Everyone Should Vote. Even if you are Three.

After Election Day, everyone needs to tip one back in celebration, right? 

 Aaah, Nerds. That's the stuff. 

My favorite part is that the child dressed himself on election morning, so he looks like a candidate for himself.

When we left the polling place, I wanted to see if he remembered anything about my explanation about what voting meant, what civic responsibility is, blah, blah, blah.

His summary of voting: "we just chose who is in the ruler of the whole world." Okay, good enough.

Procrastination - Thy Name is Rachel

I have a midterm today.

I have a "prospectus" due today.

Did you know that if you ad "us" to the end of a word it not only sounds fancy, it is apparently "Latin" and thus academic, smart sounding and pompous. It is also no less due than it was five minutes ago.

My prospectus is supposed to be what I want to write my seminar paper about. I don't know what to write my seminar paper about because I hate my seminar. Can I write 15-20 pages about how much I've learned that I hate Romantic Literature? Is that allowed? I'm pretty sure that it's allowed but not encouraged since my professor pretty much lives and breathes it.

My midterm however is decidedly more interesting (at least to me and the other six people who like medieval literature). Well, except for the few questions that are going to be about pronoun declension. If I even started to explain it at all, you would literally die of boredom. I did not know you could/should or would want to decline pronouns. Apparently it's an antiquated system that we have done away with. For that, I say no thank you, I decline the idea of declining pronouns. Ha, get it? What? A joke about grammar isn't funny? I thought it was. Am I the only one who gets it?

Am I studying too much? Perhaps.

Am I putting off the last few minutes of studying at this very moment. Absolutely.

Is it too stinking hot to do anything related to thinking. Absolutely.

And why, why, why is it so blazing hot in the first week of November? It is literally a thousand degrees. And why, when it it is a thousand degrees does my child insist on sleeping with the comforter on? Kids are weird.

Gluttony: McClain Style

I'm ashamed to say I taught my son a terrible lesson last night. He wanted to help pass out the candy when we got back last night. Before I let him begin, I sorted through the bowl and pulled out all the Nerds. He looked at me with a look of astonishment and said, "but that's for the children!" as I set the tiny boxes on the counter.

I replied "but this is the good candy. We'll keep it for us."

The look on his face was sheer and total panic, followed by a lightbulb, as if the idea of hoarding had never occurred to him.

I spent the next thirty minutes trying to rationalize with him that we should always share and how sometimes it's okay to keep something for ourselves but it all came out like crap, because let's be honest, it was.

And that my friends is good parenting.

Happy Halloween!

We took a big risk this year. We decided to let Collin actually help with carving the pumpkins. I don't mean we let him do the scooping, or the drawing or watching and letting him think he helped. I mean we let him wield a knife. Not some mamby-pamby orange handled pumpkin carving kit knife either. A real one. Don't get excited, it was pretty dull and it was with Mommy. Nonetheless, he was pretty excited. Don't you think?

And this is Collin about to come apart with excitement because trick or treating just.hasn't.started.quite.yet. Why!? Why?! Why?!

On another note, the "Jack" pumpkin looks pretty awesome doesn't it? Daddy did it and I'm impressed.

Collin was immensely tolerant of letting me take pictures while we waited for Gracie and Ben to show up to go out tonight. I got a couple of really cute shots. I can't get over how cute he looks.

Less tolerant of taking a picture tonight? Ben. Faster than a speeding bullet that kid. Had to be said. Thus our best picture is this: blurry and not together. But you get the gist. They had fun.

Hup Two Three Four - That's Parade Talk

This is Collin's preschool class...well, most of Collin's class. I'm not saying that my son is the cutest or anything. Nope, I'm not.

But, he sort of is. I'm allowed to think that if I'm his mom. I mean look at him.

Does anyone out there want to disagree? I mean he's even got the parade wave down. What a charmer. And by the way, is there anything more precious than like eighty preschoolers marching around in costumes and waving at their parents? I swear, I love Halloween at preschool. It almost makes me want another kid. Oh wait, they need to be potty trained to go there.

