TAG!

My friend Kathleen tagged me at Beyond A Mom...

So the game goes like this....I have to answer 5 questions with 5 answers and then tag 5 people.

Question 1:Where were you 5 years ago?
1. We were living in Fullerton.
2. I was working at Connelly HS.
3. We had just gotten married.
4. We were trying to get a study abroad plan going for my husband so we could live in Italy.
5. I was applying to CSUF for their MA program in History

Question 2: What is on your to do list today?
1. Grading finals
2. Laundry
3. Holding my child down as I try to trim her finger nails while she screams in my ear
4. Making lesson plans
5. Make brownies

Question 3: What 5 snacks do you enjoy?
1. Chocolate
2. See's candy
3. Chocolate Cake
4. Chocolate Ice Cream
5. Turkey.

Question 4: What 5 places have you lived?
1. San Francisco
2. Washington DC
3. Rome, Italy
4. Orange
5. Irvine

Question 5:What 5 things would you do if you were a billionaire?
1. Pay off my student loans
2. Pay off my mortgage (family members' too)
3. Take my entire family on a trip to Ireland
4. Build a new house with room for 4 children, since we can now afford 4 children.
5. Breathe on the 1st of the month instead of hyperventilating over how we are going to pay our bills.

5 People I am tagging
1. My friend, Heather
2. My friend, Kelly
3. My friend, Kristi to encourage her to start a blog - it would be awesome to read.
4. My friend, Katie
5. My sister Erin as a double dog dare since I know she won't write back...

Expressive

One of my friends told me the other day that I was expressive. Okay, she didn't come right out and say that I was expressive, but she said my writing and the way I speak are expressive. So I have mutated that comment to "Shannon, you are expressive." And I have decided that is the best compliment I could get.

I like being expressive - if we are using the positive connotation of "expressive." Basically, I like laughing and making other people laugh. I don't even really care if they are laughing at me or with me. I like telling stories because I hope they make other people feel good or smile when they are having a crummy day. I try hard to be outgoing, welcoming, and bubbly - after all, if you have the choice between smiling or crying, why not smile?

I wasn't always this way. Until my twenties, I was shy. Painfully shy. I am sure that a therapist (or anyone who thinks they are a therapist) would say it was because of low self esteem. I was tentative when it came to making friends, and I was afraid to say anything to people because I was worried I would come off as an idiot, or - worse than that - they wouldn't like me. Because of this, I often came across as cold, standoffish, and sullen. I don't think I was ever any of those things, but maybe I was. Or, as one of my sisters succinctly put it once: I was a bi!%&

The reason I bring this up is because I just spent two days at my parents house with my kids. I love my parents and I am always happy to see them. But I find myself reverting whenever I am around a group of family members - back to that scared, shy 17 year old kid, who didn't speak up a lot and seemed to take offense at everything, even though she just did not know how to respond. And, what is worse, I allow myself to be treated like that kid. It's sad, because this doesn't allow my family the experience of knowing who I am now; after all, I am a much cooler person now that I am comfortable in my own skin. (Everyone is).

I don't think my family has ever really stopped seeing me as that 17 year old kid -- honestly, I don't know if they can. Sometimes, I don't know if I can. But I don't think my family can see me as a 30 year old, confident, friendly woman who can take care of herself and is a good teacher, loving wife, and terrific mother (I know I shouldn't toot my own horn, but this once seems acceptable). Just like I don't know if I can see them outside of the roles that I have assigned to them. It's hard to expand your perceptions of what you knew then to what is true now...

Wants Versus Needs

My daughter is most like toddlers - she NEEDS everything. "Momma, I need juice." "I need Mickey Mouse." "I need a cookie." "I need stories in the chair." "I need to play in the water." "I need to step on Brother."

This constant needing has my husband and I a little concerned. Okay, not my husband so much... just me. I don't want her to think that she needs everything - I want her to learn the difference between wants and needs. I think it's important that she learns that she can't always have what she wants. So whenever she says "I need..." I correct her with: "No, you want it. You don't need it. You need food and water and clothes and a house. You want everything else."

And she is starting to get it. The other day, she said to me "I don't need juice. I want juice. Isn't that a good idea Momma? That's a good idea. Juice is a good idea." I was impressed that she is getting the idea -- until she started applying the same idea to me.

On Tuesday, I said, "Wow, Lovey, Momma is very tired. She needs coffee!"

Her response: "You don't need coffee, you want coffee."

I figured that it's too early to explain addiction (after all, she's only two), and I just laughed and told her she was right.

Then she did it again.

On Thursday, I was swamped and overwhelmed. Grades were due on Friday and I was 54 Macbeth essays behind. I was frantically grading while my munchkins played in their playroom - er, my living room - when my daughter came over and asked me to color.


"I can't Honey," I said distractedly. "Momma needs to grade."

