spooktacular!

we had a great time yesterday, despite the blazing heat...

the kids dressed up during the day for a local festival that turned out to be pretty lame. they didn't care. they were wearing their costumes, right?


rhys decided to ditch the cow costume for a firefighter costume that night. it was still so hot that after about 10 houses his hair was so wet it looked like he'd just had a shower. so he shed the costume and announced "tick o teet" as a plainclothes detective instead. :)

isn't aedan's hair awesome? people kept asking him if it was a wig. that's just how much hair this kid has.

i hope your weekend was full of fun and sweets as well! now, how to avoid eating all the chocolate candy in my kids' plastic pumpkins...

flashback

(that's me, drum major, poofy bangs and french braid. oy.)

on NPR i heard that geocities is no more. which strangely brought back some (not-so-great) memories.

in my former life, i was a high school english teacher (and even yearbook adviser). yes, it's true.

at 5'2" and 24 years of age, i lorded over those 9th, 11th, and 12th graders. at least i tried to. mostly they just thought i was grouchy and mean and _________ (fill in the blank with whatever obscenity a teenager in the mid-late 90s would have used).

i LOVED teaching. well, i loved hanging out with the kids. the english lit and grammar were just ways of allowing me to do what i felt called to do at the time--spend time with teenagers, listen, encourage. i loved imagining that i was the "cool" teacher they could share things with, talk to, get advice from.

things sort of went downhill when i taught 9th grade honors english. i don't really know it all started. maybe i was too tough on them. maybe they were just punks. maybe i gave a test or 2 they didn't like. maybe they had always enjoyed resting on their middle school laurels and didn't prepare enough. maybe i should have been more flexible about turning things in late. maybe they should have heard me when i told them that grown-ups don't usually get extended due dates in life.

at any rate, one day i found out that a few boy students had created a website about me. now, this was in 1997, so way before it was normal for kids to just be messing around on the Internet. unfortunately for me, i had graduated from the high school at which i was teaching, so the students had easy access to (awful and embarrassing) pictures of me in my pre-swan stage. ok, maybe i never reached the swan stage, but i had some ultra pre-swan growing pains.

(this is how badly i want to forget how i looked in high school: a while back someone posted pictures of me from 9th grade, and i was so horrified that i ended up de-friending about 200 people and locking down my FB page for a while. talk about needing to get over it...)

the only thing i can remember about the page is that there was some (funny) prose about me heading to florida (for spring break maybe? or christmas to visit family) and being satanic (i'm guessing because at the time rick was a youth minister) and there was a picture of me from high school.

as soon as the boys got wind of the fact that i knew the page was up, they took it down. i'm not sure how many people saw it. my ego was really bruised. i have never been very good at laughing at myself. i wanted the boys punished, which our school administrator wouldn't do because one of the boys' dads was the president of the football parents association (whatever it's called--see i've blocked all school lingo out of my vocabulary) and he didn't want to offend the parent. seriously?!

the other boy came to me and apologized, which made me feel a lot better.

but even now as i type, i feel my palms getting sweaty, my heart racing a bit. it definitely was not the most fun experience. i think maybe it was so traumatizing to me because i had hoped they would think i was awesome, and instead i realized that at least some of the students regarded me as their enemy. or maybe they were just being stupid. maybe now they would feel bad about it.

i know in high school i didn't always behave in ways that i would be proud to admit now.

isn't it strange how hearing one word, geocities, can bring back such a flood of memories?

a blog you need to read

so i told my friend elise that i had dedicated an entire blog to her, but then when i went to find it, i realized i had not ever shared it here. instead i had shared it on facebook. so, because i am guilt driven, but more importantly because i love love love her blog, i'm writing one now.

so go read it. add it to your blog reader or whatever yours is called. i love how raw, honest, and open she is about motherhood, humanity, life.

some clarity?

this week, i read this NYT article about yelling. specifically, yelling at our kids. and why it's so hard to stop. and how guilty it makes us feel.

i've been thinking a lot about this lately. i've seen friends on various blogs, via email exchanges, on facebook talking about and discussing the same things.

yelling at our kids sucks. and it makes us feel terrible. and i hate how much of a rush and release i get from doing it.

just this week, we were at play therapy (of all places) at a local university, and the kids were so wound up afterward that they were running aroundandaroundandaroundandaround and even coming dangerously close to knocking over a coke machine. while this was going on, i was trying to have a brief conversation with aedan's therapist. just you know, the routine stuff, how is he doing, what can i do to help him be a better person. except every 5 seconds i kept saying "please stop doing that. if you do that one more time there will be consequences when we get home. please sit down and talk to each other until i am done. please do not run up and down the halls because students are trying to have class."

