tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49890172088468723032024-03-19T02:20:25.262-05:00Becoming SuperMommy<center><i>Because 'Happily Ever After' is a Process, and We're Not Done Yet</i></center>Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.comBlogger702125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-81612737552344480032045-01-06T15:34:00.000-06:002018-06-07T17:38:40.665-05:00So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello, my lovely readers, hello.<br />
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If you're reading this at becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com, you may have noticed something different.<br />
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My header.<br />
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As for other momentous occasions in the life of the SuperMommy family, I have updated the picture. No, I'm not pregnant. No, none of the children lost a limb. (Yet.)<br />
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No, you may notice that the SuperMommy family is... moving.<br />
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Not to a new house, but to a new blog.<br />
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Yes, my wonderful, amazing, incredible readers- I'm moving. My new blog is chicagonow.com/becoming-supermommy. That's right, I've joined the ranks of Chicago Now bloggers. Chicago Tribune, prepare yourself! I'm coming!<br />
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As for all of you, my amazing, incredible, spectacular readers... not too much is going to change. The address of the blog will, of course, but the content won't.<br />
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Actually, the content will, a bit. There are still a few straggling sponsored posts coming up, and they'll be here. But the new stuff?<br />
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All at the new blog.<br />
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PLEASE- sign up to get my posts in your email! It's SO much better for all of us, what with Facebook trying to destroy the little lives of us little bloggers. Sign up to get Becoming SuperMommy in your mail, and I'll see you over at Chicago Now.<br />
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So <a href="http://chicagonow.com/becoming-supermommy">CLICK ON OVER</a>, and get to know my new digs!<br />
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Here's to the next great adventure!<br />
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I love you all. <3 p=""><br />
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<br />Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com93tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-52772580324723865722016-09-07T10:25:00.000-05:002016-09-07T10:25:13.234-05:00Review and Giveaway- Canvas Factory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello, lovely readers!<br />
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As you are no doubt aware, <a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/becoming-supermommy/2016/07/becoming-the-big-city-bleeding-heart-liberals-fox-news-warned-you-about/">I recently moved</a>.<br />
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Moving is <i>hard as hell</i>. There's the stress of going through everything you own and putting it in boxes, then there's the stress of relocating all those boxes, and then there's the stress of trying to figure out how to take them out again and put them into an entirely different space with entirely different needs. If you've never done it, it's hell, trust me.<br />
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One of the fun things about it, though, is getting a chance to make stuff you already have <i>perfect</i> for the first time. For me, that's been all about putting my art on the walls.<br />
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In case you didn't know, I have a lot of art and photographs, and I take its placement <i>very </i>seriously. This time around, I am straight up killing it in the gallery wall department. Behold-<br />
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That's the wall behind me in my office right now. A thing of glory, isn't it?<br />
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But what about my treasured family photographs? I started to put them up, I shuffled frames a million times, and I got to the point where I was pretty happy with what I had. Pretty happy, but not awesome purple gallery wall happy.<br />
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It's not bad, right? But it's not <i>perfect</i>. Just looking at this collection of photographs, I knew what was wrong. I needed my wedding picture to be bigger. Those are 5"x7" prints of the girls' school pictures. And they're GORGEOUS. But an 8"x10" photo in a landscape orientation just didn't fit. It's my favorite of our wedding pictures (and if you don't know Cheryl, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thewanderbroad/">our amazing photographer</a>, you should 100% check her out and then throw all your money at her), and this was the largest print I had. When we got married and lived just the two of us in our Pilsen apartment, that was fine. And when we lived in our crowded condo in Hyde Park, that was fine, too. But we're <b>suburbanites </b>now. We show off our pictures like we <b>mean</b> it.<br />
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And that was when the amazing people at <a href="http://www.canvasfactory.com/">The Canvas Factory</a> came calling. Seriously, it's like they have psychics on staff, just waiting for bloggers like me to have photograph printing needs, and then they pounce.<br />
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They offered me a free canvas print, to try out. So I did what any totally obsessive new homeowner would do- I solved the most pressing and important problem in my life. What to do about my wedding portrait.<br />
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Picking out how I wanted the print done was AMAZING and easy. They give you all sorts of filters and alterations to choose from- I could have had my wedding picture not only in black and white or sepia, but they gave me all sorts of options for softening, sharpening, fading, texturing, modifying the picture in any way I could imagine. They let me choose if I wanted the photo wrapped around the sides, or if I preferred a single color for the visible edges. It was so detailed, but still so simple, I was completely confident about the finished product before I'd made all my decisions.<br />
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I submitted my order, and waited.<br />
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When you know something perfect is coming in the mail, waiting can be hard. And being used to being in the next day Amazon delivery area will spoil a person when it comes to waiting for mail. But even with my ridiculous impatience, it didn't take long. Less than a week later, I got my canvas in the mail. And it's everything I hoped it would be.<br />
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Ahhhhhh, soooooooooo pretty!!!!!!!<br />
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That's a 20"x16" printed canvas hovering about the three 5"x7" school pictures. And it looks SO MUCH BETTER. The color is amazing. The DPIs are crazy high. It's utterly gorgeous, even though I DID crop the picture a little, to center the two of us a bit more in the frame. It looks simply amazing, and it's incredible what a little change like having a high quality, gigantic and beloved image on canvas can do for a space.<br />
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It looks so good, people.<br />
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And it's a good quality framing job, too. It's all exposed canvas, of course, but the mounting hardware on the back is totally ideal, and makes putting it on the wall a breeze. And I mean, COME ON. How good does that look????<br />
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You know you want one.<br />
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And lucky you, YOU CAN HAVE ONE TOO!!!<br />
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That's right, the amazing psychics at the Canvas Factory are giving one of you lovely readers a code for a completely free 16"x20" print as well! WITH FREE SHIPPING!!!!<br />
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All you have to do is post a comment, telling me what picture you'd get printed gigantic and perfect if you could. You don't have to use that one, of course, I just want to know what wonderful memories you want writ large all over your homes. Because it's a beautiful thing to have your happiest moments preserved and presented so lovingly in your home. I smile a big warm smile every time I walk past it. It's rapidly becoming one of my favorite walls in the house. Yes, even compared to my lovely purple office.<br />
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So check out <a href="http://www.canvasfactory.com/">The Canvas Factory</a>, and let me know what picture YOU'D get printed in the comments!Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com126tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-55724971817815979552015-01-05T10:58:00.000-06:002015-01-05T10:58:38.863-06:00Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was about eight years old, I stopped sleeping. It wasn't a choice I made, it was something that happened to me I couldn't entirely explain. I just <i>couldn't sleep</i>. Some nights I'd lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, playing games with my imagination. Some nights I'd crawl out of bed and into the TV room next door, turn on Nick at Night and quietly watch F Troop, Get Smart, and I Love Lucy until the ominous moment that Mr. Wizard came one. That meant it was officially day- the children's programming was beginning again. Most days I turned off Mr. Wizard and climbed into bed, to close my eyes until my father woke me for school.<br />
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Many times, during that two hour window, I fell asleep at last, and my father struggled with rousing me from my bed- oblivious to how little sleep I'd managed to catch while the sun rose.<br />
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Some nights, I would go and knock on my parents' door. Occasionally my mother would take me to the living room, tuck me into the couch, or a few armchairs tugged together into a sort of crib, and leave me with a book and a shot glass full of schnapps, saying, "Sip it slowly. It'll help you sleep."<br />
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On one of these nights, she walked into the library, the room with our television, and grabbed a book off the shelf. A <i>grownup</i> book. It was "R is for Rocket," the story collection by Ray Bradbury. I read the whole book before finally drifting off, my ounce of schnapps inside my stomach and my lips both sweet and bitter. From then on I frequented my parents' library. I read dozens, hundreds of books. Everything by Ray Bradbury, although I really didn't understand some of it. I read the Agatha Christie novels my grandma loved, I read the complete works of Roald Dahl... I read "The Eyes of the Dragon" by Stephen King, and after telling my parents how much I loved it, they invited me to stay up with them one night and watch Poltergeist.<br />
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Once I was old enough to have learned the geography of our college town, I would sneak out of the house at night and walk, for hours.<br />
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I walked downtown, looking at all the darkened shops. I'd walk to the elementary school where my little sister went, and swing on the swings, singing quietly to myself until the sky started to turn purple.<br />
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I walked to campus, climbed into parking structures, and sang in the stairwells- every song I knew. Belting out show tunes and practicing my audition pieces for State Honor's Choir.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEYZawoUvUdw2hycuDxtg3rLJzKJOPY2RnhTWbVfa1xfaPsj-A2nvB-7HzSQhPqAwVNmduKfgrWC0Jju7ErZ9LpwHM40tdqCpTsHR_elUaDrzUeSNHyg0FMcHOWKqQ4rcuNO4bvdIJRcoj/s1600/scan0059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEYZawoUvUdw2hycuDxtg3rLJzKJOPY2RnhTWbVfa1xfaPsj-A2nvB-7HzSQhPqAwVNmduKfgrWC0Jju7ErZ9LpwHM40tdqCpTsHR_elUaDrzUeSNHyg0FMcHOWKqQ4rcuNO4bvdIJRcoj/s1600/scan0059.jpg" height="400" width="262" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me at 15, in front of one of my insomnia murals</td></tr>
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I walked to friends' houses, stealing roses from neighbor's gardens, leaving them on their doorstep for them to find when they went to school.<br />
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I rarely had company or trouble on my walks. I took to wearing a long black cloak, which I hoped hid my gender as well as my face, and I walked fast if anyone was present. One night there was a man standing in front of one of my favorite downtown shops. Just standing, in the dark. Grinning. He creeped me out with that grin. He looked as old as my grandfather, and much balder. And as I realized he was watching me speed past, I realized he was naked from the waist down. It was the closest to danger I ever came on my strolls.<br />
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My parents tried to help me with my sleep. My father taught me meditation techniques, even loaned me meditation tapes. He taught me to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. My mother took me to therapists to help with the insomnia, gave me melatonin, never questioned the destruction I wreaked on my walls when rather than walking around town, I sat inside, taping pictures to the walls in massive, intricate collages.<br />
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In retrospect, I think I made my sleeplessness pretty easy for them. And they were mostly understanding about it, even if they never understood its scope. I didn't sleep at night, most nights, for any useful amount of time, until I was twenty years old.<br />
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When I finally did start sleeping, I had nightmares. Every night. It wasn't until more than two years later, when M came into my life, that I finally learned what it was like to <i>just sleep</i>. Something I hadn't experienced in more than thirteen years.<br />
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I think about this, now, because SI has started having trouble sleeping. <i>Real</i> trouble sleeping.<br />
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Sometime between 11 and 12, most nights, she comes into my room, struggling to find an excuse. Her go-to excuse is, "I'm scared of the dark."<br />
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The fact is, I know this is not true. I know she is neither scared of the dark, nor relegated to it. She has a night light gummy bear who lives in her bed. If she were scared, she would turn it on. She would turn on the light. She would <i>be scared</i>. But she's not. She comes in and says, "Well..." and then begins her attempt to make an excuse for being awake.<br />
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I try to be patient, but I am not ready for this. She is five years old, and she does finally go to sleep. Every night. But I can see it coming.<br />
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I can see that sometime in the nest few years, it's going to happen. SI will lose her battle with sleep, and she'll be a confused kid, trapped in a silent house, alone with her thoughts. As a little kid, it's agony. Knowing you <i>must</i> be silent. Knowing you're no nearer to sleep than you are to morning.<br />
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She loves to read, so she has that going for her. But I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. The world has changed since I was a kid. No way in Hell am I letting any child of mine wander the streets of Chicago by night, so different from Ann Arbor in the 90s. But I cannot stay up with her each night, drinking warm cups of milk and reading books.<br />
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Some nights, yes, I can do that.<br />
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Because some nights, yes, I still don't sleep.<br />
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But I don't want this for her. I don't want decades of insomnia for her. I don't want the attendant depression and anxiety that come from constant fatigue. I don't want the regret, I don't want her to feel like there is something wrong with her. I don't want her to feel like she'll never be rested again. I don't want any of that for my daughter.<br />
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But on nights like that I want to tell her, "Someday, when you're a grownup, you'll be able to sleep." And what comfort is that to a child of five? What comfort comes from knowing you'll be old enough to have children of your own before you can finally enjoy the benefits of <i>actually sleeping</i>?<br />
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Last night I was awake long after SI. Laying in bed, anxieties plaguing me, alternately reading and playing Tetris.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid1sHstyJLIwTwfwaov0YNxDTiJluZWoJGOc0gslDrQ-0gANfhcRQnUmJJpVzasvN48Zcf7F8pqIdwMG2aSPLGejEpUcW9wfpG0yJdmRNPsj2FJt7_K0ZUVClFao9qqt83VpgVFH5qWJdQ/s1600/IMG_3605.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid1sHstyJLIwTwfwaov0YNxDTiJluZWoJGOc0gslDrQ-0gANfhcRQnUmJJpVzasvN48Zcf7F8pqIdwMG2aSPLGejEpUcW9wfpG0yJdmRNPsj2FJt7_K0ZUVClFao9qqt83VpgVFH5qWJdQ/s1600/IMG_3605.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and SI taking selfies (and M photobombing them)</td></tr>
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Maybe next time she comes in at 11pm, I'll send M to the couch. I'll let SI lie down in the bed with me and talk through everything that's busying her tired brain. Maybe I'll take her to the living room, tuck her into the couch, and give her a shot glass of schnapps, "To sip slowly," and hand her a book a few grade levels beyond her abilities to struggle with and conquer before dawn.<br />
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Maybe next time, I'll curl up with her on the couch, and put F Troop on TV and watch until the sun comes up.<br />
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Maybe during the next Parent Teacher Conference, I'll tell her teachers to be patient with her when she's tired, because there is nothing I know to do to help her sleep.<br />
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Maybe this is one of those things in life I knew would come, these personal battles I just can't fight for her.<br />
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Maybe all I can do is be understanding of her when she weeps over nothing throughout the day, just too tired to behave, when she screams at her baby sister from the exasperation of the exhausted. Maybe all I can do is let her not sleep and love her so much that she always feels she can snuggle on my lap when she needs a rest.<br />
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It might not get her through high school, but it might get her through learning to live like this.<br />
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Maybe all I can do is be her mother.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-36458925676283596082015-01-04T10:13:00.000-06:002015-01-04T10:18:06.528-06:00Sunday Blogaround - 1.4.15<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello lovely readers, and welcome back to the Sunday Blogaround!<br />
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I always loved posting these roundups, so let's see if we can't make the Blogaround our routine again through 2015.<br />
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There's always so much wonderful stuff on the blogosphere, but I think New Year's is one of the best weeks for writing, period. Everyone's reflecting on their year, their lives, and their goals, and it makes for some very compelling reading. So to get your year off on the right foot, please enjoy these wonderful post.<br />
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Read on, lovelies!<br />
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<a href="http://www.renegademothering.com/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzyazPw03jsuK4VPsyiVXmQVmkmRMvH1VhVmCgh-6FxAvGAtHqdNjKnt8PG4YX8c8UbNJ5-WXbI_9J0GVqIXqgbkY638PMTAOGZuTRE5EhWtMFRKhG9wuBF0w27rI1jk75iF8EtSE3sNBc/s1600/button150x150.png" /></a><b><a href="http://www.renegademothering.com/2014/12/29/things-im-supposed-care-dont-christmas-edition/">Things I'm Supposed To Care About But Don't, Christmas Edition</a> - Renegade Mothering</b><br />
Take a deep breath, and read it. I love pretty much everything Janelle writes, and this is no exception. I'm new to the Christmas thing, and I saw the post she's writing about go around a lot. Part of me thought, "Oh, that makes sense," and part of me thought, "Really? Are we dictating how people pretend about Santa Claus?" I think Janelle is dead right about not protecting your children from reality, and I think it's always good to remember that.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.thecougelchronicles.com/uncategorized/the-year-in-memoir/">My Year in Memoir</a> - the Cougel Chronicles</b><br />
Oritte writes eloquently about how the process of writing her memoir shaped her year. I really feel this, as my last year was also dedicated to writing a memoir, and I also relate so strongly to medical drama that interrupts newlywed bliss. It's a lovely post about authenticity and seeing yourself as you are. A must for writers, in particular.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.dadofthedecade.com/?p=556">Rise and Fall</a> - Dad of the Decade</b><br />
Another of my favorite bloggers of all time. Ben writes so beautifully about his experience, and about parenthood and fatherhood and loving somebody so much it consumes you. Prepare for all the feels, so many, many feels on this one. It, like everything Ben does, is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.<br />
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<b><a href="http://deep-dark-fears.tumblr.com/post/106761003162/top-five-deep-dark-fears-from-2014">Top Five Deep Dark Fears from 2014</a> - Deep Dark Fears</b><br />
One of my new favorite guilty(ish) pleasures- Deep Dark Fears. This is a collection of illustrations made of people personal fears. Some of them are adorably childish. Some of them are terrifyingly specific. Some of them are funny, and some are sad. But I always love taking a moment and diving into somebody else's psyche, and for some reason, I think there's comfort to be found in knowing we <i>all</i> have these weird fears deep inside us.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theadventuresofthefamilypants.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="The Family Pants" src="http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff392/lolajack/c2f7ce48-70a7-47f0-8c1f-d2af0ec776bc_zpsaa2349e2.jpg" /></a><b><a href="http://www.theadventuresofthefamilypants.com/blog/dear-pants-and-plum-on-chaos-and-love">Dear Pants and Plum: On Chaos and Love</a> - The Family Pants</b><br />
Colleen is one of my favorite mommy bloggers on the face of the earth, and every time she posts it makes me feel things. This is a beautiful, sweet, thoroughly perfect open letter to her five and three year olds, and a wonderful reminder for any parent of a little kid what we get out of the chaos when it's all we can see.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.modernmom.com/auld-acquaintance-106566.html">Auld Acquaintance </a>- Modern Mom</b><br />
You got me, I wrote this one. We had a bit of a close call on our trip to Minnesota, and I am delighted to share the story with everyone. And I'm thrilled to be making my debut over at Modern Mom. So definitely head over and check it out!!!!<br />
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<b><a href="http://spaghetti-toes.tumblr.com/">Spaghetti Toes</a></b><br />
One of my new favorite tumblrs- a graphic designer and their kid, saying crazy things to each other (like ya do), illustrated. Yes, there's a great New Year's post... but let's just enjoy the entire thing for this week. Because I think most of us could have these printed up as posters for whichever room in our houses we go to hide from the kids.<br />
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<b><a href="http://farfromparadise.org/2015/01/02/leavebehind/">The More We Leave Behind</a> - Far From Paradise</b><br />
Rather than reflecting on the old year, Amy is looking ahead to the new. I love her insights about, as she puts it, "self excavation." I love the idea of sort of decluttering your psyche as a gift to yourself. This is a lovely example of how to step boldly into your own future, and we could all benefit from following.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-28201540812992086892015-01-02T12:19:00.000-06:002015-01-02T12:22:18.684-06:00Resolving to be Awesome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's time once again to revel in my neuroses.<br />
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As long time readers know, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I set a series of achievable goals, and I work towards them. Or, I don't. But either way, I stop at the end of every day and rather than cross it off my calendar, I check all the boxes of things I wanted to do and accomplished from my list.<br />
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I start every year by cutting out about 370 tiny square lists, and yes, every night I mark whether or not I did the things I wanted to do. And then I tally them up, and see whether or not I succeeded in meeting my goals.<br />
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This year was a bit of a surprise. Some things, I thought I rocked. Some? I thought I tanked way worse than I thought had. So here's how it actually broke down.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmZRgYq_p7J-D0SY5LdEXCGg5s8OrEwXT-wxW8sAxJcRlsCw6nXiewPrHfIh8YPt7rCZfpynv877h6FPhnyHn9xE2MhET5ZT95ZrDZfhD3AatLdhVh9tWspMaFQmYsmuuNiWwtHbvHGKQ/s1600/Photo+on+9-8-14+at+7.44+PM+%233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigmZRgYq_p7J-D0SY5LdEXCGg5s8OrEwXT-wxW8sAxJcRlsCw6nXiewPrHfIh8YPt7rCZfpynv877h6FPhnyHn9xE2MhET5ZT95ZrDZfhD3AatLdhVh9tWspMaFQmYsmuuNiWwtHbvHGKQ/s1600/Photo+on+9-8-14+at+7.44+PM+%233.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/My-Other-Ex-Stories-Leaving-ebook/dp/B00MX2IJ3S">It's on sale for $.99 until Monday!!!</a></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Write daily</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 365</span></b><br />
