Just Give me the Control-top Panties!

Yesterday was a lesson in control.  A reminder of how little I have and a challenge to attain much more than I want.  It was the Monday at the start of our three-week spring break, and I had to play mom the whole day.  That is a role that has some annoying tendencies, but I guess I have no choice but to keep playing my part.

"Children...will you please join us for a family meeting."

As we sat in the playroom/ husbands' office I reminded our oldest (at least five times) to stop rocking on the footrest of our rocking chair.

"Hey, Big Sprout, can you PLEASE stop throwing that ball against the wall so we can talk about life for the next three weeks."

I tried to control the meeting, so that I could get a handle on  the schedule for the day and for the entire break.  It sounds like I want control, but what I really want is for life to just happen and to enjoy the trip along the way, but because I am the mom in the house, apparently that is not an option.  Through the morning, a series of instructions for any and/or all of the sprouts seem incessant.

"Hey, turn off the tv and take your laundry upstairs."

"No...you cannot have a snack, you didn't even finish your breakfast."

"When do you plan on practicing your violin?"

"Did you brush your teeth...this week?"

"Please take your shoes off BEFORE you track mud through the whole house."

"Stop grabbing your sister."  "I don't care if she grabbed you first."

It's this crazy battle between acceptance of the many things in life over which I will never have control, and having to step in as the one in charge because I am totally supposed to be in control.  I don't want to be "controlling", but if I don't take my job seriously, people could deem that my kids are "out of control", a designation of which I would never be proud.  So I do what I can to "get those kids under control" and it rings in my ears like the nagging I cannot stand...but apparently I can't avoid.

 "Big Sprout...you need to put your helmet on for our bike ride."

"We're not riding that fast," he argues. "I've gone without it before," pointing out the mistake I made letting him ride helmetless ...just around the lake.

"I know, but your sister needs to have hers on and that way you can ride even faster," I try to convince him, while in the back of my mind I remember a lifetime of riding bikes without a helmet.

He reluctantly straps the helmet, and I have gained control again.  That is... until he decides to ride, with the posture of Eeyore, less than a mile an hour. I completely get it. I understand the angst of children as they grow through the necessary presence of parental control because they want desperately to be in charge of their own lives.  I want that too, but that only happens over time...a part of life even moms can't control.

So I take control of the things I'm supposed to,  and when that backfires...well, I open a bottle of wine. I didn't have control of the fact that schedules collided and Big Sprout was supposed to be in two places last night.  It wasn't in my control that a church commitment had precedence over that district hockey game for him, a game I thought was supposed to be on Tuesday. And I definitely had no control over the fact that the  team lost the game, ending their season. I didn't have a thing to do with the ending of  the season, despite my son's argument that it was my fault, and that is about the time that I went to uncork a bottle and call in the relief mother to finish out the day.

I couldn't find anyone to take my place...and the sprouts were all in bed anyway, so I sat with hubby, sipping that uncorked bottle of wine (out of a glass of course!) laughing heartily at the movie Hangover. My job as a mother has no substitute, and I wouldn't want one, but because it is my job to claim and accept responsibility for practically every aspect of our kids' lives, I am totally taking credit when something goes well!

The Prodigal Sun Returns

The clouds lifted today.  After seven straight days of clouds, the sun broke through and burned them off.  It wasn't supposed to be sunny today, but there will not be a hint of complaint from me about it.  For the first time in probably 6 months I took a walk in just a t-shirt (I had pants on too)...and I didn't even have to pretend that I was warm enough.  The sun-filled walk was the concluding activity to the time that my oldest and I had to spend, just the two of us. He rode his bike and I walked behind, but I think I'll count it as a walk together.

I don't get much time alone with my son.  He is almost ten, and the older brother to two younger sisters, so my time is often crazily divided among the three of them.  At the start of our twenty-four hours together there was not much said in the car.  I must have missed when he started to be too big to simply chatter.  He talked to me, but with a reservation that I had never really noticed before.  I had to be more creative than usual to get him to talk about much.

