Arwen/Elizabeth

Can I Get an Amen?

I had my first troll this weekend.  I've had unsavory comments before: some unnecessarily vehement disagreement with my positions on issues, as well as a personal attack by a former boss who had the mistaken impression that he could achieve anonymity on the Internet.  But I don't really consider those trolls.  I know I play hardball when I express controversial opinions here, and people who are arguing about issues rather than attacking me personally can't be considered trolls, no matter how fierce they get.  As for the boss thing - which did unsettle me, but ultimately was a good lesson in relying on my instincts when I sense people are untrustworthy -  I don't think he could be considered a troll because I knew him in real life.

But this troll was a true troll.  She came; she squatted under my bridge where I couldn't see her face; she grumbled several nasty, pejorative things; she left.  Her entire purpose in visiting here was to spread meanness.  I imagine she left feeling better about herself, but she certainly didn't enrich her life or her soul in any way.

I deleted the comments when I found them.  I'm all for reasoned discourse and criticism, but I'm not interested in preserving nastiness for its own sake.  And honestly, although I certainly wasn't happy about the whole thing, I wasn't shedding tears over it either.  Her comments bugged me the way it might bug me if I found a rotten spot on an apple I was eating, the way any disorder in my world bugs me.  But they didn't reach me, didn't affect me on a deeper level.  It took me a while to figure out why, but I finally did.

I go to confession on a regular basis.  It's an excellent source of grace, it's humbling, and - most importantly in this case - it does a great job of keeping me in touch with my weak points.  I know where I fail on a day-to-day basis, and if the troll had known to attack me there, she could have done some damage.  If she'd known to call me out for being impatient, for having a sharp tongue, for the fact that my laundry is never done and my bathrooms are rarely clean, that would have hurt.  Instead, she called me a bad mother.

I have many, many failings.  But I am a darn good mother.  And this is not a case of my protesting too much because I have secret doubts.  Deep down, at the very core of my being, I am sure that I am a good mother.

I actually feel that knowing this is part of what makes me good at it.  I go with my instincts.  I don't doubt myself.  I trust Bryan as a father and believe wholeheartedly that the two of us together are the best possible parents for this beautiful little girl we're raising.

I credit my own parents for the confidence.  They themselves were natural, instinctive, confident parents who taught me that parenting is not a set of skills or a job in which one's performance is judged by the standards of "experts," but a relationship.  They taught me that being a good parent does not mean conforming to those "expert"-determined standards for feeding and clothing and teaching my child; it means putting my child before myself, understanding her, responding to her, loving her.

I'm a good parent because I do that every day.  Sometimes I consult data, and it influences me to do things like breastfeed and put my daughter in flexible-soled shoes and regulate her sugar intake, but doing those things does not make me a good parent.  I could do all those things perfectly and still be a horrible parent.  I'm a good parent because I love Camilla and do my honest-to-God best for her, day in and day out, and I know it's working because she is happy and thriving and loves me back.

Like I said, I'm fully aware of this, which is why the troll couldn't really hurt me.  But I still feel bugged by her and what her comment represents.

Mothers have this awful tendency - especially on the Internet, I've noticed - to tear other mothers down.  I think it's a product of our own insecurities.  We're convinced we don't measure up, so it makes us feel better to think that some other people, at least, are even worse than we are.  The whole thing makes mothers as a group incredibly vulnerable.  It makes us vulnerable to each other, and it makes us vulnerable to people like my troll, who came across my site, saw I had a child, and decided immediately that "you're a crappy mother" should be an effective way to pounce.

This is bad.  Now sure, it's human nature to be competitive and antagonistic (although a part of human nature that we should attempt to civilize, in my opinion), and certainly mothers have been criticizing each other through out all of human history.  But today's parenting culture makes attacking each other so. darn. easy.

There is a huge industry based on the practice of implying that parents are doing it wrong, then selling them something so they can do it right.  You can buy  a dizzying array of products designed to make your child healthier, safer, smarter, and happier than all the other children on the block.  Many of these products are valuable in themselves.  But the marketing behind them - the idea that your child has a God-given right to an organic diet and the safest car seat on the market and a collection of educational toys that will have him reading by age three - stinks. 

A child has a God-given right to his parents' unconditional love.  If that is present, then the parents truly have the child's best interests in mind and (assuming basic knowledge of safety and nutrition) can be trusted to make the series of decisions and compromises that constitute life in a world with limited resources.  A time-saving fast-food lunch, a budget-saving lower-end car seat, or a sanity-saving video do not a bad parent make.  It is the relationship between child and parent that matters.

