'Tis the Season

I can't remember if I have always felt on this much of an up and down carnival ride at the holidays, or if this is a particularly special year. Not remembering bit is pretty darn indicative of another phase I know I've been in for a while but can't, um, remember how long. I'm guessing it corresponds with the pregnancy or arrival of number three - and that a lot of the up and down is tied into that as well.

He's beautiful, my third. So squeezably full of joy and good cheer and sweetness that my heart and jaw ache with it. Giving away the crib after #2 was done with it showed some foresight into how difficult a third might be, but giving in to having #3 was even easier than giving away the baby things. What was surprising to me is that opening the door (so to speak) for having that third and now knowing that he's my last makes me breathtakingly sad. The reasons for not going beyond three children have mostly to do with barely keeping up with three and how quickly, at forty, my age now seems to be catching up with (or overtaking) me. Like my minivan with 215,000 miles on it, things are starting to break, fall off, and make strange noises, and the gas mileage is nowhere near what it used to be. And there are dents. Lots and lots of dents.

Being a parent challenges me everyday. Challenges my sense of control, of reason, of purpose. What is most staggering to me is the infinite beauty juxtaposed, near instantaneously, with the infinite difficulty and helplessness in raising these three beings. Going to sleep last night, Sawyer roused himself from near sleep to remind me to remind him to add to his Christmas wish list "that we not die." And a few moments later, "that we not get sick." I'm doing my darndest with the latter, but the former is inevitably going to come and kick all our butts. And there's nothing I can do about it, no way I can protect these three perfect beings from that un-fairytale ending. No matter the marvelousness of your partner (if you are so lucky as to have one), they are equally useless in this regard.

There is this grave futility in so many things we do, and in how we do them. Or so it can seem. When my daughter woke up this morning it was clearly on the very, very wrong side of the bed. I wake up and am, for five minutes, Mary Poppins, singing the children out of their beds, inspiring them with talk about how lovely the day will be, cooking their uber-fresh free range organic happy chicken eggs, packing their preservative-free lunches. And when we are going on five, then six minutes late out the door forty-five minutes later I am all fangs and venom and screech. Although I am trying with greater consciousness while my patience is being tried. When my daughter had her all-out breakdown this morning after my sixth attempt to get her to dress, I tried to be the mama I would want her to remember, the mama I would want to spend the rest of the day being. Which was supportive and patient and still - nearly - on time.

I am trying to be more patient with myself. I am trying to be in each moment of the chaotic morning rather than just trying to be one step ahead of the chaos. And to enjoy the moment. I am trying to let go of the to do list and still feel productive for the sheer fact of raising loved and appreciated children. I am trying to accept this body, this job, this path without going by the societal accolades of success or the media yardstick of parental worthiness. I am trying to succumb to the spiritual awareness of what richness my life has evolved into rather than panic at the drumbeat sound of time that is an inevitable soundtrack to the ongoing movie of watching your children grow. Thankfully, it is merely the metronome for the real music that if you pause long enough to really listen, is what was most important all along.

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Ladybug, Ladybug

So Jordan was going to run away today. She got her Hello Kitty suitcase out and halfway packed before I coaxed her into a bath, my water pixie. She'd poked her brother, hard, and gotten in trouble for it and was wailing that it was too hard to be a big sister, she wished she and Sawyer were twins.

Hmm, run away, huh? Now Mama's gettin' ideas.

Last night was a rough one, Clavey's tum was really hurting, he was arching his back, wailing, not wanting to nurse but hungry. From about 1am until 3:30 am we were awake, completely unrestful until all the massaging, medicine, and finally nursing worked. Until 6:15. So I'm going on fumes right now, and the poking, fighting and crying are making it really difficult for me to be the peaceful, centered mama I'd like always to be. Which isn't to say that it's been a miserable day at all - Jordan and Sawyer used to be best buddies and when they hug each other, share laughter and embark on projects together it brings me great joy. Until someone gets poked.

I used to think baths were a great way for me to relax. I still think they are, but not necessarily with me in them. After the poking incident led to the packing of the running away bag, I put Sawyer in one bathtub and Jordan in another. I plopped Clavey on the bed and he does something neither Jordan or Sawyer ever did which is to fall asleep unassisted. Smart boy. I ate my three hours old breakfast (we've been baking all morning and the cleaning never ends) while reading e-mail and facebook posts, visiting each bathroom every few minutes to distribute water and kisses, check on Jordan's ear infection, peek in to see if Clavey's erupting tooth or bad cold has him restless.

