Do as I say, not as I do.

There is a strange new phase of parenthood that I am beginning to enter into: The School Years. This first year of preschool for Ella has been wonderful, and as it comes to a close, so does her "preschoolerhood". She is no longer a tentative girl peeking into her classroom on the first day of school, she is a kid who barely stops to give me a quick hug before she races into her classroom and starts her day with friends. After four and a half years of having a baby, then a toddler, then a preschooler, this, whatever this phase is called, is kind of shocking. Because with my girl's new found independence comes the need for me to take a step back and let childhood run its course, for better or worse. There are times that I see her in a difficult situation and I know that I need to let her figure it out on her own, even if that is the more difficult choice for me to make. Case in point: Mean Kids. Oh, they're everywhere, and I am sure that Ella has taken her turn as the Mean One in a group now and then. But I have watched her play with others, and as a rule she gets along very well with her peers. As a mom I silently pray "Please do not let my kid be the Mean Kid in the bunch", because sometimes despite fantastic parenting, a child says mean or hurtful things to another, and there's just not much you can do about it besides correct them, make them apologize, move on, and hope they won't repeat the offense. But when your child is on the receiving end of the mean-spirited comments, oooooohhh boy, you want to kill someone. This has been happening with a particular kid that we come in contact with on a daily basis. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him Dr. Evil. Dr. Evil is older than Ella by about two years, yet they have played well together up until this point. Things changed about a week ago, when the mean kid-ness started. During a game of tag, Dr. Evil suddenly hopped on his bike and started riding away. Ella ran after him, thinking this was part of the game. "NO, Ella. I'm going to my OTHER friend's house, and you can't come. I don't want to play with you any more." Ella let his words sink in, really thought about what he was saying to her, and then she cried. As I would, probably. Because it is no fun to hear "I don't choose you first anymore, and I don't like you as much as I like this other kid." I took a deep breath, gave her a hug, and then tried to calm her down as best I could. I told her that it was okay, that I still wanted to play with her, and we didn't need to play with Dr. Evil to have a good time. She calmed down a bit, but the level of fun dropped considerably...I guess having the wind knocked out of you with an outright mean comments will do that. I tried to explain to her that even when people are unkind to us, it is ALWAYS the right thing to do to try to be kind back to that person. You don't have to like that person, and you don't have to play with them anymore, but you do not get to say mean things back, even when you may want to. Which, speaking of saying mean things back, my inner mama lioness was a-roaring. I wanted to rip this kid a new one, call him every name in the book, and then kick him in the shin and run away. Motherhood: Making women regress back to first graders since the beginning of time. Just when we had started to have fun again, drawing with sidewalk chalk and riding bikes, guess who should saunter back over to our house with his tail between his legs? Yep, little Hitler himself. "Can I play?", he asked sheepishly. Ella looked at me with wide eyes, then looked at Dr. Evil, then looked at the ground and said, "I don't want to play anymore" in a soft, hushed tone of voice. While I was proud of my girl for not resorting to name-calling and yelling insults, I was indeed not rising above the situation very gracefully. "Asshole! Jerk-face! Stupid, stupid kid who is wearing a stupid, stupid...shirt! Yeah, your SHIRT is STUPID, butthead!" is what my inner voice was yelling. Loudly. I just looked at him to gauge his reaction, which was to try to stick up for himself. "Look, I just wanted to see if my other friends were home, but they weren't so I came back. I want to play now." I could tell he was growing irritated by her refusal to let him back in so easily. Ella just glanced at him and said not one word, continuing to circle the driveway on her bike. "That wasn't very nice what you said earlier, Dr. Evil. Ella may not feel like playing any more today," was what I said out loud, my repressed elementary school self still inwardly hurling childish insults his way. "Well, FINE! Then I don't want to play with her anymore EITHER! BYE!!!" was his last response. He hopped on his bike and headed home. As a last ditch effort (at what I don't know, because calling names is a surprisingly ineffective way to get others to want your company. Go figure.) he turned around and yelled over his should, "I don't want to play anyway because Ella is weird!". And with that, he rode off into the gates of hell from whence he came. "I'm proud of you for not yelling at him or being mean, Ella" I told her after he was gone. She smiled a big smile and asked if we could write our names with chalk on the driveway. And in that moment, I realized that she was listening when I tried to teach an important life lesson, she had gotten it and had actually followed through, not stooping to the level of the little menace. In all honesty, it would seem it was me who had just a little growing up to do.

