from it, instead of towards it.  (This development has been very refreshing.)

And last but not least, I can still be kind to people who've offended me in the past.  Like our "spring chicken" mom;  I'm still nice to her, despite the fact that I know she thinks I'm an washed-up, wrinkly, old crone.

And that's something I never would have done in my twenties.

Progress, my friends.  Embrace it.

Where've You Been, Bucky?

Gather 'round, friends.  Gather 'round.  It's time for my annual Christmas Post.  You know the one- in which I lament the difficulties of keeping up with the "magic of childhood" and impart to you all the despicable ways in which I've abused the Power of Santa?  This'll be the fourth year of such a post, and I know- I know- it's getting old.  If you need to catch up, go on and click here and here and here, but I can save you the trouble and make a long story short: basically, I suck at lying to my kids about Santa.  The legend of jolly old St. Nick in our house has become a twisted labyrinth of lies upon more lies that cover up the first lies, and I'm pretty sure that my children view Santa as a character in a slightly scary urban myth rather than as a magical part of their childhood.  No matter.  PG knows the truth this year anyway, which means I only have to keep up the facade for a few more years until the littlest littles figure it out.  Then I can be done with the whole debacle.

Good riddance.

Anyway.  You all know the current Elf On A Shelf craze? It occurred to me last month that here, I've always felt guilty for manipulating my kids' behavior with empty "naughty list" threats, when this is silly.  You know why it's silly? Because all you 'Elf on the Shelf' people are telling your kids that there is an actual physical spy in your house that reports directly back to Santa.  And then you trick your kids into believing that this little toy elf actually moves around the house at night while they are sleeping. 


After I got over the audacity of it all,  I knew at once that I had to get in on the action.

Now, Elves on Shelves run at about $30, which, to me, is more money than I want to spend on traumatizing  making magical memories for my children.  Luckily, I remembered an alternative.

Friends, meet Bucky.

Bucky is the Christmas Elf from my childhood.  He used to go on our tree, near the top.  In fact, my dad used to make us laugh by positioning Bucky right under our tree angel so that he was looking up her gown.  All you moms and pops out there taking pictures of your elves in precarious situations with Barbie- you think you've got the first elf with wanton desires?  Psshhh.  Bucky is the OG yo.  THE OG. And yes, his elfin nose is smudged with dirt and sure, his once-forest-green elf suit has faded to a murky swamp green, but if there's anywhere that a grubby, forty-year old pervy elf is going to belong, it's got to be here with this family.

Plus, he was free and beggars can't be choosers. Right?

Anyway, here's Bucky's back story:  he went renegade about 25 years ago.  That's right.  Working for the fat man in the suit took it's toll, and Bucky decided to go off the grid.  He's been venturing the big, wide world to see what kind of life there is out there for an elf who wants more than what the North Pole had to offer.  I mean, the crazy parties and lifetime supply of gumdrops were nice, but Bucky  knew there was more out there for him than a few sugar-loaded nights and an unrequited flirtation with a tree angel.  He's an elf who heard the call of the wild my friends, and he answered that call.  For twenty five years, he trekked, he explored, and he quested his little heart out. He explored places that no man has ever been and seen sights that no man should ever see.... but now he's back.

The truth is, he really missed the gumdrops.

So, on December 1st, the kids came home from a movie with their grandma and found Bucky at the front door waiting for them. His little candy cane hobo sack was filled with gumdrops and a note that said "I'm back.  Be good." Roo immediately started crying and telling me that Bucky was "creepy" (That's a direct quote. Yay for childhood magic! )  We got her past it.

Since then, Bucky been caught sharing war stories around the campfire.

He also went on a drinking binge.






















He's also played Jenga with a Flutter-By Fairy (could it be he was wishing that she'd fly over his head so he could relive his glory days with the tree angel?) and rappelled dangerously down a pine garland.  As far as my kids are concerned, Bucky's just been roasting marshmallows, drinking our honey, and having a good old time with our toys.  I'm not going to lead them in any other direction- mostly because I think I've scarred them enough in the past.  However, you and I?  We know differently.  Bucky knows differently.  He's been around the block more than once.  He's jingled all the way, and once you go that far baby, you don't come back from it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a stand off to plan between Bucky, some army guys, and a bobble-head Santa.

Wish me luck, guys.  I'm going in.

Good night.

