I've been having a really hard couple weeks on the mommying front. It's not the old problem where I struggle over wanting to do my own thing--I actually feel pretty okay about that stuff, and I enjoy the time I spend directly interacting with my little people too. But I'm super depressed by the constant disastrously messy state of my house. If I try to get up and do anything about it, Noah either a) gets into what I'm doing causes trouble or b) tries to follow me around, gets freaked out by my constantly walking away from him, and follows me around crying.
I have thus discovered that a small person following me around crying is my #1 mind-destroying rage trigger. Daniel's grown out of it, so I hardly clash with him at all anymore except when my temper has already been snapped by his brother. But when he was right around this age was when I couldn't take it anymore and had to go into counseling.
So to avoid the rage, I end up just staying in the same place, and when I'm boring, Noah entertains himself or is entertained by his brother. Sometimes he checks in and we play a little. Or I can play with Daniel, who I have more fun with the older he gets, and Noah hangs out with us. And in between, I actually get a lot of time to myself--in fact, all the time I want to sit around and read or whistle or do heraldry or whatever.
But I hate having a messy house. I feel like a pig. The fridge and the dishes stink. Noah's run out of pajamas. The shower is a science experiment. I'm really worried about Daniel's degree of constant exposure to TV and convenience food, and about not teaching him to clean and cook too. We have way too freaking many toys, even after Daniel helped me fill two boxes with donations. I don't know where to put any of my SCA-related crafty stuff.
For the last week or so I've been twiddling with this text file on my computer where I try to imagine my totally ideal, Mary Sue-ified self, as if she were a fictional character. Someone who has all the skills I want and makes time for all the things I want. Smart and kind, funny and humble, loud and quiet, playful and spiritual, artistic and domestic, a beautiful clean house full of good smells and happy people and music and books and video games and completed projects. But this character doesn't make any sense to me. Nothing I do seems to make her seem realistic or possible. And none of these traits are things I feel are dispensable, or are merely being imposed on me from the outside. I really want them. I really want them.
Hmph.
Anyway. I need to find a way to talk someone into hanging out at my house all day every day for like a week and play with my kids so I can at least whip my domicile into shape and stop feeling so imprisoned by it. I'm not sure that's possible, though. I don't know what to do.
...I was aiming toward ending this on a despairing sort of note, but oh my goodness Noah is being adorable right now. O_______O ♥ Aaaaah.
At some point, invisibly, I progressed to the point of finally really feeling that the benefits of parenthood outweigh the pain. Because the number one thing I want most in the world--really, the very most, this is not a hyperbole--is to have a bunch of kids who like each other and play together. And right now, whatever else may be going on, I totally have the beginnings of that. And it is wonderful. I just wish I wasn't so terrible at everything else.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Newness!
Hmmmmmh~! This is one of those posts I've been planning in my head for way too long, so that now the inertia for actually writing it has set in. What was I going to say again? Didn't I already say that a few times in my head a few weeks ago?
2013 was the year that I finally learned enough to start understanding how little I know. This is a concept, that, intellectually, I was pretty familiar with. It's just a humility thing, right? You're probably not an expert at anything, especially when you're as young and scatterbrained as I am. But I guess I always just kind of felt like everything was more-or-less within my grasp, as soon as I felt like trying. I'm pretty smart. I got through most of my life's school years just doing what came naturally. But I only really dabbled in things and tried to stay with what I knew I was good at, or else investigate just one thing super deeply, driven by my passion for it.
In 2013, I experimented with learning a lot of totally new and foreign things, especially arts. The SCA has a lot to do with getting me enthused about many of them. I tried four or five musical instruments, song-writing, painting, calligraphy, sewing, cooking, singing very old songs, reading very old stories, deep medieval heraldry studies, a bit of dancing, some new clay-working techniques, some new (old) board games, a new RPG system, Esperanto, a regular running program, probably other stuff I'm forgetting. I don't think I've ever tried so many things all in a row in such a short space in my life. And that's not to mention that, for the better part of any individual day, I was mainly developing my parenting skills.
Some of these things, I probably won't pick up again. Some of them I hope to, but I don't know when. Some I actually managed to start getting good at! I'm beginning to play some real songs on the recorder and tin whistle and sound like I know what I'm doing. I was able to run a 5k when the weather started being prohibitive. And I've recently started feeling like I might be able to have this mom thing figured out by the time I'm done with it.
All of this has given me, for the first time, a really intuitive and deeply-felt sense of how very very very very very very very little I know about anything. I've discovered a lifelong habit of bravado that I didn't even know I was putting on, pretending (and convincing myself) that I always knew a little more than I really did. I'm starting to not bother pretending and just say "I have no idea!", or even "I'm pretty sure what I just said was actually totally made up, I'm sorry." I've started keeping my mouth shut and listening more. It's like a completely new life. It's like breaking down a wall and finding that it was an egg shell all along.
Two days after finishing NaNoWriMo, I made a post to facebook that went like this:
Every month in 2014, I will focus my creative energies on one particular hobby. Not with the intention of making fast progress on it or anything, but just so I don't have to feel like I'm always obliged to do everything, and always failing at it. I'll keep making lists of all the things I want to do, and as new months begin I'll either switch my current focus or not, as my mood swings. (And if I get sick of something halfway through the month, that's okay, too.) The idea is just to be able to try lots of things without feeling guilty about the other things.
When I was a brand-new mom and newly out of college, I lost track of my need to make art and became overwhelmed by a loss of fun and a loss of identity that seemed to come from being imprisoned by my baby. But when I went to counseling I found out that writing poetry made me feel better, and drawing, and singing, and any number of pointless artistic endeavors. I need to be creating to be happy. And I need a bit of time to be--not necessarily alone, but uninterrupted. In the flow. Once I reopened the door to that part of myself, things immediately started to feel better.
For a long time I tried to have my art simultaneously with my guilt over taking time for it, but 2013 was also the year I seem to have given up on feeling like I'm being irresponsible by spending my energy this way. There's definitely a lot I need to work on about myself, but this? I think this is who I am. I need to be gentler and more reliable and less irritable, yes. There's a moral right to those things. And the stuff I've written before about putting my kids first in my day-to-day life still stands, too. But my being easily distracted, being whimsical, even being cluttered? Those are kind of outside the realm of ethics, aren't they?
