Beyonce

Let me start by saying, I like a good deal of Beyonce's music. She is talented, she can sing, she has got some moves and she has a banging body. I thought her response to the whole lip syncing controversy was fantastic. I could care less if she lip synced because I know it is a common practice. Last night her wardrobe choice annoyed me and like so many others I took to social media to rant about my opinions which particularly on Twitter got a ton of passive aggressive push back. One of those tongue in cheek moments that didn't get translated right on strangers screens, I said I didn't need the soft core porn and people took it like the gospel, it was indeed my sarcasm. Saying Beyonce needed to put some clothes on didn't mean I was calling her a ho or anything like it. So I am going to take a few minutes to explain my of view of her attire (which really it isn't limited to her many stars share the lack of wardrobe).

I have a little girl and I have a hormone disorder. This disorder doesn't really show itself if you don't know me, other than it causes me to carry extra weight. I will not deny that I am a large girl, I live in this body every day. I don't have a sign that says my hormones are really messed up and there is no magic pill for me to get them back in line, I don't actually eat nothing but ice cream and candy every day. Why would I even think I need a sign that says that, well because I can't take my daughter out for an ice cream cone with out someone giving me a look like yep fat chick eating ice cream typical. Of course in school I got picked on, I have also heard people mutter "fat people" under their breath in stores, I have been made fun of in line for a ride at Disney world as I stood waiting with everyone else to ride the train. When I was pregnant with my daughter, at the very end of pregnancy I had some pain in my hip, my husband dropped me off at the front of a store while he parked and when he got out her heard two women, "pregnant or just fat". He wanted to smack them, I said you should have said both. I am not telling you this because I want you to feel bad for me or because I want you to join me in some fat acceptance crusade. Neither are of interest to me. What I worry about is that my daughter might have the same hormone issues and that one day her thighs might rub together when she walks and that she will start to hate herself because of it. You see I managed to survive with out hating myself, some how despite everything society has told me about my worth because of my body, I have managed to say no, no I have value for many other reasons. Maybe it was because I was raised by an incredibly strong woman who constantly told me that I was both smart and beautiful. I was one of the lucky ones because my period of self hatred was short lived.

I have spent the last 8 years working with young girls who I have heard hating on themselves because their bodies aren't perfect. I nearly cried as I listened to 12 year olds talk about how fat they were and how they couldn't eat anymore at a church fund raiser. I have watched girls hurt themselves to be what society has told them is beautiful. I have watched girls forget they have talent or brains because they are in pursuit of the only thing they think matters, approval from their crush or society. I am terrified that this will one day be my daughter and that as her mother I won't be able to find the right words.

I wasn't annoyed last night because Beyonce was sexy or sexual. I am far from uptight about sexuality. I thought her outfit was fine for a concert, just not broadcast TV. Next week the Grammy's are on, I know better than to put the TV on while my girl is still up because my girl will likely see things that I don't want her to see. So maybe it was that I was caught off guard. I do not have some underhanded Christian or conservative agenda. The only agenda I have is making sure my daughter knows she is so much more than a body and that her body is valuable even if it isn't perfect.

I got irritated because here is a woman that is talented, smart and still leaving little to the imagination. To me it said being smart and talented isn't enough you still have to show off what you have. Maybe I am just getting old, maybe it's parenthood that has me so on edge. It just makes me fired up when I think of the world telling my daughter no matter how beautiful her heart is, how smart she is, compassionate, talented, creative, kind, loving, and so on that it will never be good enough because she has to have a nice body and if that nice body weren't enough, she has to strut around showing it off because then she will have the approval of all.

Today I am grateful that I grew up with a very strong woman who knew enough to tell me I was smart, talented and pretty.

Thanks Mom!

A laundry how to.

How to do laundry with a 3 year old assistant. (On a cold day in a communal laundry room.)
1. Interrupt her quiet play to tell her she has to get her shoes on because other people are waiting for the dryer.
2. Cave and let her wear her fancy "Christmas shoes".
3. Add several items of clothing like hat and coat.
4. Have her fill up the empty laundry basket with her stuffed toys, clearly Mickey, Minnie and Pluto must come along.
5. Let her hold one end and you the other while walking to the laundry room singing the chugga choo choo song from music class loudly!
6. Run into neighbors coming down the stairs. Let her very enthusiastically yell Hi Everybody!
7. Listen to her narrate every single item that comes out of the dryer. Mommy's undies, Daddy's socks, My jammies.
8. Hear her profess her love for her Minnie undies, hug them and say thank you so much for buying these.
9. Ask her to fold a shirt, she will say, I'll just roll it in a ball. (Clearly a trait from her dad.)
10. She will wear every clean pair of jammies tonight.
11. She loves her clothes and has a new rolling technique for folding.
12. Thank you mommy for cleaning my star pants.
13. Get the coat etc back on and walk home.
14. She will help with the door.
15. Warn you to watch out for the slippery.
16. Choose to enjoy it, savor it even, because days like these will be the ones you long for in the future.

It is hard but God please let me be grateful for this journey of parenthood, each day.