sometimes they would stop and look at me and keep right on acting out. sometimes they would just keep running, not even slowing down to listen. i could feel myself getting madder and madder, except you know i was out in public and talking to a therapist-in-training no less, so i couldn't very well shout "JUST STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" (which i think would have been very effective at that point).

when i got home, i wanted to go straight to bed. and i told rick i thought it was because i had spent so much energy holding my tongue (not to mention the horror of having my kids misbehave so badly in front of someone whose job it will be to analyze child-parent relationships) that i was just worn out.

so i know that yelling takes no energy, while NOT yelling can take every ounce of my being, and usually does. and boy, it's sometimes just convenient to take the easy way out. that is, in the comfort of my home, when no one else is watching or listening.

but the thing is, sometimes i go overboard, and i see it on the kids' faces. and plus, i remember that all-familiar phrase (which i now repeat to my kids on occasion) my mom used to say to me: "why do you respond to me only when i yell? i am tired of yelling!" i totally get her frustration now. parenting is just plain hard.

so while i was pondering all of this, and thinking about the article and also about how to make our house a (potentially) more peaceful place, i thought, you know, it's time i did a sticker chart. actually, i can't lie: the therapist helped me come up with this idea. well, i had thought of doing it a while back, but remember i said i sometimes want to take the easy way out? yeah.

so i was thinking we should institute a sticker chart, because believe it or not, our kids seem actually to be motivated by little pieces of sticky paper. and trust me, they are not really motivated by much in the way of discipline. spankings don't scare (not that i EVER spank...), the corner doesn't seem grueling enough, grounding for the afternoon only provides respite from the family and gives them a chance for downtime (obviously not what i was going for), and they don't have favorite toys that they would be lost without (i've tried this...not effective around here). on top of that, they don't really watch any TV during the week, which is when we have the most trouble.

so stickers it is. sometime this weekend i'm going to make a chart and we'll start this on monday. and after 10 stickers, they get to take a trip to the bookstore and get a new (hopefully on sale) book. because around here, books are like crack. (yes, i am so thankful!)

they will be able to earn stickers once, at the end of the day. we'll use that chore board/rule chart i made a while back and then promptly stopped using, and we'll stick to the house rules we made together there. so if they do (relatively) well following those rules and participate in helping around the house, they will get a sticker for that day. we'll sit down each night and evaluate how they did and decide together whether they've earned one.

then i thought, well why is it okay for me to ask them to start making a huge effort to follow all these rules while i run around yelling and freaking out over things i need to keep it together on? so i think i am going to make a sticker chart for myself too. it will help hold me accountable. and the kids will see that i am making an effort too. because, i'm being honest here, it's just going to be really hard for me to stop yelling, just like i think it's going to be hard for gillian to stop hitting her brother or for aedan to stop having emotional breakdowns when he doesn't get his way. so we are all trying together to be a better family.

i'm excited. ask me in a week how it's going... :)

originally posted by monotation

so i've been writing this post in my head for a week now, and i had all these great, witty things i wanted to say, things i wanted to observe about my upcoming trip. and then time got away from me and i have to be at the airport in less than an hour so i'll just have to be brief.

i'm heading to virginia today for my grandma's 90th birthday party, which is tomorrow. and leading up to this event, i've been so excited. i've bought new clothes (fall-ish ones, which i won't be able to wear around here for who knows how much longer), i thrifted a beautiful samsonite hard-shell suitcase at a yard sale at the end of our block last weekend for TWO dollars, i have had visions of me, looking like something out of an anthro catalog, walking down the runway, aforementioned suitcase in hand, looking glam and polished.

at first i had no idea why i was having these fantasies. maybe i'd just been looking at too many anthro catalogs for inspiration (because lord knows i can't actually buy most of what they are selling).

so i thought more about it. did i really need a break that badly? well, if you have been around my 2-year-old lately, then you would probably say yes. but no, that really wasn't it. had i just been working too much and needed a forced break from it? (because i'm not taking the laptop--gasp!) well yes i have been working way too hard lately (just ask my kids, who are incessantly bugging me to "get off the computer and play"), but that wasn't it either.

then i realized what it was: i just needed to be a "grown-up" for a couple of days. because what excites me the most (of course i'm excited to see my family) is going to an airport (by myself), drinking a latte (by myself), putting on headphones and listening to music (by myself without anyone asking me how to make a robot or why the sky is blue), reading a magazine from cover to cover, reading a...wait for it...book even?!, taking a carry-on with only my clothes in it (instead of my clothes plus diapers plus sippy cups plus wipes plus a tacklebox full of toy cars plus elmo board books), and having (uninterrupted) grown-up conversations all weekend long.

