My Girls Rock

I am so very excited for this weekend to get here that I don't know how I'm going to be able to wait. 

This weekend there are going to be girls in my house.  No boys.  Just girls. 

Events have transpired to make it possible for me to spend at least Friday night and Saturday with not only The Beautiful Redhead, but my pretend grand baby and her mother, my Bonus Child!

Having cleaned the carpets and feeling like the queen of my domain, I am ready for them. 

Each one of these girls is so dear to my heart that they can make me cry at the drop of a hat.  They can also make me want to shake them at the drop of a hat, but that's how I know I REALLY REALLY love them!  That I let them live is testament to my love!  I can have faith here because I easily remember being just as stupid self involved brave and headstrong as they do now.  I have the sort of sinking feeling that it's time to tell them the reality version of some of the choices I made, instead of the bright, shining, cleaned up version I have striven so hard to maintain for so long.  Why would I do that?  To protect myself them, of course!!

We are going to eat whatever we want, regardless of it's nutritional value and with abandon, drink wine, take bubble baths, talk all the time, and do whatever that sweet baby dreams up.  I will be her Lady in Waiting for the entire night and following morning, at least.  Last time it was making tents that pleased her.  I actually have a real tent to put up in the basement that was a big winner with my own little ones......and a blow up mattress, should you be experienced in slavery to small children and be thinking ahead about how that could all go wrong.  I am prepared.  BRING IT.  She also is big enough now to drag the chair over to the sink, where she has spent many happy hours wearing rubber gloves, splashing water all over the place and sporadically throwing food around.  Shredded cheese is my least favorite substance for flinging, and in her defense, most of that is actually dropped.  Boiled eggs are probably my favorite flingable substance, but only if she hasn't eaten them down to the yolk yet.  This is how memories are made, people. 

I simply cannot wait. 

If I don't live to see my own grandchildren, God forbid it, I will die happy that I got the chance to pretend.  I have the best time with that child.  It's hard to explain how you can laugh out loud till tears run down your face for 20 miles in a row because you can hear her talking to someone on your cell phone and just kissing, kissing, kissing, whomever she is talking to, while simultaneously wondering who in God's name she really is calling and not caring enough to pull over and take away her happiness.  The entire time that was happening I was also feeling terrible because I knew she was missing her mother and wanting to make up for that.  You kind of had to be there.  Or to have been there once, at pretty much any point in your life.  You never forget those moments, nor should you.  I just always have the best time with her--sniff, sniff.

Also, my kids will have a good idea of what a grandmother is supposed to do.  It is one of the things that have amazed me the most, as a mother, how we change ours life styles in order to give our children a picture of what a mother is supposed to be like.  Like a filter that we conform to, even the most selfish of us.  This is bringing me to a little bit of a throw down I had to have with one of my oldest, best friends, whose mother has Alzheimer's Syndrome.  But that is another story for another day. I won't forget, and I want to end this post on a positive note.  Positive notes are getting more rare every day.  So unless the world stops spinning before this weekend, I have something to look forward to.  I need it, it's been a looooooong winter.

Bricks in the wall

Both halves of the grand finale were thrilled to have another snow day today. I was pretty thrilled also, and left instructions for the driveway to be cleared. I left detailed instructions for them to wear boots, coveralls, hats and gloves and told them to get it done while the sun was shining.
When I got home at noon it wasn't done. The sun was shining brightly, and I left detailed instructions for them to wear boots, coveralls, hats and gloves and told them to get it done while the sun was shining.
I called from work at 2 pm and it wasn't done. I left detailed instructions for them to wear boots, coveralls, hats and gloves and told them I was getting tired of telling them to get it done while the sun was shining.
When I got home at 5 it wasn't done.
SO, I fired some lasers out of my eyes and asked why it wasn't done.
The youngest baby said the oldest baby had told him to do half of the driveway because that's what the oldest baby did last time and I was happy!! The oldest baby said the last time he just did half of the driveway and I was happy!! Then the youngest baby fired off his favorite attack, which is "WHY DON'T YOU EVER GET ONTO THE OLDEST BABY!!!!! YOU ALWAYS BLAME ME". And I said "FOCUS, GRAND FINALE! FOCUS!!" And I gave them detailed instructions to wear boots, coveralls, hats and gloves and told them that it was really cold now, so to hurry as much as they could before they got frostbite or something that would be a terrible burden for me to deal with in addition to my other daily duties.
The driveway is done. Sort of. Probably.
It's dark now, so it's kind of hard to tell, but while I may have *technically* won this battle, I do not think I won this battle. At least not in the way I was imagining.
Which is the point of my post tonight.
You have to pick your battles, of course. But the biggest part of being a parent in repeating, repeating, double checking, triple checking, and making one last swoop through to make sure you haven't forgotten anything. It's pretending as though things are going to happen when you know in your heart that these things are not going to happen exactly the way you have pictured.
It's acting as though they have done what you asked them even when they haven't, and praising their effort rather than focusing on their short-comings.
When my kids were little and refused to pick up their toys I would do it with them. I would make them do it.
......I am still doing that, and with the Grand Finale I have been doing it for about 11 years.
Will it ever pay off? Who knows. Not me. Sometimes I wonder if I'm having any affect at all.
It's all I can do sometimes, not to throw dishes and break things. The only thing that keeps me from doing that is the certain knowledge that if I did, I would just have to clean up the mess. Oh sure, the kids might help, but it wouldn't be a stellar job. Someone would get glass embedded in their foot and we'd have an emergency room charge on top of me losing my mind and breaking all the dishes. And that's enough to stop me.
At least so far.
Being a parent is doing the same things, repeatedly, without thanks, praise, ackowledgement or compensation for years with only the hope of them ever paying off. Building walls, one small brick at a time. Chinking away ceaselessly with no end in sight.
The thing is, that's all right. You just keep on keeping on.
It is kind of hard not to keep repeating things, but eventually, if you get old enough, they will forgive you for that.
And I know that, eventually, the Grand Finale will have little argumentative ones who need to be reminded (4 times) and double checked.
Which makes it completely worth it.