He was better after he had a workout at his practice, and we enjoyed our dinner while watching basketball and eating wings.  It became a bit more comfortable and the conversation brightened. As a special treat for our date night, and to fulfill a promise I had made to him, we went to the movie Avatar.  We both loved it and continued talking and joking all the way home.

This weekend really was a homecoming of sorts.  I remember, vividly, the night before my first daughter was born.  Her brother and I had been running around the baseball bases during our pretend baseball game and I picked him up to look at the horses on the other side of the fence.  He was so small then...just two...and I remember gentle tears rolling down my cheek as I hormonally reflected that he and I would likely not be alone much again.  I was right.

It has been a long time, and he changes a lot between the times that we get to spend alone together.  It will be a challenge, I am sure, in the next few years as he continues to change and I am even less important to him as a companion.  I am challenged to welcome him home each time he returns...no matter who he is when he arrives.

I know that it is no accident that the reading and the homily at church today were actually about the Prodigal Son.  I left challenged to live with the joy-filled heart of the forgiving father and offer open arms while running to greet a fallen child.  When we exited the church, we found ourselves bathed in sunshine that hadn't been there when we went in.  It was awe-inspiring and a reason to take my actual son on a walk around the lake...even if that meant I just followed behind him.

Can women be both creative and competitive?

I think I must be going through a growth spurt.  Can that still happen at age 34?  Maybe there is a psychological development that happens the year you turn 35, and that is the reason for deep thoughts by yours truly.  Okay, so you know that I am on this "remember you are a girl so act like one"- kick.  I think it has triggered an area of my brain that hasn't been used before, and now out poureth the questions.

What are women generally into?...now asking this question is not meant to categorize or alienate or stereotype or any of those things that are definitely taboo.  I appreciate the complexity of humanity, and especially the feminine portion, and I am open and willing to accept that no one person is simply defined (ok disclaimer done)...but what are those activities that are most often associated with  women in our culture?  Of the things I decided that are more by and for women, women seem to be more interested in creating things.

When I think of those things that are utterly girly, I think of frilly dresses and done-up hair.  I think of Martha Stewart...flower arrangements and a five-course meal. Women enjoy crafting and scrapbooks, baking and accessorizing.  Women do make-up and nails and the beauty of a space is generally the woman's responsibility.  Gardening and care-taking, nurturing and multi-tasking.

Some guys are great at these things, and some women (like me) suck at a lot of them.  Not because I want to suck, because I don't, but I think that because I went the competition route, I never really learned how to do or fully appreciate the creative stuff.

Build it..... or break it.
Cooperation versus competition.

Relationships based on cooperation and creation can make and build great things.  Relationships steeped in competition are difficult and often counter-productive.  Maybe the problem with society is not that women have gone back to work and the children are raised differently than they used to be, but maybe, just maybe the problem is how and why women are in the work place to begin with.  We are there because we are competing more than we are cooperating now.  Seventy years ago, when women rarely worked outside of the home, the collective female energy was just that, collective and more singularly focused.

Back then, the focus was to achieve more opportunities and just look what amazing and driven women "created".  Women now have the opportunity to be and do anything we want.  For me personally, I thought that what I wanted was to compete and battle and win every chance I got.  The problem is that now I don't have that circle of women friends that I might have had if I had gone another route.  The women I played with and against through the years on my sports' teams are mostly just acquaintances now.  There are a few close friends, but not many.  Too much carried with us maybe, from when we battled for playing time, or when I was asserting my competitive nature more than my cooperative/nurturing one.

The movement on behalf of Susan G. Komen is a great example of what can be created with collective energy.  We need more of that.  We are smarter now, we have more opportunities now and we can change the world in amazing ways.  Women have spent a lot of time inserting ourselves into the man's more competitive world, and we have proven that we can absolutely do it.  I fear that the cooperative creativity may ultimately suffer because competition has started to make its presence known in everything we do. We compete for higher sales of make-up and cooking items and fragrant candles.  We try to have the biggest and most popular websites and businesses.  Competition is necessary, and many women would not be where they are without the drive to compete, I am just wondering if we might not build even bigger and better things if we weren't competing against each other.

