Tuesday, February 24, 2009

baby genius

i nurse my children for many reasons. one not included would be to boost their eventual i.q. score and aid in their early-acceptance to harvard. i pray my children will have common sense. i'd prefer they be the homeowner who laughs when the bank suggests they can afford a home loan far exceeding their actual means than the financial whiz who thought up the greed-based loan the bank offered. the only super-human intelligence i have want for them to possess comes from God.

faith. hope. humility. compassion. sacrifice. love.

that doesn't mean that if i was assured drinking 2 pints of guava juice during the 17th week of pregnancy a natural born spelling bee champion would sprout that i would not drink the guava. at the most, though, i would hope for a child who knew how to spell every day words like 'tomorrow' vs 'tomarrow' when updating their facebook status.

i want my children to move through this world eating their vegetables and exercising and always looking to learn something new. i want them to be profitable, agile and respected. i want all the best for my children. i do not want for them to be the best. i take my folic acid. i do not drink or smoke. even so. i do not fool myself with studies and reports into thinking my breast-feeding has any real sustaining impact on my children that makes them exceptional when compared to other children.

i often wonder to what end mothers intend with their insistence on plugging their babies in to all these brain-boosting practices. as if it's a shame to be average. as if being able to read before the age of 3 means...? as if God and humanity play a minor role to a mother's control.

Monday, February 23, 2009

four

vern and the kids put together a mini-crib sunday. it sits at the foot of our bed, empty. owen in the bassinet to our side not yet given away to the new baby cousin it's been promised. 1 bunk, 1 convertible crib, 1 mini-crib, 1 bassinet.

in our 2 bedroom, 1 bath abode i had a revelation. we could do babe #4.

i'm sure tomorrow i'll realize my delirium. then donate some food to the octuplet family.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

mom's dogma

i learned fred died today.

when my parents got him, a mellow yellow lab, i began getting cards from fred my new 'dog brother'. he shared his name with my grandfather. i could never be sure what to make of that considering my parents maintained a bitter relationship with my dad's dad up through his death. to then dote on this pup, fred, became its own bit of comedic family lore.

i love dogs from a distance. that point just beyond where they can jump on, put their wet nose on or otherwise be smelled by, me. i have a thing about having any part of my person, this would include my children, being touched by anyone, this would also include my children, who just touched a dog without washing their hands in the interim. i never grew up with one. we learned visiting my parents after fred's arrival that i am indeed allergic to them. still. even i would pet fred now and then.

the empty nesters' beloved dog did not come out of an exaggeratedly long seizure. at 5 and a half years old, he died in their bedroom, with mom at his side, just before 7 this morning. her first call was to my brother who set off immediately to help her take our dog brother fred for cremation.

my dad died last december. in their bedroom. mom discovered him cold of a heart attack and called my brother just before 7 in the morning. he waited with her and cleaned the mess and called asking if i wanted to see dad before he was cremated.

mom was in good spirits when i spoke with her.

"fred is at peace. he's in heaven right now smelling your dad's butt, i just know it."

bloggy goals

i sometimes link off blog home tours into other people's space. 3/4's have the most adorable child/children 1-2-3-4, husband, house, that they've captured in the most spectacular light and composition making any issue of parenting or country home cover pale highlighted in nearly every post. the content boasts witty, cute and approachable remarks on pop culture and their child, children, husband, house. too perfect, even when they are 'keepin' it real' by showing off their 'before' kitchen pictures. yay.

i shutter all our pictures. what they lack in quality, they make up for in quantity. i email my loved ones. when i'm looking for feedback, i get it.

i've been thinking the past few days about what i expect to gain from this blog. will i be upset if 6 months in and my automatically added 'list of followers' remains a pretty round number? should i market it around? do i have a target audience?

eh.

i think i'm doing this to keep myself accountable as i work on voice lessons.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

favorite scent


pool
Originally uploaded by
Lu Lamanna

25 things about me i will not post on facebook: 1-5

i have a love/hate relationship with these things. some answers are subject to change without notice:

1. in the >4 yr old crowd, i can handle the crying and screaming, but whining, no matter how muted, drives me a little nutty.

2. sometime before the children graduate they will be required to go through a summer watching 'lost' with their parents much like my mother had me watch 'dr. who' and old hitchcock movies with her before i left home.

3. my husband is not my best friend. it works best this way. it only took me a few years to figure that out.

4. i love being greeted with the smell of chlorine when entering a hotel in a sort of way that i cannot fully express without blushing.

5. my favorite color is brown, but i never say so. i say it is blue.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

farewell non-intrusive analog fuzz

i've decided there is no torture quite like being housebound with 2 overly-tired children intent on waiting up for their dad to get home from a late-evening meeting through any means necessary and 1 equally tired and cranky baby who only becomes more incensed at his lack of care and attention due to his siblings' antics OTHER than to leave the famed-father alone on the couch to muddle over why his wife is such a crab he never sent a text update 3 hours into his meeting as to his status and experience the joys of the digital switch over that has left his family's only sight and sound of the real-time outside world blocky, skippy and sometimes all together stuck. it's like the dvd you curse and clean and curse some more before ultimately returning to netflix flagged as unviewable.

foot prints

i have an aversion to naked feet. in high school i had a sign in my room that barred their entrance. the sound of flip-flops flip-flopping is among my most detested. there was a nail fungus commercial in college that i was never able to watch in its entirety. i wish my husband slept with socks on.

loved ones laugh at this quirk of mine explaining it off as a side-effect of having no feet of my own. it never occurred to any of us that this strong distaste of a bare foot was a form of ageism on my part.

i am currently scouring the internet for examples of shots i hope to get of the kids saturday at the photographer's. not of their faces. group shots of their feet. bare. adorned with our wedding rings. to then enlarge and hang on the wall of our bedroom. the fact that i have yet to achieve the perfect angle and focus of their toes and heels plagues me.

as i watched caleb today practicing to pick up baby links with his ever-growing 4 yr old toes, i felt a tiny nip and wondered how long he has before mom digs out an old "no bare feet allowed" sign.

i wonder if the timing will correspond with when he will no longer fling the door open on his mother while she is using the bathroom, to bathe or otherwise, inquiring such urgencies as "dad said i could have pb and j. is that ok, mom?"

let me make a label

i have one daughter, maddy, who will soon be 18 months. she compliments an older brother, caleb, who turned 4 just before Christmas, and owen who is 5 days into his 4th month. i'm older than my husband vern by about 3 months.

his name is not vern, and i do not remember when or how i began referring to him as such. if i ever use the term 'hubby', it will be wholly in jest. as will be any blunt declaration to my children's beauty, smarts, wit or athletic skills.

this post serves only to set the stage and fulfill my #1 "if i ever had a blog, (i could call them by...)" ambition.

as a by...

1. i do not write this for anyone but me.
2. i do not capitalize anything but Christ.
3. i have yet to review the rules of proper grammar that i did once know.
4. i'm sure this will eventually evolve into the graphically dense work i so admire in many other blogs. the blogs i do not read so much as see. at which point i will have outgrown blogspot and...

Monday, February 16, 2009

a good round number

i turned 33. i started a blog. i shall see how long it takes my friends to find me.