And, just for posterity's sake, here's my kid NOT singing while all the other kids do their thing. You'll note some of them are doing their dance moves, some of them are singing, some of them are doing nothing.

The key is that Collin is very clearly doing nothing except scowling at his mother who has just finished miming to him "SSSSSSIIIIIINNNG!!" Why you might ask? Because he's been singing annoying half songs around the house all week and demanding that I sing the rest of them.

It was nice to at least hear the rest of them played so I could hear them in their entirety, despite seeing Collin just stand there like a statue. Silly me for thinking he might sing this time. Weird kid.

"Dem Bones, Dem Bones Dem Dancin' Bones...."

What I Think Wednesday

Ahem, hold on a moment while I pull out my soap box….

So, a long time ago I made myself a promise that I would stop worrying myself over what everyone else thought of me and to care more about what I thought of myself. That is an easier promise said than done. Think about that for a moment. It means that every time you overhear someone say something about you, every time you see someone roll their eyes, or you imagine someone taking a second look at you when you think you are having a bad hair day, you have to quiet that self doubtful voice in your head that judges, questions or even rewards.

This became more of a challenge when I had my son and then one day, it became easier. I let things go. I let people go. I let everything go. I realized that to be an effective mother, I had to be a good model. I had to show my son that I had to truly, honestly believe that I am the best me I can be, even if I didn’t always know what I was doing. In other words, I had to believe that I was okay with myself even when I was wrong. I also had to show my son that it’s not okay to be anything other than this.

Being at a place of peace in myself, as a constant struggle, has shown me that the negativity that comes from passing judgment on others comes from a place of insecurity. It is a constant struggle to resist the temptation to fall back to the place of worrying over security of my own identity, a struggle that I think we must all find ourselves in, whether it is in our parenting, our image, anything. But, when we make frivolous, silly comments or judgmental statements of others, we only reflect our own struggle and it makes us all smaller.

Rather than spending hours hashing over in my mind a small comment made by a small individual, thinking of how the dozens of friends I have would disagree with said individual, or said individuals, and how my husband and son would find them insane, and how I could rationalize them away, it dawns on me, the point is we can all do the same rationalization with anyone’s disagreeable commentaries. Everyone is different. We all have our own individual reasons for doing anything that we do. Anything. Ever. So long as no one is hurting anyone and we are all loving our families and being the best people we can be, making our way in this world, why sit in angry, purposeless judgment of one another anyway? Hurtful, mean things, said in spite are just fuel for pointless anger?

A friend of mine has a wonderful quote on her Facebook page that I think is wonderful, (don’t we all just love Facebook), it says, “Being authentic only really hurts those that aren’t. It angers the people that haven’t really come to know how to be vulnerable.” Warren Buffet said it. Who cares about Warren Buffet, but it’s a good point. When you are a real “you” it’s obvious and you aren’t wearing any amour and because of that, those people who are not authentic, and who do hide behind insecurity, feel it is okay to throw judgmental jabs at you. Trust me, our authenticity is protection enough from the harmful words. Knowing who you are is much better than being able to laugh at a joke that you think is funny.

And now, my soap box is put back away. So there, no one be talking about me behind my back no more.

My Very Own Living Bobble-Head

Someone very special had a 5th birthday this week. That meant a trip to the toy store for us. Mommy had just gotten a phone call from Collin's gymnastics teacher regarding his "distracting" behavior and how, while he's a precious kid, we have to sit with him in class from now on to help encourage him stay on task a little better. I was feeling a little sad for my boy and a little frustrated and a little worried and a little sure that this isn't the first time a teacher will call about my, let's just call him, exuberant, child. So, what better way to make us both feel better, than to buy him a present?

Like say, the coolest present ever? He was so excited! He loved it. He couldn't wait for Daddy to get home so he could fight him. The buttons make all the Darth Vader sounds and the orange button morphs your voice into DV's voice. Well, approximately. For Collin, it just sounds like a chipmunk with a scratchy throat.

Don't worry though, we did remember to get Gracie a present too. And she had a fun party. It isn't a party unless someone loses their pants. Thanks, Collin for making sure that someone was you.