Entry tags:
I picked Grant up at the airport today...
And since we've been home it's pretty much nonstop hilarity.
"Is there even one thing you can talk about without bringing up Harry Potter?"
-my husband, to me
(kids screaming from the other room, going wild)
Him: Let's get them settled down and in bed.
Me: Oh yeah, it's getting late. I guess we can get them to bed. (more kids screaming) Well, in theory... I mean, we have the right to try.
WHY do I have to PEE SO BADLY while I'm THIS THIRSTY? My body is obviously not using resources efficiently!
-Me, yelling from the bathroom doorway
(we're lounging on the bed trying to decide on a movie)
Me: Remember when you used to pronounce "chipotle" as "chipote-eh" and wouldn't believe me no matter how I tried to tell you that was wack?
Him: Yeah those are the times when I go check something and instead of saying, "Booyah! I knew it!" I just go, "Well, that's not right. It should be my way."
Me: Oh, like the comma going inside the quotation marks?
Him: That's bullshit. I was just writing an email to Kyle about this, asking his opinion.
Me: Uh-huh.
Him: I'm not going to compromise on this issue.
Me: (laughing wildly) Oh, is that so? Who exactly do you think that effects? I mean, well in that case..(rofl)
Him: (also laughing) I'm calling the people at Oxford!
On a totally different note, here are some copied and pasted comments I left in a friend's journal when she was talking about how much she's seeing various friends want "more" than being a stay at home mom, and how it is plenty enough for her (which I totally get/respect):
Now that I am busy and/or out of the house for reasons that have nothing to do with my family at least a couple of times per week, I can honestly say I appreciate the time I have here as precious. Sitting down to have tea with everyone or reading with them in their beds before they go to sleep are so sweet, and so good, and I was not appreciating those things anymore, before I started doing my own things. I really wasn't. That would have been sacrilege to me 7 or 12 years ago, but, it's the truth. I don't enjoy cooking of any sort more than once or twice a week, anymore, and maybe I never will again - but I spent THOUSANDS of days preparing 2-3 elaborate meals per day with small people perched on counters and standing on chairs...I'm ready to move on to a new phase. I don't want that to be my whole life. I adore the simplicity of just having fruit for breakfast and salad for lunch and heating up some fish and beans for dinner. I feel SO LUCKY when Grant and Ananda cook or we can go out somewhere, because really...maybe I'm fickle or maybe it's natural, but I'm not interested or even willing to cook like I used to, anymore. My interests and sources of peace and pleasure have changed with age, experience, etc.
I think I could have stayed home indefinitely with my children for as long as I was continuing to have babies. The restlessness and ache for "more" didn't hit me at all during the decade I was producing children - but once Elise got to be 3ish, I started having major problems and asking all sorts of questions and just generally feeling like a caged animal.
I have no doubt at this point that part of why I stayed pregnant was because I crave a very high level of intensity and engagement and need to be validated that what I'm doing is important regularly. I am not even a little bit good at creating structure out of thin air, and we all really do benefit from SOME outside scheduling, but that was outweighed when I was so distracted, placated, enraptured, frustrated, terrified, and fulfilled by everything that being pregnant or postpartum, and having (attachment parented!) babies and toddlers entails. It made life an unpredictable adventure where everything was ultimately rewarding and worth my enormous efforts, and that's how I want life to feel.
It's really different, at least for me, when the kids can all play outside or amuse themselves drawing and with games unattended with no issue for literally HOURS on a daily basis, and that goes on for months, and you know you aren't having more. Everyone sleeping through the night in their own beds, no need to even own a diaper or to pack a bag to leave the house - they get themselves strapped in without me even needing to check. They brush their own teeth.
I don't know. There is a lot less affection and less frequent expression of appreciation, at the phase I'm at now. There is a lot more sarcasm, body odor, complaining, and obvious judgement/disappointment in me for little everyday things. And it's really, REALLY easy once lessons and chores are done and I know what we're having for dinner, to just realize I've spent 3 hours on facebook or to be laying on the trampoline wondering what I'm doing with my life, AGAIN.
