Heavy Blanket

This was the kids a few days ago. Right before Spring Break. Oh yeah...they got two days extra for Spring Break due to the ...ummmm...blizzard (?) we had. It was awesome while it was snowing and I certainly understood why they got out of school on Thursday since it was expected to get worse during the day. But, Friday,...it was all done for us. I took the kids to a real sled hill for some boarding fun. I took pics, but on my phone and I haven't figured out the best way to transfer them to my computer. We also went on Saturday, and yes I forgot to take my camera that day, too. It wasn't as gorgeous since a lot of the snow was gone from the hill, but there were still some paths a boarder could take. There is still some hope I'll get some decent boarding pics since we're going up too Estes Park on Thursday in hopes of finding some good sledding snow.

Here are what my flowers look like after being blanketed by a heavy foot of snow. They are still trying to recover. My poor, poor babes. I know the pansies will have a long life over the summer, but those daffodils have just a short while to show their beauty.

I feel like this little flower. Maybe it was the unexpected start of Spring break when we have nothing planned. I just feel that achy weight in my belly that I need busy-ness to cover up. We had expected to have baseball all weekend. Canceled. Too much empty time to feel that weight. Even my runs haven't filled my belly with happiness. Nor the yoga. I'm too unsettled, too filled with an odd angst. In some ways I feel like I'm blindfolded and being spun and it's about time for me to pin the tail on the donkey, but I have no idea what way to go. Except it's no kids game.

On Saturday the N came into my room. I was feeling this angst so completely that I was taking my time going downstairs. This feeling is toxic and easily affects all who come near it. I tried to explain to the N that I was feeling a bit sad and was just taking some time to myself. He sat with me for a few moments while I scrolled through some online job ads. We weren't talking or anything, but my toxic glumness attached itself to him. It was like some alien movie. Just having him there was bringing some peace to me, but it was having the opposite reaction for him. It was like the toxin transferred itself to my baby. What really happened was that he has awareness of our problems and woes, and neither the R or I are very heroic at hiding our feelings. Seeing me sad just brought his awareness to the forefront. But it was just so odd the way it happened; how it seeped from me to him. We sat for a quiet few moments and moved away from it, that toxic slug, but it really emphasized for me how we need to be a bit more protective of our sensitive N.

Next year we're going somewhere for Spring break.

This is what I want to feel like. Ready to bloom. That's what I'm striving for.

DROP IT!

Last weekend the N played in his first competitive baseball tournament. Up until now he's always played in recreational leagues where things are quite a bit more casual. This year they are wearing spiffy, all matching uniforms, kids can typically throw the ball from one to another without it sailing over some one's head, there aren't many swings at balls pitched up above their heads, and if you hit a ball in the infield it will probably cause you to get out at 1st base. There are no more Lucy's in the outfield. These kids actually run to try to catch the ball.





Along with the increase in skill comes an increase in the intensity and the expectations of the parents, coaches, and kids. Which we were okay with. We definitely bought into it. Competitive teams typically cost much more than the rec leagues. But we wanted a chance for the N to play with other kids like him.

It was so disappointing last year when the N would pitch an awesome game, but once the pitchers had to be switched the next kid up would throw so wild that they would end up losing due to walked in runs. It was a good learning experience for the N; it's good to know you cannot control the outcome of everything and that you should really try your hardest anyway. But...it's also was less rewarding, too, and there wasn't a lot of improvement in his game that season. If this season plays out like this past weekend we'll see not only improvement in the N's game, but we'll be watching a lot of real baseball. Even last year I could see why people love to go watch baseball so much. It really got into our blood being outside, sitting in the grass, little siblings playing in adjacent fields, having the cows on the other side of the fence sauntering by.

In our family we also have soccer and flag football being played so there will be games that we don't all see. The M had soccer so the J, the M, and I missed the N's first game on Saturday. I guess we didn't miss the best the team had to offer. They started with the first of the two losses allowed for the tournament. We arrived towards the end of the 2nd game and missed the N pitch. We got that opportunity in the 3rd game. He was able to pitch most of the game and the team played well. That game was called early since the N's team was so far ahead. It seemed odd to me that the mercy rule could be used to help the team that would advance by allowing their pitchers to have extra innings for the next game. It's easy to be excited about a good baseball game when your team ends up winning.