A New Year

Happy New Year from a blogger that is very behind. Being behind seems to be the story of my life lately. I didn't really get around to implementing any "new year's resolutions" until last week. I haven't resolved anything fantastic that I think will be life changing. Just jotted down a few thoughts on how to refocus my life so that I can make this life I am living the life that I am dreaming of. This doesn't mean that I plan on making a bunch of drastic changes trying to achieve the dream but rather that I am trying to let the life I have be the dream. It's not that I am promoting sitting on your laurels and not making an attempt to change your life in some way it needs to change, I am just suggesting that a shift in perspective can really help from time to time.

It's not easy to shift your perspective.

I am at this place in my life where I am again feeling the desire to just start "living". Our entire lives are one big transition right now and we do not know what the future holds. I don't know that we ever really know what the future holds but at times we have ideas about it, how we would like things to go. We have ideas about how we would like to live our lives and then there is how we actually live. I could write about that for days on end and still never finish. The truth is, I find myself living in a constant state of stress, we have out grown our home which means either we need more space or less stuff. I have tried to get rid of more stuff, less clutter helps. The truth is though when you have a child and it's their stuff that is taking up all the room you can't just get rid of it. For example we have a trampoline for one taking up lots of living room floor real estate right now, but its indoors and serves and great exercise for an energetic 3 year old. It's those decisions that are hard. Another Christmas has come and gone and guess what it brought more stuff. That is the nature of Christmas. All this stuff and not enough space makes for a very cluttered and messy home. I find myself longing to move somewhere with more storage space and a private yard. I want to put down roots... to not be in this place of this home is temporary. Temporary as it may be it at times feels like it is suffocating me and I get overwhelmed and I can't decide where to start in picking up or where to put things. It doesn't help that there is always something else begging for my attention. So you can see I was stuck in this cycle of so much to do, so overwhelmed and getting nothing done. The caveat there is that I function much better as a human being when my surroundings are orderly. I have been slowly getting things back in order but with a three year old and very little floor space for her to play on it gets cluttered quickly. Same goes for the kitchen, two square feet of counter space gets cluttered quickly. Just typing about it makes me tense.

Then on Friday I was exhausted from a night up with a sick kid. She took a nice long nap and instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to be productive I laid down too, and turned on the radio. I didn't fall asleep but I sat there and stared at the ceiling for a long time just listening to the radio. In those moments I reflected about my life before now and what my life has been so far. I was overwhelmed with this sense of peace, contentment. love and even hope for what is to come. Those moments are rare these days. I don't often like to say things like the next sentence but I feel I have to say it. I am working full time on a 90 credit masters degree, maintaining an internship and I am the primary caretaker of our 3 year old daughter. I am never able to sit and focus on one thing, at this very moment as I type these words she is pressing her full body weight into my side and my left arm is in a position that doesn't seem function-able. In that moment on Friday staring at the ceiling which is always orderly and with no child or dog pressing on me I realized that I need to refocus on the here and now. To enjoy these crazy hectic days for what they are and live in the moment because in between all the insanity that makes up our days, life is happening.

And alas it was just a moment, by Sunday night I found myself looking at houses as we drove by longingly thinking if we could just afford to rent a house maybe I could breathe. The thought that I did not get one response from potential sitters for the spring semester has started to creep back in. I have two Ordination exams this weekend that I have not had nearly enough time set aside to prepare for. I am trying not to freak out about that. I know myself and I know that over filling my brain will result in failure.

I sit here in a contorted position, as my kiddo competes for my attention which she feels she should have with out ceasing every hour of the day, trying to finish my sentences, longing for the peace I felt on Friday, as all that has to be done today runs through my head. I slow down and I say don't wish these days away, sooner than you think she won't want to come near you and you will long for the simplicity of life in Seminary. The grass is always greener anywhere but your own lawn.

Today I am grateful for moments of reflection that are filled with peace and somehow feel like the most authentic prayer I have ever known.

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve, it's almost 9 am and my sweet LG is still asleep. We should be preparing to have kids hepped up on sugar and santa and the sheer joy of getting gifts in every room. We aren't. We won't be hosting any guests this Christmas Eve, nor will we be a guest of someone. We will go to church, come home and let LG open the presents family have sent, and eat a feast of some of our favorite finger foods. I have yet to make any cookies and I am determined to make a batch or two today. LG wants to give Santa a Christmas tree cookie. The best way I can describe this Christmas is raw and frustrating. We are on our own for the very first time and it's not that we lacked invitations, I knew I would be grieving and that if I couldn't travel to be with my siblings and mother that space with out distraction would be a good thing.

I started to get into Christmas with LG's excitement. Then our tree fell apart and I still have yet to bake a cookie. Then I was left with 12 end of the semester projects to finish, like finding the floor and sorting the toys before Santa's big arrival.