One thing that I don't think you struggle with at all, but has always been a huge deal to me, is that I really viciously loathe cleaning of almost any kind. I have to force myself to do it, and I resent that so much of it falls to me, and I get angry with everyone else in the house whenever I devote more than a cursory effort (because of the extent to which it is an impossible uphill battle). I honestly believe that being ill in the first trimester/huge in the third, debilitated by c-sections, and stuck under a nursling all provided a great relief to me as "excuses" to be super lax about house keeping. I really love that college, homework, writing, and so forth give me excuses, now, and I really want the playing field leveled so that Grant should be doing as much as I should because he isn't the only one going out doing other things. When I'm home and have little to do and the place is a mess, the main thing I want to do is leave asap and stay gone as long as possible. I don't really think this is super admirable; I'm just being very honest. I enjoy decorating and I enjoy being in a clean space, but it's almost impossible to enjoy a decorated and clean space for even a little while, let alone a long one, without CONSTANT nagging and at least hourly attention to details, with my crew. When I devote "enough" energy to forcing my kids to keep everything clean, we're usually all miserable. One of my ultimate fantasies is to have enough money to pay others to clean my house, but a close second is to sit and imagine that one day I won't have to pick up after half a dozen other people anymore ;) But when I had babies - well, it's URGENT to clean then. I had very effective motivation! Babies live on the floor, put everything in their mouths, create tons of extra laundry, and generally inspire a strong nesting instinct. That's gone now! Nobody really suffers if I don't EVER MOP AGAIN.
*shrug*
I also have PTSD now, and had to face weeks physically away from my kids followed by months unable to care for my kids, ultimately resulting in never being able to lift any of my kids again...all that kinda breaks up the paradigm a bit. But, honestly, I think I would have come to some of the same conclusions regardless just by being forced to be "done" and having my finished family evolve - my BABIES, my 4th and 5th, are 5 and 7 years old!!
On some level I think it's funny that I've written you that novela, when I would not even contemplate getting a regular job because I couldn't bear to be out of the house that much :p Still and all, the things I am doing add up to a significant portion of time distracted, unavailable and/or gone, and they are all with the eventual goal in mind of doing things "full time" when the kids are older...
I have a million great pictures from various days/events, that I hope to post tomorrow :)
"Is there even one thing you can talk about without bringing up Harry Potter?"
-my husband, to me
(kids screaming from the other room, going wild)
Him: Let's get them settled down and in bed.
Me: Oh yeah, it's getting late. I guess we can get them to bed. (more kids screaming) Well, in theory... I mean, we have the right to try.
WHY do I have to PEE SO BADLY while I'm THIS THIRSTY? My body is obviously not using resources efficiently!
-Me, yelling from the bathroom doorway
(we're lounging on the bed trying to decide on a movie)
Me: Remember when you used to pronounce "chipotle" as "chipote-eh" and wouldn't believe me no matter how I tried to tell you that was wack?
Him: Yeah those are the times when I go check something and instead of saying, "Booyah! I knew it!" I just go, "Well, that's not right. It should be my way."
Me: Oh, like the comma going inside the quotation marks?
Him: That's bullshit. I was just writing an email to Kyle about this, asking his opinion.
Me: Uh-huh.
Him: I'm not going to compromise on this issue.
Me: (laughing wildly) Oh, is that so? Who exactly do you think that effects? I mean, well in that case..(rofl)
Him: (also laughing) I'm calling the people at Oxford!
On a totally different note, here are some copied and pasted comments I left in a friend's journal when she was talking about how much she's seeing various friends want "more" than being a stay at home mom, and how it is plenty enough for her (which I totally get/respect):
Now that I am busy and/or out of the house for reasons that have nothing to do with my family at least a couple of times per week, I can honestly say I appreciate the time I have here as precious. Sitting down to have tea with everyone or reading with them in their beds before they go to sleep are so sweet, and so good, and I was not appreciating those things anymore, before I started doing my own things. I really wasn't. That would have been sacrilege to me 7 or 12 years ago, but, it's the truth. I don't enjoy cooking of any sort more than once or twice a week, anymore, and maybe I never will again - but I spent THOUSANDS of days preparing 2-3 elaborate meals per day with small people perched on counters and standing on chairs...I'm ready to move on to a new phase. I don't want that to be my whole life. I adore the simplicity of just having fruit for breakfast and salad for lunch and heating up some fish and beans for dinner. I feel SO LUCKY when Grant and Ananda cook or we can go out somewhere, because really...maybe I'm fickle or maybe it's natural, but I'm not interested or even willing to cook like I used to, anymore. My interests and sources of peace and pleasure have changed with age, experience, etc.
