Being a step-mom to a growing 9 year-old girl has so far proven to be a joy as well as a challenge, and sometimes, just downright puzzling. Thankfully, I was blessed with this particular 9 year-old who is a doll, and she took myself as well as my family into her life as easily and with much love as one could ever hope for. Even though I'm lucky enough to get to have this little girl as my child, I still had to have a heavy-duty crash course into the world of parenting.
I first approached parenting like one would a sleeping bear in a cage, a careful poke here and there with a long stick, and then a quick jump back if the bear happened to twitch. I was terrified one wrong move or word from me would condemn her to a life of misery in her older years. Sure she seems happy now, but 15 or 20 years down the road, while on the therapist's couch, will she be lamenting about how her evil step-mother picked up Lucky Charms when what she specifically asked for was Cap'n Crunch, which made her feel insecure and led her to a life of debauchery? After much consulting and affirmations from both my and my husband's mom, and over the last couple of years as our girl started staying over more and more at our household, everyone seems to have found their place within it, and we all have found our family dynamic to be a happy one.
However, even though I've survived the parental boot camp basic training, I still am faced with the occasional situation that stops me in my tracks with a big WTF??? above my head. If asking myself WWMD (what would Mom do?) doesn't work, I consult her myself, simply because she seemed to have done a pretty darn good job of raising me if I do say so myself. I also freely consult with my darling husband's mom, since I really admire the final product of her parenting skills as well.
One such WTF situation that came up recently was having the neighbor kids come over and play. It was a new experience for me, because up until the last 3 weeks, we had been living in an apartment, and at that location we didn't have any kids close by that she could play with. So, after moving into our house, being the social butterfly she is, she had quickly made friends with the young kids next door, and so the Mister made arrangements with the other parents to let the kids come play in our backyard for a couple of hours for an afternoon . I came home from work to 3 happy kids and one happy dog running wild in the backyard. I agreed to keep an eye on the backyard so the hubs could go get showered and ready for his upcoming work shift. Getting into the "Life is Good" frame of mind, I stopped long enough to grab a slice of cheese from the fridge, then started to wander over to the couch fully prepared to relax in front of the TV with my snack listening to the sound of happy go-lucky kids playing in the yard behind me.
No sooner had the Mister disappeared, but in troops all three kids and dog. I hadn't even made it to the couch, and my mouth was still wrapped around the cheese closing down on the first bite of it. My mind started to frantically do its search through the WWMD files, trying to find the answer to the questions "is it ok for the kids to come inside when that wasn't specified with the other parents? Would it be rude for me to boot them back out? Will the other parents freak if they don't see/hear the kids playing in our yard anymore??" And as I'm sorting through my own childhood memories on how this etiquette was handled when we had playmates over, the 3 year old peers up at me and says "That's my favorite kind of cheese. I really like that cheese." This distracted me from the first set of questions and moved me on to the next set of "Do I feed the little one cheese? If she wants cheese, does that mean her 7 year old brother will want some too? What if he doesn't like cheese, do I offer them something else?" and a small yet persistent voice starts wailing in my brain "We're too broke to feed other people's kids, and quite frankly, I don't wanna share my cheese!"
As Hospitality and Frugality start gearing up for an epic battle to end all battles, the little one pipes up again with an "I'm hungry!" and at those words, Frugality wins and I leapt on that like a drowning man on a lifesaver. I told her that if she is hungry maybe it's time for her and brother to go home and check with their mom and dad on dinner plans.