In which I eat my words, with a side dish of moving boxes and OH CRAP sauce.

So. Remember the post about seven months ago wherein I ranted and spit furiously and raved about moving and our landlord and the utter suckage of it all? And maybe that post was titled "I will die in this house if it's the last thing I do"? Well, let's hope I don't kick the bucket in the next six weeks. Because we're moving. Again. AGAIN, I say. Can you feel the excitement? It's palpable around here, let me tell you. This all began approximately eight years ago, with a conversation between me and the husband.

ME: "I hope you don't think you're going to marry me and move me back to this hometown of yours. Because it's never gonna happen. Ever. As in, hell will freeze over and pigs will fly."

HIM: "Oh, I know, I hate this town as much as you do. Don't worry, it will never ever happen."

Cut to present day: We're mother effing moving there. In six weeks. End scene.

After being born and raised here in Nashville and having every resource imaginable at my fingertips (except, like, a subway system, because dude. This IS Nashville. It's just not THAT big.), we are packing up and moving out to the relative countryside of the husband's hometown. I've been chastised for calling it a "small town"...it is, after all, the fifth biggest city in Tennessee, and they do have things like running water and a mall and stuff. I even got laughed at when I asked if there was a place to take the kids swimming there ("Yes, they're called POOLS" she said). But! Imagine if you will a peaceful, golf-club neighborhood situated as close to the Nashville side of the city limits as you can get. The house is gorgeous, the seventh green of said golf course is in our backyard. It's a neighborhood with other people living there, not the "country" setting you would imagine where our closest neighbor would be a hop, skip, and a two mile drive away, their mailbox bearing their last name painted on it with fence post paint. And then you pan across the street, to the other side of the road. Cows. A BARN. Acres and acres of land that does not have a Starbucks or a Target on it. This is foreign to me. Save for a brief period of my life when I was very very young and we lived in a tiny town about 30 minutes outside the city, I have lived here, among the busy five-lane roads, the bus stops. I can hear the interstate from my home, instead of crickets and owls. And I like it that way. But in the interest of my children having more than one parent present on a regular basis, and for the sake of my sanity due to me being that one parent that is present on a regular basis, we are moving to be where the husband's job is right now (and hopefully will be for a very loooong time, because I mean it this time, I'm not moving again. For at least five years. Three if the cows and barns become too much for me to handle). His job has him leaving as the kids wake up in the morning, and during the busy season (which is NOW!) it is not at all unusual for the husband to get home at 9 or 10:00 at night. Plus most weekends. All of that adds up to momma being the sole caregiver to our babies, and maybe results in me fleeing the house on Sundays for a few hours of peace and quiet.

So here's to our new adventures in the "country". I may change the name of this blog to "From The City To The Sticks: How Cows And Nature And Stuff Drove Me To Drinking".

Yeehaw, y'all.

In The Home.

When asked what they are most thankful for on a daily basis, most people would blurt out one or all of the following: My family, my health, a roof over my head. And while I am ever so thankful for all of that and more, the one thing that tops my list is that I am lucky enough that our circumstances have allowed me to choose to stay at home with my kids every day for the last four and a half years. I have friends who have no choice, who would rather stay home with their children than work but cannot do so because finances will not allow it. And while we are by no means wealthy, and a second income could sometimes come in handy, we have made it work for this long and I am thankful. Does it sometimes get monotonous, having the same schedule every single day? Yes. Do I sometimes throw my hands up in the air and wonder if I am really, deep down cut out for the life of a stay at home mom? Oh my lands, YES, sometimes three or four times daily. But the things that I get to be here for, the firsts and the hugs and the monotonous but oh-so-lovely days, they more than make up for the trying moments. And at the end of every single day, no matter how much whining or crying there was and in spite of temper tantrums and the days where I have no adult conversation outside of my running dialogue with Moose A. Moose on tv, I am so thankful that I have these early years with my babies. Every minute of these early years, because even though they may threaten to break me sometimes, these first months and years of their lives are beautiful and I am privileged to get a front row seat for every tiny detail. So, so, so thankful.

