The Rocket Ship

Cora sat down with a pen and piece of paper while I did our taxes (this is the first full year we have lived on one income and I must say the tax return makes it all worth it!!). This is what she drew. I think it is pretty good for her age, but she is the only 3-yr-old I am around, so I really have no one to compare it to. Anyway, I thought I would share her masterpiece. She said it is a rocket ship.

Your favorite animal is a what?

We were on our way home from dinner tonight when Cora asked me to tell her about 101 Dalmatians. I guess a girl at her preschool told her it was her favorite movie, so Cora wanted to know all about it. I began giving her a brief overview. Here is how the conversation played out:

Me: It is about some mean dog snatchers.

Cora: What is a dog snatcher?

Me: A person who goes around stealing dogs. It makes families really sad when they have their pets stolen.

Cora: Why? Can't they just go get another dog?

Me: Well sure, but they loved their dogs and so it makes them sad when they are taken away.

Cora: I wouldn't be sad.

Me: You might be sad if it was your favorite animal. What is your favorite animal?

Cora: A pygmy marmoset.

Me: Right. (pause) Okay. A pygmy marmoset. Say you had a pygmy marmoset and you loved her very much and someone came and stole her.

Cora: Well why would anyone want to steal a pygmy marmoset?

Me: Good point.

The conversation was over at that point because I was laughing so hard that I almost peed myself a little. Needless to say, I don't think Cora has a clue what 101 Dalmatians is actually about or what a dog snatcher is. What can I say? I tried.

What to Expect When You Have No Expectations

I vividly remember the day I realized I was an unfit mother. It was about a year and a half ago. My little sister probably remembers it well too. This is what she heard when she checked her voicemail messages:

"Michelle, it's Amber. I'm gonna need you to come over the second you get off work. I am done being a mom. You may think Cora is cute, but today cute doesn't cut it. She managed to take her very dirty diaper off while 'taking a nap,' but don't worry, none of it got on the floor because there wasn't any poop left over after she smeared it all over the door. Oh and then my diaperless child proceeded to pee all over her carpet, write in fabulous blue ink all over our new leather couch and then, in an attempt to clean off the ink, dump an entire glass of milk all over the same couch. And this was all in the last hour. So please, come. Now. You might have to drive up and down the streets to find her because as I am leaving this message, I am opening up my front door, setting her outside and locking the door behind her. So hurry, please."

No need to call Child Protective Services, I let Cora back in. But not before I had an actual stomp-up-and-down-while-flailing-my-arms-and-screaming-at-the-top-of-my-lungs fit (feel free to judge me until you try it and realize just how therapeutic it is!).

Now why am I fessing up to yet another weakness as a mother? Simple. The day I put up my arms in surrender and gave up on being an amazing mother was the day I became one. I shut the parenting books and the "How To" guides. I came to terms with the fact that I had royally screwed up from day one. Actually before day one. I mean I never played her Mozart while in utero and I couldn't keep down a single pre-natal vitamin, much less anything else for the first 7 months of my pregnancy. And when I could finally keep something in my stomach, I ate a fat, juicy hot dog (gasp) and enjoyed every last salty, nitrate-filled morsel. And it just got worse after Cora was born. She was a formula baby after about eight weeks, she chewed on filthy, lead-filled car keys, and she ate solids before the magical age of four months. I could probably teach a class on how not to raise a child, yet here Cora is, still thriving 3 and a half years later.

And you would think I would have put all that trial and error to good use when parenting the second time around, but no. I didn't want our family to be unbalanced. So Claire is being blessed with a whole new set of screw ups and parenting missteps. Plus Claire gets the privilege of growing up with a mommy who has now officially lost her mind. Two separate incidents last week prove my point.

The first one finds me frantically dashing through the house, nearly late for Pilates, searching in vain for my water bottle that I had just re-filled and set on the counter. Trying to stifle his laughter, Mark asked me if the water bottle I was tearing the house apart looking for was the same water bottle I was holding in my hand. It was.

