Being Mom

Today I became totally exasperated over the insistent demands, manipulative pouty faces, and utter impatience of Leah.  I refused to be a short order cook for lunch, which was unacceptable.  I forced her to help me while I made dinner, with her options of setting the table or keeping the baby happy (aka playing with her).  When I told her I would cut up her orange after she changed out of her swimming suit, she complained that she was too hungry and couldn't wait that long.  Yes, this all happened after we had spent the entire morning at the water park.  So in a nut shell, I was totally fed up.

Behaviors such as this are not infrequent.  She's a good kid, she just doesn't get that the world doesn't revolve around her.  And that my sole purpose in life is not to cater to her every need at a moment's notice.  I think you could file this one under "attitude."

So I hatched a plan.  I told her that she can be the Mom for an entire day.  She can say no and yes as much as she wants, just like mom does.  She can stay up late just like mom.  She can pick whatever she wants for breakfast.  And lunch.  And dinner.  As long as she makes it and feeds everyone and cleans it up, just like mom does.  Because in Leah's world, Mom says yes and no arbitrarily, and does certain things just to be mean.  And stays up late watching TV just because she can.  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I need her to realize that I work hard all day to take care of everyone else.  I want Leah to understand that I sit back and put my feet up at the end of the day because, more often than not, it is the first time I've sat down all day.  I want her to understand that I say my yeses and nos because there are reasons.  I want her to understand that as a grown up I have knowledge and experience that counts for something.  "I know you don't like vegetables! Do you think I'm trying to torture you, or can you believe me when I tell you there is actually a purpose to this?"

I want Leah to be excited about her own future motherhood, and I hope that I will be the one to teach her many things about nurturing and taking care of a household (notwithstanding my frequent absences of sanity lately).  But I also hope that this exercise will help her understand what goes in to being a mom and make her want to stay a kid for awhile, only having to help out some of the time, instead of doing all the work always.

Most importantly I hope she learns that I am not a waitress or a genie or a superhero.  Her needs will be met, but not at her beck and call.  Her preferences and tastes and whims are not the order of my life.  She will eat what is served.  She will have clean clothes to wear because someone purchased them and washed them and put them away.  Rewards and outings will occur because the children have been helpful and cooperative, because I have planned my schedule and done my chores and spent my money on it, and it is important to me, not because my six-year old is the queen of the universe.  I just want her to appreciate me and all the work I do.  I don't want to doom her to failure, I want to help her succeed, but to also understand that it is a lot of work for parents, and that is why the children are expected to help and not complain.  So that when she goes back to being a kid again the next day, she has a better attitude and more gratitude.  Is that too much to ask? 

We decided that Friday would be the day that Leah is the Mom.  This gives her a day and a half to practice.  So tonight as we sat down to dinner (the children each shoveling down their second pancake while mom has yet to take her first bite), I decided that she could practice being the mom tonight.  I had her do the chair-bouncing thing back and forth to the fridge.  She decided that everyone could have chocolate milk with their dinner (yes, pancakes), including the baby.  She was the one to pour the syrup, spoon-feed the baby her applesauce, and then to mop up the resulting spills.  She did all the baby bathing, with the washcloth-ing and the shampoo-ing.  I helped her have everything she would need to dry, diaper, and dress the baby for bedtime, and I'm hoping my detailed diaper-changing demonstration will prepare her to do it by herself.  Then we spent an hour together doing dishes and cleaning up dinner.  (How long has it been since I played in the dish bubbles at the kitchen sink?)
It only took a few minutes of Leah being the Mom for the true nature of its poeticity to shine through.  All those things that moms say that make kids roll their eyes?  Well they must be true because Leah said it: "I'm already getting you something, I can only do one thing at a time!"  Ah, Samuel and I had a good laugh with that one and I saw Leah hide a sheepish smile.

So here's to Friday.  I have some important things I hope to teach her, and in the process I expect she will teach me a few things in return.

Smell the flower, blow out the candle

So I realize that I have ignored my blog for three months.  It has been so much easier to post one sentence updates to Facebook than actual blog posts, but this is not fair to my friends and family who actually want to know about our lives.  And its not really fair to myself, because blogging is a really good way of expression.  We are still here.  We are all alive and breathing.  We only had to call poison control once. 

I am just going to announce that I intend to come back to blogging.  Mostly because I like the sound of the keyboard clacking on my new computer.  It is very pretty and I named her Violet.  It is so fast and does not overheat, it has Windows 7 and the number three on the 10-key actually works.  These are good things.

I realized today that at 28 I have officially been dealing with depression for half of my life.  That darn puberty thing really screwed me up.  I am going to therapy and breathing deeply.  I am adopting the mantra that life is hard and that I can do hard things. This may or may not be working.

There is this thing about Survival Mode:  In order to survive, you must make sure your children are fed and wearing clothing (bonus points if the clothes are clean).  Breakfast for dinner is acceptable, however cinnamon toast can only be used as an entree once per week.  The house should not catch fire, and showering should be attempted at least every two days.  Makeup and hairspray are extra credit only.  If you have a job, you should go or they might fire you, but you don't really have to look nice unless you must interact with actual professionals at said job.  You should probably at least lay a towel over the spilled milk in the kitchen, and make sure the sheets are washed after a bout of vomiting.  Actually putting away laundry is more of a maintenance, cruising mode kind of thing, and doesn't really happen in Survival Mode. Survival Mode is marked daily by curses over missing keys and persistent alarm clocks.   Going visiting teaching is out of the question.

