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Posted By: organizemom on
I remember my father saying that all the time to my sister and I. GOd how I hated to hear him yell that out. Sure enough, I find myslef holding back those same words. This time it's my 10 yr old daughter. Though I would never say those words, man it couldn't be more true. As she approached puberty, I find that she is more unorganized, forgetful, and snippy ( okay, the snippy is a gimme). Anyone else gong through this.
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Posted By: yourpotentialpower on
Dear Blog Buddies,
I am really looking forward to the Beijing Olympics. 08.08.08. Sounds great!
Love the Olympics. As a parent you can't help wondering....hmmmm.....I wonder if that will be my son/daughter one day, up there receiving the gold. Nice little day dream.
It just seems rather odd and confusing to see the Olympics and the Dalai Lama holding apparently opposing views of China.
The Dalai Lama always looks like he is about to burst into great big belly laughs at any moment and he would be a brilliant dinner guest at a dinner party wouldn't he? Along with George Clooney, which of course goes without saying! You cannot help liking and admiring the Dalai Lama regardless of your political or religious views.
How amazing would it be to have someone announce one day that you were born to be special, that you were born to enlighten the world and govern your country peacefully and with compassion, that you were in fact the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama? Wouldn't that just about blow your mind! And look how well he has handled that enormous pressure and how he has kept to his guns (sorry!) and persistently protested peacefully for the immediate and unconditional return of Tibet to it's independent status while governing in exile from Daramasala, India and being an ambassador for peace around the world. What an inspiration.
It made me think.....
We are all responsible for our choices. I truly believe that we each have the capacity to contribute to world peace in our humble lives, just as the Dalai Lama plays his part, we too can play our part.
What is your view of China?
I came across this cartoon and was struck by the enormous power of consumerism and how every choice has the potential to have a global consequence. It is so important to be conscious of our choices as individuals and as nations. Do you support China's annexation of Tibet? Are you sure about that?
Food for thought?
Tags:
beijing, parenting, life coach, parent, love
Posted By: yourpotentialpower on
Dear Blog Buddies,
Angelina and Brad finally welcomed their fraternal twins into the world this week in the South of France. YAY! It seems celebrity baby names are quite extraordinary these days. Their baby girl was named Vivienne Marcheline. Their baby boy was named Knox to go with their other boys Maddox and Pax. Sounds like a Dr. Seuss dream...."There is Knox in a box with a fox....etc....!"
And then Nicole Kidman had her baby on a Monday and named her Sunday.
Matthew McConaughey had a baby boy that he wanted to name Budweiser (OMG Men!) but eventually named him Levi. In the same vein, I am surprised there are not more children out there called Green Bay Packers or some such name. I had to persuade my husband not to include the names Callaway, Titleist or Ping in our son's name!
Then there is Gwyneth and Chris Martin with their delightful children Apple and Moses. They sound like some kind of weird twisted biblical expletive when you say the siblings names together. Oh Apple and Moses!!!!
Jamie Lynn Spears just had a bonny baby girl, Maddie. Should fit in well with the family. Mad, Madder, Maddie. Hmmmm.....
In the future will the singer/songwriters of the day be singing these names. Eg. Instead of Neil Diamond's 'Sweet Caroline' will Natasha Bedingfield be singing about 'Sweet Harlow Winter Kate?' (Nicole Richie's baby girl)
I think Sir Bob Geldof takes the biscuit though. His 3 daughters with Paula Yates are named Fifi Trixibelle Geldof, Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof and Little Pixie Geldof. I kid you not! Imagine being called Little Pixie Geldof as a High School Senior!!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
In a BBC Brit sitcom called the Vicar of Dibley there is a really lovable but dopey character called Alice Tinker and she wants to name her child after the Teletubbies- 'Tinkie Winkie La La Dipsy Po.' This is completely fictional sitcom stuff but I still think she gives Sir Bob a run for his money!! (Just as an aside, after reading the Da Vinci Code and noting that her name rhymes with chalice, Alice decides she is in fact a descendant of Jesus! Hehehhe!)
Frank Zappa has children called Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Magick. Alrighty then!
So I researched the daftest name I could find. And here it is.....
Tarquin Fin-tin-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel.
It is his actual legal name. He is a British (had to be!!!) political candidate self-renamed after a Monty Python character. Born John Desmond Lewis.
I absolutely love all these names and applaud the creativity and guts of the above mentioned parents. Good on them, I say!
Does your child have an unusual name? Post them here and let me know, I would love to hear from you.
