For Which I Am Profoundly Grateful

Thanks to time, fresh air and the kindness of Joan, who passed along some remedies from the internet, my house no longer smells of scorched food!  I felt like I was being physically assailed with the reek of it every time I entered the house for a few days there.  To the extent that I wasn't anti-smoking already, I am now: nothing like carrying the smell of cigarettes with you wherever you go without even getting to experience the pleasure (I guess?) of the nicotine rush.

And the kitchen smoke detector is now working again, too.  I saw to it personally!!

I Really Wanted To Quit My Job Today

Which is why this article, which coincidentally appeared in my Facebook feed this morning, resonated so strongly with me!

Go read it.  Really.  Especially if you are a parent of small children.  It's funny, except that it isn't: the truth in it cuts painfully close to the bone.  How many thousands of times do we all bite back what we really want to say to our children in favor of saying something that is polite, appropriate, not profane, and not likely to leave us in hot water with Child Protective Services??  The little twerps know just where our parental buttons are and appear to take positive joy in pushing them, or maybe that's just what happens at my house.

Anyhoo.  By ten o'clock this morning, I had HAD ENOUGH.  The whining.  The arguing.  The sassing.  The not listening.  The bickering.  Etc.  Etc.  Not a good way to start a weekend.  Honestly, if motherhood were actually a job that I could quit, I would have seriously considered doing it today.  This mother clearly needs an upgrade to a more patient version, or at least one with a higher tolerance for alcohol.

Anyhoo again.

Himself periodically reminds me that I can't control the behavior of others; that all I can do is control my own reaction to what they do.  And he's correct, of course.

But when he said that to me today, I just looked at him.  And then calmly pointed out that all of our children were in one piece and that I had not spent the morning screaming at them, which as far as I was concerned, demonstrates pretty damned good control over my reactions to what other people do, thank you very much!

I think I'm developing an ulcer, though.  I wonder why???        

Murphy's Law Strikes, Yet Again

Activity Night at school tonight.  Games in the gym and cafeteria, balls flying, kids large and small running wild everywhere, fun night until 15 minutes before the end.  The point of the evening was to have parents and kids playing games together, and one kid playing the same game as me was driving me absolutely frigging nuts.  The fourth or fifth time I had to ask him to stop doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing, I just called it quits and walked over to where some of the other parents were hanging out.

When I got there, I made some comment to the lady next to me about it being time to stop playing a game when I'm ready to start yelling at somebody else's kid.  I didn't even know who the kid was: turned out I was complaining to his mother.  You knew that was coming.

I wasn't the only adult he sent packing out of sheer frustration, and in fairness to her, she did go and tell him off.  But what are the odds??  Damn you, Murphy...      

Let Me Count The Ways

Tonight, there was a family roller skating night for our school at the local rink.

Thursdays are hell days for us.  I've written about that before.  The particular brand of hell varies with the season, but this time of year we have Thing Two's speech therapy right after school, immediately followed by three consecutive taekwondo classes for the kids.  The last thing on God's green earth I wanted to do was go directly to the skate night after all that!

But Thing One really wanted to go, so we did.  Himself picked up the younger kids from the dojo after their classes, and I drove the eldest the 15 or so miles to the rink so he could make the last part of the skating session with his friends.

He had a blast, and it made my heart happy to watch him zooming and crashing and goofing around with the other boys.  In the end, not so much of an effort for me, and eminently worth it for him.  But I did tell him on the way home that he needs to remember tonight anytime he has the slightest question about whether or not his mother loves him!!

You Can't, Because You're A Girl

I've now said this phrase to my daughter twice in the last 24 hours, which gives me pause.  I did not want to be the kind of mother who would say that, and hearing those words pass my lips was sobering.

The first time, at least, I had the force of regulation on my side: no matter how much The Girl wants to play on Thing Two's Little League baseball team, baseball is boys-only in this league and she can't.  The girls play in a separate softball league.  (She's also two years too young for his team, but who's counting?  This kid is tough and she wants to be with her brother in all things.)

The second time was a bit different, though.