I think I could have stayed home indefinitely with my children for as long as I was continuing to have babies. The restlessness and ache for "more" didn't hit me at all during the decade I was producing children - but once Elise got to be 3ish, I started having major problems and asking all sorts of questions and just generally feeling like a caged animal.
I have no doubt at this point that part of why I stayed pregnant was because I crave a very high level of intensity and engagement and need to be validated that what I'm doing is important regularly. I am not even a little bit good at creating structure out of thin air, and we all really do benefit from SOME outside scheduling, but that was outweighed when I was so distracted, placated, enraptured, frustrated, terrified, and fulfilled by everything that being pregnant or postpartum, and having (attachment parented!) babies and toddlers entails. It made life an unpredictable adventure where everything was ultimately rewarding and worth my enormous efforts, and that's how I want life to feel.
It's really different, at least for me, when the kids can all play outside or amuse themselves drawing and with games unattended with no issue for literally HOURS on a daily basis, and that goes on for months, and you know you aren't having more. Everyone sleeping through the night in their own beds, no need to even own a diaper or to pack a bag to leave the house - they get themselves strapped in without me even needing to check. They brush their own teeth.
I don't know. There is a lot less affection and less frequent expression of appreciation, at the phase I'm at now. There is a lot more sarcasm, body odor, complaining, and obvious judgement/disappointment in me for little everyday things. And it's really, REALLY easy once lessons and chores are done and I know what we're having for dinner, to just realize I've spent 3 hours on facebook or to be laying on the trampoline wondering what I'm doing with my life, AGAIN.
One thing that I don't think you struggle with at all, but has always been a huge deal to me, is that I really viciously loathe cleaning of almost any kind. I have to force myself to do it, and I resent that so much of it falls to me, and I get angry with everyone else in the house whenever I devote more than a cursory effort (because of the extent to which it is an impossible uphill battle). I honestly believe that being ill in the first trimester/huge in the third, debilitated by c-sections, and stuck under a nursling all provided a great relief to me as "excuses" to be super lax about house keeping. I really love that college, homework, writing, and so forth give me excuses, now, and I really want the playing field leveled so that Grant should be doing as much as I should because he isn't the only one going out doing other things. When I'm home and have little to do and the place is a mess, the main thing I want to do is leave asap and stay gone as long as possible. I don't really think this is super admirable; I'm just being very honest. I enjoy decorating and I enjoy being in a clean space, but it's almost impossible to enjoy a decorated and clean space for even a little while, let alone a long one, without CONSTANT nagging and at least hourly attention to details, with my crew. When I devote "enough" energy to forcing my kids to keep everything clean, we're usually all miserable. One of my ultimate fantasies is to have enough money to pay others to clean my house, but a close second is to sit and imagine that one day I won't have to pick up after half a dozen other people anymore ;) But when I had babies - well, it's URGENT to clean then. I had very effective motivation! Babies live on the floor, put everything in their mouths, create tons of extra laundry, and generally inspire a strong nesting instinct. That's gone now! Nobody really suffers if I don't EVER MOP AGAIN.
*shrug*
I also have PTSD now, and had to face weeks physically away from my kids followed by months unable to care for my kids, ultimately resulting in never being able to lift any of my kids again...all that kinda breaks up the paradigm a bit. But, honestly, I think I would have come to some of the same conclusions regardless just by being forced to be "done" and having my finished family evolve - my BABIES, my 4th and 5th, are 5 and 7 years old!!
On some level I think it's funny that I've written you that novela, when I would not even contemplate getting a regular job because I couldn't bear to be out of the house that much :p Still and all, the things I am doing add up to a significant portion of time distracted, unavailable and/or gone, and they are all with the eventual goal in mind of doing things "full time" when the kids are older...
I have a million great pictures from various days/events, that I hope to post tomorrow :)