How Daring Can you be?

My last post was a true confession about how hard it is for me to let go of the girls and start letting them learn for themselves the consequences of life's challenges.

I am committed to doing that.

But, I'm equally attracted to offering them as many educational and cultural experiences as possible. Just yesterday I was telling them hello in six different languages and playing Spanish music. I want, for them, many of the things I didn't have as a kid.

I was recently honored to be asked to participate in a blog book shower for the next awesome book by Andrea L. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz. Last year, I wrote a review of their first "Daring Book for Girls," which I have proudly displayed on a shelf.

Now, I'm even happier to display next to it the next volume: "The Double-Daring Book for Girls."

For this shower, we were supposed to actually DO one of the activities. Well, I didn't want to just do it myself so I had to find one that was good enough for the girls, now 3, to do as well.

I chose rock stacking. I've been wanting to do some rock activities lately because there are so many of them out there circulating the blogs. I'm sure I played with rocks a lot as a kid but I don't recall ever stacking them like blocks.

We first went out with the girls' little pink wagons and collected some rocks in the back, backyard. They enjoyed that part alone.

Then we took them to the deck and just started stacking them. They lost interested in about five minutes but I kept stacking and stacking. I thought it was a ton of fun. I didn't realize the challenge it would be to make them stack higher and higher.

I was able to stack 8 rocks at the most. Can you beat that????? I'm supposed to challenge my readers to be my performance so if you have any luck, let me know in the comments, please!

Rock stacking a great multi-step activity to do because once you gather them, you can wash them and then paint them. Once painted, you can add pictures on them to depict story characters to tell stories outside (or inside on a rainy day).

And, if you want more cool things to try that are new, that might inspire you in some new way today, pick up the Double-Daring Book for Girls today.

It does rock. You'll be smarter for it, too. Just don't let your kids knock them over too soon.






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On Writing and Motherhood

It's 6:15 a.m.

There are times when I realize that I could let them go a bit more, yes. But there are other times, especially lately, when ...

Hey, Mommy, Liana said next week about a movie and she got in my face.

I realize that this is my life, the constant interruptions of one or the other or this or that even when I do try not to intervene.

And so ...

Mommy? (Yes Liana) I want to wear my blip on my belly. What?

As I was saying, I am trying to ...

Mommy, I want to get a movie, too.

actually write and complete the novel that I have been ...

Mommy, I can get a movie; I want a movie.

working on for 10 years. I never finished it because, well, as a single woman and then as a childless wife suffering through infertility, I never had time.

MOMMY, I WANT TO GET A MOVIE!!

Funny, that concept of time, isn't it? The best time lately for writing has been right around bedtime. I'm tired as all get out, but it's the only hour I have that's uninterrupted and quiet. The man is on the couch, watching TV, and the kids are USUALLY sleeping soundly.

Blaahhhh! (Jadyn pushes Liana)

"Waaahhhh!"

And I wonder now what I was so busy doing way back then when life wasn't crazy like this?

Then again, I have more drive now than ever to finish it and I think it could be because of them.

Other things have helped me reach the 50,000-word mark as well lately. More on that later. Gotta be mom now.

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Mothering? Or Smothering?

As my little babies turn, gradually, into little girls, my helicopter parenting skillz are apparent. They've always been exaggerated. We got to the part of the bike trail that overlooks a lovely, but roaring creek and I cringed telling them not to climb on the very large, very high metal fence. A foot could get stuck. They might fit through the two-inch slats. What if they do fall? They'll drown in the knee-deep water. (It was easily a 20-foot drop, by the way).

Part of the problem, I know, is that I was a news reporter. I wrote about a 14-year-old girl that was sucked under by an Amtrak train and killed. I wrote about the 4-year-old boy who was sucked down by a swollen creek after a hard rain. I interviewed many families who lost loved ones who were shot, stabbed, drowned, pushed down to their death and, yes, abused.

It's no wonder that I'm smothering. Or circling. Or hovering. Or standing too close. I've seen death at too many doors.

But, I'm trying. Always, always trying.

This week's inspiration will take you to two links: The Washington Post column I just read, and the author's blog as well.