Life, Liberty, The Pursuit Of Happiness...And Cheaper Prescriptions?

Aaaaand WHOOOOOOSH. That was me exhaling. I've held my breath for as long as I can on all of the healthcare reform shenanigans that are cluttering up the news these days. My opinion on it, in one word? Shit. The variety doesn't matter: Horse shit, dog shit, donkey shit, it's all the same. It stinks to high heaven. Let's run down the list of reasons I find this bill to be utterly and completely wrong on so so so many levels, shall we?

1. It is one small step for healthcare, one giant leap towards socialism. Call it what you will, but anything that forces a citizen to purchase goods, or taxes one citizen in the name of "helping" another, is dangerously walking the very thin line that separates capitalism and socialism.

2. Healthcare is NOT A RIGHT. It's just not, no matter how many times you want to say that it is. When our founding fathers were drafting the Constitution, all of our rights were laid out with one central theme: ACTION. We, as American citizens, have the right to action, be it protesting, pursuing happiness, living peacefully, or writing about how crappy we think this bill is on our blogs. We do not have the right to lower annual premiums, or cheaper co-pays, or free check-ups. That? Is called a hand out, my friends. If that's what you want, then fine. But at least call it what it is, and please don't label it as a "right". Listen, I GET it. I understand those people who are saying "But I have a preexisting condition that makes my healthcare bills and prescriptions insanely expensive!". I get it. Because me and the hubs BOTH have preexisting conditions. Him with his knee that blew to smithereens a few years ago, and me with my Degenerative Disc Disease. If you don't think that those things make our healthcare more expensive, then you have another thing coming, my friend. Does it kinda sorta stink to pay more for our healthcare than we would without those conditions? Yep. But I do not for one minute expect other taxpayers to foot the bill just so my expenses can go down. IT. IS. WRONG. It is dipping your hand into my pocket to pay for someone else's medical bills, when all of this healthcare stuff is not even a right that we are afforded by living here in this great country. EVERYONE has access to medical care...it's called the emergency room, or a walk-in clinic. And then? It's called paying your own medical bills, even though they are more money than you can afford right then, to prevent others (ME!) from having to pay them for you in the form of taxes. I hear mainly from people with preexisting conditions saying, "Think about ME! This will be helping ME!". Well, it goes both ways, kind sirs. Maybe you should think about all of the people that this will NOT help.

3. This bill is just the beginning. When I envision where all of this is going, I see it happening as a kind of gradual progression until BAM. We have socialised medicine. And maybe some other things, as well. "Oooh, look, this cute wittle bitty healthcare bill didn't hurt you, now did it? It's harmless!". And then a year, two years down the road we are left scratching our heads, blinking dumbly, wondering how we got to this Single Payer System we have. The Great One has said it before: That's what he ultimately wants. And it is only a matter of time. This? This current healthcare "reform"? Is merely a catalyst.

4. The ones who passed this bill are not planning on participating in the same healthcare plans that they are so adamently in favor of. Obama and member of Senate and/or Congress will not be partaking. Enough said.

5. This bill does nothing to support job growth. Oh, "they've" said it does. But does creating 20,000 more jobs within the IRS (who will be overseeing who does and does not have healthcare and who has or has not paid their fines) really help "grow jobs"? Nope nope nope.

6. Government does such a bang up job running things, let's put them in charge of healthcare! Medicaid and Medicare? Government-run programs, almost bankrupt. So of COURSE! It's perfectly logical to think that government should stick their hand into the healthcare industry and "help". They can run it so much better than American citizens can, right?

