Dear Hubbs

Dear Hubbs,
At our wedding Frances read this:

"The folks have been here today, but have gone to their homes.  The clatter of racing feet, the laughter and babble of tongues have ceased.  We are alone, we two.  We two whom destiny has made one.  Long ago, it has been sixty years since we met under the June trees.  I kissed you first.  How shy and afraid was your girlhood.  Not any woman on earth or in heaven could be to me what you are.  I would rather you were here, woman, with your gray hair, than any fresh blossom of youth.  Where you are is home.  Where you are not is homesickness.  As I look at you I realize that there is something greater than love, although love is the greatest thing on earth.  It is loyalty.  For were I driven away in shame, you would follow.  If I were burning with fever, your cool hand would soothe me.  With your hand in mine, may I pass and take my place among the saved of heaven.   --Josh Haslem Clark"

I repeat it today and say that I love you and your loyalty.  Where you are, is home.  Where you are not is homesickness.

Loves,
S

PS. I am sorry that tonight will not be very romantic and that you will find Claire and I laid out on the couch watching TV when you come home.  I didn't even know that the dentist could cauterize your gums.  Turns out he can.  And it's outrageously painful.

Hats off to the Brits

Oh royal mail.  You have done it.

With what am I going to have to bribe my British readers and friends in order to get a set of the postcards?

The meanest mom

Guess who just waited out 1.5 hours of singing and pleading to get out of bed?  Guess who calmly went in and set a timer telling her she could get out when it buzzed?  Oh that would be me. If I have anything to say about it we will be napping at our house until age 5.

And now she is sleeping peacefully and I am watching bad TV on Netflix and drinking diet coke (I turned off the timer of course).

That was a pretty stressful 1.5 hours.  I deserve a nap.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Okay, in Claire's case he is actually heavy.
She's recently learned the word heavy and how the dramatic use of it gets a laugh from anyone who happens to be around. I think it all started when she was trying to bring a bucket of Legos into the living room.  They are actually kind of heavy and as she was straining along she let out a gasping, "heavy, heavy." I'm sure that I giggled and repeated what she said before I went over to help her (actually me telling her that she could push them across the floor while I sat on the couch sounds a little bit more like what I actually did).  Since then everything is a gasping, "heavy, heavy."  The diaper bag, a book, her plate of apple slices as she moves them from her little table to the big table.

Humm.  A penchant for dramatics and a propensity to overstate physical accomplishments.
Wonder where she got that?

******
Last year I read this incredible book about a women's organization to which I belong called the Relief Society and how the early members just did incredible things (like start their own nursing clinics and fight for rights for the disabled).  After reading it and talking in a book club about it we decided that we wanted to be women who were worth putting in the book.  You may remember our Christmas project to make care packages for babies who had to be in the NICU on Christmas.

Right after I read that book I signed up to be a volunteer for the local YMCA.  It's a good thing that I signed up then because the feeling of wanting to be book-worthy has sort of passed but I already agreed to it.  However, I do believe in being part of a community and I am incredibly lucky and blessed and I feel the desire to give back.  So here's to rekindling the book-worthy fire!

It's the Y's annual fundraiser.  Here's my volunteer page.  As you can see I still have a lot of work to do (and I only have to the end of the month--though I did get donations yesterday so it's not as grim as it looks).  Whoops.  The Y is an incredible organization that promotes community and fitness.  No one is turned away from the Y because they can't afford the dues.  No one.  As much as I love 24 Hour Fitness they just can't say that. That's why the hubbs and I have decided to provide swimming lessons for 3 children.

So if you can, please give back.  The Y is worthy of your support. How many swimming lessons can you provide?

In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines

Last week the hubbs found this article about French parenting.  It had some good advice (it actually prompted us to finally undo one of our secret shames and get rid of the milk that she takes to bed with her in hopes that she'll actually eat real food).  

Even though I did glean some good advice from the article I feel like I should also say that when I read it I thought, "oh great.  There's a whole nation of toddlers who are better behaved than mine is."

So, to make myself feel better I would like to point out a couple of discrepancies with the article and actual French practice. A couple of my very clever girlfriends pointed out that maybe the reason French parents are so worried about their kids playing alone is because they only have one kid a piece and if that kid doesn't play alone they'll be stuck playing kid games all day long.