I didn't do so great. In fact, I did one <i>worse</i> than last year- I only wrote 292 days out of 365. I'm cutting myself a bit of slack on this- I did a <i>lot</i> of traveling in 2014, so that would be a problem for my writing routine. And while I might not have written every day... I <i>did</i> publish quite a bit. I own three lovely anthologies with work in them. I got an agent to represent my memoir! But the thing is, I <b>know</b> I can always at least scribble out a haiku about having no time to write... so I have no excuse. This year- 365 or bust.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Eat at least two meals</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 365</span></b><br />
I'm going to call this one an unequivocal win. I managed to eat at least two meals during 358 days of 2014! In fact, it became so much my routine... <i>I'm actually eating right now. </i>That's right, I've finally gotten the hang of freezing leftovers and then moving them to the fridge the day before I know I'll have a hard time figuring out what to feed myself. Right now? Borscht. And I love borscht, even if the beets didn't particularly care for being frozen. It's become so much habit, it's completely come off my 2015 goals. I have actually succeeded in modifying my own behavior! Go me!<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Maintained minimum hygiene</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 365</span></b><br />
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You'd think this would be easy. All I have to do is brush my teeth OR wash my face OR take a damn shower. But then, you probably never had a house full of toddlers and preschoolers if you think this is always easy. I'm happy to say I improved on last year's abysmal number... but sadly, only by three. I only managed to brush my teeth at a bare minimum 284 times last year. And actually, last year was an improvement over the year before. So I'm going to give myself a little break, and actually lower the number for 2015. I know, gross, right? But let's be honest. There are sick days, there are camping/travel days, there are times when I already know I won't have ACCESS to running water or a toothbrush or anything... so I'm knocking a whopping fifteen days off this goal. My goal for 2015: maintain my hygiene at least 350 days out of the year. Just splash some goddamn water on my face, almost every day of the year. At 284 times in 2014, I run no risk of overstepping this goal. But baby steps, right?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIf4ezVqvG_2upTosHnE0bBRuDP-48MTLBAM0Pp-FYn57kt_0LbvGd4hfOzMtywlEOmSMx0gmguJIv-2ZpKvW9TiZ4mGs5DPCCQiH8SRRrv27UFFpywqNwsh_Z_mlOWBrA9smb2-Dciqc/s1600/IMG_9926.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkIf4ezVqvG_2upTosHnE0bBRuDP-48MTLBAM0Pp-FYn57kt_0LbvGd4hfOzMtywlEOmSMx0gmguJIv-2ZpKvW9TiZ4mGs5DPCCQiH8SRRrv27UFFpywqNwsh_Z_mlOWBrA9smb2-Dciqc/s1600/IMG_9926.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picking apples!</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Went outside</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 312</span></b><br />
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Hahahahahahah no.</div>
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Even though I intentionally gave myself one day a week to not even step onto the balcony, I did even worse on this than bathing- which is probably good. There was a lot of correlation between days I didn't brush my teeth and days I didn't leave the house- so you're welcome, world. I'm also cutting myself some slack. There were days last year that the school canceled for, I quote, "Life threateningly cold temperatures." No way in Frozen Over Hell am I making myself leave the house under those conditions. So I'm also dropping my standards here. I left the house 273 days last year. That's kind of depressingly low, but five days better than 2013, so... win? This year, I'm lowering the standard again. I'm going to give myself one day a week to be a shut in, and one day a month to just be antisocial. So, an even 300 for next year.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Sang</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 365</span></b><br />
This is kind of depressing, but I did SO BADLY.<br />
It actually kind of breaks my heart to say this, but in the month of October, I only sang during <i>three days</i>. Three days in an <i>entire month</i> that I didn't sing a single song.<br />
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I'm in shock. I <i>love</i> to sing. This goal has been a huge wake up call for me. I am vowing, not only to sing, but to resume what used to be my routine of doing vocal warmups in the shower. So when I'm showering (more frequently this year!) I'll be singing. Even warmup ditties. "See the swimmers swimming in the deep blue see," and whatnot.<br />
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That said, I also get that I do get sick. And when I get sick, I lose my voice. Pretty much every time. So I'm giving myself a little leeway here, too. One day off a week from singing, just in case the voice box needs a rest. So new goal- 312. Which is almost twice what I actually accomplished- my abysmal 176.<br />
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...I'm so ashamed.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Had alone time</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 260</span></b><br />
I assumed it wouldn't be possible on weekends at the start of the year. but you know what?<br />
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<b>296 bitches!!!!!!!</b><br />
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This one became so important to me I actually managed the behavior modification to make it part of my daily routine, too. So it comes off the list! I have officially learned to give myself "me time!" GO ME!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82Y06QSngNgbidKBbLKKPsFr55ycNvUm8852Xrvw2GvmvAZkmCqGAnpUab20sI6XvXwC17ShPPpfX7oEN6os038xVWuQ_x5nyAyc6NKdOZuOc6KxkLFCkSYdrEbZyiOrxJ055boVVRRfq/s1600/0531140748.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82Y06QSngNgbidKBbLKKPsFr55ycNvUm8852Xrvw2GvmvAZkmCqGAnpUab20sI6XvXwC17ShPPpfX7oEN6os038xVWuQ_x5nyAyc6NKdOZuOc6KxkLFCkSYdrEbZyiOrxJ055boVVRRfq/s1600/0531140748.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to all who sponsored me in the RAINN 5K!</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Exercised</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 156</span></b><br />
I didn't do too badly, honestly. I hit 137, up from last year's 123. That said, I don't feel like I got a solid two weeks of exercising in at ANY point last year, and I know the bulk of my most vigorous cardio came from dancing my ass off at every wedding people were dumb enough to invite me to. So while I don't feel exactly BAD about it, the goal stays. 156. If I improve as much this year as I did last, that should be an achievable goal.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Observe the Sabbath with the kids</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 35</span></b><br />
Last year, I decided my goal of lighting Shabbat candles with the girls every Friday night was unrealistic, so I lowered the goal to 35. I figured, that more than accounted for date nights where I wasn't home, for days where we were traveling and in hotels or somebody else's home, and I should be able to nail it. I even felt like we did a pretty good job this year- all the kids know all the prayers, and they get totally thrilled whenever I remind them it's Shabbat.<br />
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I bombed. Oh, how I bombed. 22. A whole seven weeks <i>worse</i> than last year. This year I will do better. This year I <b>will</b> do better. The goal stands.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Read a book for pleasure</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 12</span></b><br />
I was so embarrassed last year- I only managed to read nine- <i>nine</i>- books for pleasure in the year 2013. So I was determined to beat my previous goal of a book a month.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimxY7IbgUffOsCZg3rWi33wSEpgl6xnsBsf320qSw_CQbWT9_nciwt4d_1O26CI1yN0aXSTp6RDlgETRR9UbSQmwPPbpfofC5u8q5fb8OottEMf-OQw2FINBD67ieUBacS6mskUggITjWp/s1600/1602172_10152170712890925_6774261395169047753_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimxY7IbgUffOsCZg3rWi33wSEpgl6xnsBsf320qSw_CQbWT9_nciwt4d_1O26CI1yN0aXSTp6RDlgETRR9UbSQmwPPbpfofC5u8q5fb8OottEMf-OQw2FINBD67ieUBacS6mskUggITjWp/s1600/1602172_10152170712890925_6774261395169047753_o.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finishing up "The Glass Castle" with a sleeping toddler</td></tr>
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You ready for this?<br />
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I read 34 books in 2014. <b>Take that, slacker brain!!!!</b> I've decided that since, first of all, I loved reading as a part of my routing SO much, and second of all I often lost count of how many books I'd finished over a weekend (such nice weekends!), I'm going to go ahead and up my goal. This year? 36. Three books a month. Yes, graphic novels still count. (So get crackin' Kirkman!). But some extra fun? Now that the girls and I are reading chapter books together, I'm going to get to revisit a bunch of childhood favorites, and they DEFINITELY count. Anne of Green Gables, Pippi Longstocking, Little House in the Big Woods... these are all on the next few months' reading list. And that doesn't even count the dozen or so books I've got lined up on my kindle for after they're asleep. Should be a good year for books. :)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Finished a project</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 12</span></b><br />
And how many projects did I finish this year?<br />
Forty fucking one.<br />
<b>Take that, slacker hands!!!!</b> In 2013, I felt amazing for finishing a whopping 13 projects. This year though, I finally got over some creative blocks, and I had a BLAST making things. Art, cakes, cards... and yes, I definitely counted the lavender honey roast duck I made for Thanksgiving as a project. I'm a vegetarian and let me tell you, that thing was <i>pretty.</i><br />
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So I'm not going to push myself to do more next year- I'm just going to push myself to keep up. The goal for 2015- 36. Three projects a month. And yes, home improvement projects count. So when I repaint the trim in the living room, that is DEFINITELY a check mark for the day!<br />
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And that's how I did in 2014. I'm adding a new one, since I can't stand living in the kind of chaos my house has devolved into.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: House cleaner when I go to bed than when I wake up</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 156</span></b><br />
Three days a week. I think I can handle that. I <i>hope</i> I can handle that.<br />
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...but you know what? Something else has been seriously lacking in my goals. These have all been small, reasonable things. Something I can do and expect myself to do. But I haven't been giving myself enough credit. I have gotten better and better of expecting <i>more</i> of myself, not the bare minimum.<br />
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On facebook, I phrased it- "I resolve to be awesome!" But I don't do resolutions. I do achievable goals. So now here I am, adding another goal.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQaF_y9pYY5u9HObh5B-27eQ0nq5p8ojkchq74sZuq1EGkgaQX3JPmJKfc7ZD-cYo8so8RY8nTOAjg3bXL4v_Ov9IKqauqC86NEyk_AnjSn9R_lj6d-wjsSb3UKV0KtfKXqYTX73cV-Pd/s1600/2014-05-09_0126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheQaF_y9pYY5u9HObh5B-27eQ0nq5p8ojkchq74sZuq1EGkgaQX3JPmJKfc7ZD-cYo8so8RY8nTOAjg3bXL4v_Ov9IKqauqC86NEyk_AnjSn9R_lj6d-wjsSb3UKV0KtfKXqYTX73cV-Pd/s1600/2014-05-09_0126.jpg" height="320" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opening up LTYM Chicago</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Goal: Accomplish Something Amazing</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Target: 4</span></b><br />
One a season. Because you know what? I accomplished some really amazing things in 2014, and now I can't help but expect myself to meet that new standard.<br />
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I became a professional speaker- on behalf of RAINN and about sex positive parenting. I was a BlogHer VOTY. I stood on stage for Listen To Your Mother. I <i>got an agent for my memoir</i>. I was published in three anthologies. Those are serious accomplishments. And I deserve to expect them from myself.<br />
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So today, I'm already checking one off my list for 2015. Because this? This is my 700th blog post on Becoming SuperMommy.<br />
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<b>Seven hundred posts.</b><br />
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That is no mean feat. That is hours and hours and hours and hours, months, <i>years</i>, of pouring my heart and soul into the internets and actually learning from it. Gaining the love and support and friendship of amazing people all over the world. Becoming a better person. Becoming a better writer. Becoming a better friend.<br />
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...Becoming SuperMommy.<br />
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I'm still not there yet. I am by no means SuperMommy, really. But I'm giving myself a little credit. I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt. I am patting myself on the back and saying, "You know what? You kind of rock."<br />
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So all of you should pat yourself on the backs, too, because you're amazing. Without you, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have a stack of anthologies with my name in them, I wouldn't have a finished memoir and an agent representing it, I wouldn't have a list of appearances and interviews... all of that was your doing, and I am unfathomably grateful.<br />
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Here's to 2015, lovely readers! Here's to you!<br />
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I love you all.</div>
Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-54618969882249930312014-12-31T12:05:00.000-06:002014-12-31T12:22:17.685-06:00The Year in ReviewUsually, this last post of the year, I showcase my favorite photos from the last twelve months. But this year I've decided to up my game a bit.<br />
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For another little trip down memory lane, here are my most popular blog posts, and my favorite blog posts, month by month:<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">January:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular/My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/01/becoming-invisible.html">Becoming Invisible</a></b><br />
<i>I can't see her face. I cannot assemble these pieces. My mother is an invisible force of nature, a supernatural entity made of love and discipline and constant presence.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">February:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/02/lets-talk-about-beds-baby.html">Let's Talk About Beds, Baby</a></b><br />
<i>I'm pretty optimistic that by the anniversary of getting our new mattress, it will have saved us as much in medical costs (and attached childcare costs) as the thing cost in the first place.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/02/presumption-of-innocence.html">Presumption of Innocence</a></b><br />
<i>Part of me was relieved. As I exited the courtroom, I finally allowed myself to believe he was guilty. An instant, overwhelming surety, now that I didn't have the obligation to give him the benefit of the doubt. </i><i>At the same time I felt a wave of guilt, that I could damn him so easily before his trial. </i><i>And then a wave of fury.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b><b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">March:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular/My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/03/esprit-descalier.html">Esprit D'Escalier</a></b><br />
<i>I wish instead I'd talked to his friends, and asked them if they're okay with this. If they're okay with going around with this super rape-y guy who can't tell the difference between disembodied breasts and a human being, and ask why they're willing to be seen in public with such a pathetic excuse of a human being.</i><br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">April:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/04/all-my-little-words.html">All My Little Words</a></b><br />
<i>I didn't look like a willowy, blond haired, tan skinned Gwen Stefani clone. I didn't look like the girls in the magazines, or on TV. And while part of me understood all the while that it didn't make me ugly, it did make me... not pretty. </i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/04/oblivious.html">Oblivious</a></b><br />
<i>I screamed. Of course I screamed. And RH, her hair full of glass fragments, with glimmering pieces of broken glass shimmering all over her clothes, froze.</i><br />
<b><br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">May:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-binder.html">The Binder</a></b><br />
<i>That legal pad of Grandma's became my confidante. M never read the binder- so I was more honest with it than I was with him. If I thought he was depressed, or struggling, or weakening, it went into the binder. And then I could bring it up casually with the doctor, M never being the wiser for my worries.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/05/more-than-stage.html">More Than A Stage</a></b><br />
<i>There is nothing like being part of a cast. You're a family, even if only temporarily. You care about each other, you care about each other's families, you care about each other's success and happiness. You want everyone to do their best, not just on stage, but everywhere. And you want to help. Sharing a stage in a cast is different from sharing the stage in an open mic. Open mics are every man for himself, self promotion and flights of fancy. A cast though- a cast is more. It's a commitment.</i><br />
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">June:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/06/sex-positive-parenting-or-we-dont-touch.html">Sex Positive Parenting, or, We Don't Touch Our Vulvas At The Table</a></b><br />
<i>The truth is that human beings, almost universally, like sex. It feels good. And it's </i>supposed<i> to feel good. If it didn't, the human race would die out. The truth is that sex isn't special and magical just because it's sex. The truth is that you can have spectacular sex with strangers who's names you don't even know. The truth is that just because you </i>can<i>, that doesn't necessarily mean you </i>should<i>.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/06/six-down-twenty-to-go.html">Six Down, Twenty to Go</a></b><br />
<i>When I think of my love for M, it still comes with a hint of fear that one day he'll realize I'm not good enough for him, that I'm lazy and fat and unshowered and he deserves so much more than me- and rather than feeling depressed by such thoughts I feel inspired to impress him, to show him how competent I can be, how beautiful I can be, how brilliant I can be, until I surprise myself by becoming better than I ever knew I could.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><br />
</b><b><span style="font-size: large;">July:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-truth-about-sex-after-kids.html">The Truth About Sex After Kids</a></b><br />
<i>You can explore your fetishes and kinks and preferences, even the ones that previously embarrassed you, because </i>nothing embarrasses you anymore<i>. Not when you've both sat staring at each other at the crack of dawn, covered in the same infant's vomit and feces. Not when you've had more conversations than you care to count about the kids' diarrhea and whether or not the shits you're both experiencing indicate a virus, something psychosomatic, or yet another side effect of prolonged fatigue.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/07/just-fine.html">Just Fine</a></b><br />
<i>Now, for the last several scans, things had appeared identical. No change from scan to scan. But, as of last month, there is </i>something<i>. A tiny, minuscule shift that when viewed over years instead of months, shows those vague areas that used to be solid white in the MRIs becoming a little bit cloudier again.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">August:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular/My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-body-my-choices-thoughts-on-chicago.html">My Body, My Choices- Thoughts on the Chicago Slutwalk</a></b><br />
<i>I will not apologize for teaching my daughters that they control their bodies, and their fates. </i><i>But I will apologize for this world, because I am a part of it. And until I can be confident that I have more than done my part to make it safe for them to exist here, as girls and then women, the guilt that has plagued me most of my life will continue.</i><br />
<b><br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">September:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/09/one-more-cup-of-coffee.html">One More Cup Of Coffee</a></b><br />
<i>Every morning last year, as we drove to preschool, I'd surf through the local pop stations, looking for what the kids and I called "bouncy songs." These were songs the kids could happily bounce in their seats to, through the whole six minute drive.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/09/whyistayed-how-vanity-fair-lifttour-is.html">#WhyIStayed, How the Vanity Fair #LiftTOUR is Helping, And How You Can Too</a></b><br />
<i>He said something about me shutting up, because he'd paid for dinner. And I said something back. Something probably loaded with snark and that may or may not have implied that there was no way in Hell I was having sex with him that night, if ever. Even if I had invited him over to my place for a cup of tea. </i><i>And then he grabbed my hair and yanked me halfway across the room.</i><br />
<b><br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">October:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular/My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-routines-of-bravery.html">The Routines of Bravery</a></b><br />
<i>"Is that washi tape?" I asked.</i><br />
<i>"Yes!" her mother said. She beamed at me. "We're going to change it, though. She says it's too bright for fall."</i><br />
<i>The girl rolled her eyes, and I saw the human inside her, the constantly embarrassed teenaged girl. I smiled at the mother.</i><br />
<i>"Totally. Are you thinking about something more Halloween-y? Skulls and crossbones or something?"</i><br />
<i>I hoped maybe the girl would smirk. I thought skulls were delightfully subversive. </i><i>Her mother gave me a look that broke my heart. It wasn't admonition, or humor, or solidarity. It was gratitude.</i><br />
<b><br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">November:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/11/just-look.html">Just Look</a></b><br />
<i>If I were given no indication but the feel of their hand in mine, I would know who's hand I was holding.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b> <b>My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-uncleanable-house.html">The Uncleanable House</a></b><br />
<i>I may in fact have put my children down for a nap and rolled around the floor, hardly able to believe it was possible to do such a thing without accumulating an even patina of crumbs.</i><br />
<b><br />
</b><b><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" /><span style="font-size: large;">December:</span></b><br />
<b>Most Popular/My Favorite: <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/12/father-dies-son-dies-grandson-dies.html">Father Dies, Son Dies, Grandson Dies</a></b><br />
<i>I often forget about other people. I often forget that M and I aren't our own little universe. I forget that there are other people who care about us. It's easier to forget, a lot of the time. It's easier to put little limits around your grief and your hope and pretend that nobody outside feels any of it. </i><i>But they do.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i><br />
</i> Happy reading, lovely readers!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXNTll7HSNsLdpOjrEvxNRwZ-nfcatSfEtbVRJpbdsSOMnsmMNnhopiT0K5muSYsshdsgf1ONk6ZZ31mV1Ta24zVIAW4flrxDXt0aGnIY2wqXi9vcznXLgdgx9o-xOXXniaFp1nI0BuBJ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-12-31+at+12.20.59+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjXNTll7HSNsLdpOjrEvxNRwZ-nfcatSfEtbVRJpbdsSOMnsmMNnhopiT0K5muSYsshdsgf1ONk6ZZ31mV1Ta24zVIAW4flrxDXt0aGnIY2wqXi9vcznXLgdgx9o-xOXXniaFp1nI0BuBJ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-12-31+at+12.20.59+PM.png" height="540" width="640" /></a></div>
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And a Happy New Year!Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-66226117808339020812014-12-30T10:24:00.000-06:002014-12-30T10:24:43.099-06:00Beautiful Bouqs For Every Occasion<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFcV46sBitM6GsTmWxlWudGnnBOEDpWkcpmjEmcEuWl7BSfnHQ8zMdyI22fb6Ajq8so23QKs-xg9GZ1k7Qq3VGjA0vT0XKMsrgmsvTIVAcj8xd99x7e1pgEb1mZhM4JFxcrl-mZuK43rA/s1600/jpg-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpFcV46sBitM6GsTmWxlWudGnnBOEDpWkcpmjEmcEuWl7BSfnHQ8zMdyI22fb6Ajq8so23QKs-xg9GZ1k7Qq3VGjA0vT0XKMsrgmsvTIVAcj8xd99x7e1pgEb1mZhM4JFxcrl-mZuK43rA/s1600/jpg-1.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is a sponsored post- I was given free flowers to review, but all opinions are my own.</i></td></tr>
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I was recently given the opportunity to review a bouquet of flowers from <a href="https://www.thebouqs.com/">The Bouqs Company</a>.<br />
