husband

Grace

Posted on by Beth Hull

By the time I’ve slaved over a pot of burnt rice and battled the side leg tackles of my toddler, I’m ready to chow down on the (unburned, new batch of) rice and curry stir fry cooked by loving Husband. Throw plates on the table, sweep dead flower petals to the side, plonk down a beer and call it a meal.

Fortunately we’ve already instilled in our daughter a deeply ingrained love of prayer, otherwise we’d be eating like heathens in front of an episode of Lost without any form of pomp or circumstance…which is exactly how we used to do things. What I thought would be a nice family routine of saying a quick prayer before dinner has turned into a breakfast-lunch-snack-and-dinner affair, complete with thanking God for the food and pretty much every single person we know on this earth. Oh, and the animals too. Our grace goes something like this:

Parent (either Husband or me): Dear God, thank you for this food.

[pause]

Z: Pop Pop.

Parent: And Pop Pop.

Z: Meh-nie.

Parent: And Melanie.

Z: Hay-son.

Parent: And Harrison.

Z: Gamma.

Parent: And Grandma.

And so on, until we finish thanking God for the grandparents, the cat, the dogs next door, Mama, Daddy, and finally, Z herself. Then sometimes we loop back to the cat.

The same thing happens at nighttime prayers. Then yesterday as I put her down in her crib for naptime and her eyes were drooping, she popped her little head up and said, “Gace!” [translation: Grace].

This is hard to admit in front of the Public and God and Everyone Else (including my mother), but I pretended not to know what she was talking about.

It sounds bad, I know. But her little eyes were practically shut, and she would have been wide awake by the end of a recital of the contents of my address book (and don’t forget the animals). Plus I work so hard to get her to sleep sometimes; if she’s already there on her own, I don’t want to mess with that. Sometimes I’ll go to extreme and superstitious lengths to preserve what I have come to think of as our Routine.

So I said a quick prayer for her, because I believe you can just say, “Hey God, thanks for my beautiful kid,” whenever you feel like it.

My Friday Five

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Friday Free-for-All

1. I really do love Sarah Dessen’s blog. There usually isn’t anything particularly helpful in it, which I like in a blog (as you can probably see if you’re reading mine). Hers is entertaining. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and sometimes way too true, as she is also the mother of a toddler. Because imitation is the finest form of flattery, I’m stealing her Friday Five idea and using it today, because there are too many bits floating around in my head. [Sidenote: if you want to explore her books, my two favorites are The Truth About Forever and This Lullaby.]

2. My friend and Birthday Buddy, Cora, is not yet a year old and she is already facing her fourth surgery. At least, I think it is her fourth; I have to admit I have lost count because there have been extra trips to the hospital not involving surgery. I bet her parents could tell you without any thought at all how many surgeries Cora has had. Right now, Baby Cora needs to get her nourishment through an IV, and hopefully in a few weeks she’ll have gained enough weight to be strong enough for the next surgery. I don’t want to share details here because a) I’m terrible at medical details, being so swayed by the emotional aspect, and b) Cora is not my baby so I’m really not at liberty to share her information. At any rate, please pray for Cora, or send positive thoughts to the Universe, or virtual hugs to her and her parents, or whatever it is that you can do right now for her. She is a special little girl who does not deserve to have to go through this again. No baby does.

3. Um, it’s really hard to move on from Point #2. But let’s try. Z woke up around 2:30 and could not go back to sleep. She tried. I know, because she was in our bed and I was watching her. Z has always slept with us, from Day 1, and this was a conscious decision we made before she came home with us. I think, however, that even if we hadn’t made that decision, co-sleeping is where we would’ve ended up, anyway, since she screamed if she wasn’t with me. But back to my story. Finally, after watching her flip and flop and almost ruin her chances of a sibling with some of her kicks towards Husband, I asked her if it was her diaper. She actually said yes. So I picked her up, changed her diaper, then rocked her and sang through our current lullabies twice (“All the Pretty Horses” and “Ring Around the Moon”). Then I waited a half hour for her to fall asleep in her crib, sneaked back to my room (hmm, “snuck” comes underlined red with spell check). The creaking floors must have given me away, because she woke up and I had to do the wait-by-the-crib routine all over again. I’m a freaking hero, okay?