Winter seems to drag on, doesn't it?
In 6 more weeks it will almost be spring!

Mistaken lyrics beget blog title

Update on non-smoking:  I have noticed, as have a couple of others, that I am smoking the magic stick less.  It is now about 9 or 10 in the morning before I really have a craving for the nicotine.
I have also heard rumblings of the starter kits being taken off the market.  I haven't researched it yet, but word on the street is that the FDA is throwing a fit because they haven't approved it.  I didn't know that was even a requirement of the FDA anymore with all the commercials for drugs on TV now, which turn out to have class action suits filed within a period of about 3 years because the drug they advertised and you went and got from your Dr. turned out to have serious side effects that will probably kill you.  Have you actually listened to those commercials?  The side effects they read at the end always have me in stitches.  You really have to wonder who would need a drug that bad.
But back to the electric cigarettes, I think we will still be able to buy the cartridge refills.  If you are interested in one at all, I would buy one or two now.  It has been a miracle for me and several of my friends. No one who has tried one has said it did not cut down on thier smoking.

In other news, I will tell you where the name of my blog comes from.  My oldest son, the Rock Star, recently recorded a CD with his band. This CD is the result of years of work, sweat, money, tears and life experience and I am so very proud of these kids.  The name of the band is Our Last Run.  I happen to know they take all exposure, especially if it's free, and I have been cleared to talk about them.
These kids have been playing together for 4 or 5 years, and for most of those years, our house was a place where musical instruments were always laying out, song lists and partially written songs were on slips of paper everywhere, and it was not uncommon for 5 or 6 strapping young gentlemen to wander in and inquire if there was anything to eat. (There was, as a result of my having discovered Pioneer
Woman about that time.)
It was loud, the hours were not regular, and you might get a call at 10 pm requesting an extension cord or something be delivered to where the band was playing.  The Rock Star wrote most of the lyrics and used words like "debris" and "disarray", which thrilled his already proud mother to no end.   "Hey, mom, listen to this song and help me figure out what to do with it" was a common request.
So, you would think I would know all the words, right?  Not so right. 
When I got my advance copy, I put it in my car and rode around until I had listened to the whole thing.  When I got home, I told The Rock Star that I absolutely loved it, raved on and on very enthusiastically, and said "Lace your days with hope", that is the best line.  The Rock Star didn't miss a beat.  He just smiled fondly and said "Huh.  It's actually "replace your fears with hope", but that's actually better.  I think I'll use that."  I felt terrible about it.  I assured him it probably wasn't his singing, it was more likely my old hearing.  But since I came up with it I decided to use it for my blog title.  If he wants to use it now I will of course give him permission.
I can't tell you what it is as a mother to listen to these songs.  They chronicle his life in those years, and he has grown so much and so WELL that I can only hope he never stops.  It's been 6 months and I still can't keep from tearing up everytime I listen to it.
If I had known when I became a mother how wonderful it would turn out, I would do it all again, 1000 times.  It is being a parent that makes us become the best person we can be.  We live a certain way not because we like to (at first) but to give our children an example of how to live thier lives.  I used to think as a young mother that when the kids grew up I would have time to chase my own dreams.  Along the way I came to realize that my children were the only dreams I ever had worth pursuing. 
I think sacrifice is the secret to life.  You have to do it for a long time without getting anything back.  Because otherwise, it's not really sacrifice, is it?  If you do it long enough, you will learn to love it for itself.  It ceases to matter whether you get anything back.  And when you do, it only makes you glad they see that you made it and are grateful in turn. 
That's how you know they will be all right, even if you die tomorrow.  It all comes full circle and you will find that all those years you went on because you didn't know what else to do, well, there was a plan.  You were doing exactly what you were supposed to.
It's a really good feeling.  It takes 20 years, but it's SO SO worth it.

That should be enough hope to lace several days.  Especially for the young mothers who are trapped at home during this long, miserably cold haul up the hill to spring.  Take heart and have a little faith in yourself.  Trust God.  He really is in control.