Talking myself out

Right now I am typing in the darkening nursery that has recently become Hoss’s new room.  I have bent the screen down on my laptop so I can see the keys. My sixth grade typing teacher would be so ashamed. And on my right is a baby who will not stop crying.  And across the hall is a 2 year old who won’t stop crying.  I am losing.

And what is making me feel so defeated is the certainty that I am no longer capable of speaking without irritating people.  My beliefs are too unconventional, my values are too traditional, my actions are too radical, my loyalty is too militant, my parenting is too extreme.

I keep thinking of new blogposts, and have even started writing some.  I stupidly rejoined Facebook.

I can see that I have been talking myself out of every advantage I have. I have been looking at life as a search for truth, but it’s actually a big competition about who believes the right things, who says the right things, who feels the right things.

And I don’t.

I keep running into this wall time and time again, getting myself nowhere.

And so, I have made a decision.  I am giving in.  I accordance with your demands…

I will gently discipline my children.

I will support a woman’s right to choose.

I will demand the government provide for my family’s health.

I will wean when the baby bites.

I will complain about being fat.

I will lose the baby weight.

I will stop having children.

I will give birth in a hospital.

I will sue the pants off of anyone associated with a bad turn.

I will only hire union.

I will moisturize.

I will call people racists, bigots, and homophobes without a trial.

I will allow the Motion Picture Academy of America to decide what my children can watch.

I will support the troops, and curse their mission.

I will desire a fundamental change in our country, starting with the Constitution.

I will leave my children’s education to the professionals.

I will not impose by offering help.

I will not stop by unless I am invited.

I will not start the conversations.

I will wear the right clothes.

I will hold the children down until they do as well.

I will call us all equal.

I will condemn anyone who opposes the craziest enemies for fear of tripping their hair triggers.

I will fight for my children, but not yours.

I will not rest until my children have apologized for every perceived playtime wrong and hugged strangers because I find it sweet.

I will keep my children rear facing until four and make disdainful comments towards those who don’t.

I will embrace the ludicrous and reject common knowledge.

I will inject my children and myself with everything that is determined to be good for the herd to absolve myself of responsibility.

I will not be paranoid.

And when I am done, when I have smoothed out every flaw in my person, I will be magnificent, radiant, perfect.

I will be a god made in the image of man.

And when that day comes when the me you want me to be has arrived, I will be gone.  And, for some reason, I don’t think you’d mind.  But the One who made me this way would.

And this is the fight I have with the Evil One when it all goes to hell in my house.  Disciplined faith and inborn ego are the only things that bring me back.  Into the fight.  After I talk myself out.

Ps-I’m going to work on bringing the music back.  Why?  because I can and I’m not in much of a mood to care if it tees some random visitors off.  In the meantime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOnrJqaa-nY

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Summer Breeze

A few months back, in the cooling sunshine at the start of what would surely become a very bad winter, I took the youngest three out for a farewell trip to our favorite park. As we packed up to go, the first promising snow tapped against the windshield, chasing us away. I wistfully pondered who these children would be in the spring, after the mandatory winter furlough.

And this week, I got my answer. The pathetically warm winter, stunted by a rogue arctic front, kept the cold at bay for all but a few days. The March I expected was a wet version of freezing, but the reality has been, well, balmy, sunny, and summer.

And, as I bring my blog out of hibernation, I found us at our favorite park much earlier than expected.  The kids are definitely changed, but for the better, more loveable, more disciplined, and more rambunctious versions of themselves after their little season’s worth of growing up.

Sweet Hoss is a crawling, engaging, babbling little tyrant. A baby who knows that if he can avoid eye contact, he can bulldoze a few feet further into his mischief. He most resembles a baby triceratops, barreling his way through the kitchen, banging on the windows, and doing everything he can to get the big kids to follow him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JR is ever precocious, but oddly, a more obedient version of himself. His penchant for superheroes now is the center of all his play, and most of his conversations. He’s too tough to pose for pictures anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lumpy is a ringleader. She’s under the table, swinging the chandelier, and climbing the couch backs before I can say good morning. Her hugs leave bruises, and sometimes she stops in the middle of a sentence to say “I love you, Mommy,” and I don’t think you can help but agree with just about everything she says. Every day she wins my heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Cal. Last time she was playing on some other playground, far away from my camera, from my melodramatic musings about a life I hold, but don’t own. But today, I’m pretty happy that she isn’t in a world without me, even for a few hours…just yet. And she’s wonderful, and homeschooling is working out well for us, and no, this is not becoming a homeschool blog. And, my six year old has fashion sense and sass and a deep love of George Washington.  This is the start of something better.

As for me, I am still running, training for a half-marathon, that I should really be taking more seriously.  Homeschooling has simplified my life, and I am thinking of going out into public two days a week.  Maybe.  My blogging and Facebook hiaitus have caused me to stop experiencing the sweetest parts of my life in witty one-liners and Fred Savage/Daniel Stern-like worldly insight.  But, I have to say, my day is much more fun to get started in the morning when all night I’ve been thinking of that perfect line to settle the muck I kicked up looking for lessons in the mud of a day filled with rain.

How Dare You?

There are about 5 people in my life who have really ruined things between us. I am an incredibly irritating person, in fairness to them, but they have crossed over into Lord Voldemort territory.

Through true selfishness or cruelty without remorse, we have parted ways, and badly.

That being said, I am also not a vindictive person. Well, anymore. I have Biblically forgiven them, and truly do wish them well. I would give anything somedays to have things back to before we were ever supposed to hate them. Like singing our hearts out to Goodbye Earl before we hated the Dixie Chicks or even knew a slime bag like Earl existed in real life.

But he does, and the right thing is to part ways, and not try to fix what’s broken.

And sometimes that person stole so much from you, from your family, and worst of all, from one precious little boy, the violation is so deep that you have to just leave it.

And then one shocking day, you find yourself at his funeral, which you swear you dreamed of in the height of his insult. And you find yourself praying that maybe God had reached him. And finding that you really had forgiven him, and now even that divides the people you love, and wondering how you’ll feel when this happens again.

Because there’s no escaping how very much I wish there weren’t four other people with nothing left between us but the empty space of hate, cauterized by forgiveness.

Oh Mary, pray for us.

Sometime the song says what you can’t:
“Over You” by Miranda Lambert