Merry Christmas!

Huzzah!  Christmas!  And an unusually relaxing and marvelous Christmas at that!  It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas… advent yes, advent I love.  With the music and the candles and the generally lack of chaos.

Christmas itself though is usually just a day when we’re running from one place to the next, engaging in small talk with family and other people we’re socially obligated to engage in small talk with, eating food I don’t care for (and far too much of it because I’m usually a big bucket of stress), and opening presents that I don’t want or need from people with minimal knowledge of me and heaps of good intentions… all of which turns me into the worst and most exhausted version of myself.

This year though was different.  We had nothing going on.  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Since we had been out so late the night before at Tim Finnegan’s with everyone the kids didn’t wake up till 10:30 so we all slept in.  We got up, leisurely opened presents, and spent the rest of the day playing with said presents.

Verona got these big blocks from my mom and stepdad so her and David spent a large portion of the day building towers…

…and then knocking them down.

My big present was also from my parents and little brother, an espresso/fancy drink making machine to feed my raging caffeine addiction.  They may as well have given me a crack pipe.

A crack pipe that makes tall, almond milk, pumpkin spice macchiato crack.

Merry freaking Christmas everybody!

DPP :: Well intentioned assaults

December Photo Project

This fantastically adorable picture of the little monsters snuggling during nap time clearly shows that Verona adores her little brother.  What it doesn’t show is that her version of love doesn’t involve the realization that tiny babies are not the same as regular people or an understanding of the word “gentle”.

She drags this poor child all over the house “playing” with him, flops him back and forth “holding” him, and constantly punches him in the hand screaming “POUND IT FINNEGAN!  POUND IT!”  99% of the time no matter how stressful it is for me to watch,  I let it happen because Finn is smiling at her like a moron, enjoying every second of the abuse attention his beloved sister is giving him.

 

Barney is an @#$^%&*.

I grew up in a household where “gosh”, “butt”, and “fart” were bad words… partially due to that and partially to the fact that I’m 1/4 sailor (or at least assuming I am) I do tend to use some pretty colorful language, as do the other adults in my house.  When I was younger I swore (pun intended) that I would never curse around my children… I swore a lot of things about “when I have children” because, as we all know, there’s no expert in child raising like the person who doesn’t have any.  Then I had kids and realized I have a lot more important things to try and fix about myself, when I get those under control I can tackle some of the smaller stuff like my tendencies toward profanity.

Fast forward to a few days ago.  Our dog Barney had done something bad and someone made the declaration that, judging by how often it’s used, should officially be the mantra of our house.

But this time instead of the traditional response of the poor mentally challenged dog drooling, tail wagging, and flopping over on his back that we’re all used to there was a tiny echo.

We all knew this day would come, and here it finally was.

Over the next few days it would occasionally crop up, usually when Verona was already talking about dogs… or when she would see Barney… or think about Barney… or sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.  She would say it nonchalantly, obviously unaware that there was anything different between this word and the other 200 or so that she’s learned.  I was torn between wanting to tell her to stop, not caring, and wanting to pee my pants laughing over her innocent little voice informing me “Barney @#$^%&*.”

I decided to just ignore it, I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it because I didn’t want it to become something fun and exciting to say but I also wasn’t going to repeat it back to her when she said it like I do with most words.  Is this the right course of action?  I have absolutly no idea.  But maybe, I thought, maybe she would just forget about it.

This seemed to be working ok until we went to coffee time at church a few mornings ago.  That morning it was myself and a few people spanning middle age to old who started talking about parenting and swapping funny stories from when their kids were little.  So I decided to share our little situation, explaining the basics of Verona hearing this colorful word and now repeating it.  They were all thoroughly amused, being far enough past this stage in their own parenting ventures to be able to find all the humor there was in it.

I had made the cardinal mistake of parenting though, assuming first off that Verona wasn’t listening when we all know that kids are ALWAYS listening (unless of course you want them to be) and secondly that by using “colorful word” in place of the word itself that she wouldn’t know what we were talking about.

She did know what we were talking about, and instead of knowing that I was intentionally avoiding the particular vocabulary in question because swearing loudly in front of the pastors and other various pillars of the church is something not even I intentionally do she assumed I just couldn’t remember the word.

As far as she could tell I couldn’t remember the word and it was causing me to tell the story wrong… but she was going to be helpful damnit!  She wouldn’t stand idly by and let me mess up a story because I was forgetful!  No no, mommy, I will help!  Don’t worry!

Yes honey, thank you for your help.  Sigh.

Parents, Children, and Other Silly Things

I’ve been contemplating lately (by lately I mean since about two weeks after I found out I was pregnant) what kind of mother I want to be and what I need to do to be that person.  The thing about kids is you know everything there is to know about them until you have one and then suddenly you realize you don’t know a damn thing.  I’ve decided that my #1 most imporant goal is for V to grow up to love and respect herself.  Origionally I said it was for her to feel loved and respected by us but I realized that, while also being important, it is really just the means to the more imporant end of her own self worth.  Coming in a close behind was I want her to feel free to make up her own mind and have the critical thinking skills to do so, and to live joyously and embrace everything that life has to offer.

How to be the mom that helps her grow into that person is something I haven’t figure out yet, and I’m starting to suspect that I never will.  Instead, I forsee myself fumbling along with the best of intentions, second guessing myself at every turn, but I’m choosing to see that as a good thing because in my experience the parents who think they have it all figured out are usually the worst ones. 

Right now I’m trying to focus on respecting and trusting her.  As much as we as a society claim to value children I don’t feel like we respect them very much.  People talk to children in a way that they would never dream of talking to someone their own age and disreguard their thoughts and feelings (or simply dismiss them as “cute”) which would be considered condescending and completely innapropriate if done to their peers. 

I didn’t think much of it until I had my own child but now it really bugs me.  V isn’t just my adorable little girl, she’s a really cool person.  She has a fantastic personality, she has opinions and preferences that differ radically from my own sometimes, she is a great person to be around and no less deserving of respect just because she hasn’t been on this earth as long as some of the rest of us.

I’ll talk more about this later but in the interesting of not being the person with obscenely long blog posts I’m gonna stop here.  Oh, and I’m interesting in any opinions anyone has, leave a comment.

Things I Love

It’s Monday, so once again here is a list of the things I’ve been loving the past week.  If you want to play along with Inspiration Monday visit Tara’s blog.   

It was just Thanksgiving so let’s get down with a little turkey day Homestar!

If you’re a fan of sarcasm and satire here is a Pop Song to make your day better. 

It’s getting cold and nothing is cuter than children in adorable little hats.  And more hats.  And another.

Kids these days are not any more selfish, spoiled, or less motivated than kids of previous generations were, no matter what your grandma says. 

I heart good grammar… even if I don’t always have it. 

And finally the thing I’m loving the most today doesn’t have a link to it but we just got back from Kansas visiting my family for Thanksgiving which means V got to do all sorts of new things like play in fallen leaves, crawl around in grass, see snow (albeit only out the car window on the drive there), and play with a bunch of family that she’s never met before.  Here she is playing in my mom’s backyard (that’s our badass tree house in the background) with her daddy.