Sunday was different, however. N's team would have to beat the team that didn't lose on Saturday two times to come in 1st. This other team came out playing a great game from the first pitch. These kids know baseball. The first two innings went okay for N's team. The other team only scored once. The 3rd inning was pretty ugly. N's team couldn't really get much in the way of hits, and the boy who took over the pitching from N had a rough time of it. N sat in the dugout icing his arm and drinking gatorade. He was doing okay. But in the next inning after a pitching change N's team woke up. They went in down by about 7. During this inning the other team was still able to hit a little, but didn't score. The transition in the game for me came when one of the boys on the other team batted a ball almost straight-up and our pitcher tried to catch it and from out in the bleachers I heard the deep voice of a dad, uncle, or grandpa, yelling


"DROP IT!"




What the ....?

After a couple of years hearing parents' nice voices saying "Good try" when the kid swings at a ball a foot above his head, I was a little stunned to hear a PARENT voice requesting a bad play from a child on the opposing team. I mean, really... cheer your kids on by all means, but to me it is bordering on bad sportsmanship to actually yell something disparaging to a kid on the other team. This is a 10U team, for crying out loud. I've only heard compliments tossed out...even to opposing players who make a great play. At that point the boy wasn't even close to catching the ball, and our team was down by quite a bit. I mean really,...I think that if our team had been so far ahead I would've been wanting the other pitcher to have that moment of glory, of actually catching the ball. They are just kids after all. Don't get me wrong. If it had been reversed and the game was on the line, and the other team had an error I would be glad for our kids if they could capitalize on it. But even then I'd feel bad for the kid who made the error.


After the "DROP IT" my voice got a lot louder and I cheered for every good thing our team did (and even now I'm still paying the price with a sore throat). N's team really made an incredible comeback effort and actually tied the game. And I have to admit feeling a little snotty when the other parents for the other team were yelling like we were as they recognized this wasn't going to be as easy as it had first appeared. I don't think I would have felt like that had it not been for Mr. "Drop-it".

Oh, the other team ended up winning, but it was close. They had that needed great hit when there was only one out left to go. And maybe I would've liked it if the boy had hit the ball directly to first base or not hit it at all, instead of hitting such a great hit. It just would never occur to me to hope for it or to actually do something like yell "MISS IT".


But along with the 2nd place plaques the N's team knew they had played a game to be proud of. All of the boys did, both teams. Both teams applauded each other as they got their plaques. That's what matters the most. In spite of the parents.

Marvelous Spring!

It's here!

It's that time!

Spring Colors!

I took these pictures yesterday to celebrate the 1st day of Spring AND just in case the rain/snow we may get on Monday ends up pummelling my delicate blooms. That seems like an annual tradition, doesn't it? Beautiful flower faces peek out then boom! That heavy spring snow plops right down on top of them. Either that or one of my boys accidently drops a ball on it. A couple of years ago I had planted crocuses and tulips at our house in MD. The N comes running in to tell me about our first purple crocus to bloom. When I went out a couple of minutes later, he and the crocus both looked crushed. He, very sorrowfully, told the tale of the crocus and the baseball, and the little boy who threw the baseball in the air...but didn't catch it. The marvel of nature is that next year, these dainty but tenacious flowers will be back again in spite of heavy spring snow and little boys. Pretty wise those flowers are.

Oh and the little boy? He does a bit better catching those baseballs now:

You wrote WHAT?

Usually this little box is a lot of fun for my kids.
We buy a new box of it every spring. They draw all sorts of things, pictures, mini baseball fields, tennis courts, but race tracks tend to be the most common creation. We haven't bought our new box yet, but we have a few stray pieces laying about in the garage, on the lawn, in the rocks.

Yesterday during a playdate with a little friend who's name starts with a J, but isn't the J (my J), another boy, Z, joined them. Now the other J used to live a couple houses down so he and Z know each other, but have never had what could be called an easy relationship. Actually I think they would say they hate each other just about 80% of the time you might ask them. In spite of this Z joined up with the J, the M, and the other J. Things must not have been going well because after awhile the J, the M, and the other J came into the house. There was not a guilty look between them. Z came over a few minutes later...with his mother. Now you know, that's just never a good sign when the mom comes over to have a word with you.

