Many Thanks to all you who have hung in there while I had my little panic over spending time on writing htat I should have been spending with my kids.  I'm sorry I have been so long in getting new material posted.  Thank you especially to those of you who have sent me email and encouraging comments.  I can breathe again!  The kids aren't any better behaved, but I'm a lot more comfortable with tying them in straight jackets so I can get a few minutes . . . Just KIDDING!

Weeds -

Do you know the difference between a weed and regular grass?  In my yard the difference is about twelve inches.  The same grass that I nurture, water, feed, and trim becomes a week the second it crosses the line into my flowerbed.

As I was pulling the weeds yesterday, I stopped and looked at the tender blades of grass.  They are the same sweet grasses that give me such pleasure when I walk barefoot across them in the evening.  But, once they move into my flowerbed, these beautiful stalks become a menace.  They choke the life from my flowers and drain the soil of the nutrients that give beauty to the blooms.

I wonder if there aren't other weeds in my life.  Activities, and priorities that are good in their place but which become a menace if they are allowed out of their proper sphere.  It's good that I enjoy a clean house.  When the need to keep a nice home outweighs the need to attend to my children's need for attention, it become a weed.  It's good that I enjoy writing.  If I'm busy writing and my kids are spending an inordinate amount of time playing Nintendo, none of us may realize it at the time, but we are letting weeds into our relationship.  Oh, man do I love to quilt.  (Expecially the piecing part.)  it's calming to me to solve the math and arrange the patterns.  But do you know how much time it takes to put together a quilt block?

I wonder if some of the people in my life are weeds.  Now bear with me here.  I love people.  I love my friends.  When a friend calls with a need, I generally drop what I'm doing and go to help in any way I can.  But some of those "needs" are really just "wants."  I'm not very good at setting limits with my friends, "This isn't a good time, the kids and I have something planned, can I do it tomorrow?"

It's a spiritual principle that what goes around comes around.  In Christian theology it's called the  "Law of the Harvest."  Whatever a man plants, he reaps.  The corollary of that is that you reap 1) What you plant, 2) Later than you plant and 3) more than you plant.  I had a moment this past week of reaping some of what I had planted in the lives of my children.

I thought I was paying attention to them.  They were playing their new Nintendo game.  I was in and out of the living room.  I stood at the couch and folded laundry.  I ran the vacuum.  I walked through between my room and the dining room a dozen times.  I reset the timer ever 15 minutes to regulate whose turn it was to have the controller.  (Yes, they could have played it as a two player game, but if you have kids, you understand why they need the timer.)

One of the things I did while they were playing was check my email.  I didn't think I was on the computer very long, and between reading and answering, I went in to make sure they were still doing what they "sounded" like they were doing.  However, when I was finished and went back into the living room to sit with them, I realized that 1) someone had taken a pencil and decorated extensively on the white walls.  And 2) a chair from the dining room was dragged over to the cabinet where I keep the candy.  The chocolate stains around Tucker's mouth were a giveaway that he'd scored a major coup.

Doesn't sound like a big deal does it?  But you see, only two weeks ago we had an incident while I was gone and the boys were in the care of a sitter.  Tucker helped himself to some antihistamine medication from the top shelf of the cabinet in my bathroom.  He thought that it looked like candy.  When I came home, the packages were lying around empty on the counter.  Our best guess is that he ate 11 tablets.  He's a small 4-yr.-old.  The sitter hadn't realized that he was spending too long in the bathroom.  Since he's a little boy who has recently developed a need for privacy in the bathroom, she was trying to be sensitive.  He spent the night in the intensive care unit hooked up to heart monitors.  He didn't appear to suffer any harm from the episode.  (I figure that the fact that he took a 12 hour release form of the medication saved him from getting the full effect all at once, which would have been much more serious.)

So when I saw the evidence - pencil marks and candy wrappers - that Tucker had capitalized on a moment of less than 100% attention from Mommy - - - I had a full blown panic attack.  For the rest of the week, I've had my children no more than an arm's length from me.  And I've learned something.  We've developed some bad habits.

You may have guessed from my writing that I wander around in a fog sometimes while I work out an idea in my mind.  Well, the fog cleared for me on Tuesday morning.  And what I've seen in the clear light is disturbing.  Thinking is a good thing, but out of the boundaries of the necessary attention I must focus on my kids, thinking can be a weed.   While I'm distracted by my thoughts, my children have learned to take advantage of my inattention.

In the past three days, I'm amazed at how much they've tried to "get away" with.  I thought I had pretty good kids - and they are really - pretty good kids.  But, my, oh, my, they are sneaky.  So it seems that sneakiness is the fruit I'm seeing from the habits I've planted in their lives.  They bide their time assured that I'll be distracted sooner or later.  So I have to pull the weeds out.  I'm on my hands and knees ripping up grasses and habits by the roots. 

I may not be able to post daily weblogs to my Xanga site, and I may get behind reading my favorites.  But, I'll catch up evenings and weekends when my husband can be in charge of the kids for a few minutes.  I'm not going crazy and killing ALL the grass just because a few blades are coming up in places they don't belong.    I'll still be writing and quilting, gardening and thinking.  After all, the whole family enjoys a nice looking lawn of soft grass. 