that sounds like heaven. and it made me think about the things that mothers sacrifice, whether we like it or not, to be moms. like coolness (because, after all, who can push a cart-plus-race-car-combo at the grocery store and look hip?). or like sanity. or fresh, unstained clothes. not to mention sleep. let's not even talk about that.

but really, solitude. and i'm not a person who needs lots of solitude. but i think this weekend, more than anything, i'm hoping that those quiet moments during travel will refresh my soul and allow me to just be a grown-up.

in exchange for this, of course, (because there is always an exchange) dad will be playing mr. mom and giving up any solitude whatsoever (along with probably most of his sanity) so i can be gone.

so he deserves a triple latte and a night or two off when i get back for sure.

and also...

still hot as hades here. two days ago our heat index was 105. yes, you read that right. ONE OH FIVE.

a/c cranking. praying for reprieve soon. i'm a lucky girl, though--i'm headed to virginia next weekend for my grandma's 90th birthday party, so at least i'll get a taste of fall there. i'm already packing. can't wait!

anti-hate blogger gang

i know i have been scarce here lately, and it's not looking likely that i'll have much spare time to blog anytime soon. so much work, so little time. thankful little person i am, indeed.

but i did want to share something with you really quickly: over on the for me, for you blog, kate has been dealing with some blog haters. of course, if you blog, i'm sure you can relate. if you don't blog, these trolls are probably the reason you shy away from putting yourself out there.

(side note: if you don't already have kate's blog on your reader, you MUST add it. there is eye candy galore, and by that i mean she shares all sorts of awesome fashion links...like ruche, for one, which is like anthro, only about 1/5 of the price, plus she makes these incredible necklaces that are very reasonably priced, PLUS she takes off-the-chart stupendous photographs that she shares at least once a week...)

so notice i added some text on the right-hand side of my blog, along with a logo that one of kate's readers designed. i love it! feel free to put your own disclaimer on your site too!

hope you are having a super weekend!

look what we started

so it's the first day of october, which in our subtropical neck of the palms means the temps dipped below 70 last night to put a "chill" on everything. our blood is so thin (or we are so delusional) that aedan wore a hooded sweatshirt (oh yes, with the hood ON), all zipped up, to school. gillian refused a sweater, saying she wanted to feel the chilly air on her arms because "it makes me realize that halloween is just around the corner."

to celebrate, rhys and i decided to take a walk down to the pond at the end of our street. oh, you didn't realize there was such a place so nearby? because i'm always talking about sweltering, working all the time, rearranging furniture, and basically just trying to survive? well, yes, after seeing how much fun we had this morning i do indeed feel a tiny twinge of guilt for not having done this more often. then as soon as i feel that twinge, i snap out of it, realizing that until yesterday we couldn't even breathe outside, let alone take a leisurely walk down the street.

oh, and by the way, don't worry, you won't be reading any more of these posts for at least another month, i'm sure, because by tomorrow it's supposed to be right back to sweltering.

but at least for today, we could pretend.

so, rhys in his red corvette, er, i mean little tykes car, and i in my 3/4 length sleeve sweater packed up the essentials (sippy cup with milk for him, coffee for me) and a bag of old bread and headed down to greet the ducks.

when we have done this in the past, it's been after school, late afternoon, like 5-ish. the ducks aren't really happy at that time of the day, and usually all we see are greedy ibises, who annoy the heck out of me, truth be told.

well, this morning, we found out that ducks are most certainly in a FABULOUS mood early in the day. maybe it's the weather. whatever it is, we started out small: one momma duck and her babies. small babies, with those little yellow spots. all fuzzy. i was in love.

then i noticed that another momma was coming from the left, and she had two bigger babies with her. they were almost full grown, but still had a bit of down left.

then from the right, another pair of ducks. then a couple of geese. then i saw from halfway around the pond, ducks were literally lined up, spaced a good distance apart, waddling their way toward us. unfortunately for them, we brought only 3 slices of bread, so the first little family (and only 1 really annoying ibis) got most of the snacks.

by the time we left, i bet there were 30 ducks/geese/ibises gathered 'round, quietly honking/quacking/squeaking at me, as if to say, "hey lady, i KNOW i saw you passing out bread earlier. what gives?"

it was a good way to welcome autumn.

what is real beauty anyway?

thanks, dove.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

time to pull out the sweaters...

because starting wednesday, the temps will be dropping below 70. can you believe our weather guys are calling this a "cold front"?

temper tantrums

(i realize i have used this picture before, but it seems really fitting for this post...)

so lately the tantrums have ramped up around our house. with the 2-year-old, you ask? certainly. i hate labeling stages as "terrible," but we have seriously entered the terrible 2s around here.

