Markers, haircuts, and fathers

I promised to upload pictures of Lucas and Tilly caught "Red handed" (literally) with their markers on the playroom wall. Here is Matilda when I entered the room (with camera!) and said "What are you doing?"



Here is Lucas the next day when I joined in and colored with them (see my flower?). I am a brave woman indeed coloring with washable markers on the walls. Ever try it? Its quite liberating.



I was thinking this weekend about my father. I think the trait I love best about my father is that he is in constant observation of people and the situations transpiring around them. These observations become stories that he tells to those he loves. I think I inherited this quality from him.

Growing up I could remember my father relating stories about people he encountered in immense detail. He would regale us over dinner with tales about people he worked with, men he was friends with and funny antidotes about their experiences, and women he met or knew personally. He often became so caught up with his memories of the event as he related it that he would pause and laugh to himself before he was able to verbally express what he was thinking of- Looking up in the air and silently musing with a barely audible snicker- my father often laughs through his nose, so to someone who doesn't know him, this may sound like he has allergies. :-) This tried my mothers patience- the fact that my father is in on a joke he hasn't shared. Knowing that his stories annoyed her made me try extra hard to be an active listener because I can not bare for anyones voice to fall upon deaf ears. And, I don't believe my father has ever met an ugly woman. Its the latter that impressed endearment of my father upon me. When my father describes a woman, she is not ugly unless she is somehow a sour or sullen person. Otherwise, he manages to see a quality of beauty in all of us. He will describe a womans eyes, a personality he thought was especially becoming, etc. But, what he doesn't mention is age, weight, or color. If you want to know these things you have to ask. And with age he is particularly funny- he will generalize with entire decades at once. He often tells me "Oh, she is around your age" and this could mean she is 25-45 years old! Having a father like this made me especially aware of the charming physical attributes of everyone I met, and allowed me to be able to appreciate beauty. Obvious, and hidden.

I went to Starbucks again this past weekend- for Mother's Day. First, I don't expect gifts for Mother's Day. The great thing in my life is my children and I don't need to be honored for what is a daily gift to me on one particular holiday a year. However, Duane gave me the cutest card with scribbles from all the kids on it (he wrote underneath each in parenthesis who was the author of the scribble sentiments). He also gave me a starbucks gift card. Which I used in spite of my contrary feelings on the subject of receiving gifts on Mother's Day. :-)

My corner was vacant and I had the comfy chair again! And while the background noise of the baristas was kept to a minimum in this far corner of the coffee house, there were two women seated at the table closest to the comfy chairs having an excited conversation. While I was there to read, I couldn't help but make practice of my father's observation skills. One of the women had apparently traveled some distance to see the other friend. I gathered this because her companion was talking of the changes to the area since she had last visited. Both women were Christian- and not in a southern way (everyone here is "Christian") but in active faith way. Conversation was peppered with expressions like "God will provide" and "I trust God to...". I really like people who are attached to their faith and speak of it as if its ingrained in their being, not something second hand which has been passed on by coincidence, not understanding. The local woman was very striking. She had sensual eyes. Dark almond eyes which were framed by an out of date hairstyle- a "bob"- but, it was a perfect way to showcase her eyes and seemed very stylish framing her face. It was rather odd to see a middle aged woman with bedroom eyes in a coffee house on a Sunday afternoon. I envied her that she could be an attractive woman without even trying. Mae West had bedroom eyes. I once read that in her 70's she worked with a 20 year old Rachel Welch and West had asked the director who was more attractive. Thats the sort of self confidence I believe all women should possess! Back to Starbucks- the lady with the lovely eyes faced me so I was able to see her clearly. Her traveling friend had her back to me, so my observations of her was kept to her personality. Which I liked very much because she was a gracious listener and an empathetic friend. Had they not been so animated and expressive I am sure my book would of sustained my interest and kept me from eavesdropping! However, instead I was privy to their lunch break and it gave me an interesting bird's eye view of their friendship. What impressed me was how after only five minutes of awkward pauses and required "catch-ups" they resumed their obviously long enduring friendship and engaged in support to one another and encouragement. They switched back and forth from subjects in a lyrical manor, leaning in or waving a hand to punctuate poignant moments, voices rising and falling constantly, but, keeping in harmony with one another. As if they were singing in a choir. It made me miss having girlfriend's locally, or being able to visit my childhood friends. Surely there is a song I sing with my friends. I wonder what it sounds like.

