Wrapping up the school year

10 people read my blog...isn't that neat. I know 3 or 4 of them, I think. And I don't even pay them. Interestingly, 1 is from Canadia, 1 from Pakistan and 1 from Indonesia! Welcome, ya'all.

We have been lazily finishing up first grade at home. I finally found a homeschool group, now that they are also finishing up the school year, but they have some activities over the summer, so it'll be nice to get to know them. We went to a play group last week and I really like them. G says I should, cause they're flaky. Whatever.

S and I did some projects. Last week with Venus in transit, which we did not see a. cause it was cloudy and b. cause we didn't send away for special viewing glasses, gave us a reason to talk about how the earth goes around the sun, etc. From a neat book that Aunt Chris gave us, that's ancient (from the 80's), we learned how to make sun dials, so we made two:

the top one is your classic, horizontal dial and the bottom is the same concept, but with a little, bitty bead that casts a shadow.

Here is a neat page about sundials, from down under New Zealand, keep in mind when following the instructions.

S and her dad also started a garden. Our church's community garden had some room, so we took them up on their offer to use the space. They are keeping a journal of their activities. S worked hard, including turning the earth and staking our squares and deciding what was going to go where.

done tilling and weeding

boundary is marked off. with tiki torches, cause we're awesome!

someone has a bucket of tadpoles, so we took a picture. 

 S also finished up with her singing and dance classes AND there was Ag field day AND we took trips to the museum AND....we've been busy. More pics to come.

AND we won tix to see Cirque du Soleil in NYC! So we got dressed up all fancy and went to see a show in the big, big city like we are fancy people. Cause we are. 

Let them eat cake! (and fruit salad)

Next week is our Matriarch's 75th birthday. So we're having a surprise birthday party for my mom at my sister's house today (shhh, don't tell. Actually, this page would take 75 years to load on her computer).

I agreed to make a cake. A rainbow cake! Before he brings it up in the comments, rainbow cake was my husband's idea. I was gonna go with chocolate. Since I agreed to rainbow, he's going to make a chocolate backup in case the rainbow cake fails. Cause that's how he rolls. Also, cause he's nuts.

Now, there's two kinds of rainbow cake circulating the webs. The hippy, dippy, tie-dye version:

whoa, man, it's like cake

Or the more OCD, Martha Stewart approved version:

It is cake. Ja. 

I went with version deux. Cause that's how I roll, yo'. 

The first part is basically make some cake. I suppose you could use cake mix, but our house does. not. Then you have to divide 5 1/2 cups of cake mix into 6 parts. Like I can do maths and stuff. That's why we have programmable IV pumps, but I digress. After that, it's easy-peasy, just color them six rainbow colors, remembering ROY G BIV : red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Crap, that's 7. But if you notice, even Martha Stewart combines indigo and violet to make purple. And if it's good enough for Martha, etc. 

Then S starts singing the Cat in the Hat rainbow song. "red, orange, yellow. green, followed by blue! Indigo and violet, that's a rainbow song for you!" Listen, I say, we're combining indigo and violet. We're just making purple. "But mom! The song!"

Shut up, cat. 

Anyhoo. Here's some cake....

first 4 layers, check. Now I just need blue, indigo and violet-DOH!

For those not eating cake (?!), there's fruit salad, a la Alton, who is a minor deity in our house. 

I know they sell those little grasper thingies to take the core out of the strawberry. I do not have one. So it's either cut straight across or make a fancy, V-incision. Don't judge me.

fruit labels. The bane of my existence.

Lots of cut up fruit on the right, lots of compost on the left and that weird thing in the middle is a mango slicer, much more useful than you'd think and since it works on peaches, nectarines, et al, NOT a uni-tasker. 

Gotta go make frosting. More pics to follow. 

S is independently reading! For the past week she's been sitting in bed (or on the potty) and reading Dr. Seusses to herself. Last night she read "Are you my mother?" and I almost cried when she wasn't looking. Later, I told her how proud I was of her and how her hard work had paid off, all those worksheets of phonics and consonants and sounding out words and word-of-the-day.

Then, yesterday, her and G were working on an Egyptian project. He found this thing at a thrift store for $5-it comes with a pyramid encased in "sand" and you have to chisel it out. By translating the hieroglyphics on the side, you find out what door to open and then you use your tools to open the lock. Inside is more sand and more digging out until you find the sarcophagus and the canopic jars and stuff. Anyway, G said that she remembered some of the hieroglyphics and could decipher it on her own. I'm so happy-she remembers stuff that we teach her! I mean, obviously she has learned a lot in the past year, but it's still gratifying and she really enjoys learning that stuff.

