Let's all say it together!

My mantra this week shall be: Be the bigger person!

I think I shall write myself a few commandments as well:

1. Thou shalt not allow thyself to be baited.
2. Thou shalt not roll thine eyes excessively at adults who act like high schoolers [this week. I cannot commit to this indefinitely]. 
3. Thou shalt not respond to backhanded compliments with snippy retorts [regardless of how good I am with coming up with those zingers].
4. Thou shalt extend graciousness, kindness, and love, even to the people who annoy me the most. [That's already a commandment. I just needed the reminder.]

Slow it down

Sometimes I wish I could keep my little girl little forever. The milestones seem to come and go so quickly. It's cliché-ville when you have a kid... "They grow up so fast!" and so on. They're a hundred percent true though. They do grow up fast. It does go by too quickly. You blink and your baby is walking and talking [back to you]. I'm so proud of my daughter. She's smart and creative and quirky and funny. Some days I don't know what to do with her. Some days she doesn't know what to do with me. We learn together. My husband is always saying, "She's a little person!" And she is! 

I don't know where this thought is going; my mind is all over the place as usual. I just know that I cried at least three times this weekend as my little person surprised me by being such a stinkin' smarty-pants and as I realized how much she's grown up over the last few months and as my husband and I discussed plans for the future and I calculated that in 5 years she'll be 7.

Sigh.

Speaking of fears...

First let me say that ever since my last post, I've been having trouble falling asleep at night thinking that I need to clarify that Those days happen once every so often. They come with motherhood. They are few and far between. And they are easily cured by an evening out with good friends. I came home feeling refreshed and ready to be Mommy again, only a better version.

Onward! I forgot to mention in my post about fear my problem with creepy crawly and/or buzzing things. My ranking of most hated bugs starts with a tie for first place between roaches and spiders. But in a very close second comes the stinging insect category, which includes lovelies such as bees, yellow jackets, and wasps. Which is why I nearly wet myself when I saw one of these buzzing around our front yard and then CRAWLING INTO A HOLE IN THE GROUND:


Ground digger wasp aka cicada killer

We Googled them. They're called ground digger wasps and are also known as cicada killers. (OH! Cicadas! They might be my number three most hated insect. One flew into my car and down my shirt when I was 8 months pregnant and I'm surprised it didn't send me into early labor.) I had to find the picture where this insane person is holding the freakishly prehistoric-looking things so you can see how big they are. My husband thought I was exaggerating and being my usual pansy self when I told him about the giant bee I had seen, until he got chased by one and ran around the yard screaming like a girl. So anyway, the dino-wasps live in the ground, which is really convenient when you have a toddler running around the yard. They build these nasty piles:

Hell is down there, I'm sure of it.













We have six of those piles in our yard. They are probably full of dino-wasp eggs. My skin is crawling just talking about it. They must be exterminated. We've done the research and are prepared to take them out, as soon as we work up the courage to go in the front yard again. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fail

This kind of day makes me feel completely incompetent as a mother. I don't know who's thrown more fits today, me or her. Oh, who am I kidding? It's the kind of day where the thought of smashing a bowl to bits on the floor sounds so appealing that I have to grab a fork and eat several large bites of devil's food cake straight out of the pan to get my blood sugar back up and take deep breaths, count to ten, whatever, to stop myself from completely losing it. It's the kind of day where the phrase "pulling my hair out" makes a lot of sense. Where I'm tempted to accidentally leave the front door open so the cats escape. Where I'm tempted to run up a good bit of debt doing online shopping and bidding on things on ebay that I do not need.

My husband works so hard. Ridiculously hard. Wicked hard. His 56-hour workweek is so long and grueling. I am deeply, deeply grateful for the way he works to take care of us. I want to be clear on that. But during those 56 hours a week while he is at work, I am at home with a small child and no car. The weather is giving us a small bit of freedom as it's cooled off to a decent 85 degrees, making it possible to actually spend time outdoors, and for that I am thankful. But I have a bad case of cabin fever, and it's affecting my ability to parent well.