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Because when somebody says to you, "Hey, I grow gorgeous freaking roses on the side of an active volcano," you stop what you're doing and listen.<br />
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Actually, growing them on an active volcano makes TOTAL SENSE. All that volcanic activity keeps the soil warmer, which is usually a better environment for growing flowers. It's just science. Volcanoes are flowery magic.<br />
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This video does a wonderful job of explaining what <a href="https://www.thebouqs.com/">The Bouqs Co.</a> does, so take a moment and enjoy their hilarious explanation:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6hm5zX0Nlno" width="640"></iframe><br />
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So yes, I accepted a bunch of free flowers to brighten up my home.<br />
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The first thing I did was let my kids pick out the flowers. "What color roses should we get, kids?"<br />
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They each have very strong opinions on this sort of thing,<br />
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DD <i>demanded</i> fuchsia. SI screamed, "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" until our downstairs neighbors started calling to complain about the noise. RH said, "I was gween! I want gween!" and then followed that up with, "I want Care Bears!" and "I'm SUPER BATMAN! ZOOOOOOOM!"<br />
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So, hoping for a bouquet of yellow, fuchsia, and green flowers, we starting going through <a href="https://www.thebouqs.com/">The Bouqs Co.</a> website.<br />
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And we happened to find this gorgeous bouquet:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIiSXxo1A_y_stQS2W3lAVC0oSezpaaxKMlar2vkmxqNfHJLhauvsoJOYxXyAty4xjoGU0OM3MJL3bb_TRuEbnHR9Ql0BJ1SbWhNGVom9fulFBVIFZHqi-qnn1AkEZL7p1NoZHn1EMd7un/s1600/jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIiSXxo1A_y_stQS2W3lAVC0oSezpaaxKMlar2vkmxqNfHJLhauvsoJOYxXyAty4xjoGU0OM3MJL3bb_TRuEbnHR9Ql0BJ1SbWhNGVom9fulFBVIFZHqi-qnn1AkEZL7p1NoZHn1EMd7un/s1600/jpg.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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Yup. Yellow and fuchsia. And although it's hard to see in this picture, I was pretty confident the stems would be green- that should satisfy a toddler.<br />
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So I placed the order and waited to see what would happen.<br />
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The bouquet came <i>fast</i>, and in a long, attractive box. Inside the box? Layers upon layers of protective packaging, in arrangements I'd never seen.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGO9zRebVeb2TTpGTKW7wrbZcR9dnOk0118mhukRAVeoHLHtqulfZd58b1TDrEFV5M-Lpch2QWtH8j-HTwSSzs1mperiCNWCsUOpTMoTpk6lUlmgQ7avBKFg_ZMASvvwKc61osmIMHsC6/s1600/IMG_2563.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRGO9zRebVeb2TTpGTKW7wrbZcR9dnOk0118mhukRAVeoHLHtqulfZd58b1TDrEFV5M-Lpch2QWtH8j-HTwSSzs1mperiCNWCsUOpTMoTpk6lUlmgQ7avBKFg_ZMASvvwKc61osmIMHsC6/s1600/IMG_2563.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Enormous bubble wrap, soft card stock, and the stems were wrapped in a sort of gel, keeping them healthfully hydrated during their trip from their volcano home.<br />
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The box even helpfully included specific instructions on how to care for our flowers. Which was nice, because although I thought I knew what to do, it was helpful to have somebody tell me exactly how much stem to trim and how.<br />
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The roses were enormous. Truly, <i>huge</i> roses. And they smelled heavenly.<br />
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We took our roses and sorted them into two vases- green, fuchsia and yellow in each, of course- and set them on opposite ends of the house. One in the dining room, one one the piano in the foyer.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVcvnKJCd_f48eNZaS2CGXTSWlDTjbkJCyfMesgSLbm78czO2JIqce8SN9Xx8vOMKzuEv0pnOKEleP-d67SdRpzL9nne7yBP3o1Q4mLCjB18T7XNFSAbOiLjvU9O_3RPu7L182NX1UKxZ/s1600/IMG_2564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVcvnKJCd_f48eNZaS2CGXTSWlDTjbkJCyfMesgSLbm78czO2JIqce8SN9Xx8vOMKzuEv0pnOKEleP-d67SdRpzL9nne7yBP3o1Q4mLCjB18T7XNFSAbOiLjvU9O_3RPu7L182NX1UKxZ/s1600/IMG_2564.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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For days, the roses brightened the whole house. But then, as flowers do, they started dying.<br />
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So I trimmed the stems, tossed the sadder roses, and recombined them into one vase again, only this room I relegated it to my own bedside table, because I'm selfish like that.<br />
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The flowers were gorgeous and colorful and made our house feel a little more summery, despite the schizophrenic weather.<br />
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I highly recommend the Bouqs flowers. They arrive in better shape and stay beautiful longer than any other florist delivery service I've tried.<br />
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Keep that in mind come Valentine's Day, lovely readers! And flower on!!!!Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-39375791933778870182014-12-29T14:46:00.000-06:002014-12-29T15:02:40.104-06:00The Twilight of Doubt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We were most of the way between lunch in Eau Claire with M's cousins and dinner in Milwaukee with a deploying friend. In the hour before, the sunset stretched from horizon to horizon. Bright purples and reds and orange puffs of clouds, hovering over fields glowing gold beneath the sky. Now the sun was beyond the treeline to the west, and a deep rainbow still clung to the air where it submerged, casting a warmth to the wintry purple of the sky ahead.<br />
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RH couldn't see the pages of her Pocoyo book, and she called to me from the rear of the car.<br />
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"Mommy, can you make the sunshine come back?"<br />
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Oh, God, how I wished I could.<br />
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I wished I could make the sun stop and go backwards, and spin the earth the wrong way round, until time reversed itself and I could freeze it exactly where I needed it right then.<br />
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I would spin the earth backwards 2735 full rotations, and freeze it on a sunny day in July when the heat danced on the outside our basement apartment, and M and I lay beneath the mid day glow of summer- wrapped in each others love and the endless flavors of possibility.<br />
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I would never give up the now; the dark, cramped, cold hours on a freeway between family and friends, after the chaos of the holidays has mostly passed, with the same awful rendition of The Alphabet Song playing on a loop from our back seat for eight hours and then some, winding out the gloomy December day.<br />
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I would never give up the darker times that always seem to follow the bright.<br />
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I would hold onto those hours after the Christmas presents were opened and the house was asleep, where I lay in bed and cried silent tears because it had been so good. It had been so joyous, and full, and there had been so much laughter and so much love, and if this was his last Christmas there was nothing anyone could have done to make it better.<br />
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There was nothing anyone could do to change it that would make it less painful in future years, if this was his last Christmas, so I cried because I wasn't ready for the best to be here. I bit my knuckles while my tears flooded my ears and I waited for Xanax to calm me to sleep, because these are my dark times. The moments the not knowing, the endless not knowing, is so much I can't bear it.<br />
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<i>If I could bring back the sunshine, if I could make the sun come out from behind the clouds...</i><br />
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On the heels of every happy moment doubts follow me.<br />
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When I collected his photograph from the studio, framed and matted with its velvet backing, I cried. The nice girls in the nice shop smiled kindly, used to weeping mothers and wives who come for their happy memories.<br />
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I cried for the child in the picture, the toddler with her lips pursed, ready to kiss her daddy's cheek, because we don't know. For another few hours yet, I won't know. I'll sit in the friendly lobby of the MRI suite and not know until the news is ready. And this month I'm worse at waiting. This month I'm frazzled from lack of sleep and a house knee deep in empty cardboard boxes from Channukah and Christmas presents that are somehow already broken or lost and replaced again. I have an image in my mind of a toddler grown into a girl whose best memory of her father is a framed photograph of how much they loved each other when she was small.<br />
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She asked me to bring back the sunshine, but I have no power over light. I have no control over tides and clouds and microscopic infiltrations of a tumor we beat years ago, like a vampire chased away but never killed. Whose ashes we never sprinkled into running water to ensure they would never return.<br />
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It's a specter of destruction, our unknown, and some nights I laugh louder and drink faster and dance harder and hug tighter and read all the stories that mock the darkness and do the funny voices for the children. Sometimes I find myself teaching them to laugh at shadows, to find familiar friends in their darkness, because I can't bring back the sunshine.<br />
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The children spent their vacation in Minnesota climbing all over their father. Burying him in pillows, playing catch with him, chasing him around the house and snuggling onto his lap. As though somehow they shared the dull anxiety I carry increasingly longer and sooner before these days that I wait and our friend the oncologist can wash it away.<br />
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I can't tell myself any longer that each time is the same, that one day it will be different. The truth is that every time is different now. Every time we're waiting to see if THIS is the time, not that there's something, because now there will always be something, but that there is <i>enough </i>something. That it's time again to pick our poisons and spin the roulette wheel of radiations and surgeries and consultations and brave faces.<br />
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My brave face is always on for the children, always firm but kind as I say with a sigh that I can't bring back the sunshine.<i> But I wish I could, honey. I wish I could.</i><br />
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If I could spin the earth backwards around the sun, I would go back to the sunny days when he tickled his daughters and they laughed and squealed and jumped all over him because they love him so much, and no matter what the stresses at work he knew everything was worthwhile.<br />
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I would go back to the mornings we lay in a different bed, the sunshine coming under different curtains, and listened to our children laughing. Listened to them singing their songs, and telling their stories, and laughing with each other; and us, aside. Other. Clockmaker parents in the sunset of greatest joy I never knew I could imagine.<br />
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I would stand outside of those moments, after spinning the sun, so I could always know. This is the thing we chose together, these children we had no idea we could love so much, these girls we didn't know would have the sweetest smiles and the brightest eyes, who would look so much like us and yet like only themselves, who loved us so intensely. Who love him so much they could never understand why I lay in the dark and cry over happiness.<br />
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Not <i>from</i> happiness.<br />
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But because it's not fair. It's not fair to see the sunshine, to see it shine so bright and so warm and know the day will end. It's not fair to choose between long afternoon naps in a family puddle and adventures outside with the sun on your cheeks.<br />
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It's not fair to see them love each other so much and know that it's going to end. Someday it's going to end. Someday, the news is going to be so bad I'll have to stop laughing into the oncoming darkness.<br />
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And if I could bring the sunshine back...<br />
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If I could only bring the sunshine back...<br />
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"Mommy, can you make the sunshine come back?"<br />
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As simple and straightforward as passing her a bag of crackers, or picking her book off the floor. Because I'm <i>Mommy</i>, I'm the omnipotent creator of darkness and light, of food and clothing, of routine and chaos. To her, I am just as capable of bringing back the day as of opening her juice box.<br />
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I am the man behind the curtain, pulling levers to emit puffs of smoke and the rumble of thunder, crying myself to sleep when the children are tucked into bed. Because I can't bring it back.<br />
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This might be twilight, but night is coming. And I have no way of knowing if tomorrow the sun will shine again.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-65266520568412398412014-12-26T08:30:00.000-06:002014-12-26T11:50:40.230-06:00The SuperMommy Family Annual Letter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Hello and Happy Holidays, dear friends and family,<br />
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Sometimes it's hard to believe how much anyone can grow in just a year. 2014 brought so many changes and so much joy to our family, it's flown by before we even knew what hit us.<br />
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SI, age five, is reading at a third grade level. I never get over my shock at her working vocabulary, although sometimes I do wish she would stop prompting complicated conversations by reading aloud from billboards on the freeway advertising Adult Superstores. She has spent much of the last year developing a sarcastic streak, for which Mike is happy to take credit. She loves birds, her new favorite superhero is Falcon (and his pet falcon, Redwing), and asks weekly if we can get a pet macaw. The answer is no, but we are looking forward to showering her in stuffed birds this holiday season.<br />
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DD, also age five, has decided she wants to catch up to SI when it comes to reading, and I couldn't be happier. All of us read the “Catwings” books together, and it seemed that was all the prompting DD needed. Cats? Flying? She was hooked, and now she's happy to curl up in bed with a book and spend a few hours in another world. When she's not reading, DD nurtures her budding artistic talent. She loves to draw, paint, anything that involves putting color onto something else. I am looking forward to the day in the near future when I invite her to work with me in the studio on canvas. <br />
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RH, age two, is the most stubborn and determined child I've ever met. Yet, she has one of the sweetest dispositions. She is unfailingly polite, and asks permission for everything from a cup of water to, “Can I look at your hairbrush?” Watching her personality bloom has been a delight, and she makes us laugh not daily, but hourly, with her cheerful smile and absurd jokes. We decided to keep her in physical therapy and swim lessons instead of preschool this year, and she has thrived, charming all in her path. We can't wait to see what incredible changes she'll make when she starts preschool next fall.<br />
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M spent much of the summer preparing for his licensing exam, and sat sixteen hours of tests this October- on the same day as one of his best friend's wedding! We don't yet know the results, aside from proving once again what a brilliant and capable guy he is. His health remains stable, for which we are profoundly grateful.<br />
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As for me, I recently accepted representation from the Dee Mura Literary Agency, and look forward to turning my manuscript into an honest-to-goodness book. I've also started speaking publicly more frequently, and I'm looking forward to what the new year will bring on both fronts.<br />
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We have big plans for 2015, even if they don't include a pet parrot. And we are excited to begin this next year of adventuring.<br />
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We wish you the happiest of New Years, filled with peace and joy and love. We wish you good health, the warmth of friendship, and comfort of family through this winter, and into the next. We are grateful to have all of you in our lives, however distant, and we hope this year brings us many happy opportunities to be together.<br />
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With all our love,<br />
The SuperMommy FamilyBecoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-6533339022711377262014-12-18T11:37:00.000-06:002014-12-18T11:37:55.808-06:00Amazons of Rock<i>Last year I was fortunate enough to guest post on <a href="http://raisedontheradio.com/">Raised on the Radio</a>. Here, now, is my Amazons of Rock mix tape.</i><br />
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I grew up on Rock. My parents had hundreds of records, and their own individual, rock n' roll passions. My mom's side of the collection had show tunes and novelty records, but also Black Sabbath. My father's collection encompassed the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, and of course the Beatles. I breathed eight bar blues and the discordant tearing of wailing- not singing- vocal cords behind a microphone.<br />
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When I turned twelve, I had a lot of guy friends. And we all loved rock music. But the music we listened to was male dominated. Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica...<br />
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And so my friends, mostly guys, told me girls <i>can't</i> rock. That rock is the domain of meaty, muscly, long haired men in plaid shirts or no shirts, headbanging or wailing and whining on the front of the stage. And girls... well... there was always Lilith Fair.<br />
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So I had to find a way to shut up those stupid friends of mine. I sat down and made them a mix tape. Because girls? They fucking rock.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/b_Pk1KjL_pg" width="420"></iframe><br />
I had to start with Janis Joplin. Because you always start with Janis Joplin. If you're going to make the argument that women can rock, there will be a token example. And the token example will always be Janis. Get it out of the way. Don't fight it. She rocked harder than anyone in the history of the earth. Listen to her wail, and tell me I'm wrong. This is the legacy of women in rock. We begin here, and then we can move on to the latter years of alternative.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/NPcyTyilmYY" width="420"></iframe><br />
The nineties were the heyday of alternative music. Our adolescent years were a series of albums where every single song could have been described as our personal anthems for a solid month. "Jagged Little Pill" was one of those CDs. Every song. From the first, to the hidden track she performed a capella at the MTV Video awards. If there was one woman current on the radio, current in pop culture, current in music who indisputably rocked... it was Alanis.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2Xi8NvSetZc" width="420"></iframe><br />
The years was 1996. And every teenage girl in America had the impulse to wallpaper her walls with these lyrics. Because we all had a feeling that it was going to be us. Not just a pretended adulthood and inevitable failure, but anger. Anger that we weren't allowed to express as girls. Anger that we didn't know how to put voice to in the image of Kurt Cobain. Girl rage.<br />
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Every corner of rock had women hiding in it. From the political to the insipid, women were everywhere. And even if it felt like you couldn't see them, they made up for it in haunting, vivid music. They were masters of imagery. Skunk Anansie never got too successful this side of the pond, but that just gave their fans more cred. We were the feminist rock underground.<br />
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Of course, "feminism" was almost a dirty word. It meant manufactured "girl power" and middle aged folk singers who didn't shave their armpits. It was hard to listen to the Shawn Colvins and Loreena McKennits and claim that they <i>rocked</i>. And that was where Ani came in, like a rock and roll fusion dreamscape. There was no question. Ani? Rocked.<br />
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This is where the boys would tell me that it's all well and good that <i>those </i>women can rock, and sure, they could. But they have no <i>general </i>appeal. No real <i>commercial</i> appeal. I mean, who listens to Euro-prog-rock and Ani Difranco? Where will you hear that but college radio? So I say, BAM- No Doubt. Am I making myself clear?<br />
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Oh- and what was that you were saying about Lilith Fair not being rock music? Because you would be wrong. Dead. fucking. wrong.<br />
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No matter how much fun the fans of rock made of the Lilith Fair women, no matter how often they got lumped into entirely separate genres of music, isolated from the general sphere of "pop rock," or "rock," or even "alternative," there could be no doubt. They wailed. They shredded. They <i>rocked</i>.<br />
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The fact is that the alternative music scene was full of women. Kick ass, take no prisoners women of rock and roll. The folk revolution might have been alive and well. Jewel might have been singing story songs about mentally disabled teenagers, Sarah McLachlan might have had love songs in every RomCom soundtrack for three summers running. The Spice Girls might have been bouncing around in their ultra-produced pop bubble. But women were tearing it up on the rock scene.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xL5spALs-eA" width="560"></iframe><br />
And for all of those naysayers who reluctantly agreed, "Okay, there are some women who rock now. And there was Janis, of course. But this is a new thing. There haven't been a lot of women in rock. It's a male genre. It's guys and testosterone and they do it because chicks love it." To that I said, "Yeah, chicks DO love it. And that's why they've been making spectacular rock since the beginning."<br />
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And a bonus track- because there should always be a bonus track...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/saOao738n1s" width="420"></iframe><br />
There have been women in Rock n' Roll since before the Beatles, brother. And they've been killing it since your granddaddy's sock hops. Suck it up, little man, and make way for the queens.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-32457204905874258582014-12-17T11:49:00.003-06:002014-12-17T11:49:34.708-06:00A SuperMommy Guide to Channukah<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last night marked the beginning of Channukah, the festival of lights.<br />
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Like pretty much all Jewish holidays, the gist of Channukah is, "They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat."<br />
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A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that Channukah is a sort of Jewish Christmas- it's not! It's actually a relatively minor holiday, but because of all the excitement of Christmas, American Jews have pumped up Channukah quite a bit. So Jewish kids don't feel so left out, so Jewish adults can capitalize on the free time and shopping related perks of the season, and because, really, the Jewish people are always up for a party.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our family's gingerbread menorah</td></tr>
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Here is the story of Channukah:<br />
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Back in 165 BCE, Jews lived in Jerusalem, despite the land being essentially run by the Greek empire. Greeks and Jews lived side by side, peacefully for the most part, until a new king, Antiochus the Fourth, took the throne. Antiochus was not a very nice guy. He decreed that the people of Jerusalem were no longer allowed to worship their own gods, and decreed that their most holy temple (that's the temple that now stands as the Western Wall), should be turned into a temple for Dionysus- the Greek god of wine.<br />
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The Jews were not happy. Mattathias Maccabee was particular unhappy. When Greek soldiers stormed into the city, forcing Jews to bow before idols, Mattathias snapped. He killed not only a handful of soldiers forcing Jews to pray to Greek gods, but also a Jewish man who knelt to the idol. Then, he took to the hills.<br />
