Happy Thanksgiving!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

It is the day we FALL back.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh….. bring on that extra hour of sleep.  I have said before how I feel about Springing ahead, but Falling back?  Oh, that day makes all 364 other days worth it.  I love going to bed Saturday night around 11pm and setting the clock back an hour.  “Oh…is it only 10? ” and I snuggle in all proud of myself for going to bed early.

There was a time several years ago after Dave and I were first married where he woke me up early on Fall Back Day for some god-foresaken reason.  I remember my incredulous reaction as I said to him, “You just RUINED my favorite day of the year!!!”  Now, when you first get married there is a lot to learn about each other.  But I will never forget the look on Dave’s face when he said, “THIS is your FAVORITE day of the year?  Seriously?”  Yes, dude, seriously.  It is to his credit that he has never forgotten the lesson he learned that day. 

To be fair, I could go without the dark mornings.  There is something so sinister and depressing about waking up in the pitch dark. And it does signal the beginning of winter.  Which means that  around here we are headed for 6 months of solid rain.  Rain.  Every single day.  Except when it snows.  And then the whole area shuts down.  Oh, I mean it.  Those of you out there in regions where you get snow on a regular basis would be stunned at the Seattle area’s lack of snow savvy.  People start to freak out. Two years ago, the schools shut down because there was a THREAT of snow. When it snows around here people don’t go to work and they call their friends and family to be sure they are surviving.  We even have our own local  reporter who loves to coin terms like “Storm Blast 2009.”  He is usually in a hat, coat, and gloves standing on top of the Space Needle while the snow flurries around him and he — get this — HOLDS ON so as not to be blown away, I guess.  Then he tells us to expect 3 inches of snow and to BEWARE of STORM BLAST 2009!!!!!   Then the one snow plow that is owned by King County starts to work its way around the area.  Cars pull to the side of the road and are abandoned as people claim, “I cannot drive in this stuff! Too dangerous!”  (And, hec, I say pull over if you think three inches of snow is too dangerous.)  When snow is predicted the stores RUN OUT of bottled water as people prepare for the worst.   I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not.

Now, RAIN we can handle around here – we don’t cancel anything for rain.  But SNOW?  Nope, we don’t do snow.

So, here I am today, all rested from my extra hour of sleep and ready to face Storm Blast 2010.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

In a lot of cultures and religions there are rites of passage that mark the passing from childhood to adulthood — the bar mitzva, the quinceanera, etc.  But the it seems like this ritual is missing from so many of our lives.   Especially for girls.

Enter the 13.

This idea was thought up by a friend of a friend and a former co-youth leader of mine that noticed this deficit and decided to do something about it.  It goes like this.  When a girls turns 13, she gets a party.  But not a party full of other teens brimming with emotions and hormones.  A party full of adult women.  Women who will say to her:  you are valued,  we are with you, we love you.   Think The Red Tent but in the suburbs. 

So, last weekend was Izzy’s 13.  She had been looking forward to this weekend away since her big sister turned 13 a year and a half ago. 

Fourteen of us packed up and drove to the mountains and nestled into a cabin.

We then told her of her value, her worth.  We formed a circle of women around her.  We read to her the Word of God.  We gave her gifts.  We prayed. We showered her with advice. We cried. 

And then we partied.  We ate lots and lots of carbs.  We played party games.  We decorated our hands and feet with henna.  We created an art project so she could carry this weekend with her forever. We laughed until our sides and our faces hurt.  And we kept it PG-13…barely.  When we got in the van to leave, Izzy burst out with “That was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun!”  It was like she had been waiting all weekend to tell me that; to get Jade and me alone so she could reveal how awesome everything was.  And it was.  We not only told her that she was wonderful, we showed her what it was like to be a woman.  To cook together.  To talk about the things WE wanted to talk about.  To sit all huddled in front of the fire.  To show her the sisterhood that will, indeed, get you through your life intact.

When it was my turn in the circle, I reminder her of the words of Jesus, “You are the Light of the World.” 

And she is.

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To see more pictures from the weekend, click here to go to Christiana Childers Photography.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween.  Now comes the fun part… stealing the candy from the kids’ stash.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

And have fun trick-o-treating … but don’t forget the hand sanitizer.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

With my previous paradigm in place of the lovely local patch, I decided that taking Emme (age 19 months) on Ty’s kindergarten field trip to THE FARM… dum dum dummm… was going to be just fine. It became immediately apparent after our 30 minute drive on fog infested country roads that this was not a farm.  This was an amusement park.  Designed by Stephen King.  Luring  peace and pumpkin loving parents to their doom. 

