Last week Cameron graduated from preschool.  I used to think preschool graduations were ridiculous.  What is to be congratulated about completing such a program?  But then as I watched him sing songs during the ceremony about apple seeds and setting goals I got a little weepy.  It is sort of a right of passage.  He’s growin’ up!

He won the award in his class for the best writing.  What that doesn’t tell you is that he is also the slowest writer, and after the other kids have completed their worksheets he remained at the table laboring over his alphabet.  Bless his little perfectionist heart.

Speaking of his little heart, he has his first crush.  A cute little girl with freckles and who is the only girl in his preschool who isn’t taller than he.  I was not prepared for this.  He talks about her with that dreamy look in his eye. He recently told Richard “Dad, today at school Macey was wearing a red shirt with sparkles.  And it was tight.”  I’m hoping that this was a reflection of his own obsession with tight clothing (namely his insistance that his pajamas be tight) and not a physical attraction from a chemical reaction in his little five-year-old body. 

Lastly, he has developed a searing conscience.  Whenever he is caught being naughty he bursts into tears and wails “I am such a bad boy!.”  I am hoping this isn’t the result of a complex he developed from too severe discipline and rather a tactic to avoid discipline altogether by demonstrating excessive guilt.  Either way, yesterday I couldn’t resist laughing.  Each day while Eli takes a nap Cameron has a “rest” on his bed.  He has a little clock on his headboard and I tell him where the long hand has to be for him to get up.  Yesterday after the period of time passed impossibly too quickly he brought the clock to me.  Sure enough, the long hand was at the “3”.  I was confused for a moment and then it occurred to me that he had discovered how to move the hands of the clock to set the time.  I asked him about this and the dramatic confession ensued, tears and all.

You might have read the book The Bonds that Make Us Free by C. Terry Warner, it is a favorite amongst my family members.  I think we each dabble in its wisdom periodically.  If you have read it, you will recognize this anecdote as a classic case of self-betrayal.  If you haven’t read it, perhaps you will want to after reading what it has done for me.  And even if this is the only time I succeed, the only argument averted (and I pray it won’t be) it was worth reading.

Last night I made Richard’s favorite dessert.  He had to eat it in a hurry because of a church meeting he had to go to.  As he walked out the door he commented that he looked forward to a second helping of dessert and an episode of The Commish when he returned.  I looked at him askance, and asked if he meant that he wanted me to have that all set up for him.  He smiled and said “That would be nice.”  I made a mental note to do so.

At some point in the next hour I started to doubt whether I was going to be able to execute his wishes.  Or if I even wanted to. It might have been during Eli’s haircut, or Miriam’s bath, or the dinner dishes or while I folded laundry.  Then came the moment of truth, the moment of self-deception and my thoughts went like this.

You know, he has some nerve, asking me to make sure everything is ready for him to sit down and relax.  What would be nice would be if he would come home and take out the garbage, help with the dishes and serve me a second helping of dessert.  He didn’t even say thank-you for making his favorite dessert in the first place.  Doesn’t he realize everything that has to be done during this time of night?  Cleaning up the messy kitchen and getting three children ready for bed? He’ll be lucky if I even get that far.  I’m exhausted, I’ve been taking care of these kids all day, and now I have to do bedtime routine by myself, again.  He should be around for bedtime routine more often.  He should tell me to take it easy while he’s gone and he’ll take care of things when he gets home…

And so on.  I’m pretty justified don’t you think? 

Luckily, having read and somewhat understood the idea of self-betrayal, I recognized it when it showed its ugly face in my heart.  I finished my tasks quickly and without further complaint.  I didn’t quite get things ready the way Richard had imagined, but at least when he returned I was pleasant and not bitter.

I don’t tell this story to make myself out to be a Saint.  Richard would likely tell you that two out of three times I wouldn’t recognize self-deception or else I would ignore it and allow the anger to boil.  He has certainly dealt with the bitter Jo.  But I tell you because it is a wonderful concept that can heal and help relationships and I want to share. 

