where’s my brain?

When working at a “regular job,” I was a type-A workaholic control freak. I used to journal my every move in my Circa planner, had a to-do list or chart for everything, and created multi-tab spreadsheets for big projects. I had a corresponding email folder for every My Documents folder, which also mirrored my hard-copy files. I used my P-Touch Labeler on a daily basis, and everything had to be in its place. I seriously think I was borderline OCD.

As a stay-at-home-mom, I’m scatterbrained, messy, and sometimes employ a “let the inmates run the asylum” approach to parenting. Right now, at 7.30am on Saturday, my kids are eating cookies and watching their 3rd hour of Disney Junior. In the past few months, I’ve lost my wallet, phone, and keys — the 3 basic things one needs to leave the house and get home without crisis and calamity.

• My wallet was stolen at H’s school, and I only knew it was stolen and not in the depths of my car because Bank of America noticed “unusual activity” and called me. Big banks may be evil, but they treat you right when it comes to fraud. I didn’t even know one could spend over $300 at Walgreens.
• I left my iPhone on the steps of my house overnight after doing some yardwork. I would have found it sooner if the “Find my iPhone” app was a little more specific. My husband saved the day.
• I found my keys yesterday after 2 weeks of using the spare house and car keys. They were in the boys’ dresser. Duh.

I’m using a different part of my brain now — not the uber-organized, linear-thinking, logical part. It’s the emotional, reactive-not-proactive, nurturing, intuitive part. If I ever get my whole brain functioning, who knows what I could accomplish!

what’s the problem?

This quote by Pablo Picasso resonates with me on many levels. As a mother, it makes me think about how to continually nurture my little artists’ creativity. And as a grown-up individual, I wonder where I failed to nurture myself as an artist along the way. There are so many mundane yet necessary responsibilities we slowly acquire as adults — it’s too easy to let them get in the way of creative pursuits. I haven’t got an answer to the problem, but I’m glad I know what the problem is.

~ via Every Child is an Artist | Fotoseeds Photographic Education.

keeping house

My husband is extremely good at a lot of things: throwing rocks far distances, building campfires, dadding, and cleaning our house. I thought I was pretty good at cleaning, and perhaps I was once, but now I get too caught up in the details. Like scrubbing the grime off the kitchen floor under the oven, scraping the stickers off the walls with a blade, and putting all the Lego heads back on their proper bodies. Or colorizing the Crayola box. (It may be a subconscious procrastination technique.)

Give my husband 2 hours, and our house will be ready for company. Kind of. Minus the fluffed toss pillows in the living room, pressed bed linens, fresh flowers on the dining table, but I’ll take it. He’s a keeper, my husband. 🙂

In the interest of doing my share, I’m trying to get better at this “stay-at-home-mom” gig, housekeeping included. I can dress up a bed, organize plastic food containers, and vacuum up goldfish crackers from the depths of the sofa, but somehow, I am not capable of getting the whole house clean in a reasonable amount of time.

So I was inspired when I came across this cleaning calendar at Little Green Notebook. A carryover from my previous employed life, I cannot complete a project without first breaking it down into its composite tasks. I need a to-do list, an aesthetically-pleasing and color-coded one. I’ll make one today, and maybe next week the house will be clean.

Maybe.

-- via littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com

big hair, marching band, and bon jovi

Three things that remind me of high school. I just received a Facebook invite to my 20-year high school reunion. I am 99.9% positive I will not be going. Here’s why:

• I grew up in central Jersey. No, I don’t know what exit. I fled the state as soon as I turned 18 for what I call “irreconcilable cultural differences” that still exist.
• The reunion isn’t just in Jersey — it’s down the shore (note that I use the proper local terminology “down the shore”), at Point Pleasant, on the boardwalk, at Jenkinson’s amusement park. It doesn’t get much more Jersey than that. I’m scared.
• I have social anxiety when going to dinner with people I know and love. I’d need ativan or valium or some such thing to just get through this.
• Do I really want to party with people I haven’t seen for 20 years? People who I wasn’t even friends with in high school? People who contributed to my deeply depressed and disturbed state of mind throughout my formative years? Um… not so much.
• Does anyone really enjoy going to these things?
• Social media has enabled me to find people I wish I’d kept in touch with. I don’t need to drive 6 hours to Jersey over a weekend in June to find them. If I wanted to find the rest of them, I would have already.

I’m not the only one who feels this way — so does this guy. That said, there remains a 0.1% chance I could change my mind. If you have any words of persuasion, pearls of wisdom, or experiences from your own high school reunions, please share!

And no, I never had big hair. I tried, but I’m Asian. Yes, I was in my high school marching band — we were state champs. And yes, I did, and still do, love Bon Jovi.

hi there, handsome.

f**k french parenting

Let me preface this post by saying, I think it’s fantastic that parenting styles of other societies are being written about and discussed. By examining our own norms and reflecting on the practices of others, we arrive at new and hopefully better ways of doing things. I was a philosophy major, I thrive on these types of conversations.

I bristle a bit when we are led to blindly revere new ideas and denigrate our own. I’ve been seeing articles from the illustrious Wall Street Journal titled, “Are French Parents Better?” and “Why French Parents Are Superior.” I’m sure there are kernels of wisdom in the book and I may even read it someday, but dammit I hate being told someone else is better than me! Especially when it comes to my family.

