Mommy vision
25 February 2008

Matt and I are considering the purchase of an SUV, the Toyota RAV4 to be exact.  “Why?!” you ask, “Why, when you are a hippy and your husband is European and both of these groups cling to small, fuel-efficient cars with an unmatched self-righteous passion, are you considering an SUV?”

SUVs really fit our current lifestyle.  After Matt, myself, and both the kids in their carseats have been put into the car and the two strollers have been put into the trunk, my car is completely full.  So we’re moving up a size.  We’re looking to move up a size in house as well within the next couple of years.  Bigger family, bigger car, bigger house, bigger bills.

My only real fear is that we will not be allowed back into Austin.  Folks that don’t live here don’t realize that you actually have to fill out a questionnaire in order to become a resident of Austin.  Here is a sample of some of the questions (to gain residency, you must answer “yes” to 90% of the questions):

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4.  Do you have a tattoo, body piercing, brightly colored dyed hair or dreadlocks? 

5.  Are you gay or do you have a friend who is gay?

6.  Are you in a band or do you have a friend who is in a band?

11.  Do you own at least two domain names and/or two DBAs?

15.  Is some of the software on your home computer open-source?

16.  Do you own a Linux server?

(If you don’t know what open-source software or Linux is, the city planners feel it is best that you stop at this point and move to Round Rock or Pflugerville first and slowly become acclimated to Austin society before moving directly into Austin.)

20.  Do you own a small, fuel-efficient (preferably hybrid) car and openly mock people with large vehicles?

28.  Would you vote for a transient cross-dresser and/or a fictitious comic strip character for political office?

34.  For at least five years of your life, were you enrolled in college (the years do not have to be consecutive and actual graduation is optional)?

39.  Do you feel the Democratic Party is too conservative?

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The longer I live in the suburbs, the more I am assimilated.  If we get this SUV, I am one step closer to being a true suburban mommy.  Now I just need a bumper sticker that says, “My child is an honor student at her preschool” to put on it.

Doll dressforms in the computer/sewing room.
28 February 2008

I really like Project Runway.  It’s the only reality show I watch; it’s a show about people who have real skill and real passion.  And Tim Gunn is great.  And what other TV show creates such memorable quotes as, “Where the hell is my chiffon?!”

In season three, the mother of four who participated, Laura Bennett, said something really funny.  She was always dressed nicely, and she said, “I never dress down.  As a mother of four, that is a slippery-slope into sweat pants.”  As a mother of two who has slid down that slope already, I laughed and laughed when she said that.

Perhaps it’s time to dress for the job I want and not the job I have.  Though I like being the mother of my two beautiful preschool children, I don’t want to always be a mom to preschool children.  I hope to eventually join the world of competent, professional adults again.  And I don’t think they wear spit-up covered sweat pants. 😉

Damian and Lani playing in the back garden.
27 February 2008

When Matt was a teenager, he participated in a 22-mile race-walk a couple of times, so he has more experience in long-distance endurance sports than I do.  He didn’t train for the race-walks; he was a teenager and naturally had that boundless energy.  But he did say that the hardest part was the middle.  He said the beginning and end are easy, but the middle is tedious.  He said in regards to this up-coming marathon, “We are training for the middle.”

This morning, while eating cheese and bread with my gorgeous son, I was thinking about how we were so excited for the first two weeks of gym and training for this marathon, and then — very easily, mind you — we dropped gym completely for three weeks.  The excitement and newness had quickly worn off.

We had entered “the middle.”  The middle of most things are tedious: training towards a physical goal, sewing, wood-working projects, curling Ariel’s hair (which we did last night by the way; we being “Matt and I,” so Matt has another experience tucked under his belt that he never even conceived of before having a daughter and a wife).

So let’s salute the character-building tedious middle, the wall that’s a pain in the ass to climb.  You are the true test.

Lily feeding her horses lunch.
03 February 2008

Matt cleaned my car today.  Actually, let me be more precise: Matt detailed my car today.   When we bought his Mazda 3 two years ago, he received three free details from the dealership as part of the deal.  So his car gets detailed once a year.  And it’s beautiful afterwards; it looks like a new car.

And I was always jealous.  My poor car, though we cleaned it, never received the tender loving care that his car does.  So Matt spent hours today giving my car a thorough cleaning, including shampooing the upholstery.

I will never leave him.  He is a good good man. 🙂

And speaking of the suburban dad as the modern day hero, check out this editorial on NPR.  Quite funny.

Matt and I are so on top of Valentine’s Day this year.  Last year, Damian was only six-weeks-old, so we both agreed to blow off Valentine’s Day.  But my honey was such a supreme honey and secretly bought me flowers and a hot pink iPod and attempted to take me to dinner.  He didn’t know that restaurants are completely booked on Valentine’s Day.  It still was a really nice V Day because he had completely ignored our agreement and surprised me.

