Angel’s Weblog

Lily posing for the camera.
08 January 2010

I don’t know if many of you read Benign Chaos, but, in case you do, I feel like I should give an explanation for recent posts over there… you know, the whole “Year of Joy” thing.

You see, I am desperately lonely. I eat every meal alone. I go throughout my day doing my chores all alone. I see Matt for an hour or an hour and a half every night before I go to bed. My days are filled with monotonous, repetitive housework; the children require lots of attention; and I do all of this completely alone, day after day.

So I’m trying to change the pattern. The one I have now is not working. My depression seeps through the house, filling it with a gray, sad fog.

And thus, the Year of Joy. Things have got to change. Myself and my family cannot keep living like this. So, anyways, that’s what all those posts are about.

Lily and our new kitty, Diamond
16 November 2009

It’s been said many times before, but it is such an important and yet easily shrouded truth that I feel I really must state it again:

It’s okay to have boundaries with your children. Complete sacrifice is neither required nor healthy for you, your children or your family.

It’s okay to have boundaries with your children.

Love from a mom who is also trying to live this statement.

I don’t dress Lily. I quit dressing Lily before she turned
two-years-old because the arguments weren’t worth it.
And I have to say, Lily, at the age of four, has a better
sense of style than I do at 41-years-old. This is the outfit
that she put together today.
27 September 2009

I am a dyed-in-the-wool introvert. I’ve always been an introvert, although there have been times in my life that it was less acute than others. However, as I spend day after day in the house with no company except two dogs and two preschoolers, I am coming dangerously close to a certain line that all introverts must stay wary of: I’m about two steps away from being a shut-in.

I have become more and more disconnected as the lonely days pass by. I play Warcraft or watch TV to bide the time, and with each passing day, I am just a little more disconnected from human interaction and the natural world.

Not a good place to be. Now I must find a way out of the dark cave I have wandered in. I’m sure I’ll find the exit, but it will take some probing. Becoming reconnected, after allowing almost all connections to lapse, takes time.

Clara loves the sandbox. Whenever she visits,
she’ll easily spend an hour playing in the sandbox.
Right now, there’s a bunch of fallen leaves in the sandbox
that we need to clean out and get it ready for a summer
of play.
02 February 2009

Over the past three months, I have put on 10 to 15 pounds (one stone for you Brits out there). The weight gain came out of nowhere. My weight has been a stable 180 lbs for the past four years since Lily was born. Then all of sudden, bam! I started gaining weight.

I had been trying to figure out what it was. Am I eating differently? Has my metabolism changed again? When I was in my 20s, I was one of those folks who could eat anything (and I did) and never gain weight. People always said to me, “You’re so lucky” and “Your bad eating habits will catch up with you.” And they were right. I was lucky and my unhealthy eating did catch up with me. At age 28, to be precise. I shot up from my healthy weight of 150 to 180. Then I kind of stabilized.

Yesterday I was talking to Carla about my weight gain and that none of my clothes fit. I have to suck in my stomach right now to put on my slacks, and once I have them on, they are so uncomfortably tight. Then she asked, “Is Damian still taking as much milk as he used to?”

Holy macaroni! That was it! The baby has started weaning himself. He doesn’t take near as much milk. I’ve had a free-for-all with food for the last five years, between being pregnant and nursing. Now my body doesn’t need all those extra calories to produce babies or milk.

Damn. My food playtime is over. Time to adjust my eating.

Lily pouring dry grass all over herself and Damian
30 January 2009

A random weird fact: I always cry at the end of Lady and the Tramp when Trusty is lying unconscious in the mud after being hit by the animal control wagon and Jock starts howling sadly.

So, just a warning to any women out there who have not had babies yet: be prepared to cry at every sentimental cartoon Disney scene after you have had children. Annoying but true.

Logan stayed this past weekend with us, and, among the things he said
he wanted to do, he wanted to make pumpkin pie from pumpkins. So,
Uncle Matt, Logan, Lily and Damian all crowded into the kitchen to make
homemade pumpkin pie from pumpkins.
18 October 2008

I have been working hard for the past few days “catching up.” I had descended into a bit of a funk, and, as I go into the murky mire, so does my house. I told Matt that if he ever wanted to know what mental state I am currently in, just look at the condition of the house.

But the house is clean again. For the first time in perhaps a week, I woke up this morning without an agenda. There was no crisis cleaning to be done because I had finally caught up on the household cleaning. So, here it is 1:15pm, and I have been kind of meandering around in a mopey sort of way. “What do I do next? I’m so tired; I just want to take a break today after so many days of work.”

So, ostensibly, I have a day off today. But I’m still in “responsible mode” and I’m having a hell of a time gearing out of it. After being so responsible and so reliable for years (ever since giving birth to Lily), I realized that I don’t know how to have fun anymore. I know how to clean the dishes and feed the children and do the laundry and pay the bills. I know how to plan and execute the fun of others — parties, trips, festivals — and organize, clean and cook while others are having fun during these events, but having fun myself… I’ve forgotten. My understanding of how to have fun has atrophied from lack of use over the past few years.

And even the things that I once enjoyed — writing, gardening, running — they have become too “goal oriented” to be fun anymore. I don’t write to enjoy the process of creating a story while playing with the English language; I write to have a chapter finished so I can upload a podcast. I write to have a completed story, not to create a story. I don’t garden to tend to and watch my beautiful plants grow towards the sky; I garden to have pleasant backyard for myself and my family, and I get impatient that the garden is not already completed. I don’t run to enjoy the feeling of my body; I run for exercise and to get to the goal of a marathon.