In closing, I don't fault anyone for believing opposite from me. Hell, it's a free country, and THAT is one of our rights: to believe what we will, and voice that opinion to all that can hear. But I believe Ayn Rand says it best with her many, many quotes on politics and freedoms:

"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off."

"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

Amen, sister.

Let's just say it was temporary insanity and call it a day.

There are very very few things that I feel are superior about myself. Average looks, average housekeeping skills, average cook, average at most things despite giving my best at everything. Well, maybe my hair. I have terrific thick hair that is usually, unfortunately, pulled into a sloppy ponytail. But the potential is there, dammit. I do not purport to be better than anyone at all of these things and many, many more. But. BUT! I am a GREAT reader. I love to read kind of like I enjoy, um, breathing. It is essential to my well-being and I must have a book that I am in the middle of at all times, lest my brain get that foggy, unused feeling. And, oh boy, am I ever a book snob. It is one of my biggest hangups and I just cannot get past it. The gist of it is this: I WILL JUDGE YOU. I will see you with a trashy grocery-store romance novel with a busty maiden riding off into the sunset with Fabio and I WILL JUDGE YOU FOR READING IT. I can't help it, I've tried. I like books that require an IQ above 90 to read and actually have some sort of underlying message or deeper meaning beyond OMG, they totally fell in love and grew old together and had an idyllic life the end. Which is why I'm more than a little bit ashamed to say what I am about to say. I READ TWILIGHT. AND I LIKED IT. In all honestly, I LOVED it. I went into what I now refer to as My Dark Place, which included reading...nay, DEVOURING...a whole 700-page book in two days. FOUR TIMES. Yes, all four books. Each in two days. My children may or may not have had to bathe themselves and eat Cheerios off the floor for lunch while Mommy was reading, please for the love of Jeebus, leave Mommy alone, I NEED TO FIND OUT IF BELLA AND EDWARD EVER JUST DO IT ALREADY OR IF THEY JUST WHINE AT EACH OTHER FOR ALL ETERNITY. CRIPES. I still to this day do not have the foggiest idea what it was about these teen-romance-vampire-fiction books that put me in a completely idiotic trance. It surely was not the writing. My hat is off to you, Ms. Meyer. Well played, ma'am. You took a plot line and characters and other-worldly creatures that are best suited to a Harlequin romance novel and you have managed to turn it into a worldwide best-seller, a feeding frenzy of teenagers and housewives ensuing in it's wake, Bravo. But a way with words you do not have, madam. Me thinks you were betting on girls and women everywhere caring oh-so-deeply for your hero, Edward (SUCCESS!) and reading your books one after another just to get more, more, more, oh God, I read those books like a crackhead in need of another hit, it was just sooo good just one. more. page. Ahhhh. So on that front? Well done. All of that to say that the writing left much to be desired, so it wasn't that. Hell, I can't say what it was that compelled me read over 2800 pages of that garbage. I still feel ashamed to admit that I have crossed over into the group of twelve year old girls who read this crap. I have read Chaucer. CHAUCER. And my top four favorite books of all time are The Secret History, Anna Karenina, The Fountainhead, and Orthodoxy. I consider myself a well-read, intelligent person. Yet I fell prey to this vampire-werewolf nonsense phooey just like the preteen angst-ridden girl thumbing the pages of book #3 on the school bus. But I did. And I loved every minute of it while I was in the midst of glittering vampires and stuttering, awkward heroines and romantic werewolf love interests. And I will see the movies, because I cannot stop myself, apparently. Would I read them again? Eh. Probably not. I'll file that week of my life in the same place I filed that night in high school when I tried a certain, um, "thing" that left me seeing dragons and Oompa Loompas: ridiculous, unnecessary, and slightly frightening. And kind of thrilling.