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His son, Judah Maccabee, became the leader of a small gang of rebels, determined to drive the Greek army away from the temple and from Jerusalem. In a very early lesson on guerrilla warfare, the Maccabees managed to defeat the Greeks, who outnumbered them by orders of magnitude. The Jews communicated to each other in code, passing off dreidles as harmless toys when really the lettering on the side contained details of assaults and ambushes.<br />
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Despite the phenomenal odds, the Maccabees beat the Greeks. The Greco-Syrian army retreated, and the Jews returned to their temple, which had been housing Dionysian rites.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Arch of Titus- the Greeks ransacking the temple after losing the war</td></tr>
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For those unaware, Dionysian rites often included the slaughter of animals, including pigs, and orgies. In short, the most offensive things deeply religious Jews could imagine.<br />
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The Jews rededicated the temple- which meant washing it inside and out, making it holy again. Part of this was keeping the eternal flame lit- a flame meant to represent the eternal presence of God. But the Dionysian priests had ransacked the place on the way out, taking the expensive oil with them.<br />
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The legend is that there was only enough oil to burn for one day. The Maccabees sent their fastest runner to fetch more sanctified oil, but it was a journey of many days. Yet, the oil burned until he returned. For eight days and nights.<br />
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To celebrate Channukah, the Jewish people eat foods fried in oil- latkes and sufganyot (jelly doughnuts), although in my family we'll take any excuse to have falafel as well. We light candles for eight nights, and play with the dreidle, a top with four letters inscribed on the sides- a code.<br />
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The letters on the dreidle are <i>Nun, Gimmel, Hay,</i> and <i>Shin</i>. They stand for the words, <i>Nes gadol hayah sham</i>, which means, "A great miracle happened there."<br />
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In Israel, the shin is replaced by a pey, to represent the word, "Po." <i>Nes gadol hayah po</i> means, "A great miracle happened here."<br />
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The word "Channukah," means "rededication." It refers to how the Jews reclaimed their temple after beating the Greek army.<br />
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Technically, a menorah is any Jewish candelabra, and the Channukah menorah is a Channukiah. What makes it special is that it holds nine candles. One for each day of Channukah, and one for lighting the other candles- the <i>shamash</i>, or helper candle.<br />
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A kosher Channukiah has the eight candles for the eight days of Channukah at the same height- because no day is more important than any other.<br />
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Jewish families play with dreidles, for peanuts, pennies, or Channukah gelt. The rules of dreidle are that at the beginning of each round, each player antes up. If your dreidle lands on a <i>shin</i>, you add one to the pot. If it lands on a <i>nun,</i> you neither add nor take away. If it lands on a <i>hay</i>, you win half the pot, and if it lands on a <i>gimmel</i>, you win the whole pot.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My family playing dreidle on Grandmommy's kitchen floor</td></tr>
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We give gifts to each other because gifts are nice. But gifts have nothing to do with Channukah, really. We light our menorahs in the window so that other Jewish people will know we are here, and that they are welcome to celebrate with us.<br />
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My personal favorite part of Channukah is singing songs with my family. Poppa and I rarely get to sing together, and it's always a joy. In particular, I love singing rounds with him, and it's a tradition I look forward to passing on to my kids as they get old enough to keep tempo all on their own. So I will leave you with a few of my favorite Channnukah songs.<br />
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<i>Chag samayach! </i><br />
<i>(</i>Happy Holidays!<i>)</i><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qSJCSR4MuhU" width="560"></iframe>Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-84364764596653364162014-12-15T13:52:00.000-06:002014-12-15T13:52:45.278-06:00Teaching Through Trauma: Sexual Violence and Sex Positive Parenting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You may recall that over the summer I caused a bit of a stir with my article, <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/06/sex-positive-parenting-or-we-dont-touch.html">"Sex Positive Parenting, or, We Don't Touch Our Vulvas At The Table."</a> In that post I talked about sex positivity and not shaming children for exploring their bodies, and how honesty empowers and protects children.<br />
<br />
I've done a lot of talking about this in the months since. I've <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1jpMohXHBk">spoken at conferences</a>, <a href="http://www.bluntradio.org/2014/08/11/sex-ed-unfiltered-monday-august-11th">gone on the radio</a>, <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/011-sexy-interviews-from-sscon">interviewed on podcasts</a>... it's been a wild ride.<br />
<br />
But part of what I've been doing has been very quiet. And that's what I'd like to talk about now.<br />
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Since that article came out, people have been writing to me to ask advice on how to talk to their children about sex, with massive caveats.<br />
<br />
Parents who were victims of childhood sexual assault.<br />
Parents with children who were born from rape.<br />
Parents with adopted children who came from a foster system that permitted gross sexual misconduct.<br />
<br />
I had advocated honesty, total honesty, about sex and biology. I talked about explaining IVF and cesarean sections to children.<br />
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So what about these questions? What do you tell a child, honestly, when the honest truth is both horrible, and unacceptable?<br />
<br />
I spent a lot of time thinking about this.<br />
<br />
I always told those parents at least one thing, "Whenever you are ready to talk to your child about this, make sure you know that it is <i>not their fault</i>. Make sure you let them know that, no matter what happened to them, or to you, they are not to blame, and they are not diminished by having this as part of their personal history."<br />
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I recognized as I wrote these words, in endless variations, over and over again, how little they could do to heal the gaping wounds their parents have.<br />
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But as more and more parents wrote me, I felt more and more the need to discuss being sex positive with children in the context of a world filled with sexual violence.<br />
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You see, in addition to talking about sex positive parenting, I'm a member of the RAINN Speakers Bureau. I talk to groups of teenagers about rape culture and sexual violence. I talk a great deal about consent and power dynamics and the reality of rape versus the popular mythology.<br />
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And I always explain, when talking about sex positivity, that this is a way to protect children <i>from </i>rape culture. That when you empower children with the correct names for their organs, and an understanding of what is and is not appropriate, you can protect them from becoming victims. And more importantly, you can stop them from becoming predators.<br />
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This is little comfort to children who are already, in some way, victims.<br />
<br />
So when speaking to a child about human biology, about how a sperm must meet an egg, and how that sperm usually comes out of a penis when it is inside of a vagina, is that the time to talk about rape?<br />
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As much as I, as a parent and a human being want to say no, it's not the time, I can't. I think that it is the time.<br />
<br />
I think sooner is generally better, within reason. I wouldn't attempt to explain rape to two year old, but when a child is able to intellectualize human reproduction, I think it's not too soon to come clean with the facts.<br />
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And the facts are this- reproduction is beautiful. It is intimate and loving, it is a way to show that you care, and that you don't want to hurt somebody. Just like a hug, or a pat on the head. But sometimes, people do violent things that <i>look</i> like nice things. You can hug somebody too tight and hurt them. You can hit, instead of patting. These are things nobody <i>should</i> do, and that all of us must learn <i>not </i>to do. But sometimes, people do these things. And sex and rape are like that. Rape is not sex, it is turning sex into a violent act. The way a slap and a pat on the cheek are not the same, however closely they may seem to resemble each other in their mechanics.<br />
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These are comparisons a child can understand. And so long as the explanation of what rape is, and how it is related to the reproductive process, blame and shame for the child can be minimized or eliminated.<br />
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The problem is, rape <i>is</i> shameful. Not for the victim, but for the rapist. It is a shameful, awful thing to do to another human being, and yet people do. And because of the profound shame and discomfort regarding sex we share in our culture, the shame and blame is often misplaced onto the victim. This happens not because it is shameful to have been raped, but because as a culture we are all so afraid of sex that we cannot distinguish between an act of affection and an act of violence.<br />
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Telling a child that they are the product of a rape is never going to be easy. It should never be easy, because talking about sexual violence <i>shouldn't</i> be easy. But we still need to do it.<br />
<br />
We desperately need to do it. <i>Especially</i> with children.<br />
<br />
I've heard the advice, especially among adoptive parents, to associate the rape with the birth mom. To make it about <i>her</i>, not about the child. I understand this impulse, but to me it reeks of victim blaming. We should never associate a crime with the victim, always the perpetrator.<br />
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I have a confession. Until I began working on writing this post, months ago, I had not talked to my five year old daughters about rape. Not explicitly. I had done it obliquely, in terms I thought they would understand. I explained rape culture in terms of "hurting" rather than "sexual violence," because explaining to my children what rape is was something that I thought could wait.<br />
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I don't think it can anymore. Not as I've forced myself to sit down and read letter after letter from parents who <i>can't</i> wait. Who don't have the luxuries that I do.<br />
<br />
And so, I told my daughters about rape. The five year olds, not the two year old. We read "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Where-Did-I-Come-From/dp/0818402539">Where Did I Come From?</a>" and I paused after we finished the page that describes sex.<br />
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"You know," I said, "Sometimes people do that to hurt each other."<br />
<br />
SI looked at me like I was insane. "They do. Sometimes, one person will want to do that, and the other doesn't, and it hurts them. The book says it feels good, and it does, when both people want to. The way hugging feels good. But it doesn't feel good if your sister chases you and pinches you, right?"<br />
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"I don't like that when RH does that," DD agreed.<br />
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"Yeah. So sometimes, people try to do that to other people who don't want to. And that's not okay. That's not the same thing as sex, it's something else entirely."<br />
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And we moved on.<br />
<br />
I didn't use the word "rape." As I've discussed before, it's a hard word to use. I've gotten better at writing it down, the more and more and more I practice at it, but it's <i>so</i> much easier to write "rape culture" than it is to write "rape." And it is infinitely more simple to write than to say.<br />
<br />
I did not use the word "rape," and I did not say that it had happened to me. Although I know if I'd let the conversation linger, the question would have come up, and I honestly don't know if I could have answered it.<br />
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I really, truly, genuinely <i>don't know</i>.<br />
<br />
But this is <i>important</i>. It is vital that our children know what rape is, and that it is fundamentally different from consensual sex acts.<br />
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I can't recommend my script, because it is still full of holes. I still have no idea how I will one day tell my children that I was raped, twice no less. But it's something I've known since before I became a parent that I must do.<br />
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I, and all parents who have survived sexual violence, need to be the face of survival for our children. Not because we choose this, but because we are and always will be their role models. Because what we say and do is what they believe is the right way to say and do anything. And if we maintain a silence about being assaulted, we teach them that what is right and proper is to be silent. But it is not easy. It is never easy.<br />
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And if I cannot tell them this without the constant weight of my own misplaced shame, what would I tell them if they were born because of rape?<br />
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I know I would tell them that it wasn't their fault. I know I would tell them that I love them, and that nothing that anybody did to me before they were born has anything to do with who they are now.<br />
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And I know I would try to have those conversations now, while they would simply inform the facts of their existence, rather than complicate their already difficult adolescence when they must somehow correlate the facts of their burgeoning sexual identities with an understanding of the nature of the act that created them.<br />
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This is not easy. This is not simple. This is not fun. There is no solution to how to teach your children something traumatic. Ever.<br />
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There is no easy way to explain death. To explain that yes, someday mommy and daddy will die. Yes, someday they will die.<br />
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There is also no easy way to explain that human beings are capable of profound suffering, and worse, inflicting it upon each other.<br />
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The one question a parent asked me that truly haunts me is this, "There was a line in your blog about how only your daughters have the decision to have sex, but obviously that is not true in the case of rape. I know someday I will have to explain that women are supposed to have the right, but they don’t always. Any thoughts from you in this case?"<br />
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My thoughts are these- rape is not sex. The act may look similar, but it is not the same.<br />
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There are many ways for a baby to come into the world. They all begin the same way- sperm meets egg. But that can happen in so many ways.<br />
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Sex. IVF. Intrauterine insemination. Rape.<br />
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None of these are the same.<br />
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It is not your doing if your were born thanks to IVF. It is not your doing if you were born as the result of rape. You do not carry the weight of that act. You are loved. You are so loved. And when you are old enough, you will know the difference between what is affection and what is abuse, and in that way you are more than anything that came before you. You are empowered and precious.<br />
<br />
This is what I would say, my thoughts.<br />
<br />
To those parents whose children came from sexual assault, I would say I have no idea how difficult this conversation will be. I cannot begin to imagine how painful it will be. But remember, the fault always lies with the person committing the crime. Not you. Never you. And not your child.<br />
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We can be honest, even if it hurts. We must be honest when it hurts.<br />
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Especially when it hurts.<br />
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Because children are not obtuse. They see us struggling with our honesty, and it teaches them something important. It teaches then that no matter how hard honesty is, it is essential.<br />
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When we are uncomfortable, or in pain, and continue on- it teaches them about bravery.<br />
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They are watching us all the time, and they are always learning.<br />
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Let them learn the unspoken. Let them learn how utterly horrifying rape is by watching us struggle to even say the word. Let them learn how important it is not to use reproduction as a weapon by seeing how repulsed we are by it. Let them learn how much we love them by holding them and loving them through our own pain and trauma.<br />
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Let them learn bravery by watching ours.<br />
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I will keep trying. I will keep trying to do better.<br />
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And keep sending me letters. I will read them. I always read them. And if I think I can help, if I think there is anything I can do to lesson your burden, I will.<br />
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I hope someday, that is a lesson I can pass along, too.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-31518395308073359602014-12-09T11:14:00.001-06:002014-12-09T11:18:15.351-06:00Father Dies, Son Dies, Grandson Dies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
When I was younger and felt, as I often did, that I had been the victim of some injustice, my father used to tell me a parable.<br />
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He would start telling it, and I would roll my eyes. Because I'd heard it before, and teenagers often roll their eyes when they think they know something already. But I also liked the story, and I always enjoyed my father telling it. So I listened.<br />
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<i>Once upon a time, a holy man was wandering across China. He came to a farmer's humble home, and knocked on the door to ask if he might sleep in the barn. The farmer wouldn't hear of it. Instead, he ushered the holy man into his home. He sat the holy man at the head of the table, and fed him dinner with his family. He put the holy man to sleep in his own bed. And in the morning, he gave the holy man some food to carry with him.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>As the holy man was leaving the house, the farmer stopped him.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>"Please, would you do me the honor of blessing my family before you go?"</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The holy man stood and stared for a minute. Then he nodded, and spoke. "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies." He turned and began to walk away.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The farmer was furious. "What kind of blessing is THAT?!"</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The holy man shrugged. "Would you rather it happened another way?"</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>The farmer, dumbstruck, shook his head, and bowed in thanks as the holy man wandered off again.</i><br />
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My father would explain every time, that no, you would never want it another way. That one of the worst things that could happen to a human being was to deviate from that order. Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.<br />
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You never want to outlive your children.<br />
<br />
This weekend, M and I learned that M's grandmother has cancer. She's having surgery as I type- removing a tumor the size of a football. This comes right on the heels of the word that M's grandfather has moved into hospice care, his Alzheimer's has become so advanced.<br />
<br />
When we heard the news, I felt a wave of grief immediately. I know how rarely we get to see M's grandparents, and I may already have seen his grandfather for the last time. But I have always loved them. From the first time I met them, when M's grandpa made a joke, I don't even remember what it was, but it was friendly and kind and welcoming, and I was grateful to him for his thoughtfulness, welcoming me into his family. Well before M and I were engaged.<br />
<br />
And M's grandmother. Mother of six, grandmother of nearly thirty, great-grandmother of six, in her eighth decade of life she has discovered she has a true talent for storytelling, and has been writing a history of sorts of the family. Each time we've all gathered together, she's read us all a new story, and they are beautiful and warm. I love sharing the bond of storytelling with her. I don't want to lose her from my life, let alone M's.<br />
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But M's grief took a different form.<br />
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"They've had a hard life," he said, "but it's been such a good one. They've never had to bury a child, or a grandchild... and I'm glad I could help give them that."<br />
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Since the first day of M's diagnosis, his biggest concern has been how his death would effect other people. How much it would hurt his sister, his parents, me, and now our children.<br />
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"Father dies, son dies, grandson dies," M said to me, and he managed a smile. "This is how it's supposed to happen. When you're very old, surrounded by people you love."<br />
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I think he might have even found it romantic, a little. I take that back. He definitely did.<br />
<br />
Here's the thing- to M, I don't think there's any kind of romance greater than one that lasts a lifetime. That lasts until you're so old your body simply gives out, only you're together, you and the person you love.<br />
<br />
Last summer we went to a wedding where the couple chose "The Luckiest," by Ben Folds as their processional.<br />
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They carefully planned not to include the last verse in their ceremony. I understand that. Any song that explicitly references death might not be appropriate for a wedding. But M hummed that last verse under his breath, squeezing my hand. Because he's that kind of romantic.<br />
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In the last verse of "The Luckiest," a couple gets married, lives into their 90s, and dies within a few days of each other. And that is the definition of true love that Ben Folds and my husband ascribe to.<br />
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/f9bRmuP-kQY" width="480"></iframe></center>
<br />
I know M is comforted by the idea that he may lose both his grandparents instead of one, because it is important to him to know that they won't have to dedicate any more of their remaining days on this earth to grief than that.<br />
<br />
For him, that is a tremendous comfort.<br />
<br />
I often forget about other people. I often forget that M and I aren't our own little universe. I forget that there are other people who care about us. It's easier to forget, a lot of the time. It's easier to put little limits around your grief and your hope and pretend that nobody outside feels any of it.<br />
<br />
But they do.<br />
<br />
M is right. His death would have hurt people, will inevitably hurt people. And that he is alive isn't just a gift to me and his children and his parents. It is a gift to his grandparents. It is a gift to his friends. My friends. To everyone he hasn't yet met but whose life will be brightened by his presence. It is a gift. And he knows it.<br />
<br />
How rare, to know that your life is truly a gift to others. And not in an egotistical way, no, in the profound language of grief and love and an understanding of the stark reality of life and death, M knows that his life has meaning for the people that love him.<br />
<br />
M's little universe is much bigger than mine. Because he's fundamentally a better person than me. I've always known so. He only finds ways to remind me time and time again.<br />
<br />
<i>Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i>When somebody is ill, their family's should be scared, and sad. Because that is one of the greatest expressions of love we have, wanting to keep somebody with us. The way M and I, and M's aunts and uncles and cousins do. You can ask no more in life than to have the opportunity to cause somebody grief. You can ask no more in life than to be so well loved.<br />
<br />
If you're the praying sort, or the sending-good-energy sort, or any of that, please keep M's grandparents in your thoughts. And please keep the rest of the family in your thoughts, too.<br />
<br />
It's not so little a universe at all. It's all of ours.<br />
<br />
With love and grief and hope enough for all of us to share.<br />
