Will I Be a Walking Contradiction?

Somebody by the name of Anonymous (who I am assuming is my sister, Andrea) commented on my Parenting Paradox post last week.  

Anonymous (Andrea) wrote:

I have tried my best to keep my personal opinions to myself, but I have a question/scenerio (sic) for you to ponder: what happens IF when your children become adults and you have provided them with all of the tools to think for themselves and to make their own choices that they "choose" to live their lives with different views than your own (such as public schools, processed foods, rules, ect.). Are you going to be okay with that? I hope so, otherwise your parenting would be a walking contridiction (sic).

First of all, these questions can apply to anyone, and not necessarily only to myself and my style of parenting. I guess the difference is that I would be a "walking contradiction" because of my expressed views of encouraging free thinking, free will, etc. So, in answer to the question, "Are you going to be okay with that?"... I don't know. Does anybody know if they're going to be "okay" with choices that their kids make that are out of alignment with their own views? Am I going to be okay if my kids turn into drug addicts? (After all, those are views that are different from my own.) Would you be okay if your kids turned into drug addicts?

So, that brings me to a point that I will get into now... I'm just trying to do the best that I can. I am doing stuff that feels right to me. I'm not an expert, nor to I pretend to be one. All I am is a person with a strong opinion about a lot of things. By avoiding processed foods, encouraging children to think for themselves, not letting them watch tv, and keeping stuff like crack, crystal meth, doobies, and LSD out of the house... I just happen to think that I am doing the best that I can for my family. These views are based on a lot of reading, a lot of observation, and a lot of thinking on my part.

Will I be upset if they eat junk food or watch TV when their grown-up? I doubt it. But it is my job as their parent to do what is in the best interest for them NOW. It is my job to get them off to the best start possible. Why would I want any less than that for them? (And, believe it or not, I have yet to see a study that touts the benefits of junk food or television watching for children, so if you find one, please show me.)

And, hopefully, with this type of parenting, my children WILL grow into the best versions of themselves. That's my main objective. But if they don't, they don't. They are on their own journey through life, just like the rest of us. I want to encourage them to find their paths, happily and joyfully, wherever that may be.

It is my path to be this source of encouragement for them.

Photo Friday - Vernon

 

I really love my husband Vernon and I think he's really nice. He likes Pearl Jam and Supernatural and pistachios and forest fires. Just kidding about that last part. I don't even know where that came from, or why I said it. Sometimes I say weird things like that and Vernon loves me anyway. He loves me for all that I am and for all that I will be. Vernon has the name of an 80-year-old man, but he is only 32. I am 32 also, but I will soon be 33. Sometimes, I'll hear Vernon singing a song to the kids and that will make me smile because I never really hear him singing otherwise. Even to Pearl Jam. But Vernon says that he sings in the car when I'm not around. "Why don't you sing when I'm with you?" I ask. "Because it wouldn't be the same," he says. That's true. There is just something about singing in the car when you're all alone that is kind of magical. I know that. We sang together in the car once. Bon Jovi. Livin' on a Prayer. Somewhere in New York state, I think it was. And there was that time in high school on our way home from a Hootie and the Blowfish concert with some other friends when we sang Surfwax America by Weezer. And we sang the alternate parts, like in a round. "You take your car to work. I'll take my board. And when you're out of fuel, I'm still afloat," he sang. While I sang, "All along the undertow is strenghtening its hold. I never thought it'd come to this. Now I can never go home." Good song. Yep. I really love my husband Vernon.

Diaper Changing Technique

Here is a technique I have for changing the diaper on my very wiggly six-month-old:

I throw a blanket over her head, and then I quickly change her diaper while she tries to remove the blanket.

Humping Husband

My husband comes up behind me in the kitchen and starts doing this mock-humping thing that he always does, and then he turns me around and gives me a kiss. I say to him, "You know, it would be a lot more debonair if you just gave me a kiss instead of all this thrusting business."

Money Matters

It always used to bother me how Vernon would never take care of our financial stuff, like balancing the checkbook, doing our taxes, and managing our Roth IRAs. But today it occurred to me that I'm better at that stuff than he is, just like he's better at doing stuff like fixing the computer and installing the carseats.

See... balance.

Living a Balanced Life

We got home from our Christmas holiday yesterday. It went pretty much as expected. As I predicted before,we did get a couple of comments about how Ocean is not reading yet (she's only six and I believe in child-led reading), one educational Christmas gift, and one comment about doing elimination communication. And none of it was that big of a deal. The only comment that really annoyed me was when my mom said (of baby Peace), "Where's all her hair? Andrea Rivard's baby has lots of hair." But, I guess that comment wasn't so much annoying, inasmuch as it was just utterly stupid (as in, some babies just don't have hair, Mom!).

