Taking a break

I'm busy. I'm stressed. I'm tired. And sadly, blogging is, at the moment, no longer therapeutic. The Snarker has said some extremely unkind, harsh, and untrue things about me and about my husband, and has closed comments on that particular post. Frankly, the whole thing makes me not want to blog, especially now at this particularly stressful time. So, I'm taking a break. I'll see you in about 2 weeks. Gotta go sell my house now.
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Moving

Yes, it's official, we are moving. The whole neighborhood knows, the ward here AND the ward in our new city knows (gosh, the Mormon world is small!), and I am awaiting a call from our realtor as I blog so I can get cracking on putting an offer on a house that, according to her, is going to go fast if we don't ACT NOW!!!! (Does a realtor ever say anything else? Just once I'd like to hear one say, "oh, you know, this house has been here for SUCH a long time, 1 more week to decide won't make much of a difference.") Anyway.... Jacob knows we are moving. We've talked about it, and we've dragged him around on enough house hunting exhibitions that he's pretty much hip to the idea. But, just today, he said, "Wait, if we get a new house, does that mean I can't go to my best friend's house?" Well, um, technically, I suppose it is possible that he could go to his friend's house, but it's definitely not something that will happen say, more than once a year. Maybe. Jacob may understand what's happening, but I don't think he gets it. As a kid, we did not move around very much. I moved once that I can remember, from L.A. to Salt Lake when I was 10, and, well, I was fairly traumatized. I got over it, I guess, but it certainly wasn't my idea of fun, and I wasn't pleased at all with the whole thing. Like I said, we only did it once, so maybe if I did it more, I would have gotten better at the making friends immediately aspect of the whole thing. I have often wondered if there was something my parents could have done to soften the blow at all. I was certainly old enough to figure things out for myself, and I'm sure my parents' attitude was, "The kids'll be fine. They'll adjust." Which, of course, we did. But I still wonder if there is something we can do to make this transition easier for our son who is badly going to miss his neighborhood and school friends. They might fade easily after time (Do I remember friends from when I was 4? Hmm...hardly), but I think in the meantime things might be hard. Any thoughts?
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Are you a Queen Bee?

I was reading Parenting Magazine the other day (one of my many highly tuned avoidance strategies I utilize these days as we prepare for a move. Have I mentioned I hate moving?). There was an interesting article from the book “Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads” about what kinds of mothers there are, written by the woman who wrote the book that the movie "Mean Girls" is based on. I'd find the link to the article if I wasn't so tired right now, but basically the gist was that all moms fall into certain categories. And, sadly, none of them sounded particularly appealing. Also, I don't think it really described the moms I know. First, there's the "Queen Bee" moms, moms who run everything, who are the neighborhood gossips, and who only let other moms be in charge of stuff when she gives her permission to do so. Also, her neighborhood gossip isn't really gossip in her mind, because she is only telling people about other moms to say, "Poor thing", or "How can we help such a hopeless cause?" Ok, so I actually DO know a mom like this in our neighborhood, but truly, she is the only person I know who fits such a nasty description. There’s the “Sidekick” moms, women who suck up to the Queen Bees, “Starbucks and Sympathy” moms, women who will sympathize with you, give you comfort, and then turn on you, spreading malicious gossip that they can use to their own advantage. Then there were the "Wannabes", and the "Desperate Wannabees", women who follow the Queen Bee around like drones, and gossip as well. They are the ones who get permission from the Queen Bee to plan the Boy Scout box car derby, and try to do it to perfection, just so they can outshine other moms, and even, possibly (dare to dream!) the Queen Bee herself. They are social climbers who climb the ladders by using their children's activities. Again, what a nasty description of a mother. There are the "Invisible" and "Outcast" moms, moms who do nothing for their child and rarely stick up for them, just because they don't want to rock the boat or face confrontation. They'll let their child bear the brunt of all kinds of injustices because they are too busy shrinking into the background, or they don’t fit in because their kids don’t go to the "right" school, the "right" church, etc. "Floater" moms are the ones that are genuinely nice, can flow between groups, and are popular because they are genuinely likable. Wow, they actually exist? And finally, there are the "Reformed Moms", who are mostly made up of former Wannabes and Queen Bees, who realize that this kind of social grouping and cliquishness should've been over in high school. These and the Floater moms are the kinds of moms you want to get to know. Give me a break. What about just plain old nice moms who are trying to do what's best for their kids? What about just plain old involved parents who want to be a part of the community? It was a ridiculous analysis of motherhood, and it makes me want to write Parenting a letter and tell them I think they missed the boat. I think some mothers can be cliquish, of course, but I find that for the most part, when we find some common interest with our children, or we have kids the same age, it's easy to be friends with other moms. Ok, sometimes I think other moms are a little psycho, or I don't like what they feed their kids, or I think they don't discipline their child when he hits or pulls my little angel's hair, but on the whole, I think moms mostly try to get along with other moms. This article suggested that we haven't left behind some of those high school social tendencies that tortured us as teenagers. I disagree. I would hope that most women who are raising children are beyond that. Other thoughts about social interaction with neighborhood moms? Maybe the mom who wrote teh article just still can't get over losing the votes for Prom Queen.
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All dogs go to heaven?