<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW3L4Ez0ix9FqRxa8KgaLpKlZbGr7DA5iwwp3FeqDF_-fP6BycOLS6IPxy45o6vuVe6C4IBku0K6GluukU8Ue7o_2R-eOBNQUruzgJ2gcKcfQjfMDBGZRsN8mgK954Y3AUZBVG1GB95E9a/s1600/01770120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW3L4Ez0ix9FqRxa8KgaLpKlZbGr7DA5iwwp3FeqDF_-fP6BycOLS6IPxy45o6vuVe6C4IBku0K6GluukU8Ue7o_2R-eOBNQUruzgJ2gcKcfQjfMDBGZRsN8mgK954Y3AUZBVG1GB95E9a/s1600/01770120.JPG" height="257" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M's grandparents</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-60814910744386712362014-12-08T10:52:00.002-06:002014-12-08T10:52:38.125-06:00All About The Bass<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuXZDMD0879Q9fIwnPy9qKjMu45V1YRL3T7SE5QdBGKfnrV1m8Gexi8WPl19VIHwbM0Upgn1R9IdNPv4YFAvRUInOpX3j87A-4paqxpM3C-CaMXQ6RExrV43dvhREqQ9s9k9I2-SZfuq0/s1600/IMG_3308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAuXZDMD0879Q9fIwnPy9qKjMu45V1YRL3T7SE5QdBGKfnrV1m8Gexi8WPl19VIHwbM0Upgn1R9IdNPv4YFAvRUInOpX3j87A-4paqxpM3C-CaMXQ6RExrV43dvhREqQ9s9k9I2-SZfuq0/s1600/IMG_3308.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two and a half big girls</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My two and a half year <i>cracks me up</i>.<br />
<br />
She talks. Constantly. About absolutely everything. She hams it up like it's her job. She likes pretending to be scared of things, although I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand the concept of fear. She loves telling jokes, but her jokes are about as sensical as an episode of Spongebob. They're cobbled together from other "jokes" she's heard her sisters tell, but he delivery is spot on. My favorite?<br />
<br />
"Knock knock!"<br />
"Who's there?"<br />
"Who!"<br />
"Who who?"<br />
"Don't cry, it's just a joke!"<br />
<br />
When her sisters are at school, she vaccilates between asking over and over again when we can go get them, "Is it time to pick up my sisters?" to DOMINATING television viewing. (Pocoyo is her favorite.)<br />
<br />
But as brilliant and verbal as she is, I admit I am not even close to keeping up with my own expectations for her when it comes to one critical area.<br />
<br />
Potty training RH has been a COMPLETELY different experience than potty training my twins.<br />
<br />
This is my fault. Entirely my fault. The fact is that my house is ten times messier than it ever was when I had only two kids to keep up with, so I'm nervous about having RH run around pants-free. That's what worked for the twins, but...<br />
<br />
So we've been trying something different. Mainly, <i>not</i> potty training.<br />
<br />
We talk about the potty a lot. And our conversations tend to go like this:<br />
<br />
"RH? Do you want to sit on the potty?"<br />
"I don't want to."<br />
"Why not?"<br />
"Because I'm drawing."<br />
"Well let's stop drawing and sit on the potty."<br />
"No thanks, I want to watch minions."<br />
"How about we watch minions after using the potty?"<br />
"Nope! Bye!"<br />
<br />
It's frustrating, because all of us, RH included, know she CAN if she wants to.<br />
<br />
She just doesn't want to, and I'm too frazzled to push the issue.<br />
<br />
But it does mean that the constant awareness of potty processes is yielding some interesting and entertaining results.<br />
<br />
My personal favorite?<br />
<br />
RH has started announcing that she's soiled herself in song. Rather than say, "I pooed!" she's decided on the <i>perfect</i> soundtrack for dropping a load in her diaper.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/uK5uAREHA9U" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
Yup.<br />
<br />
All about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<i>And for those of you keeping track- you'll note RH is representing four giant parenting "nevers" I ascribed to pre-kids. She is wearing pink. She is wearing pictures of licensed Disney characters. She's holding a plastic piece of crap toy that is ALSO a licensed Disney character. And she's singing a pop song.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>If I'd seen this six years ago, I might have slapped myself.</i>Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-2910733836139110762014-12-05T08:30:00.000-06:002014-12-05T20:59:39.083-06:00Bald and Bare<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEgleUCYQ-RmMi7PHtXD4XBl7StbMOHGnyxwNDyqNb-tb1y6U7oR4flA_VcKZ4e4mKbglcBXUKMRSF6AGmVE-uNYXmMIjm8rAAhfUz_ZwOZClle47Jyx4k5ehFAntUzGDBwj1e9psd1nz/s1600/10609622_10152431731080925_95479713497264273_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEgleUCYQ-RmMi7PHtXD4XBl7StbMOHGnyxwNDyqNb-tb1y6U7oR4flA_VcKZ4e4mKbglcBXUKMRSF6AGmVE-uNYXmMIjm8rAAhfUz_ZwOZClle47Jyx4k5ehFAntUzGDBwj1e9psd1nz/s1600/10609622_10152431731080925_95479713497264273_n.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
My husband is bald.<br />
<br />
He's been bald before. And he's a good looking bald man. But people who know him ask quiet questions.<br />
<br />
They know things have changed around here, in regards to the tumors. They know we're on higher alert, that we still haven't balanced seizure medications. That we're getting more frequent MRIs and now EEGs and that <i>things</i> are not as constant and simple as they had lulled us into believing they were. Each time I think about how much time has passed, I can't help but recognize how unfathomably fortunate we've been. Seven and a half years. We've been doing the astrocytoma thing for seven and a half years. And I haven't seen M bald for seven of them.<br />
<br />
M's hair never really grew back quite right on the radiation side. And it's been thinning rapidly over the last year or so. So M made the call to bic the lot of it- return to the cue ball aesthetic.<br />
<br />
It works on him, the handsome devil.<br />
<br />
But it means <i>things</i>. It must mean <i>things</i>.<br />
<br />
No matter how shapely his skull or how bright his eyes, people wonder when they see the scar.<br />
<br />
He's fine. He's fine. He's fine.<br />
<br />
<i>(Part of a panicked part of me deep in my chest wants to scream, He's NOT!, and I ignore that. Most of the time.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He's fine.<br />
<br />
We're cutting our Christmas in Minnesota a little short for him to make it to his next set of MRIs, to make sure he gets them before his doctor has her baby. Because you accommodate your friends like that, and M's neurology team, they're are friends.<br />
<br />
We've known them for years. <i>Years</i>. And we all know that really, M is fine.<br />
<br />
<i>(Even if the RNs we joke with suddenly seemed stone faced and breathless when they ordered more frequent tests. That was just me seeing it, right? That wasn't real. That wasn't what was happening. That was nothing. I don't have to think about that.)</i><br />
<br />
He's fine.<br />
<br />
And let's face it, the baldness works for him. He's tall and handsome and manly and broad, his eyes are brighter when they're not competing with his receding locks. They twinkle brighter. His eyebrows seem darker, more dramatic. Sexier, even.<br />
<br />
Baldness works on that man.<br />
<br />
I had worried that the kids wouldn't recognize him. The toddler, anyway. I worried she'd freak out when Daddy appeared looking like a bad rendition of himself. But of course she didn't. Instead, M stormed into the kids' bedroom, and announced, "Guess what? I wouldn't let Mommy brush my hair, and look what she did!!!" Today he even helped me get them all to agree that really, they could use a trim, too.<br />
<br />
<i>(What's good is now they see him bald and normal. Now if the tumors are growing or back he won't have to lose his hair, and he'll look normal to them. Now if he's sick and he gets sicker and I have to tell them about how sick their daddy is, at least he'll always look like Daddy to them.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He's fine.<br />
<br />
I like it. He likes it. He likes that he can snuggle up under my million of blankets with me and not overheat, now that his excess heat escapes through his giant hot bald head. I like that I can warm my hands on it, as I sit up holding my kindle after the kids are asleep.<br />
<br />
I like tracing my fingers over its topography.<br />
<br />
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</div>
But it does kind of feel like I'm losing something. This isn't like last time he was bald. This time the hair is really gone. There's no hope that maybe it will grow back. Of course it won't grow back. Thirty two year old men who go bald don't suddenly have their hair grow back.<br />
<br />
No amount of hair clubs for men can make it grow back. And that's okay, because this time it's not chemo and radiation making it fall out. So that's okay.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVQLqtO9jQn3PcidmvPfJ5wLJVaeCzb-xeypYQ2laXpuW4q2HDt4jRctSFAHsZb5TvZTV1GbrF837iVtjPwM822_uM_1Pfd29Knq4KX40HqkNWwAtWcO5eZHb_UoTwthx9NG6KI7lPOcy/s1600/newdo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMVQLqtO9jQn3PcidmvPfJ5wLJVaeCzb-xeypYQ2laXpuW4q2HDt4jRctSFAHsZb5TvZTV1GbrF837iVtjPwM822_uM_1Pfd29Knq4KX40HqkNWwAtWcO5eZHb_UoTwthx9NG6KI7lPOcy/s1600/newdo.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M's first bald day, seven and a half years ago</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
M was never scared of aging. Aging is a triumph for him, his little "Fuck You" to cancer. He loves the affectations of middle age, which are more hipster-ish and honestly sexy on him than he would dare admit. Age is a triumph for this man.<br />
<br />
<i>(But suddenly it's not for me, because it doesn't matter if he's young or if he's old. I don't want to lose him either way. I don't want to lose him to cancer or seizures or Alzheimer's or heart disease or diabetes or anything. I don't want to lose him period, and if he gets old someday he has to die.)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He's fine. He's a fine bald man. A <i>foine</i> bald man.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
He's my gorilla bear. Just a little less furry. He's my favorite man. He's my favorite human.<br />
<br />
I can not panic. I can differentiate between irrational hysteria and what truly is.<br />
<br />
<i>(It's not hysteria if it's true. It's not hysteria if it's right.)</i><br />
<br />
Still, as always, I am comforted by that little voice of panic. Because I know something true about myself- when the shit gets real, I am a rock. I am solid. I am unyielding and unbending. I take care of what has to be done. <b>I</b> <b>take care of it</b>. If the panic is there, things are okay. things aren't so bad. I have the luxury of harboring a few waves of fear.<br />
<br />
Because M is just fine.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-5915366948788680572014-12-04T08:30:00.000-06:002014-12-04T08:30:01.821-06:00The Big Book of Parenting Tweets<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXHPNBMoKlb8GnnHCQSp4aaAQbpceIrxSFwjOmvsArbtDQwfrwqVDNZgRQGLVLQowprI4cK_CmllZXjwLZ8Tg4Z-K2GxJFwRFzxLL4qRUaNgCAwFrA1Ique9vdBTUrN-NLIw4zUBBR9JT/s1600/41k2Sod9QDL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXHPNBMoKlb8GnnHCQSp4aaAQbpceIrxSFwjOmvsArbtDQwfrwqVDNZgRQGLVLQowprI4cK_CmllZXjwLZ8Tg4Z-K2GxJFwRFzxLL4qRUaNgCAwFrA1Ique9vdBTUrN-NLIw4zUBBR9JT/s1600/41k2Sod9QDL.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I was given an advance copy of the book, and all the opinions are my own</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love twitter.<br />
<br />
I do, I really enjoy the challenge. Not that you'd know it from some of my longer posts, but brevity? That's something I <i>really</i> appreciate. It takes skill.<br />
<br />
There's an old Samuel Johnson quote: "I'm sorry I'm writing you a long letter, I didn't have time to write you a short one."<br />
<br />
I actually spend a fair amount of my non-blogging writing time writing haiku.<br />
<br />
But one thing that twitter (usually) has over books of haiku? It's <i>hilarious</i>.<br />
<br />
This little book is a treasure trove of 140 character levity. I was that weird combination of lucky and ridiculously unfortunate to catch one of the billion bugs swarming through the kids' preschool, and that gave me ample time to curl up and read this thing- including every single bio. Because it's that hilarious.<br />
<br />
It should be noted though, that this might not be advisable. Apparently, the sound of my guffawing outloud through my sinus congestion reminded the children of the baboons in their Planet Earth dvds, and I may have set off a minor panic as they scoured the house for hidden exotic pets.<br />
<br />
I've been enjoying the tweeted humor of many of the contributors for some time, but now they're ALL on my feed.<br />
<br />
In addition to what is essentially a brilliant collection of parenting one-liners, the brilliant minds of Science of Parenthood illustrated some of the tweets. And it's comedy gold.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXeztjSppPJoOdDA_GNuIqh4lDxmhMVuJT1gH-KnF80_lnADeBgdjZwhKt1ICqtHplEfzP7i7UuGZo5LVhbSOaKJJtxBjdEYr9n2XuRbqQNwsHFg1MeEWm4x8KieqQe2I_stsq9PphcRK/s1600/coktailspoon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNXeztjSppPJoOdDA_GNuIqh4lDxmhMVuJT1gH-KnF80_lnADeBgdjZwhKt1ICqtHplEfzP7i7UuGZo5LVhbSOaKJJtxBjdEYr9n2XuRbqQNwsHFg1MeEWm4x8KieqQe2I_stsq9PphcRK/s1600/coktailspoon.png" /></a></div>
<br />
I'd say The Big Book of Parenting Tweets has joined my incredibly short list of go-to gifts for new parents. It's a great book to keep in the diaper bag, or, if you're the rare parent who actually gets to pee alone, in the bathroom.<br />
<br />
Because let's be honest, when you're a new parent, 140 characters is about all you have time for anyway.<br />
<br />
You can <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Parenting-Tweets-Featuring/dp/1503189554">buy the book on Amazon</a>, and you should. Buy it for everyone you know. Either in solidarity or as a cautionary tale.<br />
<br />
Happy Reading!Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-2684179011605890832014-12-03T08:30:00.000-06:002014-12-03T09:49:52.049-06:00Drowning in the Creep<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7JPxfDS1HTWAWd4eFulihsTAmzfPed7RC_VoLVMXSQXebpPq5_JzUmBEuQZBHoKnPz-NexETOYtHZZpzJCu5rKlkzD1u-MwpxMmEYDaR0aN-CfLQbKUYT2NQh5byZi61bCq50vjf8AMyv/s1600/S2HdGhH0BqmRnvpnS9Nb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7JPxfDS1HTWAWd4eFulihsTAmzfPed7RC_VoLVMXSQXebpPq5_JzUmBEuQZBHoKnPz-NexETOYtHZZpzJCu5rKlkzD1u-MwpxMmEYDaR0aN-CfLQbKUYT2NQh5byZi61bCq50vjf8AMyv/s1600/S2HdGhH0BqmRnvpnS9Nb.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M and the kids tracking each others footprints in the snow on Thanksgiving</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love Thanksgiving. I've always loved Thanksgiving.<br />
<br />
For Thanksgivukkuh last year, I bought my kids a <i>wonderful</i> book- "Rivka's First Thanksgiving." In the book, a little girl in Brooklyn learns about Thanksgiving, and convinces her orthodox Lubovitch community to celebrate the holiday.<br />
<br />
Because as first generation immigrants to America, the story of being welcomed in and protected by a new community spoke to her.<br />
<br />
And being immigrants fleeing religious persecution in Europe, the story spoke to her more still.<br />
<br />
In many ways, Thanksgiving is like American Passover. You gather with your family to recreate a meal, a meal where peoples of different backgrounds came together to celebrate that they would survive. Squanto was like Moses to the Pilgrims, and Moses would have been a stranger to the Jewish slaves.<br />
<br />
It's a lot like Passover, really. Almost uncannily. Except instead of an afikomen, you get pie for dessert.<br />
<br />
I love Thanksgiving.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtAczESilYb4D9RVFAP3WQslllSu8wo5w-6aL2Pi6xv-er3njc9xpA6t2BCITplNKaQiIhKPgngNIxfkmeok0FfocJAB8oyTZphIkacwVDfTED7nEo-ERFEjgzcz1l0qYmRiq1GufhabnV/s1600/51+N81G8nuL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rivkas-First-Thanksgiving-Elsa-Okon/dp/0689839014/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1417489880"><span id="goog_1769006524"></span>On Amazon!</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Which is one reason I can't stand Christmas Creep.<br />
<br />
For many people, Christmas is the only thing they seem to like about Thanksgiving. For many people, Thanksgiving is wonderful because it gives them permission to stop holding back in their Christmas zeal, and the minute the table is cleared after dinner it's time to ring those sleigh bells and move onward towards the <i>real</i> winter holiday.<br />
<br />
Only the thing is, unlike Thanksgiving, not all Americans recognize Christmas.<br />
<br />
Thanksgiving is wonderful to me in that it is so comprehensively American. From Turkey tamales to three sisters stew, from pumpkin crumble to persimmon pie, every corner of America is filled with people celebrating what might be a largely fictional story, but is a fundamentally hopeful one.<br />
<br />
Christmas? Not so much.<br />
<br />
For me, as for most non-Christian Americans, Christmas is an annual giant, exclusive party that seems to grow by a day or so every year.<br />
<br />
And I had no idea how much more lonely it would be for me once I had interfaith children.<br />
<br />
As you probably know, M borders on agnostic and I dabble with atheism. But we appreciate the traditions and familiarity of our respective faiths.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPulvLbMLczxLRWK8EbraDtuXnaUGGEFFMs6EfIkaZ4xP-y33rXjLgaODY_gCQN1YTVZksJErSuajT9ZPbXZQLX9UOUB8lPgheffMwKmCr74Y1cCeLsrv0cUpnP2bD7FEoJygMXaaq7OiV/s1600/shefshauen-marocco1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPulvLbMLczxLRWK8EbraDtuXnaUGGEFFMs6EfIkaZ4xP-y33rXjLgaODY_gCQN1YTVZksJErSuajT9ZPbXZQLX9UOUB8lPgheffMwKmCr74Y1cCeLsrv0cUpnP2bD7FEoJygMXaaq7OiV/s1600/shefshauen-marocco1.jpg" height="396" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The historically Jewish city of Chefchaouen in Morocco-<br />
where the Jews who built it so strongly identified with their heritage that they painted the city blue.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We always planned on celebrating Christmas and Channukah with our kids, and we've celebrated both holidays with them since the first. But the fact of the matter is, to be Jewish is to be excluded. Not just here, in the United States. Everywhere.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
We, as Jews, exclude ourselves.<br />
<br />
And in a way, I think that is what has allowed us to survive this long. As isolated strangers in non-Jewish communities, we have always excluded ourselves. Like Tevya says of the Cossacks in Anatevka, "We don't bother them, and so far, they don't bother us." Until of course, the Czar decided some bothering was due.<br />
<br />
We carved our niches out of the communities we wandered into, and although we lived side by side, we lived separately.<br />
<br />
Not so, in 20th and 21st century America. We managed to make ourselves seen, and heard, and somehow welcomed for the most part. We accepted the mantle of "whiteness" the civil rights movement offered us. We started seeing ourselves as Americans as well as Jews. Something we certainly never did in Russia or Morocco.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyZ8gN1aFjw3OmO_PwuMXsq8PqlJbAA8h-OEHjfSnKl4IpopitSYJGo7QY07GO2pyHRXF1DFB1zNrdqdm1L7xAbg93ibPwiu7X7HDd9JTFEw_mBpUY_WvPE-GScrJZVazoggjtHHyMtm-/s1600/blue-streets-of-chefchaouen-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyZ8gN1aFjw3OmO_PwuMXsq8PqlJbAA8h-OEHjfSnKl4IpopitSYJGo7QY07GO2pyHRXF1DFB1zNrdqdm1L7xAbg93ibPwiu7X7HDd9JTFEw_mBpUY_WvPE-GScrJZVazoggjtHHyMtm-/s1600/blue-streets-of-chefchaouen-6.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The blue streets of Chefchaouen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But part of the appeal of the United States, for all immigrants, has been that it is a country without a single faith. That it is a country without a unifying culture. That it was and has always been based on ideals of freedom from religious persecution.<br />
<br />
And the fact is, to be so thoroughly surrounded by a single holiday that you do not celebrate is smothering. To be vilified as being a "Scrooge" or a "Humbug" for feeling no love for a holiday that means nothing to you is a form of duress. It is a culture that says, "Pretend you believe <i>this</i>, or you are not one of us."<br />
<br />
For most of my life, that feeling of isolation and rejection for not trimming trees or writing letters to Santa was something that felt natural to me. That felt like as much a part of my heritage as the bland, mindless way the Shabbat bruchot came to my lips as a child waiting for Friday night dinner.<br />
<br />
It is not the same now. Now, I have children. Children who love Christmas, and whose love of Christmas <i>hurts</i> me.<br />
<br />
I feel petty and unkind and shallow saying so, but it's true. That I am and must be complicit in their affection for Christmas only makes it worse.<br />
<br />
I have little love for Jesus, in whose name countless atrocities have been committed against my ancestors. In whose name, as a child, my best friend sobbed and begged me to convert, because she didn't want to go to Heaven if she knew I was going to Hell. I have made my peace with Jesus, for the most part, who I think was probably a man trying to do some good, if he existed, which I can never know.<br />
<br />
But I don't understand what American culture has done to his birthday. And in his name.<br />
<br />
I don't understand how Santa Claus came to be, or why I must lie to my children, in however sheltered terms, rather than saying what I know is true. But I continue to lie to them. I tell them that he is real to them, because they have somebody who loves them and wants to make him real. The way fairies are real to some people, when somebody loves them and wants to make fairies real to them.<br />
<br />
It's a pretty lie. It's one that I had hoped wouldn't hurt me to tell. But it does. Because I cannot make Santa real. I can only drive this wedge further between my children and myself, isolating myself more and more from their understanding of the world and their understanding of mine.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc8Kkaj-CkZFqwYvQzS7uGVZNiHzgZ6Xf0ZA0aIrOjbpUSgnWBdtNs9QxYE4vazXj1n7dVRV9abo30dvhmv9w3Xx0QyevPLcq0rpRGRPQkRQzWsLOUDY-PRCQHSTfG7Annsd4aKYb-bG0/s1600/IMG_1665.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc8Kkaj-CkZFqwYvQzS7uGVZNiHzgZ6Xf0ZA0aIrOjbpUSgnWBdtNs9QxYE4vazXj1n7dVRV9abo30dvhmv9w3Xx0QyevPLcq0rpRGRPQkRQzWsLOUDY-PRCQHSTfG7Annsd4aKYb-bG0/s1600/IMG_1665.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our friends, Santa and Mrs. Claus with their favorite elf, visiting our children several Christmases ago.<br />
Friends who love our kids enough to make Santa real for them.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
For me, and for most Jews, to be Jewish is to be excluded. It is to be separate, to use our own favorite turn of phrase, to be "Chosen."<br />
<br />
Part of what we choose is this otherness, and I wonder if my sister wasn't really right when she warned me about having children with a Lutheran.<br />
<br />
"Can your children <i>really</i> be Jewish, if they grow up in a house that has a Christmas tree?"<br />
<br />
I said I didn't care, but I know now that I do. I care very much. I want them to feel what I feel about my heritage, about my ancestry and my history. <i>Their </i>ancestry and history.<br />
<br />
I want them to learn that part of being Jewish is being isolated from the larger community. That as welcome as we may think we are, we are always waiting for the tides to turn. I want them to understand that on Thanksgiving we are all American, and we are proud, and we are humble, and we are unified. But on Passover we remember that in every generation there comes somebody who would try to destroy us. That in every generation there is a genocide, and we have made it to this day by seeing the tides when they turn, and remembering who we are and where we came from.<br />
<br />
When, in October, my children squeal with delight at the sight of Christmas lights in a store, I feel more lonely than ever in my life. My children, these people I made who shared my blood and my body, and will always share my history and my life, my children have been anxious for Christmas to come since that first sparkly snowman made his appearance on the Costco floor.<br />
<br />
They gush about Christmas. They tell me what they want, they tell me they want to see Santa, they tell me they want to make Christmas cards and have Christmas stockings and a Christmas tree.<br />
<br />
As they have had every year.<br />
<br />
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</div>
And I ask them, "What about Channukah? What about lighting the menorah each night? What about singing Channukah songs with me and Poppa?"<br />
<br />
For them it's an afterthought. Something nice that will happen <i>as well</i> as Christmas. Not their isolated holiday warmth, not the oasis of familiarity in a Christmas dessert, where costume clad volunteers on the public train stare with fear in their eyes when someone responds to their, "Merry Christmas!" with "Chag samayach to you!"<br />
<br />
They learn that fear young. "Did you know?" an eight year old friend asked me, her face pale and numb, as we arranged Barbie shoe filled traps for each other on her bedroom floor, a la Home Alone, by the light of the garlands strung down her bannister. I was too ashamed to speak, now part of the mechanism that had built and shattered what would become a formative childhood experience.<br />
<br />
It wasn't that I didn't believe, it's that I knew the truth. And the truth was my parents kindly but sadly explaining that I should not tell other children the truth. That I must distance myself to protect them. That my distance was essential to their happiness.<br />
<br />
As a child, I resented Christmas, and I could not escape it. I could not escape singing Christmas songs at my public school. I could not escape the constant talk of what Santa would bring to other children, and not to me. I could not escape the ornaments and tinsel in every grocery store, on the light poles downtown, on the bulletin board outside the Principal's office. I could not escape the trees, covered in candy canes or tiny toys, standing resplendent in all my friends' homes- shrinelike on their velvet skirts, revered in their untouchable beauty. I could not escape the Christmas stories on my television, every beloved character celebrating the very holiday that excluded me, until I couldn't bear any longer to watch even the Muppets imply that I, like Scrooge, was a "humbug."<br />
<br />