A Gratitude Post From the Grinch

Listen.  I know that bloggers everywhere are posting these wonderful essays that beautifully articulate in the most heart-tugging of ways all that they are grateful for in this world: their families, their health, their friends.  In fact, for this entire past month, as I've been reading daily gratitude posts from Facebook friends, it's been my intention to sit down and write one of those posts myself.  But you know what? It's the day before Thanksgiving and I am just.....not there.

Sure, sure I'm grateful as well for my family, my health, my friends.  But I'm pretty much thankful for those things all year long.  This last week however, any warm fuzzy feelings that may have resided in my heart have shriveled up and died. Well, maybe they haven't died.  Maybe they've just gone into a coma, induced by all the exasperation I've been experiencing in my last week of driving and shopping.  (Don't drive and shop in the days before Thanksgiving.  It's bad for your warm fuzzies.)

So, if you all want a gratitude list from me, this is the best I can do at the moment:

1) I'm thankful that I don't have to go to the grocery store again until after Thanksgiving (knock on wood).  My ESCR (Extreme Shopping Cart Rage- read all about it here) was in full force.   At least there was no ferret sightings this year.

2) I'm thankful that Christmas time is actually here now, so that I don't have to get cranky about the fact that it's been shoved down my throat for the entire month of November. Even my children have bought into the belief that Christmas season should start the day after Halloween.  They've been pestering me to start decorating the house, and while I refused to budge from my stance that November is still fall and deserves a fall-like ambiance, the girls took it upon themselves to decorate a few household items.

Behold, our festive paper towel holder and tinsel-tinged lamp shade.

Fa la-dee-da.

3)  I'm glad I'm not rich, because if I were, I may have to drive like the entitled d-bags that I've seen on the road these past few weeks.   I believe my train of thought would go something like this: "Bahaha.  Look at my beautiful sports car!  It does not deserve to be parked with such lowly common cars as these!  Alas, this grocery store has no valet.  Let me park across three parking spaces in this already crowded parking lot, just to ensure that my car is safe from the riffraff that gathers here.  I'm sure the peons will understand- they seem to survive when I cut them off in traffic and hold up lanes of traffic while I decide where I'm going.... snicker snicker.)

Am I getting a bit mean? Just let me finish up with one more thing to be grateful for.

4) I am grateful that so many people are becoming more aware of corporate greed and capitalism on holidays.  It's wonderful that they are worried about the employees who are losing out on spending Thanksgiving with their families.  I am grateful that I've been saying this ever since my waitressing days, when I had to work 4 Thanksgivings in a row and one Christmas morning.  It's not just the retail employees that miss holidays with their families.  Maybe Americans can start thinking of employees in the food industry as well?

So now that I've worked myself up into full grinch mode, let me try to end on a positive note.  There is one thing that I'd like to express gratitude for, and that's you guys- the ones who read this blog and leave me encouraging comments.  Thank you for letting me know if I've made you laugh, or if I've made you think, or if you can relate to what I'm saying.   I can not tell you how grateful I am for that. This is just a little tiny blog, and it's always going to be a little tiny blog, and I like it that way- as long as you guys are here, too.  So thanks for coming here.

One more thing, since my warm fuzzies are waking up.  Here's one of my all-time favorite pictures of the kiddos from a few Thanksgivings ago.

Just look at those faces laughing with each other.  They make my heart so happy.

I hope your Thanksgiving table is surrounded by all of your favorite faces.  Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

When You Thank A Soldier

A few months ago, I accompanied my parents on a trip to Washington D.C. I'd never been there before, but my parents had been numerous times.  This time, they were there because my mom was attending a conference. Unsurprisingly, DC has a ton of extra security measures in and out of places which has proved difficult in the past for my dad, who lost 80% of his hearing in Vietnam. He's had embarrassing experiences of holding up lines while he tries to understand what the guard is asking of him.  So, besides being nice and just giving me a vacation, my parents also brought me so that I could be my dad's "ears".  (By the way, I was terrible at this job.  Half the time I would blow through the metal detector, only to turn around and see that my dad had been stopped and was trying to read the guard's lips.  Daughter fail.)

The first day that we were there, we went to the Holocaust Museum and then all around the National Mall.  I jokingly told my dad that the day's theme was "death and destruction", which yes, may be a little glib and irreverent, but I think we needed to lighten the mood after the intensity of The Holocaust Museum.  The sun was sinking as we made our way back from the Jefferson Memorial and my dad asked if I'd seen everything at the mall that I had wanted to see.  

"Well, what about the Vietnam Wall?"  I asked. 