Next episode was a similar situation, but with a change of scenery. Sitting in my car, digging through my purse for the third time, looking for the elusive car keys that I had been holding in my hands just seconds earlier, I replayed the last few moments in my mind. They couldn't have gotten far. I had them in my hands when I tucked Cora and Claire safely into their car seats. And then they vanished into thin air. I searched under my seat, on the roof of the car, all along the floor board until, in a last ditch effort, I began rummaging through my purse again. Cora, frustrated that mommy was preventing her from getting to preschool on time, asked what I was looking for. I told her I had lost the car keys and if I didn't find them we were not going anywhere. She flashed me a look I am sure I will grow accustomed to during her teenage years, but seemed a bit premature for someone not quite able to tie her own shoes, and said "If you lost the keys how did the car get started." Good question.

I am sure if I was still reading parenting books there would be a chapter in there about how your children suck up a little bit of your brain power as they grow in your womb and that, sadly, they never give it back. But what can you do? At least I am giving my children plenty of fuel for the stories they will tell as they get older about their unfit mother with very few marbles who still happened to be a tiny bit amazing.

My Bucket List

I was digging through old tax records in preparation for our 2007 filing when I found my list. Referred to in a movie of the same name as "The Bucket List" because the idea is to achieve all list items before you kick the bucket, mine had been created almost 6 years ago. Not a single goal on that list has been achieved or even attempted, and when I read a particular goal on my list I knew I could no longer put it off.

The five words of goal #4 seem simple enough: "Get to know my father." But he has been gone now as many years as Cora is old, and so reading those words make my heart literally ache with regret, and the "what ifs" and "should haves" and "could've beens" start taking over. I won't have that happen again, so here (for accountabilities sake) is my list:

1. Learn to whistle
2. Change my own oil
3. Lead a 5’ 10 (that is a level of difficulty describing a rock climbing route)
4. Get to know my father
5. Complete a triathlon and/or marathon
6. Learn another language
7. Visit the Heidelberg Castle (that is where my maiden name, Heide, comes from)
8. Dye my hair (silly I know, but that might be harder for me than the marathon!!)
9. Hike/raft the Grand Canyon
10. Swim with dolphins
11. Visit all 50 states (only 31 more to go!)
12. See the Counting Crows live
13. Build a huge sandcastle
14. Learn to play “What Child Is This” on the violin (that would of course require learning to read music and learning how to play the violin)
15. Spend 1 month without TV
16. Get an article published in a nationally distributed magazine
17. Learn to sew again (I was a pro back in Jr. High, but it's been 15 yrs since I have touched a sewing machine and I am a little rusty!)
18. Ride in a hot air balloon
19, Take a roadtrip with no predetermined destination
20. Get a book published (even if no one buys it!)
21. Grow a garden that must include corn
22. Learn sign language
23. Eat real gelato in Italy
24. Go skinny dipping (this list was obviously written pre-baby, it should now say "go skinny dipping at night, when it is pitch black, when there is no moon and when no other soul is around")
25. Teach my mom how to hug
26. Take my children to the top of the Tooth of Time (a peak at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico)
27. Learn how to sail

And that is all folks. My life's To Do List.

I guess that makes me a queen!

As I sit watching Cora twirl in her new Princess dress, glass slippers, and "diamond" necklace while she simultaneously applies plastic lipstick and flings her hair over her shoulders, I am concerned. I am raising a 3-year-old princess and I have only myself to blame.

Growing up we lived in a tiny 3 bedroom apartment, shared by 2 parents, 5 siblings, 2 turtles, 1 bird and an occasional fish. To describe our family as poor would be an understatement, but as kids we were oblivious to our financial situation. We thought everyone we knew wore the same pair of shoes until their feet touched the pavement, and then traded them in for a raggedy hand-me-down pair that still had a good 3 weeks left in them before the soles completely blew out. We figured all kids held yard sales to earn enough money to feast on the gourmet cuisine at McDonald's. We didn't realize things came in brand names and that there were places besides Pic-N-Save that sold school clothes.