But that is not what we hear in our culture.  What we hear is that the experts know what's best, and that we should toe the line. 

Setting aside the not-insignificant fact that much of the "expert" parenting information given over just the past hundred years has turned out to be wrong, the expert-driven approach is hugely problematic.  It impoverishes the relationship of parent and child by reducing parenting to a set of tasks to be performed, subject to external standards.  It has parents doubting ourselves to a truly unnatural degree, wondering whether we're doing it "right."  It has the potential to rob us of much of the joy of building a relationship of love with our children.  And it turns us into insecure people who are relieved to be able to point at the parenting "mistakes" of others, so we'll feel just a little bit better about ourselves.

I'm guilty of it too, absolutely.  It is true that I feel confident in my relationship with my daughter, but I am not without my moments of self-doubt.  More than one time I have looked at another mother and felt relieved that she was not measuring up in some way, because it took the (self-inflicted) pressure off me.  Many more times I have failed to compliment other mothers because... well, because it feels like a race, and how can I win if I'm taking time out to compliment the competition?

It's ridiculous.  It is so ridiculous that it deserves to be called many words that I will not use here, this being a family-friendly website and all.  But I will say this: I am opting out of the race, starting now.  Those few times I have let my better self win and have told another mother she's doing a wonderful job, I've seen the flash of gratitude in her eyes and known that she needs to hear those words just as much as I do.  I'm going to start fighting to let that better self win more often, actively fighting to become the person I want to be.  We parents are in this "expert"-driven parenting culture together, and the absolute best thing we can do for ourselves and for our children is to band together against it and keep on loving them in spite of it.  I think we can have a great time along the way.

Blech

Duuuuuude.

So, last Tuesday I was felled by an illness which I am 98% sure is the flu.  I'm mostly past the body-aching/feverish stage, but I still have congestion and one heck of a cough and I feel like I swallowed a ball of sandpaper.  Since this is day eight of I-want-to-die, I'm educatedly guessing that my germy attacker is not a mere cold, and that this is the real flu, albeit a fairly mild case.

Somewhat tangentially: it drives me crazy when people refer to stomach bugs as "flu," as if influenza, the virus which has killed so many people even in recent history, is indicated by a couple days of digestive discomfort.  I feel like people should know better.  Then again, my assessment of what constitutes basic lay knowledge of medical topics may be skewed by my experience as a child.  My mother was fully conversant with her Merck Manual (until she had to give it up because it exacerbated her hypochondriac tendencies) and I'm pretty sure she was the only mom in town who responded to her kids' complaints of headaches with, "Did you take an analgesic?"  She referred to drugs not only by their categories but by their specific names as well.  Since she passed this tendency to her children, I can tell you without consulting the box that the Dayquil-knock-off I'm currently taking is in fact a mixture of three drugs: acetaminophen (analgesic), dextromethorphan (cough suppressant), and phenylephrine (decongestant).

Hmmm.  We are a nerdy family, aren't we?

I'm not sure where I was going with that tangent, but knowing the real names of drugs is the sort of ability that is really no good unless you've got a blog on which you can show it off, so there you go.

Back to the topic at hand: I'm beyond ready to be done being sick, but I really can't complain, because thanks to the kindness of my sister (bless her) and my husband (double bless him) I got to sleep in three days last week, I haven't had to cook dinner a single time, and my house is still quite tidy.  Were it not for the exponential growth of my laundry pile and feeling like it'd be perfect if I could just dig a hole *in the actual mattress* and never come out again, this would have been one of the best weeks ever.

Despite my illness, the world does go on.  Billa has barely noticed than I am under the weather, and with callous disregard for my sore throat remains dedicated to the all-important task of ensuring that we meet our reading quota of 87,000 books per day.  She loves to crawl up onto the kitchen table, and seems genuinely surprised (and dismayed) when I make her get down every single time.  She continues to make unorthodox clothing choices, such as wearing Daddy's socks on her feet and her own socks on her hands.

Our current family project is the summer vegetable garden.  We started small last year growing grape tomatoes, basil, and banana peppers in pots on our deck, and it was a smashing success, so this year we are aiming higher and having big garden boxes in our backyard.  Bryan and my brother-in-law built them on Saturday.  Here's a before picture of the lumber and the trillion bags of dirt:

For my sick self, the best part of the project was that the children - who love to be outside almost more than they love their own mothers - "helped" all afternoon, and I got to take a nice long nap.  I did miss a little bit of cuteness:

Okay, a lot of cuteness.

But I'm fairly certain that my nap will result in my recovering 5-6% earlier, so it was worth it.