In addition to the necessity of keeping the children alive and safe, there is an Activity of Withdrawal from responsibility that usually lasts a couple weeks.  I played a lot of Solitaire for awhile.  Sometimes it is sleep, thanks to electronic devices that four year can operate by themselves.  Sometimes I do nothing but read murder mysteries.  Or design and construct skirts.  Sometimes it is Angry Birds.  Often it is Facebook, where I can stay abreast of important events in the lives of my former junior high acquaintances and receive validation from people without actually having to interact with them.  Sometimes I do nothing but watch Grey's Anatomy.  I really miss George.  There were two weeks where all I did was Rubik's cube.  You get the picture.

Every once in a while I emerge from a cocoon of bedsheets and drawn curtains and become myself again.  I actually take dinner to people I care about that are having a rough week.  I might make biscuits from scratch, paint with the kids, or genuinely laugh at a joke.  I might go to story time at the library and pack a picnic lunch at the park.  Sometimes I wear make up and once last month I actually blow-dried my hair. 

I miss being me.  I want to be me.  I hope to get to the point where I can look back on the Survival years and be grateful for a healthy, New me.  An involved and cheerful wife/mom/food buyer/individual whose socks are predictably matching, does not have a caffeine habit, is not running late or scrambling for a babysitter, and whose keys are not lost.  Her history of Depression is actually history, with wonderful lessons learned and an inspiring story to boost and encourage another who is still in the thick of it.  I will be someone who doesn't get her feathers ruffled because life isn't fair.  I don't want to continue on a path that makes my years of depression outnumber my years of wellness.

That's it.  That is where I am and where I want to go. In a recent epiphany, I realized that feeling hopeless is not actually because there is no hope, but because some evil spirit is sneaking into my qi and trying to make life seem hopeless so that I will just Give Up. 

So now that I know that all is not hopeless, I know to pray away the adversary and try again to be Me tomorrow.

Future Filmmaker

Leah announced today that Bob the Builder is clay-mation. Then she asked me what that meant. So, tonight's after-dinner activity was making a stop-motion video. We didn't quite get to the clay part. After we did a video MY way, she got to do one her way. She was so excited to make a movie! She told me she has been wanting to make a movie forever! She is very creative. I had to do the narrating for her because she couldn't say it all in 12 seconds. Enjoy Leah's directorial debut!

Faith

Leah, age 6

"We no chat Jesis is reell"

Translation: "We know that Jesus is real."

Audrey, 9 months: Predictions and Observations

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that my nine-month old baby has her own personality. She is nothing like her brother and sister.

Let me elaborate.

I have made the observation already that Audrey is mischeivous and stubborn. At five months old, she figured out how to twist her way out of the baby swing and climb out of the bumbo. And at 8 months old, she flipped herself out of the excersaucer. If left alone too long, she will twist out of her buckles in the high chair and stroller. Neither of the other kids did that. Does this mean she will be climbing out of her crib at eighteen months?

Her latest trick is pushing her legs against the kitchen table during mealtime. This means that she either tips her chair back, or pushes the table away. It is only a matter of time before she tips her chair all the way over!

Audrey is opinionated and outspoken. If she doesn't want to do something, then doggone it, she will simply not do it. She went on strike last month while cutting her first two teeth, in which she refused to nurse, take a bottle, take a binky, or take a nap. There was a lot of tears involved in this, and not just from her. Sleeping at church is out of the question. She cries instantly when I put her in the playpen, or (heaven forbid!) leave the room. She is very social and does not like to be alone. I'm sure this has something to do with being the third and never having been alone to begin with!

Don't get me wrong, she is a very sweet baby, and generally eats and naps very well. She is (finally!) sleeping 10 hours at night. When her needs are met she is a charm and full of smiles! But if she is not feeling well, and if the circumstances are not perfect for sleeping (like, being in her own bed...) she will make sure everyone knows about it.

Developmentally she is right on track. Yesterday she weighed in at nearly 17 pounds. She is a very fast crawler and is pulling herself up. She uses the pincher grasp for picking things up, she can wave and clap (so cute!) and she reaches for mom and dad. She knows the signs for milk and more. She says MaMa, NaNa, LaLa, BaBa, and Ga, but her favorite is DaDa. Another favorite noise to make is a throaty two-tone growl, which she employs constantly. (I'm trying to get this on video...) Audrey loves taking a bath in the big tub. She loves to crawl around, and spashes like there's no tomorrow! She loves peek-a-boo, and is starting to pull the blanket on and off her face by herself during the game.

She has very delicate features. Her face is round and smooth and her eyes are wide and full of life. She has dainty features, with her long curly lashes, and a sweet, contaigious smile. While her hair doesn't stick straight up anymore, it is still quite long and reaches all the way to her eyes. It is still soft like feathers. She smiles when I blow my breath on her forehead.

Oh, how I adore this little girl!