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I occasionally feel completely unprepared for certain moments in parenting. Today? Today Evie told me that Granny (my mom) didn't even know her mommy because she didn't even answer her when she asked about who it was. I explained that Granny must not have heard her because yadda yadda explanation of who it was and followed with a brief summary of how she went to live in Heaven. Evie says, full of skepticism, "She just went there and never came back?" (In the tone of, "I know how this realllyis, she has just abandoned her family!") So I carefully explained a little bit more about how she was very sick, and when people get very sick, sometimes they... etc etc. Long pause. Minutes long. Then, "Wonder why?"
Oh, honey, if I could only answer that question.
Then she flattened me further by commenting that Granny probably wanted to go to Heaven really bad so she could see her Mommy. And... oh geez. I don't even want to think about that for a long, LONG time. And now that I've fumbled through another conversation about death, I know that I still have the s-e-x talk to look forward to! Parenting: one long awkward conversation! It's funny that they didn't make that the catch phrase, isn't it? Because who wouldn't sign on for THAT?
Anyway, moving on. Miss Evie is very very excited, and very repetitive, about the ballet class that I signed her up for this morning. I've been on the fence about it for MONTHS or maybe even a YEAR. It's expensive and it requires special clothes and shoes, and they want you to commit to an entire year, really. You can drop out, I guess, but you still have certain non-refundable fees. And I know nothing about ballet. Nothing! I found it just as appealing as other little girls, I guess, but I never got to try it out. The extent of my extracurricular lesons when I was a kid consisted of one four-week gymnastics( class and one four-week cheerleading class at the YMCA. I was probably about eight. So yes, E at four has already had significantly more classes than I did in my entire life. The dance studio that I chose has a combination class for the 4-5 year olds. It's either ballet + gymnastics or ballet + tap. The website said that they recommended that kids start with ballet + gymnastics. I was happy to see that, because it made the choice easier for me, but I was leaning in that direction anyway. She does take gymnastics already, which is why I was thinking I should start with the other one maybe, but I think it would be very beneficial for have some reinforcements on those skills on another day of the week, in another setting. Look at me, all caring about her gymnastics skill set. Mainly, I care about her staying interested and staying active. Realistically, she is getting a somewhat negative view of how active people should be at home, I believe.
*I fell on my head. A lot. My parents taped our class a few times and we watched it when I was older and there was much, much, much laughter. M watched it while we were dating, and he cooed to my poor, clearly broken head for days. Coordination? Not my thing. However, I fear it's not entirely my daughter's thing, either. ;) Sorry for the genetic slap in the face, kiddo!
Anyway, I bet you are all laughing at me--or would be, if you'd noticed I wasn't continuing--for signing up for bloggy summer camp and then disappearing for two weeks. We were camping last week and I've spent this week recovering from it, so far. Still not done. It was a long week. Also, E got herself quadruply vaccinated yesterday, which has been pretty disappointing to all involved. Where "disappointing" means "cried inconsolably at bedtime last night due to pain in legs". My preference is to not do so many at once but I caved to peer pressure. I think she feels fairly rotten today, off and on, so we're trying to mostly take it easy. We had a fun little outing to Michael's, though! It just opened last Friday so I'm pretty excited about it. Living in a small town is great in many ways but a lot of shopping has to be done after driving forty minutes or more. I guess it's really not that much different from traffic conditions in large cities but it FEELS farther. Because it... well, because it is, actually. Anyway, you know what I mean. I am still planning on finishing the camp questions, though. I may still be working on them in November, but that's okay.
Day 4 – What has most surprised you about being an adult? What have you learned about yourself through blogging?
You know, these are two completely unrelated questions.
