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.

I Am a Mother

I knew I was a mother when...

I picked my infant baby's nose with my bare fingers when no tissue was available.

I ate saliva-y left-overs without a second thought.

I held close a vomit-y boy when he was sick.

I wore my son's work-of-art pin/hat/etc. proudly in public.

And today, I knew I was a mother when I heard the words, "I hate you!" yelled at me during piano practice.

Water

Ahh, warm weather. It is finally here in Utah, hopefully to stay for a little while. Warm weather at the Judd household means water. We drink a lot of it and we play in a lot of it. Our flood irrigation comes once a week to nourish our crunchy grass and the weeds we have in our garden. The monkeys need my permission to turn on the hose, which is usually granted unless we have somewhere to go later on. H, after months of screaming his head off every time we've tried to give him a bath, has now decided that he likes baths enough to ask for them at least 3 times a day. Water is good. Water is good.

Water, running out of the toilet and down the heating/cooling vent in the floor (not fond of that idea, person who built this house); out of two vents in the level below onto my dryer and into the downstairs bathroom; out of the ceiling into the furnace room; and out of the corner of my house outside, that water I'm not so fond of.

H, who decided all of sudden that he was done with diapers (more on this in a different post), urgently needed to pee. He's a big boy, capable of managing by himself, so I sent him upstairs to pee before he wet his pants. Then a friend came to the door. Chat chat chat, talk talk talk. A little while later, S went upstairs and came down yelling, "Mom! Mom! Your bathroom is flooded! I heard a funny noise, so I went in and looked, and there's water all over the floor! Who did it? I didn't do it! That's a lot of water, Mom!"

H had peed, then put all of the toilet paper on the roll into the toilet. Of course it wouldn't flush so, independent do-it-yourself-er that he is, had fetched the toilet plunger from another bathroom to "fix" the overflowing toilet. When that didn't work, well, he just went out back -- either to play or hide I'm still not sure. There was almost an inch of water on the floor in my bathroom. It was seeping under the carpet in my bedroom and making its way under the vanity in the bathroom. The thick bathmat I have was soaked all the way through and water was cascading down the vent. In my calmest -- and possibly my scariest --- voice I sent the boys outside to play. Four towels and about 20 wringings in the toilet later I was no longer sloshing around in extremely diluted pee/toilet water. I gathered the towels and bathmat up and brought them down to the laundry room to find the top of my dryer wet with more dripping from the ceiling. I switched on the light in the downstairs bathroom to find the floor covered in water, which was seeping under the vanity in there. When I finally mopped all of it up, I opened the back door to take the towels out to dry before I put them in the washer. Water was dripping about a foot in front of my face from the overhanging ledge of the upstairs level of my house.

I think I called J's cell phone 4 times in an hour leaving scary quiet messages like, "I am managing ok but there is toilet water everywhere and I think that maybe you should come home as soon as you can." And, "I love you and hope your afternoon is going well. Mine is not going so well. I am mopping up toilet water. Please come home." You get the picture. Great day, yesterday. But today I'm laughing at it. I'm still proud of H that he tried to fix it himself. Now to work on the asking for help part...

May

The 3rd Grade put on their program a few weeks before school let out. It was entitled, "We Make a Rainbow" and was so neat! They had been learning their songs and practicing for weeks and it showed. S did so well. He was so serious throughout the whole thing because, during the performance for the school, he missed one cue to stand up and was still living in the shame of that experience. We tried waving and yelling and pointing at him, but he would not look away from the teacher in charge. Funny boy. I'll post pictures of the program and S with his teacher as soon as I am able.

(Now I am able)
Here is O waiting for the program to begin, wearing a hat that Grandpa Kim custom made.


J & H waiting. (And looking exactly the same, I might add.)


There's S in the middle. There are a number of girls who think he's cute and that's one of them right next to him.


Mother's Day was nice. J bought me a really soft pink fuzzy robe from Bath & Body Works. When I opened it, he asked me if I remembered what I had said a few weeks earlier when we were in the store just looking around. I didn't, so he reminded me, which totally explains why he bought the robe: "If I had a robe like this, I would never wear clothes!" Apparently that translates to, "Must buy wife robe. Must buy wife robe," in J-speak. Men.

Here are some pictures with the three stupendous reasons I get to celebrate Mother's Day:


Here's a picture of one of the best pizzas I've ever made. Mrs. Renfro's jalapenos make all the difference.

Family Pictures, Part Mommy

Me and the Monkeys...

H & me


O (There is no picture of O and me because he was done with family pictures by then. The last picture of this post was a stretch -- you can tell.)

S, H, and me

My three sons

Happy Mother's Day!

This is my mommer. She is one amazing lady. When I was growing up, my mom did everything. My dad worked stressful shift work, so the child-rearing was all on my mom. She drove me to and from school, NJ Youth Symphony, violin lessons and friends' houses. Every day she cooked us a healthy breakfast, packed us nutritious lunches, and made sure we ate a complete dinner. I never once arrived home from school to an empty house. She did all the laundry for all of us until we left the house. My math homework all the way through middle school never stumped her. She was (and is!) one smart cookie!
My mom taught me by her example how to ground myself in my faith. I remember the look, feel, and smell of the Bible she took to church on Sundays and studied from daily. She loved to sing hymns while she washed dishes and worked around the house. My own kids now do what I did to her when I was their age:"Stop singing!" and then later on, when I knew everything,"Mom, you're going flat!" (Don't worry -- I don't know anything now!) When I left the Protestant sect in which I was raised and joined the cursed Mormons, I can only imagine how she felt, but it was really because of her example that I went seeking for a faith I could really believe in.
We've had some rocky patches, but I'm glad for the friendship that is starting to emerge. Love you, Mom! Happy Mother's Day!