Now I just have to come up with a plan for today....

Misunderstood


My husband and I had an argument today. Argument #3,186. Really, though, there are only 2 arguments: you won’t do what I say and... I forget the other one. I can’t say that we fight often but when we do they can be doozies. We have never raised our hands to each other. We have, however, raised our hands to several unfortunate, inanimate objects around the house. Today nothing was thrown in anger. Instead, my depression kicked in.

I have suffered from depression since I was 12. It is suffering. It’s hard to describe the bleakness that makes it seem like someone pulled the plug on every good thing you ever had. It’s a withering feeling-that this world would be better off without me in it, that nothing good ever happens, that nothing will ever change. “Why is this still happening to me?” I cry. I spent years, my whole 3rd decade practically, in therapy, so that I wouldn’t be 42 and sitting on the floor crying.

Because that’s where I am: sitting on the hall floor, crying hysterically, while my husband is trying to be mad at me. Moments like this, he doesn’t quite know what to do with me. A minute ago we were having a heated debate, now I am a soppy, pathetic mess.  He tries logic: “My children don’t love me.” I wail. “Yes, they do. Look how happy they are to see you when you come home.” He tries honesty: “You must be thinking, ‘Oh, here we go again.’” “Yes, that is what I’m thinking right now.” It seems so trite to put it on paper. I’d shame us both if I told you some of the thoughts that I think are true when I’m depressed. At 17 I broke up with a perfectly nice guy because I was convinced that being around me would contaminate him. I thought I was broken. Occasionally, I still do.

It’s hard to convey this to anyone. It’s especially hard to convey it to my husband, my best friend, when I would REALLY like for him to understand what is happening to me and if at all possible not act like an ass or do anything that might set me off, which is really unfair because criticizing my inability to handle criticism will usually make me laugh, 99% of the time, except for when it makes me curl up in the fetal position and question my right to exist. “You don’t understand what this is like!” I yell.
So my husband gets down on the floor next to me and doesn’t do anything. I relax enough that I can start to talk about the things that haunt me, things no one else knows about me but him. Although he doesn’t get depressed, he’s had his own dark thoughts, his pervasive worries. In 12 years neither of us has been scared away, neither has said, “What the hell are you talking about?” Once or twice we may have come close, but he didn’t and I didn’t and here we are. When my little one asks about our wedding rings, I tell her they are a symbol of a promise we made to each other, to never leave.

So I like to think that love, as I understand it, as I first understood it when my husband sat down on the floor with me, that love is an action word. Funny, I’ve had other relationships where we never fought. We were happy right up until we broke up. I really thought I loved some of those people. I certainly said I love you. Some of them even “understood” me better than my husband, but they’re not here and he is.

I think I’ve finally started to know love as a woman, not as a wounded child. Love isn’t something you want, it’s something you do. It’s why my dad, who never said he loved me, showed up for every play, every junior varsity game, every swim meet. It’s why I let the girls sleep with me when they are sick, even thought it guarantees I’ll be next. Because love is about being there, even when you don’t want to, even when you think you can’t. Now I understand that love is about not walking out: not on my husband, not on my kids, not on myself.

“All right,” I say to him, “I’m done crying.”

“For good?” He asks hopefully.

“For now.” He sighs, but hey, it’s a start.

Ooh, look. It's been so long since I blogged that blogger done up and changed their whole format. Took me 10 minutes to figure out how to write a new post.

In weekly news, I've been working many days in a row after spending 5 glorious days at home, including Mother's Day, in which wonderful husband cooked an amazing dish of Salmon with Provencal Sauce over parmesan rice with home made rosemary focaccia. Dessert was cake from Tous Les Jours and ambrosia. Did I mention he cooked for us, my parents AND my sister and her boyfriend. He's too good, but he's upped the ante for Father's Day. Dang.

So, G has done most if not all of the homeschooling for the past week or so. Since taking her out of school last October, S has learned double digit addition and subtraction, lots about the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, and now the Mayans and Aztecs, is independently reading and knows what cells do.

Happy Biodiversity Day! Or Happy Rainforest Day! We spent about 30 minutes this morning learning about the rainforest, which is how I found a great site called Brain Pop, which is not free, but not terribly expensive. For $85/year we can get Pop Jr, for $170 we can get Brain Pop, Pop Jr and Senor Pop(It's not called that, but you get the idea). Right now I'm doing a 5 day trial to see if we like it. So far, Pop Jr seems a little too basic for S but the regular Pop seems too hard, but more to her interests.

