Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Goodbye...Maybe...I Don't Know...



I'm gonna be real honest with you folks. As my loyal readers I believe you deserve to know the truth.

I'm finding it pretty difficult to care about blogging right now.  It's not writer's block or a deficit of time that's been keeping me from this space.  It's not you, it's me. When I embarked on this journey, the internet filled a very obvious void in my life. I was reaching out to find like minded people, parents who got what I was going through and shared my values.  I needed to feel like I belonged to something.  Blogging helped me to look deeper into myself, which ultimately led me to look outside of myself with a more open mind.  By making friends in the virtual world, I have learned how to make better friends in the real world.

It's mostly those three dimensional friends you can blame for my absence. The void I felt 2.5 years ago has been filled.  That empty space was what motivated me to write and now I find myself without inspiration.  Now, before you get sad or mad or hungry, I would like to say that facebook shares some of the blame for my blog apathy.  I have friended most of my favorite blog writers and readers and keep up to date with their lives that way.  It's instant gratification. 

Soooo, I am going to take a pretty good break from blogging.  Maybe forever, maybe not.  Anyone who wants to find me on facebook, is welcome to do just that.  If you're here for the photos, I am active on flickr. I am also on twitter, but that account has withered, so I wouldn't bother. I am not gifted in the 140 character milieu. 

Thank for everything and adieu.
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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Violet Has Mail!

This post is woefully overdue, but here it is.

A few weeks ago, a comment exchange with Holly of Cold Spaghetti  resulted in an offer of silly bandz. I gave my consent and address and soon a letter arrived in the mail for Violet.  As much as I love e-mail, there is no substituting the joy of an actual paper letter with your name written on the front....er, a letter that contains Silly Bandz and NOT a bill, that is.






Holly is clearly the Mama of a little girl, because she KNEW even the packaging would be a source of ecstatic joy!
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Monday, July 26, 2010

Absolute Favorite (for right now)

I found a new weekly photo challenge, hosted by the paper mama. She's got a fun blog, with lots of photos, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The Paper Mama

The theme this week is "Absolute Favorite".  I have too many photos to really do an in depth search, so I limited myself to the last 6 months.


This is Vi and one of her friends, telling secrets in a cave at the children's garden.  I love that you can only see one eye and yet that eye is clearly so very serious.
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Friday, May 7, 2010

Boys and Girls


Violet has a lot of girlfriends.  It is no coincidence that I am also friends with the mothers of these girls. Which came first, the kid-ship or the Mama-ship?  I just invented two words.  There lies the problem.

Violet has complained long and loud about not having anyone to play with.  Oh sure, we have playdates, but that isn't what she means and it has taken me a long time to figure out why.  Those playdates, really are like date dates.  They are sometimes forced.  They are sometimes too long.  More importantly, they are always chaperoned.

Playdates with Vi's girlfriends double as Mommy dates. We don't mean to hover, but with eager younger siblings and needy babies and other mitigating circumstances, the playdates end up being too....well, supervised.  Kids need to run free and misbehave in benign ways.  They need the space to learn how to get away with stuff, like dumping clods of dirt on each others head.  They also need to learn how to make it known that they don't like the dirt shower, with their own voice.

**********************************************************************************

The boys moved in next door almost 2 years ago.  We've always been friendly. Their Mom is pretty cool, but we each have shit to do and time passes and you just never get around to bringing over that welcome-to-the-neighborhood coffee cake.  No matter.  Small children can smell each other. They sense a willing playmate from a mile away and no fence will keep them apart.

Our neighborhood is "colorful" and I have always been a bit "paranoid", so we have a high chain-link fence around our whole yard and each of the gates has a padlock.  This keeps the marauding thieves from stealing my recyclables and broken lawn mower, but is also keeps other children out of my yard. Until the boys came along, I was just fine with keeping the local spawn out of my yard (remember Hannah?). 

The boys would not be kept out of the yard.  I spied them scaling the fence and decided to unlock the gates and let them in.  They are a bit older than Violet, but they are sweet and funny and appropriately gentle with their preschool playmate; without treating her like something fragile. 

And so, the tables have turned.  Violet and "her boys" have forced us Mommies to get to know each other better.  Last night, I stood in my steeply angled front yard and leaned on the decorative fence chatting with my new friend, while our children did things we would probably tell them not to do if we were really paying attention.

Long after the kids should have been embarking on their nightly rituals, we said goodbye and went in the house.  Violet paused in the living room for a moment, a layer of dirt visible on her scalp and said, "I miss the boys." 

I think it's going to be a nice summer.
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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Little Beggars


We had a wild night trick or treating with our friends. Violet's first three Halloweens were spent with her camera wielding, familial entourage, so last night was her first real kid Halloween.  I had to trot to keep up with them, but it helped keep me warm.  It was so much fun.
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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Then and Now Thursday

I love amusement parks.  Growing up, trips to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio were the only vacations we ever took.  My parents were also extremely practical about the trips.  We never stayed in a hotel, or bought souvenirs. Not even the keyhole photos they take of you when you enter the park.  As a teenager, with my own discretionary income, the first thing I did was buy a souvenir keychain.