Hmmmmm.....I wish I were a kid......Hmmmmm

I want to be a good mom... I really do.  I wake up each morning thinking about how I can be the mom our three sprouts deserve.  I would bet that 90 per cent of my energy, thoughts and time revolve around maintaining, feeding, appropriately clothing, emotionally guarding and effectively preparing our kids for life and its pitfalls.  It's only occasionally that I have to seriously think about whether I am achieving my mothering goals.  Today was one of those occasions.

All three of the sprouts had school today, and that means that our littlest was at preschool.  She goes two days a week, and we have been thrilled that she loves it as much as she does.  She has become more and more excited when she knows she has a school day coming up, and until recently I saw that as a great thing.

"We are helping her spread her wings," I proudly remarked, softly wiping tears away.

Okay, so I never really said that, and I am not that sentimental about it, yet, but I have noticed her growing and changing the last few months.  What I am not sure about is if the growth is an indication  of our success as parents, or yet another example of our shortcomings.

Littlest sprout is the funniest person in our house.  She is random, and her timing is truly hilarious.  I am going to learn a lot from her.  About two weeks ago she started meditating during her lunch.

 Absolutely true account:

Sitting on her stool, eating lunch, she put her fingers together and closed her eyes.

With long, drawn out hums she started, "Hmmm....I am eating my sandwich.......Hmmmmm......I have nothing to do today......Hmmmm....I wish I was at school today.......Hmmmmm......I'm still humming.......Hmmm.......the end."

My husband and I, who are often both home for lunch, laughed with and at her for her meditation, but there was a definite twinge of guilt.  She is our third, and the first kid who hangs out at home with us at the age of four.  When her siblings were her age there was always another kid in the house to play with.  Not for her.  My hubby and I try.  We take turns playing games with her and doing puzzles and going through school work, but we are not children, and we do not provide what only kids can.  Endless silliness.

So, I started to schedule more playdates.  More outings. More reasons to be distracted from the fact that she misses her brother and sister.  It works to keep her from asking incessantly "What am I going to do now?"  So, until the phone call from her teacher today, I thought things had gotten better, and she thought I was a good mom.

"Hi, this is Miss Teacher, I am just calling because Littlest Sprout just isn't herself today.  She says her tummy hurts and she is looking like she might just need to cuddle up for a nap at home."

"Oh, sure," I compassionately respond with eyebrows of concern, "I can be right there."

As I head to put on my shoes and bring home my little sweetheart...the phone rings again.

"Um, hi, this is Miss Teacher again, I was just telling Littlest Sprout that you were coming to get her and she said that she wasn't going home."

Laughter first and then, "so she doesn't want to come home, huh?  I believe it.  Do you need her to come home?"  Picturing the temper-tantrum-drag-out.

"No, she isn't running a fever or anything, but she says that she wants to stay with her friends."

I hang up laughing at the picture in my head of an ornery four-year-old with hands on her hips refusing to have to go hang out with her parents.  She already thinks we are not cool, and we have a really long time to be the last people she wants to hang with.

"She's happily spreading her wings," I comment to convince myself.  Hmmmmm.....I think I'll take up mommy meditation....hmmmmm

Bottled Laughter

Maybe it really is too gray to be creative...or funny.  It is the second day of a four-day rainstorm that everyone I ran into today knows is supposed to drive our moods.  It seemed like the people I encountered had taken a pledge:  we, the people, of rain-soaked  (still dirty-snow-covered) Minnesota, do solemnly swear that this weather sucks the life out of us and we are going to withhold laughter for a nicer day.

