I do agree with Einstein

Someone I admire a lot says that parenthood is bittersweet, because it's a lifelong process of separation.  And I agree.

Pregnancy, difficult though it was, was the last time I knew my children were really safe - and, of course, even that's a false safety.  Let's say this:  I knew exactly where they were.

Then they are outside of your body and trying to get away.  Testing boundaries, pulling you close and pushing you back.  And you are at their mercy.

Now, walking/talking/reading - that's all behind us and it's the BIG separations that loom.  Three weeks of sleep-away camp is the longest we've been physically apart, but the emotional gap continues to grow.  As it should.  I brought them here, but they don't belong to me.  I am the conduit for them to find themselves and their own lives.  But, ouch.

Einstein said, "A mother is to be left."  Sometimes the truth sucks.

Me and Guns

I'm more excited than I should be to be mentioned in the following article on Betty Confidential: http://www.bettyconfidential.com/ar/ld/a/moms-who-eat-their-words.html?pageID=1!

You're sooo Cynical

cyn⋅i⋅cal

  [sin-i-kuhl]  –adjective

1.	like or characteristic of a cynic; distrusting or disparaging the motives of others.

2.	showing contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality by one's actions, esp. by actions that exploit the scruples of others.

3.

bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic. Who me? It's said often enough that I should probably just cop to it, but it somehow seems connected to my idealism.  With such high hopes, how could I not be distrusting, contemptuous, bitter and pessimistic? The world is indeed an ugly place.  People are awful - truly.  But it's also amazingly beautiful and people can be transcendently good.  It's hard to bring all that together for me, and I guess I fall back on sarcasm.  It's a defense mechanism, but I think I continue to hope against all odds that I'll see more beauty and be open to the universe's many gifts (ack - I just gagged when I wrote that).

No, he's like ME

Parents spend a good deal of time trying to find the ways in which their children are like them or the other parent.  I think it's got something to do with immortality - hoping that we will live on in our children.

This week, BOTH of my boys had birthdays.  They're five years and one week apart which means that we just concentrate the birthday pain into one week per year. 

The older one had some friends for pizza and a movie.  When we went to the grocery store to get a cake, they didn't really have what he wanted.  After five minutes of wandering in the bakery section, I told him that we could go somewhere else to find what we had come for.  He said, "nah, let's just get something. It's easier."  OMG, that is so me!  (For the record, he picked some cookies that were really, really bad.)

The younger one is having some friends go to laser tag and play video games.  He's been talking about the cake for days - what kind of cake, the shape of the cake, what's on top of the cake, what kind of icing on the cake.  Every.  Detail.  He wants Daddy to make him a cake [like he's done in the past], but when I pull out a cake mix, he tells me that he doesn't want a cake MIX, he wants one from scratch and he wants MnM's on top in the shape of his initial.  OMG, that is so my husband!

I am an easy-going, go-with-the-flow gal married to a foodie.  We will live on.