I trust my gut in almost everything. I know my kids better than anyone, especially the French. On the permissiveness scale, I fall a little more on the side of strict. Still, my oldest is reserved, cautious, well-behaved in most situations, so he gets a little more leeway when exerting his independence. My two-dler, on the other hand, is proving to be more adventurous, less hesitant, and… he bites. So he’s on a tighter rein. For me, parenting is situational, not an absolute.

Patience is a virtue, no doubt, and it’s a hard one for kids to practice. American society values independence, ambition, and a level of self-confidence that borders on cockiness. Is it any wonder we aren’t good at teaching patience?

You love your kids. You’re doing the best you can. You want to do better. Everyone’s healthy and happy. Don’t doubt that you’re a good parent.

Resolutions for 2012, or Things I Should Have Done in 2011

I will (finally) paint the stairway in my house. Benjamin Moore HC-144 Palladian Blue, on the left. I’ve had these paint squares on the walls for at least a year, and the damn paint in the basement for six months–it’s time to follow through.


I will get my hair cut this year. Twice, even, and I will spend less than $100 a pop. After all, my boys don’t notice if my hair has been precision cut and texturized with a straight razor after drying and smells like Keihl’s. Sorry, Margaret. You’re a dream come true, but I’ll go back to you when I don’t have to buy diapers anymore.


I will spend more waking hours with my family than working. I have learned the hard way that a good mom is a happy mom, not a stressed, overwhelmed, constantly rushing-around crazy woman. Balance, I will find you!!


I will reach out to friends outside of Facebook. Facebook, the evil interface that makes us feel like we’re being social, when in fact, we’re being quite anti-social. My personality tends towards the homebody loner-type, so I find being social–in the traditional, face-to-face, healthy sense–to be anxiety-provoking. Comfort zones are meant to be left behind.


I will read, write and create something every day. My whole life, these have been my favoritest things to do. As a proper mortgage-paying adult, I’ve let them fall by the wayside to the detriment of these skills. Harry Potter, blogging and cooking are the bare minimum. Time to get back to basics and bring back the good juujuu.


Looking forward to posting more this year!

oh sh*t

the plan was to take 3 months off and have a job by october. guess what? it’s fucking october.

i feel ridiculously low motivation to find a job. except that we’re near broke and may not make it through the year without help. “help,” as in, “hey dad. do you have an extra car to give us again? we can’t afford our lease anymore, and the 1996 piece of crap can’t make it down the street.”

2 boys to feed, clothe, shelter and insure. that’s some motivation right there.

living mortgage payment to mortgage payment. finding a job that will pay for more than childcare feels impossible.

mindfulness

with nearly all my focus now on my home and kids, i see what i was missing when work had me rushing from home to work to multiple pick-ups to dinner to bedtime. i am able to live in the moment, to connect with my kids, to move through transitions at their pace. being able to relax and slow down enough to really listen to what my 5-year old wants, I’m getting to know him better. having time to explain to my toddler what we’re going to do in the next 10 minutes helps head off the morning meltdown.

this morning, i had a long talk with dash about his waffle. did he want the waffle? no. does he want a bite of the waffle? yes. here, hold the waffle. no, abby (she’s our dog). no, no waffles for abby. mama. waffle for mama? mama. ok, do you want blueberries? boobey.

how many of these morning talks did i miss? granted, he’s only been talking for a few months, but gosh, that’s at least 100 mornings.

day one: easing into it

my first morning as an unemployed housewife, i was up at 6am even though i didn’t need to get holden and dash anywhere for 3 more hours. sleeping in is apparently not part of the gig. after 1 diaper change, 2 cups of coffee, 3 frozen waffles, and a debate about socks or no socks with sneakers, we made it out the door and into the car. it was lovely not having to rush through it all.

on the way to school, holden and i had a conversation that reminded me that i’ll have these types of conversations multiple times a day this summer. we passed a moving truck parked outside a house. the back was open, and we could see a good amount of boxes inside.

h: when we move to a new house, where will we sit in the moving truck?
me: we won’t be in the moving truck. we’ll drive our car.
h: so we’ll follow the moving truck to our new house.
me: yes, but we’re not moving to a new house soon. i like our house, and it’s just the right size for us (and we owe a bajillion dollars more than we could sell it for!)
h: oh! when we have a new baby, that’s when we’ll move to a new house.
me: yes, that’s when we’ll move. (are you kidding me!? we are SO not having another baby.)

after dropping them off at their respective places of education, i then had four whole hours to myself. i never imagined the luxury and indulgence of going to the grocery store without having to negotiate about snacks. i strolled rather than sprinted down the aisles, i read nutrition facts and ingredients on boxes, and smiled empathetically at the other moms who were negotiating with their kids about snacks. i spent over an hour there, just enjoying the absence of distractions, the act of focused shopping, knowing this would be a rare thing in the days to come.

it was a gorgeous summer day. i picked up holden and we had a picnic at the southwest corridor park near his school. we went home and hung out in the yard, weeding a bit, looking at bugs, and planning how to keep bears, lions, penguins and runny babbits out of our tent when we go camping. we went together to pick up dash around 5pm.

dinner, play, baths, bed.

holden has 1 more day (1/2 day) of school, and dash has 4 more days in daycare. then the adventures will begin for real.