Once they left I draped myself over the chair in a familiar fashion and immersed myself into a new book for 2 hours.

That evening we went to a local park and then out to dinner. This park was fabulous!!! It had four toddler swings so we were able to let all the babies play at the same time and each of us pushed two at once back and forth.

Ewan is now crawling as fast as Rowan. But Rowan is pulling up and trying to cruise. Silly wee one! He hasn't the balance for cruising so after a few moments he teeters backward and then sticks his lower lip out for effect. He also chases his older siblings around the room wishing to play. Lucas and Tilly have become patient with their siblings and good playmates. Matilda enjoys smooching them. Lucas likes to pretend to feed them with play food bowls and empty spoons (Ewan thinks this is horrible and will screetch if his spoon is empty).

Rowan had to have a haircut. Here is the before:



Here is the little fellow now. Duane has taken to calling him "Frodo Baggins".



Here is Ewan looking very determined in crawling. Duane calls him "BigButt Baggins".



Ta-ta for today!

Pies and musings

This past weekend I made my first Key Lime Pie. I don't want to claim any gourmet status from this. I went with the basic recipe thats all over the backs of boxes, lime juice bottles and sweetened condensed milk cans with a basic pre-made graham crust (I prefer gingersnap crust, but was short on time). But, I did make it my own by serving it with a fresh raspberry coulis made from frozen raspberries and grand marnier. Oh the sauce was as good as the pie! My husband is as much of a pie man as a cake man, but I lean more toward cakes. However, as we approach the southern summer humidity, perhaps I should tweak my recipe selection to include more pies. My mother has the best ice box pie I have ever had!

Ewan is now crawling along with Rowan. Rowan was an early crawler, and Ewan and early sitter but both are now sitting and crawling and a few weeks earlier than Lucas and Matilda did. I credit this to them having the larger playroom now which Lucas and Matilda didn't have... and the fact that "tummy time" isn't nearly as scary the second time around. Or, third and fourth time I should say.

A friend of mine was telling me a story about her mother than has quite effected me. I was telling her how often when people tell me things, I *want* to ask them to stop. For instance, if I know someone and think well of them, I really don't want to hear that five years ago they were a stripper or something. Plus, out of its original context, most past stories about people sound way worse than the circumstances may have been during that time the events occurred that became the source of the original tale. And besides, What does that have to do with them *now*. I guess alot of people relish being included in that sort of ugly gossip, but I don't. It usually makes me feel very sad for the persons past, and then worrying I will now judge them based upon their mistakes. Or repeat the story myself. Goodness knows we have all made mistakes and all of us surely have skeletons in our closets we would prefer to not have dragged out for company!

So my friend was telling me about her mother who passed away a few years ago. She said her mother didn't like hearing hurtful gossip and didn't like hearing what she described as "off color humor". She said when anyone would approach her and begin a conversation with "I heard the worst thing about _____!" her mom would step back, throw her hand up, and say "I don't want to hear it then." Or "I just heard this joke, its a little bit rude but..." her mom would interject "Then you might should share it with someone else".

This behavior was so shocking to me that I had to just sit on it for a week and think. WHY did this shock me? WHY does this sound so strange?

Because I was brought up to always be a polite listener and to not hurt other peoples feelings. I don't know how I became this way- I can't tell you if it was having a mother can be insensitive, or if it was from being told every single person was our "elder" who had earned our respect... all I know is that I have become an adult who listens to garbage they would rather not hear for the sake of avoiding conflict by asking the person to stop including me in their gossip.

And worse, I am involved in triangular communications all the time and those are so unhealthy. Do you know what this is? This is when person B and person C both have a dislike for person A. Person B calls Person C and tells them something Person A recently did. Now these two neither have perspective or unbiase toward A because they both dislike them. Person C engages in gossip and reaffirms the negative experience Person B had. Person B leaves the conversation with even more hostility than they began with toward Person A because they gossiped with a person who "dittos" their feelings.

