Milestones

For many years I looked forward with anticipation to the day when all my children would be in school. It would mean no more preschool payments. It would mean no more schlepping them to and from preschool. It would mean no more trying to coordinate preschool hours with bus stop times. It would mean no more last minute grocery runs to provide snack for the preschool class.  It would mean a slightly bigger window of free time than I had ever had before.  These are some of the reasons it was a milestone I eagerly awaited. The day arrived and unlike so many mothers sending their youngest off to kindergarten, I didn’t feel an iota of melancholy about it.  She was ready. I was ready.

The school year has flown by.  There’s just over a month of school left.  Now, suddenly, I’m feeling nostalgic.  Frequently I find myself staring at that little girl, shocked to see that she has somehow turned into a big girl.  Her legs are long and lean. She’s losing that round baby face. Yesterday we drove down to the bus stop in the rain, and while we waited for the bus she read to me from the back seat. Again I found myself staring at her and thinking, “Where did this big girl come from?”

When I was a young girl, I always dreamed of going to college and what I would do and how fantastic it would be. That was the pinnacle. Luckily for me, those four years lived up to my high expectations. At the last minute I opted for a college close to home but I made great friends and had a blast. My sophomore year I went abroad to France and those memories are everything I ever hoped they would be. My junior year was back with my old friends and new friends and it was just as great as all the previous years.  My senior year I changed schools and again, I loved it.  College was definitely a high point for me. But after I finished, I remember feeling that I had made it into uncharted territory. I had never really imagined life after college.  I mean, of course I had planned for a career and I had vague ideas about a husband and children but I didn't have a clear picture of what might come next.  That is exactly what I’m feeling now. 

When the children were younger, I would always imagine how great it was going to be when my kids were all in school and I would finally have some time to myself. This September it’s happening. All my children will be in school for a full day.  I will have seven and half hours every weekday to do things without them. But I never had a clear picture of what the future would look like. Will I go back to work*?  Will I become an exercise fiend? Will I increase my volunteer hours at the school? Will I revisit my many hobbies that have fallen by the wayside these last few years?  I’m not sure. But the more I think about how quickly time has marched me to this place, the more I know that I’m no longer eager for any future milestones. Hopefully those daily seven and a half hours of quiet will give me the rejuvenation I need to be able to slow down and enjoy this process.

*I just couldn't let that sentence go without commenting on it.  It pains me to use that turn of phrase because of course these past nine years of "not working" have been a ton of work. I just wasn’t getting paid to do it. But I digress.

Coming Up for Air

This summer I had a scary experience in the ocean.  I had been on the shore supervising the kids while the guys played around on boogie boards in the water.  There was a hurricane headed our way and that meant big waves for the guys to play in. When they finally came back, I asked Dwight to watch the kids while I went for a quick swim.  My father-in-law went out with me.

Before I knew it, I was in over my head - quite literally.  The water was very turbulent and I felt like I was getting pulled all different directions.  I got a little separated from my father-in-law. He was only about ten feet away but I could not get back to him. He could touch but I couldn't, so the undertow was having its way with me. Eventually I drifted to a spot where I was able to touch between waves. But I was quite tired by this point.  I was trying to dive under the waves but they were coming in so fast and so violently that I barely had time to recoup between them.  One of the waves pulled my swim skirt down to my knees.  Several times I swallowed water.

I got scared.

There was a deeper channel between me and the shore and I questioned whether or not I could make it across. I was nervous to leave the relative safety of the little sand bar where I could touch between waves.  I thought the lifeguard was watching me and I considered flailing my arms to get his attention...but I didn't. Maybe I was embarrassed.  Maybe I was proud.  I think mainly I just didn't really believe I was in trouble. I thought I would be okay and that I could make it back.  But I was scared. I looked for my husband on the shore.  I tried shouting his name but of course he couldn't hear me.  I quietly said, "help."

The happy ending to that story is that around that same time I decided to just swim to the freakin' shore. And I was fine. I don't know why I thought that would be a problem. When I reached the beach, I collapsed on the sand. The lifeguard came by to see if I was okay because he had in fact been watching me.