Abyssinia,
Love and light,
LauraXXXXXXXXX
Tags:
brad pitt, angelina jolie, baby names, brit blog, life coach
Posted By: marissalevin on
I showed my oldest son Jared a picture of me tonight. It was a picture that is 10 years, 362 days old. In the picture I was wearing a dress. At the time of the picture, I remember that I actually thought it was a really pretty, somewhat sexy dress. Looking at it now, it definitely more closely resembles an expensive tent. The fact that I thought, at 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant, that I looked even remotely sexy shows how badly my hormones messed with my head. This dress was so large and so full, and the pattern so ugly, that my picture should have been used in an abstinence ad with a caption that reads, "STOP. DON'T GO ANY FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO TURN INTO THIS."
When I showed Jared this picture, he laughed his head off. He said, "Mom that looks nothing like you!" I said, "I know Jared. This is just the first of many times in these past 11 years that you have transformed me into someone I don't recognize."
I know it is so cliche to lament about how quickly your children grow. I can vividly remember the day we took Jared home from the hospital. I thought every other driver on I-66 was driving like a maniac because they were going 50 MPH. How could they be so insensitive to go so fast when I had a newborn in the car? We were so clueless. Thankfully, our neighbor Carol was a grandmother to 4 grandchildren and was also an ER nurse. Adam and I were like two deer in headlights. Carol actually gave Jared his first bath in the sink because Adam and I were so terrified.
When they are infants, the hours feel like years. Especially the hours between 1:00 AM and 4:00 AM when everyone else you know is sleeping, and you are driving around the neighborhood because driving is the only thing that soothes your crying infant. Eventually, you need to stand your ground and let your baby cry it out... let them fall asleep on their own. I remember when Jared was 4 months old and we made up our minds to let him "soothe" himself to sleep in his crib. I called my older brother who was way ahead of me with his kids, and I asked him if I was doing psychological damage to Jared by letting him cry. He said, "Marissa, you aren't putting him in a freezer. He's in his crib." By the time the conversation ended, he was asleep.
Leaving your child at this stage is part pleasure and part torture. You so much need a break from the constant parenting, but you torture yourself with guilt. The first time we went to the movies, the sitter called me and said Jared wouldn't stop crying. I called my sister in-law to ask her if we should leave the movie early. She told us that by the time we would get home, he would be asleep. She was right. I have no idea what movie it was, but we all survived.
When they are toddlers, your home is a war zone. There are booby traps, concealed weapons, and land mines all over the place. You expend great time, energy, and money doing whatever you can to safeguard your home. Locked cabinets, barricaded toilets, and portable fences are installed all over the place, just to keep a 25-pound child safe.
It's also about this time that this little creature really starts to spread his wings and formulate opinions. I believe Jared was about 3 years old when he decided it was time to drink milk in a cup without a lid. I distinctly remember cautioning him not to place the cup too close to the edge of the table. Two minutes later, he and my cushioned chairs were wearing the glass of milk. He burst into tears and yelled, "Mommy, you don't have a brain!!"
Fast forward to the early elementary years. These are the times of first school days, first bus rides, sleepovers, and for many kids, team sports. Their personalities really start to take shape. They are able to articulate their likes and dislikes, and you can start to see them "clicking" with others. Their strengths and interests begin to blossom. They begin to formulate meaningful relationships with people outside of their immediate families. They know how to manipulate babysitters. They are morphing into their own little people.
From about first grade to fourth grade, huge changes take place. As an adult, a three-year time span doesn't seem so significant. But in the life of a child, it is considerable! Jared has emerged as someone that is highly sociable, extremely extroverted, very analytical, and really funny. He is a wonderful athlete, a voracious reader, a highly skilled math student, and an avid chess player. He has a strong sense of justice and will often protect or fight for the "underdog." He's a natural leader. He's family-focused, compassionate, expressive, and loves to take care of younger children and animals. He has plans to be a NBA Basketball player, and if that doesn't work out, perhaps a pediatrician or veterinarian.
Those are great qualities, but he's still a child. Which means he is still obnoxious, arrogant, argumentative, a bit full of himself, and lazy when things come too easy for him. He knows he has a good understanding of many topics, so he thinks he is ready for certain information before he really is. He's slightly precocious, and sometimes in a hurry to grow up too fast. I tell him to not rush things and to savor being a little kid. He also still displays self-doubt and insecurity. He's asked me what happens if he likes a girl and she doesn't like him. I told him that it's almost certain to happen, and that there will be times when a girl likes him and he doesn't like her. It's all part of life, and the learning experience of growing up.