The whole week pretty much balanced itself out though, as life always does. I've been reading this book by Dr. John F. Demartini called The Breakthrough Experience where he talks about equilibrium and how at the center of all the positives and negatives in life is balance and love. "Nature won't allow anything but equilibrium. When you embrace the balance and the truth, love surrounds you." So, for everything that happens in life that is negative, there is a positive side to it (and vice versa).

I was thinking about this in relation to our holiday, and it couldn't be more true. Sure, I have to put up with the relatives making asinine comments about my babies hair, but I also don't have to do any cooking for an entire week. It's all balanced. I get to eat a lot of yummy, unhealthy food (seriously, I think I have some sort of holiday eating disorder or something), but then my body feels the effects of it afterwards. I have fun playing board games with my family, but then my sister gets sick and starts passing gas that smells worse than my dead grandma.

See... balance.

Do You Wanna Bone?

My mom was serving some meat, and she asked Vernon, "Do you want a bone?"

And I say, "Mom, that's disgusting and really none of my business. Keep that kind of talk to yourselves."

Awkward Family Moments

We spent this morning with my father and his new wife (I guess you could call her my "stepmother", but I certainly wouldn't) celebrating our "Christmas" with them. This is always kind of awkward, because, 1) My father is kind of awkward, 2) Our family dynamic is kind of awkward, and, 3) The fact that he has married another woman (let's call her "Joan", because that is her name) is kind of awkward.

For one thing, Joan doesn't sit down with us to eat. She does all the cooking and all the serving of food and SHE DOESN'T SIT DOWN TO EAT. As a matter of fact, she doesn't eat at all. In all the years that I've known her, I've never seen her consume more than a diet coke and a chicken breast.

And then there are the pictures of Joan and my dad up around their house... pictures of them on vacation, pictures of them in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp... and it's all just kind of, weird. Like, it's weird that my dad was once married to my mom, but now he's married to Joan and they are going to Bubba Gump Shrimp and taking pictures by it.

We're eating brunch, and none of us are really talking to each other, and I start hearing the clinking of our forks on our plates. Clink. Clink. Clink. And I start thinking that this is the funniest thing in the world and I almost burst out laughing right then and there, but instead I search for something to make conversation about and I end up asking my niece about her facebook addiction.

And it's really not that bad, really. And I enjoy my dad and my family.

It's just different. That's all.

Stinky Pajamas

We are oscillating between two homes over the Christmas holiday week: my mother's and my in-laws. The problem is, my mother keeps her thermostat set to 60 degrees (I think she's in menopause) and my in-laws has theirs set to 73 degrees. (Sidenote: We keep ours set to 67 degrees.)

So, I didn't know what pajamas to pack. Should I pack my warm, flannel pajamas or my short-sleeved, cotton ones? I ended up going with my flannels, because those were the ones that I ended up washing ahead of time. The thing is, I washed them in the same load as my husband's stinky workout clothes, and now they are stinky as well. Really stinky. I don't think our environmentally friendly laundry detergent is cutting it for my husband's unenvironmentally friendly workout clothes. So, now I'm stuck here, at my in-law's 73 degree oasis, in my stinky flannel pajamas.

I should have packed the cool jammies. I don't feel at all uncomfortable re-adjusting my mom's thermostat, whereas I would feel very much like I prick if I were to do it here.

On Hugs and Roseanne

Growing up, I hugged and kissed my mother until I was about eight years old. Then, I decided that I didn't want to anymore, and that was that. We were never the warm and touchy family that one reads about in greeting cards. We were more the sarcastic, impersonal family that one sees on TV shows like Roseanne.

When I was 17, I started dating Vernon. We went to prom together and after the grand march, when all the parents were taking pictures and stuff like that, his mom comes and GIVES HIM A KISS ON THE MOUTH. And, I was, like, Oh, my gosh, he just kissed his mom on the mouth. And later, on a different occasion, I was at his house for something and before we left HIS DAD GAVE HIM A KISS ON THE MOUTH. And, I was, like, Oh, my gosh, his dad just gave him a kiss on the mouth.

I was clearly not able to comprehend that kind of relationship with one's parents, coming from my own Roseanne-style upbringing.

Well, now, some 24 years after I stopped accepting hugs and kisses from my mother, she has started TO GIVE ME HUGS. I don't know what to think about this. I mean, sure, it's a nice idea in theory... but I'm just really not that into it. I am not a hugger. I am not a toucher. (On a side note: I had once toyed with the idea of becoming a birth doula, but given my complete inability to touch people, I figured that was probably not a very good career choice.) And I'm okay with that! Why go against something that has worked so well for our family for all these years? But, I love my mother very much, and I will give her hugs if that is what she wants.