Sawyer got out of his bath, putting away the seventy or so bath toys that had just joined him on some fantastical journey. Jordan got out of hers, putting down her book (she gets that from me for sure - bathing with a book) and asking for a cuddle. I sat down and took her in my arms, so much more of her spilling off every time - she's this huge person now in every way. All my children are so substantial in size, in personality, in joy. Funny that, with such minimalist parents.

Now I've got a baby in my lap and two peaceful children in the living room, paintings drying an the table, bread baking in the oven. My husband is on his way home and when he arrives there's a part of me that will want to run away - to sleep if nothing else, and to not pick clothes up off the floor and wash another dish, but most of me will want to stay as I don't see him enough as it is. I'll want to stay and watch these naked little beings be and grow right in front of my eyes - little loaves rising in the oven of our home.

Mother of the Year

Well, I'm out of the running for that one. But I've actually been out of the running since I think 8:45 am on January 1 which is when the first injury or argument or something happened - we were camping so it probably involved an injury of some kind.

There have been a few incidents since then (few - ha ha) that keep me out of the Also Ran category. Some favorites from the last month and a half: Jordan asked one morning if she could wear a light blue leotard to school as a shirt. "Sure," I said, "it's a little tight though - if you don't mind an all-day wedgie, go ahead." The next day at school her teacher said she had a funny story to tell me. At recess the day before, the playground monitor looked over in shock and said to Ms. Eileen "Is that Jordan? What is she doing?" Jordan was no longer wearing her skirt, just the too-small powder-blue leotard while playing with a hula hoop. "Jordan, where are your clothes?" "What?" replied Jordan, clueless as to what she was talking about.

"What are you wearing?"

"What?" responded Jordan, as if to say "What could possibly be wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Jordan! That's not appropriate clothing for school!" said Ms Eileen. "Oh." she replied, as if confused by these ridiculous adults and their meaningless rules, and went to put on her skirt.

Part of me thinks this puts me back in the running for mom of the year - I have a 7 year old daughter who doesn't care if she's cool, doesn't care if she's doing what the other kids are doing. She's busy quite literally dancing to the beat of her own drummer, immersed in the world of her own imagination. (For the record, today is "crazy hair day" and she doesn't really want to get TOO crazy - just a couple of pigtails put into buns.) She dresses just like her mama did at her age, lost as I was in a world of my own invention.

On the less potentially optimistic side of losing mother of the year contest, a couple of nights ago I called the Poison Control Hotline for the first time (already had it in my phone, so I don't lose the round entirely) when I found Sawyer just before bed pouring an entire bottle of a Hyland's homeopathic remedy into his mouth. This is a little boy who could easily develop a sugar addiction and here he was, feeding the monster -the tablets are basically little sugar pills. “Oh, Hyland’s?”, the man at other end of line said, “We love those - he could have three whole bottles that stuff and be fine.” So Sawyer lost his stories, Jordan got freaked out by my telling him what cold happen if he took too much medicine a different kind, and I got freaked out when I saw him swallowing the whole bottle - had an absolutely horrible flash forward to imagining him as a teenager or adult liking pills way too much. I’ve been cavalier about leaving medicines within children’s reach because I’ve always told them how serious it is. It makes me wonder if I’m failing in some way or myriad ways with having less time for him with the new baby. How easy it is to find fault with oneself as a mother!

And Clavey, little Clavey, beating on my breast as I nursed him yesterday afternoon, wanting more milk that wasn't there. He clearly hates rice cereal. We'd been given leftover babyfood from friends and so he tried - and liked - bananas. So much for veggies first and only a week after rice cereal and so on and so forth. His big sister fed the rest of the bananas to him this morning while I made lunches and breakfast and I peeled the dried remnants off his face while nursing him an hour or two later. So I just spent $50 on Organic babyfood at Safeway. I'd like to cook, puree and freeze it from scratch like I did for Jordan and Sawyer, but I haven't yet unpacked from a trip we returned from five days ago, and so little jars it is, at least until I am back on the dry land of finished laundry, healthy children, and the many projects stashed in corners throughout the house.