4. I hit the Big One with the library hold list this week. Usually I get one or two books at a time–totally manageable. Right now I’ve got eight of them, all taking up space on an already-crowded bookshelf. Then yesterday: a message that five more are just waiting on  me. Here’s my list:

  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, audio recording (I LOVE this book!)
  • A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb (finished on Thursday; I had the feeling I’d already read it though)
  • The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (D-Chan’s been trying to get me to read this for years)
  • The Underneath by Kathi Appelt (MG book, random interest)
  • Accents: a Manual for Actors by Robert Blumenfeld (I’m terrible at accents, but so curious)
  • The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life by Noah Lukeman (author is a literary agent who has published numerous books and articles on writing and querying)
  • Gone by Lisa McMann (may as well finish the trilogy)
  • My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent (reading now. Love her Werecats series. Unimpressed with this one)
  • The Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp (hated the baby one, but friend said this one is better)
  • Urban Shaman by C. E. Murphy (might be terrible–who knows?)
  • The Dark Divine by Bree Despain (ditto the above parenthetical comment. We’ve got to take a chance occasionally)
  • Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception by Maggie Stiefvater (I’ve been on hold for months waiting for Shiver–buy more copies, library!)

5. Although it isn’t official yet, since the “official” first day isn’t until tomorrow, spring is here. From the seeds I planted last week, the lettuce has already sprouted. The weather is warm enough I can go without socks around the house, and Z and I have resumed our morning walks. Everyone seems to be happy about this, and I’m wondering: is anyone sad to see the end of winter?

I’m barely proofing this thing in my rush to get it out. Hope it’s okay…. And happy Friday!

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s…Super-Ego!

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Wednesday Momming Around Entry

The other night when Z threw a fit because seconds of applesauce were not as readily forthcoming as she wished, Husband distracted her with a new chant: “Super-ego, super-ego, super-ego…”

She has none, of course. Not yet, anyway. She is driven by id, the part of her wanting that extra heaping spoonful of applesauce, more time with her blocks, and Mama’s tenth consecutive rendition of “Hey Look Me Over” (complete with interpretive dance moves…don’t ask).

And the thing is, the id is so honest when it doesn’t have the super-ego after it, making a person feel guilty or want to act appropriately. Z wants what she wants, and she’ll tell you about it. Loudly, if necessary.

Lately what Z wants more than anything is to exert control over her immediate environment. She organizes (well, it looks like organizing, but when a stuffed gecko, Duplos, and a teapot all end up in the same box, it’s anybody’s guess), she chooses her clothes, she rearranges (small pieces) of furniture. She’s taken to bringing things to the kitchen while I fix lunch or wash the Everest of dishes. If lunch actually requires heating up food and more than a five minute wait, we’re in danger of drowning in toys and whatever largish items she can haul in there (for example: the bike, the doll cradle, Mr. Penguin and the rest of her stuffed animals, a large selection of books, a foam booster seat that she likes to sit on and cover with blankets, “her” dish towels, puzzle pieces, and of course the blocks).

And that’s perfectly normal, right? For a toddler to want to control her environment?

I guess the only problem is I’m trying to control my environment, too, and we’re living in the same one.

She wins, for now, because I’ll gladly take tripping over the occasional board book over her side leg tackle trick she likes to do while I’m working at the kitchen counter. Usually chopping fruit or using a sharp instrument for some kind of meal preparation.

Number Two

Posted on by Beth Hull

Number Two is a popular topic. It’s talked of between Husband and me, amongst all the play group moms, with the grandparents. Who has one, who wants one, who–oops!–made one accidentally.