Something else to consider about the French.  They send their kids to school full-time starting at age 3. I'm not sure we can give them all the credit for their well behaved toddlers as their toddlers are in school for a large portion of the day. 

And...if you're as obsessed with Downton Abbey as I am you should read this article that shows pictures of our favorite characters on and off screen.  

 

Questions, Questions, Questions

I've been reading this book by Frances Kuffel.  She wrote a book a couple of years ago that I just loved called Passing for Thin.  Eating Ice Cream with my Dog is her second book and I didn't like it as well.  It was still interesting and I finished it.

Frances has lost more than half her body weight by going to overeaters anonymous (OA).  Her books talk about the physical aspects of losing weight and the emotional side too.  In a voyeuristic kind of way I am intrigued by the information given about OA.

Every night Frances answers the following questions to her sponsor.

"What did I eat today? What exercise did I have today? wheat did I do today that I like and respect myself for? (or how did I behave better than I felt?) What project was my priority for today and how much progress did I make on it? What do I plan to do next? What did I do for someone else today? What did I do for myself today? What happened today that I enjoyed and appreciated that had nothing to do with me? What boundaries did I honor? Where did I have problems today? What am proudest of today? On a scale of one to ten, how much close interaction did I have with people today? What made me feel feminine today? What made me feel loved and appreciated today? What will I eat tomorrow?"

Okay.  Now aside from the eating questions (what, you're saying you didn't eat an entire candy bar today?) and some of the ones about boundaries the idea of answering those questions is appealing to someone who spends her days looking after a toddler.

What project was my priority for today and  how much progress did I make on it?  I wanted to get the bedroom cleaned up and to take the goodwill pile to the goodwill.  I bagged it up and separated it out but didn't actually deliver it.  And I put away all of the laundry for good measure.

What happened today that I enjoyed and appreciated that had nothing to do with me?  Today Claire went to the beach without me.  I had a doctor's appointment so she went to the beach with her friends Maggie and Jane.  I hear she had a wonderful time.  I am so pleased that she had fun but there is a small part of my heart that is sad that she didn't need me at all.  I was reading on the couch looking out for her when she got back and when I saw her little pink tutu-ed body out the window as she got out the car my heart did a little leap inside.

I won't bore you with the answers to all of the questions (that would make for a very long blog post) but I did think that if I took the time each night to answer all of those questions it might be a little easier to remember that my life has great meaning.

What about you? What are you proudest of today? What made you feel loved and appreciated?

And the nice thing about these questions is that you don't have to fess up that you took a nap on the couch while your living room looked like this.

Oh the Shame

Last night both the hubbs and I had to attend a meeting at church.  Luckily my parents are here visiting so they offered to put Claire to bed for us.As my parents are here they graciously offered to put Claire to bed ad watch her while we were at our meeting.  As I was describing how we put Claire to bed I had to reveal one of my secret parenting shames.

"First you put her in the bath.  After her bath, you put her in her jammies, brush teeth, read her a book, give her a pass, and put her in the crib.  You ask her to lie down and then you cover her with 3 blankets (which you count out to her as you're covering her) give her her glass of milk, give her a kiss and say goodnight."

I wish you could have seen the horrified look on my mom's face when she said, "I put her to bed with a glass of milk?"

Yes.  I know it's bad for her teeth, I know it's giving her a middle of the night snack dependence.  I know it's wrong.

But we do it.

And she sleeps for 12 hours a night.

You know what else we've started doing this week?  Calling soda juice. And in case you're wondering, she does drink it.  Peach Fresca to be precise. I think she pounded 24 oz. last night.

And, just in case one of the people who nominate for parent of the year award stumbles across this post here is a list of the other things we do that we probably shouldn't.

• Juice.  She loves it.  She's an addict.
• TV.  If I would let her, she would watch Kipper for 5 hours a day.  And not that she would run in and out of the room and be occupied doing other things.  She would sit on the couch, dead to the world and watch and watch and watch.
• Fruit Snacks.  Claire doesn't eat much but the currency of our house is Fruit Snacks.  After we go somewhere she gets fruit snacks if she is nice about getting in the car.
• Veggies.  Doesn't eat them.  At all.  Unless you count pickles--which she eats by the truckload.
• Jammies.  Claire hates getting dressed and some days we just wear jammies all day long.