Catching Up

.
Well, I've let my little slice of the web lie dormant for about a year, now, so it's probably time for that annual "this year I'm really going to stay current" vow and a few weeks' worth of posts before I get busy again and neglect my blog.

A lot has happened over the past year. There have been ups (a new dog and a rockin' boyfriend) and downs (I was part of the "reduction in force" at my job in November, and am still looking for a new one), but I think that's just the way it goes. What's that saying? Without the downs, you don't appreciate the ups?

I turned 40 last year. It's both a major milestone and a minor speedbump. Major in the sense of marking time, other people's perceptions and what one can let a number like "40" say about them and what they've accomplished. Minor in the sense of life continuing on just like it did when I was 39.

Spent my 40th in Las Vegas with said rockin' boyfriend. I'd never been there, and it was awesome. It's funny -I'd thrown out the "I want to go to Vegas for my 40th" at an after-work happy hour in like November. And, while he wasn't my boyfriend - or even my (ahem) "occasional date" - then, C agreed to go with me.

I loved gambling in Vegas. No. Take that back. I loved gambling at The Flamingo in Vegas. The Bellagio robbed me blind. I'd put down $100 at a 5-card table and walk away with nothing in like 5-10 minutes. Their slots were a little kinder, and I won a few dollars playing penny slots - which kept me there long enough for a few free drinks.

We made it down to Freemont Street one night, and I got to gamble at the Golden Nugget and Binion's - I loved it down there. And on our last night, we had like an 8:00 a.m. flight out the next day so just stayed up all night gambling. I made like $300 that night.

Loved Vegas. Will totally go back.

The girls have done well over the past year or so ...

Miss O is 4 now, and, well, she kind of defies description. She's still tiny and cute (she can wear a 2T), but she's grown into herself so well. She's confident, relatively even-tempered and just a ton of fun, but not in an obnoxious or overbearing way. She can keep herself entertained for hours, and is as likely to be singing a My Little Pony opera as she is to be sitting in her room with a pile of books, "reading".



Bean is 6.5 now, and just switched over to a martial arts-based after-school program. She's in accelerated math and reading at school, has developed quite the palate, and is still the most loving child in the world. She's a lot of fun and has really started to blossom with self-confidence - she's always had bluster and bravado, but not true self-confidence. And I'm so happy for her that the balance is starting to shift.



And these days they actually, more often than not, get along. (Have totally jinxed them, saying that out loud ... thankfully they are at their dad's as I type ...)





The dog we added? His name is Eli, and we adopted him from the Central Texas SPCA for Christmas. He. Is. Awesome.



What's been going on with you? How were your holidays?

.

Oh. Hai.

*clears throat, taps mic*

Is this thing on?

(Looks around, a little embarrassed at all the dust and cobwebs, dusts off the stool.)

Was thinking about getting back into blogging. Anyone still around?

It's a new beginning - you thought you lost, but honey you won

.
Just a little happy, along the way.

Sometimes the shit life gives us ends up improving the hell out of our gardens. Don't ever forget that :)

.

Crazy, but that's how it goes; Millions of people living as foes

.
I'm struggling to wrap my head around the tragic shooting in Arizona. I cannot fathom the pain of the families who lost loved ones, or the horror and fear of those who were there.

Because my brain goes a million miles an hour, and bounces back and forth, there are several threads in my processing.

On one hand, crazy people happen. I'd argue that anyone who can actually kill another human being is crazy, unless it's self defense. So while the shooting seems to be politically motivated, I can't just black-and-white this and say "vitriolic political speech caused this", because in my heart I believe that this kind of crazy would be expressed, somehow, regardless. A person capable of this kind of hate and violence will find release somewhere, somehow. "Vitriolic speech" didn't *cause* that level of crazy.

But on the other hand ...

I don't understand where and when this country fell off the track. Was it just the election of a black guy that inflamed so many people? Was it here all along?

For whatever reason, Obama's election seems to be the inflection point for our country. When we went from being red and blue and that being okay, to being Red and Blue and it being divisive. When did political views and opinions become so weighty?

Why is it now okay to use crosshairs and words like "target" in political ads? When did that start?

Is this really where we are going as a people?

Are people really unhappy enough with politics - politics - to kill over it?

I guess in a world that seems to be spinning faster and faster to some sort of craziness event horizon, a single crazy event shouldn't stand out. People have been killing each other over religious ideology forever, and prisoners fill our jails for crimes I'd say are 9 times out of 10 some kind of crazy. Or at least stupid and selfish; but I'd argue that the level of self-involvement that crimes against another person require is in itself a form of crazy.

But as a people, why do we not rise against the ... well meanness just sounds too benign, and evil seems a bit much ... maybe it's the crazy we need to rise against. Maybe it's selfishness and this seemingly pervasive belief that having an opinion means you have the right to force it on others and belittle/vilify them for not agreeing.

Words alone can't *make* someone kill a person. There has to be something in there that's willing to kill in the first place. But words can take a harmless campfire and turn it into an inferno. Words accelerate the burn, and can turn a small crazy into a big crazy.

We respond to words, to ideas. That's what got Obama elected in the first place: well-chosen words. There's no denying that words have power - and the people who turn to incendiary verbiage know this. And they count on it. They use words very carefully to stoke the flames of outrage, of discontent. Sarah Palin knew damn well that there were no death panels in the health care bill. But that concept - the government deciding whether you could live or die - was such a flash point that she used it to her advantage.

