The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

Just in case you could use a LOL today:

I recommend  this

and

this

and

this

annnnd

this

annnnnnd

this

and always this.

I recently joined a forum for local mothers, and in the “Getting to know you” thread, there was a question about whether I felt like I had “let myself go” since having kids. I smirked, and admitted that the bar was set pretty low before kids, so I really couldn’t go much lower after kids. I love the idea of primping,  being stylish and ‘put together’, but in reality, I hate how much time and effort it takes. “Free time” is scarce around here, so I invest it in the places that make me feel the best about myself – and that is not my nails.

Intellectually and artistically though,  I know I’ve let myself go. I’m much more concerned that I’ll never write another decent poem, than whether or not I have split ends. I don’t mean to sound dismissive of moms who do worry about their physique (lord knows I envy you when I see you) but it’s just not what keeps me up at night. Instead, I think of sitting in a mentor’s office, and the look on his face when I told him that I would not be entering the MFA program that fall, because I was taking time off to be a mom to my toddler and newborn. It was just a flash of disappointment, and then he remembered to smile.  As I left he shook my hand, and told me that he hoped to see me in his office again soon. “Don’t take time off Ivory. Write every day, because it’s an easy skill to lose.” Based on the majority of the writing in this blog, I’d say he was right.

It’s taken me two hours to write 300 words, between lunch, naptime, and breaking up fights (which is new and tiresome), and it’s times like these that proofreading feels a bit like blowdrying: low enough on my priority list to be bumped off by a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich in the carpet. That’s it kids – no one eats until mama wins a Bobbitt, or I get some highlights. You know, which ever comes first.

Just a warning: if you invite me to make you a birthday cake, and jokingly say “And I want all 58 candles, you hear?”, that is exactly what you will get.

Happy 58th Mike.

I woke up at 4:30 am, from a dream that the crossbeams in our house were slowly smoldering. In my dream, it was my mom’s house, and the ceiling had been smoking for weeks, but we all ignored it until the ceiling finally fell out, and we could see the frame of the roof,  tiny burnt matchsticks holding up the house. My mom handed us each a pillowcase, and told us that we had one minute to fill it before the firetrucks would be here.

I have a lot of nightmares lately. This was actually a tame one, since I woke myself up before the roof fell in, I couldn’t find Ella, someone blamed me for the accident, etc. I’m sure Jung would have a field day with my scrawled notebook, things like “lions prefer left feet”, and “allergic to snow” written before my eyes were completely open. I think some dreams are obviously life-related, but I’m not a believer that seeing a salmon in my dreams “represents determination, strength, and wisdom.” Maybe I’m just hungry.

Since there was no chance of falling back asleep this morning, I sat in bed, reading a couple chapters of The Children of Henry VIII (which is surprisingly readable) and listened to the girls snore, a little symphony of snorts and wheezes. By 6am, Alice was asleep in my lap, and Ella was curled up against my leg, and by 7, they were both begging for oatmeal. Tom will be home in a few hours, and we have plans to meet friends at the children’s museum before lunch.

And yet, I can’t stop sniffing for smoke.

Lately Ella is obsessed with ‘maps’, in no small part due to the three Dora DVD’s her grandma got her for Christmas, I’m sure. She draws maps on every scrap of paper she can find (including my one lonely check book) and there is always a bunny to save, past the waterfall and around the big rock. Yesterday the girls and I ventured out to our favorite walking park, for the first time since SnowZilla 2009, and since so little of the track was visible under the snow, Ella used her ‘map’ to lead the way. In this case, her map was an old candy wrapper, but who am I to say that it doesn’t show the way to save the bunny?

It just dawned on me that this is the same park where we found bunny rock last spring, so now at least I know who we are saving.

I finally caught up with the 365 blog tonight, but have to post this one over here also:

Ella crashed into the coffee table at full speed today, and immediately had a swollen eye. Being me, of course the first thing I thought was “SHE’S GOING TO BE BLIND”, so I wrapped a icepack in fabric, and tied it to her head with a scarf. Finally, my craft supplies are pulling their weight around here. Ella is fine now, but she has decided that this is her ‘fancy hat’, perhaps as a nod towards Aretha.

The only other exciting thing today was finding a disk of photos from 2001-2004, and the realization that I am old, and wish I still had red hair.

Maybe I should ask Ella if I can borrow her fancy hat to make myself feel better.

I walked into the mama’s meeting this morning, and immediately saw C, my long lost drinking buddy.

I had not seen her since 2002, when I spent most weekends drunk on her couch. Ours was an easy friendship, lubricated by mutual friends and tequila, which fizzled out after a year or so, notably when we both stopped drinking. She married her hunky fiance, I broke up with my stoner boyfriend of three years, and we both went on with our lives, which just happened to intersect on a Thursday morning.

It was great to see her, but the entire time we talked, I kept having flashes of times we spent together, and so many made me cringe. Those were not healthy years for me, and it seemed a little amazing that we were both standing there, holding our daughters, happy and healthy.  It was one of those rare points in your life that you are keenly aware of how things could have worked out, if small choices had been made differently.

It also means I can never run for office, because there are still people alive who have seen me passed out on the kitchen floor after drinking too much cheap red wine. But then again, that didn’t stop Bush, so maybe I still have a shot.

Today is Tom’s 31st birthday, so this morning Ella and I went through magazines to cut out pictures of things for the front of a card. Instead, we ended up with a book, titled “My Daddy Loves:” which is a surprisingly concise description of who Tom is.

I messed this part up, and wrote on it upsidedown. If you flip it over, you can tell that it is Tom, with his hair, and a big yellow balloon. I was so bummed when I realized I hadn’t seen than before I wrote on it.

This guy has Tom’s nose. Heh.

(She picked this one out for the cow, and I laughed and laughed. Tom doesn’t care much about cows, but steaks…)

(Not a lion, but it’s not worth the fight at 8am to convince her otherwise)

It’s all just held together by a couple brads, and Ella is SO proud of it. I see many, many more books in our future.

A new book fad in Japan  claims a person’s personality is determined by their blood type.

As defined by the books, type As are sensitive perfectionists but overanxious; Type Bs are cheerful but eccentric and selfish; Os are curious, generous but stubborn; and ABs are arty but mysterious and unpredictable.

Yeah, I think the fact that my ‘type’ is A+ is pretty obvious. Add in that I am a Taurus,  was born in the year of the pig, and am the middle child, and you get a person who is overanxious, bullheaded, a people pleaser, and fiercely loyal. I think if Tom and I had written our own vows, those may have been the four adjectives he would have used to describe me.