Children know how to have fun. They have fun all the time. They don’t go to the park to slide and swing and run with the intention of burning 500 calories so they can fit into skinny jeans. But as a responsible, reliable and really useful adult and surrounding myself with all these goals, the actual moment of life gets lost.

It’s so hard to reclaim though. Sure, I have the mental realization, “Hey, I need to be more childlike in my approach to life, fun, and not being so goal-oriented,” but it’s another thing entirely to grok that philosophy and have it become a natural extension of myself. (I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of another word that worked as well as grok, and thesaurus.reference.com doesn’t even have an entry for grok. Go figure.)

And, in the end, I still have to wash the dishes, feed the children, do the laundry, plan the trips, and execute the fun of others. But, while washing, cleaning and planning, I want to also reclaim the natural joy of life that comes from being in the moment — playing with words and plants and my own body — and appreciating this amazing physical realm where we are so privileged to live. This is something that children innately understand, but many adults lose this skill as we grow up, become responsible, and focus too myopically on our life goals.

Steve, Clara, Lily and Damian riding the tractor pull
at the Baptist Children’s Home Fall Festival
13 October 2008

My computer and the TV each have their own gravity well when they are turned on. To avoid being sucked in and hours of my life (or my children’s lives) disappearing forever in a foggy stupor of mindless media, I have to keep them turned off when we are not actively using them for a purpose.

Lily in her Cinderella dress holding baby Cinderella.
04 August 2008

After a long, anticipated wait by our three-year-old daughter, the next Ariel movie, Ariel’s Beginning, was released this past Tuesday.  Super Daddy bought it on the sly and put it on after dinner as a surprise.

I cried.  Yes, a direct-to-DVD Disney movie made me cry.  When the whole family was together Tuesday night, I hid my tears because… well, because that’s what we do in this society, isn’t it?  But the next day, when Matt was at work and Lily watched it again, I got the lump in my throat again when King Triton races to Ariel and holds her unconscious body in his arms.  And this time, since there was no one watching and therefore no need to hide my emotions, I cried.  Once I gave myself permission, I sobbed like a little baby.

And I realized that I wasn’t crying simply because it was an emotional scene in the movie.  That was merely the vehicle that finally brought all my sadness out from under the rock where I had been keeping it.  I was crying because of all the crap that has happened this past month.  I was crying because my ITP has gotten worse and my hematologist has recommended a splenectomy.  I was crying because I gave into societal pressure and tried to wean Damian, and the extreme pain of weaning too soon was acute for both of us.  I was crying because I had been dealing with the intense fear of putting my writing and my ego up on the internet.  I was crying because my beloved cat of 11 years was violently killed by a dog right before my eyes.  I was crying because when you’re a parent of young children, you have to keep your shit together no matter what you’re feeling on the inside so you can do the laundry and feed the children and make sure the bills are paid on time.

I was crying because I desperately needed to cry and the movie finally gave me an opportunity.  And that’s when I realized that sad movies are sometimes more than just storytelling; sometimes they are a cathartic release of emotion.

Lani can often be seen lounging in the sandbox.
04 August 2008

Lily’s favorite character from High School Musical is not the leading lady, Gabriella, but the antagonist (well, as close to an antogonist as you’ll find in HSM), Sharpay.  How can this be, you ask.  Wouldn’t Lily identify with the sweet girl next door?  Well, Sharpay has the sparkliest, flashiest clothes and hair by far, so she wins by a landslide.  There really is no competition, actually.

When I surfed the internet to find pictures of Sharpay to illustrate Lily’s love, I found this blog entry about another little girl infatuated with Sharpay’s sense of style.  It’s really funny, and Kenzi, the little girl in the blog entry, sounds exactly like Lily.  In fact Lily bought a little pink sparkly sweater — and she wears it all the time in the heat of the Texas summer — because it looks like a sweater Sharpay has.

Sharpay Evans is molding the fashion style of the next generation.  In 15 years, when our little four and five-year-olds turn 20, don’t be surprised if shiny, sparkly and pink is the leading fashion craze.

If you have ever wondered what a 3-year-old
who does not want her picture taken anymore
looks like, here it is:

Damian is weaned. I’m both happy and sad about this.  I’m happy to have my body back after three and half years of nursing two children, but I’m also sad that I will no longer share that intimate moment with either of my children… very sad about that actually.  That chapter of my life story has ended, and it was a beautiful chapter.

Lily is potty-trained and has finally moved out of the security of her pull-ups.

Damian said his first word which is “Yeah!”  We were all throwing our hands in the air saying “Yeah!” and then Damian did it too.  Since he only communicates through grunts and growls, “Yeah!” definitely counts as a word.

I have had a weekend filled with pain and drugs.  I woke up on Friday with my neck muscles locked tightly and I couldn’t move my head without extreme pain.  A doctor visit later, I was loaded up with Vicodin, muscle relaxants, and steroids.  I can now move my head and the pain is under control, but I have been doped up all weekend long.

… so kind of an eventful weekend actually.  Oh, and I’ve been working hard on RomancePodcast.com.  I should have the first podcast up on Friday.  For me, that is both exciting and scary.  There is nothing like having your ego readily available for anyone to download.  But what is the point of being alive if you choose not to live, right?

I hope everyone else had as surreal and progressive a weekend as we did at our little house.