This morning after Clavey woke up happy as a clam at 5, I heard Jordan and Sawyer fighting in her bed at 6:30. "YOU'RE PULLING MY HAIR!" I went in and Sawyer was crying, still half asleep - "I'm not pulling your hair, I'm squeezing orange juice." He'd made orange juice himself a week or so ago, theraputically twisting and squeezing the oranges into defeated little orange shells. He'd gone there again in his sleep, apparently. Five minutes later he was accusing his sister of smothering him with a pillow. So five minutes after that when, while folding laundry, I heard raised loud voices coming from my bedroom, I got my serious, deep, loud, no-nonsense, don't mess with me voice on and went preaching into the bedroom. I saw two sweet little faces looking up at me. "But Mama," said Jordan, "Sawyer was only saying 'tickle tickle tickle' to Clavey." I stopped and laughed and looked my children right in the eye. "You think I'm a little bit crazy right now, don't you?" I said to them. They half-laughed and smiled at me, and I thought to myself that these are the moments that will possibly bookend their childhood memories. I'd better choose carefully who I want to be in the chronicles of their past.

Over the five days we were in San Diego, we went to Sea World where Jordan fell in love with Shamu and the idea of being an orca trainer. She wanted nothing to do with the water rides, but if you'd told her she could jump in a tank with four killer whales, she wouldn't have hesitated. She sobbed when a trainer told her she couldn't pet Shamu. And all weekend she played Shamu in the swimming pool with any adult willing to toss her in the air, push her through the water, help her do tricks. It tickled me and touched me to see my mom in goggles and swim cap attempting to swim through my daughter's legs underwater, laughing and giggling with her. My mother's got a good sense of humor about our childhood memories when my siblings and I get together and poke fun at her, and it gives me hope that I'm not earning them a permanent spot on a therapist's couch with my own parenting.

I'm thankful for great role models. And a great co-parent. So I'm not mother of the year, but I think my children will love me all the same.

A Year in the Community – The Trailer Retrospective

So much can change in a year. And so much can stay the same. We came close to pulling the trigger and buying a bigger trailer last month – close enough to accept a counter offer from a dealer who was then too lazy to dig the one we wanted out from behind another two on his lot, thereby losing the sale. Perhaps a sign: what we have is enough. So we’re driving down Highway 17 into Santa Cruz, three car seats in the back of the truck instead of just two, and two dogs in the same trailer instead of just one. Some things still the same, some significantly different.

In my mind I’m already remodeling our little trailer - I love the size of it and want to fit in it but a year ago yesterday little Clavey was conceived, emerging into the trailer community three months ago. Already we can’t remember what life was like B.C.: thinking about our two-week trip last Christmas I tend to insert him into the memories, such is life with a newborn. Remodeling my memory along with our lives and eventually, our trailer.

I have a little bit of guilt that since our day at the soup kitchen last Christmas we haven’t volunteered at homeless shelters, built homes with Habitat for Humanity, planted more trees. I’m a laptop activist instead this year, signing petitions online, writing to my congresspeople, shopping for Christmas gifts on the Hunger Site and the Breast Cancer Site. But it’s about balance. I haven’t had a whole lot more to give as far as energy goes: we’ve chosen jobs that are meaningful in a way that can be looked at as being altruistic – watching my husband’s first year as a teacher and the amount of time, effort and supplies he’s “donated” and how that’s involved sacrifice from all of us gives me a sense of absolution from the sins of not doing enough. We donate a lot through our rafting company as well, and we work hard at being good community members. I feel as good as I think I can about how we live, knowing always that we can do better. Striving for balance.

We had a good run in the trailer this year. We drove home January 1, fulfilled from our trip and excited to travel more. Just after we found out that we were expecting, the trailer housed river guides who flew in from far distances for the memorial service for Brooke, a fellow guide. We did a long weekend at Sunset Beach in Santa Cruz in the spring, then drove north with it for spring break, having decided that morning to leave and that first night loving the convenience when we pulled off the highway into a tiny campground in a forest, parked, and the kids climbed back into their beds and were asleep within minutes. I felt like we were an enormous turtle or snail, self-contained and at home on the road. Four days later I felt slow as a snail towing the trailer at a max speed of 65 heading for an airport, trying to get to Seattle in time for the birth of my nephew. The trailer didn’t fail me.

We did one last trip as a family of four, escaping for a rare river season work-free weekend to Santa Cruz where my sister joined us at the KOA for two nights. As winter campers we got a taste of why it’s worth braving colder temperatures for smaller crowds, but loved the escape from the dry heat and the chance to change our scene for a little while. John and Angie camped in the trailer at Max and Willow’s wedding at Camp Lotus, needing a better bed at 8 months pregnant than a tent and a paco pad would provide.