Waaah.  I need some more analgesic.  I'll be back soon-ish, k?

"Bih-ba" means "Billa"

This is for Lindsay, who asked so nicely yesterday.  Happy Two Years as a Catholic, Lindsay!

One-Point-Five

Camilla was eighteen months old yesterday.  Time flies, I can't believe how fast she's growing up, and all that, blah blah blah.  But seriously, people.  I can quite distinctly remember reading that infant fussiness generally peaks around two months and thinking that's nice, but it is irrelevant since we will never make it to two months.  And yet we did, and we kept making it through another two months, and another, and now one whole year and another half year are gone.  We'll never have those eighteen months again, and meanwhile our baby has grown into a full-fledged toddler.

The challenges of parenting a toddler make me think of that song the nuns sing about Maria in The Sound of Music: how do you catch a cloud and pin it down?  how do you keep a wave upon the sand?  Parenting a toddler is like what I would imagine it would be like to have full-time care of a tornado.  A demanding, whiny tornado with zero sense of other people's personal space.

Pick me up, Mama.  Like, now.  Since when does your lap belong to you?

Fortunately said tornado is also an adorable chatterbox, has an endless capacity for mimicry and fun, and is the freaking light of our lives.

Sure, my the number of wearable, non-stained items in my closet has shrunk considerably:

I am not to be blamed, Mama.  You're the one who had the lapse in judgment and gave me chocolate.

But, as is often the way with such things, my heart has grown in proportion.

I don't think it's really necessary to mention that I would do ANYTHING for this girl.

Despite the fact that I often meet Bryan at the door at 6:00 with a request to please, get this child out of my hair so I can get something done around here, I am having more fun parenting Billa at this age than ever before. 

Some things I know I'll want to remember years from now:

- Many months ago Bryan started a game where he'd sing the Jaws theme, "do-DOO, do-DOO," while moving his hands toward Camilla to tickle her.  She loves it, and recently she's learned that she can "tickle" us.  She runs up, makes the do-DOO sound, and then wiggles her fingers on our stomachs while we laugh obligingly.

- The talking.  Oh, I LOVE the talking.  Last week she learned to say her own name ("Bih-ba") and I thought I might die from the cuteness.  And it's very convenient to have her actually able to communicate with us.  If you're a child-development geek like I am, here's a list (published from the Google document I keep ongoing, as much as it kills me to admit it) of most of the words she knows right now.

- She's started demanding certain articles of clothing.  I was expecting this at some point, but was surprised that it starts this early.  I'll get Billa dressed in a perfectly good shirt and pants, and she's all, "Dess! Dess!" and "Shoes! Shoes!" and wants to pick them herself, and sometimes she ends up wearing truly bizarre combinations.  I should take a picture sometime. 

- Camilla likes to act like a baby.  Like, literally.  She'll climb into my lap and say "Baby, baby?" and squirm until I'm holding her cradled in my arms, and I say, "Oh, the sweet baby," and squeeze her and she's absolutely delighted.  Sometimes she gets a blanket and a pillow and I tuck her in and rub her back and call her my baby and she's so excited, she squirms and writhes and every few seconds her head pops up and we do the whole thing over again.  I find it adorable that she wants to pretend to be a baby; she still IS a baby to me!

- Watching the relationship between Milla and Daniel grow is so much fun.  They will never remember not knowing each other, but I remember when they were too young to notice each other, and now they are growing into friends.  Milla starts agitating for "Nan-yo" the minute we pull into my sister's subdivision, and the squeals when the two toddlers see each other are not to be believed. 

There was silence, never a good sign, but for once they were up to nothing bad - just eating waffles behind the couch.  And surprisingly happy to see the camera.

There are also some things I WON'T want to remember years from now:

- Cutting ten teeth over the course of the last few months.  The final canines have almost popped through, and when they do... I'm thinking the Australians will be able to hear my sigh of relief.

- Never, ever sleeping a full night.  Not ever, not even once, and no sign of it on the horizon.  That is all.

Oh, but she is so incredibly worth it.

I also want to remember how soft and sweet that head is.