Being poor never affected our happiness. We couldn't afford gymnastic and dance classes, so we choreographed and performed our own routines to Madonna's Material Girl for the whole neighborhood to enjoy (that is if you could afford the hefty 5 cent cover charge). We never had money for the latest toys, so we created elaborate carnivals with games, "rides" and prizes; we wrote, directed and performed our own plays and even made up our own version of Mancala using old egg cartons and rocks, all the while unaware that there was a struggle to put food on the table. We adapted our play to accommodate our measly resources and never gave it a second thought.

So why am I so determined to give my daughters the life I never had, and looking back never missed. I've looked over the budget and am worried I can't afford to put Cora in dance classes until the summer. I'm almost sick thinking about how much she would love it and how much she will miss out on. I researched preschools for months before finding a Montessori based preschool that nearly required us to take out a second mortgage to afford the monthly tuition, but I wanted her to have the best. I would go back to work before I let my girls walk around in holey shoes with blown out soles. I want them to have all the things I missed out on, but I am having a hard time remembering what that was. And I am having an even harder time striking a balance between giving them everything their little heart's desire and teaching them that they don't always get everything their little heart's desire.

I know money doesn't buy happiness. It can, as evidenced by the look on Cora's face when she opened her new Princess attire Christmas morning. But I have seen the same smile her shiny glass slippers generated on her face when wrestling with Daddy, or playing Hide and Seek with Claire. It is quite easy and inexpensive to make her happy and that should make it simple to put the check book away and not freak out about a missed semester at dance class, right? So why is it so hard for me?

I always say Mark and I are careful not to spoil them, but if growing up we were given everything we now give our children, we would have certainly believed we were royalty. And I am afraid that my little “princess” will soon want to trade her glass slippers in for a pair of Jimmy Choos with a matching hand bag, and then it will be too late to teach her the value of a dollar. Does anyone else out there mirror my fears or have any advice, or am I alone in my discovery of yet another way I am screwing up my children??!!!

Wrapping up 2007

Okay so I don't have much time and I have a lot of ground to cover (I am typing as the kids are scarfing down PB & honey sandwiches). Since pictures speak a thousand words, that is pretty much all you are getting this post, possibly a few captions if my children chew slowly.

First up: family photos from our Phoenix Christmas trip (yes, I am still bitter). It was great to have the whole family on my mom's side together again for the first time in about a decade.

My parents and siblings (it is so much easier to get a decent pictures when children are not involved!).

Adding spouses and grandkids to the mix.

I so wanted a great family picture, I mean it isn't everyday you see Mark in a button up shirt! Because this great photo adventure (had you been there, you would definitely refer to it as an adventure) took place during nap time, this was the best my girls could do.

And here is the whole, crazy Italian family. Okay, okay, so there is obviously some German in the mix too!

In the middle of the craziness of Christmas and our trip, Mark turned the big 30!! We celebrated early by gathering for dinner with some great friends.

And the famous $4 cupcakes. Mark, as usual, didn't want his birthday to be a big deal (no cake, no presents, no party), but because it was such a BIG birthday I had to do something. I went to this nice little cupcake shop some of my girlfriends had been raving about and bought a dozen cupcakes (and they did NOT cost $4 each, contrary to what Mark would have you believe). They were delicious and worth every penny!

Christmas morning brought an onslaught of presents. I still am not sure how the girls wound up with more presents then ever before when my intentions were to spend a total of $40 this year!!

Cora loved everything Santa brought her and if you ask her she could probably name every last present she opened!

Claire on the other hand was just interested in eating her presents, candy or otherwise.

And these last two pictures are from a morning of sledding down the street in our subdivision. The girls looked so cute I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures. We didn't last long out in the cold because Claire kept taking off her gloves. I tried to tighten Mark's old gloves on top of her gloves but her fascination with them was only temporary and then off both pairs came. I let them play into the early stages of frostbite and then we headed indoors for some hot cocoa!

Reflecting back on 2007, I asked Cora how her year was. She told me she had "such a sparkly year." So here's hoping all of our loved ones enjoy a "sparkly" 2008!