 
Circa 1995. 
I'm the girl on the right being strangled and yes I actually took this photo through the little eyepiece on my key chain souvenir.  Notice, my best friend and I have included the requisite flannel shirts in our wardrobes for the day. 
Last week, my best mommy friend and I took our girls to King's Island.  Our trip was much different from the trips of my youth.  For one thing, we had to drag along a breast pump (not for me) and make time to use it throughout the day.  Luckily, we looked so innocent at the gate, no one checked our bags.  We were relieved, but we also would have enjoyed the embarrassed look on the security guard's face.  Would you like me to demonstrate, sir? We also had to employ two babysitters in separate locations to take care of my friend's other children. When I was a teenager our biggest problem was figuring out gas money.  We fought hard for this day to happen.

  
We did get our picture taken, but by a kind stranger and not an employee of the park. We didn't ride everything, but the kids got to go on whatever they wanted, as many times as they could stand it. A passing storm cleared the cowards out of the park and we didn't wait in line all day.   Oh, and we did buy one souvenir. I just couldn't help myself.

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Wardrobe Wednesday

My dear friend M just issued another fruit from her loins and because I recently got a copy of Weekend Sewing, I made this. 


My friends, who are now parents to 3 babes, are tattoo aficionados. In fact, this fabric immediately reminded me of Mr. M and his many, many tattoos. The fabric softened a bit after washing, but it's still a little stiff for baby comfort.  We'll see if it gets worn more than once.  I'll admit that I had no interest in buying any pedestrian traditional baby fabric.  Producing something that looks like it came from Baby Gap is simply not worth the effort. Not that this was much of an effort.  I made two of these and the first one took about two hours. The second kimono probably only took me an hour. 

The picture doesn't do justice to just how small this thing is.  I should have had Violet hold it up to herself.  I must ferry it to the new baby quick or he will have outgrown it.  M's babes do not stay wee for long.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Sorrow

Yesterday, my husband's dear friend H called.  Aaron was at work and when I answered the phone I wasn't sure who I was talking to.  Her voice was broken and tearful.  To be honest, I thought I was talking to my mother for a moment, because she often calls me in that condition.  I realized who was really on the line when H said her son's name.

I still don't know what actually happened.  H was nearly impossible to understand.  All that matters is that a four month old baby is gone.

An incomprehensible mish mash of thoughts have been swirling in my head since H called.  I feel sad that I didn't get a chance to know Baby L (I only held him once) and then I am overcome with relief that I escaped the pain of a severed attachment.  I escaped that feeling of overwhelming sorrow and I feel terribly guilty for that luxury.

I want to feel grateful that Baby L has a twin sister for his mother to cling to, but I worry that Baby E will be a constant and painful reminder of the baby that was lost.  Awful thoughts about how much easier life will be with only one baby to care for sprint across my brain, chased out by the image of Baby L in his First Christmas finery.  There is nothing easy about losing a child.

Violet has the cold her father had last week. The wheeze in her chest as she slept was more than I could bear.  I checked on her a dozen times.  I keep stroking her hair and staring at her.  What would I do if I lost my child? I am quite certain that I would turn to dust and blow away.  There would be nothing left to hold me together.  H has another child.  She needs to pull herself together and love that baby and change her diapers and feed her, just the same as she did two days ago.  I don't know how she will do it. 

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Lonely Girl

I spent a great many hours alone as a child, despite having a little sister. You see, in her infinite wisdom, my mother decided at some point that the only friend I should ever need was the one she made for me with her own two ovaries. My frequent pleas for playdates (what did we call it back then?) and sleep overs were met with staunch opposition. "Go play with your sister", my mother would say from her perch on the end of the couch. Her gaze would be firmly fixed on an episode of Matlock, the cigarette smoke curling around her head as she sipped a bottomless cup of Lipton Instant Tea. My only recourse was to refuse to be my sister's willing companion. I assumed that eventually my mother would catch on and say, "Okay, Heather can spend the night whenever you want and Uganda can come over too. I was only kidding when I said she would ruin the pillow cases." It never happened. Instead, my sister became the social butterfly. By the fourth grade, Brandy was hosting friends every weekend. If we were on good terms and not trying to kill each other, I would pretend that I didn't have anything better to do than hang out with them. In fact, I had no social obligations at all to prevent me from attempting to fit in with my sister's crowd. After years of never reciprocating sleep overs and missing birthday parties because someone "forgot" about it, I was friendless. I had not bonded with a single soul.

Today, I took Violet to the "good" park. We have to drive there, but I know that there will be other children for her play with. Children who, in general, are not acquainted with a case worker from children's services. I am alone again and I have this little person who feels it too and can't verbalize it or remedy it. There is a Mommy group of some kind and everyone seems to know everyone else. I try not to listen. I try to focus on the book I brought to read, while Violet digs in the sandbox. I want so much for her to just take off running with the other kids, but there aren't any other lone kids today. They all came to meet someone they already know. I chat with another mom. We swing (argh, the cursed swing). Violet heads back to the sand and I spot a potential friend. The child's mother is deep in conversation on the other side of the box. I actually say to Violet, "Introduce yourself." I make a face at the sound of my own voice. I have no idea how to do this properly. My anxiety is vibrating the sand under my feet. Luckily, all they needed was a little nudge to realize that they could shovel sand together. It isn't long before another little girl enters the box and they are actually playing. It is brief. Violet is hungry and secretly damp and her cheeks are a little too pink. So, we go get ice cream, alone.

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