Where I Improve Upon (sort of) Mother Teresa

It's been that kind of day.

Lots of pep talks (for myself), lots of cajoling (of others), lots of restarts (all of us) and lots of opportunities for forgiveness and mercy.  Which is really code for lots and lots of totally screwing up.  Yay.  Love that.

Family life requires such an amazing amount of do-overs.  How do we keep ourselves motivated for the endless monotonous tasks of domesticity?  How do we keep ourselves from falling prey to our weaknesses, our impatience, our desire for things to be easy?

Mother Teresa knew.  She knew exactly what was required.  "Do small things with great love."

Beautiful.  Simple.  True.  And perhaps not actually uttered by her.  OK, but definitely enfleshed by her.

And on days like today, I just have one minor revision.

"Do small things with great love.  And alcohol."

We aren't all saints like Mother.  But with a little help, we can try.

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All the Proof I Need...

…to keep myself utterly confused.

Proof my kids are going to be just fine.

1. My oldest selected comedy for us to listen to on Pandora tonight, on the long drive home from an away soccer game, and was as excited as I was when Who's On First came up.
2. My other son scoured the movie closet for something to watch on Friday night, and ended up picking Some Like It Hot.
3. My 9 year old daughter expressed dismay when I pulled boxed brownie mix out of the pantry today, to make for a potluck.  "Mom, you should have just had me make something from scratch."
4. Santana came on the car radio the other day.  No one wanted to change the station.
5. One of the biggest reasons they are looking forward to the holidays?  Our annual Christmas Eve viewing of It's A Wonderful Life.  

And just to keep me on my toes, proof that my work is not yet done.

1. My 7-year old drank several shots of peach nectar today, out of an actual shot glass, and referred to it as her "peach whiskey."  She must get this from her father's side of the family.
2. Last week, my 13 year old washed a kitchen full of dirty dishes…without using any dish soap at all.
3. I tried unsuccessfully the other evening to convince one of my sons not to wear filthy pants and a ripped shirt to his Confirmation retreat.  I fear being known by the adult leaders as "that mom."
4. Their bedrooms.  Nothing good can come from rooms like that.  I lie awake at night obsessed with their bedrooms.  And with my failure to get them to be neater, more civilized people.
5. One of my kids unpacked her overnight bag this past Thursday, and put all her stuff away, including her toothbrush.  Five days after she got home.

If this trajectory continues, my children will become total slacker adults who have great taste.  I might be OK with that.  

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Dorothy

Today is the birthday of Dorothy Day, a personal saint of mine, and one entry on the list of people I wish I could have dinner with.  I think we would eat soup and good bread.

Her memoir, The Long Loneliness, is an important book for me.  In it, she describes how she came to Catholicism, how she started responding to the poor and hungry people she saw in New York City, and how the Catholic Worker movement came about.  It is a beautiful, honest account of a woman who was searching for something, for some way to bring about a more socially just world, and about how she did not stop searching until she found it.  She never gave up on what she knew, in her core, was right.

For those who do not know more about her, here is a lovely introduction to her life story:

And here are some of her beautiful words, words to live by.  Words that I want to live by.

“The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” 

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” 

“Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.” 

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” 

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”

“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it's right.” 

“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.” 

She shares a birthday with the anniversary of Kristallnacht.  I am thankful that on such a dark and dreadful anniversary, we have Dorothy to celebrate as well, to raise up as an answer to the suffering and evil in the world.

Thank you Dorothy.

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Fill In The Blank Quickly, Please

In a noisy car today, Little T announced:

"The worst smell in the world for me is elderly {word muffled by other children's voices}."

Huh?  What the heck?  My cute little 7 year old is dissing old people?  This is not good, thought I.

In the time it took me to be heard over the fray and ask her to repeat what she had said, all kinds of crazy things ran through my head.

Is she going to say something mean?  Is it just feet?  What might this mean for her visits with grandparents, or with our dear friend Margaret?  How should I respond to this? Ugh, I'm going to have to talk to her about the value of older people in our lives, and how even if they can be a little scary to young children, what with their strange hairs, and shaky hands, and wrinkly skin, and crackly voices, we have much to learn from their years and their wisdom and their lives.  Older people enrich our lives and give us, among other things, history and perspective and reassurance.

Then she repeated it: "The worst smell in the world for me is elderly perfume."