For me, Channukah became meaningful not because of the story, a military holiday as opposed to a religious one. For me, Channukah was meaningful because after all the loneliness and sadness of my friends slowly distancing themselves from me, I found myself surrounded by the familiar songs and faces and foods of <i>my</i> people. My holiday. My little light in the winter dark.<br />
<br />
Now, as always, my friends are beginning to shrink away. Earlier and earlier every year, with facebook quizzes about "Holiday Movies" based on "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Miracle of 34th Street," as though by erasing the word "Christmas" from their enthusiasm I can join in, I can pretend that my own experience includes Santa Claus and Christmas Miracles, as if just by being American I must be part of this, as though despite making myself visible as someone "other," I am at fault for neglecting my cultural duty to watch the Greatest (Christmas) Films Of All Time.<br />
<br />
I find myself less patient with my inability to participate. I find myself feeling like a liar more and more, even as I tell my children that Santa is only real if somebody <i>makes</i> him real <i>for you</i>.<br />
<br />
"I can't make Santa real for you," I say, and this is also a lie. I am complicit. I am the one who fills the stockings when their backs are turned. I am the one who lies by omission, by saying that Santa is real for anyone, ever, when Santa is a fiction who brings comfort to the majority of our neighbors, but only ever hurt me. Only ever guilted me into prolonging the moment when my friends would be crushed by the destruction of their happy fantasies.<br />
<br />
The truth is that I don't want my kids to believe in Santa. Not because I don't think they can't really be Jewish on a fundamental level if they have a Christmas tree in the house. I think that it's hard to really empathize, to really understand who their ancestors were and what they faced if they don't understand what it is to <i>be</i> other. To be excluded and to understand that purposeful exclusion is a threat, but at the same time that self imposed exclusion can be safety.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiut72i2qKuyIug0a1Rm4rpheQ-qN1mEAS3G8bwo3PqhPgGipx2SEjHPLzByTumMJuZruedHJx6fEbT3eROv-qyEDyy6LLqhA9CbwPctezvTjeLgln46IGIfJPhXGX-i7uHaU56_ea7J-BQ/s1600/poland.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiut72i2qKuyIug0a1Rm4rpheQ-qN1mEAS3G8bwo3PqhPgGipx2SEjHPLzByTumMJuZruedHJx6fEbT3eROv-qyEDyy6LLqhA9CbwPctezvTjeLgln46IGIfJPhXGX-i7uHaU56_ea7J-BQ/s1600/poland.png" height="435" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jewish men praying under guard in a Polish shtetl in 1940</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last month, the children cheered when they saw a Christmas tree in Costco, and I ignored it, stony faced.<br />
<br />
"Is Christmas soon?" they asked, eagerly.<br />
<br />
"No, first comes Thanksgiving. And then Channukah," I said.<br />
<br />
"So why are there Christmas trees?"<br />
<br />
It was a simple question, and I answered it simply.<br />
<br />
"Christmas Creep."<br />
<br />
"What's Christmas Creep?"<br />
<br />
"Christmas Creep is when people are so excited about Christmas, they forget there are other holidays that other people celebrate. Including Thanksgiving, which is next."<br />
<br />
"Why do they forget there are other holidays?"<br />
<br />
"Because they don't need to remember, sweetie," I said, sighing, pushing my cart into the cold parking lot. Pushing it past other carts laden with trees and lawn reindeer and mountains of tinsel.<br />
<br />
They don't need to remember, but I do. Jews do. "Never forget," and all of that.<br />
<br />
The truth is that Christmas Creep isn't just about forgetting other holidays, it's about forgetting other people. And worse than that, Christmas Creep is about forgetting Christmas as well.<br />
<br />
My husband, the Lutheran, hates Christmas Creep more than I do. For me, it's a familiar angst. For him? It's a reminder of what is constantly being lost for people who DO celebrate that particular holiday.<br />
<br />
M tells me that he didn't really learn what Christmas was about until he was in college. An adult. Until he left home, Christmas was about <i>getting</i>. Now, he says, Christmas is about family, and love. Seeing his cousins in Minnesota, who he sees so painfully rarely. Seeing his aunts and uncles and remaining grandparents. Meeting babies and seeing how absurdly much children have grown. Physically being with the people you love.<br />
<br />
But it's hard to explain that to a child through the haze of tinsel and and the twinkling of fairy lights.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_t_S7sHry7O45maVuLz-fLdsNxgAAv_v4kCfdyRedTNjJK4sUEbDfO_icNGR0TizLunLudU1QgEj3WP-ZG18agiT7UsFZAwQbKX81er8vPAz3ghazdCatnm0BlAnneTazunAdjzWpLka/s1600/10714439_10154916443520541_2181503057039419265_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3_t_S7sHry7O45maVuLz-fLdsNxgAAv_v4kCfdyRedTNjJK4sUEbDfO_icNGR0TizLunLudU1QgEj3WP-ZG18agiT7UsFZAwQbKX81er8vPAz3ghazdCatnm0BlAnneTazunAdjzWpLka/s1600/10714439_10154916443520541_2181503057039419265_o.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just under half of M's family (<i>half</i> of them)- an eight hour drive away</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
M can't stand the Christmas Creep, not because it makes him feel alienated from the world around him, but because it makes him resent the waves upon waves of distraction from what he actually cares about.<br />
<br />
Neither of us are likely to jump onto the Holiday Fever bandwagon before we've thoroughly enjoyed our Thanksgiving weekends. Neither of us are eager to give up time with our families to buy things we don't necessarily need for a holiday we feel, in the case of both Christmas and Channukah, shouldn't be about presents anyway.<br />
<br />
Despite this, M <i>loves</i> Christmas. He loves putting on his cheezy Christmas sweater, drinking quarts of eggnog with a grin on his face, hanging a wreath on our front door. He loves the lights and the stockings, the tree and A Muppet Christmas Carol. He loves gingerbread houses and red and green m&ms on Christmas morning.<br />
<br />
I've always known Christmas was important to M, and it never bothered me. It still doesn't. I love seeing him happy, and I love <i>making</i> him happy. I go to church every year with his parents, smile and shake hands with the pastor, sing along through all the carols. The first date I ever took him on was after he came back from spending Christmas with his family. I drove him up to Sauganash, and parked the car, and walked hand in hand with him in the snow through a magical world of Christmas lights brighter and more complex than any in the town where I grew up.<br />
<br />
And it was beautiful and romantic, even to me, somebody who doesn't care about Christmas.<br />
<br />
I understand that there is something special about Christmas for people who <i>do</i> care, and part of me has always been dedicated to helping M create that magic with <i>his</i> children. Who also happen to be <i>my</i> children.<br />
<br />
And M has been equally understanding when it comes to my need to pass along traditions to my children. He has agreed with me on the importance of a Jewish preschool, not for religious indoctrination, but for the introduction of a long and complex history we both want them to know. He has been at every family seder, cracking jokes about gefilte fish and still eating it. He has learned the Shabbat bruchot, and sings them with more enthusiasm than I did at our children's age. And it has also, in a way, pained him. And I know that.<br />
<br />
Some of M's relatives like to wear shirts with slogans like, "Put the <b>Christ</b> back in <b>Christmas</b>." And both of us are all for that. Because it's <i>honest</i>. Because Christmas isn't "the reason for the season," but Jesus is the fundamental reason for Christmas. And the more we as a society get back to remembering that, the less Christmas Creep we'll have. The less we'll be constantly bombarded by messages to <i>buy buy buy buy buy</i>, and the less I will feel like I have to protect my children, not just from losing their sense of their cultural identity, but from losing ANY sense of cultural identity.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UJauPgPGBoB2C0SB8Q23xvAZ_XIS1C5FZY27Y3nvQ5PdK1TqYO4dzqlukCC6OuTNQsq1yuL0J7LVnq7iN5ANs-HeWL8byr53d-Zm3CTh0aV7Q2tE_L1cpetYFJIt44ZT0u4DK3qqSuv2/s1600/10609622_10152431731080925_95479713497264273_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UJauPgPGBoB2C0SB8Q23xvAZ_XIS1C5FZY27Y3nvQ5PdK1TqYO4dzqlukCC6OuTNQsq1yuL0J7LVnq7iN5ANs-HeWL8byr53d-Zm3CTh0aV7Q2tE_L1cpetYFJIt44ZT0u4DK3qqSuv2/s1600/10609622_10152431731080925_95479713497264273_n.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M and the girls watching football before Thanksgiving dinner, while Grandmommy and I cook and chat,<br />
and my sister and Poppa take turns napping away what ails them</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I know that M often feels that he has no cultural identity. That compared to me, a person from a self-excluded group, a person who deeply feels tied to history and culture that make me unique from society at large, he occasionally feels bland. Empty. As though his own culture has nothing to offer but Hallmark and Black Friday.<br />
<br />
He struggles with putting to words what his culture is, besides being White America. He is like a fish who cannot see the water, having lived it and breathed it beyond the limits of his own existence. And he is learning, but it does not help him define it.<br />
<br />
It does not help him explain to <i>his</i> children, <i>my</i> children, what is and is not meaningful or important, what is or is not a privilege or an identity, what is and is not good or bad or empty fluff.<br />
<br />
Nobody seems to believe that Christmas is about presents except children. But they're picking it up somewhere.<br />
<br />
So what is it? Is it about Jesus? Is it about family, about sharing the warmth of love and joy and familiarity in the coldest months? Or is it about casting divisions between "us" and "them"?<br />
<br />
I don't know. I may never know. I don't even know that I <i>want</i> to know. Knowing the meaning of Christmas might be a little too close for comfort to me. Having a true understanding of what Christmas is and what it means puts me so much closer to its epicenter than merely hanging stockings over my mantle, and lying to my children about the reality of fictional characters who brings gifts bought with my energy, my money, and my love.<br />
<br />
I don't want to sympathize with Christmas Creep, because I want to be able to focus on the things that matter to me, and I cannot emphasize enough- that is <i>not Christmas</i>.<br />
<br />
To me, Thanksgiving opens the winter, with welcoming arms and the promise that the winter will pass, that I will spend cold months ahead in the warm embrace of my friends and family, that the food will be abundant and the cheer even more so, despite the short days and the bitter cold.<br />
<br />
To me, Channukah is a week when I reflect on winters past. When I gather with my family and share stories so old they've become legend; from the revolt of the Maccabees to one time my four year old sister forgot her lines in our family Channukah play and announced to our "audience" that her song was rewinding.<br />
<br />
To me, Passover is about winter ending and spring beginning, with a warning. <i>We survived another winter. Another spring has come. And again we must remember that next year might be different.</i><br />
<br />
And in the middle there lies Christmas.<br />
<br />
I look forward to the days spent in Minnesota, surrounded by M's family, who have become my family. I look forward to hugs and cookies and catching up on news. I look forward to laughing at M's aunt's inappropriate jokes, and drinking beers with his cousin on the farm. I look forward to seeing my children get to know their cousins, in whatever limited capacity they can with so little exposure to each other, and hoping that someday they will feel the bond of love and family for these people who share their history, their heritage, their genes, and their traditions.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2U5iCpaDJ8GF2L9HhQRjyZ5VYobgLd5vOG3t9trdZNmXXxJjxSSkGb8rGc9Jio_Tjw8rdH0VlxrdqrcOdGbpEaE-6lUdRYt5Cr04olN33zi6vVjooO3BXLHMXWQbH7DLNNm2YunZTfgsS/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2U5iCpaDJ8GF2L9HhQRjyZ5VYobgLd5vOG3t9trdZNmXXxJjxSSkGb8rGc9Jio_Tjw8rdH0VlxrdqrcOdGbpEaE-6lUdRYt5Cr04olN33zi6vVjooO3BXLHMXWQbH7DLNNm2YunZTfgsS/s1600/maxresdefault.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago's Sauganash neighborhood, where I took M for our first New Year's Eve together. To look at the Christmas lights.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I do not look forward to church, but I go because I am part of this family and I want my children to know that and to be as well.<br />
<br />
I do not look forward to the endless Christmas trees on the street and non-stop Christmas Pop on the radio. I do not look forward to people I love asking my children about Santa, and building my complicity every time I keep my mouth closed in a smile.<br />
<br />
I cannot look forward to Christmas, because before I am even ready to approach it, it's here. Christmas Creeping its way under my skin and fatiguing me before I can acknowledge it. By the time Thanksgiving groceries are bought, I am <i>done</i> with Christmas.<br />
<br />
But I'm not done. I'm never done. I'm an American citizen, and each year Christmas is more American than apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert.<br />
<br />
And now I am less done than ever, because each day my children see a new toy in a catalogue, and they want Santa to bring it to them, so I set them to the task of simply circling toys I know I have no intention of buying.<br />
<br />
That I neither want to buy nor can afford.<br />
<br />
That are as much the "reason for the season" as the yet unpacked suitcases from our Thanksgiving trip littering the foyer.<br />
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I am learning through my children what it is to be included in this holiday, and I fear it means I cannot teach them the benefits of the inclusion of exclusion.<br />
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I am teaching them the importance of family, and of sharing traditions with family, even if that isn't the lessons they learn about Christmas.<br />
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I am teaching them the very things about Christmas I despise each time I offer a Santa platitude. Yet I offer Santa platitudes, despite each word breaking my heart as it tears my children farther from me.<br />
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As my Lutheran husband would smile and shrug and say, "Diyenu."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M and RH last Passover</td></tr>
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This is otherness in America. But what good is my exclusion, what good is my culture and my heritage and the relative safety of my isolated rhetorical shtetl, if my daughters are on the outside, while I am in?<br />
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If I can't embrace my otherness, what is left of my heritage for me to hang onto?<br />
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Is a Jew without her tribe a Jew any longer? Or am I something else? Something lost, and sad, grasping for an identity that can never be this version of American which only comes when the days shorten; or something hard, and cold, unable to find the warmth of any tradition when it's all obscured by the never ending "Holiday Sale" that sucks the meaning out of anything joyful?<br />
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If not even my children understand what it is to wander, but not be lost in the fold of their family, I am utterly alone.<br />
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And there will be precious little left to be thankful for in Novembers to come.<br />
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I will be a child again, standing back from a tree covered in toys I cannot touch, resenting it for bringing me no joy when the children around me gasp in awe.<br />
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Only those are my children.<br />
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And if they cannot know what it is to stand outside of Christmas and never come close enough to touch it, I fear they can never know me. And without my children to keep me warm, to stand by my side and hold my hands, it is a long, cold winter indeed.<br />
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Or, it's not.<br />
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Or, it's exactly what I agreed to a decade ago, when I felt myself falling in love with a man I took to look at Christmas lights for New Year's Eve. When I braced myself to feel exasperation and frustration on a cold walk on the last day of the year, and instead found pure delight and peace by looking at the smile on his face as he took in the displays.<br />
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I watched him grinning at the lights, and he said, "Thank you."<br />
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Because he knew I hadn't expected to go on that date to make <i>me</i> happy, but had done it for him. And he knew that seeing him happy was all I wanted in the first place, and getting that, I was also happy.<br />
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He and I agree that the best part of any gift giving holiday, Christmas or Channukah or any old birthday, is the moment when somebody you love opens the gifts and their face lights up. They are transported in their joy, and it is that joy, not the contents of the box, that you have given them.<br />
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It's a joy that knows how much you care. A joy that knows how deeply you love.<br />
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I love my children. I want them to experience joys I never did.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3m2u66bPC2HBTAAQW3WVDo6_BlmcWqfKwqXO8_Xf6wAz_VbKqQK4oMMW2SctSZe8s0oFAsM5ia6MuOIXdwN8iKDKAE8t8pi68g50T_DA2wIZL-N1TMs2wRkqb-SGRKkLcb47pT9s94BRQ/s1600/IMG_7542.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3m2u66bPC2HBTAAQW3WVDo6_BlmcWqfKwqXO8_Xf6wAz_VbKqQK4oMMW2SctSZe8s0oFAsM5ia6MuOIXdwN8iKDKAE8t8pi68g50T_DA2wIZL-N1TMs2wRkqb-SGRKkLcb47pT9s94BRQ/s1600/IMG_7542.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our menorah, over our stockings and nativity scene</td></tr>
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But it comes at a cost for me. It comes at the cost of becoming complicit in a lie that <i>hurt</i> me. In a culture that rejected me and laughed at me for being rejected. It comes at the cost of being part of the mechanism that perpetuates my own otherness, even, yes, from my own children.<br />
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It is a cost I accepted long before I had to pay. I still accept it. I am still learning to love <i>Christmas</i>, not for what it means but for what comes from it. Time with a family that is now my family, the beautiful joy of people whose love means everything to me, pretty lights in a dark, quiet street.<br />
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But I can only stretch so far.<br />
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The growing "season" overwhelms everything, including perspective.<br />
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I do have to remember- I do not have the luxury of forgetting other holidays, other people.<br />
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I see the water.<br />
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Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com105tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-66087705302022443962014-12-02T08:30:00.000-06:002014-12-02T09:47:55.673-06:00What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK3h1co74xOJl6hcxpM0ISuIZOWyBMk5Icuii_FANjem8A1wJPNBc-_VYLH7zXKLOHV77NRptl4EgODlWqWjmmtUcrc2MWwtucXmV9EBocOz-g7F982ky7iDbWu3RwuVgIB-X0bwFhEje/s1600/2014-05-09_0020.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpK3h1co74xOJl6hcxpM0ISuIZOWyBMk5Icuii_FANjem8A1wJPNBc-_VYLH7zXKLOHV77NRptl4EgODlWqWjmmtUcrc2MWwtucXmV9EBocOz-g7F982ky7iDbWu3RwuVgIB-X0bwFhEje/s1600/2014-05-09_0020.jpg" height="396" width="640" /></a></div>
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I am beyond thrilled to be able to share with you my inclusion in the upcoming anthology, "Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now."<br />
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Being a cast member of Listen To Your Mother was an incredible experience. Especially because of how it exposed me to so many amazing stories. Each time I drive past a dried field of tall grass, I think of the story told by another mom about when her son and his friends nearly burned down the house by igniting the field behind it, and how she organized the children into a haphazard assembly line to smother the flames lapping at the building with wet blankets while they waited for the fire department to arrive.<br />
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I think about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oIuw3yIyhI">Debi's story</a>, how her four year old transitioned from male to female, and how that affected her as a mother. These are stories I think all parents should hear. All humans should hear. It's such a remarkable thing that Listen To Your Mother has done, given these stories a microphone.<br />
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It was truly an honor to share a stage with these women. And it is truly an honor to share the pages of a book with them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj55l4RTQarq9dmrcr2XvAb765Wm_lfeHQEXvgsIe6iz2XlEV87exld42YklkNWqBhIpH4U2XNLbemW7qifWGIS5d1TadPbdz6dC_ONrA3tpjx-SVIcNwbtiUJMx9aZd4EzEuhIKJ9Ricxp/s1600/A100PA25VBL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj55l4RTQarq9dmrcr2XvAb765Wm_lfeHQEXvgsIe6iz2XlEV87exld42YklkNWqBhIpH4U2XNLbemW7qifWGIS5d1TadPbdz6dC_ONrA3tpjx-SVIcNwbtiUJMx9aZd4EzEuhIKJ9Ricxp/s1600/A100PA25VBL.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a></div>
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The new book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-we%C2%92re-saying/dp/0399169857/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0">available for pre-order</a> through Amazon now.<br />
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I'm so excited about getting a chance to sit down with this book and read it cover to cover. April can't come soon enough.<br />
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If you enjoy The Moth, or This American Life, you should order this book.<br />
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If it even comes close to holding a candle to the stage show, which I <i>know</i> it will, it's going to be utterly beautiful.<br />
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<a href="http://listentoyourmothershow.com/blog/2014/12/02/announcing-the-contributors-to-the-ltym-book-coming-april-7-2015/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Official announcement here.</span></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fx0ETDiCnKztmK6ljkdvleIKctVih9edVekQ86wwJSzNwPWwU9qJf4fHv6Srn0syKClfZO0fBezkaV55mRx7GrxjxHPm3_hISpjV_W7k3g0mIFxOnU1N0K4M9ATAPsIThoq3KnxUs5St/s1600/2014-05-09_0190.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fx0ETDiCnKztmK6ljkdvleIKctVih9edVekQ86wwJSzNwPWwU9qJf4fHv6Srn0syKClfZO0fBezkaV55mRx7GrxjxHPm3_hISpjV_W7k3g0mIFxOnU1N0K4M9ATAPsIThoq3KnxUs5St/s1600/2014-05-09_0190.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-45430937739477032482014-12-01T11:00:00.000-06:002014-12-01T11:00:03.886-06:00Pretty Little Gifts #DIY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0lVb12ueHcW9B-DBEOMVAJAwYmWGjRwLnuAGBe2EjyFReyxss082DZogLTaDv84kC_SyfSnIW_cJJyheh7khprUJAiA8oyLYzSwQROCg4V4zrGvpX_jUCoVI_l6jip2xu_V6dzmleGJC/s1600/44Fsec-FG5CuqqoVdMFD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig0lVb12ueHcW9B-DBEOMVAJAwYmWGjRwLnuAGBe2EjyFReyxss082DZogLTaDv84kC_SyfSnIW_cJJyheh7khprUJAiA8oyLYzSwQROCg4V4zrGvpX_jUCoVI_l6jip2xu_V6dzmleGJC/s1600/44Fsec-FG5CuqqoVdMFD.jpg" height="404" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is a sponsored post. I was given products from Simply Bridal in exchange for writing, but all opinions are my own.</i></td></tr>
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It can be hard to find a way to give a special, personal gift to everyone in your life. I've never been a big fan of gift cards, but there are so many people I want to show appreciation or affection for at this time of year, it can feel like options are seriously limited.<div>
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For example, the four women who teach my children during the day. I adore them, but I certainly can't stretch my holiday budget enough to get them something really nice.</div>
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Or my neighbors. They're wonderful people, but I'm not rushing off to get them all the newest releases on Blu-Ray.</div>
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No, the best option is often to make something. Something small, but personal and friendly and lovely. But who has time? With three little kids around, I hardly have time to shower, let alone put together the lovely tins of cookies I once baked.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr87bIzLhELk9vbvawJ0rOxNbUxaSF6EFqAEQ5xGtOYPt6q17_5xMOEBxflPD5GZaYFX7FCQwCFN_KrpZ5UJtA3kdB8zWDs5DbLF3dbkpq4QYwuU5fU3IdxXnrLRlw-sOF1a_plEtWNzON/s1600/hp2W7ZLOLuJ5pU1mxG4H.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr87bIzLhELk9vbvawJ0rOxNbUxaSF6EFqAEQ5xGtOYPt6q17_5xMOEBxflPD5GZaYFX7FCQwCFN_KrpZ5UJtA3kdB8zWDs5DbLF3dbkpq4QYwuU5fU3IdxXnrLRlw-sOF1a_plEtWNzON/s1600/hp2W7ZLOLuJ5pU1mxG4H.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a>Enter <a href="http://www.simplybridal.com/">Simply Bridal</a>.</div>
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It might sound a little strange, but a bridal shop is a PERFECT place to pick up the tools to make ridiculously gorgeous (and easy) gifts!</div>
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To show you what I mean, Simply Bridal sells <a href="http://invitations.simplybridal.com/Weddings/Wedding-Accessories/Wedding-Favors/Milk-Jar-Favor-Set-of-12">a box of a dozen mini milk jars</a> for only $15. That works out to $1.25 per jar.</div>
