Learning to Spell

What word do you think O spelled here? (Hint: Think Mary Poppins)

Home Depot Kids Workshop

Please have patience with me. I am trying to set up posting to the blog from my phone. Here are a few fun little pictures from January's Home Depot Kids Workshop.

Crack-in-the-head in the Night

Here is a picture of S's battle scar. You know, his nighttime sleeping battle with the corner of his nightstand while dreaming (so he tells me later) about George Gershwin (about whom he is doing a project at school).

Skeletons...

(or I Hope Ruby Will Still Love Me after Reading This Post or Maybe She'll Love Me More)

Today I thought it was time to show my 5-year old some of the demons from my past. It's time he knew truly where his mother came from and what she's made of. This decision was prompted by my response to my 7-year old's declaration, "I'm a cowboy!" What else could I do but scream/sing, "On a steel horse I ride. I'm wanted (wanted) dead or alive!" (J, on the other hand, always thinks of "I want to be a Cowboy! Baby!" Yes, Kid Rock. How we ended up together is still a mystery to me.) It was time to find Bon Jovi's album Cross Road (Thank you, Rhapsody!) and listen with H to the whole thing while we played with homemade, vanilla-scented play-dough.

For those of you who don't know, I was born and raised in New Jersey. I am a Jersey Girl. Maybe not what you think of when you think "Jersey Girl," but I am a product of the Garden State nonetheless. Is it only natural that we would be listening to Bon Jovi, this fine snowy, sunny day? It is not. Believe it or not, I did not like Bon Jovi for oh, about the first 33.95 years of my life. I didn't grow up liking them; I never owned an album; always changed the station when they came on the radio. I spent most of my youth listening to They Might Be Giants, classical music, and whatever music filtered out of my brother's room (which did not include Bon Jovi, at least that I remember).

Today, however, something changed. It changed somewhere in the first verse of "Livin On a Prayer." And (this is embarrassing) it brought tears to my eyes. I mean really, "...hold on to what we've got cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. We've got each other and that's a lot for love. We'll give it a shot...We're halfway there. Livin' on a prayer. Take my hand and we'll make it I swear." (By the way, that's how the Kid Rock hearer and the Korean-American, NJ-born, Bon Jovi hearer make it together.) We won't talk about that abrupt and less-than-inspired key change in the middle of it. Anyway, them's some powerful hormones wacking out my body (very possible), or there's some truth in Bon Jovi that's resonating within me (also possible). Not fading, as a bell tolls, but getting louder and louder, reminding me of my roots.

And how's that for a random post? I'm not sure when this blog turned from updating about life with kids to my own personal sounding board, but I'm okay with what it is now. I hope you are too. I'll bring back the journaling about the monkeys, but for me, this is all about life. Life as a stay-at-home mom of three boys. Birthdays; holidays; school events; feelings of inadequacy; feelings of love and joy; kids' triumphs; my own triumphs as I learn and grow into being a better person, wife, mother; faith growing; manic-depression ebbing and flowing; managing; balancing; all that stuff.

Oh the Irony...

The Toyota FJ Cruiser (or, as I like to call it, the F'n J) has a crack all the way across the windshield. It is unregistered and has been since October. (Yes, Dad, you are allowed to freak out.) For a few weeks I gently reminded (think, "nagged") my husband to take care of it. After all, it is his vehicle. He drives it every day to work in Salt Lake, 40 miles away. After the first few weeks of gentle reminders, I stopped because he is a big boy and I am not his mother.

Weeks passed.

Months passed.

Tonight, I got in the F'n J to go all of 4 blocks away from my house. I left without my bag (which contains my driver's license), because I had the cash I needed in my pocket and didn't want to worry about my bag. Guess what! I got pulled over! Yes I did! When the lights went on behind me, my first thought was, "Oh, I'm going to kill my husband!" Luckily, I got away with only a warning for not having my license and a citation for driving an unregistered vehicle. But from now on, I'll take my car wherever I go.

I Concur

One of my friends shared this on facebook. For those of my readers who are not on facebook or have not seen this, it's worth a read.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html

More Night Wakings...