"Oh, ok.  You want to see that?" he asked.  He seemed non-committal, but I couldn't tell if he didn't want to go or if he was truly surprised that I wanted to see it.  While I was growing up, Vietnam was practically a sixth member of our household.  I don't mean that we talked about it a lot- in fact, we did exactly the opposite.  We did not talk about it.  We kids knew that our dad had fought in Vietnam and that he'd been shot.  When we were little, he used to tell us that the long scar on his leg was really a sleeping snake.  We learned later that he'd been shot on Hamburger Hill.  At the dinner table when I was five, I asked him if he had ever killed anyone.  After a moment of shocked silence, he quietly answered "I've killed lots of people, Tacy.", and went back to eating his mashed potatoes, while I tried to figure out why I felt like I had just done something wrong.

We lived with PTSD, not knowing that it was PTSD.  We knew he was angry, and we thought (for a long time) that it was our fault.    We knew our family was a little bit different, but we didn't know why.  Vietnam was always there, but we didn't have any words to name it, so when I say that Vietnam was a sixth member of our household, that's what I mean; it was an invisible, nameless presence.  So of course I wanted to see The Wall.  In a way, it was a physical manifestation of that invisible family member.  

However, though I knew that my dad had been to see The Wall before, I didn't know if he was purposefully avoiding it on this trip.  I didn't want to drag him over and drudge up bad memories or feelings.  So I said "Eh.  That's okay.  I'd like to see it, but I can get over to it another time."  

"No, it's okay. You want to see it.... let's go."   And he began walking towards it in the fast-paced walk that he's always had, the one that requires me to maintain a steady trot to keep up.  So I did, wondering the whole time if I was being selfish. 

When we got there, he slowed down.  I didn't know if he planned on going through it or not, so I, feeling guilty, walked ahead, planning to just walk through myself and then double back to him.  

To be honest, the experience of the memorial wasn't what I thought it'd be. The Wall itself is purposefully understated.  It's just a granite wall with names.  You start at street level, where the granite slab with the engraved names of the first few casualties is just a foot high.  Then the wall grows, and the list of names grows, and by the time you are reading names from the height of the war, you've completely descended beneath the lawn of the National Mall.  As you continue walking, the list grows smaller once again, until you've once again reached street level and the names of the last to die are commemorated on the final, and smallest, granite panel.  The names on that very last panel made my heart especially heavy, I guess because being last to die in a war that's this close to being over seems unjustly tragic. (Then again, what's just about any of those names being there?) 

I found my dad, who had hung back to look up someone from his platoon.  

"Did you find him?' I asked. 

"Nah. I'm not sure that I even have the right last name."  In silence, we began our walk back over the Mall.  

"It's a lot of names, huh?"  It was more of a comment from him than a question.  I remained silent, feeling that he was going to say more.  Anytime my dad talks about Vietnam, it feels like he's giving me a little gift- a glimpse into understanding what he's gone through.   I walked beside him until he started speaking again:

"You know, I was talking about Vietnam with a family friend once.  I said something like 'Who knows how many lives were lost there', and the friend stated matter-of-factly '58,151'- like that was the end of the discussion.  He missed my point completely.  I was trying to say that making it out of Vietnam didn't mean that you always had a life to come back to."

And then he proceeded to tell me about guys he knew who received Dear John letters from their wives and girlfriends days before they lost half their bodies in combat.  They may have made it out of Vietnam, but the lives that they had left back home- the ones in which they were a whole being with supportive wives- that life was lost in a jungle somewhere in Vietnam.  And there are thousands and thousands of people like them, not necessarily all amputees.  Some returned with their whole bodies and a hole in their soul.  The common thread is that many came back home and found that what they knew of their "life" was gone.

I don't know if my dad knew that I'd kind of always intuited that feeling about Veterans- that a lot of them were people with two lives, really; one "before" and one "after".  I've felt for a long time that war can take a life without really taking a life.  I think it's something that people who live with war-traumatized veterans just understand.   I do wonder, though, if other people get it.  I wonder if they know that when they are thanking a soldier who's been in combat, if they really know what they are thanking him/her for.  I wonder if they realize that even though he/she may be standing in front of them, the soldier's old life may have ended somewhere in a desert or in a jungle, or any place else halfway across the world.  Do they know that the road to a new life takes them through a special kind of hell and that they have to push through all kinds of physical and mental pain, all kinds of guilt and bad memories- and that it never really all goes away? Is that the sacrifice they are thanking them for?