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Add to that a few bags of m&ms, and a bit of ribbon- and POOF! A beautiful little holiday gift!</div>
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I like using a gold cloth ribbon with wired sides. The wires keep your bows looking fresh, and the allow you to crimp the tails with your fingers. And the gold compliments all the color schemes of Channukah, Christmas, and Thanksgiving.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-1-HQwhxuuK1oELayV03gMDhFQ04IHE7nUC70E4nxtIfzitw4ZLPtwf7dF2dS7BNPLGdLa1KUjiLfKTAxLCCU2A7v5k-jkhfGwEqsREd5ZyCvIFP54L7CPO7GrFqf3SGSs1aBaJy4xpo/s1600/ctQLgskGRlrsQzLHmeXX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN-1-HQwhxuuK1oELayV03gMDhFQ04IHE7nUC70E4nxtIfzitw4ZLPtwf7dF2dS7BNPLGdLa1KUjiLfKTAxLCCU2A7v5k-jkhfGwEqsREd5ZyCvIFP54L7CPO7GrFqf3SGSs1aBaJy4xpo/s1600/ctQLgskGRlrsQzLHmeXX.jpg" height="320" width="203" /></a>The result is something that shows you care enough to put some work into it, although not so difficult to add stress to your busy holiday schedule.</div>
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<i>Best part of m&ms- the regular, every-day colors come in Channukah (blue and yellow), Christmas (red and green), and Thanksgiving (brown and orange). It's like somebody knows me.</i></div>
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If you want to get fancy with your candies, you can slide a piece of card stock into the middle of the jar, to put the colors side by side rather than on top of each other. Plus, if you switch the sides of your colors halfway up, you get a lovely checker pattern!</div>
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You can use almost any small candies, of course. For a Christmas themed gift, peppermints are an excellent choice. And if you happen to know the favorite candy of the person you plan to give a jar to, it's always best to show you actually know and care about them with their favorites. If I was sticking one of these jars in my husband's stocking, for example, I'd be sure to fill it with mini peanut butter cups.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1_jt6bSBufJl-o5k8vBBZ54N7UnYVdF2CPm-DvbUx_YqjQVbhAnPauLFUwUsbELW4NHrgKiupB_E26L5sORsFDYMoa1VQ8JYskKugNkzKPtTHqviVt81bJIONhLO7bq-t9xxc3CDHYVX/s1600/qlmnzXEqa41QLnYooR2r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1_jt6bSBufJl-o5k8vBBZ54N7UnYVdF2CPm-DvbUx_YqjQVbhAnPauLFUwUsbELW4NHrgKiupB_E26L5sORsFDYMoa1VQ8JYskKugNkzKPtTHqviVt81bJIONhLO7bq-t9xxc3CDHYVX/s1600/qlmnzXEqa41QLnYooR2r.jpg" height="320" width="175" /></a></div>
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But if candies aren't your style, don't fret. What I <i>really</i> love to do with these jars is make single serving hot cocoas.</div>
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These are so easy. They are so unfathomably easy. And people <i>love </i>them.</div>
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The simple hot cocoa jar is a serving of hot cocoa powder, with mini marshmallows topping it off. This is great especially for people you might want to gift who you know spend a lot of time in the cold. Your mail woman, the garbage men, your dog walker, the lady at the crosswalk by the school. For less than two dollars a gift, it's cheaper and more personal than a card. And when they head home and out of the bitter cold, they will be truly grateful for the thoughtfulness.</div>
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But what if you're on a really tight budget? What if you only have a few dollars to spend on almost EVERYONE on your list? Times are tough, and I know the poor economy has hit just about all of us. And along with the tighter budgets, more and more of the people I know are living with dietary restrictions that would make giving them any of the above jars insensitive.</div>
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If you're in a situation like that, this is the solution you've been looking for. Gourmet, food-restriction friendly, reusable cocoa jars. <i>Beautiful</i> reusable jars of <i>spectacular</i> hot cocoa.</div>
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You can personalize your flavors with crushed peppermints or ginger hard candies or instant coffee. You can be certain to avoid dairy, gluten, or even sugar. When you invest a little bit in the ingredients, you can divvy the costs into your dozen of presents, and give a truly thoughtful gift to somebody for half the cost of a fancy Starbuck's flavored frappaccino.</div>
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And when they see the jar? My favorite moment of the holidays is when somebody sees their gift for the first time, and you know you've nailed it, and made their day and their winter a brighter, happier place.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJSNv5FVNLoM6Fx2RLyGSFn3MK6__Wo6KL6o-rd9XrtvWiSam2-TEDac2jOieI0PYt004jWXFgAnycBkeZAodh9goUYKvpgqR4e0zj54KLtEoqxN_jTZv8-8jcCLy3zJCJ-ReElt9sEwC/s1600/m7O49jVu6Emvs_SKMGPU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJSNv5FVNLoM6Fx2RLyGSFn3MK6__Wo6KL6o-rd9XrtvWiSam2-TEDac2jOieI0PYt004jWXFgAnycBkeZAodh9goUYKvpgqR4e0zj54KLtEoqxN_jTZv8-8jcCLy3zJCJ-ReElt9sEwC/s1600/m7O49jVu6Emvs_SKMGPU.jpg" height="640" width="483" /></a></div>
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Two teaspoons of powdered sugar. Five teaspoons of cocoa powder. Half a teaspoon of powdered vanilla extract. One and a half teaspoons of cinnamon sugar. Fill the jar the rest of the way with vegan marshmallows (I like Dandies, but there are other options!), and stick a cinnamon stick through the bow.</div>
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Thirty dollars for all your ingredients and jars, and that's gifts for absolutely everyone in your office.</div>
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Simply Bridal has a wonderful selection of other jar options for similar prices. For another $5, your jars can come <a href="http://invitations.simplybridal.com/Weddings/Wedding-Accessories/Wedding-Favors/Chalkboard-Glass-with-Cork-Lid-Favor-Jar">with chalkboard labels</a> (and you know how much I love those chalkboard labels).</div>
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And the best part?</div>
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This is THE TIME OF YEAR to buy supplies from a bridal shop. Wedding season is over, and that means you can get much better deals on things like wedding favors.</div>
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Head to Simply Bridal and check out their selection of bridal favor options, and keep in mind how grateful people are when they can repurpose a present. A little jar, even empty, is <i>useful</i>. And a little jar filled beautifully with something sweet or meaningful?</div>
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That's a present nearly anyone would be happy to receive.</div>
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Get thee hence to Simply Bridal! Buy some beautiful jars and spend an easy hour making gifts for everyone! Save yourself some hassle, and make people think you're Martha Stewart.</div>
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That can be your gift to yourself. And to your bank account.</div>
Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-67734992608090415152014-11-25T11:03:00.000-06:002014-11-25T11:22:31.594-06:00Broken<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9He6mWVRQX5WGeMOF1qLKOtFBvhCoBlZ4eTYQj74IfaImqxeyK8rgnsumtbUvfKyilxs_dBs8zbRFZk3Qx9Vj3qH1mvZJp9Ysys-RsWjGTCHUTp_r7EidyPIvcMBQ5t0spxdyQqv__2tm/s1600/8jSR24TESARyp0s6Fwje.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9He6mWVRQX5WGeMOF1qLKOtFBvhCoBlZ4eTYQj74IfaImqxeyK8rgnsumtbUvfKyilxs_dBs8zbRFZk3Qx9Vj3qH1mvZJp9Ysys-RsWjGTCHUTp_r7EidyPIvcMBQ5t0spxdyQqv__2tm/s1600/8jSR24TESARyp0s6Fwje.jpg" /></a></div>
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Last night, I couldn't sleep.</div>
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I tossed and turned, listening to the wind.</div>
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It was bitter outside, and the wind rattled my windows.</div>
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I kept thinking about the other places that wind was going. That same wind, chasing the storm that left my city frozen and wet and frosted.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I knew that same wind must be chilling the streets in Ferguson, which isn't far from here. I thought of the wind whipping through Ferguson, and how it would feel to be standing on the street in that wind.</div>
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It would be cold, bone chilling cold. Soul chilling. It would bite at exposed skin. It would howl.</div>
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I thought about how I might howl with it, in rage and confusion and pure hopelessness.</div>
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I thought about how in Ferguson, no amount of scarves or coats would make your skin feel less exposed.</div>
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Yesterday, a grand jury failed to charge the killer of Michael Brown with any charges whatsoever. There is no question that he killed Michael Brown. There is no question that Michael Brown was unarmed. That he was a teenaged boy, enjoying his last summer before heading off to college. That if he were still alive, he would be counting down the seconds until his first real break from the rigors of the semester ended, and he could go be with his family and enjoy the warmth of food and love despite the raging winds outside.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There is no question that Michael Brown was an unarmed teenaged boy.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A police officer shot him and killed him, and never has to answer to that again.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And here is why- white America is so frightened of brown skin that, whether or not it is reasonable or fair or realistic or humane, a white officer can claim that when a brown skinned person moves in their direction, it is a legitimate threat to their life.</div>
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<br /></div>
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THAT is the law. The law is that a police officer can use deadly force if they believe their life is in danger. And in this case, a police officer believed that an unarmed teenaged kid would and could have killed him.</div>
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<br /></div>
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That is a bad law.</div>
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<br /></div>
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More than that, it is a bad, broken way to live. We live in an environment where to have brown skin is to be a perceived threat. All the time.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We have criminalized brownness.</div>
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<br /></div>
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THAT is the law.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Of course there is no justice for the people in Ferguson. There is a broken law that protects bigoted ideas at the expense of real, human lives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Michael Brown was a human being. It doesn't matter that he was black, or that he was male, or that he was large. What matters is that he was a human being, killed in the street, and that his killer did, according to the law, NOTHING WRONG.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It doesn't matter if he DID attempt to assault an officer. It doesn't matter if he DID rob a store. None of that matters. Because if they were true, Michael Brown should have been given the same protection as Darren Wilson. The benefit of the doubt. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
He will never be proven guilty, because he was dead before he could be charged with a crime.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Darren Wilson will never be proven guilty, because a grand jury determined there was no crime with which to charge him.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
THAT is the law.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There is so much anger and resentment built up in this country. So much frustration and fatigue. Nobody expected Darren Wilson to go to jail. Nobody. But the least we could have done, as a community, was hold him accountable.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I understand the urge to break something, anything, when everything around you already feels so broken.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I understand the urge to watch something burn.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I understand the need to embrace the warmth of your fury when the wind is so cold, and with your hood over your ears you can hardly hear that there is somebody near by, offering to hold your hand.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is not justice. It is not the law. But because the law is so broken, there <i>is</i> no justice. And if there is no justice, what's the point?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
What's the point of obeying a law when by the default of your skin you're already guilty?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
It's not right. It's not right to stand back and watch the world burn. But it's also not right to stand back and do <i>nothing</i>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On Thursday, Michael Brown's family will have their first Thanksgiving without him. And every year, they will be forced to find a way to feel grateful, despite carrying the reminder that three days earlier, the man who killed him was cleared of any wrongdoing.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcX0whF5q2BBtyKoIPH4bAAw0TzotiRBIrrvwsg7WRBMagcMf8Po4ld7jNy0lsV3WDR2sYOGt1o-hTE5umYY0KmWGWD9Ct8PLJ5UEp16vCaar__qp2mLy5J33Iyqxz2YvMIM_wq5FbJTeM/s1600/ss-140825-michael-brown-funeral-10_d7040a9661fb813f9d3722e742114487.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcX0whF5q2BBtyKoIPH4bAAw0TzotiRBIrrvwsg7WRBMagcMf8Po4ld7jNy0lsV3WDR2sYOGt1o-hTE5umYY0KmWGWD9Ct8PLJ5UEp16vCaar__qp2mLy5J33Iyqxz2YvMIM_wq5FbJTeM/s1600/ss-140825-michael-brown-funeral-10_d7040a9661fb813f9d3722e742114487.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/crying-justice-thousands-mourn-michael-brown-funeral-n188346">NBC</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
This is our country. These are our values.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This Thanksgiving, all of us should mourn.</div>
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Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-42712251934415991102014-11-20T08:30:00.000-06:002014-11-20T08:30:02.087-06:00Your New Favorite Store<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVmyPAV6-fccM3Cb0UiuAggN8e3B96L-AemhdT-Sd2iG0pHi6ojxQje8UyaYpthNWcwTT-V2O6n_uRJCobcKBmxfhPoduoJb6ZL-lP27mwqTpFiFmTXhcfcGA3fxNRziT0RGlb61BJsR8/s1600/4Ej5K8ztwkPcvtO5xdDI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVmyPAV6-fccM3Cb0UiuAggN8e3B96L-AemhdT-Sd2iG0pHi6ojxQje8UyaYpthNWcwTT-V2O6n_uRJCobcKBmxfhPoduoJb6ZL-lP27mwqTpFiFmTXhcfcGA3fxNRziT0RGlb61BJsR8/s1600/4Ej5K8ztwkPcvtO5xdDI.jpg" height="470" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I am a year round shopper. In general, when I find that perfect thing that I just <i>know</i> somebody on my list is going to love, I just go ahead and buy it. At any given time, I have half a dozen birthday/Christmas/Channukah/Anniversary gifts hiding in my home, waiting for the day I give them to somebody who I <i>know</i> is going to love them.<br />
<br />
That said, my days of year-round shopping may be behind me. Because I've found the world's best shop for awesome things for everybody that I know.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/">UncommonGoods</a>.<br />
<br />
As you may recall, I am a big fan of giving kids <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/10/to-parents-who-bought-my-daughters.html">activities, rather than toys</a>.<br />
<br />
UncommonGoods has <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/for-kids">an amazing selection</a> of toys and activities for kids. My two favorites, without a doubt, are the <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/make-your-own-ukulele-kit">Make Your Own Ukelele Kit</a> and the <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/make-your-own-snowglobe-kit">Make Your Own Snowglobe Kit</a>,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhXQf397q7pvVxL7ikg7GXVil7-GxIZA-Ns3e2BhM5iWJR4s2ufmc7qaFN2xH81NeR8XSjArREN16TBoSf33sVhklYuEEY90pynvA9ygw37QpS-0H6lRQqCUI8Fdt0KaOoeanAL0z4YC1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-19+at+9.39.24+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvhXQf397q7pvVxL7ikg7GXVil7-GxIZA-Ns3e2BhM5iWJR4s2ufmc7qaFN2xH81NeR8XSjArREN16TBoSf33sVhklYuEEY90pynvA9ygw37QpS-0H6lRQqCUI8Fdt0KaOoeanAL0z4YC1/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-19+at+9.39.24+AM.png" height="320" width="294" /></a></div>
<br />
If M and I hadn't gotten the twins guitars for their birthday, we'd be getting them this kit. How cool is that? Build, decorate, and learn to play your own ukelele?! <i>I</i> want one of those!!!<br />
<br />
Other great toys from UncommonGoods are their language blocks. They have alphabet blocks in <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/foreign-language-blocks">Chinese</a>, <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/braille-sign-language-blocks">Braille</a>, <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/hebrew-alphabet-blocks">Hebrew</a>, and <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/egyptian-hieroglyphic-blocks">Hieroglyphs</a>.<br />
<br />
Something the twins are getting from UncommonGoods this Channukah is the Gummy Bear Lights. These things are so much better than they even looked on the website. They're flexible silicone, and really easy to use. They produce what is pretty much <i>exactly</i> the right amount of light to let them curl up with a gummy bear and a book in bed, and not produce enough light to disturb the two year old sleeping on the other end of the room.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fqtWwjZetlA" width="640"></iframe><br />
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My favorite feature of this toy is that it has a timer- it automatically turns off after an hour. So when one of my favorite five year olds falls asleep reading, I don't have to sneak in and turn it off.<br />
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Of course, just having an awesome, snuggleable night light isn't enough- you've got to have something to read by it, right?<br />
<br />
UncommonGoods has a most beautiful personally curated collection of picture books. We got a copy of <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/lineup-for-yesterday">Lineup for Yesterday,</a> Ogden Nash's alphabetic ode to Baseball with some of the most wonderful illustrations I've seen in a long time.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAcqo5uIprQK4jshrZPfVQ4LRhdrwHGjnPyhBxkH7fHANJO1fMTFVUWP87quGY1W1MmOSp8uKBFwbJcnVzl5SL-CcHlG2-dzpuyCFzULUGq8GMKaA3XXW_KqFi_FvQIrkMuvxGdfjjZNi/s1600/IMG_3155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAcqo5uIprQK4jshrZPfVQ4LRhdrwHGjnPyhBxkH7fHANJO1fMTFVUWP87quGY1W1MmOSp8uKBFwbJcnVzl5SL-CcHlG2-dzpuyCFzULUGq8GMKaA3XXW_KqFi_FvQIrkMuvxGdfjjZNi/s1600/IMG_3155.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a ridiculously beautiful book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In addition to the poem, which is a really fun way to talk baseball with the kids, every few stanzas there's a page of brief biographies of the baseball players in the poem, including the teams they played for and the years they played. It's a gorgeous piece of baseball history.<br />
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I would tell you to go check out every single item individually, but there's no point. EVERY SINGLE ITEM is carefully selected, and they're all sort of magical. If you check out <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/gifts/by-recipient/gifts-for-women">the selection</a> of gifts for women, you'll find it's so much more than the usual gendered assortment of scarves and tea towels. Although those are gorgeous too.<br />
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There's a selection of steampunk light switch plates I would LOVE to get for half of my friends.</div>
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There's a selection of the world's cleverest hot cocoa and marshmallow delivery systems.</div>
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There's a set of mix tape tumblers. MIX TAPE GLASSWARE!!!!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5CnIUtA0hyphenhypheniwVEsXNPnLMEfBucCrFe0PvIIr-bhdhB2Q0qX7bxqtTzMW38s8uAU8fuL9NszKBpLGnptRHyHwnIUkMnnlJ2UebTe1hAcpvOhZtsUTfxkfAAW5LUuntPwm9FT7HqgZ23rNw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-19+at+10.12.06+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5CnIUtA0hyphenhypheniwVEsXNPnLMEfBucCrFe0PvIIr-bhdhB2Q0qX7bxqtTzMW38s8uAU8fuL9NszKBpLGnptRHyHwnIUkMnnlJ2UebTe1hAcpvOhZtsUTfxkfAAW5LUuntPwm9FT7HqgZ23rNw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-11-19+at+10.12.06+AM.png" height="272" width="400" /></a></div>
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I mean- <i>seriously</i>.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/gifts/by-recipient/gifts-for-men">diversity of the stuff </a>in their gifts for dudes section is pretty epic, too. And best of all, they know that these items can and SHOULD overlap. There's no sense that "Shot glasses are for men and throw cushions are for women." It's a philosophy of, "<b>Awesome stuff is for everybody.</b>"<br />
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But the icing on this cake of fabulous is without a doubt the people running UncommonGoods. Based out of Brooklyn, NY, they are dedicated to products that don't harm animals, the environment, or people. Half of their products are hand made, and the majority are made in the USA. About a third are recycled or upcycled materials, and even that isn't the best part.</div>
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Every time somebody makes a purchase at UncommonGoods, the owners donate $1 to charity. Not just any charity, four in particular. Including the one nearest and dearest to my heart, <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2013/11/me-and-network.html">RAINN</a>.<br />
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Get thee hence to <a href="http://www.uncommongoods.com/">UncommonGoods</a> and finish up your holiday shopping. Support small businesses instead of giving all your money to Amazon and Walmart. Get something made with love, sold with love, and then given with love.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And add UncommonGoods to your bookmarks, because when you need to buy somebody something awesome, it's the first place you should look.</div>
Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-70618819941491418162014-11-19T11:10:00.000-06:002014-12-06T14:08:46.573-06:00Just Look<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZkpyKdFF6mi1YE1jIgdFqa_eM4MP6jIWLafYj-ktYqOE4nna0ZDXTOCV9w3upUCQaMWF82wUcR7TUMSDg5sfq-Jjm9fNyYXt7NFf4bFeoIxbb3ByRmMfz9GNSrBFfMNsp6cc-IOHxn6Ux/s1600/2ayElaVlpVzKTdwMcZC_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZkpyKdFF6mi1YE1jIgdFqa_eM4MP6jIWLafYj-ktYqOE4nna0ZDXTOCV9w3upUCQaMWF82wUcR7TUMSDg5sfq-Jjm9fNyYXt7NFf4bFeoIxbb3ByRmMfz9GNSrBFfMNsp6cc-IOHxn6Ux/s1600/2ayElaVlpVzKTdwMcZC_.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two completely different five year olds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"How do you tell them apart?"<br />
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If I hadn't been running after a two year old who was Hell bent on throwing herself in front of a car in the preschool drop-off line, I'd have given another mom my craziest crazy eyes.<br />
<br />
Surely, she had to be kidding.<br />
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It cannot be <i>that difficult</i> to distinguish my children from each other.<br />
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It is, in fact, so easy that all three of my children have ready-made answers to this question, for whenever they hear somebody ask.<br />
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"How do you tell them apart?"<br />
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If I had the time, I would TELL each person who asked this.<br />
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I'd say SI is two full inches taller, that she has blue eyes and dark brown hair, that she has pale eyebrows and an elegant neck. That she looks dainty and elfish with her rounded lips and ears that stick out a bit from her head.<br />
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I'd say DD has olive skin, and hair only a few shades darker when the sun has tanned and highlighted all summer. That she has a squared smile and small, perfectly even teeth, that her eyes are green and her nose both rounded and cleft. That she has no earlobes, and her much longer curls are so thick and kinky as to be obviously "ethnic."<br />
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I'd say SI has loose, soft curls, and cheekbones for miles. And that DD has the Hapsburg chin dark and, heavy eyebrows.<br />
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I'd say SI has a little beauty mark on her forehead, and DD has one on her cheekbone that Marilyn Monroe would KILL for. That SI's feet are a whole size and a half larger than DD's, and that she chews her fingernails but DD doesn't.<br />
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I could catalogue each feature, and tell you which of the many branches of their family tree provided it, and that there are almost no commonalities.<br />
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They are both five year old girls with curly brown hair, but the similarities begin and end there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZkpyKdFF6mi1YE1jIgdFqa_eM4MP6jIWLafYj-ktYqOE4nna0ZDXTOCV9w3upUCQaMWF82wUcR7TUMSDg5sfq-Jjm9fNyYXt7NFf4bFeoIxbb3ByRmMfz9GNSrBFfMNsp6cc-IOHxn6Ux/s1600/2ayElaVlpVzKTdwMcZC_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZkpyKdFF6mi1YE1jIgdFqa_eM4MP6jIWLafYj-ktYqOE4nna0ZDXTOCV9w3upUCQaMWF82wUcR7TUMSDg5sfq-Jjm9fNyYXt7NFf4bFeoIxbb3ByRmMfz9GNSrBFfMNsp6cc-IOHxn6Ux/s1600/2ayElaVlpVzKTdwMcZC_.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div>
