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.

8 comments:

Sarah said...

I often don't know how to blog about my small-fry. I worry that I'll write something to cause embarrassment or invade their privacy (my blog being public n' all) or reveal too much information for a public sphere. Some bloggers do share every up and down in their mother-life - sometimes so much I cringe. Does the world really need to know about our children's mistakes/development/even spirituality in great detail?

Reticence in blogging may not make for a rip-roaring good read, but I think it's better to protect our loved ones than use them as a point of discussion.

Is this what you were meaning by your post?

I have rather rambled on.

Are you still homeschooling these days? I can't remember.

Annecourager said...

This is *exactly* what I'm talking about. I don't want to exploit them or expose them unnecessarily. But they're just so INTERESTING! I love to watch them grow, struggle, fail, try again, succeed.....etc.

And yes, I'm still homeschooling. Half homeschooling, actually... D is in 8th grade at a local Christian school and S is home with me still.

Annecourager said...

This is *exactly* what I'm talking about. I don't want to exploit them or expose them unnecessarily. But they're just so INTERESTING! I love to watch them grow, struggle, fail, try again, succeed.....etc.

And yes, I'm still homeschooling. Half homeschooling, actually... D is in 8th grade at a local Christian school and S is home with me still.

Sarah said...

I have the same thing. There's SO much I could share, the cute stuff, the funny stuff, the 'arghhh my daughter did XYZ today' stuff, the 'I am the worst mother in the world because...' stuff...I could go on. But on my blog, I barely skim the surface and leave all that to my conversations with my Mum and close friends.

My blog must seem a little dull by comparison to others! :)

Tammy said...

hmmmm. This blog and it's subsequent posts make me happy and sad. I say, good job, moms.

Annecourager said...

Thanks, Tammy....you've spanned much more of the mommyhood ground than I have, so any wisdom scraps you want to toss out here I will listen!!

Christy said...

Yes, this post made me a bit sad. I'm sad for Wilbur and Nadine. They are still playing at my house, but I fear they won't be for long...

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