Daniel and I can both sit at the table and draw. I can play the whistle on the floor while Noah bangs blocks together. Sure, my house is messy, but once I get to the hygienic-and-sort-of-organized point, should I really feel as bad about the rest as I historically do? Most of the mess has always been, since before we had kids, all the books I have out, the drawings, the pages of notes, the special pens or whistles or dice or Rubix cubes. The other stuff--socks and dishes and things--are easy to tidy, but the projects have always stymied me. So, okay! For now, I give up. The projects will be there, cluttering up the corners, until I'm a gajillionaire with an eight bedroom house to keep them all organized and tuck them away.
I guess it's not surprising that always wanting to make things and read things is part of who I am. My mom is kind of the same way, and my dad, too. My new paradigm is to see it as a primary feature of my personhood and therefore of mothering, not as competition with it. The fact that my kids will have heaps of dorkiness around them growing up might not need to be something I fear. I hope as they get older some of the projects are theirs. (And, don't get me wrong, I do hope I can yell less and clean more this year than I did last year.)
My patriarchal blessing says that, as my life goes on, my "educational pursuits will be in evidence." I always thought that was kind of an odd phrase. I wondered what it was supposed to mean, why it would be worded that way. At one point not long ago I doubted whether it meant anything at all. But I think maybe I'm finally starting to figure it out.
ANYWAY!
After making this plan, I ran into this extremely exciting blog post that talks about an extremely exciting TED Talk: F*** 10,000 Hours: Thoughts on Process, Perfection and Good Enough.
...Which...yeah. I don't even know what to add to that. It's one of the most liberating things I've ever read/watched and sets me off into a state of wanting to scream and run around in circles with enthusiasm. I can do it! I have time! I don't need to be a world-class expert--I can be as good as I want to be and I only need 20 hours!
And that brings me back to the beginning of this post. Because 20 hours is more than enough to find out how little I know. But that's okay, because you know another thing that feels really, really good? Being educated enough to comprehend how mindblowingly awesome another person's talents are. I think the world and I are both about to get cooler.
So. The year has begun. January's project is (continuing) to learn my way around my little collection of wind instruments--the recorder, the Irish whistle, and the three-hole tabor pipe. I'm having a lovely time with it so far.
2013 was the year that I finally learned enough to start understanding how little I know. This is a concept, that, intellectually, I was pretty familiar with. It's just a humility thing, right? You're probably not an expert at anything, especially when you're as young and scatterbrained as I am. But I guess I always just kind of felt like everything was more-or-less within my grasp, as soon as I felt like trying. I'm pretty smart. I got through most of my life's school years just doing what came naturally. But I only really dabbled in things and tried to stay with what I knew I was good at, or else investigate just one thing super deeply, driven by my passion for it.
In 2013, I experimented with learning a lot of totally new and foreign things, especially arts. The SCA has a lot to do with getting me enthused about many of them. I tried four or five musical instruments, song-writing, painting, calligraphy, sewing, cooking, singing very old songs, reading very old stories, deep medieval heraldry studies, a bit of dancing, some new clay-working techniques, some new (old) board games, a new RPG system, Esperanto, a regular running program, probably other stuff I'm forgetting. I don't think I've ever tried so many things all in a row in such a short space in my life. And that's not to mention that, for the better part of any individual day, I was mainly developing my parenting skills.
Some of these things, I probably won't pick up again. Some of them I hope to, but I don't know when. Some I actually managed to start getting good at! I'm beginning to play some real songs on the recorder and tin whistle and sound like I know what I'm doing. I was able to run a 5k when the weather started being prohibitive. And I've recently started feeling like I might be able to have this mom thing figured out by the time I'm done with it.
All of this has given me, for the first time, a really intuitive and deeply-felt sense of how very very very very very very very little I know about anything. I've discovered a lifelong habit of bravado that I didn't even know I was putting on, pretending (and convincing myself) that I always knew a little more than I really did. I'm starting to not bother pretending and just say "I have no idea!", or even "I'm pretty sure what I just said was actually totally made up, I'm sorry." I've started keeping my mouth shut and listening more. It's like a completely new life. It's like breaking down a wall and finding that it was an egg shell all along.
Two days after finishing NaNoWriMo, I made a post to facebook that went like this:
I made a list of all the long-term projects I want to pursue and talents I want to develop -- not "someday" stuff, but things I would like to be working on RIGHT NOW -- and there are 25 things on it. ._.In the weeks to follow, I developed a plan. The plan is this:
Every month in 2014, I will focus my creative energies on one particular hobby. Not with the intention of making fast progress on it or anything, but just so I don't have to feel like I'm always obliged to do everything, and always failing at it. I'll keep making lists of all the things I want to do, and as new months begin I'll either switch my current focus or not, as my mood swings. (And if I get sick of something halfway through the month, that's okay, too.) The idea is just to be able to try lots of things without feeling guilty about the other things.
When I was a brand-new mom and newly out of college, I lost track of my need to make art and became overwhelmed by a loss of fun and a loss of identity that seemed to come from being imprisoned by my baby. But when I went to counseling I found out that writing poetry made me feel better, and drawing, and singing, and any number of pointless artistic endeavors. I need to be creating to be happy. And I need a bit of time to be--not necessarily alone, but uninterrupted. In the flow. Once I reopened the door to that part of myself, things immediately started to feel better.
For a long time I tried to have my art simultaneously with my guilt over taking time for it, but 2013 was also the year I seem to have given up on feeling like I'm being irresponsible by spending my energy this way. There's definitely a lot I need to work on about myself, but this? I think this is who I am. I need to be gentler and more reliable and less irritable, yes. There's a moral right to those things. And the stuff I've written before about putting my kids first in my day-to-day life still stands, too. But my being easily distracted, being whimsical, even being cluttered? Those are kind of outside the realm of ethics, aren't they?