Not taking the hint, it was about that point that the kids then spotted the cat and ran over to pet her and started talking about the various cats in their lives, so I hung back in the kitchen, trying to wolf down the rest of that cheese, contemplating the best way to get the kids out of the house and back into the yard, (and back into sight of their parents' house) while not coming across as being the Wicked Witch of the West. While I was chewing this over, literally and figuratively, I start to hear sobbing, from the 7 year-old boy. Tuning back into the conversation, I heard him say something along the lines that his Mam had a cat that he loved, but then started hating because the cat scratched the Mam in the eye and the Mam had to go to the hospital, and "What if the cat decides to scratch Mam so bad she DIES??" As he starts working himself up into hysterics I told him "People don't die from cat scratches!" "But what if she does???" "Just trust me, she won't." (God help me if she actually did come to that fate) Then he started a new line of thinking, and came up with "Well, what if he scratches her again, and they put him down?? I mean I hate that cat but I did love that cat once, but even though I hate him now I don't want him to DIE!!!"
So I sat back for a minute to try to think of the best way to calm this child down, while at the same time (because I like to multi-task) started to silently curse my husband for having this obscene sense of timing. Here I was trying to diffuse this mini-meltdown with no luck whatsoever, when the whole of his babysitting experience was to simply enjoy the picturesque Norman Rockwall type scene of kids playing in the backyard.
Before I could come up with a solution on how to convince the boy that neither his Mam nor the cat were in any grave danger, my mother-in-law with her younger son arrived for a brief visit. I pounced on them, and judging by the looks on their faces, I must have had a manic grin on my face (OMG GROWNUPS! YEESSS) and I enthusiastically indulged in a few minutes of grown-up conversation in the kitchen, leaving the kids to ponder over life's misfortunes involving cats.
During that brief few minutes of adult respite, there was a knocking on the door. I opened the front door, and saw no one. I laughed and asked my brother-in-law if he was messing with me, and then the knocking comes again. I finally figured out it was coming from the garage door. As if this afternoon hadn't been bizarre enough, but someone actually chose to knock on the GARAGE door as opposed to the front door, where one would normally think a visitor would knock when they came a'calling?? Upon opening this door, there stands my neighbor, with the 3 year-old.
He took one look at the wailing boy, said "Oh you're over-dramatizing again?" and with a few words of thanks whisks both kids away back to their home, while I start looking for a rock to crawl under because it was then that I realized the 3 year old had waltzed out of my house with me none the wiser, to go get her dad to fix the boy's crying problem, which is probably what I should have done to begin with. Leave it to a 3 year-old to find the obvious solution. I really started to berate myself for being such an awful caregiver, but when I started to bemoan the fact that he might never trust his kids over at my place again, it occurred to me that might not be such a bad thing.
Of course, as soon as they were gone, when serenity settled into the living room once more, my husband makes his reappearance to finish off a fun visit with his family, totally oblivious of what had gone down during the 20 minutes he was in the shower.
A night or two later, the same neighbors invited my husband over for a couple of beers (I was at a friend's at the time) and he learned that the other set of parents were just as embarrassed as I was about the whole situation. They felt badly that the little boy had fallen apart during the short time I was watching him. They explained that they were looking into getting therapy for him since his "over-dramatics" were getting a bit extreme. Based off this information, I decided we were square in the questionable parenting department, and figured fresh slates all around for the next time, if there ends up being a next time, when the kids come over to visit.
I did find though that with all that happened that day, the little boy did teach me one thing. I was driving down the highway, on my way home from work, worrying about our finances, when I noticed that gas had hiked up another 16 cents per gallon during the 9 hours I was at work. This of course escalated my worrying, and I started to wonder if we're approaching a day that I won't be able to afford the gas for the commute, and if I can't afford to get to work, then how can we afford rent, and if I'm not the only one that can't afford to commute to work anymore, will that cause the economy to totally derail, and what if we have to live like they did in the Great Depression.....and what if the cat scratches Mam so bad she DIES?? I realized, that like the boy, I had quickly started to over-dramatize, and while the future looks like it holds a lot of potential for scary stuff happening, there was no point in making myself sick over it. I will remind myself of Mam and the cat when things get overwhelming, and try to stay focused on today's problems only, and let tomorrow work itself out.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
pretty little things...
