Thursday, January 20, 2011

"life", mommyhood, popcorn...

Gentle reader, please advise:
How does one blog about Life, specifically Mommyhood, when one's children have reached An Age of Self-Awareness that mom occasionally--nay, mainly-- Blogs About Them? To avoid causing or giving offense, I find myself mentally editing my childrearing mileposts to the point that they just never leave my fingertips and make it into record.

D and S continually surprise me in this regard. Occurrences that I consider matter-of-fact or just plain funny are moments of grave consequence or great humiliation to them. Having a 13 and 12-year-old makes the emotional mood swings par for the course, so I find myself stinting on posts to provide them safety and give them confidence in my discretion.

In the final analysis, though... scraps of my leftover Life Happenings are not interesting. My life, though packed to the gills, is pretty routine. I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning (cold cereal, slightly green banana, cup of coffee with sugar free vanilla Coffeemate). I struggle with the same character flaws I always have (fear of man rather than fear of God, indolence, pride). Life cruises along and birthdays are no longer important now that I'm a Certain Age.

It's my children who change every time I blink. I find myself wishing to hold on to certain moments just as they are Right Now. My little girl is now taller than me. My son is stronger than me, and keeps me challenged to stay one step ahead of him in wits and cunning. Then again, he's done that since he was four.

I look back now at the lost playworld of Kittyland, and their imaginary friends Wilbur and Nadine, who have moved away. I didn't recognize at the time they were playing those games for the last time. So the event passed away without incident, without recognition, and they moved on to the next play phase in their lives.

Only now, I have to be so painstakingly careful in my remembrances. I make this sacrifice willingly--after all, I would hope for the same consideration from a loved one!

I believe I can safely say that, since my hurried Thursday dinner of homemade burritos didn't quite fill the spaces, D is now out in the kitchen supplementing my lack of preparation with grilled cheese sandwiches. I was hoping for New York Steak with crab meat and artichoke hearts, but this will have to do. S is annoying him somehow, since there are Thumpings and Bumpings and high-pitched noises coming from the general vicinity of the kitchen. I am remaining in my red leather chair by the fire on this cold evening. A is watching Columbo.

That's about it from here.