The Shadow of Death

My daughter has always been a bit too preoccupied with death for my taste. Tonight she told me she didn't want me to "get died" from being shot or "get died" from an accident. I had to ask, "Well, what if I 'get died' from being really sick? Is that okay?" To this she replied, "Yeah." I guess if you think about it, you could say she is concerned that I would be taken from her suddenly, but if she's expecting it, it wouldn't be as bad. I'm not exactly sure how to take that.

She went on to tell me she had been worried I was going to die when I went to the hospital to have the baby last year. She added, "Women do die of that, you know." Quite honestly, I do remember the anxiety being visible in her face when she came to see me in the hospital that afternoon. She was truly afraid it would happen.

It's one thing to reflect on your own mortality, but when your child brings it up, it is very disconcerting. I want to run away screaming, "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Instead I told her, "We'd miss each other too much." She replied, "But you'd be in my heart. And I would always remember you." A small consolation, I guess.

Not to be morbid or belabor the point, but this does bring up some deep questions for me. What would my kids do without me? Have I been doing a good enough job raising them to keep them on the right path when I'm gone? Will they have good support and role models around to help them get through the teenage years? Through life? Are they going to remember me as someone who was too tired or preoccupied to talk or play with them? What kind of legacy am I really leaving behind?

I just better not 'get died'. I still have too much child-rearing to do.

One of My Hobbies

Quilting is one of my hobbies. I made a full size quilt once, but it took me four years to finally finish the thing. I don't venture past baby quilts anymore, because I need to see a finished product regularly; although, I have found my production slows down considerably when I have a baby in the house. I actually have two I'm working on right now, and at least two which have to be done quickly thereafter. I make a quilt for each of my nieces and nephews and only a few others whom I consider as close as family, but I have done two or three for pay (they are hand-quilted, so each one is special). Some of the patterns are my own creation, others I just modified from one I've seen or done before. Here is a small sampling of my work:

Snoopy quilt
Sports Ball quilt - the fabric was textured, so each ball square was different
Strawberry Shortcake quilt -- can you find my mistake?
VeggieTales -- btw, stippling by hand takes FOREVER! - LX's
Zoo quilt - Taz's
Cars quilt - it's supposed to look like a race track in the middle
Elmo quilt - QB's
Ladybug quilt - Looks really cool, but the snowball pattern is a huge pain
Pink Panther quilt -- my all-time favorite, I think
Precious Moments quilt - I liked the textures in the different fabrics, but I prefer a better contrast in the colors

Room to Run

It's not often Taz has an entire gym to run around. We were at church this evening, but Taz has a bad cold, so he couldn't join the babies in the nursery. He got to hang out with Mommy instead. Of course, that meant I couldn't really sit in my class, I got to chase him around in the gym.

The reason I brought this up -- have you ever seen a puppy try to run? You know, its back legs get going too fast for its front legs and the poor little thing ends up running sideways. Well, I have never seen a bi-ped do that before tonight. Taz gets going so fast, his body can't keep up with his little legs, or vice-versa (I'm not exactly sure what's really happening). He looks just like a puppy trying to run!

But, Boy, was he having a blast. He ran ALL OVER the place. Every time he saw a new basketball hiding somewhere under a bench or behind a chair, he would drop the one he already had, run to the new "brrr", pick it up and throw it. One of these days I'm going to bring my video camera with me just to capture this for posterity. It was easily the most entertaining thing I've seen all day, and I teach middle school! :)

P.S. If you've been anxiously awaiting new vocabulary words, I've still been posting them, but they are on my Academic Drivel blog. I have enjoyed reading your uses of the new words. Keep up the good work!

Mother Knows Best

If you haven't met my mom, you're missing out. My mom raised seven children and stayed home to raise us. She cooked, she cleaned, she mommied. I know that some of you do these things all the time too, but I have problems maintaining the status quo most days. I feel like my house is a disaster area, and I NEVER have the energy -- nor the inclination -- to cook. I do try to be domestic, I really do. I can cook. I do know how to clean. I was raised by the best, after all.
Most days, however, it's all I can do to stay standing for an extra ten or twenty minutes when I get home from work to throw something together that my children will actually eat. I really just want to go sit on the couch and veg... the rest of the night. I'm totally wiped out. As a result, my unkempt house, my under-stocked fridge and my frantic last minute before bed time "Quick! Do this homework!" drowns me in mommy-guilt. I spend the weekends with my kids doing soccer and playing around, an occasional afternoon nap. I just want to relax. I take a look around my house, and I think to myself, "Man, you suck at this homemaking thing!"

Tonight, my mom was here for dinner (yes, I cooked the whole thing myself -- even if I did have to call Therese to ask how to use the potato bag). As I was cutting the roast and putting it on the serving dish, we were talking about my messy house and my lack of energy for cooking and cleaning. I asked Mom, "Do you think I'm lazy?" I know she'll be honest, yet diplomatic, so I was expecting something like, "Well, I suppose you could put in a little more effort."

Her response surprised me -- and freed me of some of my mommy-guilt at the same time. She said, "No. You are not lazy. Your priorities are different than mine were, but you are NOT lazy." I suppose since you weren't here, you could take that to mean my priorities were out of whack. But I knew what she meant. I do work hard -- all day. When I get home, I want to be with my kids relaxing and having fun together. I don't want to spend that time cleaning and cooking and yelling at them to get their homework done. That's not quality time.

I know it's not permission to just let everything go come Hell or highwater, but it's nice to know my mom thinks I'm a good mom too. Thanks, Mom!