Oh, I'm right there with you, sister.  No big talk or lecture or life lesson required.  Just a fist bump, and a "I know, right?"

Phew!  Dodged a bullet.

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Musings of a Hypocrite

AKA Musings of a Parent

I just listened to my husband interact with my 7 year old daughter in a way I did not agree with; I was of the opinion that he was being irrational, that he was letting his own emotions get the better of the situation.  I was bothered that he was not able to be more detached and calm in the face of her storm…and not 10 minutes later, I behaved in an appalling way with my 13 year old son.  Hypocrisy, thy name is me.

I don't think that makes me wrong about how my husband handled the 7 year old; I just think it means that parenting is pretty much the hardest thing ever, and that nothing demands more grace, forgiveness, patience, second chances, or flexibility.  Nothing.  Ever.

This is why parenting is the hardest job in the world: you screw up every single day and no one fires you!  You still have to get up the next day, look yourself in the mirror, understand full well that you blew it yesterday and that you could very well blow it again today, and that no one will dock your pay, put you on suspension, develop a performance plan, or fire your ass (short of abuse, of course).  Instead, you just get to live with the knowledge that you failed.  That you failed a person you love.

There is a kind of poetry in that failure.  Parenting is an art, not a science.  In raising children, there is more beauty than logic, more gift than explanation, more surprises than rules.

In spite of my daily failures, and the daily trying again, and the daily, the countless resolutions to be better, at the end of each day, there are still five heads on five pillows that I love more than I did the day before, and for whom I would do anything, even on the days when I do far less than I intend.

So why on earth don't they just make my job a kajillion times easier, and simply do exactly what I tell them, every minute of every day????  Because really, I think I'd screw up way less if they did.

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This post brought to you by two generous glasses of cabernet.

 

The Mighty Minion

Minions were hot this past Halloween.

We went to the Boo Fest Halloween soccer tournament in Sacramento, and saw lots and lots and lots of minions.  Mine was the best, hands down, and I am so totally not biased.  It's just a matter of objective fact.  Of course, she had the advantage of possessing that "Minion Personality" before she even donned the costume; those other minions, the ones who merely put on a persona, didn't stand a chance.  This minion was made for the role.  Which pretty much shines through, don't you think?

And really, most of the time, when she talks, this is all I hear anyway:

The best part of this costume is that the Uber Crafty Creative Moms on her soccer team made it.  Prior to the tournament, she wanted to be Wheezy, the squeaky and neurotic penguin from Toy Story.  But with only a few days left before Halloween, I had nothing on hand to make that happen.  After spending some frantic minutes searching for easy-to-throw-together penguin costumes online, I had resigned myself to a trip to Michael's and some time with a glue gun.

But lo and behold, the Boo Fest did come into my life, and the Uber Crafty Creative Moms did bestow upon my child a fully functional, fully kick-ass Minion costume.  In my best, most enthusiastic, most cheerful and "hey, I got a GREAT idea" voice, I suggested maybe she wanted to be a minion instead of a penguin?  Like, HOW FUN WOULD THAT BE?

Totally worked, natch.  She played right into my hands, and I didn't have to do one single damn thing to send her off in style to her school Halloween parade or to trick or treating.  Score!  Thanks Uber Crafty Creative Moms!

* * *

Her brother pointed out to me that between her well-established penchant for destroying the house and her two days of barfing this week, she could have also made a very convincing Wreck It Ralph.  But the minion is way cuter.

Wreck It Ralph will have to wait.  On the morning of November 1, she planned out her costumes for the next decades worth of Halloweens.  "And next year, I'll be a Wheezy…and the year after that, I'll be Jessie…and the year after that I'll be a tree…and the year after that…"  For ten years.

No matter how far ahead she plans, I will always be a last minute lucy, hoping for some Uber Crafty Creative Moms to save me.

And now, it's time to raid the children's candy stashes for Snickers bars…

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Today's Silver Lining

Don't want to fail NaBloPoMo on Day #5, but this is all I have the time and energy for today.

After staying up all night with a barfing 7 year old, after cleaning an ungodly mess in her bedroom at midnight last night, after waging a bleach battle against germs at 2am, after soothing a tiny person who doesn't understand why things are catapulting out of her with such force and violence…

…there is one small thing for which I am thankful.

I am thankful that last night was one of the very, very rare evenings when I overcame my lazy-hair-doing ways, and braided my little minion's long, wild, curly mane.