Ten to One Meme

Someone gives you TEN million dollars, but you have only TEN weeks to spend it or it's lost (and it can't be invested in any sort of accounts - you've got to spend it on services or material things).  What TEN things do you do with it?
1.  Buy my dream house and houses for my family members, plus cars.  No boats, though!  Boats are a waste of money.
2.  Make big ol' charitable donations.  Lots of them.
3.  Rent a villa in the Italian countryside ('cause I've always wanted to go to Italy) and spend a month there with Bryan and Camilla and my parents, siblings, and nephew, luxuriating in the freedom to do nothing but enjoy each other's company.
4.  Make a list of all the rare books I've read or wanted to read in my life, then hire someone to find them on the Internet for me.
5.  Buy some really beautiful handbags, shoes, and clothes.
6.  Hire a sous-chef to do prep and clean-up so I could cook my little heart out, hassle-free, in my gorgeous new kitchen.
7.  Spend a lot of money on kitchen equipment, linens, drapes, wall hangings, and other domestic appointments.
8.  Hire a cleaning service that does contracts, then pay ahead for as much time as they'll let me.
9.  Get new computers for the whole house, plus a huge amount of money on my iTunes account, more than I can ever spend in this lifetime.
10.  Use the remainder of the money to buy some beautiful and very valuable jewelry, which I can sell off as I need more cash. 

(Ha!  I cheated.)  (Um, cheated on my own challenge that I MADE UP.  I am awesome.)

You may only own NINE books for the rest of your life.  What are they?
1.  Bible (Ignatius-published RSV)
2.  Prayer book
3.  Catechism
4.  The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
5.  Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
6.  The Most of P.G. Wodehouse (with my favorite Wodehouse story ever, "Uncle Fred Flits By")
7.  Dave Barry's Greatest Hits (only because they don't have a complete DB collection, and this is my favorite of his individual books)
8.  Anne of the Island, by L.M. Montgomery (because it is my favorite of the Annes, although it kills me not to include all eight of them)
9.  Heaven to Betsy, by Maud Hart Lovelace (the first of the high school Betsy books and my favorite, although again I'd love to include them all if I could)

Name EIGHT moments in your life that you're proud or happy to remember.
In chronological order, because I'm fussy like that:
1.  Winning the county science fair in eighth grade.  (Dorky, sheesh.)
2.  My first date with Bryan.  We were so young and had our whole life together ahead of us, and it's just kept getting better since.
3.  My high school quiz bowl team winning the regional tournament when I was captain my senior year.  (Oh dear.  Did you guys know my dorkiness was quite this extreme?)
4.  Our wedding, of course.
5.  Putting the finishing touches on my bachelor's thesis.  I was incredibly relieved in that moment.
6.  Graduating from Ave Maria.  I am proud even now that I was strong enough to switch schools, major in theology, and get the education that was best suited for me personally, instead of doing the practical thing and staying at Big University.
7.  Seeing a second line for the first time ever.
8.  Camilla's birth, especially the moment when she came out and I got that huge rush of oxytocin-induced euphoria.

List SEVEN tasks you'd be happy never to have to do again.
1.  Changing a stinky diaper on a toddler.  Not so bad on a baby, but as Paul Reiser puts it, dealing with a toddler diaper is somewhat akin to changing the pants on a hobo.
2.  Cleaning up vomit at 3:00 AM.  Or any other time AM or PM, for that matter.
3.  Laundry.  Laundry is a never-ending chore.
4.  Peeling/chopping/grating vegetables and fruits.  I abhor that kind of food prep.
5.  Clipping Camilla's fingernails and toenails.  Oh, the trauma.
6.  Cleaning the bathroom.  If anyone ever markets a self-cleaning toilet or bathtub, I am SO THERE.
7.  Picking up the neighbors' dogs' poop from OUR yard.

Name SIX of your own acquired skills or personality traits of which you are proud.  (Brag on yourself, dude!  Own it!)
1.  My writing ability
2.  Excellent attention to detail
3.  The ability to read quickly
4.  Having a critical and logical mind
5.  A strong sense of empathy
6.  My mad test-taking skillz

List FIVE movies you have seen at least FIVE times and/or would be willing to watch at least FIVE times in the future.
1.  Sabrina (the newer one with Harrison Ford) (swoon)
2.  You've Got Mail (interestingly, I don't love Sleepless in Seattle, but the Ryan/Hanks partnership in this movie makes me incredibly happy)
3.  Center Stage (shuddup)
4.  Love Actually (oh dear, I do have cheesy taste in movies)
5.  The Incredibles

Name FOUR features of your own body that you like.
1.  Blue eyes
2.  Long fingers
3.  Teeth (mine are naturally straight)
4.  Ankles

List THREE pieces of your furniture you'd like to replace.
1.  Our bed.  I love our bed, but it's a queen and a king would be so much nicer.
2.  Our living room sofa.  It's in perfectly good shape, but it's not quite my style.  If we replaced it, we could move it to the home office and get rid of the hideously uncomfortable futon that's down there.
3.  The tub chairs in our living room.  They're surprisingly nice and comfortable for hand-me-downs, but they're a little dated.