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SI, with the same lips as M's sister, my great-grandfather's ears, my mother's hair, my wonky little toes.<br />
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DD, with my younger sister's smile, my father's eyebrows, my older sister's hair, M's dimple.<br />
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How do I tell them apart?<br />
<br />
It can't just be that I'm their mother. That I've seen them on all but about twelve of their roughly 2,000 days on this earth. It can't just be that I have some sort of superpower that enables me to see them as individuals, as unique from each other in every way.<br />
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I have always worried for them, my twins, who will be lumped together as a unit no matter what they do, because they are twins.<br />
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I have always worried that their identities will be so caught up in what people expect of them as twins that they are afraid to find out who they are alone.<br />
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I would ask anyone who asks me, "How do I tell them apart?" "Have you <i>seen</i> them?"<br />
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Look at each of their features. Just <i>look</i>. Even bundled up in their coats- one in all pinks and the other with bold blue and yellow stripes- with nothing to work from but their eyes and noses and the strands of hair that work their way out from under their hoods. And find one- a single one- that is the same from child to child.<br />
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<br />
Listen to them speak. DD's wet "j" and "ch" sounds, her overly pronounced vowels that sound British in their accent, with words like "school" lengthened to two syllables.<br />
<br />
SI's muddled vowels, and her intense sarcasm as she answers statements of the obvious with, "Are you KIDDING me?!"<br />
<br />
Listen to their laughs, DD's open and wild shrieks, SI's hysterical giggles and guffaws.<br />
<br />
Even if their faces were identical. Even if they matched from the tops of their curls to the crescents of their toenails, I could still tell them apart.<br />
<br />
Because they are not the same people.<br />
<br />
They are unique and fascinating, they have separate interests and likes and dislikes, and they express themselves in their own ways.<br />
<br />
They are not, in any way, the same. Not in the way they eat their dinner, not in the way they kiss me goodnight.<br />
<br />
If I were blind I could tell them apart.<br />
<br />
If I were deaf I could tell them apart.<br />
<br />
If I were given no indication but the feel of their hand in mine, I would know who's hand I was holding.<br />
<br />
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<br />
They are twins, but that does not mean they are the same. That doesn't even mean they are a pair. They are siblings with the same birthday, but being twins does not and should not eclipse their identity.<br />
<br />
Strangers ask me how to tell them apart, as though being twins makes them a completed set. As though there must be an answer to the question because there must be some problem distinguishing their individual identities in the first place.<br />
<br />
"How do you tell them apart?"<br />
<br />
"Just ask them," I sometimes say.<br />
<br />
They know how to answer.<br />
<br />
"I'm SI," SI says.<br />
<br />
"And I'm DD!" DD replies.<br />
<br />
"That is my sister SI, and that is my sister DD," RH adds, as though to settle the matter.<br />
<br />
That should be enough for anyone.Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-42442778702846817012014-11-11T11:50:00.001-06:002014-11-11T12:28:31.876-06:00The Center of the Universe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and the center of my universe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last week, M and I decided to (finally) take the plunge, and start watching Breaking Bad. <i>(This post might have a few spoilers if you've never heard about the show before, but nothing big.)</i><br />
<br />
Neither of us are generally the sort of person to get caught up in a cultural hype, we geek out about what we geek out about, and there's a lot of overlap for us. But we both feel a bit uncomfortable when everybody we know and everybody they know and everybody else seems to be obsessed with something new. Especially when it comes to TV. We don't want much television, so when we do we sort of want it to count. Well, now that Breaking Bad is of the air, now that it's over and we've distanced ourselves from the popular obsession, we decided it might be fun to watch just an episode and see what we thought.<br />
<br />
Of course, we quickly learned it's pretty much impossible to watch the first episode of Breaking Bad and not immediately put on the next.<br />
<br />
There's a lot on the show that makes us uncomfortable. Not the murder and drugs and gruesome comedy of errors regarding those things. No, what makes us uncomfortable is scenes like this.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/35gWXV3y53s" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
I get a visceral fury whenever Skylar, Walter's wife, talks to Walter about his treatment. It's not about what he wants. It's about what she needs. I understand where she's coming from, sure, but she's going about it all wrong.<br />
<br />
She's made up her mind what's going to happen to Walt, and he's going to do what she says because the alternative is to die.<br />
<br />
I understand that. I do, I profoundly do. I see myself in Skylar a <i>lot</i>. But where we fundamentally differ is in how we address those same fears and needs. For me, M's cancer was always about <i>him</i>. It has always been about him, and his life, and his needs. I refused to believe he would die, but I tried to make sure he was feeling good about life as he lived it.<br />
<br />
Whenever Skylar tries to bully Walter into a different treatment, or into a different doctor, or simply into her way of thinking, it comes across to me as cruel. She doesn't care if Walter's happy, so long as he's alive. Whereas Walter doesn't care if he's alive, so long as he's happy. Or at least, so long as he feels he has some direction and control over his destiny.<br />
<br />
M and I watch these scenes snuggled up together on the bed, our hands gripped together and our breath shallow. Because these are real conversations that people really have when they know what they're facing.<br />
<br />
I wonder if <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2014/11/dignity-versus-nobility.html">Brittany Maynard</a> was a Breaking Bad fan.<br />
<br />
When Walt's hair fell out during chemo, I wanted to punch Skylar in the face. She couldn't speak. She cried when she saw him bald- exactly as he had predicted. I remembered how I locked down my own feelings when M's hair started falling out and stayed cool, calm, and as relaxed as I could, helping him shave the patchy growth left on his head.<br />
<br />
Because, as it seems I forgot in my grief and rage over Ms. Maynard, it's only about one person.<br />
<br />
When somebody you love is in pain, is truly ill, you get over yourself and remember who <i>really</i> matters.<br />
<br />
It's like this wonderful graph from the LA Times article- <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/07/opinion/la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407">"How Not To Say The Wrong Thing."</a><br />
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<br />
The idea is the sick person is in the middle, and nobody is allowed to complain them about how their illness affects anyone else. That person can complain, or not, to anybody. All you give, from the outside in, is support.<br />
<br />
I might have worried that M would die and I would never see my Happily Ever After with my One True Love, but M never heard that from me. Never. Because it's unfair and unkind. What could he do about it? Stop being sick?<br />
<br />
No, M, was the center of the universe. He had to be. His universe was terrifying and it was collapsing. You never put more burdens on the person holding together the center of all existence. You just don't.<br />
<br />
Skylar turns it on its head. No matter what Walter tries to do, she is critical. Who the hell wants that kind of person for a support structure?<br />
<br />
Watching the show has been fun, so far. Lots of humor, meth related violence, and people saying, "Bitch!" with wild and conflicting inflections.<br />
<br />
But we were not expecting to turn into a medical drama. Not hardly. And it's the side of medical dramas we don't particularly want to see. While M was on chemo, we watched House and Scrubs fanatically. We spend a few colder nights of our honeymoon watching Grey's Anatomy. We like the doctor side of things- doctors having fights and drama, and somehow coming out in the end to either cure the patient or to fail.<br />
<br />
Watching Walter fall apart as the chemo ruins his body and his family's poorly concealed despair... that's not so much fun.<br />
<br />
That's everything we never wanted.<br />
<br />
We're still watching the show. Of course we are, it's too damned addictive.<br />
<br />
But I have a renewed sympathy for the Maynard family. Actually, I'd like to offer her and her family an apology, for every bit of anger I harbored about her decision.<br />
<br />
Nobody has the right, not me, to question Brittany Maynard. For her, she was the center of the universe. I'm so far outside the circles of contact and support, I don't even exist.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and the center of the universe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That's what I think I need to remember.<br />
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Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-42469799646831451982014-11-04T10:45:00.000-06:002014-11-04T11:31:01.715-06:00Dignity versus Nobility<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It's been a long couple days in front of my computer.<br />
<br />
Brittany Maynard chose to end her life on Saturday, surrounded by her loved ones. And as a result, I can't get away from the story.<br />
<br />
It's all over facebook (although my friends and acquaintances thankfully have enough tact not to post it directly to my wall). It's all over the radio. It feels like it's everywhere.<br />
<br />
A woman with the same brain cancer as my husband, three five years older than he was when he was diagnosed, and three years younger than he is now, ended her life in order to avoid suffering. When I say the same cancer, I mean THE SAME CANCER. The same size tumor. The same location. The same stage.<br />
<br />
I've been cautious not to form much of an opinion. I've been careful to remind myself that she is not me, that she is not M, and that she was experiencing grief and fear and the desire to live a beautiful life in her own individual way.<br />
<br />
I respect her choice, but as much as I sympathized with her and pitied her and wished for her to control her destiny to the best of her ability, it still enrages me now that she's gone. (<i>Yes, I know, classic stages of grief.</i>)<br />
<br />
And here is why- it comes down to the word <i>dignity.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
To die with <i>dignity</i>.<br />
<br />
I believe it is every person's right. But that word means many things.<br />
<br />
M wanted, when he learned his diagnosis (but not his prognosis, mind you), to die with dignity. For him, that meant finding a medical trial to participate in. For him, that meant giving his death, not only his life, meaning.<br />
<br />
He said over and over to me, he did not want to be defined by his brain cancer. He didn't want memorial funds in his name to raise funds for brain cancer research. He didn't want grey ribbons on all his friends' car bumpers, or 10Ks, or telethons. He wanted to be remembered for what <i>he</i> did, not what the cancer did to him.<br />
<br />
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He wanted to be remembered for his work on buildings that would stand for generations. He wanted to be remembered for his sense of humor and his brilliance. He didn't want to be forever associated with a disease. He didn't want to be Lou Gehrig.<br />
<br />
He wanted to be himself, in control of himself. Just as Brittany Maynard did.<br />
<br />
Only his idea of dying with dignity wasn't completing a bucket list of places to visit and things to see. It was saving other people. It was giving his death <i>to</i> other people, in the form of a medical trial. Of using his death to help understand the cancer, and perhaps keep other people from experiencing the same fate.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This contraption held his head down to a table for treatment.<br />
The marks are for aiming the beams of radiation directly at the tumor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At the time, the word that came to mind for me was <i>noble</i>. I thought he was unbearably noble. But he didn't see it that way.<br />
<br />
For him, it was about dignity. About standing and facing his fate and making something better of it.<br />
<br />
In a way, Brittany Maynard did the same thing. Her way of making something better of her death was to try to ensure that all other terminally ill people in the United States have the same option- the die before living is too painful to endure.<br />
<br />
I know what kind of pain Brittany Maynard was facing. I <i>know </i>it. In one of her last statements, she said her helicopter flyover of the Grand Canyon was followed by her worst seizure yet.<br />
<br />
Seizures are no joke. I <i>know</i>.<br />
<br />
But dignity isn't just making sure you avoid pain. Dignity is prioritizing your humanity over your fear.<br />
<br />
Yes, the right to die is incredibly important. And of course I have no way of knowing what options for treatment Brittany Maynard had. I don't know if a clinical trial was a possibility for her.<br />
<br />
And as I've said a thousand times before, I don't believe that suicide is a selfish act. That Brittany was thinking of others is obvious to me, she made sure to say she hoped her husband would remarry and have children someday. She understood that life goes on for the loved ones of a dying person.<br />
<br />
But at twenty nine years old, less than a year younger than me, I wish I could stare her in the eyes before she made the choice NOT to undergo any sort of treatment that would effect her quality of life for those last months, and ask her, "Who are you doing this for?"<br />
<br />
I don't know if M's trial is saving any lives. I believe it could. I truly believe it could. It was dangerous, and it was frightening, but it <i>worked</i>.<br />
<br />
And if it hadn't, doctors would know going forward what not to do, and why, when another terminally ill patient came along.<br />
<br />
So maybe Brittany Maynard died with dignity. Maybe she did.<br />
<br />
But maybe that kind of dignity isn't enough. Maybe, for me, death should be about more than dignity. It should be about more than avoiding suffering.<br />
<br />
It should be about what you give the world with your life and death.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The OKO Tower, currently under construction in Moscow, and one of the projects M is most proud of.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When you're young, this is a much harder question. In your twenties, what do you really have to contribute to the wealth of human knowledge and understanding and beauty?<br />
<br />
As you age though, you give more. You can't help it- living in of itself is giving.<br />
<br />
My heart breaks for Brittany Maynard's family. Especially for her husband, who at least got to enjoy marrying the love of his life without the shadow of this prognosis and planned death over his head.<br />
<br />
And I know that M is not typical. That his story is profoundly unique. But when I look at him, this man who at twenty four, the day after proposing to me, was diagnosed with <i>the same brain cancer</i>, and has since married and had three children...<br />
<br />
I can't help but question the information Ms. Maynard was given. I can't help but question her motives. I can't help but question whether this wasn't about dying with dignity, but making a point.<br />
<br />
And I would scream from the mountaintops to anyone else with a stage four, inoperable glioblastoma, "You can have more than dignity! You can be NOBLE!"<br />
<br />
Maybe it's just from watching the man I love struggle always for what is best and most right for others, but I would always choose the latter.<br />
<br />
Someday, the time may come when M is ready to choose to die. But I know him, and I know he would only ever make that choice if he thought living, under any circumstances, would give no more to the world than it would take from it.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">M and his dad watching a pig race with the kids-<br />
seven and a quarter years after being diagnosed with terminal, inoperable brain cancer.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I hope that is an equation that other people suffering from terminal illnesses can consider.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Edit:</i><br />
<i>In response to the question- what if *I* were diagnosed with a terminal, debilitating illness?</i><br />
<i>At this point in my life, if it were in fact the same glioblastoma, I might consider planning for a Brittany Maynard-esque death with dignity. Because the process of going through personality changes that might make me angry or even abusive towards my children is something they are not yet old enough to understand. My choice would be based on my desire to cause them the least amount of trauma- leaving them with memories of me intact. Again, the equation would be that living would give no more to the world than dying would take from it. But if faced with a similar illness before I had children or once they were old enough to understand the effects of diseases of the brain, my calculation would probably be different.</i>Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989017208846872303.post-5384228739689204802014-11-03T15:18:00.001-06:002014-11-03T15:18:28.413-06:00Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/c7rxuuIOxhg" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<br />
The is how every episode of The Powerpuff Girls begins.<br />
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I'm a huge fan of the show. When it came out, I was already "too old" for cartoons, but thanks to shows like South Park, cartoons were edgier, more interesting, and frankly you could get away with watching them as still see yourself as cool.<br />
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I <i>loved</i> the Powerpuff Girls. And I love being able to share them with my kids. Yes, they fall prey to a few of the classic problems that programming for (mostly) little girls share- no mom, for one thing- but the show is so up front with its blatantly feminist agenda, how could I help myself?<br />
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In one of my favorite episodes, "Members Only," the girls try to join the Association of World Super Men, and are told, "Shouldn't you be home, learning to be mommies?"<br />
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And then when a big, bad, macho jerk form outer space shows up and starts beating up the Super Men, the girls save the day.<br />
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I love that. And when I discovered the Powerpuff Girls were available on Netflix? Let's just say it didn't take long for my girls to get WAY more obsessed than I ever was.<br />
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So when we started talking Halloween costumes, they made up their mind pretty quick.<br />
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And thus, the Powerpuff Girls were born!<br />
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These were, without a doubt, some of the easiest costumes I've ever made in my life. I assumed it would be cold on Halloween, this is the midwest after all, so I made them out of microfleece. I added sleeves, because COLD HALLOWEEN is a thing, and I hot glued the eyes to ridiculously cheap sunglasses. I bought a pack of kids sunglasses party favors for a buck, and popped out the lenses. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!<br />
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All that was left was a few accessories. A giant bow and barrette for Blossom (DD), a cheap "flapper" wig for Buttercup (SI), and pigtails for Bubbles (RH).<br />
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"So if you're the powerpuff girls, what should Mommy and Daddy be?" I asked.<br />
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"Daddy NEEDS to be Professor Utonium!" They said.<br />
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Easily done. A lab coat and a bottle of Chemical X later...<br />
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"So what about Mommy?"<br />
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At first, the girls wanted me to be Mojo Jojo. This made perfect sense to me, as he's kind of THE iconic Powerpuff Girls villain. But no, RH's favorite episode features a villain so sinister, so evil, so scary, so horribly vile that even the utterance of his name strikes fear into the hearts of men. He's known only as <b>HIM</b>, so that's what the kids asked for.<br />
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So... who is <b>HIM</b>?<br />
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<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/powerpuff-girls-him_n_4232697.html">Huffington Post put this best once upon a time</a>, but I'll give you a brief explanation.<br />
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<b>HIM</b> is a gender queer devil character in a Santa suit, lobster claws, and kinky boots, who possesses a variety of superpowers and <i>probably</i> could destroy the Powerpuff Girls if he <i>really</i> wanted to.<br />
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When the girls asked me to dress up as this particular character, I hesitated. <i>What WOULD the neighbors think?</i> I'm built more like a short, hairy ape, so Mojo Jojo, while being a more complicated costume, certainly had a lot of appeal. But the girls insisted. So...<br />
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Without a doubt, that is the most makeup I've ever worn in my life. And I used to perform onstage on a regular basis. At first I was afraid that if I did the makeup, RH would freak out when she saw me. So I made sure to do all the makeup- from the black spray-on hair dye to the ridiculous eyebrows, with an audience.<br />
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They were less than helpful.<br />
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But I didn't stop there with my costuming insanity. Oh no! I was determined to out-do <a href="http://becomingsupermommy.blogspot.com/2013/10/happy-halloween.html">the Justice League</a> this year. I only home someday I stop doing that to myself. One of these days the kids will want a costume that is just plain beyond me. But since they made it so easy this year, I used Aunt Genocide's suggestion for the trick or treat bags, and kind of one-upped by costume game.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUqMAhnBNE39mQqAR1vCF4Rt7rzy5Jmh3rCdAk0j-vtxHKhsOQ8yz5kkAL-VIr6VmYg5LB8HLWamK1ue8XPXbK02ejndi-Y6WVLv_WTal-qodPyCWRlTaXBB3GA-OPpuAU0wUAHK0v_Hx/s1600/IMG_3209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfUqMAhnBNE39mQqAR1vCF4Rt7rzy5Jmh3rCdAk0j-vtxHKhsOQ8yz5kkAL-VIr6VmYg5LB8HLWamK1ue8XPXbK02ejndi-Y6WVLv_WTal-qodPyCWRlTaXBB3GA-OPpuAU0wUAHK0v_Hx/s1600/IMG_3209.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sugar</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MIuoOMbAkXtKQUrwDpxW6N6BXwY0KqB_flF-Nb_eEE_gncVxKhBtk93Z6az11DMhQncyFpfZxBeD1D3T16uHwPd3sqJ4OzT3Y8fGa6wsUucVw8ySyW8bQtV3tBpKrMwYiT7xC_NMdlvl/s1600/IMG_3213.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2MIuoOMbAkXtKQUrwDpxW6N6BXwY0KqB_flF-Nb_eEE_gncVxKhBtk93Z6az11DMhQncyFpfZxBeD1D3T16uHwPd3sqJ4OzT3Y8fGa6wsUucVw8ySyW8bQtV3tBpKrMwYiT7xC_NMdlvl/s1600/IMG_3213.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spice</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEB4ALUym84sWwhWX5rJr8u53nJ1u9z0SFYel7hOfokhfQ01B_QdrUZGYZR6C3x4Wg3C92OdoJS_Sq-9KO2P5Z-FthWfXt9d0z9f7xbv2nES6QqeMSywPxLaAYejEC7rLFS7rCl34o1TN/s1600/IMG_3210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmEB4ALUym84sWwhWX5rJr8u53nJ1u9z0SFYel7hOfokhfQ01B_QdrUZGYZR6C3x4Wg3C92OdoJS_Sq-9KO2P5Z-FthWfXt9d0z9f7xbv2nES6QqeMSywPxLaAYejEC7rLFS7rCl34o1TN/s1600/IMG_3210.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">and Everything Nice</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'm really looking forward to using those bags for regular old grocery shopping as the years go by.<br />
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Despite having warm, snuggly costumes (and TWO pairs of stockings each, plus undershirts, plus boots instead of their Mary Janes...), the weather was more than the Powerpuff Girls could handle. Half an hour into our trick or treating, it began to hail.<br />
<br />
And hail.<br />
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And HAIL.<br />
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And the wind got so bad we were all being pelted horizontally by nearly white-out hail the size of raisins. All across our neighborhood, trees were uprooted, electrical lines fell, and trick or treaters headed for shelter.<br />
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My poor kids, they'd never seen hail before. Let alone been stuck outside in the nastiest, windiest downpouring of the stuff <i>I'd</i> ever seen. They huddled under the cloak I'd worn instead of a coat (I thought it was more <b>HIM</b>'s style), and we shuffled to an underpass to wait for M- um, the Professor, to bring us the car.<br />
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Fortunately, the candy was plentiful and survived the ordeal. With bellies full of pizza and the promise they could keep on their costumes as nightgowns (yay fleece!), the children dubbed it the Best Halloween Ever.<br />
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So from my family to yours, Happy Halloween!<br />
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<br />Becoming Supermommyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04590343072778694123noreply@blogger.com5