The braid made the midnight clean up -- and all of the subsequent clean ups -- a kajillion times easier.

* * *

And that, folks, is all I got.

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Our Family History

According to Little T:

Rick and Monica, sittin' in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
First comes love,
Then comes marriage,
Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

That's not all, that's not all,
Now the little baby's drinking alcohol!

That's not all, that's not all,
Now the baby's kicking a soccer ball!

And there you have it.  This is how we ended up with a family full of drunk, soccer-playing babies.

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* * *

I Can't Explain It

I can't explain this feeling of melancholy I get when I find myself alone, doing something simple and ordinary like getting a cup of coffee, and I look around and see people doing simple, ordinary things like gardening, or jogging, or buying veggies and flowers at the farmer's market, or having coffee with friends, or straightening the garage.

How do they do those things?  How do they have the time?  What am I doing wrong, that I never get to do those things?

Because I always feel like I'm running, chasing something, falling behind, trying to catch up, tending to children, thinking about dinner, running out of time to make dinner, throwing together a lame dinner, and myriad other things that keep me distracted and frazzled.  

And then, on a rare occasion like this morning, when I have dropped off a kid at a soccer field, and I have an hour to kill before game time, and I don't have any other kids with me to distract me from noticing the rest of the world, that's when I notice the rest of the world.  Through my sleep-deprived, rosy-colored eyeballs, the rest of the world looks relaxed and happy on this sunny November morning. They look positively privileged.  They look like they have discovered the secret to a happy life, and it appears to involve doing things that they enjoy doing.

I'm not complaining.  At least, I don't think I'm complaining.  I don't want a different life, I just want this one to feel better.  I don't want fewer children (true at least 75% of the time), and I don't want to be rich (just less not-rich), and I don't want to a different job (I love my job).

But still there is this feeling of melancholy that I get when I see people who do not look distracted and frazzled.   It's an undefined, fuzzy thing to wish for, but I wish to be undistracted and unfrazzled.  I yearn to be...I suppose it's called peaceful.  Content.

Is that feeling coming someday?

* * *

It Appears We Have Angered the Soccer Gods

I got up at 5am to do soccer uniform laundry, and then left the house at 7:15 to drive one hour to Lady E's early game.  I then spent the day first in freezing cold, then in sweltering heat, then finally in balmy blessed overcastness (thank you California autumn), watching four straight soccer defeats in a row, two for Lady's E's team, two for Little T's.  They were frustrating games to watch.

Elsewhere in AIRY5-land, my other daughter's team lost, and one of my son's barfed on his soccer field.

The soccer gods must be angry at us.

I don't know what we did, or didn't do, to bring down the wrath of Pele, but today we were definitely cursed.

The good news about being a totally nutso soccer family, though, is that each day brings with it new chances to bring home a victory.  Tomorrow actually brings SIX more chances for victory...although if that barfer referenced a few paragraphs up doesn't get better, the number shrinks to 5.  Not that I want the kid to keep barfing, but...well...silver lining and all that.  In case you are counting, this means that between our five children, we have a grand total of 12 games this weekend.  Plus one more that Rick is coaching for a team none of our kids play on.

The craziest part of that crazy schedule?  I kind of like it.

It only feels like a cult.

Here's hoping we have a bit more success tomorrow.

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Imma Do This Too, Momo

National Blog Posting Month!

Because I don't have enough going on in my life.

Because I don't already wake up every day behind on everything I have to do.

Because I am not already being chased by the failure to catch up.

Because there is way too much candy in my house.

Because I'm having perhaps the hardest Fall of my entire life.

Because I am already dreading the holidays.

* * *

Because my husband told me I should blog more, to help me make sense of things.

I am doing NaBloPoMo, November 2013.

Let's give this thing a go, shall we?  I took my last minute inspiration from Momo Fali.  I hope we both make it this time!

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Today's anecdote.  It's a balmy November evening, and my daughters are watching too much TV in our living room, with the front door open.  Our mail box is built into our house, so that when our mailwoman drops off our mail, we hear it in our living room.  Mail comes around 5 in the evening.  When it got dropped off today, my seven year old heard and shouted from her comfy couch: "THANK YOU!" to the mailwoman.  And got a shouted back: "YOU'RE WELCOME!" in return.

That made me smile.  Hope it does the same for you.

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