Name TWO skills and/or personality traits which you are still developing.
1.  The ability to forgive more easily.
2.  Patience.

Find (or recite if you're just that good) ONE quotation that expresses something you find profoundly true.
"There are only two kinds of people: those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it." - G.K. Chesterton

THE END!  I won't tag anyone, but do the meme yourself if you feel like it, in whole or in part, on your own blog or in the comments section here.  I'd love to read your responses!

Random Drunkity-ish

Time for a happy, humorous post.

First, though, I have to mention how awesome it is that there was such a great response to my last post.  Please go to big Emily's site and keep up on little Emily and her story, and keep praying!

So we've been in DC since Friday and we're leaving tomorrow.  Boo says SoCo (and me).  Tonight we have been drinking incredibly strong margaritas and now we are feeling the effects.

Here is a picture of the elusive and anonymous SoCo.  If you already know her, perhaps you will recognize her by her eyebrow.

Look at us in our pajamas!  With our drinks!  Yumyum.

Here are the limes Mr. SoCo used to make the margaritas.  If you already know him, perhaps you will recognize him by his hands.

Perhaps not.

We've been having a fabulous time here in the more southern yet not truly southern (says SoCo who is truly Southern) part of the United Stes.  This in spite of the fact that the liberally-gag-reflexed Milla threw up all over her mother at 2:00 am Saturday, then again at breakfast.  Just a little bug; she's fine now.

Incidentally, the baby has learned to say our dear hostess's name, thus winning her heart forever.

We just agreed that men's feet are weird.  Isn't this so true?

Please do not be offended if you are actually a man.

We're watching some basketball game.  Apparently it is the NCAA tournament finals; this is what they tell me anyway.  I am somewhat intrigued by the commercials.  Because we don't have a tv I rarely see commercials.  They seem more sophisticated than the ones I caught at friends' houses in my school days.

They have excellent frozen custard in Virginia.

Speaking of the basketball game, the cheerleaders are astonishingly scantily dressed.  Is this the norm among college cheerleaders?  When did it become mandatory to show midriff?  If anyone has inside information on this topic, please enlighten.

I love Steve Carell.  He is just wonderful.  I can't for The Office to start this week.

Okay, SoCo is going to write now.  She's going to say y'all, because that is what she does.

* * * * *
Hmmm.  Now I feel compelled to somehow write "y'all" into the bloggity goodness.  Arwen was asking me yesterday or the day before what kinds of things Southerners say.  (She sounds practically Canadian, by the way.  It's adorable and hilarious.)  I told her that we say:
*  Y'all-- because the English language lacks a second-person plural. 
*  "Fixin' to"-- as in, "I'm fixin' to make dinner" or "I'm fixin to go to the store."  I don't know why we do this, but we do.
*  "Bless his/her heart"-- you can more or less say anything negative about someone else, provided that you follow it up with "bless his/her heart."  Example:  "His ears really do stick out, don't they?  Bless his heart . . . ."  Or, "She's not the brightest bulb on the porch, is she?  Bless her heart . . . ."  (Optional if you're referring to a man:  "Poor bastard" instead of "bless his heart.")
*  My mother says, "I reckon," but I really don't. 

Arwen wants me to tell you how very tall she is.  I'm not sure why, but she is a lovely statuesque goddess-type woman.  I think she recently decided that she'd pay $10,000-- possibly $15,000-- to be 5'5".  As a 5'5" person, I'm not sure it's so great.  I feel like there are definite benefits to being tall, like being able to see over people's heads in the movies or at Mass. 

Additionally, everyone should immediately invite Arwen down for a visit, because she'll cook delicious food for you.  She has made us French toast, King Ranch casserole, sausage/tomato cream pasta, and yummy broiled shrimp.  Oh, and bread.  I think my husband may leave me for Arwen over the bread. (Of course, if you invite Mr. SoCo over, he'll make you delicious cocktails, which may even be better than food.  This weekend, he made us Singapore Slings and margaritas.)

Okay, back to Arwen for sign-off. 

* * * * *

Okay, the game (March Madness or something like that?) is almost over.  I maintain that with any sport, it's really only necessary to watch the last couple of minutes.  I challenge anyone to prove that statement wrong.

Also, college basketball players are rather scarily and excessively tattooed.

Pray that the baby sleeps well tonight, y'all.  With this head, I really, really need her to.