Wow, I am honored and humbled to note that I have 15 actual subscribers to my site!  Many thanks to you all for your encouragement and kind remarks on my writing.

Scary -

I had a nice esoteric word all picked out for my daily journaling, but it looks like I'm gonna just have to save it for another day.  Just as I was ready to begin my creative process putting "important abstract concepts" onto paper, my husband strode through the room. 

For those of you who don't know, my husband has his own Xanga site at timverrette, and you can read his side of the story there.  Back to my point of view.  The mere sight of him was enough to force me to change my topic.

The man was carrying a hammer and chisel.  More background info.  When we were still dating, this man broke his foot while strolling across a well-manicured lawn.  He has over the years, cut himself severely while proving that I don't keep my kitchen knives sharp enough.  He flipped a truck and peeled his scalp while swatting at a bee.   Building our barn last fall he managed to hit himself in the head with a 2 x 4, only fell off the ladder twice that I know of, and hit his thumb with the hammer so many times that I thought he was going to lose the whole finger. (BTW, if he claims that I had something to do with the 2 x 4 incident, well, I ask you to remember that his memory isn't what it used to be . . . )  Most recently, he brought the Daddy rabbit over to the Mommy rabbit's hutch for a date.  And forgot him.  So the next morning, the mommy rabbit tried to shred the skin off his arm when he reached in to do daily maintenance.  A girl bunny who's had an overnight "date" gets a tad cranky.

So the sight of Tim with a hammer and chisel in hand and a purposeful look in his eye caught my attention.  "Hey, Honey.  What cha got in mind?"

"Oh, nothing much."

"You look ready for work."

"Nah, I'm just gonna mess around a little."

Obviously, I'm getting less than no where with this line of subtle questioning, so I approach it from a different angle.  "Would you rather I come and help you or just keep the kids out of the way?"

"It wouldn't hurt if you'd keep the kids inside."

Well, whatever project he has in mind its outside.  That answers one question.  I don't have to worry about blood on the carpet.

I settle back in front of my computer screen ready to write.  "C_H_I_N_K!!"

Holy cow, what was that?

"Chink! Chink! Chink!"

My husband was knocking a hole in the cinderblock foundation of our house.  Fortunately, the heat index today was about 105.  After a few minutes he came back inside, soaking wet with sweat and mostly uninjured.

Consume –

Balancing Act -

"Daddy!  Mommy's doing weird stuff that I don't think you know about."  Why on earth do kids think that Dad must be infomred about everything I do?  When they first realized that there was a difference between boys and girls, they tattled to Dad ... "Did you know that Mommy is a GIRL!"

I was pretty sure that Tim had it figured out even before they mentioned it, but I guess it never hurts to make certain of these things. 

Their latest obsession is with the food I eat.  Now you have to understand where I'm coming from.  After Tucker was born I spent a couple years eating anything that didn't eat me first and I got to be a tad overweight.  Ok, maybe a little more than a tad.  On April 1 of this year my scale said 252 pounds, and it wasn't laughing.

So I woke up.  I had a chat with my doctor, which was not really helpful.  He said that there's no quick and easy fix for fat.  If you want to lose weight you have to be prepared to be a little hungry.  And, when I asked for diet - calorie guidelines, he said - just eat whatever you want, but SMALL amounts.  And the kicker?  "No one came out of a concentration camp fat, so ANYBODY can lose weight."

Before you decide to be offended on my behalf, I'm friends with my doctor so he felt comfortable laying it all out for me.  I'm sure with the delicate a fragile OTHER patients, he's much more tactful.

So I started a "diet."  After a month or so of going it on my own, I read the "Weigh Down Workshop" book.  It's heavy on flaky theology, but has some really good advice for handling food intake adn getting to know your body's hunger signals.

So now, on July 5 my weight is officially 219 pounds.  Yep.  Thats a 33 pound drop in three months.  I'm thinking that my husband has probably noticed.  But the kids aren't so sure.  "Mommy didn't finish her lunch today!  Does that mean she can't have dessert?"  (I'm gradually learning to serve myself less to start with, but I sometimes overestimate how hungry I am.  I'm learning that it's better to waste a couple bites of sandwich than store it on my hips.)

We all have little mind games that we play with our own heads.  If you don't I can teach you some good ones.    My little mind game has to do with the scale.  I've learned that if I stand on the scale only on my left foot, slightly to the back, and slowly put my weight on the scale by handing on to the bathroom counter, it will stop at a point 12 pounds below my actual weight.

So on official weigh day, I do it both "weighs" the first time I do it right and dutifully record my progress (or lack).  Then I step up and do it the one-legged way.  My husband rolls his eyes hard enough to give himself whiplash headaches.  But, it works for me.  I think about how wonderful I'm going to feel when I reach that mark, and I plan out the reward I'm going to get for hitting my next short term goal.  (I reward myself for every five pounds I lose.)