Afternoon Tea

QB loves tea parties. One of her favorite things to do is bring her tea set and a load of her stuffed animals down from her room to the living room and set up a tea party. She goes all out. She writes invitations to the rest of the family, dresses up the coffee table with flower arrangements and a table cloth, sets up her tea set and searches the pantry for little odds and ends to use as tea cakes.

Whenever we visit Gramma, QB and Gramma (two birds of a feather) have a tea party together. It is always a special time for both of them.

This year we had a formal afternoon tea for QB's birthday party. We have had tea party birthdays before (like I said earlier, they are her favorite), but nothing like this. It was a two-for-one party with one of QB's friends, so we mommies planned out the affair to the "tea". ;) You may not believe this, since I have no pictures to prove it, but I even wore a skirt -- QB insists on fancy attire at her tea parties, so I figured I'd oblige her just this once.

It turned out to be one of the nicest parties we've had. We had eight little girls and seven mommies there (a mother-daughter party). It never ceases to amaze me how quiet eight little girls can be. We didn't plan any games, but the girls discovered a great one on their own -- Telephone. I've never seen kids voluntarily whisper at a party before... that alone was worth all the dishes I did afterward!

One of the pretty tables.

Cut the Romantic Crap

Today's word:

quixotic: (adjective) impulsive and unpredictable; extravagantly romantic or impractical [quick-zot-ick]

I have to admit. I looked this one up before posting just to be sure I had it right. One of my former students used it for the Q word on his alphabet autobiography (see previous post on that topic), and I've liked the word ever since. It's kind of fun to say. One thing I didn't realize before, though, was it comes from the name of the title character in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote -- the guy who thought he was a knight fighting dragons, but he was really fighting windmills. Makes perfect sense.

Want examples?

When I was a junior in college (right before I met my husband), I dated this guy named Phillip. He was so quixotic, it made me want to puke. He used to stand below my balcony and read poetry really loudly until I came out to tell him to stop. Yeah, I know... EWWWW. Ironically, I wrote a poem about that ("ready or not").

Chivalry is dead. Quixoticism killed it.

My All-Time Favorite

I don't want you guys to think I'm the loquacious one, so I'm going to make a decided effort to avoid expatiating this entry. However, today we are looking at my all-time favorite word, so I can't help but be a little excited about it.

Today's word:
asinine: (adjective) ridiculously stupid [ass-uh-nine]. *Sorry, it's the only way I could get the correct pronunciation across.*

Examples: It is frustrating when I'm leading a deep class discussion, and a student suddenly raises her hand to ask an asinine question like "Can I get a drink?" I mean, seriously.... You can see we're in the middle of something here! Then there are those times when I'm trying to impart some very crucial information to my husband (I'm sure no one but me has experienced this), and he chooses that exact moment to make a completely asinine comment. So I say, "I'd appreciate it if you would keep your asinine outbursts to yourself."

We aren't allowed to use the word "stupid" at our house, but there is no rule against "asinine." I may change my mind when I actually hear it come out of one of my children's mouths, but until then I shall scream it from the mountaintops! It's just the BEST WORD EVER!

You Make a Difference to Me

Once you get out of school, it becomes more of a complex issue to make new friends. Actually, moving to a new town can be one of the loneliest prospects as an adult. When you're still in school, it's not as difficult. There are built-in opportunities to meet people, which makes it much easier. I am certain that the degree of difficulty and loneliness is compounded even further when you are a stay-at-home mom moving into a new town. I haven't experienced that, but my job involves working exclusively with teenagers, so I have experienced a lack of opportunity to meet other adults in a new place to some degree.

When I first graduated from college and moved to my husband's home town, I was lonely. He had all his childhood friends around. I had no one. The ladies in the church were not willing to put forth any effort for me -- they already had their circles of friends. I'm on the shy-er side, so I'm not the easiest person to get to know. I like to think I'm worth the effort though. :)

When we moved to our city of current residence, the only thing that changed was my husband wasn't on his old stomping grounds anymore either. We attended a church for about three years, and didn't really connect with anyone there. Then we went through a family crisis, and I realized no one at that church cared about me or my family (kind of a bad feeling). I started to try out other churches, hoping for a good fit. It took a couple of different places, but it was worth it.

It has been exactly six years. I feel connected to a group of people; I feel like I am liked (at least a little); and I feel like someone thought I was important enough to make an effort for. I just want to tell you -- my friends -- You have made a difference for me. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. My family was in crisis, and you accepted us anyway. Thank you.

I posted a youtube video bar in the margin I think is well worth your time. It's the top thumbnail. You never know what people are going through when you encounter them. Let them know they are worth the effort.

Guess Who I'm Thinking Of

Today's word:

loquacious: (adjective) excessively talkative [low-kway-shus]

Personally, I like the definition "having diarrhea of the mouth", but you can take your pick. Someone at my house can easily be described as loquacious... a little hint: it's not me; although, I do suffer from it chronically, if you know what I mean. ;) No, seriously.

Anyway, on to the examples: My children inherited their loquacious genes from their father. My students often get extra work, because they are so loquacious.

Parts of speech people, please note that a lot of adjectives can be made into adverbs simply by adding 'ly'. Kind of like what I just did to the word simple. Nouns can be made by adding the appropriate noun ending (i.e. tion, sion, ity, and ness). In this case (and I have no idea what the rule is on how it's decided), you add 'ness'. :)

Happy assimilating!