For this year, we have decided to have a meal at home because we have two small kids.  As we were making the V Day menu last night, it sounded so good I said, “We have to invite someone!  It’s always fun to share meals like this.”  So Carla’s family is coming to our house for dinner this Valentine’s Day.

Anyways, I am very very very busy… so busy that there is no picture with this update, just a change to a Valentine’s theme.  Gotta go.

A Bob Mackie creation, circa 1991.
I think this is a really beautiful dress,
and an adult version of the Disney
Princess dresses made for children.
I got the pictures from this website.

Before I begin with the topic at hand, I would like to say that, when you have two preschool children, writing a blog entry becomes an act of will.

Now, onto “The romance of romance” or, more precisely, “The strange appeal of the Disney Princesses.”  Lily is very much a girly-girl.  She grew into this personality all by herself; Matt and I merely gave her the freedom to explore her own tastes.  And, being such a girly-girl, she was early-on attracted to clothes.  In fact, I quit dressing her before she turned two-years-old because the arguments weren’t worth the trouble.  She insisted on picking her own clothes.

As she has become more explorative with clothes, she has been attracted to the Disney Princess line of dresses, and, from there, to the Disney Princesses in general.  And, here’s my dirty little secret: I like the Disney Princess line of merchandising as well.  I don’t like the ubiquitous quality of the line — like all things that do financially well in corporate America, Disney milks that cash cow for every little penny it can possibly get.

Since the Princesses have invaded my house, partially due to Lily and partially due to myself, I have been thinking about their appeal to the feminine.  And I think it comes down to romance.  And I don’t mean romance as in “falling in love.”  Lily could care less about the princes; they are just a minor plot point as far as she is concerned.  And I am already in love; my prince charming exists in my life on a daily basis.

I mean romance as in beautiful dresses, climbing roses, the smell of lilies, and idealic pastoral afternoons.  I think the Disney Princesses are a representation of this; they are always in their flowing dresses and surrounded by flowers.  (Their Prince Charmings are very rarely pictured with them.)  For American culture, they have evolved into the archetype of the romantic feminine within us — the part of us that longs to live an idealic romantic life full of flowers and kitchen gardens in the French countryside.

I looked up the term “archetype” to make sure I was using the word correctly, and dictionary.com said “the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype.”  And I thought, “Well, something can’t really evolve into an archetype, can it?”  But the sentence still settles really well with me.  Culture evolves; archetypes evolve.  And our children are looking to Ariel and Snow White, not Venus, to define the American romantic feminine.  Which, truthfully, is a bit scary.  As far as I know, none of the Disney princesses went to university.  Maybe, just like our mothers did, we need to expose them to Gloria Steinem as well as Snow White.

Anyways, these are my humble thoughts on the strange appeal of the Disney Princesses to both young and old women.  Since I’ve ferreted out their base note, I’m looking elsewhere for iconic images that conjure dreams of a romantic life.  The Disney Princesses are a bit… well, packaged.  They have the shiny coating and one-dimensional lack of depth that comes from corporate mass marketing.

… I do still like them though. 😉

ps. For another take on the Disney Princesses, you can read this article, titled “What’s Wrong with Cinderella?” by Peggy Orenstein and written for the NY Times.

pps. There is an excellent movie whose main character also dreams of a romantic life (romantic as I have defined it here, and not as in “falling in love”), titled “Kamikaze Girls.”  It’s Japanese so it’s subtitled, but I can’t recommend this movie strongly enough.  I really really enjoyed it.

Lily, Damian and I watched baby Clara for a couple of hours
last Friday while Steve went to his doctor appointment.
11 January 2008

When I was in college, I was always behind on my homework.  This was because I was a procrastinator and never did work in a timely fashion.  I had a recurring daydream in which time would stop and I would catch up on all my homework while lounging on a beautiful beach.  After I graduated, I thought that I would no longer have that daydream.  I thought that now homework was in my past, I would no longer feel the need to stop time in order to catch up.

Boy, was I ever wrong.  I want to do so many things, but I have two huge hurdles that I am directly responsible for:  1) my inability to stay focused on a single task; and 2) my procrastination.  And I wonder, if I was able to stay focused and didn’t procrastinate, would I accomplish more?  Or, is it woven into the very nature of time and human curiousity that we will always have more things we desire to do than we have time for?

I don’t know the answer to that.  If I ever learn to focus and quit procrastinating, maybe someday I will find out.

I’ve been very tired recently.  It’s not easy juggling two children and housework, as well as trying to find time for my own adult hobbies (such as blogging).  And Lily is now of an age where I can blow her off.  “No, Lily, I’m not going to hold you; I’m too tired.”  “No, Lily, I’m not going to sit on the swing with you; I’m doing the dishes.”  You can’t tell a baby these things because they will just cry.  But a toddler not only understands my words, but I can now enforce my will.