In a nutshell, self-betrayal is defending our actions when we make the choice not to do what our heart and conscience told us we should.  But read the book.  And then read it again.  It is full of truth and insight.

This morning as Richard left for work he asked Cameron to be helpful and good today for Mom, since she still wasn’t feeling great.  Cameron replied:

“Okay Dad, I’ll get a handle on her.”

Richard could leave in peace, knowing I was in capable hands. 

I’ve been ill today.  Mother-in-law to the rescue whisked away my children so I could feel delirious in a quiet home. 

After watching a really heavy movie,  and dwelling on the Holocaust, I needed a distraction.  (What I am about to say after what I just said, might make me one of the most shallow people you know.)

Finally able to sit upright without the room spinning,  I looked on a favorite blog of mine and lo and behold I had been featured.   It is every bloggers dream.  Or, well it was mine at least.  I sent the pictures to the blog’s host weeks ago, and after not seeing them posted I determined it was unworthy. 

You can check it out, it’s nothing new to you, just the dresser I already posted about on here.  But- it is a fun blog to look at so give it a shot if you are into DIY-furniture makeover-home improvements.  It is a very satisfying blog because it highlights the best part of any project, the before and after photos.

Meanwhile, I think I will resume the fetal position and hopefully fall asleep.

One great pleasure of parenthood is introducing your chidlren to the music that you listened to as a kid.  And sometimes when doing so you are delighted to learn the actual names and lyrics of songs that you thought you knew back when.  This can provide great entertainment as in the following example. 

Richard and I both grew up listening and dancing to the Beach Boys.  Before our vacation he downloaded their greatest hits and we played them on the iPod on our way to Cascade. 

Richard: “Put on Barbara Ann.”
song begins
Jo:  “I didn’t know this was called Barbara Ann.  That’s a weird name for a song like this.”
Richard (with puzzled expression): “That is what they are saying. ‘Barbara Ann.'”
Jo: (totally cracking up): “You mean they aren’t saying Bop-a-ram?”

Good times.

Last Saturday I watched and listened as Richard sang along with the BB in falsetto while the boys did their best air guitar.  It was classic.  The kind of thing family home videos are made of.  But I forgot to get out the camera.

Ha! Some break! Go ahead and laugh, sneer, roll your eyes, remove me from your google reader. 

But I just can’t stop these blog posts from composing themselves in my head as I lay in bed at night.  In fact, just now those words typed themselves behind my eyelids.  So I removed myself from my bed and here I am. 

The truth is I have a new approach to blogging.  A non-obligatory, post-as-I-please approach.  I am relieving myself of the pressure I manufactured as I imagined my readers waiting with bated breath for my next post.  It seemed necessary to post as often as possible.

Since we all know that was not the case, that pressure was the product of a delusioned mind, it was pretty easy to relinquish. 

So I’m back, but ready to blog at will.  As much or as little as I darn well please.  

Home again  home again.  We had a nice vacation.  We rented a cabin in Cascade Idaho for five days four nights.  You can rent it too if you like, see here.  The owners were great to work with and I believe in patronizing businesses that provide quality service, so there is my piece on that.

We were lazy, slept late and took afternoon naps.  I completed a 1000 pieced puzzle.  Cameron got his first sliver which was a catastrophic event.  We had picnics on the beach.  Misha was the only one brave enough to get in the lake but she retrieved countless sticks from its chilly waters.  We had a campfire and made smores.  Eli devoured them.  Miriam was out of sorts and did not sleep well.  (Hence the naps.)  We ate dinner on t.v. trays to honor the 60’s/70’s theme of the cabin.  Cameron and Eli made pinecone soup.   Misha never ran away.  I took the boys on a long walk and lost my way for a bit.  Cameron will tell you an exaggerated version of that story should you have the time commitment to hear it. 