The rundown looks like this.  First of all, we were there with about 20 other preschools and kindergartens — so about two billion children under the age of 5.  Making it a chaotic melee of children moving from station to station on THE FARM…dum dum dumm… while being shouted at by the “farmers” to keep moving, folks.  The hayride scared Emme. While all the kindergarten girls picked out cute little purse pumkins, Ty picked out what felt like the world’s largest pumpkin. So I had to enlist our neighbor to carry it because with 28 pound Emme on one hip, the 30+ pound pumpkin was too freakin heavy and it didn’t fit in the grocery bag the school provided.  Some may say, why did you let Ty get such a big pumpkin.  I DON’T KNOW is the answer.  It make sense in the intial nano-second and then I was committed.  The picture doesn’t do it justice.

After the hayride and pumpkin search, there was a hay maze which ended in a slide from the top of the barn.  The attendant asked for two parents to “man the slide.”  After the first kids went down the slide, it became obvious that “manning the slide” was code for “try not to let any kids kill themselves while shooting off the end of the world’s fastest slide into a pile of hay.”   These kids were like wellie-clad bullets coming off that thing. Ty stood at the top of the slide for quite some time before risking his life to exit the hay maze. 

I can now feel my sanity exiting THE FARM.. dum dum dummmm… along with my sense of humor and the spring in my step.

We then went to the animal area.  Emme loved the giant pig.  Ty loved to climb on the tractor –which resulted in a perilous fall where it appeared that he cracked his head on the cement.    After barking clone-trooper-esque orders at our neighbor to GRAB EMME, I ran to Ty’s rescue — all the while going over the signs of concussions in my head and calculating how far we were from the nearest ER.  As it turns out he miracously didn’t hit his head, only his elbow … and his bum.  But his bum was okay, he said, because he was “wearing really tough pants.”

We finally get to the picnic area where Ty is enjoying a POPSICLE of all things.   I din’t even care that now we were injecting the kids with sugar, I was just relieved we had made it to a chair.  It is at this point that my friend Kristi considers texting our friend Kim (who will be attending the afternoon session at THE FARM..dum dum dummm…) that THE FARM is almost as bad as Chuck E. Cheese.  Now, I have a deal with my husband about Chuck E. Cheese.  I will carry the children in my uterus for 9 months, undergo surgery to bring them into the world, and then nourish them off of my breast.  But HE HAS TO GO TO CHUCK E CHEESE.  And from now on he is on THE FARM.. dum dum dummm.. duty as well.

It is at this moment that some yells, “Hey come watch the PIG SHOW!” 

Enough said.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

He rubs my feet every single night.

He carries the kids from the living room to the bedroom every single night at bedtime.  Even though I am sure he is in ample amounts of pain by the time he gets to kid #4… or maybe even #2…

He loves all kids.

He loves all vampires.

He cannot follow even the simplest plot line on a TV or Movie.  This makes me look like a freakin’ genius — especially if I actually PREDICT the ending, which I have taken to writing down and putting in an envelope to be opened after the finale so as to not ruin it for him.

He can do Calculus but struggles with dividing up a single quesidilla amongst 5 kids.

He never ever yells… at anyone.

He calls Emme “Sweet Girl” and there in no one she would rather be with than him.

He has amazing blue eyes, killer biceps, and a sexy jawline.

He tries harder than anyone I know.

He loves 80′s power ballads. Especially, “My Heart Will Go On” from the Titanic soundtrack.  Could I even make that up?

He can turn the simplest conversation into a science lesson. 

He learned to love baseball just for me.

He is deeply kind.

He works two demanding jobs so I can stay home with the kids.

He loves me not in spite of my cantankerous side but because of my cantankerous side.

His favorite students are the ones on the fringe, the ones who have lost hope in school… and then he wins them over.

That even though he turned 39 yesterday, he thinks he can pull-off looking like he is in his mid-20′s by donning a hat and baggy shorts.

Happy Birthday, honey, I love you!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

That same pirate is also a jedi, a superhero, a secret agent, and a paleontologist. 

Before Ty was born I knew that becoming a mom would be transformative.  I knew that in my head but I didn’t know it in my heart until I had this little baby in my arms and I knew… knew… I would never be the same. 

My mom describes motherhood like this.  When your child is born there is a rope (I am speaking metaphorically here… I would never advocate giving a rope to a newborn.)  The mommy holds most of the rope and the baby has a grip on just the fray at the end.  Slowly, slowly we start to hand over more of the rope to our kids — giving them more control, more say, more of themselves.  And, in turn, we get less control, less say, and less of them.  Until one day we see that they have the whole rope and we are gripping the fray at the end. 

The first time this was put to the test was when Ty was about  18 months old.  The older girls had been living with us for a few months and Ty chose Jade INSTEAD OF ME to read him his afternoon book. My first thought was to recoil and start reeling in that rope… but luckily I got ahold of myself.  There have also been times when Ty has tried to grab so much, no, TOO much of the rope for him to handle.  Like the time he was 2 years old and used a variety of household items — fire poker, stool, hanger — to try and break into Grandma’s car.  

Last week Ty turned five.  Before his birthday I thought I would be terribly depressed and blue at the thought of his turning five.  I thought I would have “rope burns” as a bit more of the rope was yanked through my hands.  Instead, I found myself willing handing it over with a quiet peace of mind that although my boy was growing up, that he was exactly where he was supposed to be and so was I.