Daniel and I can both sit at the table and draw. I can play the whistle on the floor while Noah bangs blocks together. Sure, my house is messy, but once I get to the hygienic-and-sort-of-organized point, should I really feel as bad about the rest as I historically do? Most of the mess has always been, since before we had kids, all the books I have out, the drawings, the pages of notes, the special pens or whistles or dice or Rubix cubes. The other stuff--socks and dishes and things--are easy to tidy, but the projects have always stymied me. So, okay! For now, I give up. The projects will be there, cluttering up the corners, until I'm a gajillionaire with an eight bedroom house to keep them all organized and tuck them away.
I guess it's not surprising that always wanting to make things and read things is part of who I am. My mom is kind of the same way, and my dad, too. My new paradigm is to see it as a primary feature of my personhood and therefore of mothering, not as competition with it. The fact that my kids will have heaps of dorkiness around them growing up might not need to be something I fear. I hope as they get older some of the projects are theirs. (And, don't get me wrong, I do hope I can yell less and clean more this year than I did last year.)
My patriarchal blessing says that, as my life goes on, my "educational pursuits will be in evidence." I always thought that was kind of an odd phrase. I wondered what it was supposed to mean, why it would be worded that way. At one point not long ago I doubted whether it meant anything at all. But I think maybe I'm finally starting to figure it out.
ANYWAY!
After making this plan, I ran into this extremely exciting blog post that talks about an extremely exciting TED Talk: F*** 10,000 Hours: Thoughts on Process, Perfection and Good Enough.
...Which...yeah. I don't even know what to add to that. It's one of the most liberating things I've ever read/watched and sets me off into a state of wanting to scream and run around in circles with enthusiasm. I can do it! I have time! I don't need to be a world-class expert--I can be as good as I want to be and I only need 20 hours!
And that brings me back to the beginning of this post. Because 20 hours is more than enough to find out how little I know. But that's okay, because you know another thing that feels really, really good? Being educated enough to comprehend how mindblowingly awesome another person's talents are. I think the world and I are both about to get cooler.
So. The year has begun. January's project is (continuing) to learn my way around my little collection of wind instruments--the recorder, the Irish whistle, and the three-hole tabor pipe. I'm having a lovely time with it so far.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
A theme song
Come, let us anew our journey pursue,
Roll round with the year,
And never stand still till the Master appear.
His adorable will let us gladly fulfill,
And our talents improve
By the patience of hope and the labor of love.
Our life as a dream, our time as a stream
Glide swiftly away,
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay;
For the arrow is flown and the moments are gone.
The millennial year
Presses on to our view, and eternity's here.
Oh, that each in the day of His coming may say,
"I have fought my way thru;
I have finished the work thou didst give me to do."
Oh, that each from his Lord may receive the glad word:
"Well and faithfully done;
Enter into my joy and sit down on my throne."
- Charles Wesley, 1707-1788
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Comin' up
As I've discussed here before, year-changes make me feel goalish. I have a really fun one coming up here starting in January. ^_^ MORE ON THAT NEXT TIME. For tonight I'm just reestablishing contact.
Today's facebook status:
Then, this evening Heath was able to finally eat real food, and Noah actually played for a while. So things are pretty good. (Once my poor mom starts feeling better I'll be even happier.)
I should probably clean my house soon. Like with Lysol.
I've been playing around a lot with my recorder and my tin whistle lately. That's a new hobby since the last time I wrote. Also doing some heraldry again, which is nice because I basically didn't work on that at all for over a month because I was NaNoing. I'd like to go for a run outside this weekend when the weather is up in the high 40s... So many things I want to do! Getting ahead of myself for that New Year post. It's gonna be fun.
Meanwhile, Christmas!
Today's facebook status:
My poor family. Noah has been every kind of sick and miserable for over a week. High fevers, all-over rashes, many gross things. He's so worn out now that all he does is sit in my lap all day and just vaguely watch the world. Heath has had it for three days and been a wreck, too. I really hope they all finish getting better before I get it. The doctor says it's a virus and there's basically nothing we can do but comfort.A few hours later, the last bit really happened. Daniel and I slipped off to go watch Frozen in the theater together. It was his first time, but he's too young to have really cared about the venue. Just another movie fore him. I loved it, though, just like I thought and hoped I would. Totally my new favorite. (Lately I've been feeling like a huge snob who doesn't like anything, so this was pretty thrilling. It was like 98% perfect. ♥)
(Miraculously, I'm fine so far. We thought Daniel had it earlier this week, but after barfing three times he went, "Phew, I'm hungry," and has been completely okay ever since. Except for being bored because we're trapped at home. I might take him to a movie.)
Then, this evening Heath was able to finally eat real food, and Noah actually played for a while. So things are pretty good. (Once my poor mom starts feeling better I'll be even happier.)
I should probably clean my house soon. Like with Lysol.
I've been playing around a lot with my recorder and my tin whistle lately. That's a new hobby since the last time I wrote. Also doing some heraldry again, which is nice because I basically didn't work on that at all for over a month because I was NaNoing. I'd like to go for a run outside this weekend when the weather is up in the high 40s... So many things I want to do! Getting ahead of myself for that New Year post. It's gonna be fun.
Meanwhile, Christmas!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Belated, followed by belabored
And then, one day, you get out of the shower and just... are completely fine. All of a sudden.
(I wanted to post this on May 4th, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure it would stick.
(It has. Everything is totally different. I guess I just finally finished processing, or something.)
~
In May I had an awesome week or two of feeling amazing about life, being all like, man, I have no problems! This is crazy! What do other people worry about, anyway? I wonder what my first new problem will be! Then there was a sudden tragic death in my local religious community, and I felt very strange about my idea of what it means to have problems.)
Aaaaaanyway. We potty-trained Daniel in about a week after his third birthday, and that was part of why I felt so amazing. It was like I had finally passed the final rite and become a Real Mom. I did it! Birth, that just kind of happens. Potty-training, though, you could theoretically just not do, if you were a horrible person. But I did it, and Daniel did it, and it was actually really fun, because I spend that week being incredibly involved with him, setting aside all distractions and paying close attention. I loved it. He behaved better for the attention, and I was less frustrated by always trying to do other things. We enjoyed each other.