The grief is complex. Yes I am missing my sister in law terribly, some days I don't think its real. I don't think I really took a whirlwind trip to FL in September and spoke the words that were her funeral. I am also missing our big family Christmas Eve party, which isn't happening because we are all spread out now. I have said I won't travel on Christmas but I might change my mind next year. I highly dislike being with out my family on Christmas and if there is anything this year has reinforced it's that life is short and our Christmases are numbered and should be spent together. I know that I have Paul and LG and they are my own little family but LG barely knows her cousins and that makes me sad. She should know the excitement of giving them their presents not the pain in the ass of standing in line at the post office. I grieve also for those sweet children who died while at school. For the young man who thought there was no way out but death. For the family whose little girl has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I have gone through many of the motions of Christmas, trying to capture the joy when it comes, trying to feign happiness for my daughter so she still looks at all this with the wonder that is only found in childhood. I have found Christmas music depressing, the cookies aren't made and there are many movies that have not been watched as they traditionally would be. Tonight I hope I remember to spread the reindeer food on the lawn, read the night before Christmas and leave the cookies and milk for Santa. I have been rather forgetful.

Today I am grateful for the memories, even when they hurt.

Memory is a Gift

Tonight I took a quick trip to a craft store, I read about a cute advent calendar idea and wanted to price some supplies, I also wanted to look for some supplies for the hand prints we make each year with our daughter. As I was in there I passed some lovely little ornament frames, on sale. I looked them over and did a thing I have been dreading. It seems that each Christmas there is someone else missing. In 2007 when my grandmother passed away, my mom and I made ornaments for each of the grandchildren and children. The following year I did one for people who had passed away a few years earlier. This way they are there with us through the holiday season amid all the glitter and twinkling lights, their pictures hang with smiles in place. My grandparents, my father, my stepfather. Tonight I added my sister in law, bonus sister is a more appropriate term. I cried in the craft store as I picked up the perfect frame for her, with a little date tag, 2012. I doubt I will forget this year, it was going really well and then September the third just happened. Life changed we were all left with heavy hearts that have gaping holes where Donna should be. It is a loss like no other that I have experienced. I have always dreaded the day I would lose a sibling and I can't imagine its much different then what this feels like.

Donna on our tree.

Last Christmas I mourned the loss of our traditional Christmas Eve party. We have all moved to different parts of the country and for the first time in my life I spent Christmas Eve with no siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. I find myself at times incredibly sad that my sweet LG will never know the joy that I knew on Christmas Eve. I have tried to think of ways to recreate those memories for her but the truth is, I can't. The people who made those days special have started to move on from this life. With out Grammy, with out Donna it just wouldn't be the same.

Today I find myself incredibly grateful for my gift of memory. I am able to remember parts of life so clearly it is almost as if I am transported back there to another time. LG may never know the Christmas Eve's that I knew but I always have them close to my heart, precious and protected, memories.

My Brother, Survivor

As I drove LG to school this morning I was emotionally assaulted by local children's hospital radio-a-thon. It's not because I am a heartless retch who doesn't care about sick children, I think they are doing a good thing! A wonderful thing! To help children who are sick with devastating or terminal illness is a beautiful thing. The problem is even before I was a mother, I couldn't listen to the skillful mix of heart breaking story and emotional music. I got half way into a story and switched to my other station of choice which is playing Christmas music that I am not ready for.

The reason I can't listen to these things is because it brings me back to my own childhood, I am the sister of a survivor. My youngest brother is a childhood cancer survivor, one of the lucky ones, his survival was a sheer miracle. Those little songs and stories rip my heart out because even though I was a young child I can remember it all very clearly. I can remember the hell it was on our whole family and of course my brother whose treatment lasted two years. Just the year before my father had been diagnoses with a terminal illness that would take his life some years later. I don't want to go back there to that place in my life, our life. It's not that I won't talk about it or I don't think about it. I just don't like to be taken there by surprise.

Today I am so very grateful for the life of my youngest brother and his survival against all the odds.

A Dark Place

As I watched Hurricane Sandy barreling towards my hometown and state from 800 miles away I was full of anxiety knowing very well that nothing there is build to with stand a hurricane because hurricanes typically do not make it that far up the coast. As the storm inched closer, I got word that some friends on the other side of the country were also evacuated because of concerns about a tsunami following an earthquake in Canada. I felt all heavy in my chest and gut, of center, what in the world is happening? Maybe my mother in law isn't so crazy thinking the world is ending this year. Then as I watched the storm coverage and lost contact with all those I love at home, local news came through, a train derailment with a serious hazmat spill and evacuations across town. A school bus accident that killed two preschoolers (same age as our lil' one) and left four others in critical condition. A car accident that killed 4 people. It's overwhelming. NYC floods. The part of NJ where I grew up has had a "map altering" storm.

The whole thing all of it has thrown me off center. I want to go home and just see it. I am one of those people who needs to see things. I want to go provide care for people who have lost things. I can't because I am a student and school here hasn't stopped or even taken a deep breathe.

Then yesterday in class we sang these lyrics in a hymn, "No storm can shake my inmost calm While to that refuge clinging" It was difficult to sing those lyrics knowing what people were going through but I sang them, I trusted God and I found just a little bit of comfort. I found that my faith has grown again.

Today I am grateful for the safety of all my loved ones at the Jersey Shore.