Or, here is another example. Person B calls you and says "I think you should know what Person A has said, but its in confidence". Person C then hears something very ugly thats essentially hearsay but sworn to secrecy so they can neither confirm or deny the rumor about Person A. And when they are relating something Person A said about you, you are now burdened with the knowledge of a conversation that may have not been intended for you, and unable to confront Person A to ask. Then you grow to hate someone based on gossip you were asked to not confirm.

Its that last scenario thats make me want to pull my hair out. I really don't want to hear anything ugly being said about me, my husband, or my children. I don't want to hear ugly things that *might* be said about us regarding my decisions for our family. If Person A has a problem with me, they need to deal with me directly, and if they are just venting to Person B about me, I perfectly respect that and don't want to know!!!

What happened to discretion?

Both of the previous mentioned types of dysfunctional conversations rely on the third leg- person C- to function.

I initially thought I would just copy my friends mother and start throwing up my hand and asking that the information be relayed to someone else. I haven't been able to do this. Ugh. The lessons from my childhood on being a polite listener are ingrained too deeply.

My current idea has been to undermine the strength of the triangle by not being an active listener. Maybe I can't stop them by throwing up my hand, but perhaps if I become a person who it isn't fun to relay gossip to, it will still stop none the less. This process will be slower, but it may have the same result. And in the mean time I want to work on being more assertive. After all, the reason I don't want to throw my hand up and say "No, please don't tell me this" is because I worry I am hurting the other persons feelings. But, hearing this stuff hurts *my feelings*. Why should I sacrifice myself for the sake of GOSSIP?

Just something I am working on...

It is all hard

Twin Mother Haiku

Two souls in one womb
Three hearts beat together
One mother finds joy ~ Lizzie

I have been visiting twin blogs lately. About 30 in the past two weeks. I have found some delightful blogs- check out Katies Paper Haven in my links, she has time to raise twins and nurture her artistic talents, too! I was so impressed! I am glad to have found her.

I noticed a recurring theme in other twin blogs that just makes me uncomfortable. Not all of them mind you, but roughly half of them (if you are visiting my blog because I commented in your twin blog- I only commented on the blogs I LIKED, so yours isn't one I am venting about). And that is frequent vents about how much harder twin mothers have it than mothers of singletons. All sorts of little antidotes about singleton mommies who have time to diet, stay athletic, dress their babies in 'oh so cute' clothing, drive around in their small sports cars, show off their post pregnancy abs etc etc etc. Very snide remarks.

(I suppose you could take this one step further and mothers of high order multiples of quads and sextuplets could blog about twin moms and how they complain about how hard life is when they have less than half the newborns the mom of quads or sextuplets has.)

I have to say that I really can't tell that raising two sets of twins is any harder than other moms have it raising a larger family. I take that back- both my grandmothers had four daughters and spaced their birth order out far enough that their eldest daughters could help with the newest babies. That was savvy parenting, in my opinion! But in general, we seem to share the same challenges, joys, and lack of sleep and "me time".

Everyones parenting choices and the way they decide to build their families will have pros and cons. Everyone has luxuries and everyone has made concessions and sacrifices. Whenever I find myself leaning toward feeling jealousy of another mother, I try and put myself in their situation looking in on *me*. It is funny how from an outside perspective you can often see your own experiences anew. Reminds me of a friend of mine... when she learned I was having a second set of twins she said "Four babies and only having to be pregnant TWICE, oh wow are you lucky!". Before she said this I had been feeling overwhelmed and frightened. Hearing her naive perspective on pregnancy and childbirth made me laugh! She was right, I hate being pregnant! If I could have four healthy children but only endure pregnancy two times, I would choose twins.

Yesterday, when it was time for Lucas and Tilly to go down for their nap, we were walking down the hall together to wash our hands and faces. Both of them now exhibit a "happy run"- its the sweetest combination fast walk and skip. They look side to side the entire time, trying to see if there is anything they could grab in a hurry before nap. Lucas, in particular, keeps a pile of "sticks" he has collected from our front yard outside under the settee in the foyer. He often will stoop and try to grab one before jaunting toward the bathroom yelling "Stick! Stick!". I was watching them and it dawned on me how they have become the tiniest, sweetest, most charming people I know- my favorite people in the world. To be able to watch them blossom, to be able to experience their unique personalities and gifts...four very different children.

Its difficult for me to see such sweet dispositions and experience such joy and define my daily life as hard. I would prefer to say my life is rewarding.