"Don't retreat . . . reload!" Palin's famous defense of Laura Schlessinger (another paragon of light ion our national discourse); her Facebook note and crosshairs map that targeted 20 democrats that her PAC wanted to boot with words like "fire", "aim" and "first salvo". These are word choices that are made with one goal: to inflame.

A nine year old girl is dead. Christina Green will never realize her potential because some whack job decided that holding a different ideology was reason enough to kill.

Our beliefs and ideas define who we are; I'd never argue that we shouldn't hold different ideologies. I know mine will never line up with yours, and I want that. It's our differences that make us great, that push us forward, that keep us dreaming and wanting more. It's time we get back to respecting and appreciating our differences; embracing the individuality that the country was founded on. No more divisive rhetoric, no more vitriol and hate.

Please?
.

(Post title from Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train)

Happy New Year

.
This should be a more cheerful post.

It's the new year, new beginning, fresh start, tabula rasa ... all that stuff. It should be an optimistic, hopeful time.

Unless you begin your year with my kids, that is.

I so badly want to be a great mom. I want to be calm, compassionate. I want to be able to love and accept these kids at face value, not holler, not threaten. I truly do see being a mom as my most important job. I want my kids to see me with trust, love and that idealistic sparkly-eyed wonder that children see their fictional parents with. Fictional, because I just know that truly, every parent ends up being "real" and not "fantasy" after awhile.

But every single day, those aspirations are dashed before the sun even rises. Bean badgers her little sister nonstop. She has to one-up or correct her on everything, she has to dominate play, she has to speak in an ugly, aggressive way and just destroy any semblance of peace. Miss O is now just a hyper-reactive kid, so any injustice from Bean means she'll start her whining and crying and then it's like talking a jumper off the ledge. Unless your words are chosen perfectly (and this varies every. single. time.) you make a volatile situation worse.

Then there's the absolute inability to do what they're told, when they're told. It can't ever be a "please put that back" // "okay" exchange. It's always drama, negotiation and freak outs. I pick my battles, but even with a somewhat laissez-faire approach to my expectations, everything's a battle. Everything. There is not a single exchange with my kids that isn't a battle.

I don't know how I'm supposed to be a good mom in the face of all this. There are small lulls, where they can play nicely together for 10-15 minutes. And I can usually get some peace if I park them in front of the TV, but the majority of each day is just hard. Really, really hard. And it breaks my heart not to enjoy my time with them more than I do.
.

Happy Birthday LuLu!

.
Your Royal Tininess ...

It's been a joy to watch you grow up; to see your personality develop and to learn about who you are. You're just such a cool little person, and I love everything about you. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

Birth



One year



Two years




And three

When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble - give a whistle

.
The Thanksgiving break was, I think, a little hard on the Big Girl. Not that she minded the extra home time. It was the change in routine that threw her; a few days at 'daycare' (which she declared was "too little for me; the kids in pre-K just don't *know* anything"), and was a complete break for the predictable routine she has at Kindy. Then a lot of special togetherness days at home. With me. At home. For several days. Just me, Bean and Her Royal Tininess. And the glad tidings and thankfulness that go along with that togetherness. (I mentioned that it was a lot of days, right?)

So it really shouldn't have been a huge shock when she started to get a little ornery. But it was. And I reacted as well as those who know me would expect, after several days at home, with my kids. I get a little ... ahh ... twitchy when I feel trapped.

There was this time, many moons ago, when I still lived at home with my folks in Sarasota. As Florida thunderstorms are wont to do, there would sometimes be epic rainfall that would flood us into our neighborhood. Regardless of whether I *planned* to go out that day/night, knowing I couldn't leave drove me batty. I probably would have built a damn raft, knowing all the while the water would be down in a day or two.

I'm like that guy who cut of his own arm after being trapped under a boulder for five days, except, you know, less patient and way less ballsy. A few days of not being able to get 5 minutes alone makes me contemplate things like how nice it would be to have appendicitis and be hospitalized. Sure someone would come in every 2 hours to take my vitals, but if I said "Can you bring me the clicker?" there wouldn't be a 10 minute discussion about why I needed it, who invented the clicker, who invented the TV and what the phrase 'hand to god, I could drown myself in a bucket' means and whether it's a figure of speech or a myth.

But all that together time did yield a lot of great moments, and a lot of fun. We got in some time at the newly rebuilt neighborhood park, dinner with my folks and decorating the house. The girls are just awesome little people, each totally their own person and totally comfortable in who they are. I'm so proud of who they are, and how much love they have in their hearts.

Park time, Thanksgiving morning. You'll likely notice Bean's boots - she hasn't worn anything else since I got them for her. Personally, I think they take her style to a whole new level.






Our bling-tastic Christmas decor - magenta, silver and purple ornaments, and hot pink lights. They wanted pink and purple lights, but I talked them down to pink and white to minimize the bordello theme they were driving toward. Just call it the Best Little Christmas House in Texas.



And the extra fabulousness of our Shrine-to-Santa. Yes, those are pink trees. And no, I don't remember what Her Royal Tininess was all about back there ... but the picture is totally reflective of life with them: one is full-on, all the time, the other is comic relief.



Bean's latest tome