I am not sure why I want to laugh really, really hard today.  Maybe it is the crazed spring fever laugh that sounds more maniacal than genuine that feels the urge to come out. But a good laugh does wonders,  and I know that is what I need.   Lots of funny things happen in this house on a regular basis, but now, when I need it the most... nothing is really all that funny!

We had an average and uneventful day, mimicking the drab weather.  So, I better do something about this.  I wish I had a clown costume that I could put on.  Complete with wig,  red nose, face paint, an obnoxious pair of overalls and big shoes.  I would love to just walk through the mall.  No performance.  No attempts to scare small children, just go from store to store, peruse like nothing is happening, buy anything that looks interesting and walk with bags to the next store.   Then maybe I could buy an ice cream cone and sit on a bench with my legs crossed and slowly lick my frozen treat.

But since I don't have a clown costume, and my kids are going to be home from school in like twenty minutes, I need something else for a chuckle.  Oldest sprout has a hockey game tonight....one of those that I am supposed to seriously think is like the most serious and important event of the week. (please note sarcasm...he is 9 and I wish the tone of his "games" felt way less serious than they often do).  I fear if I do something to give myself a good laugh, one (or several) of the parents will think that it is not that funny at all, and I could cause more seriousness as a result.

So, I guess I will just have to have some internal laughs until I can get a good flick on later tonight so I can laugh this off, and I promise that I will report if anything actually funny happens between now and tomorrow!

Working it all out

 My Shopping Advisor

Strenuous workouts are out.  Shopping is in.
Conversations on a run are out.  Chatting while sipping tea is in.
Burning major calories is out. Trying not to burn a new recipe is in.
Scheduling my rest day is out. Planning a walk is in.
Climbing trees is probably out.  Planting trees is definitely in.

So, things have had to slow down for me over the last couple of weeks, and I am starting to appreciate the new things I get to do because of it.  It's not simply a coincidence that when my athletic prowess came to a screeching halt (okay...so it halted years ago and it has just taken this long for my head to catch on) that I am finally invested in pursuing more feminine activities.  I've lived my world in the male-dominated sporting and athletic arena, and I feel like I am visiting a foreign country.  The only problem is that I don't know the language, and everyone knows I am a tourist.

I took my four-year-old shopping with me the other day to buy a new pair of jeans.  I wanted fashionable and comfortable, and definitely girly.  I walked into an extremely trendy store and I am pretty sure silent alarms went off in the headsets of the employees.

"Intruder...intruder...NOT a shopper!!!  Everyone look at her with the "Pretty Woman" stare."

Right about the time I started filing through the clothes at the second rack I realized that I was being watched.  I glanced up to see three of the employees, folding clothes at three separate areas, staring at me with a look of disgust.

Panic began to set in and I literally started to sweat.

Thinking to myself..."what the hell does the 30L mean or the 34 r?  Since when did womens' pants start sizing like men's?  I have no idea what size I would be of these."  I look up again, and it is absolutely obvious that these women can read my mind, and they are annoyed that I'm even thinking it. 

I started to shift my eyes around the store, and I realized that I was the oldest person in there by probably 10 years.  It's not that they knew I couldn't shop, they just knew I didn't know WHERE to shop...and it definitely wasn't supposed to be there.  They knew better than to greet me and it was much easier for me to slink out with my daughter, resigning myself to the fact that I will likely not be in a store like that again until my daughters are old enough to be trendy.  Maybe if I was a more seasoned shopper and looked comfortable doing what I was trying to do, I could have gotten away with shopping there.  Not as a novice!

When I went to a different store that was better suited for me, I was able to ask the questions I needed about the sizing for pants and I learned how to convert the European sizing to the numbers that I had always known. The employee was incredibly helpful, and I was impressed when she offered to start a room for a different woman in the store who had piles of clothes on her arms.

"Sure, your room will be right back here, and your name is on the door."

I think I might have had an "I don't usually shop" sticker on my back because she didn't ask to start a room for me...she let me find my own way to the dressing room and she never asked my name.  Maybe when I go in next time, I will go without a kid on my arm and I will pile with a ton of clothes to see if the reaction is different.  I started sweating...again...as I hurriedly tried on the clothes, because I was starting to think I didn't belong there either.

