For posterity's sake...

Over the years, my kids have said countless cute absurdities, in the way that all children do. Unfortunately, I'm not the organized sort to have written them down. Last week, one of those funny Grady-isms was born, so I thought I'd capture this one.

In a fairly spectacular fall from the top of a playground slide, Grady hit his forehead. He immediately began crying and screaming, and I performed the mother-dash to his side. I picked him up, cradled him in my arms, assessed the damage and said: "Oh baby, look at the size of that goose egg." Grady wailed oh so mournfully, "Mommy, I don't want a bumper egg." Ever since, he's responded to every inquiry about his now blue-green knotted head that he got a "bumper egg." Gotta love my Tator-Boy.

Mommy-brain is, ahem, interesting...

Most people who know me know that I'm absent-minded, forgetful, distracted. I say the wrong name, the wrong word. I flat out forget. I haven't been officially diagnosed but I feel comfortable self-proclaiming that I have an acute case of mommy-brain. What gives it a way? Well, I've recently burned something, to the degree that the house filled with smoke. It never occurred to me that it was something cooking that caused the smoke. I looked outside to see if the smoke was being pulled indoors by the swamp cooler. I checked the swamp cooker assuming that the motor had seized and was causing it to smoke. I spotted a pot, over a flame, on the stove and was puzzled at who could have placed it there (even though I was home alone with an infant and three y.o.). It was only shortly thereafter that I realized that the hummingbird nectar I was making, intended to only be on the stove for a moment or two, had burned dry and was billowing smoke..



Anyway, on to today's latest big red sign proclaiming "MOMMY-BRAIN." I call dh and very agitatedly explained that I think we have a mouse in the house as "I've caught Ainslie on the stove twice today peering behind it in a very suspicious way. She just wouldn't jump down." Now, if you're not immediately noticing why that would be highly strange, let me clarify: Ainslie is my 10-month-old daughter, not the CAT Maeve that I was sure that I had referred to.



Ay yi yi, Oh Brain, where art thou? More importantly, when will you be back?

Yesterday was a GOOD hair day...

BEFORE...

AFTER...














So, yesterday I had a "me" day. I sat and watched videos, talked with good friends, drank coffee, ate trail mix (heavy on the chocolate, no less). And got my hair done. For 9ish hours. Granted, not the typical "getting your hair done." Yesterday, my hair went from being very unstyled and nondescript to having character and funk. I got dreadlocks. To be precise, 98 dreadlocks, one braid and one loose tress to be done in a hair wrap in the near future. And damn, I feel good. I'm a weird, funky soul at heart. It's been a long time since I've done something sufficiently non-comformist and out there to really give me this sort of high. And I love how it looks too. Color me happy.

I couldn't have done it without my fabulous friends (and midwives incidentally), Tawnya and Mel. Nine hours of backcombing and childcare (we had five kids present between the three of us) on your day off isn't really a piece of cake, ya know.

On a side note, I'm going to write this here to guilt myself into taking care of it. Look soon for some writing (and pictures) on Fionna's kindergarten and Kindermusik graduations, plus Ainslie's birth story (yes, she's 10 months old but that's how it with the third child apparently).

Sharing some pics...

Sir Grady, his faithful Rody steed, his handy wooden sword and his block kingdom.


Fionna, sporting a 25 y.o. dress made by my very own mother and Grady, a little under-dressed for the occasion.


Sir Grady has morphed into Black Grady the One-Eyed, complete with hook and cutlass (that mommy cropped, shh, don't tell).



The fair Lady Ainslie, complete with cracker mush and drool...

The very best nest there ever was...

It's one of those days when I just feel like freeze-framing a moment, it feels so perfect. Fionna is off to school, via the daddy-taxi. They left happy, joking, eager for their days (probably Fionna more so than dh). And I'm left in a quiet house, where Grady and Ainslie are catching a rare late-morning sleep (if you call sleeping until 8 late). I keep tip-toeing in to check, Grady so sprawled and sturdy, Ainslie nestled and tucked in such a tidy little way. It rained last night -- my garden is green and fragrant. I have robins hopping, raucous black birds preening, doves quietly but persistently flocking, and tiny little golden finches perching on the my overly tall (but delectable to them) rocket weed that has full blown seeds heads for them to gobble (picture big dandelions).

I wrote yesterday of my dirty house and over-burgeoning mental turmoil. But this morning I feel like everything in right in my world, my nest ("the very best nest" to quote P.D. Eastman).

Hitting where it hurts...

I bought a new book, Mommy Wars, a couple of weeks ago. I haven't yet begun to read it as I've been immersed in several herbal texts lately. But I've had a couple of experiences in the past days that make me think perhaps I have some insight into why mothers tear other mothers down. Whether it's single mom versus partnered-mom, SAH versus WOH, AP-style versus old-school discipline, it seems to be the trend that someone has to be right at the other's expense. This morning, when my heart was feeling a little heavy in regard to mommy-issues, it seemed so clear. When the world hits us where it hurts (namely right smack in that monstrously huge love we have for our child[ren]), we're vulnerable, defensive. It seems so trite to say but, goddess, what I wouldn't give for a parenting world where we could just all get along.

I know it isn't necessarily true, but there are times I feel I'm straddling such a fragile, negligible thread of a line between being the parent I want to be, believe in being, and being the parent that, well, just happens. The one who is blogging while her son watches Kim Possible and dishes totter precariously on over-burdened counters. If I feel this desperation, this doubt, how must mothers who are less fortunate than I (in their moral support, financial situation, whatever) feel. Conversely, one might look at me and think "privileged" by some accounts, but have no concept of the inner demons I battle. Point being -- we're all individuals just doing the best with what we've got.

Blech, that sounds preachy but my heart just feels full today.