She and I were talking about sleepovers at friends' houses this evening, for some reason.  Thing One had his first sleepover when he was not much older than she is now.  She asked if she'd be allowed to stay overnight at a friend's house this year, and I said no, which did not go over well.  

Like I said, I did not want us to be those parents who had a double standard.  But for some reason, the thought of my daughter staying overnight anywhere other than her own bed (or at relatives' houses) gives me a whopping case of the heebie-jeebies at this stage of the game, in a way that it did not for her elder brother.  The double standard is alive and well in the world, sadly.

But at least her brothers are older than she is.  I remember being highly annoyed at my parents, way back in the mists of time when I was in high school, for allowing my brother (three and a half years younger) to do things I NEVER would have been allowed to do at his age!  Their comment was that they weren't worried so much about what I would do, but more about what would happen to me, because I was female and he wasn't.

And I have to say that I am applying similar reasoning to The Girl's situation with sleepovers.  I don't think she'll do anything inappropriate at someone else's house, far from it.  It's what could happen to her that would keep me awake all night worrying.   I know that at some point I will need to learn to let go a little, but I am so not ready for that yet.  My baby and my only girl is a bad combination!
  

  

Well, Crap

Was awarded the third black stripe on my Senior Green taekwondo belt last night.  By the big kahuna himself, no less.

In our program, there is a phenomenon among higher belts jokingly referred to as "hiding from the tape."  This is done by people who are either happy at their current belt level or (more commonly) either with physical issues or lacking enough time for the practice required to do a good job of moving higher.  The instructors use electrical tape to apply the stripes to our belts that indicate where we are on our journey through the skills required to advance to the next belt, so when you are "hiding from the tape" it means that you are not in a hurry to acquire more stripes.  The further into the program I get, the more I understand this phenomenon.

My current belt rank is in the middle of the spectrum.  I'm nowhere near black-belt level, but high enough in rank that there are certain expectations for overall fitness and capability.  Even with the bum knee, which means that there are some things I'm just not going to be able to do as well as others, no matter what, I've hit the point at which I either need to start taking those fitness obligations more seriously or just chuck the whole endeavor.  Arguably, I should have come to that realization a belt ago, if not before.  It's not that I am hideously out of shape, because I'm not.  But I am carrying weight that I shouldn't be, weight that will eventually cause more knee problems if I don't get rid of it, especially with the more complicated kicks and jumps and spins that come with higher rank.  I am also, and equally importantly, going to have to make a concerted effort to improve my overall strength and flexibility too.  Both have come a long way in the last year and a half, but if I am going to really commit to being serious about this sport, I'll have to commit to regular out-of-class stretching and exercise as well.  The rubber has officially met the road...this is just not an enterprise in which one can dabble.

I was thinking about this at the end of the week before Easter break, when I was awarded the second stripe.  Typically the first two stripes take the longest to earn, and the remaining five to seven (depending on your belt level) come more quickly.  Usually you test for your next belt within a few months of getting your second stripe.  The technique sheet for my next belt up has some serious shit on it...right now, I'm not sure I can even do some of the kicks in particular.  That second stripe was a real wake-up call.

So, when I went to class last night, my first since receiving the second stripe due to the break, and came out of it with the third stripe, it was not so much the proud moment it should have been...more like one of panic!  Crap on a cracker...time to get real.  Starting now.

Getting The Stink Out

Hi all, I need your help.

Last night, I very ill-advisedly forgot that I was simmering a ham bone for stock when I went to bed.  Thankfully, the smell of the pot burning woke me up some time later before there was a real crisis, especially since it turned out that the kitchen smoke detector was malfunctioning. No fire, for which I am deeply grateful, but I tossed one seriously scorched and completely trashed stockpot into the yard last night and into the trash this morning.

Which pot did, unfortunately, before its rapid exit from the premises, emit enough rancid smoke to make the entire house currently smell like a convention of smokers was in residence all weekend.  8 hours of open windows plus four Yankee candles only made a middling dent in the miasma.

Any suggestions for de-smokifying my house??  Please??