Ever since we found out we were pregnant we’ve thought about getting a bigger trailer to accommodate our bigger family. We expanded by another dog as well, so we’re a significantly larger community than we were a year ago. But as the famous quote goes, perhaps a change of self is needed more than a change of scene. We’ve never used our kitchen sink, used the stove two or three times, and we’ll never use the shower, so there’s our extra bed: some work to remodel, but quite possible. And cheaper than a new trailer. Tom’ll be off the floor and the dogs can have their space back – I hope we’ll be overcrowded with two dogs for a long time. We’ll figure out the awning for the rain, fix the lights and the electricity eventually.

Tom spent the three days prior to this trip putting laminate flooring in our house. If we weren’t going away, he said, he needed a home project and this one’s been on the top of my list. One three-day project and it looks like a whole new space. So now I’m dreaming of putting the leftover flooring in the trailer, painting the trailer walls when we paint our kitchen, and using the old couch covers to make new curtains. It’s not at all that I’m unhappy with the trailer – I just envision how it can be better. Same goes for me – I’m planning on another marathon in the New Year, rock climbing again (if we go with another adult who can watch the baby), publishing something (as a goal to write more regularly and to get it out there), and as a family volunteering more so I can instill in my children and myself a sense of gratitude for all we do have, and empowering us by serving those in need. I’m happy with who I am, but I know I can be better.

So now we’re in the car on the way to Santa Cruz and then Half Moon Bay. Megan and Gordon will join us tomorrow. No matter where our little trailer takes us, as long as there are people I love around me, it’ll be paradise. Happy New Year

11/24/2009 – Into the Fold

The community we live in regularly, the Coloma-Lotus Valley, has been a wonderful fit for us - full of like-minded people with similar values and mores to our own. Who better to have join us, then in the trailer community? Camping is much more than a pastime for us: we are camping enablers – dealers, in fact: we essentially sell camping as a part of our rafting trips – the fewer amenities, the higher the price – we call it an “upgrade”.

It’s just a little bit funny that we live 400 yards down the road from a campground people travel to. We’ve chosen to camp there for birthday parties, holiday gatherings, etc. Not to mention living there for the first four years in the community, and in a tent for four of the first six months of Jordan’s life. For many in our Coloma-Lotus community who spent much of their early adult lives as river guides or kayakers or rock climbers, camping is almost a more natural way of life than one of mortgage-paying, lawn-mowing regularity.

Tom offered up our trip to Santa Cruz on Facebook. We had plenty of takers. A friend planning on Thanksgiving with her mother-in-law in Santa Cruz signed up first, camping offering a great respite from the stress of staying with two boys under seven in the near-pristine abode of a single older woman. (Same irony – her home was just a little further from the campground in Santa Cruz than ours is from our local campground.) Two more families were game so it was four sets of parents, six boys between four and 7, a 6 year-old girl and a two-month-old.

What we all do together on a camping trip isn’t all that removed from what we do together at home in Lotus from the kids’ perspective: ride bikes, dig in the sand, fight, get over it, fight some more, play endlessly. For the parents, though, it’s a world of difference: there’s no work, no carpets to vacuum, no bills to pay. There’s surfing, mountain biking, and best of all, community meals and cleanup. It’s not necessarily an easier way of life as having children automatically means you’re working: feeding, cleaning, making fires, keeping the kids safe and providing opportunities for play, but it makes its own argument for cooperative living. It’s pretty sweet to share a cup of coffee over a morning campfire while having a discussion about which surf break to hit that day and whether there’s enough brie, wine and marshmallows for dinner that night.

On the flip side, there are raccoons. You’d think a bunch of raft guides would have the whole prep for disaster thing in mind, but given the cumulative losses to the masked intruders, you wouldn’t be impressed. As raft guides, some of us way too organized and some of us with a wing it attitude, we split the difference on dinner prep. For paying passengers we would have paid a lot more attention to presentation – for a family camping trip we focused on getting food into the kids’ bellies, keeping the beer cold and keeping it simple. Luckily with this group simple meant salmon, rice pilaf and broccoli with a starter course of pot stickers with a dessert of homemade marshmallow s’mores. We’ve got kids with expensive tastes, apparently – no hotdogs for this group. Everything was done at the same time and the amounts were perfect. Best of all was cleanup – quick, efficient, and in no time everyone was back around the campfire with a beer.

