Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa

Rena's friend, Felicity, came over the other day to see her and here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Hey Felic, how are you? Oh, you have the hiccups? (Felicity nods) You must be growing! We are getting ready to eat dinner and Rena will probably come outside for a little while when we're done, OK?"

Felicity: "Can Rena come out and play?"

All I can think is Charlie Brown's world must be right. All kids hear when adults speak is "Wa, wa...wa,wa,wa,wa."

Crazy Freakin' Drivers!

I know everyone complains about the drivers they are stuck with, but let me tell you, this area is full of some no-driving *************! On my way back from the Y today, I was at a stop light that is ill equipped to handle the traffic that passes through it at certain times. I had a red light and I needed to turn right and immediately get in the left lane. I could have turned right and stayed in the right lane, but then I would not have been able to make my left hand turn a half block away. Plus, this is the turn lane to access the highway. (I've been beeped at in the past for not making this right hand turn on a red light because I couldn't get in the left lane.) Anyway. I waited for my light to turn green. When it did, the driver coming from the left decided she wouldn't wait for the next set of lights and so she pulled out into the middle of the intersection, blocking my right hand turn. When traffic moved enough for her to be out of my way, not one, but two cars turned LEFT infront of me! Outrageous! Once I had finally turned and was on my way, an oncoming car decided to use my lane (I happened to still be using it) as an extention of the turn lane he wanted to be in. Crazy Freakin' Drivers! It's so bad, I actually stopped a policeman in the grocery store one day and asked him who had the right of way when a lane ended. There have been a number of times when my lane hasn't ended and the other driver has beeped at me or flipped me off. I think Georgians may need a refresher course on driving!

Beauty Queen?

Ok, I'm flipping throught the chanels and I end up on VH1's Beauty Queen Showdowns. I'm not actually sure that's the title, but it might as well be. I am horrified by this behavior. These mother's dress their little girls in these absurd dresses, spray tan them, color, tease and spray their hair into 1950's unnatural hair doos - especially for 5 year olds - and I just discovered tonight that they wear something called flippers that are fake teeth. It's what gives them the really creepy smiles and hides their baby teeth and any that might be missing. Doesn't this creep you out? God I hope so. I swear, there is a personality dissorder that must be associated with these mothers. And, there is always a flaming gay guy that knows way too much about all of the ins and outs of the things. What is wrong with these people? And if you defend it, all I can say is stop the madness!

Friends

"People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime."

Ironically, I just got this message in an email sent from an old neighbor of mine. This comes after a phone conversation with another old neighbor of mine about friendships. All of this has me thinking about friendships and how it gets harder as you get older to make friends.

A little over a year ago, I had to leave behind all of my friends and the city I grew up in, to move to Georgia. I was not a happy camper to say the least. Lots of people told me "You'll be OK, you'll meet new people, you'll make new friends." Well, I wasn't worried about meeting new people. I'm pretty outgoing, so that wasn't a problem. But what does it take to make a real friend? Maybe I've filled the quota for 'lifetime' friends and all I have left are 'reason' and 'season' friends. Who knows. But this friend making thing is difficult.

It was easy to make friends in high school and college. It was a little more difficult after graduation. But now that I'm married and have 3 little children, it's very difficult. For one thing, my time is not my own. I have to work around schedules. My husband's schedule, my childrens' schedule and my own schedule. Then, if I want to interact with someone I have to work around their schedule too. That's just too much work. What if it doesn't work out. What if I end up not liking the person? What if they end up not liking me? (Unlikely, but it could happen. :))

I have a handful of very good friends, that I will be friends with many years from now. When I look closer at these friendship, most of them were started before high school and up through college. There have been fewer lifetime friends made since then.

I have always been jealous of people who have a circle of friends. I have a group of friends and some of my friends know one another, but they aren't friends. I must say, my group of friends is an ecclectic lot, each bringing something interesting to the mix. But this group is not ever going to get together for beach trips or mountain trips or even all sit around on the front porch drinking wine. Even if we did, it would be such a diverse group, I'm not sure how well everyone would get along. What does this say about me? I don't know.

Anyway, I was just missing my friends. I enjoy that connection and I miss it. I keep an open mind though and I'm always looking for that next lifetime friend.

was birth an empowering experience?