Serious This Time

I'm not having a great couple of days.  I have The Cold from Hell and feel like I've been hit by several heavily-loaded semi trucks.  To avoid spreading this plague, I can't make any play dates for Milla and me.  My sister and Daniel are out of town, and the weather has been in the 40s and rainy, which means we've been stuck in the house all day, and will be stuck tomorrow as well.  It is dismal.

However.

This post by Emily is entitled "Perspective," and hoo, boy, did it give me some.

Friends of Emily's have a daughter - coincidentally also named Emily - who is just a little younger than Camilla, and they have just found out that she has cancer.  Aggressive cancer, on her brain and spine.  She's been through surgery, which went as well as could be expected, but she's got a long road of chemotherapy and possibly more surgery ahead of her, and they don't know what will happen.  It's a parent's worst nightmare.

On top of that, the family discovered little Emily's brain tumor while they were on vacation.  In order to keep Emily where she is to receive the best possible treatment, they've got to rent an apartment and live fourteen hours from home, on unpaid leave of absence from their work.

It blows my mind to imagine dealing with a seriously ill child.  But to have to worry about money - not just medical bills but the basic necessities of life - on top of that?  Unthinkable.

Please click through and read Emily's post about her friends and their beautiful little daughter.  And please, please, please, if you can possibly afford it, click the Donate button she's set up and give a little to help the
nightmare this family is going through be, at the very least, a slightly less stressful nightmare.

I'm going to be pinching my own pennies so that I can give as much as possible over the coming weeks.  Even more importantly, I'll be praying for little Emily and her parents and her doctors.  I hope you'll do it too.

And tomorrow when I'm stuck in the house with my blessedly healthy daughter, I'll be remembering how good I've got it.  You can bet I will.

So Random Your Head Will Spin

Bryan has been traveling a whole heap-load this year.  Thursday night he got back from yet another trip to DC, and Friday he called from work to inform me that he's got to go again next week.  Yippee.  This will be his seventh round-trip since January 1st, meaning he'll have made it halfway to special elite frequent-flier status IN THE FIRST QUARTER of the year.  He made the elite status in 2006, just barely, but it was no big deal then because the trips happened when I was pregnant and too busy getting our money's worth out of our Netflix subscription and deciding which of any number of completely disgusting foods was the least offensive at that exact moment to notice whether my husband was around or not.  Then in 2007 he did not have to travel all that much - only eight trips, and all after Camilla was six months old.  (I didn't remember exactly; I looked it up on his frequent flier account just now.  I do have a mind somewhat like a steel trap but I am not that crazy.)

Fortunately this coming time Camilla and I are probably going with Bryan.  I tell you what, I pray every day that Bryan's guardian angel does his job well because I am SO not cut out to be a single parent.  I love Camilla to pieces and we certainly have a very strong attachment, but if I don't get to hand her to her father when he walks in the door and go hide in the bathroom with my logic puzzle book for at least five minutes... well, I start to lose it a little bit.  Plus, our bedtime routine involves Bryan putting the baby down, so when he is not home and bedtime comes around she is all "Why are you messing with me?" and crawls around the bed refusing to go to sleep until I am ready to pull big chunks of my hair out and throw it at her.

Ahem.  So now that I've proven my eligibility for Mother of the Year, let's move on.

I think I mentioned a while back that I've finally found a hair stylist I like.  Anastasia is hilarious and not too much older than me although she does have four children, and our conversations are always awesome.  And even more importantly, she is uber-talented at what she does.

To refresh your memories, here is what my hair looked like before I shortened it (also, bonus of cute babies before they turned into hell-raising toddlers):

But since I hated the long and never wore it down, this is what it usually looked like:

Blech.  Blah.  Bliddly.  And all that.

Then I got it cut and also played with the color a bit, which is why I look vampire-ish here (photo weirdly cropped to exclude friend who wishes her picture not to appear on the Internet) (also, aforementioned hell-raising toddler: she looks so old!):

Pretty good.  I mean, I was generally happy with it, but it still allowed for my hair, which tends toward stringiness, to pop out the occasional string.  See over my left eye?  And there was no disguise for the dreaded baby bangs, which have been the bane of my hair existence since they made their appearance a year ago.

My stylist wasn't really aware that I was unhappy about these things, since she styled my hair beautifully using various styling products to hide the baby bangs and wasn't aware that I tucked it behind my ears, thus allowing the development of the strings.  However, this past visit I finally mentioned my grievances, and she stepped right up.

Bam!

Double bam!

