Some Mommy Bragging Time

My baby girl is becoming a philosopher.  At least a couple times a day, she is talking in representative, illustrative, abstract and comparative language.  Makes me smile to watch her connecting her dots as she waves her arms around dramatically to make her point.  Sweet thing.  Very big picture thinking from an 8 year old perspective.  Some of her points are very much building on previous conversation she's had with us- if you didn't know she was starting at building block number three, you'd definitely be left scratching your head.  Since we were there for the first three blocks, it just makes us proud of her and her thinking ability.

I love this project of growing people.  We ended up with two very different kids, but I just like them both so much.  You always know that you will love your kids, but it is fun to see them growing into people I would just choose to hang out with; if I just met them, I would think these are great kids.  Makes me happy.

Various Dreams

I want to learn how to make this:

I ordered a book about a week ago to learn how to do metal stamping.  I am EXCITED (YAYAYAY) to get it!!!  It comes with a DVD and everything!!!  My plan is to watch it, become instantly enlightened, buy all of the tools and materials to proceed, make a ton of them, have Stephanie become my selling agent, sell millions and then retire.  You gotta have a plan.
Something else I've been dreaming about is photography.  Tara (fellow aspirer and awesome photographer) sent a link to me the other day at http://www.weddingshow.com/.  Someday, we are going to do this.  Because you gotta have a dream too.

I need more hours in the day.

Tomorrow is the last day of eight hour-age at my job.  The plan is for Derrick to stay home tomorrow, get us packed **!** (A moment of silence here.....  and appreciation....  to go on a trip and not have to pack sounds even BETTER than a dream come true for me!!!) (One more moment of silence- this is just that good..............okay, now we proceed), then he will load up stuff and kids, pick me up at work at the end of my day, and onward to Seattle we shall go!  :)))  It will be so good to see David and Tara, spend time with them and also away from snow.  I plan on wearing a bikini while we are there.  I don't care if it's raining and cold- it'll be warmer there than it is here!!!

It is so gray outside today.  I'm tired- it was one of those dreaming nights last night- the kind that you wake up from feeling weepy and emotional.  It was weird though- instead of Mom, I was dreaming about Dad.  Actually, it was about a letter I had written about Dad (in my dream, because I've never actually written anything like that).  It was all crumpled up, and had some sad stuff scribbled all over it.  There were big x's crossing off all of the sad stuff, and the words "He cares more than you know" were written over and over in the side margins.  It doesn't surprise me that I dreamed about him.  I called him last night and we talked for about five minutes.  It's just so hard- our relationship always sorta hinged on Mom.  She was the one I talked to when I called.  If he ever answered the phone, it was always a quick "hi" for us and then he'd ask if I wanted to talk to Mom and I would say "Yep, love ya Dad" and then it was on to Mom.

I've been reading a book about goals and time management, and one of the goals the writer mentioned is building a closer relationship with one's dad.  That kind of caught me off guard.  Aren't parental relationships supposed to be one of those effortless bonds that just happen because of all of the shared DNA<--- Yeah, I know that last sentence doesn't even make sense, but a part of me resents that my little idealistic notion isn't reality.

The truth is, my dad worked really hard to support six children and a wife that he loved dearly, and a lot of the time I was growing up he was sleeping (he worked night-shifts).  He has a genius and a passion for anything mechanical, and one of his favorite pastimes is working on cars (or tinkering with anything with bolts and metal parts).  I inherited a large amount of introversion from him, and also the inclination to get obsessed with projects, although mine are more crafty/artsy where as his are mechanical.  I've typed him as ISTP where as I am INFP (those links go to a pretty brutal typing link, but it feels accurate- probably because each type is a composite description from many of that specific type) (As another complete side note, I find it hilarious that the INFP description is so much longer than the ISTP- it WOULD be!  INFPs are WAAAAY more concerned about this kind of stuff, as of course that personality type would be...  I could go on and on...).

Anyhoo, I'm searching for a welding class for us to have a common bond with- something I could use with jewelry and projects, and he could use on his metal stuff- he just got a plasma cutter to play with.  Haven't found anything yet, but I bet the Adult Education at the Emily Dickenson School will eventually have one.  Put that one in the goal category too, I guess.

So... those are my rambling and disjointed thoughts today:)

Mutual Tutelage

Being a parent is such an interesting experience.  It allows one to experience all of the emotions of youth all over again; both good and bad ones. Watching my kids have to learn how to deal with their emotions while doing new activities has made me understand the universal way of frustration with ones self. This frustration was demonstrated (predictably) this last weekend on the slopes.

The first time I ever went skiing, I was seventeen.  I know- born and raised in snowy Montana and never went skiing?  Well, my folks weren’t skiers and most of the people I hung out with weren’t either. Skiing never even really crossed my mind as something that I should try. The only reason I went that first time at all was because it was a school function. 