Jared is entering fifth grade, and we're now at the pre-adolescent stage. I look at Jared and while I still seem some remnants of his early childhood, I can now visualize what he will look like as a teenager. His voice is changing, his body is changing, he is developing a sense of self-confidence and maturity that allows us to enjoy him and relate to him on an entirely different level. And he is discovering girls.
Adam had a great day with Jared on Saturday. They went to the gym, shot hoops together, lifted weights together, and went swimming together. Then they went to Costco together for some shopping and lunch. They were companions and friends, not only father and son.
I really like this stage because Jared still feels young enough to need a good hug & kiss goodnight, and he still loves to hug and cuddle. He loves being with me, and my approval matters to him. He is still my little boy. But at the same time, he is comfortable with his own independence, and is slowly learning his own limitations. He has firm ideas about what is or is not good for him. He is on his way to making good decisions when the safety net of his parents is not around to catch him.
As Jared experiences these changes, Adam and I also change. We're able to let down our guard a bit with him, and enjoy him in a way that is new to us.
But there are some interesting challenges that come up. For example, I used to have a difficult time distinguishing Jordan's clothes from Jared's clothes in the laundry. Now, I have a difficult time distinguishing Jared's clothes from Adam's clothes. But being the only girl in the house, I didn't think I would have to face any confusion regarding my clothes. I was wrong.
The other night, as Jared was getting ready for bed, he said to me, "Mom, do you know if I have any more of these boxers? They are really comfortable." He lifted up his shirt to show them to me. I looked at him with my mouth wide open and said, "No Jared you definitely don't have any more boxers like that." He said, "Can you get me some?" I replied, "No, that's not possible because those boxers you are wearing Jared.... are my gym shorts."
If this conversation is any indication of what is to come over the next few years, I may want to dig up that dress again - and use it as a tent to hide...
Happy 11th Birthday Jared. I Love You.
Tags:
birthday, parenting, adolescence, kids
Posted By: thebigagoo on
My recent blog “I Swore I Would Never” seems to have struck a chord with a few readers. Many of you have responded and told me how much you have enjoyed this blog. Here’s what one reader had to say:
“I absolutely adore this post. I am sitting here in our study with the hormonal tears of a pregnant woman, my toddler sleeping in the next room. In between the two rooms is the stack of Mega Blocks I nearly broke my neck on trying to get to the computer. I totally understand every word of this blog. I wish all women would read this. Especially the women like the author’s earlier self. It is hard when you are out and about with your kids having a good time and then become acutely aware of disapproving glances or downright rude stares from some young woman with no stretch marks. The worst is the obvious looking up and down of your outfit. So what if there is ketchup on my shirt? It got there because I just got the best hug ever from a two year old who just happens to like chicken nuggets dipped fifteen times each in a massive pile of ketchup. Dang hormones, typing that last sentence made me start crying again.”
posted by Great Sommelier
Thanks Great Sommelier, it made my day to know that I am not the only one and others can relate to this amazing and wonderful thing called motherhood!
Now going into my fourth year (of motherhood), I have to say that the crazy, mind-boggling and often completely overwhelming no longer seems so incomprehensible, but instead just commonplace. Over this holiday weekend we attended a BBQ, had a day at the pool and an evening with friends at our house. Each and every event was filled with kids, noise, chaos, confusion and half-finished sentences in between broken conversations. Each set of parents juggled food, spills, trips to the toilet, bumps, cries and negotiations over who did what to whom. The babies got trampled over by the bigger kids; the toys got fought over by the ones still not able to understand how to share. Only one small, uncherished item got broken, and the two bowls of food on the floor were quickly cleaned up by the collective parents.
It all was very unstructured as parties or events go, and between diaper changes and nap times, crying spells and tug of wars, we as the parents just helped, provided and attended to whichever kid needed it at the time. While I assisted my friend’s daughter with taking off her shoes, someone else held my baby. When my son wanted more ketchup while I was breastfeeding, a friend’s dad fetched it for him. Each parent took a turn with whichever youngster needed help, whether it was on the slide, in the water, getting juice or brushing off a scraped knee. It didn’t seem to matter whose child it was, just whoever was closest.
There was, however, a moment when all the toddlers were at the kid’s table and the babies on the laps of their mom’s and the food was dished out. For what seemed like a few minutes we actually all got to enjoy our food before the milk spilled, the napkins became swooshy swords, the baby started crying and the phone began to ring.
Off in the comer, once again nursing the baby, I looked at all the commotion and mayhem, saw the frazzled fathers trying to feed their kids, the burnt-out mothers eating faster than humanly possible, the kids testing the limits… even the dog was getting in on the anarchy of the situation.
Amidst it all I thought to myself…
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Tags:
family time, fatherhood, parenting, motherhood