Sadly, it didn't take me very long to forget that lesson. I'm just now (like, today) coming out of several weeks of being an unexploded bomb of rage and misery and hating-my-life-as-a-mother. Although much of that has come from problems with nursing; I guess I won't go into the gory details, except to mention that the details actually involve gore. x_x And that drove me to wanting more distractions, which led to me ignoring Daniel a lot, which led to him misbehaving. But things to have resolved, or nearly so! Partly from technique-adjustments, and partly because Noah is six months old now (what?!?) and so we've been experimenting with solid food. In doing so I have discovered that he really really likes and wants and is good at eating solid food. Yay!! It helps that he has five teeth already, plus two almost-teeth (see above re: nursing problems). I've been giving him mini-meals the last couple days, and there's been a huge reduction in the whining and crying and a big increase in smiles. I'm hopeful that we can move more rapidly into nursing just once or twice a day than I did with Daniel (who didn't have a single tooth until he was 8 months, and who nursed to sleep, and with whom I also had painful problems around this age).
I also sat down with Heath last night and set a bunch of new, small goals about how I spend my time all day, aiming to maximize my usefulness and happiness and minimize my angst and frustration. I do way better at life when I have goals, even if I don't exactly meet them. Today went really well inside of me, even when it was chaotic and messy and loud and obnoxious outside of me. So that's awesome. (It also helped to be back in my own apartment, my own place that I'm in charge of, after a week with family. My family is awesome and it was so much fun, but being in one's own home is more the kind of awesome I seem to be in need of right this second, sanity-wise. Have I even mentioned that my sister is home from Nicaragua? I like her.)
(I also like: my kids. Noah was so adorable it was insane today--all happy and grinning all over the place with his little teeth, sitting up on his own all fat and cute, bouncing in his doorway bouncer so hard I thought he might land on his fluffy-diapered little butt. And Heath had a break in the middle of the day, so while the two of them took naps, Daniel and I went off by ourselves for a walk around town. This is absolutely my favorite thing to do as a mother, and I don't do it very often anymore. It was so much fun, and so nice. I miss him when we've been clashing. (When we were nursing, we always had to emotionally reconnect no matter what else was going on, and while I know that won't be the case for most of my time as a mom, it's still new to me (we nursed till he was two, still more than half his life) and I'm still learning to cope with the lost resource. I think that's the main reason I haven't made any gestures toward actually weaning Noah, even when I've had every reason to do so. I don't want to miss out on having that foundation with him as he gets older and more independent.)
So there is my boring and self-indulgent update! In other news, I might start a separate SCA blog because, oh yes, I am that big of a nerd. I do think it's more fun to talk about all my stuff in one place, but I also don't want random society people being like, cool post about late medieval Portuguese armory! What else you got here? Nipple problems, eh? Unfortunate, sister.
I also want to write a less rambling entry about how my identity has evolved lately in the face of my constant ambivalence about my ongoing choice to be a full-time caretaker, but I'm not sure it makes any sense. The short version is, I get way happier and more relaxed when I think of homemaking and kid-entertaining as my job. Like the kind you get hired for. Get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work! Don't slack off during your shift! Don't try to do other things and pretend you're not at work! Even if I'm doing it all the time and don't get as many breaks as I might want, if it's just my job, it's not who I am. This is why I used the word "caretaker" there. Being a mother is in fact a big part of who I am now, and I love that fiercely. But that's about my relationships with these two people, not about whether or not they live in my house and need me to make it a certain kind of environment for them. That part, the part I do, is just a job. And therefore I don't have to thrive on it. I can just do my best at it, and enjoy the kids I'm doing it for as much as possible, without having to transform into an archetype of it. I don't have to become it in order to do it, no matter how much of my time it takes. I can love my kids (which comes easily), get the home-making done (which doesn't), and still be me inside throughout the process. It's not like this is some magic formula that will prevent me from ever getting tired or burned-out, but it helps me feel less oppressed by my own perfectionism. I can get up in the morning and say "okay, I guess I better do some motherish stuff" instead of "ugh, I don't feel like a mother-ish person today...again." It's just stuff. And if I save the selfish things I /want/ to do (especially ones that park me at the computer) for when Heath is home or everyone else is asleep, I may not get as much time in on them, but I'm happier because I'm not spending my day getting interrupted. That ratchets up the resentment-points way too fast.
Whoa, I just went back to edit that paragraph and dozed off in my chair.
(I wanted to post this on May 4th, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure it would stick.
(It has. Everything is totally different. I guess I just finally finished processing, or something.)
~
In May I had an awesome week or two of feeling amazing about life, being all like, man, I have no problems! This is crazy! What do other people worry about, anyway? I wonder what my first new problem will be! Then there was a sudden tragic death in my local religious community, and I felt very strange about my idea of what it means to have problems.)
Aaaaaanyway. We potty-trained Daniel in about a week after his third birthday, and that was part of why I felt so amazing. It was like I had finally passed the final rite and become a Real Mom. I did it! Birth, that just kind of happens. Potty-training, though, you could theoretically just not do, if you were a horrible person. But I did it, and Daniel did it, and it was actually really fun, because I spend that week being incredibly involved with him, setting aside all distractions and paying close attention. I loved it. He behaved better for the attention, and I was less frustrated by always trying to do other things. We enjoyed each other.
Sadly, it didn't take me very long to forget that lesson. I'm just now (like, today) coming out of several weeks of being an unexploded bomb of rage and misery and hating-my-life-as-a-mother. Although much of that has come from problems with nursing; I guess I won't go into the gory details, except to mention that the details actually involve gore. x_x And that drove me to wanting more distractions, which led to me ignoring Daniel a lot, which led to him misbehaving. But things to have resolved, or nearly so! Partly from technique-adjustments, and partly because Noah is six months old now (what?!?) and so we've been experimenting with solid food. In doing so I have discovered that he really really likes and wants and is good at eating solid food. Yay!! It helps that he has five teeth already, plus two almost-teeth (see above re: nursing problems). I've been giving him mini-meals the last couple days, and there's been a huge reduction in the whining and crying and a big increase in smiles. I'm hopeful that we can move more rapidly into nursing just once or twice a day than I did with Daniel (who didn't have a single tooth until he was 8 months, and who nursed to sleep, and with whom I also had painful problems around this age).