We went to Snow Bowl, a place to this day I don’t particularly enjoy because its runs are STILL too hard for me.  I remember being out there with skis strapped awkwardly to my feet, wondering what in the world to do now.  I had heard there was something called the bunny hill, but I couldn’t have told you where (or what) it was, except for that bunnies are pretty non-threatening, so maybe I should look into their hill until I could figure out how to move with these boards attached to my feet.

When Rosanna Ne'er-Do-Well (Name changed to protect her identity- I hear she turned out to be a perfectly FINE adult, living somewhere in New Mexico, saving orphans and puppies) came up and asked me to go on the lift to higher runs, I was HESITANT… but, stupid enough to believe her when she said I would be FINE going down a run that was a little bit more challenging than the bunny hills. 

What she should have said is that she needed a buddy to keep her entertained while riding the lift, but she wasn’t really looking for the commitment involved in teaching a newby how to navigate that painful, terror-filled first trek down the side of a snow/ice coated mountain.  As soon as I fell off the lift, I found myself all alone. I watched Rosanna through snow caked eyes, as she was gliding away shouting, “See you at the bottom, K?  We’ll ride up together again!”  I laid there for a bit, and then slowly untangled my legs/skis and tried to suck air back into my lungs.

In retrospect, I believe a couple kind souls asked if they could help me.  At that point, I became my own liability.  My frustration with my inability to do something (like STAND on skis, let alone glide on them) so IRKED me, that I found myself smiling politely and laughing, waving would-be-helpers on as if I had been skiing a hundred times before and how silly of me to be so clumsy this day. What IS it about suffering alone in silence that is SO satisfying? 

Once I was upright and semi-mobile, I awkwardly scooted my way along, following the herd to some unknown destination.  Once there, I looked down the steep incline and I had a riveting thought.  It turns out (if you didn’t know this), that skis are lacking BRAKES. 

SO, I first decided that side-stepping down the mountain might be my best bet for survival.  That lasted about five minutes, too much for even a seventeen year olds legs.  So I sat in the snow for about twenty minutes and froze, watching all of the other skiers with squinty eyes and an inner hiss of hate.  When I realized I was silently hoping for the small children whizzing by me to wreck, I knew I needed to get up and try to go down, or perish trying.  So, I did the hard work of standing up, pointing my skis downhill, flying for roughly 10 seconds, crashing, losing my skis, taking 15 minutes to find said skis and refasten them to my feet, pointing downhill again and then repeating the whole wretched process.  It took me two and a half hours to get off of that mountain.  There were several times during that I was indeed laying sideways on the side of a run, crying.  When I finally got to the bottom, I limped into the lodge, ordered a hot chocolate, and vowed to never ski again.

We are constantly pushed into new waters (or down ski slopes), whether we want it or not.  Getting all frustrated with oneself and feeling like you are the only person in the universe to ever struggle is pointless.  Teaching my kids (with Derrick) to do something that was so incredibly hard for me to learn is so…  poignant.  Made me remember exactly what it feels like to just want to lay there until Spring for someone to scrape you up and take you the rest of the way down.  Come to think of it, I still feel that way quite a bit, only in a more general “this is too hard” mentality… that whole wanting to be a bear and hibernate frame of mind….

At the end of the day, my kids’ attitudes were awesome.  Kloe said “That was FUN! When can we do it again?”  Even after getting lodged in a deep pile of snow, after having her skis explode off of her feet, after having been so jammed that it took both Derrick and I to get her unstuck.  Same with Derrin- even after getting to the bottom of a hill and realizing that he’d have to either hop up a hill with a board attached or totally unhook from his board and have to struggle back into it at the top (both equally daunting and devastating prospects at that moment), he still jumped right back into having fun.    I’m not saying it didn’t take a bit to snap their attention back to the task at hand- they really would have just lain there without a bit of “help”.  But they were will to listen and accept help (not like their ol’ ma on her first trip down).  

Good lesson day for me.

On being an INFP

Saddest on Myers/Briggs? hahaha:)
~Type Descriptions~
INFp [+] and [-]

If your type is Intuitive-Ethical Intratim - INFp (The Romantic):

You are a very romantic person and have an excellent imagination. You appreciate beauty in both art and life. Your creative nature cannot stand greyness and regularity. You always bring an element of elegance and originality to any situation. You understand others moods and dispositions well and will often use your good sense of humour to uplift friends and family. You posses a rich variety of emotions and you can apply it to many situations. You depend greatly on your emotions to guide you. Sometimes you show great feeling for people and may often idealise others. Wherever you go you often create an atmosphere of elation and optimism.

You have a tendency to be led by lofty aspirations to an easy life. You often complain about your emotional and physical state. Eventually you can cause people to tire of you and even doubt your honesty concerning your well being. Sometimes you waste lots of time on small talk and fruitless dreaming instead of realistic activity. You have difficulty forcing yourself to do uninteresting, everyday chores, especially if finances and household economy are involved. You often cannot resist buying something that catches your eye sometimes causing you to exceed your budget.