My daughter pulled the pen out of my hand and glared at me. "You don't need to grade, you want to," she declared quite firmly. "So color with me!"

Apparently, my daughter isn't the only one who needs to learn about wants and needs. And I now have an awesome picture of the Disney Princesses on my fridge, colored by yours truly, to remind me.

I Hate Running

Actually, I'm not sure hate is the right word.

You know when you are a kid, and you say, "I hate my sister/brother/friend/teacher/parent," and your parents tell you, "Honey, hate is a strong word. You don't mean hate." And then they make you substitute hate for something else - dislike, despise, resent - so you grow up thinking that hate is a bad word that you shouldn't use for anything? Well, in my case, hate is not strong enough. But until they make a word stronger than hate, all I can say is: I HATE running.

I would WALK out of my house if it was on fire. My dad used to say that I was the only person he knew that could swim faster than she could walk. And for one horrible season, when my mom made me join the track team, I opted for the long jump as my event because that was the shortest amount of running I could get away with.

In fact, when I think of running, I remember a quote I once heard. "Life is short ... running makes it seem longer" (Baron Hansen). I know there is a great inspirational message here, but I just can't see it that way - I see the quote as "Life is short - don't torture yourself by running."

The reason I bring this up is that a friend of mine talked me into running an 8K with her. Big deal, you might be thinking. 4.97 measly miles. So what?

I have never run further than 50 yards without stopping to gasp for water and fall down.

Still, my friend and I are determined to lose weight and get in shape (pregnancy has the annoying side effect of making you lose your shape). And I mentioned that maybe we should do a 5K to help us stay motivated. I sure as hell didn't mean we should run the damn thing - I thought maybe we could walk it. I was even willing to walk fast.

But she found an 8K at the end of February, and she mapped out a strategy for us in terms of training. I said sure before I found out that her strategy involved us running. Still, I knew she was right and I grudgingly agreed. (I'm still bitching though - it's a matter of principle now.)

So we started our training - our goal is to hit the gym 3 to 4 times a week. And some weeks we do better than others, which isn't bad given how busy the two of us are. And last week, I surpassed my previous record by a mile: I ran 1.57 miles without stopping once. I might have been able to go further, but I didn't want to.

For the first time, I began to believe that I could do this, that running this 8K is an attainable goal. And every time I make it to the gym, I feel proud of myself for accomplishing something, and I feel better about myself in terms of my body image, too. Perhaps most importantly, I am not as stressed as I was before. Still just as tired, but not as stressed.

At the end of the day, do I like running? Hell, no. But it is a means to an end, so it's something I will do. The new motto I have for running seems to sum it up perfectly: "Run like hell and get the agony over with" (Clarence DeMar).

Dare Devil

My son is a dare devil. Oh, and did I mention that he is only 13 months?

I can't help but remember what his pediatrician told me when he was born. "Boys are hard until they are 2. After that, all you have to do is keep them from killing themselves." Apparently my son is an early learner.

See, he didn't only learn how to walk. Oh, no, that would be too easy. He also learned how to climb. The purpose of my life now is to pull him down from whatever item he has walked over to and decided to climb up. The couch. Coffee table. Counter. Kitchen table. The window sill --with his sister's help. (How on earth did the two of them manage that?!?!) And, when my back was turned, the playground slide. (I think I had a heart attack that day. I swear I did.)

Every time I grab him, I gently scold him (like he understands). He giggles and claps his hands, his smile a mile wide. I sigh, kiss his little fuzz ball head, and put him down, so that he can immediately toddle off, to climb up on another piece of furniture.

Would it be weird if I carpeted my entire house in pillows?

Napoleon

My daughter's nickname is Napoleon.

I think I knew, vaguely, that having a two year old is hard. I used to nanny and I have foggy recollections of temper tantrums and negotiations, but at the end of the day, I went home and didn't really have to deal with the parenting aspect of a two year old.

Now I'm a parent of a two and a half year old. And she is a dictator.

We started calling her Napoleon as a joke, just my husband and I. (For those of you not up on your history, while he was a tyrant, Napoleon also did alot of good for France. Just not for the rest of Europe.)

My daughter is small for her age, but she has personality in spades. And she is a natural leader. She runs around, ordering her friends, stuffed animals, baby dolls, brother, and parents, here and there. Our life has become a litany of: "No, you sit here. I sit there." "No, don't put pony tails in my hair." "You very naughty. You on TIME OUT!" "Guys! Come this way, guys." "No, don't touch that, brother!" when he has only looked at her crayon, juice cup, toy, book, and has made absolutely no move toward it. Yet.

I know I shouldn't feed the tyranical beast that she is becoming, but it's so darn cute when she puts her hands on her hips, with her pony tails askew, eyes flashing, and demands, "Not water. JUICE."