It turned out that the J, the M, and the other J have been doing pretty good in the 1st grade learning how to write and spell and all of that 1st grade stuff. So now...not only can they draw little pictures with chalk they can write nasty notes with it as well. I don't know how it started, it must have been my 4th child "it wasn't me" who I haven't talked about a lot, but who has quite a presence in our house. From the conversation with the Z and his mom I was able to get that some boys, the very boys who were in my house, had written some not very nice things about the Z. My focus at the time was on the general not being nice behavior, the saying mean things about someone, that sort of thing. I talked to my boys about how they can have more than one friend and that they can be nice to more than one kid at a time. I didn't know the specifics of what they wrote and instead focused on the boys playing nicely together. I wasn't sure exactly how to handle it since the other J was at our house until a designated time and I couldn't just send him home. As it turned out Z came in they had a snack and played together until it was time for the other J to go home. I had already decided that it would be awhile before the other J would be coming back and that they would be playing with other, less manipulative friends for awhile. He had already t-ed the R and I off the minute he walked in the door.

Later, I talked to them about what had happened, digging in just a little deeper, trying to help them realize that they had hurt a friend's feelings with their behavior and come to find out they actually wrote bad words describing Z. It was dark at the time, so it wasn't until this morning that we actually went out to see what was written. It was clearly written, their teacher would've been impressed with their penmanship, although I don't know what most of it said. There was a lot of Z is ... It was quite clearly however, not nice stuff. And jackass was amongst the words chosen. It doesn't look pretty in pretty colors either. I never was able to get clear who wrote what, but it didn't matter so much...because my 2 participants are grounded for awhile. One confessed to writing a bad word that he couldn't remember. The other remembered writing Z's name. They both said the other J wrote the jackass part. They both looked pretty chagrined while cleaning it up this morning.

Now as parents both the R and I have had problems with both Z and the other J. Z is totally into guns and playing Halo (remember he's in 1st grade). We've stopped our kids from going to his house because they played Halo and Call of Duty 4 on the x-box. Both games we explicitely forbid them to play. The M in particular was drawn to Z when he moved in because he loved, loved, loved his Star Wars lightsaber and clone trooper guns. We don't forbid playing guns outright, but we try to redirect them after a while. So I think some of our feelings about the games has affected the boys feelings towards the Z. That and the fact that he doesn't seem to play many other games. If it's not x-box Halo it's pretend Halo. While I'm okay with Star Wars pretend games, I'm not fine with the Halo stuff. It may be a thin line I'm drawing since both are steeped in violence, but the Star Wars stuff is very much pretend. So that's my line and I'm sticking to it.

Now the other J is a different story. It's not that he plays games we don't like, he is just very bossy and demanding at times. It was likely his influence that spawned the writing spree outside. He had a glinty expression while I was talking to him. And I'm all too familiar with all of the difficulties he has in school with his classmates, teacher, and all. I know from other moms that he was known among a lot of kids as the "bad" J (there were 2 kids in their class with the same J name). Like I said earlier something he said upon entering the house had already gotten my hackles up. In my mind I may have been thinking something like jackass .

I suppose all parents see their kids in a different light. I know that both Z's parents and the other J's parents think the other kid is totally the problem. We, the R and I, definitely know our kids behaved like jerks, jackasses even. We also realize that they are 6 and still learning the skills of juggling their feelings, conflicts with friends, and how to be in the middle when 2 friends don't get along. But I didn't ground them for their behavior until I realized that they had deliberately used words they know they aren't to use, and against someone who friend or not, deserving or not, was hurt by it. My initial plan was going to be one of avoidance...different playdates for awhile.

I know how I want my kids to behave: The language thing is obvious. I really don't want them to be thinking jackass. Jerk should be plenty powerful for a 6 year old. That goes for my 10 year old as well. And probably should for their mother, too.

It's the friendship thing that is less clear. I want them to know that they don't have to be best friends with everyone, but they should be polite about it; they shouldn't expect to always be the rule setters, but they can also walk away from a game they don't want to play. Politely. They can play with Z if they want to, but they don't have to play only the games he wants to. And the fact that the other J doesn' t like Z shouldn't affect their own opinions. And just because I don't like Z's gun games and their chosen x-box games doesn't mean he's a bad kid, even though he does at times behave like a jackass. It's hard for them to get all of these shades of gray. Wait until they realize the world isn't just black, white, or gray, but all of those colors in the crayon box. Life choices will be even tougher then.