A lot of women have their own personal little hang-ups, that one thing (or two or three or untold number of things) that they get anal about. We're talking above and beyond OCD here. For some, it's the way the beds are made. For others, it's not wearing shoes inside the house to preserve the carpeting, or having a certain set vacuum pattern on the floor. (I personally would be pleased to have beds made any which way or any type of vacuum pattern on the floor, as that would mean someone bothered to actually vacuum and make their beds... *ahem*)
For others, like me, it's a prized possession, that in my mind, was meant to be revered, but not actually be used. My paternal grandmother had such an objet d'amour, which was her beloved Wedgwood China set, AKA to the rest of the family as the "Holy Grail", because of the level of reverence she treated it with. She took this love of of her possession so far that not only was this set never ever used (and to this day I still don't think it ever has been) but her fear of one of the pieces befalling some unfortunate accident was so great, that she kept the entire set stored in its original box, tucked away, never to even be looked at. Family and friends were only allowed to think of its grandeur, but never actually be witness to it.
While I haven't quite reached the same level of neuroticism as this grandmother, my own Holy Grail would be a set of towels, which I've fondly started referring to as the "ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy" towels, that match a ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy shower curtain as part of a bathroom set that my husband and I recieved as wedding presents a little over a year and a half ago. I was raised through training and example that pretty towels a pretty bathroom makes, so with that in mind, I proudly displayed these towels for all to admire, (though admittedly it's mostly just me doing the admiring), with a now well established household rule being that these are for looksies and not touchies. I'm normally not an anal person (really, I'm not!) but there was a solid reason why this rule was established, and that reason is the problem with these towels, as with most ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy towels, is they just don't hold up well in the washing machine. This point has already been proven a couple of times by a forgetful Mister who has needed a reminding or two of this rule, and despite the only small number of times the towels have actually seen the washer, they are already showing some fading and wear due to this forgetfulness.
One of the more noted grievances that the Mister committed against the towels took place about 6 weeks or so ago. I noticed one morning one of *the* towels was in the laundry hamper, and since the Mister also happened to be up and around at that early hour, I asked him about it, thinking he forgot to grab an everyday use towel for a shower, which has been the traditional reason for his past indiscretions with the towels. His response? "Oh my nose started bleeding, so I needed something to sop up the blood" After taking a second to remind myself that his life insurance policy would be useless to me were he to die by my own hand, I asked him "and you HAD to use one of my towels to help you with this problem?!" to which he said "Would you have rather I bled all over the floor??" which, to me, the obvious reply was "Um, YES?" And so I thoughtfully explained to him the difference between towel and tile is one happens to hold on to stains while the other wipes up easily.
To some of you, this peculiar devotion of mine to these hanging bits of fabric might seem just on this side of insanity, or possibly even so far and beyond it that you're slowly edging away from your computer screen lest you catch whatever it is that makes a nice girl go twitchy. Others are nodding in agreement, (hopefully?) already well versed in the knowledge that sometimes in the attempt to make your house a domestic kingdom, you can get a little nutty.
For others, like me, it's a prized possession, that in my mind, was meant to be revered, but not actually be used. My paternal grandmother had such an objet d'amour, which was her beloved Wedgwood China set, AKA to the rest of the family as the "Holy Grail", because of the level of reverence she treated it with. She took this love of of her possession so far that not only was this set never ever used (and to this day I still don't think it ever has been) but her fear of one of the pieces befalling some unfortunate accident was so great, that she kept the entire set stored in its original box, tucked away, never to even be looked at. Family and friends were only allowed to think of its grandeur, but never actually be witness to it.