Long term?  I want to lose enough weight that I can waterski again.  My long term goal is to spend next Memorial Day weekend on the Lake where my family camped when I was growing up.  I want to be out on the water, skiing into the sunset.

A Good Mother?

"Quit that"
"Stop that!"
"Ouch!"
"Mommy!  He hurt my feelings!"
"It's MY turn now, Mom, tell him it's my turn!"

What on earth possessed me to have children?  They are my flesh and blood and I love them, but some days I'd rather give my life for them than live with them.  Relax, this isn't going to be one of THOSE journal entries. 

I remember when Michael was born.  He was so tiny.  Six Pounds and nothing.  He was all purple and slimy and had a black eye from the labor.  His cheeks were the only fat part of his whole body, and his hair stuck up in even tufts.  I'd never seen anything more repulsive in my life, and I'd never loved anything or any one anymore than I loved him in that moment.

When Tucker was born I was tired.  It had been a LONG and rather bad day in my life.  No worse than the bad day any laboring woman experiences, but I was more than ready for it to be over.  So when they finally laid him in my arms, I cried as much with relief as anything.  But, I fell in love all over again.  I held him and talked to him, and even made calls to my friends when he was less than half an hour old to introduce him by phone.  (Obviously, I had some good drugs in my system.)

I nursed my babies and rocked them.  They got freshly pureed vegetables from my food processor, no store bought, over-processed excuse for food for my precious little ones.  They had just the right nursery set-up with just the right toys to stimulate their little minds.  Then they started talking.

These wonderful little creatures looked up at me with big brown eyes, and expressed an opinion!  Who'd have thought?  The first couple times it was almost cute.  Then they became rather insistent about the whole thing, and that wasn't so wonderful.  Now, they get out of bed in the morning thinking, "How long will it take us to make her do something on her list of things she swore she'd never do, today?"

I have spoken to them in MY MOTHER'S VOICE!  That was much more of a shock to me than it was to them, I know because they didn't seem to notice anything odd at all about it.  The other day Michael was very carefully sitting on his brother and pounding him methodically when I walked in to investigate the screaming.  Michael looked up and said, "I had to Mom, he hurt my feelings."  What do you say?  How do you handle that?  I took a route that no child-rearing expert has ever suggested to me.  I told him to sit his behind in the little chair in the corner until I calmed down or I was going to do something really evil to him.  I know you're supposed to set the timer, one minute for each year of age.  But, I'm pretty sure he was in the corner a tad longer than seven minutes.

Other times they are cuteness unbelievable.  Tucker came to ask for my help.  "What do you need, honey?"  he gave me "THE LOOK" and said very patiently, "Help, Mommy."  So I tried again.  "Why do you need help?"  This time he carefully enunciated for the benefit of the old crazy woman, "I'm a little guy, I'm not big, I'm just light and fluffy!"  I gave up.  I just went with him and followed directions as he gave them.

Michael was explaining to me about the diet of a polar bear.  I was rather impressed and asked him where he learned all that.  "Mom, *I* watch PMS!"  Okay, so this did turn out to be one of those journal entries.

I took them shopping this morning.  We needed some last minute things for the 4th of July picnic tomorrow.  When I was putting away the groceries, I discovered that I'd purchased 2 hot wheels cars, four bricks of cheese, and a box of Preparation H in addition to the stuff that I had on my list.  I understand the cars and the cheese . . . at least they like those things.

Okay, everyone.  Please check out the Bankergirl site.  I don't know how to do reviews, but I'm enjoying her writing a lot and I notice she isn't getting much traffic.  Thanks. 

Art and Scotch Tape

Have you ever stopped and thought about what exactly constitutes art?  I know what I like and what I have on the walls in my home.  Nothing that would fetch a million dollars at Sotheby's but stuff I like.  I have a little print of Monet's 'Waterlilies' in my guest room, and a pair of signed CJ Bradford prints in my bedroom.  Other than that the art in my home tends toward the crafty things that I make from patterns in magazines. 

At least that was the artistic expression of my home until my children got involved.  Over the past year I've discovered that almost any piece of paper becomes art once it is scotch-taped to the wall.  Stick figures of dinosaurs and flowers predominate.  My personal favorite is a long figure in which the head is very small and far away, but the knees are huge.  This is Daddy from the perspective of a four year old.

I've also discovered that sometimes the art is in the tape.  The kids LOVE the stuff.  They twist it and bend it back on itself.  Frequently people point out to me that I have tape stuck on the back of my clothes from the remnants they leave on my chair.

Yesterday, they ran out of paper.  We are just like everyone else.  When we traded in our dot matrix printer for an inkjet, we had boxes of that paper you get at Sam's club.  It has been a magical endless supply for our kids for a couple years.  But yesterday they ran out.  There was a small whimper of disbelief and then they went on to something else. 

I was relieved.  The days of buying a new roll of tape every week to refill the dispenser have come to an end.  I thought.  Then I walked through the family room.  There on the dark purple wall, a white plastic fork was taped at an angle next to the family portraits.  Art has risen to new heights in my home.