Half-Time Chill

I've never been very good at leaving things half done. Especially if it's a problem I'm trying to solve (unless it's a people problem...then I'd rather just bury my head in the sand and hope it fades away, but that's a different topic).

Last week I was building a new web page using a tool. I'm building a site for a friend, for the experience (in other words I'm not getting paid!). I was staring at the paths to images and files the tool created and it just wasn't right. The other pages had been fine, but this one just looked odd. I fussed, and I mean fussed, for a couple of hours trying to figure out what I'd changed and where I'd changed it. I didn't want to save the file because I didn't want to save something that was wrong. Well...as it turned out the tool doesn't set the path names until you do save the file. Well...duh. There's a couple of hours of my life I'd like back, please.

I wouldn't really consider this too big of a problem since that sort of thing happens. Sorting through problems requires false steps. But, this happened right during the time I prepare dinner...for my family. The people who I should've been paying some attention to at that point, but who I was steadfastly ignoring as I groaned into my hands wondering what in the heck was going on. I was making dinner, but while things were cooking I was staring at my computer, hacking at the keys, and moaning, "What happened? What did I do?" interwoven with "Honey, mommy is trying to fix something. I'll read with you (spell with you, listen to you) later." Bug off. No, I really didn't say that!

I was this way when I was working too. My focus could be intense especially if I felt the pressure of impending deadlines. My tenacity made me a good problem solver, but it also made me difficult to work with. Sometimes I was too wrapped up in the solving and not as into the niceties as I should've been.

My husband has no problem with getting up and walking away from a problem and coming back to it later. He also had no problem advising me to do the same, which I, of course, ignore. Otherwise I might end up getting testy. If I were to get up and walk away from the problem I wouldn't really be able to get away from it. It would be haunting me at some level. And I'd probably still be testy. With an unsolved problem waiting for me.

I do wonder about how this will all play out if I end up working from home. And really with the ease with which you can take your work home with you on your laptop, I'm not sure how well I'm going to do with being a working mom. I'm an okay worker. I'm an okay mom. But putting them together? I'm not sure how well I'll be able to balance the two. I'm by nature high-strung without much of a reason to be. I've always needed serious downtime to unwind. Long hikes after work did the job. I didn't have kids to get home for, though. I worry that being a working mom will put me into high anxiety mode on a constant basis. I know that it's a matter of balance. Things have to be given up. Trade-offs have to be made. And it needs to be done. Just how. Just when. Those things I do not know. And that's probably been just about as stressful as it will be once it all goes into play. And maybe that's the answer. If I can give up the underlying stress of worrying about the future and just deal with the stress of actually living it maybe it will balance out stress for stress. I can hope can't I?

Mama's birds

This image of 1st and 2nd graders playing basketball,

along with this one (and many moments just like it)

remind me of this:

While this one at 4th grade...

and this one...

reminds me more of this:

I had forgotten what it was like when they just start out. The determination is there, but it's more a game of chance. Hands in the air, patiently waiting for the ball to come to their hands, hesitation when it does. Soon, so soon, that hesitation will wane, replaced with utter confidence about the path down the court, jostling, spinning, swishing. At least that's what we as parents hope for. Every day. Every day, my sweet little boys.

Remember when bubbles were innocent

like this warm spring day a couple of years ago?

In the still of our house, while the kids are away at school, the R and I work away on our little laptops, plink, plink, plink. Sometimes he issues profanities when the market turns in a way that is unexpected and crazy. Let's just say the dollar jar for charity is overflowing and I don't really think we can afford a donation that large. He needs to chill.

In the background CNBC is running. I may be busy trying to get pictures just so on a web page or designing a form to be used at school, but I can hear it. And.It.Drives.Me.Crazy. I know...I need to chill out myself, but ... CNBC? It is the epitome of all that is wrong with our world. Hearing financial people using terms like half-time and scorecard to describe the stock market to make themselves more accessible to us, the Joe the Plumbers of the world, makes me want to yell at the TV. Which I have been known to do.

For the past several days I can hear yammering of people analyzing how the new administration has caused a huge drop in the stock market with the plans that have been recently unveiled. Like a month ago we were all doing so much better. Yeah...I think I want Wall Street to determine how our economic system should be run. Because the free market should manage itself, right? RIGHT?! Sorry...I don't mean to yell at you.