I also sat down with Heath last night and set a bunch of new, small goals about how I spend my time all day, aiming to maximize my usefulness and happiness and minimize my angst and frustration. I do way better at life when I have goals, even if I don't exactly meet them. Today went really well inside of me, even when it was chaotic and messy and loud and obnoxious outside of me. So that's awesome. (It also helped to be back in my own apartment, my own place that I'm in charge of, after a week with family. My family is awesome and it was so much fun, but being in one's own home is more the kind of awesome I seem to be in need of right this second, sanity-wise. Have I even mentioned that my sister is home from Nicaragua? I like her.)
(I also like: my kids. Noah was so adorable it was insane today--all happy and grinning all over the place with his little teeth, sitting up on his own all fat and cute, bouncing in his doorway bouncer so hard I thought he might land on his fluffy-diapered little butt. And Heath had a break in the middle of the day, so while the two of them took naps, Daniel and I went off by ourselves for a walk around town. This is absolutely my favorite thing to do as a mother, and I don't do it very often anymore. It was so much fun, and so nice. I miss him when we've been clashing. (When we were nursing, we always had to emotionally reconnect no matter what else was going on, and while I know that won't be the case for most of my time as a mom, it's still new to me (we nursed till he was two, still more than half his life) and I'm still learning to cope with the lost resource. I think that's the main reason I haven't made any gestures toward actually weaning Noah, even when I've had every reason to do so. I don't want to miss out on having that foundation with him as he gets older and more independent.)
So there is my boring and self-indulgent update! In other news, I might start a separate SCA blog because, oh yes, I am that big of a nerd. I do think it's more fun to talk about all my stuff in one place, but I also don't want random society people being like, cool post about late medieval Portuguese armory! What else you got here? Nipple problems, eh? Unfortunate, sister.
I also want to write a less rambling entry about how my identity has evolved lately in the face of my constant ambivalence about my ongoing choice to be a full-time caretaker, but I'm not sure it makes any sense. The short version is, I get way happier and more relaxed when I think of homemaking and kid-entertaining as my job. Like the kind you get hired for. Get up in the morning, get dressed, go to work! Don't slack off during your shift! Don't try to do other things and pretend you're not at work! Even if I'm doing it all the time and don't get as many breaks as I might want, if it's just my job, it's not who I am. This is why I used the word "caretaker" there. Being a mother is in fact a big part of who I am now, and I love that fiercely. But that's about my relationships with these two people, not about whether or not they live in my house and need me to make it a certain kind of environment for them. That part, the part I do, is just a job. And therefore I don't have to thrive on it. I can just do my best at it, and enjoy the kids I'm doing it for as much as possible, without having to transform into an archetype of it. I don't have to become it in order to do it, no matter how much of my time it takes. I can love my kids (which comes easily), get the home-making done (which doesn't), and still be me inside throughout the process. It's not like this is some magic formula that will prevent me from ever getting tired or burned-out, but it helps me feel less oppressed by my own perfectionism. I can get up in the morning and say "okay, I guess I better do some motherish stuff" instead of "ugh, I don't feel like a mother-ish person today...again." It's just stuff. And if I save the selfish things I /want/ to do (especially ones that park me at the computer) for when Heath is home or everyone else is asleep, I may not get as much time in on them, but I'm happier because I'm not spending my day getting interrupted. That ratchets up the resentment-points way too fast.
Whoa, I just went back to edit that paragraph and dozed off in my chair.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Can't say that
Can't say that... Can't say that... Definitely can't say that... Can't say that, can't say that... Can't say that... Can't say that...
More things to preserve
I have this list of amazing Daniel things to blog, but I'm not really in a writing mood, so this is likely to be even more disjointed than usual. (If I ever make a new journal, I should just call it "Disjointed," because I seem to use that word in nearly every entry. Come to think, that might have been the name of my LJ layout.)
* Noah is getting stronger. He can't roll over, but when I set him up in my lap a few days ago he was briefly able to hold his torso erect. I excitedly showed this to Daniel, who said, "He's growing up!"
* Where a normal person might say "That's interesting," Daniel says in highly intrigued tones, "That's serious." I think he might have developed that because serious is the opposite of silly? And therefore when things are remarkable but not silly, this must be what you say? Anyway, it's darn cute and another of the injokes Heath and I have adopted into our own vocabularies.
* There was an armadillo on TV, and I talked to Daniel about it. "Isn't that cool, how they can turn into balls?" "Yeah!" he said, "like cars do!" "Cars can turn into balls?" I asked. "Yeah!" he said. "Huh. I've never seen that," I said. "It's kind of busted," he explained. Which is exactly right, now that he's pointed out to me. A sufficiently busted car would totally look like an armadillo.
* Daniel has always had an amazing brain for making unlikely visual/auditory comparisons between things. Like last summer when he bit a sandwich into the shape of a helicopter, or a couple weeks ago when he pointed to the cover of this book at the library and said, "Mario!", or last week when Noah suddenly howled and Daniel remarked that he sounded like an elephant.
* No matter how whimsical a parent you are, you can't be prepared for everything. When he asked me "What sound does a brain make?" I was overcome by amazement at the question itself and unable to come up with a good answer.
* Noah has been sleeping in his crib at night for the last week or two, and it's been so lovely. It's not really a huge change--we still bring him to bed when he wakes up so that he can nurse, and then fall back asleep for the second half of the night with him still there. Same thing we did with Daniel. But he was spending the first part of the night in the swing in our room before, and there's something just so exciting and wonderful about tucking both my sweet little sons into their shared room and tiptoeing out. Daniel really likes having him in there, and the first few nights I just hung out in there for over an hour after they were both still asleep, playing Backgammon on my phone and just soaking in the magic of listening to my plural children breathing peacefully together.