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Tonight I sat quietly in my room with a million frustrated thoughts running through my head.  I had a miserable day. I drove to the gym and realized I never dropped my daughter off at preschool. I considered just taking her to the gym with me but instead I turned around and dropped her off at school. As I was walking out of there, I realized that I still had her coat in my hand, which meant yet another U-Turn. When I went back to pick her up, I opened my car door and the wind blew it out of my hand and slammed it into the car next to mine...and left a surprisingly large ding in that car.  I tracked down the owner.  Later my daughter crawled under my desk and crashed my computer. It took me about an hour and a half to get it back online. My kids made one huge mess and one large mess.  I messed up the soup I made for supper. Blah, blah, blah.  You get the idea.

So like I said, I was feeling frustrated and sitting in my room wallowing in it a little.  And I whispered the words, "Help".  That suddenly took me back to that other day when I was in the ocean and fighting to keep my head above water.  I had an epiphany. What is it about me that I can't let people know when I need help? Why do I let myself get in over my head?

It feels very cliche to mention yet again how hard it is to be a mother but goshdarnit, this parenting business is tough. And I wasn't prepared for what a poor job I would do of it, either.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say that I'm not living up the expectations I had created for myself.

My husband always accuses me of being whiny when I force him to read these posts.  I'm sure he'll say that again when I make him read this one.  So I'll own it. You're right. I'm being whiny. I'm not ready to stop wallowing in it just yet. But maybe tomorrow the waters will be calm. And you know what, most days I do realize that I'm darn lucky to be swimming in this ocean. But yeah, today the water was rough and that's okay. Sometimes the water gets rough.

Heads Up

On Saturday I'm swimming a mile as part of a triathalon relay.  I do the swim, another person does the biking and a third person does the running.  Pretty cool, right?  Ironically I have far more experience running and biking but I'd like to be a better swimmer so I signed up in hopes that it might motivate me a little.  If nothing else, maybe it would help with my efforts to lose weight. Of course I didn't really think through the fact that I'd be swimming in a lake...cuz I have some issues.  You see, when I was eight, I had a traumatic water experience.  In fact, you might say it was an extreme traumatic water experience, not to mention extremely traumatic.  I once blogged a very detailed post about it  but it was more about recording details than providing entertainment so I don't blame you if you never read it.  I'll give you a quick run down now.

I was eight, my Dad was teaching my brother and I to swim in a river, in Central Africa...and he encountered a hippo...right there in the river with my brother and I.  Now it's hard to garner a lot of sympathy from your family for having witnessed a hippo attack when another member of your family was the one attacked.  Because of course they're all going to think it was more traumatic for the person who was attacked.  And they're probably right.  But still, it was VERY traumatic for an eight year old girl to watch her father collapsing on the shore in a bloody mess and wondering whether or not he was going to live (because lots of people were voicing their opinions that he would not). And for the record, the rest of the week continued to be traumatic for that eight year old girl.  I won't get into all that now - suffice to say, I have some water issues.

Oh...and let me tell you one more thing.  When I was about fourteen years old, my parents took us on vacation to Bujumbura, Burundi. One day they took all of us kids to Lake Tanganyika for a swimming outing.  Some parts of Tanganyika are not open for swimming because of crocodiles but they drove around until they found a spot with no signs telling you not to swim.  I'm not sure why the crocodiles haven't figured out that the eatin's good if they just come around the bend but who am I to question the waters that my parents deem safe.  (Though, now that I think about it, from now on I *may* start questioning.) 

Okay, okay, I do think it was a public beach so don't go retroactively calling child services on them.  At any rate, my brothers and I ventured into the water with great delight.  Danny and I were enjoying the surf when one of us happened to look back and notice that my parents were behaving quite erratically on the shore...and Ted and Jonny were no longer in the water.  Mom and Dad were jumping around and shouting something.  We couldn't hear what they were saying above the roar of the waves so we went in to see what was going on and guess what?!  About twenty feet from us there was a hippo.  Yep.  We hadn't been able to see it over the waves when we were in the water, but they could see it from the shore.  And as you can imagine, my entire family is a little jumpy about hippos.  (That's apparently where my parents now draw the line.  I mean, crocodiles around the bend, that's one thing but hippos in the surf, nope that's it, you're coming back in.)