oh, and we are in the terrible 7s and terrible 6s too. lately we seem to have been living a version of alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

which has me confessing. you know, sometimes i just feel like having a good mommy tantrum myself. in some ways, kids have it so great. see, it's not socially acceptable for me to go in the bathroom, lock the door, and jump up and down and yell. that would be called "oh no, mommy's having a breakdown."

but my kids get to do it anytime they don't like something. like, if we are having zucchini and they wanted cupcakes for dinner. if they wanted to go to the park and instead we had to go run boring grown-up errands. if they wanted to run barefoot outside and we *dared* to make them wear shoes (who gives a crap about the bees and pokey sticks all over the yard).

i am exaggerating of course. they don't throw full-blown tantrums. but they definitely try to strongly express themselves.

as grown-ups, we are taught, hold everything in. it's a big no-no to let out how you feel. if you express too much dissent you become unlikeable.

of course, i know this is true. and despite what you are probably thinking at this moment about me, we do work on properly expressing your feelings around here.

but i just have those days when i don't feel like working on it. when it seems to take too much energy to keep it together. (anytime i say that phrase i think of the movie bowfinger, where murphy's character is a huge star playing a role in martin's movie, and he has serious psychological issues and is always reciting "keepittogetherkeepittogetherkeepittogether" really fast over and over.)

and you know as well as i do that most of the time it really *does* take so much more energy to be the things we all know we are supposed to be: nice, kind, patient, loving.

maybe it's like honking your horn if someone cuts you off in traffic. there was always this theory we had while living in boston that there were less accidents and less road rage because people let out how they felt by constantly honking their horns. so if we extrapolate this theory to motherhood, maybe we would have less inappropriate outbursts if we allowed ourselves the occasional tantrum.

maybe a national mommy tantrum day. or week. or once a month. i can think of way less healthy ways to deal with mommyhood and all it entails!

so here's to those occasional outbursts. may they help us be happier and healthier mommies in the long run.

a sneak peek at what it's been like around here lately...

you have to see this

.

this girl from the ukraine does some mind-blowing sand art to recreate germany's takeover of the ukraine.

it's a bit more than 8 minutes. you have to watch it all.

if you don't get to the video from the link above, click on her picture and it should load.

gilt-y pleasure

so yesterday, as i was trying to finish up one of FOUR projects i have on my plate, i distracted myself (i mean, took a quick break) by looking at the massive amount of blogs i haven't read on my google reader lately.

there are a few i always go to, and one of them, for me, for you, happened to be sharing about this shopping site where a thing or two is listed as on sale every day.

now, i'm not really into this, and several friends have sent me emails trying to get me to sign up for other ones like this and i've not done it because, let's face it, i really don't have the money to shop most of the time.

but the front page of this one drew me in. haven't you heard me say in my head i'm a totally different looking person than i am in reality? i see myself as that punky, pretty, alternative girl, who incidentally has a few less wrinkles than are on my face currently...

ok, i digress. so i signed up, and even though i didn't buy the fab watches they had on there yesterday, i am excited to see what pops up on there once pay day rolls around for all these jobs i'm working on! even though most of the dough goes to bills, it keeps me focused and working hard if i take a bit and treat myself. like a carrot on a stick, so to speak.

so this is my carrot on a stick, i guess. this, plus the shop ruche, which i drool over daily.

if you want to sign up and shop, click here.

ok, back to work for me!

brief break

it's hot here. still. all this talk from creative bloggers everywhere has me really hankering for a visit north somewhere. even as close as georgia, there is cooler weather to be had.

speaking of georgia, we took off last weekend to visit some dear friends. we had the best time. hoping for some cooler weather, i packed 3 sweaters. yes, for 4 days. they were thin, okay?! i wore one, but i was sweltering. then as soon as we left, the weather turned cooler there. i really wish it had followed us down here.

and have i mentioned that i'm hot? seriously. our cactus is still blooming. there is something wrong with this picture. i need to remind myself that it's nice living in florida in january, when everyone else is in the deep freeze. for now though, just consider me jealous.

i will probably be taking a brief break (hence the obvious post title) from this space to focus on work for a while. i am lucky enough to have been inundated with editing work lately, and it just doesn't make sense for me to be trying to come up with creative ways to entertain you here when i should be concentrating on making mo' money, mo' money, mo' money. (have you seen that movie? it's terrible. but the title has stuck in my head, sort of like "show me the money," which, incidentally, i would like to experience more in my life...)

now, every time i say i'm taking a break from technology, i end up thinking of a thousand awesome things i want to share, so don't give up on me entirely. add me to your google reader, or follow me on twitter (kristibenn) so you can see when i post a new blog.

'til we meet again...

xo