* In less lovely but still interesting sleep news, Daniel has nightmares sometimes, and they are fascinating. We try not to show him scary things on TV or whatnot, and he hasn't had very many frightening experiences in real life (aside from the occasional Mommy Is Extremely Loud incident), so they're not usually about obvious things like monsters or drowning (although the most recent one is about a burning truck, which makes sense). But if your hormones tell you to be scared, you'll come up with something for it, apparently. The big one last week was, as far as I can understand, about a coconut tree that sprouted in the middle of the church. "It's very tall. It's very big. The coconut tree spins around. It spins around very fast. It's kind of smoky. And the man, he's talking." I think it's amazing how these peculiarly benign elements add up to something absolutely that is absolutely legit creepy.
* Interesting parenting moment: Daniel has discovered the word "beautiful," and as he was examining the DVD case for The Little Mermaid on Saturday, he remarked that Ariel was beautiful. Heath told him that was a nice thing to say. Then he pointed at Ursula and said, "What's that?" "That's Ursula, the Sea Witch," said Heath. "She's very beautiful," said Daniel, and there was this brief pause while everything about the fat, aging, garish, super problematic and stereotyped character design flashed through my mind--along with everything I want Daniel to know about the women in the real world, and all the different body types, personal styles, ages, degrees of physical ability--and how I want him to respect them and treat them kindly, in the fact of extreme peer pressure to the contrary--and how little time I have as his sole and utterly trusted source of socialization... It felt like an extremely long and significant pause for thought, but it was only like half a second. "Yes, she is beautiful," I agreed.
* What else? Oh, yes. Yesterday I asked him if he remembers the names of his fingers--I was thinking pointer, pinky, etc.--and he said yes. So I held up my thumb and said, "What's this one?" and he said with a big smile, "Jenny!
* I am working on returning to being a person who does not swear even when severely provoked, and I'm finally making progress. Last-second cuss word replacements from last week: "What the funny money!!" and "Oh, shirt."
* Today we talked about "full names," and I told him his own, and those of other people he knew. He was fascinated and asked for more. It was awesome. Other than that, it was a really difficult and lonely day. But it was really sweet when he painstaking assembled the sentence, "Is something wrong, Mommy?" (Noah screamed a lot today, is the main thing. He took a big nap in the morning, during which I did a ton of laundry out of sheer boredom, but after that it was Just No Good for anyone. I felt totally abandoned by the rest of the world, and the weather was super nice but I couldn't get everything together sufficiently to get us outside, so I was trapped. Then, after about a century, Heath got home, and with the extra pair of hands I was able to fix everything up. We went for a really excessively long walk in the beautiful sunshine and all came back exhausted, but I felt so much better afterward.)
* Noah is getting stronger. He can't roll over, but when I set him up in my lap a few days ago he was briefly able to hold his torso erect. I excitedly showed this to Daniel, who said, "He's growing up!"
* Where a normal person might say "That's interesting," Daniel says in highly intrigued tones, "That's serious." I think he might have developed that because serious is the opposite of silly? And therefore when things are remarkable but not silly, this must be what you say? Anyway, it's darn cute and another of the injokes Heath and I have adopted into our own vocabularies.
* There was an armadillo on TV, and I talked to Daniel about it. "Isn't that cool, how they can turn into balls?" "Yeah!" he said, "like cars do!" "Cars can turn into balls?" I asked. "Yeah!" he said. "Huh. I've never seen that," I said. "It's kind of busted," he explained. Which is exactly right, now that he's pointed out to me. A sufficiently busted car would totally look like an armadillo.
* Daniel has always had an amazing brain for making unlikely visual/auditory comparisons between things. Like last summer when he bit a sandwich into the shape of a helicopter, or a couple weeks ago when he pointed to the cover of this book at the library and said, "Mario!", or last week when Noah suddenly howled and Daniel remarked that he sounded like an elephant.
* No matter how whimsical a parent you are, you can't be prepared for everything. When he asked me "What sound does a brain make?" I was overcome by amazement at the question itself and unable to come up with a good answer.
* Noah has been sleeping in his crib at night for the last week or two, and it's been so lovely. It's not really a huge change--we still bring him to bed when he wakes up so that he can nurse, and then fall back asleep for the second half of the night with him still there. Same thing we did with Daniel. But he was spending the first part of the night in the swing in our room before, and there's something just so exciting and wonderful about tucking both my sweet little sons into their shared room and tiptoeing out. Daniel really likes having him in there, and the first few nights I just hung out in there for over an hour after they were both still asleep, playing Backgammon on my phone and just soaking in the magic of listening to my plural children breathing peacefully together.
* In less lovely but still interesting sleep news, Daniel has nightmares sometimes, and they are fascinating. We try not to show him scary things on TV or whatnot, and he hasn't had very many frightening experiences in real life (aside from the occasional Mommy Is Extremely Loud incident), so they're not usually about obvious things like monsters or drowning (although the most recent one is about a burning truck, which makes sense). But if your hormones tell you to be scared, you'll come up with something for it, apparently. The big one last week was, as far as I can understand, about a coconut tree that sprouted in the middle of the church. "It's very tall. It's very big. The coconut tree spins around. It spins around very fast. It's kind of smoky. And the man, he's talking." I think it's amazing how these peculiarly benign elements add up to something absolutely that is absolutely legit creepy.
* Interesting parenting moment: Daniel has discovered the word "beautiful," and as he was examining the DVD case for The Little Mermaid on Saturday, he remarked that Ariel was beautiful. Heath told him that was a nice thing to say. Then he pointed at Ursula and said, "What's that?" "That's Ursula, the Sea Witch," said Heath. "She's very beautiful," said Daniel, and there was this brief pause while everything about the fat, aging, garish, super problematic and stereotyped character design flashed through my mind--along with everything I want Daniel to know about the women in the real world, and all the different body types, personal styles, ages, degrees of physical ability--and how I want him to respect them and treat them kindly, in the fact of extreme peer pressure to the contrary--and how little time I have as his sole and utterly trusted source of socialization... It felt like an extremely long and significant pause for thought, but it was only like half a second. "Yes, she is beautiful," I agreed.
* What else? Oh, yes. Yesterday I asked him if he remembers the names of his fingers--I was thinking pointer, pinky, etc.--and he said yes. So I held up my thumb and said, "What's this one?" and he said with a big smile, "Jenny!