I haven't been in combat, so I'm not in a position to state this as fact, but I do feel that surviving a war takes more courage than any act of bravery that occurs on a battlefield.  When I thank a soldier who's been in combat, I'm thanking them for sacrificing their life before and for continuing the battle in their life after.

When I thank a soldier, that's what I'm thanking them for.

  

The Matter of Mattering

Look.  I'll be honest with you.  I sat down to write this post because I'm a little angry.  I've been stewing on a conversation for the past couple of weeks, trying to process it, trying to swallow it down, trying to look at it from a more graceful perspective, and it's just not working.  I'm pissed and there's not a lot to do about it other than to just let time work it's magic.

Oh, okaaaaay.  I guess I can write about it too.

A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a meal with some people.  They are people who matter to me, and it's important that I mention that, because had the same conversation been with people who I didn't care about, you wouldn't be reading this.  You see, I was misunderstood, or rather, what I do was misunderstood, and while I can brush off being misunderstood by random friends or acquaintances, being misunderstood by people who matter just.... well, it sucks.  It takes up a lot of head space.

We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation when the subject of me going back to work was brought up.  This is a term that has always rubbed me the wrong way, because it can easily be construed to suggest that I've not worked in the six years since I left the classroom to be a mom. Now I know, and you know, and the Lord above knows that I have worked harder in these last six years than I ever had at any job in my entire life- and that's saying a lot; especially when you consider that I spent my early twenties waitressing in a coffee shop out here where the senior citizens used to make me do things like puree their Turkey Gumbo soup.  (That was so they could eat it because they forgot their dentures at home. True story.)

So.  As I was saying, the term "go back to work" caused me to bristle, but I smiled past it because while perhaps the semantics implied that I've been on a six year vacation, most likely what these people really meant was "When are you going to go back and earn some real money?"  In hindsight, I should've been smart and given them a polite version of "None of your business.", but instead I informed them that I probably wouldn't be going back to the classroom.   This caused eyebrows to be raised (and once again, my skin... it bristled).

While I won't recount the rest of the conversation, I will tell you that by the time it was done, I had been compared to a family friend of theirs who apparently is much better at life than I ("Well, she works full time with three kids and she manages okay."), reminded that "every job has it's good and bad side" (as if the 15 years of experience in the work force and 10 years of parenting hadn't made that clear to me), and then made to feel that if I only had a job with some security, my husband could take bigger risks in his job (so, WOW... I've been holding him back.  Who knew?)
All of a sudden, instead of feeling like a Mother, a Wife, an Educator, a Woman, I felt like a wifey.

To make matters worse, all of this was said in a we're trying to help you tone that was so incredibly condescending.... and I just sat and nodded through it all.

Because I hate confrontation.

Because I hate disappointing people.

Because I don't know how to tactfully stand up for myself.

Because I was frozen by the feeling of not being enough.

Now, I don't need any affirmations.  I'm not writing this with the hopes that you all will comment and reassure me that I'm doing a great job, that I'm a great mom.  I know that I am doing as well as any other mom out there, and that in my kids' eyes, I'm imperfect perfection (HA!).  Eventually, when Roo is in school full time, I'll find my way back to a career- though I believe my path is heading more towards student advocacy, or some kind of home-to-school connection role.  In the meantime, I've created a part-time job for myself that allows me to work around my kids' schedule and grow in my field while bringing in a small income, and I'm REALLY proud of myself for that.  In fact, I think I've kind of kicked ass in this whole mom-kid-work-juggling routine.  So, trust me, no affirmations needed.

In fact, even just in writing this, I feel a little less angry.  I know that these people live by a "make as much money as you can for as long as you can" philosophy, which is very different from my "Do the best you can everything will work out in the end" philosophy.  Both ways have their perks and their flaws.  What bothers me the most about this is the fact that they are never going to get me.  They'll never understand our family.  For me, money is a thing; the way soccer practice is a thing, the way doctor appointments are a thing; the way good food is a thing.  It's a part of life, and while of course, OF COURSE more money would be nice, I know that more of it wouldn't change anything that matters for the better, because all the things that matter here are already as good as they can be.

Nonetheless, now I am faced with the task of making the opinion of these People Who Matter, matter less.  And that's a really hard thing to do- like growing an extra layer of skin.

Or pureeing Turkey Gumbo soup in a malt tin for the old folk.

I wouldn't wish either on anyone.

Thanks for listening.