Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Oh, the Indignity!

There are lots of things about being a parent that require you to give up a little bit of yourself.

  • Modesty and Privacy. More than five (FIVE?!?!)  years ago, I posted about giving these up. That hasn't changed. In fact, I think it is worse. Now my children will knock on the door and then walk right in if I am in the bathroom. And if I am in the shower, they will just pull up a stool and chat with me. 
  • Alone Time. Alone time? What is that?! HA!When I get to go to the grocery store sans children, it is freedom I am not used to. I can't decide if I should pick up a mocha before I go to the store and then have to carry it around or if I should get it after and then have to race home to put away the groceries. (Sad, sad alone decisions, I know).
  • Humility. When you are wiping butts - however adorable they may be - several times a day, there is just no time to be proud. The most recent reminder of this was earlier this week when LP squeezed her nose shut and shouted, "Mom! can you clean out Humphrey's wheel?" Did he poop in it, I asked. "I don't know what it is, it is just icky!". And so there I was, scrubbing nasty, sticky hamster pee out of his silent wheel.
While this list is not all inclusive - I can't even imagine how much more I could write about humility if we got a dog - I did say you just give up a little bit of yourself.

The girls remind me every so often that I "am the boss of the house."

I am hoping they mean that I am not just the boss of the cleaning up and laundry and cooking and grocery shopping and planning and instead I am the boss of the inhabitants of the house as well.  And then I find myself picking hamster poop out of Humphrey's fur and start to wonder...

I just couldn't go all sad again, I couldn't. I hope this and some of the links back to old posts makes you laugh.

Monday, December 17, 2012

When There Are No Answers

In case you didn't guess from the url of this blog, I am a Connecticut mom. And this week at least, we are all Connecticut moms. Moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings who love our kids and will give them dozens of extra hugs and kisses over the next few days and weeks.

It doesn't matter how close geographically one lives to Newtown, CT. We all might as well live in Newtown. There is not a single person unaffected by this tragedy. Even those that are blissfully unaware, like AK, who we decided not to tell.

I am not a political person. And, yet, I do think, hope, feel that perhaps some sort of legislation would make something like this less likely to happen. Mental health? Gun control? I don't know the answer, but I sure would like one. Or maybe I would just like to know that there is an answer for how to avoid it, because I do not think we will ever get an answer to 'why?'.

Like everyone else, the Hoos and I struggled to process. We grappled with if and how and how much to tell LP. As a six year old first grader, she felt too young to tell, but too old not to tell.

A few weeks ago she came home from school and told us about the drills her class did in case of a tornado. We giggled along with her as she described how 22 kids and pregnant teacher would cram into the closet-sized bathroom in her class and one kid asked, "What if I have to pee?"

We aren't giggling anymore.