week 8

• Long weekends are wonderful, except when you are put to work. We put together hundreds (not really) food package mock ups. The kid thought it was a fun arts & craft project, not her brightest moment it was manual labor.
• We went to the Children's Museum. It wasn't bad, it wasn't grand. But it wasn't bad. 
• We had a date night (2nd weekend in a row) and it was glorious, except we got on the wrong train home. 
• Trader Joe's has mini carts. The small things in life, really make food shopping fun vs. chore. See putting together display mock ups seen as arts & crafts.

Failing at motherhood, example #ILostCount

You know when you are in argument with someone and you walk away dumb founded and then hours or days later you're like: GAH! If I only said X Y and Z.

That happens, and it's life.

What's horrifying is when in that moment, whether it is an argument or not - a moment in time - something happens where you fail your child. And moments, even hours later you think - I could have done that better.

I failed mine. Hours later, I thought, SHIT. Why didn't I say anything? And days later, I'm still thinking about it.

In comment to my kindergarten CHILD the following was said, in front of her: "Look at her! She lost some weight!"

I blinked.
There is no defense to my (non-re)action, but in that moment I remember thinking. Wait. Is this OK? Am I over thinking that this is wrong? I'm tired. I must be tired. 

Another lesson learned: listen to your gut. Always listen to your gut.

If I could do it all over, if I could be the mother I want to be my girl, it'd go a little like this:

Excuse me,  I'm sorry. Are you seriously commenting on my five year old's body? Providing her with a flashback where she is able to pin point where her body issues began to her therapist that I will gladly foot the bill to. I will be pissed, though, when I find out it's YOU that started it all. With all of that said, she's beautiful. Inside & out. And not that thing that people say, she is. She has enough pressures and she will - between kids - that's right children who barely have an excuse, television, magazines, the Internet - the god damn world will hand it to her. Perhaps during our "family time" we can lay off the fucking body issues. 

Ok fine, I probably shouldn't drop the F bomb - but I wish I could. I wish I could have said any portion of the shame on you speech that I now have in my head. Even if it cost me an F bomb, I should have. Sorry, kid. Some days I'll make you proud and other days I'll fail you - but I'll always love you and work to make it so the days of pride heavily outweigh the failures. The only fucking mass that matters.

My pushy peaceful kid.

Driving to pick the kid up from school today - I saw one kid run across a (busy) road to attack another kid. High school students? Fighting in the street, scary. Weird. As they were fighting I was honking my horn, trying to pull over to call the police - only to see there was subway security there. As I was telling someone this story - the kid interrupts (side note, I know I probably shouldn't have been telling this story in front of her).

"You should have just said. 'HEY BOYS! My daughter is learning about peace. She said to be peaceful. Use your words, peacefully.' That would've worked."

The kid has been learning about peace. It's everywhere. Including solving local crime.

I used to love her name

My mom got the kid a CD. It has her name on it. Sure, it's spelled wrong - but that's our fault. Though the kick to the namesake is they spell it the two other ways you can spell her name. The pronunciation of her name remains. It says her name 50 times. 9 songs, her name interwoven within each song, what seems to be every 15 seconds. The kid loves it. In related news? I now hate her name.

The only thing I do like? Is her reaction.

"How do they know my name? HOW?"
"They say my name - they know me. But seriously, Mommy. HOW?"
"Can you believe they know my name? I just wanna know how."

Basically, 50 variations of the same question. 5 year olds, simple minds. Many questions.

It's mind numbing. But the kid, no seriously loves it, times 50.

week 7

• We were in NY for most of week 7. Great to see family. Great to be home, now. 
• Traveling with babies (like ours) sucks. The only people who hate it more than me? The entire flight manifest of United flight 1053.
• Valentine's Day 2013. Loved it. The kid loved it. I loved how much she loved it. There was a lot of love. 
• Speaking of love, we had a date night. We went to Brite Winter Festival - where they say 'There might be snow, there might be rain, it might be cold, it might be a blizzard, but it doesn’t really matter. This is Cleveland, and we’re going to play outside.' You know what sucks? Playing outside in the snow, rain, cold and likely blizzard. 
• The baby loves yogurt. Eat it. Slurp it. Wear it. 
• The baby now loves washing off in the sink. 
• The baby loves Nemo. Hard. And I love that she stays quiet for the duration of the movie loves it.