Mama Mama Quite Contrary

Thanks bloggy friends for all your kind words about my parenting.  Maybe if I knew all of you in person, you might be not so quick with your comments.  I'm trying to look at the positive here.  At least I only yell at my own children. Anyway, I mentioned in my beleaguered post that I'm waging a one-woman battle against THE MARKERS .  (Yes, I've confiscated them on numerous occasions but Vivi is a self-proclaimed "artiste" and she always earns them back.) Seriously though, I hate them and this is why: Uh oh.  Mom's giving me the look . "Mama, I got pritty legs." Just when I was thinking, "Well, at least it was only one turtle."  Look who shows up: As if the outfit wasn't eye-catching enough... Linking up to Simply Modern Mom 's Glimpse Into Motherhood.

One day, you'll flip the "review photos" setting on your camera and find things like this: And perhaps, if your daughter is anything like my daughter, you will find photos of ALL  her body parts. Even the parts that aren't suitable for internet publication. DELETE! Linking up to Simply Modern Mom's Glimpse Into Motherhood .

When I was a little girl, I loved to dress up. My mother would buy old prom and wedding dresses from the Salvation Army and we had a trunk stuffed with them. They were big and bright and gaudy dresses which made them absolutely beautiful to our elementary school sensibilities. We prided ourselves on our thrift store finery. The urge to dress up still hits us even now. Last year on a trip home to Vermont, my sister Jane and I got ourselves dolled up in her old prom dresses and my sister Katie's million or so bridesmaid gowns. ( Ahhh ... always a bride's maid, never a bride.) We did a very classy photo shoot to boot. So it is no surprise that upon waking this morning, I find my big girl all dressed and ready to start the day. Here she is:

Last night I made a conscious decision to trade in my crabby pants for crafty pants. The evening was no less crazy but the chaos was punctuated by moments of real sweetness. As I was preparing our 10 minute stir-fry dinner, Vivi proclaimed, " Oooh , I love the baby corns and I love the mama corns too!" She also informed me that her hair "looked really curly and cute today" and that one of her peers "has got a lot of problems" because he frequently acts out and makes her cry. A perky narcissist or a highly opinionated shrink-- my child might be both but her comments brought some levity to a normally stressful time of day. So after we managed to get all the kids to bed, I busted out my sewing machine. I've been feeling pretty terrible that a lot of my green living practices have been thrown out the highly insulated window since the Turtles came along. The dryer runs almost daily and we have gone from putting out one bag of trash to a minimum of three eve...

I maintained my career the first year of Vivi's life. While I was lucky to have a very flexible schedule, Fridays were often an extended day in the office for me. That meant that I spent many a moment with a pump attached to my breast. There was nothing enjoyable about pumping and I dreaded doing it. Needless to say that when Vivi weaned at 13 months I didn't shed a single tear over my now useless pump. I didn't think about the pump for a couple of years. It was only when the toy/baby crap store near my house put one on display in their front window did all the negative feelings come rushing back. It was early in my second pregnancy when this happened and I consoled myself with the thought that I wasn't working anymore so I wouldn't really need the pump. Plus, it wasn't like I was carrying twins or anything so I wouldn't even really be nursing that much. Ha! (By the way, who was the idiot that thought putting a breast pump in a display window would actually...

I wouldn't say that I am normally a Negative Nelly but these last few weeks I seem to have firmly planted myself on the downside of things. It's been raining since the beginning of June with little respite and I've been bogged down with endless childcare and stories of sadness. I'm tired and I'm fat and I'm feeling that the world just isn't very fair. I know I should think of my children as blessings and the vast majority of the time I do but there are moments when I want to walk away from them all. Vivi is testing every possible boundary (and peeing on it in the process) and the babies are just heaping piles of endless need. My husband works too much to support us all and I feel angry that I don't get to go to an office and deal with mentally ill people. (Oh, that grass just keeps getting greener...) Yet, I have so many friends who are desperate to have a child. Beautiful, healthy, and successful women who can't seem to get pregnant. One of my deare...