Being an adult is a little more boring than I expected. It's awesome to have all this freedom and personal responsibility and all that, but there's a lot of drudgery involved in doing the same dishes day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And while it's great to make these choices for myself, it was also surprising to realize just how many ways in which I DON'T have actual good choices to make. Jobs? I had a heck of a time finding a job after college. Sure, I could expand my search to whereever I chose... but they didn't have to hire me. Infertility? Choices? Oh, what a joke. Your choices there are between Bad, Worse, Financially Disastrous, Maybe Better, and Foolish Hope, a.k.a. Procrastination. Sometimes, it sticks in my craw HARD that I am living in this town, an hour and a half's drive from my mommy and daddy. I don't even have the job I moved here for! M does not work in this town, but in one half an hour closer. (His work town is actually about the same driving time as this one, so I'm not pushing for moving there either for that, a variety of other reasons.) It makes no sense for us to live here! Except... we do like our life here, most of the time, and we love our house and now we have a church we like and we're relatively close to a big city for shopping purposes. But we could find another house and another church and we could move! HOME, where I could spend my days hanging with my mom if I wanted to, or attend a mid-week cousin birthday party. I could send my kid to the schools where I KNOW people. And yet, I can't make that choice, because in the ten years of our marriage, we have never found a job for M in said location, unless you count the time they offered him a job at Kay's jewelry, which paid nothing. I haven't personally found a job either--and of course, at this point, I could maybe start looking for myself again, but that would also be choosing to end my SAHM lifestyle and that is not really where I'm at right now. See? It's so frustrating to have something that you know that you should be able to choose away--why not just move?? and then also know that it's not something we're ABLE to do even though we--me more than him, to be fair--want to. And here's something else--apparently, I'm going to have to like, go back to work at some point. Think I will find that job in NoJobLand, or in StateJobLand, conveniently located near BigCity? Yeah. Stuck here.
That was a somewhat unexpected little rant. I suppose I had some PMS hostilities building up.
What have I learned about myself through blogging? Well. I would say that I have learned that I am a terrible procrastinator, but I knew that already. I've learned that I don't really have the focus for a real blog. I get bored and distracted too easily (see the previous two weeks.) I have learned that I write through problems better than I talk them through... well, again, that's something i already knew, actually, from that predecessor to blogging--a.k.a. writing in a diary. Perhaps I have learned that I am semi-likeable if I let people actually know me. I am not, as I have said, particularly likeable. Several people in real life have objected to me saying that, but I'm cool with it because I'm not using it in a truly negative way. What I mean, really, is that I'm sort of hard to get to know at first. I think. I might be a bit standoffish. It is not that I don't like people--well, it IS that I don't like people, but that's not most of it--because I really would like to talk to people I don't know! But I suck at small talk and I usually end up feeling like a huge dork when I do. Like, recently, a little girl in Evie's gymastics class..well, her mom, actually, invited Evie to come over and play sometme. I didn't know what to say and I think I ended up sounding very non-commital and socially awkward, but really, I was just not sure how to recover and say, "Sure, when and where, and here's my email address." in a casual manner. It's worth noting that I have been going to classes with this woman since February and it is the first mention of a playdate, so I think that just emphasizes what I am saying here. I am hard to talk to unless I know you.I am sorry that is the case, sometimes, but I've made my peace with it. It's just nice to know that you guys like me. At least I think you do. :)
Oh, honey, if I could only answer that question.
Then she flattened me further by commenting that Granny probably wanted to go to Heaven really bad so she could see her Mommy. And... oh geez. I don't even want to think about that for a long, LONG time. And now that I've fumbled through another conversation about death, I know that I still have the s-e-x talk to look forward to! Parenting: one long awkward conversation! It's funny that they didn't make that the catch phrase, isn't it? Because who wouldn't sign on for THAT?
Anyway, moving on. Miss Evie is very very excited, and very repetitive, about the ballet class that I signed her up for this morning. I've been on the fence about it for MONTHS or maybe even a YEAR. It's expensive and it requires special clothes and shoes, and they want you to commit to an entire year, really. You can drop out, I guess, but you still have certain non-refundable fees. And I know nothing about ballet. Nothing! I found it just as appealing as other little girls, I guess, but I never got to try it out. The extent of my extracurricular lesons when I was a kid consisted of one four-week gymnastics( class and one four-week cheerleading class at the YMCA. I was probably about eight. So yes, E at four has already had significantly more classes than I did in my entire life. The dance studio that I chose has a combination class for the 4-5 year olds. It's either ballet + gymnastics or ballet + tap. The website said that they recommended that kids start with ballet + gymnastics. I was happy to see that, because it made the choice easier for me, but I was leaning in that direction anyway. She does take gymnastics already, which is why I was thinking I should start with the other one maybe, but I think it would be very beneficial for have some reinforcements on those skills on another day of the week, in another setting. Look at me, all caring about her gymnastics skill set. Mainly, I care about her staying interested and staying active. Realistically, she is getting a somewhat negative view of how active people should be at home, I believe.
*I fell on my head. A lot. My parents taped our class a few times and we watched it when I was older and there was much, much, much laughter. M watched it while we were dating, and he cooed to my poor, clearly broken head for days. Coordination? Not my thing. However, I fear it's not entirely my daughter's thing, either. ;) Sorry for the genetic slap in the face, kiddo!
