Posts Tagged: Living Room

Thoughts from Mom — 5 Comments
9
Jun 09

Do you really want to be the perfect wife?

Time:   8:32 pm, 3 days ago

Setting:  Kevin and I are driving home in the car.

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Me:   :::sighs suddenly:::: It’s going to take forever to get that house cleaned once the bedroom floor is finished, and I have no desire to do any of it.  WHY can’t I just be the person I want to be???

Kevin:   ::::::turns the wheel, looks at me out of the corner of his eye whilst driving:::::::::

Me:   ….see, the person I WANT to be is inside of me.  I have this great picture of who she is.  But when I look at my life, I’m totally different than who I think I should be.

Kevin:  ::::raises his eyebrow, unsure of where this is going::::::

Me:   Well, for one, I hate getting up early.  I hate cleaning.  I rarely dust.  We eat from Little Ceasars, Taco Bell, Subway, and the Dollar Menu at McDonalds far, far too often.  The only vegetables I’ve ever grown in my life are probably about to die because I didn’t know how to transplant them properly.   We ran out of clean underwear twice last month.  And I swear, our stuff sits in the living room at night, breeding, and plotting how to take our lives over.  That, and I haven’t touched the laundry in a week, which might lead ot more trips to Kmart to buy you fresh underwear.  Why oh why can’t I just take a pill and instantly become the person I have in my mind that I want to be????  

Kevin, speaking non-chalantly:   Baby, you already do a lot.  Plus, you are with our baby 24/7.  That’s a lot of work.  Don’t make yourself sound that bad.   You know you always get around to stuff sooner or later. 

Me:   No!  You don’t understand.  I don’t WANT to be that kind of person. Period.  I want to be different than I am.  I want to be an awesome wife and mom.  See..here’s how it is.  I’m supposed to get up before you do, have your breakfast cooked, enjoy a wonderful hot meal together, then kiss you on the cheek, and send you off to work at 5:30 am with ironed clothes and a packed nutritious lunch……

Kevin, butting into my tirade:   Yeh, I remember you did that one time a couple years ago……

Me:   ::::looks at him annoyed::::

Me, continuing:   …..then after you leave, I should get the laundry caught up, do my morning routine, then wake up our son, get him dressed and feed him a hot nutricious breakfast.   I’m home all day, so the house should be spotless too, right????  The bed should be made, the floors sparkling, the dishes done, and soft classical music playing in the background.  It doesn’t SOUND like it would be too hard.  And truthfully, when I get to doing it, it doesn’t physically take that long.  Then, there should be a garden of vegetables out back.  I’d love to learn how to can things!  And all this talk about organic being the best, shouldn’t we look into learning about that stuff???  And we should see about getting a city recycle bin too as all this going green talk has me feeling guilty every time I throw the weekly circular into the trash.  Better yet, I should just turn it into paper pulp, make beads, and sellthem on Etsy!!   Also,  I want to look pretty every day and enjoy going out to lunch occasionally too. I don’t like being cooped up all the time and it’s good for Jack to get out.   Yet in reality, I don’t even want to get dressed when I wake up and by the time I return from taking Jack to the morning storytime, the hermit in me doesn’t want to do anything else, much less grocery shop or cook the evening meal every night.  But everything that SHOULD be done SOUNDS so easy in my head, and that’s the kind of wife I truly want to be.  As a Christian, that’s who I’m SUPPOSED to be, right??  Isn’t that what you want too???  Our home should be tranquil…peaceful…clean.   Anyway, that’s what annoys me – the version of me I picture in my head is not who I am in reality…..she’s there…I can almost feel her…but I can’t make myself become her….and….  

Kevin:   :::::cuts into my tirade, looking strait at me instead of the road::::::   Uh, no.  Listen, I don’t know what weird things you’ve been reading, but if you acted like that I’d kick you out or leave myself.   You don’t need to get up when I do!  You need your sleep. Plus you know I like to be alone during the morning.  And I could care less about any of that other junk you mentioned.  You’re awesome.  I don’t want you to be like all that.  Are you seriously nuts???  I want you to be like YOU.  

Me:   ::::::sinks into subdued thoughtful silence for the 2 minute remainder of the ride::::::::

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LESSON LEARNED:   Don’t try to be someone else’s version of the perfect wife and mother. 

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DISCLAIMER:  This is a true story.  The names were not even changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

Our Homelife — No Comments
18
Oct 08

Is Your Dog a Food Thief?

…no?

Well ours is.

To date, he’s snatched 3 jars of peanut butter, 3 dozen Krispe Kreme doughnuts, 2 loaves of bread, a full pack of Combo pretzels, a roll of saltine crackers, a bowlful of pork & beans, and a prenatal vitamin.

It all happens innocently enough….

Usually I…uh..I mean..one of us…will be munching merrily on a snack or making a sandwhich - and absentmindedly lay it down on the counter or the coffee table.  Then, I…uh…one of us…will forget about said snack.