It’s pretty fun taking a bunch of river kids to the beach. (It’s pretty fun taking a bunch of river kids anywhere.) Wave jumping, sand-burying, shell collecting while half the parents were off surfing was pretty great. The water was cold enough that the surfers only lasted a few hours so there was plenty of parent-child interaction for everyone.

I’m always grateful for my community, but seeing them on the beach and in the campground, being great parents, getting dirty, wave jumping with my kids, letting it all go, holding my baby, toasting marshmallows reinforced my appreciation for them all over again. I think it’s pretty normal to occasionally wonder what it would be like to live somewhere else, to buy in to the grass is always greener fantasy, but these people are a pretty nice anchor.

Mourning on Facebook

Who could have guessed that one of the best outcomes of the social networking phenom could have been it's ability to connect us with the past, the time when social networking happened at the bus stop or soccer field or on the plaza - and thus was somewhat limited in it's breadth of connection (but was perhaps better in its depth).

In the year and a half or so since I've been on Facebook (forced there by the organizing forces of my highschool reunion), I've been more and more of a believer (although I am hoping to author a Miss Manners web book of social networking and really hitting hard the parameters of oversharing). A huge part of becoming a believer came after losing a friend. I'm from a generation who goes to school in a place their parents didn't grow up, flying or driving long distances to visit relatives - and then we split, leaving for college somewhere else where we establish intimate friendships, leaving next for grad school or jobs or foreign travel, establishing pods of friends in each new place and then leaving them for something new. And this constant motion takes time - and we don't spend it staying connected although we meant to - which doesn't affect the space in our hearts that's occupied by those friendships. When a friend who wasn't a very close one but was very close to many with whom we are very close passed away, it was wonderful to be able to connect on Facebook, and to hear stories, see pictures, share grief or memories.

This week a friend who was one of my closest in highschool died unexpectedly. My highschool class was small and that created an intimacy that was both positive and negative - but extremely familial. Another highschool friend who wasn't really friends with this guy was nonetheless one who got the ball rolling on starting a blog of remembrances about him, motivated by that familial feeling.

"The fact of the matter is this - Travis and I were not close, but you spend 4-6 years with everyone and a death hits you between the eyes because we were sorta like siblings, all of us, with rivalries and fights and good memories and a lot of fine support that we forget about it until we stop and think about it.... despite all the BS of high school, we, at the Prep school, were indeed like family, and I feel as if I have lost a brother, (my own brothers and I are not that close, so you can see where I get this idea ;-) I am 39 - I imagine so are all of you or thereabouts - and with 40 looming large on the horizon as some milestone of uncertainty - at least for me - the idea that someone as robust and clear-headed as that fellow (compared to myself) is dead was just a bit of a shocker.

In all honesty, I want to honor his death and his life in some way, but I am just not close enough to him to offer any funny anecdotes or touching tales. All I know is this - for four fucking years I saw this guy every day and he was my peer, even if he wasn't my pal, and I am sad for him and his family."

Before Facebook it was tough to stay in touch with someone who used to be a huge part of your life and isn't anymore, but who hasn't been excised from your heart. I was shocked at how special it was to go to my highschool reunion and to remember who I was then - how that person led me to be this person. It was actually nice to go back and revisit that, to have the ability to be kinder to that person I was then, more forgiving, more understanding, and then to offer the same to those I knew back then. For the grieving, it allows those closest to them to sort through the grief and remembrances in their own time and from a lot more people. We can't go to every funeral because we know too many people from to many places, but we can go online and be with mourners from all over the world and feel connected.

I'm so grateful to be able to keep in touch this way - to see what old friends' kids look like, to hear the joys and trials, to celebrate and mourn while still saving the big chunks of time and emotional energy for those friends and relationships that are in the here and now.

Mama Scouts

There are mothers out there who drive me crazy. They brush their hair before dropping their kids off at school in their undented minivans. They smile sweetly while bringing over an amazing meal on their way to Infant CPR class in preparation for adopting child #2. Luckily, I'm friends with lots of these moms, so I know that something's gotta give in one area in order to fit something else in. Your hair is brushed at morning drop off? Likely your kids ate lukewarm toaster waffles in the car for breakfast. You ran five miles three times this week but only made dinner twice. Your car has no crumbs inside, but you haven't seen your kitchen counter in six weeks. It's a good thing I have this perspective, else I'd be hiding from my parental insecurities with a bar of chocolate and a People Magazine in my closet.