So, now, before I go back to work tomorrow I must: send Marilyn my George St. Coop article, exercise, clean the house, finish S's lessons and maybe make a delicious but low carb lunch. I need some more tea.

Having a great time at the pitty party, wish you were here

I hate being depressed. I hate, hate, hate, hate it. Please don't confuse its comfortableness nor my tolerance of it, with liking it.

And fuck optimists, while we're on the subject. You people are just fooling yourselves.

All right, it's true, I don't really trust happiness, nor do I perpetually happy people. But in the absence of feeling happy, I'd like to at least feel like I could kick ass and take names. If I don't feel that people like me, it would suffice if I felt that they were in awe of me. Instead, I feel like wet socks that are only slightly moldy. As if, when getting a whiff, a person would say, "Ugh, these socks are wet and moldy," instead of, "Good God! Get a load of these socks! They're absolutely putrid!" It's one thing to be depressed, I don't also want to feel ordinary.

So I will try, for the sake of the happy, scrappy ones, to at least fee

l, if not happy, then ok with some things. I will try to remember that everything does not suck. I have a roof over my head, food in my fridge, 2 girls who adore me and a fine husband. And an adorable pup. Oh, God he is cute, even if he did eat my favorite shoes.

I mean, look at him.....

Fuck. Why am I sad again?

Ode To Laziness

Do you know a perfect person? I do. She's pretty, keeps a trim figure. Her house is spare and chic and, despite the fact that she has 2 small boys, uncluttered. She has perfect manners, but not fussily so. Her boys are well behaved, pleasant and just mischievous enough to be normal. They stick to a schedule. A schedule-can you believe it? I just know she has never, once, used the TV as a babysitter. I hate her.

No I don't. Because above all else, she is friendly and cheerful and modest. She doesn't do one thing to make me feel inadequate, yet I often leave her company feeling so. You know, I remember birthdays. Sometimes. I remember my own, anyway. And my children's, of course, and that's the main thing. For all other dates: anniversaries, doctor's appointments, bill payments, (We have Christmas AGAIN this year?) I am at best vague with the details. And I would LOVE to stick to a schedule. Time and time again I have with best intentions declared that I am going to follow something: an exercise regime, a diary of my diet, getting up early and writing. I really mean it, too. It's just that something always happens: the kid is up all night sick, they're having 2 for 1 cupcakes at the bakery. It's always something, as Roseanne Roseannadanna said.

Robert Fulghum says, "I live in awe of people who get...jobs done." And goes to talk about how the rest of us should be given one task to redeem ourselves. His example is stick polishing.

"Here’s the way it works. You get selected for this deal because you are such a good person at heart, and it is time you were let off the hook. First, a week of your life is given to you free of all obligations. Your calendar is wiped clean. No committee meetings, no overdue anything---bills, correspondence, or unanswered telephone calls. You are taken to a nice place, where it is all quiet and serene and Zen. You are cared for. Fed well. And often affirmed. Your task is simply this: to spend a week polishing a stick. They give you some sandpaper and lemon oil and rags. And, of course, the stick---a nice but ordinary piece of wood. All you have to do is polish it. As well as you can. Whenever you feel like it. That’s it: polish the stick."

If only that were all it took to prove we aren't too shabby, even if we can't remember to return our library books with any frequency. Sigh.

I would like to insert here that I think I would get way more slack cut my way if I was guy.

Now, back to reality. A smart person told me long ago that you shouldn't compare your insides to somebody else's outsides. Meaning, you can't compare the voice in your head telling you you're a loser with the facade someone else presents to the world. Because I have my own facade. Not that I'm deceiving anyone, I just don't wear my every insecurity on my sleeve. Just as I don't know what goes on inside of Perfect Mom's head. For all I know she worries about things that I think are silly, like crows feet or being bad at math. Also, when I'm done bashing myself for my faults, real and imagined, I remind myself that she is a stay at home mom. So perhaps I oughta give myself 30 points for being able to bring home the bacon AND fry it up in the pan. Certainly she has never had to get not one, but TWO 18 gauge IV's in a guy who has almost no blood pressure and is minutes away from dying without breaking a sweat. I'm just sayin'. It's no stick-polisher, but it's what I got.

So three cheers to all you disorganized people out there. Celebrate whatever it is that you do well, even if it's warming up the couch. Meanwhile, I'm going to try and get my Christmas cards out before July.