I have never heard the phrase ‘you birth the way you live’. At first, I was thinking, no, I didn’t birth the way I live. I live strong and mostly in control and independent. Then, I gave it a little more thought. I have kidded that I didn’t give birth; I had my children surgically removed. This statement is true. I had C-sections with both pregnancies. I did give birth to three children, though and this is an opportunity to explore that a little further.
I tend to face difficult thing slightly to the side. A lot of people say they face things head-on, and this has even been said of me. But I like to think that when things get really difficult or scary, I prepare myself to be caught off balance; A little to the side and leaning into things. I come to terms with the inevitable and shore myself up to face whatever’s coming.
Well, I know it sound like I was terrified of giving birth. The truth is, I was. It’s not something I had ever done before and I knew it was going to be painful. I’ve had plenty of physical pain in my life and I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to do something on purpose that was going to put me in pain. And yet, I knew I wanted a child and I wanted to give birth to that child. So there I was, pregnant for the first time at age 37. I was around a lot of other mothers and they had all made it through the process just fine. I could do this too. What other choice did I have?
I didn’t have any doubt that I would have a normal pregnancy and give birth after hours of labor. After all, what are these big hips for. Little did I know that there was a curve ball waiting down the road for me. I started bleeding. I headed to the hospital. The doctor checked me and the news wasn’t good. I had a placental abruption and I wasn’t going anywhere. Days turned into weeks and all I could do was sit in bed, watch Dr. Phil and think about how I was going to have this baby.
Up until that point, my pregnancy wasn’t completely real to me. I wasn’t in denial. I just didn’t want to get my hopes up. It had taken me a year and a half down the road to infertility to get pregnant. Was it real? Well, lying in bed all day with nothing else to do makes it as real as it can get. I started to really bond with this baby growing in me. After all, it was usually just her and me. I loved feeling her grow inside me. I looked forward to the twice a day heartbeat monitoring. I got to see her in a lot of ultrasounds. How cool is that! I looked forward to meeting her, but still not so much the way she was going to arrive.
When she had finally gotten to a safe gestational age, we all decided that it was time to meet her. Let me stop here and say, I really wanted this birth to be as drug free as possible. I have nothing against people who get epidurals; it just freaked me out to think of having someone place a needle in my back. Or anywhere else for that matter. I didn’t want to be induced. I think far too many pregnancies are made more difficult because of medical interventions. I think our bodies are capable of handling alot more than we sometimes ask of them. But there I was with this decision. It was time. I hadn’t really let myself think about how serious a problem I had, but I was smart enough to know that it was time. So, the pitocin drip started and I had my first contraction. There was not much to it. This went on for 12 hours. Up the pitocin. Contractions. Nothing very exciting. Finally, the Doctor asked what I wanted to do. Hmmm. I really want to go home. And I really want to stop worrying about bleeding. So, C-section it was.
Because I had been in the hospital for so long, and had been rushed to labor and delivery more than once, I had a really good idea of what was going to happen. I had pretty much overcome my fear of needles and IV’s. Not so much for the spinal, but I shored myself up and faced that too. A few minutes later, my life as a mother began! That part was wonderful, but I carried some disappointment that I wasn’t able to actually ‘give birth’.
Gradually the disappointment over not giving birth was replaced by confidence and happiness at being a mother. I realized that HOW they get here is not nearly as important as them actually being here.
When I discovered with my second pregnancy that I was having twins, all hopes of actually giving birth vanished. But I was OK with that. I bonded earlier with them and didn’t feel cheated with the birthing experience. I was much more relaxed because I knew what was coming.
So, did I birth the way I live. Yes. Was it empowering? In some ways. Motherhood has actually been more empowering. Has it affected me long term? Yes. I think it has. I’ve had to let my guard down and rely on other people…something that is very difficult for me. I would have more, even if I had to have C-sections. It is a great feeling to know what your body has accomplished. And I love being a mother.

The Play System

We used to call them swing sets or jungle gyms. Now they are called Play Systems. And they don't come cheap. We had been talking for a little while about getting play equipment for the girls and all that we wanted with it. It was fun shopping and getting to see all the stuff that is available. We settled on a Cottage style from Rainbow. This thing is really cool and it makes me wish that I was a kid again. We probably got one much bigger than we needed , but we figured each girl would probably have at least one friend on it and we wanted there to be room for everyone. So, it has 4 swings (2 regular and 2 toddler), a rope swing, a trapeze, a rock climbing wall, a slide, monkey bars, a picnic table and something they call a general store. This thing rocks! I've put the sand box back there with it, so hopefully my back porch won't constantly be covered with sand. The girls love it. Rena is enjoying the picnic table the best, Riley likes the swings and dare-devil Rachel likes the slide and the monkey bars. Well, not actually the monkey bars. She likes to grab the board in front of the monkey bars and swing out over the ladder. I'm sure sudden rushes of adrenaline are good for my heart! The worst part about all of this right now is that our backyard is nothing but red clay. That will be changing this weekend. I've convinced Blair to order lots of mulch. I'm creating a flower bed too, and when that's all done, I'm going to have part of the back yard sodded. This has been no cheap project and wasn't one we really budgeted for. Oh well, the girls love it and if they're happy, we're happy!

The Guys

The guys spend alot of time at our house. Or at least it seems like they do. These are Rena's dearest friends and I love having them here. I am surprised that their mother lets them continue to come over though, since they are usually sent home much, much dirtier that when they arrived. In this picture, they are enjoying our lovely dirty back yard. They had also been playing with the water hose, which created the lovely red clay mud. All this backyard activity is because we are installing a new 'play system'. It really is cool and I'm very excited about it. More on that in another post.

kwik kleeners

One of my pet peeves is businesses that misspell their title on purpose. I have seriously thought about a boycott of these kinds of stores since it iritates me soooo much. There is a new dry cleaner opening near me that has one of those names. Consignment shops are also famous for the misspelling. It even irritates me that the R is backwards in Toys and Babies R us. The fact that they use an R instead of are doesn't really bother me though.

There, I feel better.