Maybe because I do this parenting thing all day, every day, alone with the kiddos, or maybe because I've had a tiny person in the house who has been capable of speaking in whole sentences for about three years, but I do not notice what comes out of my mouth anymore. What I mean is that the most bizarre things can be uttered, and they just seem commonplace to me at this point in my life. If I had heard someone say "PUT THAT FORK DOWN AND GET AWAY FROM THE TOILET!" four years ago, I would have sloooowly backed away from that person while dialing the nearest mental health facility. But because the things that come out of a four year old's mouth and the things that a toddler chooses to do are so very odd sometimes, so are the words that come flying out of my mouth a hundred times a day. I don't even notice anymore, really, how odd it all sounds, so I made an effort to pay attention over the last few days and tried to remember a few of them.

"It's okay if Stu is peeing on the Christmas tree. No, because the lights are not plugged in anymore." *

"Let's not sing songs about poop, 'kay?"

"Actually Stu CANNOT do ballet, and you are going to possibly break his leg."

"Princesses do not hit their baby brothers with sticks."

"People are still allergic to cats, even if they're the size of mice."

"Dogs don't like lipstick, leave him alone."

"We do not put carrots there."

"I'm sorry if your eyes are scared of going to sleep. It is still bedtime."

"If Charlie's 'wiener' is 'freaking you out', then get out of the bathroom."

*I have to make a note that the Christmas tree is not, in fact, inside the house. It is on our deck. In March. Still.

Patience is a virtue. Or a by-product of parenting Charlie. Either one.

I believe one of the most jarring things about having a second (or third or fourth, I would imagine) is that you have most definitely NOT produced a 2.0 version of your first child, which is maybe kind of what I had envisioned during my pregnancy with Charlie. "Oh, he will be just like Ella...he will be calm and quiet and loving and light years ahead of other kids his age when it comes to talking and other smart-stuff." And now? Now, all I can say is HA. I was tempting the universe to show me just how wrong I was, now that I think about it. Not that Charlie is not loving, he is...EXTREMELY SO. In fact the one word that comes to mind when I think of him is EXTREME. As in, "I love you SO MUCH I AM GOING TO BANG MY HEAD INTO YOUR CHEST. HARD. RAAAARRR." He loves fiercely, he does not just give hugs and kisses, he runs smack into me at a force so great that sometimes I fall backward onto the floor while he is sliming/biting my chin instead of kissing me. He loves me so much that he has progressively gotten worse about me leaving him alone for even two seconds to, God forbid, pee or put the laundry into the dryer. Those that know him can tell you that "Calm" and "Quiet" are not words that would be used to describe Charlie. They don't even make the top 500 adjectives on the list. Hell, they are honestly not even on the list at all. What is on the list? Demanding, Screaming, Tantrum-Prone. Those just about cover it. I am coming around to the belief that "this", this extremely extreme child's screaming fits and demands, are not so much the product of my parenting as they are just...him. I am also beginning to see how this person has been put into my life for a purpose greater than being cute and funny and charming (when he wants to be all of those things). Through him I am, against all odds, becoming EXTREMELY patient. And those who know ME can tell you that "patient" is not the first word they would have used to describe me a year ago. I didn't really have to be with Ella. She made silly toddler mistakes and had the odd tantrum, sure, but on a daily basis she was (and is still) pretty agreeable and sweet and kind and mellow. So I have essentially gone from one extreme to the other here. A year ago: NO patience required. Now: Patience required every thirty seconds to deal with Charlie. Come to think of it, I may hang a sign around his neck that says just that: Patience Required. The ironic thing about this whole rant about Charlie's screamy screaming? HE ONLY BEHAVES THIS WAY WITH ME. I leave him with the husband, and I get phone calls to report how FUN and FUNNY and LAID BACK Charlie is. Charlie stays overnight at my mom's house, and aside from one or two small-ish meltdowns, I get nothing but "Oh, he is so FUN! We had so much FUN!". So, yeah. What I really want to say is "Good for you ALL, that he is so fun for you to be around. He screams at me if I walk three feet away to turn the TV off. Go to hell." But I don't. Instead I take a deep breath and try to remember that this will pass (Oh, please tell me this will pass, as the thought of him still doing this at the age of eight is making me want to stab myself in the eye.) and that through all of his Charlie-ness I am learning patience. And while his tantrums and temper my be epic, so are his heart and his hugs. And his smile. His smile is extreme.