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January 6, 2004
I saw an old friend from high school the other day. She has been away at grad school for the last 2 ½ years so we haven’t talked much and I was looking forward to catching up with her. I have known this girl forever it seems. She has a heart of gold and a bubbly funny personality but has always been somewhat immature in the past and made extremely poor choices as to how to conduct herself with men. I am sorry to say I was bitterly disappointed when we met up and it seemed as though she had not grown up one iota in last few years. In addition to still being catty and shallow, what disappointed me the most is that she continues to pursue and perpetuate these incredibly dysfunctional relationships with loser men who I can tell have absolutely no respect for her. To tell you the truth, I can barely blame the men for treating her like crap when she allows herself to take the abuse and then continues to come back for more. I try to boost her confidence, tell her that these guys are no good and she will never earn a quality relationship until she demands respect and good treatment, but I fear my words are for naught. After so many years of going through this cycle, she doesn’t know any better. It’s so sad. I know it’s all about self confidence but I just don’t know what can be done to break this pattern. I know that sooner or later she is going to end up pregnant and then will be bound to one of these losers forever and it just makes me so sad to see somebody with such potential throwing away her future.
I hope that I am primary preaching to the converted when I start this rant but I just have to get it out so bear with me for a moment. WOMEN!!! It doesn’t have to be this way. Granted, no man (or woman) is perfect but nobody should put up with verbal, physical, or mental abuse—if you allow it AT ALL it will only get worse!!! Even fights should be respectful and constructive and, for god’s sake, don’t use your body as a bargaining tool—it only breeds contempt and will never foster a healthy relationship!!!
Okay… off my soap box. Sorry, just a little frustrated here… Back to nicer things…
Ella is getting sneakier, and I’m getting scared…
Ella’s newest developmental milestone seems to be the ability to make excuses for her behavior or at least to white wash it into a nice excuse. Jamie and I have learned that any phrase that begins with the phrase “I’m just….” is going to be suspect. Most commonly it is used when she has just hit someone. YES, I’m afraid you read that right, we are STILL dealing with this issue… Anyway, as soon as she even so much as taps me in a way that is considered unfriendly or done out of frustration,. I will stop whatever I’m doing and either just look at her (I think I have perfected ‘that look’) or ask “Did you just hit me?”. Immediately the excuses start. The most common one is “I’m just playing a game” but we have also heard “I’m just touching you” “I’m just doing this (followed by any harmless gesture” or “I’m just….. “ As her little mind races to come up with anything. I have to say, it’s cute even as it’s exasperating.
A MUCH sweeter phrase that she’s been using a lot lately is “I love… SOOOOO much” Usually this is heart achingly charming “I love my daddy SOOOOOOO much, I’m going to give him a big BIG hug!” but even this phrase can trigger a giggle and an eye roll, such as the other day when we were embarking on a little post holiday shopping “I love the mall SOOOOO MUCH!” Oops… maybe I should have spent a little less time with her trying to hit EVERY sale over the break….
Big girl bed update
Things have been going great with the big girl bed. She only went back to her crib once and actually seems to like her bed even better—she will ask now when she is tired if she can go take a nap (something she never did in the past, no matter how tired she obviously is. Sadder is that sometimes she rejects our nightly bed time story so that she can go to bed quicker. Should I let her do this? I guess so, but it makes me sad, and of course I don’t want to lose quality reading time (although this is certainly not the only time we read together through the day, it is the most regular).
One thing that worried me was that she has never used a blanket in the past. This is no surprise, since we spent the first year being drilled that blankets increase the risk of SIDS, so she never got into the pattern. And her crib is near our heating vent, so it didn’t worry me to have her go without. The bed, on the other hand, is on the other side of the room, plus she just seemed so much more… exposed, in the middle of that great big mattress. But in the past even when we put a blanket on her in the middle of the night she would fling it off or wake up yelling “Don’t want the blanket!!!!” I thought maybe if we took advantage of her love of soft things we could bring her around so off we went to Sears to pick out the absolute softest blanket we could find and, sure enough, Ella is in love. Now she sleeps snug as a bug with her big pink full sized blanket wrapped all around her. Even better, when she wakes up, I have peeked in to see her just lying in bed contentedly running her fingers up and down, luxuriating in her soft covers. So sweet. I figure in a month or so we can take down the crib and that will leave us a lot more room in there to organize the toys better.
So I have been enjoying my time off from school. I have been catching up on a lot of the long standing issues on our ‘to do’ list. My biggest project so far has been to paint the kitchen. We have been moving towards a fifties diner theme for a while and the ‘country kitsch’ wallpaper that the house came with was a stark ugly contrast. The new colors—yellow and blue—are much brighter then any other room in our house but we were determined to not have yet another room in a light pastel shade. Yes, light pastels are very neutral and go with everything but it is also kind of drab and void of personality so Jamie and I decided to go a little nuts. Well, it’s a dramatic difference but I like it. Ella loves it too. When she first came into the kitchen she just kept turning in circles marveling ‘Ooooooo BEAUTIFUL! BEAUTIFUL painting Mommy!” I was so proud.
Well, not too much else to report. We are, with out a doubt, entering my least favorite time of year. With the holidays over, the weather cold, and the days short, all I really do throughout January and February is hunker down and count the days until spring and worry about what sickness might hit my family this week. I should knock on every big of wood in the house when I say this, but so far we have actually been a lot less sick this year then last. Colds I can handle, it’s when the puking starts that I get worried. Oh, that reminds me, I haven’t heard much about the flu lately… is that scare basically over or is it just not as big news anymore now that we have mad cow and new terrorist scares to occupy our alarmist publications?
Oh, one more question, completely non child related but as good a forum as ever, I suppose. Our house, that we purchased 4 ½ years ago, is a two bedroom and when we bought it we figured it would just be a starter home and we would get a larger one down the line. So now with Ella, the house is full. Not only do we have to ask our guests to sleep on the sofa in the living room, but we do hope to expand the family in the future and I would like to be able to give each child their own bed room. So we have been looking at three and four bedroom houses in our town but the thing that I never expected was how much I have grown to love our current house. Not only is it in a great neighborhood with lots of kids, but we have a wonderful yard which is very rare in our congested little town. So we’ve been going back and forth over and over about whether we want to go ahead and get a new house or just put an addition on the current home. We could convert the garage into a master bedroom and add on a master bathroom and then put another room above the new master bedroom. We only use the current garage for storage and we have plenty of room to put a shed in the backyard to replace the garage.
I THINK (but am not sure) that the expense would be about the same to either buy a bigger house (selling the current one of course) vs. putting on the addition. What I can’t decide is which is the bigger pain in the butt. Bottom line is that both options completely throw your life into disarray for many months but which throws your life into bigger disarray? I don’t know but would like to decide once and for all by this spring so that we can start taking action and not just waffling back and forth like we have been doing for the past few years. Any opinions or additional things to consider would be appreciated, especially if people have 'been there, done that'.
As always, thanks for reading.
Bonnie
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