Ok, now this is a pity post. I'll just say it right up front. I need lots of pity comments. And, just so you know, it's not really about motherhood. Ok, it kinda is, but really, it's about my dog. My dog, the dog we so righteously adopted from an animal shelter and brought into our home, the canine who vomited copious amounts of gingerbread all over our carpet and gleefully licked my child's poopy bum, bit a child at our neighborhood playground this week. Yep, it was a bite. A real bite. No blood, but only just barely. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen, and I've already woken up once screaming, "Get away from the dog!" in the middle of the night. It definitely rates up there with one of the worst days of my life. And really, there is nothing more fun than to go to the playground the next day and have your friend say to you, "Hey, did you hear that so and so got bit by a dog, in this playground?", and to overhear other similar conversations. I feel like putting up a neon sign on the entrance to our development saying, "YES, IT WAS MY DOG!" We hired a professional "canine counselor" to come and take a look at our dog, and she also took a look at the child's bite mark. Her opinion? Crate the dog immediately, keep him away from your child, and ship him back to the shelter post haste. My neighbor's opinions? Well, the ones with small chidren clearly want the dog out of the community. The ones without children, the ones with 2 dogs in their home? "Well, I'm such an animal rights advocate, I just can't imagine just giving up on an animal like that. After all, you don't know what the dog's history is. You don't know what he's gone through." Great. So I'm 'giving up' on an animal. Me, the ulitmate dog lover, giving up on an animal. But the Mommy in me is telling me that hey, sorry, nature's cruel, but I'm lookin' out for my own. You want to be in our world? You can't bite. You blew it, dog. And Mommy's instincts always win. So, just saying that we are feeling sad over here these days, because it's always hard to get rid of a pet. I think I'm doing the right thing, taking the dog back to the shelter, and I think the entire community would breathe easier knowing that the dog is gone. Still, it's a hard thing to do. Anybody else have similar experiences? Any thoughts, comments, advice, places you know where to get the perfect dog? And, let me say, once again.... Snakes make great pets.
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Happy Bloggaversary!

Yes, Happy Bloggaversary to us! We here at MMW have been doing this whole blogging thing for almost exactly 1 year. Or, at least it was 1 year on Sunday, but we were so busy blogging, we're a little late acknowledging it. We did have a goal that we were actually going to have a real website by Christmas, done by website builder extraordinaire, J. Stapley, but, um, that didn't happen. We meant to come up with a design, we really did, but then, you know, the holidays happened and stuff, and then New Year's, and then I swear all hell broke loose with every MMW permablogger having every kind of medical issue you could possibly imagine, so, well, here we are, still at Blogger. Oh well. Maybe once life calms down we'll get a real site (right--calm, that's us!) But we want to thank everybody for continuing to come here and listen to us blabber on and on. I guess I should even thank the Snarker, too. He drove up our traffic immensely with his nasty looks, so even he has some hand in our success. Sad, but true. I don't know what our future is, but we'll let you know if any drastic changes are in the works. And, again, thanks for coming! Read on....
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Non-converts need not apply

I had a very interesting discussion about Mormons today with one of my non Mormon mommy friends. Jacob is practically obsessed with her son, so we spend a lot of time together. She has, in turn, spent a lot of time around Mormons, and has a surprisingly sophisticated knowledge of our religion. We've talked about Mormonism before, but today's discussion was particularly enlightening. "You're not a typical Mormon, Heather," she said. What? Me, not typical? Hardly. Sometimes I feel like I scream Molly Mormon. I’ve got the blond hair, the pale skin, the pioneer heritage, everything. OK, so I don't bake bread on a regular basis, and I'm really not the best homemaker in the world, but otherwise, I tend to think of myself as pretty dang typical. (See? Who else but a typical Mormon would use the word 'dang'? I also like fetch, freakin', and yes, I've even been known to utter an 'Oh my heck!' once or twice.) She went on to describe what she felt was the typical Mormon, and the ways I defied the stereotype. Keep in mind that this is a woman who has known lots of Mormons in her life, and is probably not generalizing from one encounter. First off, she said I'm educated. Not typical. Ouch. Also, she said that she feels like I have more of an open mind than other Mormons she has met. Again, ouch. Then the kicker. She said that every Mormon she has met is very nice, but she has felt that the niceness fades when they discover that she is not interested in becoming a Mormon. They are still nice, of course (nobody can't say we aren't nice!), but, as she put it, there is a "cooling", and a change in the niceness. Big ouch. Frankly, I found this person's portrait of Mormons very sad. Uneducated, close minded women who are only interested in you because of your potential conversion status? Wow. Sad. Are we that transparent? Are we that closed-rank? Can we not see past somebody's potential as a convert to their often more powerful potential as a friend? My friend was not deliberately being offensive to Mormons. I think (I hope!) that in a lot of ways, she likes Mormons. After all, we ARE nice, we do share her basic Christian value system, and we are, for the most part, productive, motivated people who care about our families. Those are all good things, and she recognizes them as such. But maybe in our zeal to spread the gospel, we forget that there are women out there who may just need to be our friends as much as they need the gospel. And they will for sure be more receptive to things if they feel that the message is coming from a friend who will still love them even if they decide they're just not interested. We Mormon women are very good at a lot of things, and I give us all the credit in the world for being a powerful source of good. But I think we could expand that circle of influence a little bit to include just being a friend, to the golden investigator and non mormon mommy alike. After all, she’s probably covered in poop, too.
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Beware:Reading causes Sleep Deprivation