Last night (early this morning) -- 4:00AM to be precise (more on this later) -- jolted awake by piercing screams coming from S's room. I hurry in there, ask him what's wrong, and then turn the light on to see the BLOOD in patches all over his pillow. He's clutching his head, screaming, "Oweeee! Oweeee! Oweeee!" I get a washcloth, and, several wipes and rinses later, reveal an inch-long gash at the top of his head, courtesy of the corner of his nightstand. J's arisen by this time, so we do a little consultation, the result of which we decide to super-glue S's head shut. By this time, S is bravely sniffling and giving me interesting facts like, "You know, Mom, in colonial times, they used to put leeches on people to bleed them and pull the diseases out so they could get better. Except it didn't really work. Haha!" This after I told him that head wounds bleed a lot and that it was a good thing so the germs get carried away from his gash. We staunched the bleeding, gently combed his hair away from the cut, and held the sides of the gash together while super-gluing it back together. (Don't worry, medical folks, it was medical super-glue -- not Loc-Tite!) I tucked S in and kissed him goodnight. He slept till 8 this morning.

When he came down to breakfast, between the two of us, we spun a tale of blood, courage, and nighttime wakings (at which point S interjected, "It was 4 AM. It was exactly 4 o'clock. I checked." Who does that?! Who wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, bleeding and in intense pain, and checks to see exactly what time it is? Gosh, I love that kid!), the result of which all four of my boys have matching head wounds. It's about time S got his, right? J was first when, as a boy, his younger brother threw a rock at his head. O was second when he got pushed into a piano bench at Grandma's house by an older brother. H got his from falling off the back of a chair and landing with his head onto the vent behind the chair. And S from sleeping. Ah, life with boys!

The Sickness of Mr. H

Here is how H gets sick (so far)...

Wednesday night
11 PM: wakes up crying. I pat his back and get him back to sleep.

11:20 PM: wakes up again. I go in his room and he's standing by his bed with a little glob of vomit in his hand. We go to the bathroom, wash him up, wait for more (which doesn't come), get him back to bed. I fetch a bowl from the kitchen and set it by his bed.

Midnight: wakes up crying again, but no vomit. I decide to sleep in his room to keep him asleep.

12:20AM: wakes up crying again, leans over the bed and vomits in the bowl. Wimpers a little and goes back to sleep. I get up, dump the vomit in the toilet, rinse out the bowl, and go back to his room.

1AM: repeat of 12:20AM

6:30AM: I wake up in H's bed. He's sitting on the floor playing "Cars" on O's Leapster.

No. More. Sick. Wow. Would that all of us would get sick that way.

He played, scampered around, had a massive amount of energy all day. That's it. I've been watching him since then. No more sick. Still mystified by it.

Mirror, Mirror...

There is a mirror inside me -- somewhere in my head, my heart, my spirit -- somewhere in there is a mirror in which I look everyday. It is how I see myself -- not the graphic t-shirt and jeans, the mid-back length hair, the spotty complexion -- the inside stuff, the way I measure my self-worth. Usually I can look in the mirror and feel okay with what I see. I try my best to be a loving, nurturing mom; a helpful, supportive, loving wife; a loyal, accepting, open friend; a passionate, vibrant, intuitive musician; a humble, open, serving daughter of my Heavenly Father. Usually I can look in the mirror and see someone I can live with -- someone I might even like.

Except for last night. Last night the mirror shattered. At 11:30PM. And I had to let someone know, right? Poor, sleeping husband. I looked in the mirror last night and saw myself in pieces -- broken, ugly, selfish, and hateful. With all those sharp shards and angles left and right, I saw myself as damaging to those around me -- especially my loved ones. And so it came out -- the self-loathing. The resentments, the jealousy, the anger -- all the uglies. Poor no-longer-sleeping husband. Dear, patient, husband. And then Sleep, merciful sleep took over after a while. And thank goodness it did...

This morning I looked in the mirror. All put back together. Decent, trying E. So tell me what that was, the mirror-shatterer. The dark-E? Satan? Hormones? Being human? The Manic of manic-depression? The Depression of manic-depression? I'm trying to know my enemy so it won't strike me down again. It's gotten me before -- made me anxious and crazy-feeling, but for much longer than just a night. So I tell myself -- this is normal for me. And I'm okay with that too. Because that's reparo for the mirror. Thank the Lord for perspective, maturity, prayer, His grace, and the Atonement. Else I'd be in pieces still...

A Belated Thanks...

To my middle school Home Ec teacher,

Mrs (Miss?) Pignatello,

Bless you for teaching me to make omelets 20 years ago. That spinach-mushroom-feta omelet I made for lunch today was a little bit of heaven!