* I am working on returning to being a person who does not swear even when severely provoked, and I'm finally making progress. Last-second cuss word replacements from last week: "What the funny money!!" and "Oh, shirt."
* Today we talked about "full names," and I told him his own, and those of other people he knew. He was fascinated and asked for more. It was awesome. Other than that, it was a really difficult and lonely day. But it was really sweet when he painstaking assembled the sentence, "Is something wrong, Mommy?" (Noah screamed a lot today, is the main thing. He took a big nap in the morning, during which I did a ton of laundry out of sheer boredom, but after that it was Just No Good for anyone. I felt totally abandoned by the rest of the world, and the weather was super nice but I couldn't get everything together sufficiently to get us outside, so I was trapped. Then, after about a century, Heath got home, and with the extra pair of hands I was able to fix everything up. We went for a really excessively long walk in the beautiful sunshine and all came back exhausted, but I felt so much better afterward.)
Friday, April 12, 2013
And then
After writing that post last night, I talked to Heath for a long time, and prayed a lot, and asked him for a priesthood blessing. The help I received from all that has already been enormous. I made some plans, had some new huge insights, wrote stuff down. Reminders. Perspective shifts. Gentleness. I feel much better now.
One major point is that I started an indefinite social media "brownout" this morning (no more news feeds), and I can tell this is going to be a really, really good move in my life for a million reasons. Kind of going Walden. Been wanting to do it for months.
So, okay. Onward~
One major point is that I started an indefinite social media "brownout" this morning (no more news feeds), and I can tell this is going to be a really, really good move in my life for a million reasons. Kind of going Walden. Been wanting to do it for months.
So, okay. Onward~
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Footing
I'm in a weird place.
The day right after I decided to do that 30-days meme, I ended up deciding it wasn't important to me anymore, and therefore didn't follow up with it. But I meant to post about why not sooner than now, which would have been a simpler entry, because I could have been vague about just one thing instead of a bunch of stuff like I'm about to do.
Basically, I felt really strongly that I needed to get to the temple before General Conference (which was this past weekend), as I hadn't been there in nearly a year and it was nearly another year to the time before that. And I was excited about some things I'd read recently. So we scrambled up to Portland last Tuesday evening and I did it, and Heath took care of the kids outside. My experience was wonderful and intense and really significant. It may even be safe to call it a turning point in my life, if a small one. A lot of things I thought I understood just kind of changed, and a couple of beliefs I had got, like... toggled. In major (ish?) but really neat ways.
So that was lovely, and made me decide to pay attention to stuff other than blogging on fluff prompts (although I still want to write more), largely because one of my motives for redoing that thing was stupid. And I felt peaceful. I felt stable.
Anyway, GenCon happened and I got to hang out with my brothers. I had a great time with them, also some emotional weirdness. Partly because of old, blegh sibling-habits. Partly because one of the talks bothered me and then the response to it on a friend's facebook wall was incredibly depressing and I felt lonely about that.
My kids have been amazing. Good stuff there. But I had kind of a huge breakdown two nights ago, for reasons not related to them. I felt a lot better after sleep, but... not normal. The big flood may be over, but the dam is still gone.
So there is some really good stuff and some really bad stuff and all of it is bizarre and hard to talk about. I don't really know what I'm doing, or why, or what to do next. I wish the peace and stability had lasted longer, though I guess I didn't do the work to maintain them.
I'm pretty happy, but I'm also extremely unhappy. Usually both at once, with only the first one showing. I'm uncomfortable and I wish I knew which way to jump.
The day right after I decided to do that 30-days meme, I ended up deciding it wasn't important to me anymore, and therefore didn't follow up with it. But I meant to post about why not sooner than now, which would have been a simpler entry, because I could have been vague about just one thing instead of a bunch of stuff like I'm about to do.
Basically, I felt really strongly that I needed to get to the temple before General Conference (which was this past weekend), as I hadn't been there in nearly a year and it was nearly another year to the time before that. And I was excited about some things I'd read recently. So we scrambled up to Portland last Tuesday evening and I did it, and Heath took care of the kids outside. My experience was wonderful and intense and really significant. It may even be safe to call it a turning point in my life, if a small one. A lot of things I thought I understood just kind of changed, and a couple of beliefs I had got, like... toggled. In major (ish?) but really neat ways.
So that was lovely, and made me decide to pay attention to stuff other than blogging on fluff prompts (although I still want to write more), largely because one of my motives for redoing that thing was stupid. And I felt peaceful. I felt stable.
Anyway, GenCon happened and I got to hang out with my brothers. I had a great time with them, also some emotional weirdness. Partly because of old, blegh sibling-habits. Partly because one of the talks bothered me and then the response to it on a friend's facebook wall was incredibly depressing and I felt lonely about that.
My kids have been amazing. Good stuff there. But I had kind of a huge breakdown two nights ago, for reasons not related to them. I felt a lot better after sleep, but... not normal. The big flood may be over, but the dam is still gone.
So there is some really good stuff and some really bad stuff and all of it is bizarre and hard to talk about. I don't really know what I'm doing, or why, or what to do next. I wish the peace and stability had lasted longer, though I guess I didn't do the work to maintain them.
I'm pretty happy, but I'm also extremely unhappy. Usually both at once, with only the first one showing. I'm uncomfortable and I wish I knew which way to jump.
Monday, April 1, 2013
30 Day Redux
I want to write more, and I do well with prompts, so I'm going to redo this silly thing from two years ago. Some of the answers are going to be the same as they were the first time, but I'll try to find new things to say as much as possible.
The first day's prompt is "Recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself." I recently had a baby, and I'm in a really awkward phase of growing out my haircut from last year, and I just got a new phone, so most of my recent pictures are amusingly unattractive selfies. Here is one that is merely silly.
There was a time when I was doing a lot of these things for some reason, so to keep it interesting I
started making the facts I gave about myself kind of obscure. But it's been a
while now, and I've changed a lot. So I'm going to reintroduce myself as
a way of rediscovering myself, or something. See how that turns out.