I joke but I probably ought to thank my parents for their approach because I did overcome my fears enough to continue to swim.  I still get out there and do it.  I don't like deep, dark water - particularly the dark part - but I'll endure it as long as I'm not alone.  And I'll be the first to admit that I have a few funny quirks.  It terrifies me when I try to touch and can't.  When I'm with a group of people, once we've gone out over our heads, I'll never try to touch again until someone else in the group verifies that they can touch.  If somehow I end up alone in the water, I will seriously swim until my knees drag in the sand because it terrifies me *that* much.  And this is probably something I shouldn't admit but I'm always scoping out the other swimmers around me and determining whether or not I could beat them in a mad dash back to shore...away from the shark.  Now, I'd like to think that if a shark really did attack my companion, I wouldn't wimp out and that I would actually try to help them.  But don't hold your breath...just sayin'.

So...anyway...like I said, I'm swimming a mile on Saturday in deep, dark water. If I think about it too much my heart starts to race.  For a while I was working really hard towards the goal of swimming a proper crawl with my head under the water but I've since given up on that.  Now I just want to finish the race. I'll still wear my goggles and maybe I'll surprise myself but pretty much I've also just accepted the fact that I may very well swim a mile with my head out of the water the entire time.  Or maybe I'll just swim with my head under the water for long enough to get away from the spectators.  I mean, I do have my pride.

I've Got the Travelin' Bug

Yesterday my brother jokingly - or perhaps not so jokingly - called me a "babysitter whore".  (Though I would argue that I'm actually more of a babysitter pimp...just sayin'.) But I'll tell you what, I totally feel like that's true. And frankly, it's no laughing matter.  I think this has been the hardest thing for me about motherhood for me - the constancy of it.  I know that probably sounds ridiculous and maybe my situation is a little extreme (with four young children and all) but truly, I wasn't prepared for how trapped I would feel.  I mean, I love my kids, I think you all know that.  And I love doing stuff with them...and taking pictures of it.  But there's so much MORE that I want to do (and used to be able to do).   

This seems like a good time to acknowledge a few saints in my life.  First there's my very kind sister-in-law who comes over and watches our children several times a month so that my husband and I can spend a little time together doing SOMETHING.  I appreciate it so much.  It's a luxury we would not otherwise be able to afford. I try so hard to not additionally take advantage of her, because it already feels like so much.  And I do try to let her know how much we appreciate it but the fact that she does this for us, without even having children and understanding how desperately I long for time to myself...well...like I said, she's a saint.  That's all there is to be said.

The other person who deserves a public thank you is my next door neighbor.  She has five children of her own so she totally understands why I don't relish dragging my troop to doctor appointments or shopping or oil changes or whatever it might be.  Many a time I've called her up for a favor, "Can so and so (or more typically, several of them) come over while I run and do XYZ".  She's a really good sport about it and I'm pretty sure I owe her about a week's worth of solid babysitting.

But contrary to the experience those two have had with me, it's actually really hard for me to ask for help. I hate to be a bother.  And neither of them are really able to help me scratch my traveling itch anyway (though not for lack of willingness on either of their parts, I have no doubt). My mom was such an awesome help when the kids were younger but then she moved out of the area (hopefully not just to get away from my perpetual requests for help!!).  At least once Mom came back and watched all four kids for a long weekend but quite frankly, I think she found it a little overwhelming. It'd probably be easier now that the kids are a little older and more independent, but still, it's a lot.  I have another sister-in-law who would no doubt be very willing but again, she has a job and plenty of responsibilities of her own.

So yeah, traveling is tricky these days.

Why don't we travel with the kids?!  Ha!  I'll tell you why.  One thing that I hadn't considered before we suddenly found ourselves the parents of four children was how expensive everything would be.  I would love to take them out west for a ski trip or plan a family cruise but plain and simple, WE CAN'T AFFORD IT!! 