Shorter pieces in front keep me from being tempted to tuck my hair, and my stylist also emphasized the importance of using plenty of hairspray (or "liquid texture" or whatever that stuff I have is called) which has helped.  Also, real bangs have made the baby bangs disappear!  Anastasia assures me that bangs are on the way back in, and I am choosing to believe her because, um, I have them now.  Too late to do anything about it if they're actually *so last year* or whatever.

Also, new color!  Banishment of the vampire!

Okay, enough about my hair.

Oh, actually, one more thing: Anastasia is a newly-single mother who is trying to build her hairstyling business from the ground up.  She is mondo-talented and her rates are very reasonable, so if you suspect you might live in my area and are looking for someone to cut your hair, drop me an email.  I love Anastasia and really want to help her out.

Speaking of helping out, Bryan has agreed to watch the Billa so that I can go to the library unencumbered.  This is a huge treat, especially since I gave up fiction for Lent and have not yet made a library trip since the dawning of glorious, glorious Easter.

Enjoy the end of the Octave and have a chocolate bunny for me!  I prefer dark, at least 60%, but you may eat whatever sort you want, because I am generous like that. 

Kisses.

Weird Eater

I am a lifelong Weird Eater.

I should mention right away that my parents are not to blame for this.  My mother has always provided her children with a variety of healthy food choices.  If you walked into her kitchen right now to make yourself some lunch, you'd have at least ten reasonable protein options, the makings of a wicked salad plus countless other fruits and vegetables, and all the tortillas/rice/crackers/cereal/homemade bread you could eat.  And Mom always encouraged us to eat a balanced diet.  In fact, when I was in elementary school I was the only kid I knew who had to follow a distinct set of guidelines in lunch-packing: a protein, a carbohydrate, a fruit, and a vegetable.  There was also a quarter taped to the outside of the bag with which to buy milk: no sugary "fruit drinks" for us.

I know my mother is reading this, so I feel compelled to confess that when I was in fourth grade there was this girl whose parents apparently didn't provide her with milk at home, and every day I would trade her my milk for her high-fructose-corn-syrupy artificially-flavored Hi-C or whatever it was.  Now you'd have to pay me to get me to drink one of those nasty things, but to a nine-year-old for whom Froot Loops and Mountain Dew were forbidden fruit, it tasted delicious.  Sorry, Mom!

Anyway, when I say I am a Weird Eater I don't actually mean that I am an unhealthy eater.  I have made my share of bad food choices in my life - like when I was in eighth grade and instead of packing a lunch, I saved my spare change and every day at noon I ate a bag of Lays Sour Cream and Onion potato chips and a can of orange juice from the Minute Maid vending machine.  Sorry again, Mom! - but these days I eat a fairly balanced diet.  I'm certainly not subsisting on French fries and Diet Coke over here, or anything.

No, what I mean by Weird Eater is that I have strange likes and dislikes, and strange methods of consuming food.  For example, when I was a child I used to eat mashed potatoes with my fingers.  But I didn't just scoop them into my mouth, I shaped them, using my fingers and my tongue, into specific shapes before actually eating them.  It was truly disgusting.  And in my pre-adolescence I went through a stage where I would eat my morning bowl of Kix one tiny sphere at a time.  I'd pop it into my mouth to wet it on the outside, then pull it out and squish it flat, then eat it, enjoying the juxtaposition of the slightly moist outside and the dry, crumby inside.  Of one single, centimeter-in-diameter Kix (Kik?).  I ate each bowl of cereal this way, and it took me over an hour to do it, which is why I got up at 5:30 every morning.

I always wanted an older brother, but it occurs to me that it's good I didn't have one, because he probably would have bopped me one.  And with very, very good reason.

Along with my horrendous food-consumption techniques, I was also a picky eater.  Apparently as a toddler I would eat anything, but that changed as I got older and when I was a child I would not eat the following items, except as well-disguised ingredients:

eggs
cheese
yogurt
butter
custard or pudding of any kind
olives
green peppers
pretty much any vegetable except carrots and peas, including
salad
fish, except under extreme duress

As an adult I will eat most of these things, although I still don't like yogurt/custard/pudding (it's a texture thing) and I consider green peppers to be The Devil's Own Peppers Which Poison All They Touch.  I can eat olives but wouldn't do so voluntarily, and I only like cheese and butter when they're melted and eggs when they're poached or fried. 

However, I will happily eat sushi and escargot, among other things, and will try almost anything unless I can tell by looking at it that the texture is going to gross me out (brains) (or headcheese) (or, okay, pretty much any offal).  Still, I don't consider myself an unusually picky eater.  I just happen to be picky about things that other people are not picky about, notably the cheese and butter.  When I was in high school I got major flack - my friends were such punks - for not liking cheese.  One friend in particular seemed personally offended that I could eschew the gelatinous dairy products most people love so much.  "It's un-American!" he told me.  And I got his point.  I like the idea of cheese, I really do, but unless it's hard enough to be crumbly, an actual piece of raw cheese is just... squishy and sticky and unappealing to me. 