Now, if my dad ever started giving me hugs... ugh. That's another story. I can't even begin to think about the awkwardness.

Next Time

My mom found out about the outgoing message on her machine before anyone even called in. Oh, well. Next time.

My Mom's Answering Machine

We survived the car ride to my mom's in Moorhead, Minnesota. It went as good as could be expected. No more. No less.

I always change my mom's outgoing message on her answering machine when I'm at her place, just to mess with her. This is what I recorded today: "Hello, this is Anita Anderson. Please leave a message. I love you. You're my best friend." Sure, it wasn't my most creative material, but I did use a voice that made her sound like a moron.

Or maybe it just made me sound like a moron.

Wearing the Same Clothes

So, we're heading up north for the holidays, right? Well, everytime we go anywhere overnight, my husband wants to pack basically every piece of clothing that we own. And this is for a family (especially Ezra) who wears the same things over and over and over and over and over and over again. I am seriously cycling through only two pairs of pants right now (and one of them has holes in the knees), Ezra has been wearing the same pair of overalls for three months, I don't change baby Peace out of her outfit until she either spits up on it or pee leaks through to it (which is probably every 2-3 days), and even Ocean tends to have her favorite clothes which she wears over and over again.

We don't go through a lot of clothes, therefore, we don't need to pack a lot of clothes.

But my husband will want to pack an outfit for every day, because that is who he is, so he'll do that for himself and the kids (even though they don't need it). And I will be in charge of packing for myself, so I will inevitably underpack, because that is who I am.

Going North for Christmas

We're going to go up north for Christmas, to the parents. I'm kind of looking forward to this because I somehow have it in my mind that my life will be easier while on vacation. I won't have to cook. I won't have to clean. I'll have grandparents around to watch my kids. I'll have cousins around to play with my kids. We'll get to play board games at night (I LOVE board games).

But then I think about all the other times we've gone to the parents, and how crazy and dysfunctional it can get. First of all, the car ride is long (and it may or may not be unbearable with the baby-who-does-not-like-the-car, but I think it will be okay because the baby-who-does-not-like-the-car seems to kind of like the car in the morning, so that's when we're planning on driving). Second of all, naptimes and bedtimes will get all thrown off, and our usual stellar eating habits will be thrown all asunder. Stuff like that.

And the worst part is, and I'm just bracing myself for it, all the "little" comments about our parenting style that we're certain to get from our family. I can just hear them now:

• "Why don't you have your kids in school?" 
• "Are you sure she's tired? Look, she wants to play. Let her stay up later!" (Yes, mom, believe it or not, I do know when my baby is tired, and do you realize that if we let her stay up now that we're going to have hell to pay in about 15 minutes? Yeah, I didn't think so.)
• "Shouldn't Ocean be reading by now? Don't you worry that she'll be left behind?" (Which I'm sure will be followed by a Christmas gift that has something to do with learning how to read.)

Along with various other things (I'm sure we'll get at least something about elimination communication) that I'm sure I can post about when I get back. 

But it will all balance itself out because of all the good stuff, like not cooking and not cleaning, right? Right? Right?

Right?

Happy Birthday Vernon!

It's my husband's birthday today. I made this video for him.

Sex Tonight?

I said to Vernon, "I think we should have sex tonight." But then I thought about it a little bit and said, "No, nevermind. Your birthday is coming up. I'll save it until then."

Losing Myself

Every time after I have a kid, I lose a little bit of myself. I wonder who I am and who it is that I'm supposed to become.

After having baby Peace five months ago, I felt like I was smacked in the face with a loss of freedom / loss of self. I have had TWO KIDS BEFORE, so I really should have remembered this. Yet, somehow, in the infinite span of time that was fours years since my last was born, I had forgotten all about that part of the equation.

See, having a baby makes me a different person than who I was before. It's confusing, especially in the beginning, and I'm often left wondering where my life as a mother ends and my life as a person begins. But, it's also good, because, after a year or so, I begin to figure things out and I become a version of myself that's probably slightly better than who I was before. After having Ocean, I went on to become a conscientious parent and a photographer. After having Ezra, I went on to become a childbirth educator and health nut. Who am I going to be this time? A blogger? (That does seems incredibly more lame than any of the things that I've been before, but I kind of like it.)

So, that leaves me with where I am now... starting this blog. (Granted, I've started a blog before, but I never really updated it regularly.) I'm going to do this, hopefully daily, in an effort to connect with myself because I don't want to lose sight of who I am again.

Wish me luck.