I had a parenting breakthrough this month and feel like I earned a new badge on my Mama Scout sash: Crafty Costumes. This was a major breakthrough for someone who is hit by the craft bug only about once a year. We own pipe cleaners and yarn and all that crap but I'm clueless as to what to do with it. Halloween gets closer and I break out in a cold sweat hoping someone will offer up a costume that my children will want to wear. And since Halloween lasts for two weekends around here what with school carnivals one weekend and the real deal the next, I have to be doubly prepared as one costume doesn't usually hold their interest across the span. Last year we got lucky with the darling clown costumes that were my husband and his siblings' 37 years ago. They don't fit this year. Sawyer was handed down an awesome lion costume that I think might work for both weekends. It's a cross between the Cowardly Lion and, as Tom pointed out, Rod Stewart.

Jordan is more difficult: she's sensitive to how a costume feels, how hot it'll make her. She's done with the princess thing although still somewhat taken with fairies. She loves animals and wanted first to be a skunk. But wearing black pants and a long sleeved shirt was more than she could fathom. The tears and whining were beginning. And then I had the sudden flash of inspiration: she could be a flamingo! She had pink shorts, a pink t-shirt, a pink boa to pin around her shirt, pink wings, bare pink legs... She could make a beak from construction paper. As she waited 'til the last hour, she wound up looking more like a pink fairy as she opted for a leotard rather than shorts and a t-shirt, and had no interest in a beak. Still, I was proud of my idea and think with another two boas, a couple of hangers for better wings, and a beak, she would have been a convincing flamingo. Perhaps it's wishful thinking for a 5'3" mama to believe her offspring could pass for a long-legged bird, but at least I'm not short on imagination. (Since I'm also an actress mama, she's lucky I didn't take her to the zoo and make her study the physicality of the birds as well.)


Sawyer's homemade costume came to fruition when he and I joined some friends for a visit to the annual Renaissance Fair (it just irks me to write Faire). His friends had costumes long-planned but he didn't. In retrospect he probably would have been quite fine wearing the perfect turquoise gown in just his size that's still in the costume box, but I wanted to give him a boy option as well. Helplessly staring into our girl-heavy costume box, I pulled a felt hat and macrame belt left over from his renaissance-themed graduation a year and a half earlier. And then turned pajamas into leggings, and a dry-clean only Saks Fifth Avenue gold lame shell handed down from my couture aunt into a tunic (forgive me, Sally). Viola! He looked absolutely adorable and Renaissance-y! Imagine how devastated I was when just after parking the car Sawyer pulled apart his felt cap. Redemption came in a $2 knight's helmet given to him by our friends. The gold lame really set the copper tones in the helmet off. Quite striking!
The Renaissance Fair is such a trip. I am always blown away by just how dedicated people get. There are apparently a lot of women who yearn through 51 weeks of the year while trapped in subdued mother clothes and office-friendly blouses to rip open their bodices and prop, tremulously, their bosoms atop a tightly laced corset. There is a goodly amount of loose flesh at these fairs, I've found, and in equal measure the geekiest of the geeky male teenagers who transform themselves though costumes and customs into the in-crowd in this world. By the end of the day I honestly can't take another person addressing me as "m'lady" or speaking to me in stilted speech with healthy numbers of "ye" and "perchance" thrown in. But it's great people-watching. Despite the inflated state of my own bosom, I was without corset, preferring instead the sanctity of my nursing bra and certain that I'd flash enough of it's contents through constant nursing to fit in appropriately. I was blown away by my friends' costumes, great nods to humor and creativity that I would have felt threatened by had I not also been embraced by that humor and witness over the years to their own challenges as parents. We do a good job of learning from each other about discipline and so on, I just need to ask for a little help in this area.

Now if I can just remember how to thread the needle to get the damn badge sewn on to my sash, I can start working on some other badges. Sewing is not one I'm close to earning, sadly, but I must have five or six already (including a master badge for childbirth, yes!) and if I can remember where I put them while working diligently towards a housekeeping badge that may never be attainable, I'll really start to look like I know what I'm doing. (I can just imagine the scoutmaster - as I think I've finally cleaned my whole house, she goes over to the table I'd cleaned hours earlier, running her finger across it and holding it up saying, "I don't think so, girlscout! Wait you never graduated from Brownies, did you?" Thank goodness I've got eighteen more years to fill the sash up - my father the Eagle Scout will be so proud!