Still we are trying to break her of her dictatorial habits. She has to say "May I please..." before she asks for something. She has to move away from her brother, rather than ordering him away from her. She has to wait her turn. She has to learn that she won't always get what she wants.

I thought we were doing well with that too. We've gone four days without a major temper tantrum. And tonight, after I tucked her in, and just when I was ready to pat myself on the back for figuring out this whole parenting a two year old thing, she opened the door to her room, crept over to my bed, put her hands in mine, and looked up at me with the most sincere and loving expression on her face, and said:

"Momma, you so boo - u - ti - ful. Can I watch Sleeping Cutie in your bed?"

And then she put her head under my neck, patted my cheek, and said, "I love you too much."

So she is currently sitting in my bed, watching her movie, an hour past her bedtime.

Bloody hell. She learned manipulation at day care.

Walking

Well, it happened. The moment I have both been eagerly anticipating and absolutely dreading for the past 12 months.

My son took his first steps.

He has been "cruising" for a good three months now. The route was always the same: around the coffee table, to the side of the couch, to the end table, across his sister (much to her dislike), to his walker, and back. But last week he let go of the table and there is was: three wobbly steps to me.

I wish I could say that he made it to me.

He went crashing down at step three, slamming his little chin into my knee. I bent down, prepared to soothe and cuddle, but before I could, he grunted and screwed his face up, determined. He pulled himself up on my leg, turned around, and took four steps to his dad.

He made it.

Since then, he's slowly been increasing... Five. Six. Seven steps.

I'll admit, he looks like a drunken sailor. He staggers. He takes two steps forward and one step back. He falls down and giggles.

I've wanted him to walk. I swear I have. I've wanted to see him take his steps, to gain his independence. But now that he is actually doing it, I want to scoop him up and carry him around on my hip for the rest of his life. I want him to be my little guy. I don't want him to walk away from me.

I came to this realization today, when I went to pick him up from daycare. He grinned, bounced up and down, and clapped to see me, like he always does. But when I bent down to scoop him up, he pulled himself up, took my hand, and took some tentative steps to the door. It was slow going. He stopped and rested twice. But he walked from his classroom to the car.

As I walked out of daycare today, holding my daughter's hand in my left and my son's hand in my right, I realized that I have children. I didn't have a baby on my hip, I had toddlers by the hand. And it made me want to cry and smile at the same time.

I think I will absolutely lose it when they no longer want to hold my hand.

1001 Things I Never Thought I Would Say - And Then I Had Kids

1. Why is there cheese on my foot?

2. I don't speak tantrum.

3. Don't play with your brother's penis.

4. Don't spit on your father!

5. Don't bite the cat.

6. What do you mean, you pooped in the tub?

7. We do not paint with our poop.

8. Your brother doesn't like it when you step on his head.

9. We don't need to announce that we farted.

10. We especially don't need to announce it at the top of our lungs in church.

11. That's not poop, its your brother's private parts.

12. Do not make me count to three.

13. One. (in a serious voice.) Two... (in a quiet, menacing voice.)

14. There is not an alligator in your closet.

15. Eating your vegetables will not kill you.

16. Please eat something other than grilled cheese/mac and cheese/oatmeal/hot dog/chicken nuggets.

17. FINE! You can have cookie for dinner! Just eat something!

18. Mickey Mouse is taking a nap. Why aren't you?

19. Your sister doesn't like it when you scratch her eyes out.

20. Do you want to sit in the penalty box?

... To be continued. After all, my kids are only 1 and 2....

A Momma's New Years Resolution

I don't do New Year's Resolutions. I end up breaking them within hours (literally!) so what is the point?

However, this year, I decided to try something new. I am going to make New Years Resolutions - but this time I'm focusing on bettering myself as a mom, rather than focusing on bettering myself. Besides, to my way of thinking, by bettering myself as a mom, I am bettering myself.

So here goes - I didn't want to do something completely unachievable, like resolving to be a perfect mother (since we all know that is impossible), so I'm going to focus on small things - things I know I can do.

1. I am going to be more patient - I will count to ten before I tell my children "No!" after they ask me for the 50th time for another Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

2. I will listen - not just to what they are saying, but to what they mean.

3. I will respond - again, not just to what they are saying, but to what they mean.

4. I will give them what they need, even if it is not what they want. Yes, that means veggies.

5. I will give them what they want (within reason).

6. I will limit the amount of TV they watch a day to 30 minutes a day. Okay, 1 hour. No, 30 minutes. I tell you what - I'll take it as it comes.

7. I will help them kick the binky habit.

8. I will get my daughter potty trained. I swear. No matter how much easier diapers are.

9. I will get my son off the bottle. Whether he wants it or not.

10. I will give them an extra 1000 hugs and kisses a day, instead of the 1000 I give them now.