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I am starting to try to see myself more like my grandmother than my mother everyday.
I know that she never had much money, but somehow managed to raise 7 kids during the depression, she never raised her voice at them according to my mom, and still my memories of her all revolve around the flowers in her garden and her love of children. I am trying to channel some of her loves for gardening and being a gentle force around my children more these days.
I fear so much in myself lately, so I am looking to her example through the bits I still have, to become someone different and stronger after all of this.
Well, things have been changing fast around here. I find my leisure hours at the coffeeshop with pen in hand in my ‘real’ journal all but gone. So, I turn back here to pour out in much less thought about, pure stream of consciousness again.
I’ve gone back to work full time after being a stay at home mom for over 3 years. I miss the kids fiercely. For me, now that I have experienced what it is to stay at home with my kids, returning to work feels like a deep and indescribable loss. Everything feels fake and surreal. I feel like both the kids and I have changed. I feel myself less attached to them and much less knowledgeable about them. Not like we are strangers, more like we all have to put on a tough front to hide the pain of our separation from each other through the daily rhythms of life. It feels like such a disconnect for me. It feels like they (my husband and kids) are the family and I am some kind of visitor or intruder into their routines and ways. Is this how my husband felt/feels? Is this how it was the last time I worked and I just don’t remember it like this? After spending 3 days at home, I just start to feel like I have a place and then I have to leave again. It’s getting easier to just not re-connect or remember what family is supposed to feel like.
I have 3 days a week with them; they are with my husband on the weekends. So, fortunately, babysitter time is limited and they love the girl we hired, even the baby likes her and I don’t mind my job. I know that isn’t the same as liking it or loving it. I’m good at it and it doesn’t bother me. So, I’m grateful for that. I am fortunate in these times to have a means to pay our bills.
My husband is getting a lot more time with the kids than he used to when I was at home. He used to work a lot more, but now he’s probably only working 25 hrs a week to my 40. Maybe, probably, okay, definately I have some resentment about this, but it isn’t as if I could go part time or he could work more. And as he pointed out, it is better for the kids to be with one of us, even if it isn’t me. For the hours thing, it is not by choice. He just hasn’t had that much work lately, which is why I’m working in the first place. I know with the world the way it is right now I should be grateful for where we are. I just wish I didn’t know what I was missing this time around.
Before staying home with my kids, I used to think I was a better mom because I worked. I may have been happier and more pleasant with them but to my kids, I was not a better mom. To put it another way, in the words of my four year old, “Mommy I hate you. Why don’t you just go to work. You don’t love me. I want Daddy.”
I have:
a good marriage
healthy kids
passion
plenty of wine
clean clothes
an art studio
love
a big backyard
a grapefruit tree
an orange tree
a big bed
a warm blanket
art
a library card
food in my pantry
jeans I look good in
a happy baby
tea
a quilt
a cool book bag
music
a farmer’s market close to me
plenty of cloth diapers
hand made bowls to eat from
flowers growing in my backyard
seeds for more flowers
family coming for the holidays
So much going on I don’t know where to start. How about a little list?
Kid number one – just got her first call back from her first casting call after her first two lines in her first play!
Kid number two – turns four tomorrow, wants a dinosaur he can ride in the backyard for his birthday
Kid number three – took 5 steps today before falling on her well padded behind, grinning.
and the not so exciting stuff- the Mr. is going back to Texas, while my parents are here for Thanksgiving.
We were just there a month ago, yes, for my 20 year reunion, to spend time with my husband’s parents, for the kids to see their grandparents and the grandparents to see them, see the new baby again- She crawls now. It is good for his mom to see the sweet little baby, we hope. His mom, the MIL I have argued with over barbies (which I think we’re giving for Christmas), commercial images on clothing, videos, our choice to homeschool and countless other subjects, is losing her long battle with colon cancer. I’m grateful we were there last month, that my kids spent two nights with them while we went out. Eva confided that they played games on the computer while we were out and she told them not to tell me. Right now I don’t care. Right now, I would happily have arguments for the next 10 years over how we are raising the grandkids. I would happily leave her to play on the computer with her grandmother every night of the week if it was possible. Why don’t we figure this shit out till it’s too late?How important is it if they give my kids donuts for breakfast when we are there and sneak the baby some cookie bits? You could have told me, I wouldn’t have listened. and now… 2 weeks to 6 months is what is left…
Is rebellion part of my nature?