It is always hard to return from a vacation, even when you are anxious to be home again.  And of course  I will be doing laundry and cleaning up sand all week.  Oh the sand…

Last night we found ourselves driving through my old neighborhood.  We had all the kids with us and due to circumstances too complicated for an explanation here, we ended up in the subdivision where I lived for approximately fourteen years of my life. 

All the houses seemed smaller, and of course much older.   During those fourteen years we lived in two houses just around the corner from each other.  About a mile from those two houses was a house Richard lived in as a child.  We drove past it too.  Then we drove about another mile down the road to another house Richard lived in during his youth.  All four of these houses are within a couple miles from the two houses our parents currently live in, and we both lived in at various points in our lives.  We mused about this.  Six houses within three miles of eachother and we never met until college. 

Because of the circumstances I referenced above, we were driving my dad’s Explorer.  (If you are reading this Dad, I’ll explain later.)  It is an older car, with only a casette player.  Richard popped in a mix tape of my dad’s.  The songs were popular tunes from years gone by, years where our lives were going on in the very houses we were slowly driving past. 

Ahh fond memories.   I’ve said it many times, but I am a sentimental person and all this nostalgia was making me long for the simpler days of my childhood.  It made me miss the “village” that raised me.  

On that note, I’ll check out for a few days to hopefully create fond memories for my own children.  We are spending a few days at a cabin in Cascade to let our children play with bark and leaves.  

**p.s. this song takes me somewhere serene.

I spent the most entertaining hour of my week on Saturday at the “Bark Park.”  Yeah, that’s right, an off-leash sanctioned canine paradise where dogs can sniff the private parts of other dogs without inhibition. 

All joking aside, it was a delightful experience.  I’m going to make a sweeping generalization here and say that pet owners, specifically dog lovers, are kind, friendly and pleasant people.  I could not believe how just having that one thing in common, we all love our dog, was enough to unite a group of strangers in jovial conversation.  It was similar to that phenomenon of putting a group of women who have never met together in a room.  Assuming they have all had children, get them started on their labor stories and they will be occupied in dialogue for hours. 

Not only was Misha able to be the recipient of much dog socialization, she was patted and admired by the humans as well.  In fact, I think she rather preferred the affection of the people to the other dogs.  One male dog in particular was getting a little too frisky and I was proud of her for putting him in his place with a fierce growl. 

It was a good lesson for me about dogs. They are so much more like us than I realized.  They get excited, shy, nervous, irritated, bored and jealous too. 

If you have a dog I highly recommend you find the nearest puppy park for some quality pet time.

All my life I have heard and read about the glory of motherhood.  I always believed it, of course, but I think it is just now that I’m catching small glimpes of the true glory of motherhood.

My good friend, mother of a three year old and twenty-nine weeks pregnant is spending her Mother’s day in the hospital in pre-term labor. Despite her less than ideal circumstances she still has that expectant mother glow.  She is outstanding.

Outstanding mothers rarely make the history books.  They don’t get thousands of hits on a YouTube video performing their daily mundane tasks.  They don’t grace the cover of popular magazines with bags under their eyes.  They don’t make appearances on Jay Leno because they have cleaned up bodily fluids from carpets, couches and underwear.

But the influence of an oustanding mother is worth something beyond this weeks biggest YouTube hit, the cover of People or todays talk show guest.  I don’t need to say this, because the point is that an outstanding mother isn’t looking for external recognition.

I’m so glad for my outstanding mother.  My mother-in-law is also an outstanding mother, as evidenced by my wonderful husband.  I am grateful for the examples of my sisters who are outstanding mothers.   My sisters-in-law will also, I have no doubt, in due time be outstanding mothers.  And I am grateful lastly for my good friends who are unselfish and outstanding mothers.

And I am ever so thankful today that I can have my shot at being an outstanding mother myself.

Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears, . . .
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you! . . .


Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone; . . .
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.


Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep!
“Rock Me to Sleep” in The Family Library of Poetry and Song
-William Cullen Bryant