I’ve been feeling a little guilty about that lately.  Then, this morning while I was answering email, this picture showed up on my Google Desktop Photo Gadget:

Ben and Cody looking for Easter Eggs in Deb and Bruce’s backyard.
Approx. 1998 or 1999 when Cody was two or three-years-old

Look how Cody is leaning into his Dad.  At this age, all children want is to be with their parents.  Their world is their parents.

This is Cody now at 11-years-old:

Lily asleep on Cody.
Thanksgiving 2007

Cody no longer goes on Easter Egg hunts with his Dad.  Cody does other fun things with his Dad that older kids do like go to amusement parks, but the little kid stuff is over.

Lily is still very much a little kid.  Lily still wants to snuggle under a blanket with me as I rock her.  And Lily still wants to be right up against my body and have me stroke her hair as she falls asleep.  And Lily still wants me to read her books.  And I have only a finite time in which she will want me to hold her and snuggle her and be right there with her.  And I’m wasting it.

I’m afraid of the future.  I already know that I will miss my children when they grow up.  Thankfully the picture of Cody and Ben gave me a glimpse into my own future, and that tiny peak through the window of time showed me what was important now:  being with my beautiful amazing family.

Lily asked Santa for a Cinderella dress this year.
27 December 2007

Even before I had children — even before I was pregnant and children were just a longing hope in my  heart — I was looking forward to playing Santa with my kids.  I was looking forward to the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa… all the childhood magical fantasies.

My mom didn’t like the idea of Santa because of the materialistic aspect of that fantasy, so we always knew that Santa wasn’t real.  As I grew older, I felt cheated.  Everyone else had these magical childhood memories of Santa, and all I had was cold, impersonal reality.  So I told myself that I would let my children participate in the fantasy.

This year was the first year that Lily really understood who Santa was, so we really played it up.  We talked about him a lot, and we wrote him a letter.  And, as the season wore on, I became more and more disenchanted with this particular childhood illusion, for two very distinct reasons actually.

First, I constantly lied to my child.  I made an oath about six years ago to not lie.  When I made the oath, I thought it would be very easy to keep because I didn’t consider myself a liar.  Turns out, I lied all the time and it has been much harder to keep than I anticipated.  I lied to get out of social engagements; I lied so I wouldn’t hurt people’s feelings; I lied to get what I wanted.  I had no idea I lied as much as I did until I made that oath.  Try not lieing for a month or so… it’s quite hard.

Anyways, I lied up a storm during the month of December.  Lied lied lied to my precious daughter with whom I would like to only share truth.  So I’m having a real problem with that.

And secondly, just like my mom said, Santa is really materialistic.  I love the idea of Santa, but the actual practice is making me cringe.  In the Christmas movies, Santa is more than a shill for corporate America.  The movies are full of Christmas sentiment.  But, in actual practice, all that gets shoved aside, and we write our letters that say, “I would like x for Christmas.”  No love, no goodwill towards men, no charity… only “I want.”

Since this was my first year to work with the Santa mythos, we went the “I want” route, but that really didn’t work for me.  It went against every liberal lefty bone in my body.  Matt and I have to tweak Santa to fit him into our family’s value system.  I’m sure we can somehow make the magic of Santa fit into the magic of the Woodings household. 😉

The children spent the first hour of Christmas morning snuggled on Daddy’s lap, waking up and opening the stockings that Santa brought in the night.

We’re having a very very nice Christmas holiday in England. To give you an example, I have been dealing with severe jetlag, sporadic sleep, and I got ill with a stomach virus and have been unable to eat. And yet, with all this, I’ve still had a great time with Matt’s family.

As an adult, and particularly as a parent, the joy of Christmas changes from receiving presents to watching the joy of other people receive your presents, and in particular watching your children receive your presents.

So, as we bought the gifts for the children through the first part of December, I was getting more and more excited about watching the joy on the children’s faces come Christmas morning.  I thought this would be the high point of my Christmas.

I was wrong.

The highest point of my Christmas has been watching my husband come alive.  He has been away from England and his family for three Christmases in a row.  Last Christmas, the third Christmas away from home, he was very melancholy the whole holiday.  We both agreed then, even if he had to thumb down a plane on the runway, he had to go home for Christmas.

And, though I knew he would be happy coming home, I didn’t expect to see the light glow inside of him like it has this Christmas.  He has lit up like a Christmas tree.  This trip home has rejuvenated his… his… well… everything inside him and outside him and his children and wife near him.  He did really need to come home for Christmas.

Also, my in-laws bought me a wide-angle lens for my Nikon D70s!  So the joy of Christmas this year was about receiving gifts as well. ;)  Expect to see wide-angle pictures uploaded soon.  Matt and I have both been playing with the lens a lot.

And then, of course, watching the joy on my children’s faces, as well as the faces of all of Matt’s family.

It’s been a really nice holiday.