I'm tired today. No, it's not because I'm sick, or because I'm pregnant, or even because my son kept me up all night. No, it is because I stayed up way past my bedtime (and I do mean WAY past my bedtime) to read a book. It's called _Tara Road_, and I just can't believe I used my precious sleep time to read instead of, you know, sleep. The last time I did something that stupid was when the 6th Harry Potter book came out, but that time DH knew exactly what was going to happen, it was on a Friday night, and even then I couldn't keep my eyes open past 3am. (Did I mention I stayed up way past my bedtime?) Anyway, I picked up this book at my Mom's house while I was perusing her bookshelves, and it looked sort of interesting. I grabbed it to read during doctor's appointments, etc, and didn't get hooked at first. My first impression was that it was a bit choppily written, and moved at an awkward pace. Then, that dang book just sucked me right in. It's a book about women, you see, women who are trying to make their way in their small world in Dublin. Women who all want the same man, pine and ache for him, and who, unbeknownst to his wife, eventually all have him. The wife gets portrayed as dowdy, silly, living in her bubble of stay at home motherhood bliss, never suspecting for a minute that her dashing husband is off cheating on her with her best friends. I have to say, she initially comes off rather badly. I was disappointed at first. I don't know why. After all, it IS an Oprah book club book and certainly nothing Oprah could endorse could actually keep a family intact--where else could the conflict come from? But I was really rooting for the wife at the beginning, and towards the middle she morphs into a sad stereotype who is positively pathetic. I wanted to shout, "Hey, not all housewives are pathetic!" But she comes around at the end, which is what I, the reader, was hoping for, longing for, what kept me up beyond the hour any human being who is not being paid or cramming for a midterm or nursing a newborn should be awake. The book's endings are predictable enough, complete with the predictable messages that women are better off without men anyway, and the only fulfillment out there for women is to leave the home and get a job. But even with all of that, I was still pleased with how this woman became herself, and I was willing to go with her on the journey. There is not a single healthy relationship in this book, not one. And interestingly enough, the wives who are wronged are the ones who come through and win. It bothers me that there is no example of what a healthy marriage looks like, or even that such a thing is possible, (even more disturbing, if anybody wrote about such a thing, would such a book sell? Certainly Oprah, the Queen of who lives and dies in the world of literature, would kill it), but I do still like the idea of wives triumphing over trials. Wives and mothers, we are so much stronger than we know. At least the author was willing to give us that. And despite some of the other messages I got, I appreciated that one. Now if a small child would just give me a nap, I'd be all set.
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Wow, never had to do that before

I went over to a friend's house this morning, and her 5 year old daughter was home from school. She had a nasty tumble down hardwood floor stairs, and her mom was keeping her home to monitor her for a day. Usually Jacob is with me when I go over there, so the two kids run off and play, and we don't hear much from them until I drag him screaming from the playroom, as he insists that he never wants to leave because he's never had so much fun in his life EVER! (Yeah, I don't know where he gets his need for such DRAMA!) Anyway, today Jacob was at preschool, and so I got a healthy dose of 5 year old conversation. I like 5 year old conversation--it's like 4 year old conversation, with a little more, "Um...", a little more thinking expressions, and some ironic laughter. That, and an entire list of every child in her class. Then she said something that really, frankly, grossed me out. I didn't think that was humanely possible, really, given 4 years of motherhood and 6 years working in a healthcare field where my job consists mostly of watching old people eat. But, this is what she said. "Yeah, I was sick, so I took a bath, and then, um, I just had to, um (pulling, twirling hair, mashing it to her cheeks and putting it in her mouth, chewing on it, taking it out again), well, I was in the bath, and then I just barfed IN THE BATHTUB!" (Ironic, breathy laughter). Seriously. Ewwww. I looked at my friend, and she closed her eyes and nodded, as if the memory pained her. Now, don't get me wrong. I've dealt with plenty of vomit, both my own and other people's. But never have I had to clean out a full bathtub of water after a small child completely tossed her cookies. Well, crackers and cheese and some water and um, some crackers, with a little bit of gingerale she drank through a straw, to be exact. (Her mother tried to spare me the details, but really, is it possible to stop a 5 year old once she's on a roll?) Mothers, once again, my hat is off to us. The strong, the proud, and the seriously grotey. Kids should come with noseplugs. And Scotchguard. And some tranquilizer guns. Yeah, those would come in handy, too.
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