Then there's the butter.  When I was a kid I would refuse to pass the butter at the dinner table because I didn't want to touch the dish and risk getting the tiniest bit of butter on my hand.  As an adult I realize that this was insane, but as a child my distaste was real and - I believed - sensible.  I mean, butter is solid fat!  It was only reasonable to be suspicious.  And although I've gotten over my irrational fear of it, I still would never spread butter on anything unless it was going to melt completely.  I know, it's weird, but it's me: Weird Eater.

What are your food hang-ups?

Easter Must Come

I don't believe I've ever blogged on the evening of Holy Thursday before ("Liveblogging the Triduum" seems strange somehow) but tonight I'm home with a sleeping Camilla - rather than at Eucharistic Adoration as was our pre-baby custom for this night - and I'm meditating and feeling like writing.  And where better to do it than here?

Holy Week has always been a powerful time for me, Holy Thursday and Good Friday especially.  The commemoration of the Last Supper and Our Lord's Crucifixion touches me in a way no other celebration of the liturgical year does. 

This is no accident, I am sure.  Jesus's Passion and its fulfillment in His Resurrection are the center of the Christian faith.  The Eucharist which He established at the Last Supper is the heart of His Church.  He came to earth specifically to accomplish our salvation by these means, and without His redeeming death and resurrection we as Christians would have no life within us, and nothing to celebrate.

But before we may celebrate the joy of Easter we must go through the agony of the Passion with Him.  This is the lesson that many Triduums, and that countless meditations on the sorrowful mysteries, have taught me.  I can't skip the painful glory of eating Christ's body and blood at his table.  I can't skip His struggle to bend His will to the Father's, can't skip the painful fact that the Father's answer to Jesus' desperate plea was "no," can't skip "Not my will but Thine be done."  I can't skip the betrayer's kiss, the arrest, the scourging, the endless excruciating Way of the Cross.  I can't skip the crucifixion itself: the mocking, the final cup drunk on the cross, the last breath, the soul rent violently from the body.  I can't skip the pain of the disciples at their Lord's death, and I can't skip their wait for his return.

I can't skip those things and claim with any right the joy of Easter.  Of course, I can't rightfully claim the joy of Easter by my own merits anyway: I am utterly unworthy to touch the hem of His cloak, let alone rejoice as His child at His Resurrection.  But if I don't commemorate this Triduum with my whole heart; if I don't embrace my cross, take it up and follow him, then I have not only proved that I am completely unworthy to rejoice in Easter, I have proved that I do not even desire to rejoice in it.

Being a Christian is a strange calling.  I must live the sorrow of this life, take up the crosses ordained for me, while rejoicing always in the truth that Christ has already conquered death, that He freely offers everything I need to become perfected and live in eternal happiness in union with God Himself.  The first is a grim, dirty reality; the second a glorious mystery so beyond my comprehension that I often find myself turning away from it, focusing instead on the grimness of the reality.

That is wrong, of course.  It is true - as I have realized countless times in the darkest moments of my life - that in Christ's Passion is the example I need for my own living here on earth.  But what is also true - and I am often too busy watching my own feet to see it - is that the Passion is fulfilled in the Resurrection, and therefore it is meaningless without the Resurrection.

Suffering has meaning.  This is true.  But I am often so focused on that fact that I forget why this is true.  In fact, suffering is not a good in itself; quite the opposite.  Just as Christ's suffering is an evil which attains meaning in the Resurrection, the suffering in my life is an evil which attains meaning in the good which results from it: my perfection.

I meditate on the mysteries of Our Lord's suffering and death, but I do so always with the knowledge that Easter is coming.  It is the light that makes the whole thing bearable.

In my own dark times, I often look forward to an Easter of my own imagining, some earthly thing in which I believe happiness lies.  So far, because of God's mercy to me, these Easters have always come, but each time I have found to my dismay that they are not Easters after all.  There is always something more I desire.

My own Easter will not really come until - God willing - I am ushered into His presence.  I must by His grace remember that, and remember to hope for it above all else.  Then as I take up my cross and follow Him my own life will become ever more a participation in His, and fit me for a new life in which I will participate eternally in His Life.

And if that motivation is what this Holy Thursday has to offer me, I'll take it.

A blessed Triduum to you all.  And when it is Easter: rejoice!