Month: January 2009

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Who you gonna call? The buck stops here.

When I was in college, I worked one summer as a custodian. For part of the summer, this entailed spending 20 to 40 hours a week tending a residence hall—vacuuming, dusting, mopping, sweeping, cleaning, etc.

One day I was cleaning the windows on the top floor when I noticed there was something on the balcony, something that I wouldn’t be sweeping off—a dead bird.

“Oh man,” I thought. “Somebody’s gonna have to take care of that. Who do I call?”

It took me about three seconds to realize—crap. I was the one they were supposed to call.

I feel this way a lot of the time as a mother. “Dang, this is the fourth time a child has cried between the hours of 2 and 3 AM. Somebody had better—oh yeah.”

When you’re the mom, the buck stops here—you have the ultimate responsibility in the households. Now, the exact division of labor varies, but a lot of the time, this means that if the baby is crying, the dinner is waiting or the cat is puking, somebody is calling “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” because it’s your job to fix it. (I totally pass the buck on the cat vomit though.)

And a lot of the time, all I want to do is call “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” because I don’t want to do any of those things! (I guess my mom probably doesn’t either, LOL.)

But the buck stops here. I’m the one they call; I’m the one who takes care of the tears, the food, the cleaning and the dead bird. (Garbage bag turned inside out and gloves, in case you’re wondering.)

What chores or crises would you pass the buck on, if you could?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Another identity crisis?

Lately, Hayden has started constantly asking “What’s your name?” This includes repeatedly querying people he’s known his entire life, like his Aunt Jaime and, oh, I don’t know, Ryan and me (AKA “Dad” and “Mom,” respectively).

Today, after he called me “Dordeeback” (JordeeBec) and asked what my name was a few times, we asked him what his name was.

His first answer, oddly enough, was not “Hayden.” I believe he gets this from my side of the family, and specifically from my Aunt Jennifer, who routinely told people her name was “Peter Pan Pinocchio.” Oh and his Aunt Jasmine, who also had a creative name once upon a time, but I think she would be displeased if I wrote it here. (Want to weigh in there, Jaz?)

And what did he give as his name?

“Pokie Parket.”

Nice choice, Pokie.

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

The Zen of Play-Doh

I love new things. Pristine things. Perfect things. More than once as a child, I never used a wonderful, much-loved gift—because I didn’t want to ruin it or use it up. (I really did like it, I promise!)

At almost three, Hayden has not developed this preference. He has a few Play-Doh toys (including this fun duffel bag), and I have to open the canisters for him, so he still has several that have never been opened. But with his newest Play-Doh play set (this particularly awesome one), he’s requested nearly all of the cans of Play-Doh to be opened.

play-doh by dbrekke
photo by dbrekke

Not wanting to inflict my neurosis on him, I’ve obliged and opened each requested canister. The first time the white, purple or brown clay plops onto the table, still in its near-perfect cylindrical shape, Hayden promptly requests me to “Roww [roll] it, Mama!” I pick up the rolling pin and, with great sadness, proceed to ruin the perfect little Play-Doh shape.

The pliable Play-Doh will never again be pristine. Try as I might, it will never have that same shape. It will pick up bits of dried Play-Doh, salt and rice from the table. It will attract every other color of Play-Doh imaginable and mingle to a dull, muted version of its neon glory.

But y’know what? It’s still fun to squish through your fingers, to cut with dull plastic tools, to squeeze into oddly-shaped ropes and decorative molds. And you can’t enjoy it when it’s just in the can.

Sometimes looking back, it’s like my life before kids was an untouched cylinder of Play-Doh. It was nice. It was neat. (Hindsight is not always 20/20, as I’m sure my life was really none of these things.)

My life and Hayden’s Play-Doh are never going back to the way they were before. But y’know what? It’s still fun to watch as they discover everything from their fingers to their alphabet, to show them the wonderful things of this world, to try to teach them all the things they’ll need to know and then some.

And I think I wouldn’t enjoy life as much without them.

Categories
Fulfillment

Writing Resolutions

January is everyone’s favorite time for setting new goals, right? I actually really don’t like making New Year’s Resolutions (come on, you know you don’t either)—because I hate setting myself up to fail, and if there were a statistic on the number of resolutions broken it would be astounding, I’m sure.

And yet I still feel the need to try to set goals this time of year. Sigh. Some of the goals I’m contemplating:

  • Better prayer and scripture study—kind of amorphous, isn’t it? But plenty of room for improvement there. I’m aiming for a 30 minute scripture study/prayer time first thing in the morning.
  • Run a 5K. There, I said it. Ack. Running a 5K is one of those things that I’ve always kind of wanted to do, even though I hate running. Go figure. I started training today. The race is March 14, if it’s the same weekend it was last year.
  • Eat more fruits and vegetables. Notice I am under no obligation to eat less junk 😉 .
  • Do more around the house. I don’t mean chores, though I really have got to get on top of those (still recovering from a two-week vacation!). We’ve been in this house for 3 years now and haven’t done a quarter of what we wanted to do with it.
  • Write tons a reasonable amount. I’m nearing completion on the first draft of my latest manuscript (don’t worry, you didn’t miss the good news—I haven’t published anything yet—I haven’t even submitted anything yet. Accursed, beautiful revisions.). I’d like to get through the first draft of two more this year—and finish those accursed, beautiful revisions on last year’s two manuscripts.

But those aren’t my most important goal this year. The ultimate goal in my life, for this blog, etc., is to be happy with my life—to be fulfilled. I’ve talked before about how “finding” fulfillment is misleading—so is finding happiness. As part of my Christmas trip, I stayed at my sister-in-law’s lovely home, and she had a painting there that said (paraphrased) “We talk about finding happiness when happiness is actually a choice.”

So, resolved, for 2009:

 

I will CHOOSE happiness.

 

How do you choose happiness? What are your goals for this year?