It's a very good discussion. Makes me want to let my girls roam -- to the fenced backyard by themselves (while I watch from a window).

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Candles of Sharing -- A week of links

As I continue my journey to figuring out what I'm doing, I realized recently that while I love to surf the Internet, I rarely share any links anymore. I'm sorry for that.

For the next couple weeks, I'm going to light a candle for all of the inspiring posts I read and want to share. These will be on anything and everything that make me smile, or laugh, or just make me get up and start doing something new.

Here's a link for you to relish in all day, bathe in all week and perhaps dream about all year.

Thanks, Jena!


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Worlds Apart -- A confession

Shh. I'm at work today and it's quiet and I'm alone. Everyone's out, busy, gone and not bugging me with insanity. And I'm taking it easy. Real easy.

Which means it's time to confess something to you.

I've been cheating. I've not been reading your mom blogs. Well, not much of them.

For the better part of the last two years, I've been reading and enjoying a whole other set of blogs that for the longest time I always admired from afar.

While being a mom is still prominent in my head, it's not what I am interested in writing about on this blog anymore.

The truth is that I am considering a change. A big one. And so, while I'll wait for this change to express itself to me, I'm leaving some space here. A pause.

Sit still with me for a while.

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What's your cause

I have always had strong opinions.

Really strong.

And, none of that has really changed much since I became a mother a little more than three years ago.

If anything, motherhood has helped me own my opinions even more, anchored them inside me and led me to feel pretty confident about some things (more than others).

Lately, I've realized I've been on a little advocacy kick.

I've had a few over the years. My first big thought was how my town NEEDED a cafe that was infant-friendly. You know, take out at the curb that wasn't McDonald's. Tables with lots of space for two car seat carriers, two high chairs and lots of room for bags of stuff. And, above all, open to families with crying babies. I had this place all picked out from the menu to the open play area that was age-divided so that parents could, ah, breathe and eat for just a few minutes.

Yes, I was dreaming a lot in my sleep-deprived days.

Lately, my kick has been something pretty expensive and dramatic and for the better of my community. A children's museum. A hands-on museum. Our city is pretty historic, but it's also faced with a plethora of issues, none of which I care to drone on about here but all of which are why we have been trying to sell our house and move to a less depressing neighborhood.

I tell everyone I meet in meetings, who is trying to better the city, that we need this museum, that it would help revitalize the downtown.

After all, I know plenty of moms who are, let's just say, EAGER to find things to do during the week and currently travel far and wide and pay $$ for these kinds of venues in other towns nearby.

I know, I have been one of those moms.

What's your cause? Anything you're working on either by word of mouth, or blogging or maybe even writing your State House of Representatives about??





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The Scarlet "M"

For a long time, during my fights for the disadvantaged, I spent countless hours advocating for the underprivileged who were black, Hispanic, and poor.

I still make those same arguments now, in the working world, but I've added in mothers, too.

I wear the Scarlet M. Do you?

Where ever I go, it's there sitting on my chest. It's in my clothes. It's in my walk. It's in my head. Following me. Pulling me. Holding my hand.

Everything from automatic flushing toilets to the way parking lots are configured are clearly inventions and creations and engineering constructed only by men who were not fathers, or were fathers who were too busy creating a life outside of fatherhood.

And the paternalistic attitudes. I've seen them a lot lately. I've fought against them. I'm trying to tell the powers that be who are aging yet still full of cash about what they're missing. Of course, I'm doing it nicely, womanly, sweetly as possible. We're a new generation of mothers. A new generation of women.

But inside I'm angry, filling up with anger and ready to send outbursts into the air that say something like girls matter, women matter, mothers matter and what the hell are you thinking?
We're mothers; not poison, not caged animals. Not covered in snot. Not germy. My kids scream, so what? My kids cry, a lot, so what? I deserve to eat out, too, you know. I can't afford a babysitter for that stupid event. (And, hey, my girl twins are now peeing on the potty, ya'll!)

I'm on a destiny to change everything related to mothers and women and raising girls right now. Something's gotta give.

I wear the Scarlet M. Do you?


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