It’s really too bad that my euphemism for a second child is also the euphemism for defecation. The two are very separate in my mind…mostly.

The thing is, I finally feel like I’ve gotten a handle on this whole being-a-mother thing. On a good day, that is. Only on a very good day. I’m tired all the time, still don’t get enough personal space or enough time to write, and frankly, I’m a very cranky person. Adding a new baby into the mix sounds like a batch of the terrible pumpkin bread I made one time when I mistook the teaspoon abbreviation for tablespoon on the recipe and put in way more baking soda than required. You see? More is not necessarily better.

On the other hand, I loved being pregnant. And this isn’t as uncommon as you might think. What’s not to love about being huge with purpose and able to eat pretty much everything in sight? There’s a surprise inside, a little being growing, just by virtue of your own existence. For awhile, you are not one, but two. I loved the head trip of the whole experience, not to mention the Dairy Queen trips. (Yes I know ice cream is not the best fuel for growing a little body, but try telling me that when I’m in the third trimester and see if you keep your limbs.)

On the third hand (the one I took from you when you suggested I back off on the Dairy Queen Blizzards), Z could totally use a little playmate. A) I could get away with even more slacker-mom time, and B) her demeanor just begs for more people, all the time. She’s a little extrovert. I’m still puzzling over where she got that personality disorder…er, I mean…trait.

And on the fourth hand (the one I took from Husband when he couldn’t drive me to Dairy Queen that one time, so I had to drive myself and stand in line by my pregnant self and feel very self-conscious of what a bad mom-to-be I was), Number Two can be anybody. With my luck, Number Two will sleep even less than Z does. And s/he could scream even more, if that’s humanly possible. While I dread it now, I would feel the same as I do with Z. She’s aggravating, sure, but I’d never send her back. And that’s how it’ll be with another child…if Husband ever talks me into Number Two.

Kitchen ‘Capades

Posted on by Beth Hull

This morning I was greeted in the kitchen by the Mt. Everest of dishes, looming precipitously above me and sucking up all the oxygen with their stench. Didn’t I JUST do these? I wondered. Hasn’t there been enough kitchen cleaning for one week? Does it never end? I know I’m not the first stay-at-homie to ponder these philosophical quandaries. With my easy solution, perhaps I’ll be the last.

For those of you interested in my ground-breaking solution, here it is: stop eating. No food means no dishes. I know I can certainly survive until the Fourth of July off of my stomach fat alone, not even needing to use up the fat stores from other parts until much later. Z can survive off the handouts she gets at playdates. Seriously, the kid walks into a stranger’s house and starts begging. I try to convince the other moms that she does eat at home, but they don’t believe me. So I may as well stop feeding her and make the rounds to the other toddlers’ houses. And Husband? He barely eats anyway, somehow getting through an entire day on three cookies. In fact, he doesn’t even have to eat those cookies. He takes them to work, then brings them home; he magically absorbs whatever calories he needs just from carrying them. I magically absorb whatever calories I don’t need just by looking at air.

But this isn’t an article intended to poke fun at my weight, as easy as that is right now. I’m mystified by the kitchen, and the dishes inside it, and how they seem to dirty themselves through the very virtue of being dishes. Perhaps I don’t get it because I don’t cook. So when I see the dishes it’s magical in an Oh-No-Voldemort-Just-Apparated-In-My-Kitchen sort of way.

When I do finally tackle the mess, usually in the morning (I mean really, who wants to waste Z’s precious bedtime hours cleaning?), I vow to never again let it get this bad. “Never,” I say, scrubbing a chunk of enchilada off the rim of a plate. All good intentions are lost as soon as Z looks “thoughtful” and needs a new diaper. My child protects me from doing too much work because after the diaper change she wants a story. And in the face of all those dishes, reading Rosemary Wells’s Bunny Planet trilogy forty-six times sounds like nirvana.