I have likely burned more calories shopping and curling my hair in the last week than I have been able to burn lightly working out, because for me, I am learning a new language, new techniques, and new strategies because this whole girly girl thing is still "work" for me.

Conversion of a Tomboy

I just finished three laps around the house with a book on my head.  That's what proper ladies do, right? The last few days I have conducted an experiment and I have "done my hair" every morning.  That may not seem monumental to most women out there, but for me, it is extraordinary.  I am in the process of converting from tomboy to lady, and it has been an interesting journey so far.

I should probably tell you a little bit more about how deep-rooted my tomboy tendencies are.  My flashes of childhood memories include: playing football with the boys at recess, sitting inappropriately in a dress on the bottom bleacher at a concert, being confused with a boy because my Dorothy Hamill haircut didn't make me look much like Dorothy Hamill, playing basketball on a boys' team through sixth grade,  beating a guy friend of mine in a basketball three-point shooting contest in middle school, being the first girl to buy a guys letter jacket because I thought the girls' jackets looked lame, choosing a soccer or basketball game over a dance or a date and choosing my hairdos based on what would be least disruptive to competition.

Now, don't get me wrong, I did actually go to some dances and I wore dresses when I went, plus I eventually grew my hair out to be really long, but I have not had a whole lot of practice at correct make-up application, or how to dress in clothes/shoes that are both comfortable and fashionable.  I seemed to be feminine enough in college to garner the attention of my husband, and a few other boys along the way, but I am NOT what you would consider a girly-girl, and I have spent quite a bit of time the last few days exploring why.

When you spend as much time as I did, "playing with and against the boys" you learn a lot about what makes guys tick, and I know that is why I am more comfortable watching sporting events with guys than I am hanging out with the women who attend.  For the first time in my life, though, I want to move camps, and I am truly unsure how to do that gracefully.

I was the girl who made fun of the girly-girls (arguing that I could probably beat them up anyway), but I am starting to understand why I might have been so adamantly tomboyish...and it is time to embrace a change.

God has blessed me with arguably two of the most girly-girls  in the world, and I am fascinated by how comfortable they are in their own skin.  My littlest notices shoes and clothes and the combination of colors that was completely lost on me.  Then she comes down to twirl for her dad, and I understand  the difference between the two of us.

My dad... encouraged football, teaching me running patterns in the backyard.
My husband... sings and dances with his girls.
My dad... was only around if I was playing or he was coaching a sporting event.
My husband... goes on daddy/daughter dances, drives the girls to choir, coaches their teams and tells them all the time how cute they are....plus that he loves them just the way they are.
My dad, as he struggled with his own demons, likely didn't realize how much I was working to get his attention, and I was unfortunately gifted to keep doing it.

Of course I am thankful for how being a tomboy has taken me so many places, but I am ready to embrace more of who I have always been.

So, yes, it is awkward to give myself permission to do my hair, and to shop for cute clothes (I am used to workout clothes and not always matching), but I want to explore that buried part of who I am. I wrote down a list of things I would like to do to adopt a more feminine image, and my husband started reading it to me on the phone yesterday when he thought it was my grocery list:

• Do my hair every day!
• Buy some colorful and fashionable clothes (I hope I know what I'm doing)
• Get a fitted bra (I own two bras that kindof fit, and otherwise I wear sportsbras)
• Invest in real make-up (with colors that actually go together)
• Walk like a girl (practicing with a book if I need to)
• Sit like a girl (remembering that I am not on a basketball bench waiting to go in)

He admitted that he would be excited if I could find all of those things at a grocery store.  I looked....no luck.  I'm going to have to work to break my own habits. Some habits are harder than others to shed, and this is going to be a real challenge for me, but I am up for it.  Plus, as an aside,  I will punch anyone who has anything mean to say about it.