I. Need. A. Break.

Fraidy cat

A lengthy bedtime battle with our 2-year-old last night (think lots of tears, demanding we sing to her one more time, and a very dramatic "Ow, me! Ow, me! Help!" fake-out) led to a discussion between my husband and me about fear. As far back as I can remember, I've been afraid at bedtime. In my youngest memory, it was of creatures like sharks or alligators under my bed. (The first nightmare I can remember involved one of my sisters and me having to feed alligators at the zoo. They escaped, naturally, and terror ensued.) As I got a little older and my younger sister and I shared a room, I was afraid that kidnappers would break in and take me from my bed during the night. My solution to that was to request that my bed be the one directly under the window, with the thought process that the kidnapper would hop right over me and take my sister instead. (Hey, I was looking out for Number One! Little kids are self-centered. Well, so are adults, but that's another post.) A lot of my fears stemmed from news stories I overheard from the TV, or ones my parents talked about after reading in the paper. As I got older, and now as an adult, my bedtime fears have ranged from the completely irrational (there's a velociraptor in my shower!) to the possible but highly unlikely (what if there's a kidnapper in the baby's closet and I forgot to look in there when I tucked her in?). Regardless, there are many nights where I would rather stay on the couch with the TV and lights on and fall asleep there than climb into bed in the pitch darkness and trust that there's not a serial killer in my closet, waiting for the opportune moment.

The things that I fear in the darkness, the things I have nightmares about usually involve either losing a person close to me, dying myself, or losing things that are meaningful to me. Fear is not logical: Why should I fear death, when life on the other side is guaranteed to be so much better? Why should I fear loss of material things, when they are ultimately worthless anyway?

I've found that when I'm lying in bed and am suddenly overcome by fear, that fear is easily overcome by peace when I pray and ask for it. Remembering the words of Psalm 27 helps too:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—
       whom shall I fear?
       The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
       of whom shall I be afraid?

I'm working on it.

It's Friday night

and I'm paying bills online. The most exciting part of my day was when a beautiful rainbow appeared over the backyard, and the three of us went out to admire and take pictures. Got some cool shots, wandered around the great outdoors for a bit, and then headed back inside, where I realized that the camera lens cap had fallen off somewhere outside, in our beast of a yard. I'm not exaggerating. Our house is small, and we make up for it with yard. I went back out to scour the grass for the dumb thing, wondering how much I would have to pay for a new one on ebay. But, to my relief, "Aha!" as my toddler would say (if your kid is as addicted to The Backyardigans as mine is, I bet you can name her current favorite episode). Found it. And now I'm afraid the week has caught up with me, and my brain is shutting down for tonight. Happy Friday!

Perspective

I ideas of what to write about today, adventures at the DMV with the little one or the weird dreams I had last night (they involved twin babies), but instead I sit here feeling grateful for the life I have with my husband and sweet girl, and ashamed of myself for ever taking what I have for granted. Our pastor's niece, just five years old, died over the weekend after a 10-week battle with brain cancer. As I watched the memorial service online today, I found myself weeping for a family I barely know and for a child I never met. But more than that I wept with the realization of my greatest fear, that of losing someone close to me. This child's family spoke with gratitude to God for allowing them to have her for the last five years. They said something that will stick with me for a long time: She was never theirs. She always belonged to God. If I were really looking at the people in my life--my husband, my daughter--that way, how would my actions be different, knowing that I have been given these people, only for a time, to love, to take care of, to help, to cherish? My world was turned upside down when my daughter came into it, but never have I thought of her that way--not mine, but God's. Not mine. His. I'm looking at her now in a different light, and can only pray that God will help me do my very best to take care of His child, for as long as He has intended.

It's Wednesday, right?

I’m looking around at all the boxes still to be unpacked and trying to decide what to tackle next. We’ve lived here a month and there’s still so much to be done. I got dinner going in the crockpot (PS I love you crockpot) and as I sit here looking out the window at the rain and listening to my toddler hollering “Ya-hoo!” joyfully from her bed (riding her stuffed dog like a horse, I imagine), I’m tempted to go sit down on the couch with a bag of pita chips and a DVR’d episode of Grey’s Anatomy (PS I love you Lifetime Network). Then I realize that my favorite Claire Murray rug is still lying in the driveway, soaked and looking woefully unloved, where I left it out to dry in the sun three days ago after cleaning cat yack off of it. And then I think, this is a fairly typical day for me, and my husband will laugh when he gets home from work and hears my stories, so why shouldn’t you read them and feel entertained—if not comforted—as well? So here I am, attempting to blog once again. I’ve tried it before, at least three times, and failed. I was a journalism major, for Pete’s sake, this should be easy! I’ve felt the need for a theme, something important or poignant or clever, but nothing’s come to me. So here’s me. A mom willing to be honest about motherhood. My day-to-day. Me, wanting to grow as a writer and as a person. Take four at blogging. Go!