The first day's prompt is "Recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself." I recently had a baby, and I'm in a really awkward phase of growing out my haircut from last year, and I just got a new phone, so most of my recent pictures are amusingly unattractive selfies. Here is one that is merely silly.
 |
| Although on further thought, I'd probably really dig living in a tree and making cookies. |
- I'm Rachel. I'm 26. That was two facts.
- I have two children so far, Daniel and Noah. They are so cool I kind of can't believe it. I have many many many flaws, but I am better overall at parenting than I used to be, and in my clear-headed moments I call that victory. I dearly miss having long stretches of time to sit in quiet doing whatever I wanted, but I also passionately want to have two or three more and complete my set. I wish that by the time they're all here I could plan to stop sucking altogether, but I guess that's more a journey than a destination.
- Yesterday I was looking at my kind, handsome, brilliant, ridiculous husband, and I finally identified a background feeling I've had about him for the whole 7+ years we've been together. That feeling is a strange sense that I'm actually not in the normal, baseline universe at all. I'm in an alternate universe, a crazy and awesome one where I get to be married to Heath. How did that even happen? Usually the heroes would just make a brief stopover here and hijinks would ensue, but I've somehow wound up living here full-time, and hijinks are ensuing every day. And I find myself the the more-deeply-realized spin-off show version of who I thought I was going to be.
- I have celiac disease. As I was writing this, I bit into a piece of Easter candy and immediately had to spit it out, because I discovered that it was peanut butter and rice crispy. That is the most magical and delicious combination in the world, but it's almost always gluten-contaminated. I'm enjoying the tiny amount of it that I can still taste in my mouth, but I'm also already getting slightly sick from it. Should have broken it open to check first.
- I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I love its doctrines profoundly and joyfully. I frequently take issue with the subculture propagated unofficially among the members (who are, after all, dumb humans like me). I was super devout growing up, but I got lazy and depressed in the last few years and stopped doing very much more than just going on Sundays. I'm working now on making it a deep and growing and active part of my everyday life again, because it's awesome and it makes everything else more awesome. And I'm not content with the flat, shaky sort of awesomeness I'm limited to without it.
- I am a feminist, in the real definition of the word, not the stereotypey one. My main sub-issue is trying to help shift our culture away from its extreme levels of violence, especially of the sorts a significant number of my loved ones have endured. I think and study and talk about that a lot. I'm super enthusiastic and friendly about it when I'm not being immediately freaked out by something despicable. I'm not judgey of individuals who enjoy problematic media, because most people are privileged in some area and it is possible to like one part of something while conscientiously objecting to others. I want to see creators thinking outside the box more, though.
- I'm feminine in identity, presentation, and chosen daily vocation, but I usually feel a lot more comfortable hanging out with geeky men than with people outwardly similar to myself. Men have a different set of social rules that makes way, way, way more sense to me on an instinctual level, and I usually relate more to their interests. I still crave the company of other women, but it's harder to make a connection and feel liked. I often come off as shy. I figure that's better than coming off as a snot.
- I am excessively passionate about a lot of enormously dorky things, and a lot of mainstream-dorky things as well, but somehow a particularly awkward combination of those two. I participate in the SCA, host a weekly roleplaying group at my house, read lots of webcomics, write a (terrible) novel every year since 2007, draw a lot, read constantly, and play video games. I'm working on writing a text adventure right now. But my number one hobby at the moment (which relates to the first item in that list) is medieval history, particularly heraldry and heraldic design. That can pretty comfortably be called an obsession at this point.
- Things I used to do: Design websites. Serve as Wikipedia administrator. Peform regularly in choirs, including two years in an a capella group. Write a weekly opinion column for the school paper. Write for a webcomic (hopefully will do so again soonish). Teach about the Old Testament at church. Study Japanese. Act in musicals.
- My favorite book series is the Miles Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, which I love more fiercely than tongue can tell. My favorite single book is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I can no longer even begin to narrow down my favorite music, but I generally lump it together as "pretty and/or strange." The best video games are Portal (1&2) and Chrono Trigger, and the best movie is I have no idea.
- I have a degree in English (magna cum laude!), the acquisition of which was one of the funnest (yes, darn it, funnest) things I'll ever do. Once my kid-having situation is nice and settled, I'm going back for a minor in writing, and then (depending on how much I like that) a Master's in either Creative Writing or English Literature. I'm looking forward to that a lot.
- And then I had to do other stuff for 10 hours! Coming back in a totally different state of mind. Uhh. Stuff. This has been pretty wordy so far, hasn't it? I value brevity, but this is what brevity looks like to me. At least when I'm writing for myself. There, that's a factoid.
- I have three older brothers (all married, two with kids), and one little sister who is currently on a mission in Nicaragua. She will be back in a year, and I miss her like crazy, but I'm also getting a lot of vicarious satisfaction out of what a cool thing she's doing. My brothers are entirely rad, and so are my parents. So are my other relatives. I love spending time with all of them. I had a fun and diverse and affectionate home life growing up, which is why I want to have a plurality of kids myself.
- I am not a very accomplished homemaker. Today I folded laundry and unloaded the dishwasher, which is about 10% of what it seems like other stay-at-home moms are doing before lunch, but it was super productive for me. I've been plagued by fatigue a lot of my life (see #4), and it's become kind of a habit. So I often forget to notice I have energy. But meanwhile, I really really care about the state of my house, so I've tended to sit around feeling edgy and guilty all the time. I'm a genius! I also can't cook, but I'm trying to learn, because feeding my kids random junk at random hours is more embarrassing than doing that to myself, and I don't want them to be like I've been.
- Well, I sort of implied this in #8, but I get really, really intensely enthusiastic about the things that catch hold of my imagination. If I like something, I immediately want to become an expert in it. I challenge myself to a lot of fairly hefty projects for no extrinsic reason (showing here) and pursue them tenaciously. I devote tons of time and energy to making art or researching subject areas no one else will care about, and boil over with delight all throughout the process. I also use up a lot of myself, day after day, on the things that upset and worry me. All of this is why I need to talk so much, and write so much, and fret so much over needing people to talk and write to, and thank heaven every day for my marriage-and-conversation partner.
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