Anyway, I bet you are all laughing at me--or would be, if you'd noticed I wasn't continuing--for signing up for bloggy summer camp and then disappearing for two weeks. We were camping last week and I've spent this week recovering from it, so far. Still not done. It was a long week. Also, E got herself quadruply vaccinated yesterday, which has been pretty disappointing to all involved. Where "disappointing" means "cried inconsolably at bedtime last night due to pain in legs". My preference is to not do so many at once but I caved to peer pressure. I think she feels fairly rotten today, off and on, so we're trying to mostly take it easy. We had a fun little outing to Michael's, though! It just opened last Friday so I'm pretty excited about it. Living in a small town is great in many ways but a lot of shopping has to be done after driving forty minutes or more. I guess it's really not that much different from traffic conditions in large cities but it FEELS farther. Because it... well, because it is, actually. Anyway, you know what I mean. I am still planning on finishing the camp questions, though. I may still be working on them in November, but that's okay.
Day 4 – What has most surprised you about being an adult? What have you learned about yourself through blogging?
You know, these are two completely unrelated questions.
Being an adult is a little more boring than I expected. It's awesome to have all this freedom and personal responsibility and all that, but there's a lot of drudgery involved in doing the same dishes day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. And while it's great to make these choices for myself, it was also surprising to realize just how many ways in which I DON'T have actual good choices to make. Jobs? I had a heck of a time finding a job after college. Sure, I could expand my search to whereever I chose... but they didn't have to hire me. Infertility? Choices? Oh, what a joke. Your choices there are between Bad, Worse, Financially Disastrous, Maybe Better, and Foolish Hope, a.k.a. Procrastination. Sometimes, it sticks in my craw HARD that I am living in this town, an hour and a half's drive from my mommy and daddy. I don't even have the job I moved here for! M does not work in this town, but in one half an hour closer. (His work town is actually about the same driving time as this one, so I'm not pushing for moving there either for that, a variety of other reasons.) It makes no sense for us to live here! Except... we do like our life here, most of the time, and we love our house and now we have a church we like and we're relatively close to a big city for shopping purposes. But we could find another house and another church and we could move! HOME, where I could spend my days hanging with my mom if I wanted to, or attend a mid-week cousin birthday party. I could send my kid to the schools where I KNOW people. And yet, I can't make that choice, because in the ten years of our marriage, we have never found a job for M in said location, unless you count the time they offered him a job at Kay's jewelry, which paid nothing. I haven't personally found a job either--and of course, at this point, I could maybe start looking for myself again, but that would also be choosing to end my SAHM lifestyle and that is not really where I'm at right now. See? It's so frustrating to have something that you know that you should be able to choose away--why not just move?? and then also know that it's not something we're ABLE to do even though we--me more than him, to be fair--want to. And here's something else--apparently, I'm going to have to like, go back to work at some point. Think I will find that job in NoJobLand, or in StateJobLand, conveniently located near BigCity? Yeah. Stuck here.
That was a somewhat unexpected little rant. I suppose I had some PMS hostilities building up.
What have I learned about myself through blogging? Well. I would say that I have learned that I am a terrible procrastinator, but I knew that already. I've learned that I don't really have the focus for a real blog. I get bored and distracted too easily (see the previous two weeks.) I have learned that I write through problems better than I talk them through... well, again, that's something i already knew, actually, from that predecessor to blogging--a.k.a. writing in a diary. Perhaps I have learned that I am semi-likeable if I let people actually know me. I am not, as I have said, particularly likeable. Several people in real life have objected to me saying that, but I'm cool with it because I'm not using it in a truly negative way. What I mean, really, is that I'm sort of hard to get to know at first. I think. I might be a bit standoffish. It is not that I don't like people--well, it IS that I don't like people, but that's not most of it--because I really would like to talk to people I don't know! But I suck at small talk and I usually end up feeling like a huge dork when I do. Like, recently, a little girl in Evie's gymastics class..well, her mom, actually, invited Evie to come over and play sometme. I didn't know what to say and I think I ended up sounding very non-commital and socially awkward, but really, I was just not sure how to recover and say, "Sure, when and where, and here's my email address." in a casual manner. It's worth noting that I have been going to classes with this woman since February and it is the first mention of a playdate, so I think that just emphasizes what I am saying here. I am hard to talk to unless I know you.I am sorry that is the case, sometimes, but I've made my peace with it. It's just nice to know that you guys like me. At least I think you do. :)