When I have plenty; I live like a pauper.
But, when I have unmet needs and financial insecurities, I have the inclination to eat out, eat unhealthy and do what normally I wouldn’t, spending more on unnecessary items. Why is that?
Here is a rough summary of a dream Eva had last night:
“Mommy, me, Quinny and Talia were walking in front and the sidewalk broke up.”
She tells me that we all ran off, but that she was picking a flower and then, “when I grabbed on, I fell and I started to swim”
(I can’t get from her if the sidewalk turned into water or if she fell into the water or what, but she was underwater)
“God said, ‘Come over here’ and there was air.”
So, we all went to God, and there was food and water.
(I asked her if we sat on the ground and she said no, there were tables and that we could have anything we wanted, even cupcakes)
There was a door that we went up through back to our house and “we had to say,”Thank you, Thank you, Thank you” all the time and could go back through.”
Then, toward the end of dinner this evening, she sat in her little girl lotus position at the dinner table, closed her eyes and whispered “Thank You, Thank You, Thank You” and then smiled so sweetly to me that I had to join her.
“Thank You Thank You Thank You”
thank you for letting me be her mom
in one six month period of time!
1. Remodel your house
2. Begin a new business
3. Choose to start homeschooling
4. Have a baby
5. Plant a garden for the first time
6. Start another new business
Can someone tell me what is wrong with me?
Could it be the high from my bread success?
or maybe just the fact that I hate the brand of tortillas we have right now, yet feel obligated to use them before buying more?
Whatever it was, I decided sometime when I was up during the night with the baby that I was going to make tortillas to go with my breakfast…I wasn’t totally committed when I woke up since the kids were already screaming to be fed and we had somewhere to be at 9:30…but then I found the perfect recipe when I did my online search for tortilla recipes.
I grew up in Texas where tortillas are a bit different than elsewhere, so when I saw the recipe for Tex-Mex Tortillas on the Homesick Texan I had to give it a try. I fed the kids something else and made my tortillas.
They tasted great just like she says! I ate them with my breakfast with real butter and again with beans for lunch. YUM! I gave the kids the crappy store bought ones I had on hand and shared these with the Mr. and a friend.
Fortunately, I can buy good tortillas here because they were a lot of work. It was still fun to make them and eat them fresh and warm with butter though just like when I was a kid.
* no my mom didn’t make tortillas, the local United grocery store did and I would always eat one on the way home with my folks.
When my children get frustrated because they can’t do something as well as they want to I finally have a good example for them. Good because as a kid I quit a good many things when I felt like I was not as good as I wanted to be. My mother says she never made me continue once I’d made up my mind because (and this will come as no surprise to many of you) I was a willful and determined child.
But, here is my tale of try try again until at last you bake good bread.
I have been repeatedly failing at bread baking for about 7 years now. That includes bread machines too, sadly. I have never been able to make decent bread. I always eat it, with cream cheese usually, but my family was not always so willing. My oldest has been known to comment that it isn’t good bread and why is it the wrong shape, so crumbly, so hard, burned, yucky tasting etc. My last attempt ended up being used as bread crumbs in another recipe so that wasn’t so bad for everyone.
A few months ago, I went to a bread baking day at a friend’s house hoping that good bread baking energy would rub off on me. The loaves I made there were a big improvement on my prior efforts, but the results were somewhere in the middle of my failures and good. The recipes came from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I thought if I tried it at home I may still have good luck yet. So, I reserved a copy at the library and I finally got it three days ago.
Now, I have been able to make not one, but two totally edible, and even delicious loaves of bread.
As a kid, if I sucked at something, I’d quit. Why I have persisted in my attempts at making bread is beyond me. Because when you’ve failed at something for seven years, hell, you probably should have given up. I didn’t and now…I have good yummy bread. Bread with homemade marmalade, bread with butter and shepherds pie, bread with pesto spread on it with a salad! BREAD!
I love bread, maybe that is why every now and then I would give it another attempt. Then, I would go months without trying again, discouraged.
Well, this time was different. It was a total surprise to everyone that it was actually good. Good!
I was so happy I was yelling at everyone to taste the bread. It’s good!
The Mr. cheered for me. He’s probably relieved to not be coerced into trying the failures anymore. So, I’m sitting here with my wine, thankful for the (good) daily bread.