Really, I'm all for the free markets. Logically it makes sense that the market should determine the price of goods. If it was all about supply and demand like in Economics 101 it would work just dandy. Once we get out of college however we realize how staged all of our textbooks are. Nothing is "all other things being equal". There are always many complicating factors. People with masters degrees in Finance don't have a clue about what will or won't work. How are we and Joe the Plumber supposed to figure it out.

My rant mainly is with all of the institutions in our lives that have directed us to be so intimately involved with the stock market. Our generation and the one coming up behind us were taught it's just crazy to NOT invest in the market over the long term because it goes up like 15% a year, right? RIGHT?! Uh oh...I'm doing it again. Sorry.

My investment advisor has told me for many years that you have to ride these ebbs and flows. That over time the market goes up. You shouldn't get out of the market because you miss out on the upswings. Well yeah...you don't want to miss out on those upswings. But wouldn't it be nicer to not lose thousands of dollars then have to take years to build it back to where it was before actually making more? Sure over the long term the market tends to go up. But that is over the long, long term. Not the next 3 to 5 years. Every time I would pull money out of the market he would strongly advise against it. He's fired.

My problem is that people have been convinced to put their retirement income, their savings into the stock market. It was the way that average Americans could also rake in the dough from this booming market. When I was young my parents didn't invest a lot of money in the stock market. You only invested what you could afford to lose. People at that time actually knew they could lose their investments. Now how do you save for retirement? Why put it into a 401K of course. And because you are now so good at saving for your retirement your company doesn't need to worry about providing you with that old pension. You're doing it all yourself. And about 8 years ago at this time people were trying to convince us to put our Social Security insurance into that same cool and booming market. Because shouldn't every day Joes have the opportunity to score big too?

Of course who benefits from that? Oh yeah, investment management companies and your company who no longer needs to provide you with that secured pension. Now I get it.

Now a lot of us don't have our MBAs from an Ivy league school, so we may not realize that so much of what companies are investing in is actually vapor. Economics 101 used things like guns and butter to describe resources and their management. Things you could touch. Things that if they were laying on the floor in the room you could find it. But we're much to sophisticated for that. No...we don't want to actually have our securities backed with something that has a known or quantifiable value. That's too easy. No instead let's invest it in something like...oh I don't know...oh YES! Mortgages!

Awesome. Because it just so happens that now mortgage companies have created these cool new mortgages that people can get without having any money down AND their payments are artificially low because they don't have to account for changes in interest rates over a period of 30 years using those well thought out and understood amortization formulas we used to always use. No! Now we can get people to buy the biggest house they can afford right now without even thinking about what will happen when interest rates go up and we have to charge them more for their mortgage. Well...it is written in their contract. Hopefully they read that part. And if they didn't that's their problem. Oh yeah...and the rest of America's, too. Oh well.

Not too long ago I wrote about the complexity of humanity and human thought. A lot of times when I look at what we humans do I chuckle. When I commuted to work in Silicon Valley and watched so many others like me going to do some weird job that society created a need for I used to laugh. It used to be that work was more tangible and you could actually see the results of what you did. A field plowed. A road built. A car coming off of the assembly line. Those jobs still exist, but what seems much more prevalent are jobs that used to be called paper pushing jobs, which now are more pushing bytes around. And worse, building bubbles. The chain that pushes a single paper, called a mortgage, around skimming fees for every fingertip touching it. It was a false economy. Not real. A pyramid scheme that fell apart when just a few people stopped sending their $ to the people listed at the top. It's not unusual for things to expand and contract too much. That is normal adjustments. But when things are built on a fake foundation it cannot help but completely fall.

Band aids don't fix broken bubbles. You have to let those go. Band aids are great at fixing surface level problems. Broken bones need to be reset and put into a cast for quite a while. Sometimes we have to suffer the bone being re broken so it will reset correctly. We need to have more tools than a few Superman band aids this time around. I worry though that we don't know how to do it. Because for so long the short term has been the goal. I truly believe that the short term thinking is part of what led to the huge amount of sheer greed that we've seen. But as with all crises huge opportunity exists. We can see that we've gone too far away from the fundamentals. But not so far away that we don't know what they are.