While I haven't quite reached the same level of neuroticism as this grandmother, my own Holy Grail would be a set of towels, which I've fondly started referring to as the "ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy" towels, that match a ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy shower curtain as part of a bathroom set that my husband and I recieved as wedding presents a little over a year and a half ago. I was raised through training and example that pretty towels a pretty bathroom makes, so with that in mind, I proudly displayed these towels for all to admire, (though admittedly it's mostly just me doing the admiring), with a now well established household rule being that these are for looksies and not touchies. I'm normally not an anal person (really, I'm not!) but there was a solid reason why this rule was established, and that reason is the problem with these towels, as with most ridiculously-pricey-yet-cute-and-trendy towels, is they just don't hold up well in the washing machine. This point has already been proven a couple of times by a forgetful Mister who has needed a reminding or two of this rule, and despite the only small number of times the towels have actually seen the washer, they are already showing some fading and wear due to this forgetfulness.
One of the more noted grievances that the Mister committed against the towels took place about 6 weeks or so ago. I noticed one morning one of *the* towels was in the laundry hamper, and since the Mister also happened to be up and around at that early hour, I asked him about it, thinking he forgot to grab an everyday use towel for a shower, which has been the traditional reason for his past indiscretions with the towels. His response? "Oh my nose started bleeding, so I needed something to sop up the blood" After taking a second to remind myself that his life insurance policy would be useless to me were he to die by my own hand, I asked him "and you HAD to use one of my towels to help you with this problem?!" to which he said "Would you have rather I bled all over the floor??" which, to me, the obvious reply was "Um, YES?" And so I thoughtfully explained to him the difference between towel and tile is one happens to hold on to stains while the other wipes up easily.
To some of you, this peculiar devotion of mine to these hanging bits of fabric might seem just on this side of insanity, or possibly even so far and beyond it that you're slowly edging away from your computer screen lest you catch whatever it is that makes a nice girl go twitchy. Others are nodding in agreement, (hopefully?) already well versed in the knowledge that sometimes in the attempt to make your house a domestic kingdom, you can get a little nutty.
Welcome to my blog!
Hi, Missus Elf here, delving into my first exploration of the blogging world. To get you better acquainted with who I am, let me start off first by saving my husband's reputation in letting everyone know the man I married is most definitely not an elf, nor fairyish in any way in the least. (not there's anything wrong with that)
The name "elf" is actually what the initials of my full name spell, and I acquired the "f" part of the deal by marrying my mister, hence how the missus part comes to play in my name game.
I decided to experiment with a blog after subjecting various family members to occasional emails detailing various events that to most people would be normal everyday experiences that most everyone has had to deal with at one point or another. For whatever reason, these experiences seemed particularly funny to me, and so as they happen, I wrote about them to my family in the way it played out from my view point, to share with them the amusing perspective I had taken on it. After doing this a couple of times, I thought maybe it's time to start sharing these little stories with the rest of the world, and see if the rest of the world takes me for as clever and witty as I seem to think I am.
Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy this style of writing, I do have a nasty habit of not finishing what I've started, so there won't be any set schedule on when I will produce the next installment of these blogs, and it's a time will tell sorta thing if I actually can keep this thing going on a long-term basis, as opposed to getting distracted (oooh shiny object!) and forget about it all together.
In any case, welcome to my blog, please enjoy it for what it's worth.
The name "elf" is actually what the initials of my full name spell, and I acquired the "f" part of the deal by marrying my mister, hence how the missus part comes to play in my name game.
I decided to experiment with a blog after subjecting various family members to occasional emails detailing various events that to most people would be normal everyday experiences that most everyone has had to deal with at one point or another. For whatever reason, these experiences seemed particularly funny to me, and so as they happen, I wrote about them to my family in the way it played out from my view point, to share with them the amusing perspective I had taken on it. After doing this a couple of times, I thought maybe it's time to start sharing these little stories with the rest of the world, and see if the rest of the world takes me for as clever and witty as I seem to think I am.
Unfortunately, as much as I enjoy this style of writing, I do have a nasty habit of not finishing what I've started, so there won't be any set schedule on when I will produce the next installment of these blogs, and it's a time will tell sorta thing if I actually can keep this thing going on a long-term basis, as opposed to getting distracted (oooh shiny object!) and forget about it all together.
In any case, welcome to my blog, please enjoy it for what it's worth.
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