Later on, we’ll be outside, innocently enjoying ourselves, knowing full well that the dog has chosen to laze around indoors…and it will hit us.  Kevin and I will look at each other in horror, and, in unison, proclaim “PUP PUP!!!!!!!!  NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”.  Then there will be a mad cartoon-esque dash indoors where we’ll spy a happy…but full…Pup Pup, creeping stealthily back to his spot for a nap.  

Normally he leaves no trace of his misdeeds, other than a smeer of peanut butter on his ear or a piece of plastic fluttering through the living room….but, HA, this time I caught him. 

I caught him in the very act.

And what did I do? 

Stood back and laughed.

Fo’ shame.

100_2886closeup by you.

Our Homelife — No Comments
16
Oct 08

Adventures in Sleep Talking #347

….or…. Never ask a sleeping man questions.

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The Scene:  Our Living Room. 

Guilty Party:  Kevin is napping on the couch, Jack-Evan is napping in my lap, and I’m randomly doing nothing on the internet.

Time:  Just a few minutes ago.

 

     Me:  Hey baby?  Kev… Honey? 

     Kev:   huh…uh..huh…what… ::::returns to snoring::::

     Me:  Hey!  You!

     Kev:   ::::opens one eye and looks at me in confusion::::

     Me:  Baby….why don’t you get on up from the couch and head to bed? 

     Kev:   Because there’s no more room!   ::::returns to snoring::::::

3-6 Months — No Comments
4
Oct 08

He Reached for Me!

Ok, I am definately the quintessential doting mom.

My son sneezes and I rush to touch his nose before it drips.  He smiles, and my smile broadens.  He talks baby talk and I talk baby talk back.  He eats a spoon of rice cereal, and I cheer like it’s the yummiest stuff on the planet.  He grows a centimeter during the night, and I notice upon waking.  His laughs become my gaffaws.

Shoot, I can even distinguish his poots in a crowd of people.

So is it any wonder that I fell to emotionally high pieces tonight, when my little firstborn son – on his 5th month birthday, nonetheless – stuck out both of his arms towards me and cried “Mummum!”

He reached for me! 

He was sitting on his Grammy’s knee, and became a bit fussy.  I stood up on the other side of the living room and began walking towards them with the intent of cheering him up.

And that’s when it happened.

He actually reached. for. me.

You know….with his arms.  Deliberately.

Booyah!

Pregnancy — No Comments
22
Jan 08

Baby Inside, and Feelings on Motherhood

Uhg.   The picture here is one that I’ve been seeing floating around on the internet for 7 years now like a overblown urban legand.  No one really knows if its real or a photoshopped version of someone’s feelings.  Whatever it is, right now I feel like I can completely relate to the “gut feeling” this photo is trying to portray to us.

  You know, pregnancy is an every day occurance.  Millions of women have babies all over the world each week.  Yet for the woman in her first pregnancy, it feels like so strange!   To think that there is a living little thing inside of me (what we always referred to as a parasite in science) – and to think that I’m 100% responsible for this being’s care for the rest of my life (especially the first 18 years) is a huge weight.   It’s one of the most exhillerating things that has ever occured to me, yet, at the same time, one of the weirdest.  So far the pregnancy has been good.  I was very lucky in that I never had morning sickness.  Low blood pressure and tiredness has been my only plague so far so I’ve had the chance to feel “normal” while being anything BUT.  

I’ve been feeling him move since mid-November, but it’s January 10 that will stick out in my mind.  That day, I was sitting in our living room chair watching Boomerang (yeh, yeh…I’m practicing for motherhood :) ) when I looked down and — low & behold — there seemed to be snakes slitering under my belly skin. 

Or at least, that’s what it looked like to me!  

I was in complete awe for the next 3 minutes as I watched this baby inside of me appear to be trying to kick himself out of his walled in container.  It was the first time he had done so to the point where it was visible, and it was amazing that it could just happen (it seemed) right out of the blue.  After my initial shock wore off, I tried to get a video of it with my phone, but every time I would hold the camera up he would stop.  Kevin would have loved to seen it! 

Ever since then, he has been kicking like that and every time he does, I still marvel at it.  I marvel at the beauty of it all and how God has designed our female bodies to work so hard, without any concious thought from us, at producing another living being.  It completely amazes me.  In some ways, I still feel like a child myself – I know that I could not will myself to create such a miraculous thing as a baby – yet here I am, 3 months shy of giving birth to someone who will one day experience the same things we all do… happiness, fear, love, loneliness, anger, hunger…another human who will have their own thoughts, intellect, opinions (some of which will probably be far different from my own!).

I feel like I am passing into a “club” all by itself.   A club of women who have crossed over into another form of life.  A club of Mothers.   It makes me appreciate my own mother so much more!