I teased him by saying, “When you turn five, will you still hug me?”  “Yes!” he said.  “Will you still wanna cuddle?”  “Yes!” he yelled. “Will you still climb into bed with me when you have a bad dream?”  “Yes, MOMMY,” he said, “I will always hug you and kiss you and wanna sleep with you and cuddle you and love you and give you MARATHON kisses!”  And, I know that all of this is not exactly the truth. He will, afterall, go on to love other people — his wife, his kids, his grandkids. And I will almost for sure be the overbearing mother in law that makes everyone’s eyes roll.  Showing up with my color coded calendar of activities and still licking my finger to wipe a smudge off of his cheek.  But, I do know that my love for him is a gift.  That NO ONE will ever love HIM like I do.  No one.  Because no one loves you like your mom.  And, I get to be “mom.”  And that is a good thing.

So, avast the sails, me hearties.  May the force be with you.  Up, up and away.  Get out your decorder ring. Dig up some T-rex bones.  And have a very Happy Mother’s Day!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

I remember the day she was born.  I had to rent a car and drive to my hometown in order to be there for her birth.  I was lucky that I worked for someone at the time who valued important family events over whatever it was that I would have gotten accomplished that day.

We waited and waited and waited outside the room. I literally had my ear pressed to the door of the room when I heard her very first  little baby cry.  I held her only moments later and I thought, “Oh My God (not OMG, but a real prayer) this is unconditional love.  This is it!”  I was completely stunned at the feeling.  I would never love anyone the way I love her because she actually TAUGHT me to love. Just by being born.

Now she lives with me and is my oldest.  Everyday I hope that I am “enough” for her — that although I cannot replace mom and dad, that she knows I love her so deeply, so profoundly that even when I want to pull my hair out over “8th grade girl-ness” I would never want anyone but her as my oldest. I cannot believe that 14 years has gone by and that she is so close to entering high school.  As I sat on our big chair with her tonight after the family birthday party,we thumbed through her brand new cookbook and tried to find a good recipe for to try.  It felt a bit like hanging out with a friend. She has always been a kindred spirit. We are both alpha females, both emotional, both resistant to change and both sarcastic to a fault.

A year ago for her 13th birthday a group of women gathered around her and proclaimed her value, her worth, her preciousness before us and before God.   

I am so glad I don’t have to do it alone and that there is an amazing collection of women to embrace her and remind her of her worth.  

I mean, other than the fact — as is so very obvious in the photo — that we’re a bunch of hooligans-turned-party animals. 

So, Happy Birthday Jade.  You are dearly loved.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

George Vernon Hudson (Wikipedia)

But I think the night we spring ahead is just about the the worst night of the year. 

I hate that night.

It is the night that the “powers that be” punish sleep-deprived mothers in favor of…. well, I am not sure what we are actually supposed to gain from SKIPPING an hour ahead. (See? Just saying that… writing it… feels wrong.)

I know what I gained.  

First, my baby is totally thrown off her sleep schedule.  Ya know, the one we carefully crafted and molded into something we could all tolerate. Yeah, well that nano-moment of bliss is over.

Next, I am pretty sure I overdosed on caffeine Sunday morning.  Resulting in the jitters. Which resulted in a lot of pacing around.  Which hurt my foot.  So, now I have a hurt foot. Well, to be fair, my foot already hurt. But now it hurts more.

The whole day reached confusing levels when we kept using the terms “body clock” and “actual clock” back and forth in an attempt to decipher what time it really was.  

And how should we refer to this day?  As a “holiday?  Well, as far as holidays go, this day is really lacking. Really, FLAG DAY is better than Spring Ahead day.  Even LABOR DAY which is a day dedicated to, well, labor, is better that losing that precious hour.  In fact, I am pretty sure this day ranks below NATIONAL CROCHET WEEK and NATIONAL BUBBLE WEEK — which were both last week.  I kid you not.  In fact, here are a bunch of holidays in the month of March that I am sure I would rather celebrate than losing that precious hour of sleep.

March 1 – National Pig Day.  Who doesn’t love bacon?

March 6 – Dentist’s Day (and you all know how I feel about dentists…)

March 9th – Be Nasty Day.  This one actually sounds good, if you can pull it off. I pretty much honor this day each morning in the minutes between waking up and my 8th cup of coffee.

March 10 – Middle Name Pride Day.  Mine is “Lynn.”  Woo-Hoo… Go LYNN!

March 13 – Ear Muff Day, strategically positioned the day  BEFORE Spring Ahead.

March 23 – National Chip and Dip Day.  Now we’re talking!!!  

March 31 – National Bunsen Burner Day.  Dave will love this.  It’s a chemistry teacher’s dream come true!

But my favorite day, the day I most look forward to (and my husband will attest to this) is the day we FALL BACK.  Now, that’s a day I can fall in love with.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.