*sigh*  Becoming a parent has forced me to plant my feet on the ground much more solidly than I ever intended too.  Instead of making plans for the near future, I daydream about the distant future.  (And anyone who knows me well probably also knows that patience is not one of my fortés.) So who knows when I'll actually be able to start traveling again but it WILL happen, I promise you that.  Someday...someday.

Tidy

• It makes me happy when my house is tidy.

• I'm trying to stop freaking out when people come over and my house isn't tidy. (note: It's typically NOT tidy when my kids are awake.)

• I joke that my house is actually tidier now than it was in the BEFORE KIDS days. It might be true.

• Sometimes I chastise myself that I don't spend more time enjoying life and less time doing housework...but other times I wonder if that just isn't how I DO enjoy life.  

Bedroom, originally uploaded by hezro.

Living Room, originally uploaded by hezro.

Reading List

I'm a reader. In fact, I was a reader before I could even read. Seriously! I wanted to read so bad that I would hold my parents books in my lap and pretend to read them. (At least half the time they would be upside down.)

I prefer fiction and I tend to gravitate towards lighter reading but I'm not really choosy. I am a fairly fast reader...which can be bad because sometimes I go so quick the content doesn't really settle in. Or if I'm in a hurry to find out what's about to happen, I'll start skimming through the prose. I never skip ahead. In fact, I don't even like to read the blurb on the cover. I don't want to know what's going to happen until I'm supposed to. I almost always finish a book if I start it.

I've gone through several reading droughts: when I was in college, when I first started working, when I had kids. In the last year or so I've started reading again. I'm still hot or cold with it. Sometimes I'll go for weeks...or maybe even months without picking up a book.  Right now I'm on a reading kick.

Last year I read the Twilight books and Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I enjoyed the Twilight books and LOVED the Dark Tower books. While reading the DT books, I went off on a tangent and read The Stand and Salem's Lot. (And Farenheit 451, which is kind of random since it's not an SK book.) There are a couple of other SK books that I want to read now, which were relevant to Dark Tower, so one of these days maybe I'll get around to that.

In the meantime, a few months ago my sister-in-law loaned me a stack of her favorite books. I've really been enjoying them. Thanks Amy!

So anyway, for my purposes as much as anything, I thought I'd list the novels I've read so far this year:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (a Sookie Stackhouse book)
Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
Gerald's Game by Stephen King (reading)

Marital Bliss

Yesterday we had some friends over. Because I had waited until after Dwight woke up to take my shower, I took advantage and spent a few minutes doing some extras like drying my hair and putting on make-up. When I finished up and went downstairs, I asked Dwight if my makeup was over the top. I could tell by his reaction and the way he said, "You look nice" that he wasn't completely sold on it. So I pressed him a little (typical wife) and he said, "Well, I'm just not sure about that blue stuff you put under your eyes."

Me: "Umm, that's not makeup, that'd be the bags under my eyes."

Scrapbooking

I'm reading Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and it really resonates with me. I think it helped me find my voice. Simple Scrapbooks gurus Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske both recommended it so I picked it up and am enjoying it. Although I can see that it would not be everyone's cup of tea.

This evening we sat outside and watched the neighbors' fireworks. Oskar and Kardynn slept through it but the other two girls sat outside with us. I was snapping pictures and Dwight was recording with one of his numerous devices. He has some cute audio of the girls.

[sound of mortar explosion]
Annika: "Daddy, hold my hand!"
Kiersten: "Daddy, I not tared."

Dwight and I with our hobbies...it's so wild how you develop a passion for something and then get such enjoyment out of it. Right now I can hear Dwight down in the basement beating away on his drums. I've been sitting here playing around with a scrapbooking layout...tweaking it here and there throughout the day. We're both so into our things. We used to have a lot more overlapping interests but I think now that our free time is such a precious commodity, we both retreat to the hobbies we're most passionate about. So he's delving into his music and I immerse myself in my various "family historian" pursuits - captioning my photos, posting to my blog, et cetera.

Well, it's about two hours past the time when I should have gone to bed.