I am sitting here on my computer with the tv blaring behind me. My hubby is watching Conan O’Brien’s last show, and I cannot help but glance over my shoulder every time I hear something that catches my ear. I am a sentimental soul so when Conan starts thanking his viewers for watching him and talking about having no regrets, my ears perk up. He ends with a request to his viewers, especially the younger ones. I paraphrase: “Do not be cynical. No one always gets what they think they will get and that is life. Just be thoughtful and kind and it will work out.” I appreciate that he chose to give these words to his fans and viewers – words that validate why we love him. Too often we get caught up in seeing the worse in every person, thing, event in front of us that we auto pilot into cynical and agitated and abrasive. Conan could have easily done this on his last night but he chose to take himself to a higher and more peaceful state, and in the wake of his choice, he took his fans and viewers there, also. I learned about this concept of assuming positive intention through a culture shaping program that I lead at my work. The concept resonated with me from the moment I learned of it, and I work to practice it every day between the emails I receive, the calls I answer, and the colleagues and clients I interact with daily. It is tempting to go to auto pilot, which for me is assuming the most negative intention possible out of anything. I get an email that questions something I did and I automatically assume that I did something wrong; I have someone tell me that they don’t need me to work on something and I automatically assume that they think I cannot complete the task…. But, if I can just assume positive intention, my mood and thoughts leap forward. Just one email or one meeting where I assume the positive in someone propels me in a better direction and the end of my day feels lighter, like I can breathe easier. So, thank you Conan for reinforcing this concept for me tonight as I begin to wade through my emails from work. You have reversed my auto pilot to positive!
My daughter, Maria (bo bia fo fia lo lia do dia as we like to sing!)
What a gal
Ok, so I must admit I copied this concept from David Letterman and another mom blogger: the Top Ten list. Below I have the top ten things I love about this extraordinary daughter of mine. Here goes….
10. Her kick-butt body that is strong and beautiful and ready to lift high in the air any person that she deems worthy of her bear hug!
9. Her love of home. Keeping her pj’s on all day long would make her the happiest girl on earth.
8. Her empathy for others. She picks up on others’ feelings quickly and knows when she needs to comfort versus when she can act silly. We visited my grandma’s and grandpa’s graves the other day. She stood nest to them and spoke to them both. She told Grandpa that she was sad she did not meet him but that Grandma loved him and she told Grandma that she misses her house and loves her. When we went to my Aunt Sue’s wake, she kept looking over at Uncle Bill and asking how he was doing without Aunt Sue. For a month after that wake and funeral, she would draw pictures for Uncle Bill to remind him that Aunt Sue loved him.
7. Her loudness! When she finds out something great is going to happen (a day off school or a trip to Grandma’s house) she is her mother’s daughter. She is hyper as all get out, she screams every word until her voice is too hoarse to continue on, and she runs around like a complete lunatic!
6. The way she begs to stay up a little longer or play a little longer – “just 20 and 80 more minutes” or “how about 5 and 20 and 1 million minutes, pleeeease.”
5. The way she rushes all around the house to find something that she thinks will calm her brother down when he is upset, and the way she talks to her brother when he is climbing and pushing all over her “Ahh, I know you love me, little brother.”
4. The way she comforts me as I watch a sad movie and cry: “It’s ok, daughter, I will hold you and you will feel better” as she wraps her arm around my neck and squeezes me.
3. Her constant reminder that she is growing older each day: ” I am turning into a woman – I have hair on my legs” and “I have to turn five and then six and then seven and then eight …. You cannot stop me mom.”
2. Her response to me when we play “girlfriend and boyfriend.” She acts like she bumps into me on the street, I ask her to tell me her name, she asks mine, and then I shyly ask if she would like to get some pie sometime. She looks at me coyly and whispers “I can get some right now.” That is the way, sista!
1. The way she responds when I tell her that I want to do her hair a certain way or want her to wear certain clothes: “It’s my body and I can do what I can do with my body.” She does the same for me when dad tells me to do something – she will chime in and look at my husband pointedly asserting: “Mom can do what she can do because it is her body!”
My precious, strong-willed daughter! Oh, how I just love you to the moon, and the sun, and the trees, and my heart, and my blood (this is another thing I love about Maria – how she took my quote “I love you to the moon” and embellished it to include all the above – what a poet!).
Worms, Hemorrhoids, Fissures, Oh My
So, my mother-in-law had been watching my two year old son for a few days when she called on Saturday morning in a bit of a panic because Mario was having such trouble going poop. He had not gone since Tuesday night and he had just gone for my mother-in-law (Patty) but he had strained and cried and bled a little afterwards so Patty expressed concern that he may have a hemorrhoid or that “his plumbing may be off.” Now, let me say for the record that many people are probably thinking at this point “oh, those mother-in-laws and their constant worry and probing and…” but I have been blessed 1000x over with Patty and she is a far cry from a stereotypical storybook mother-in-law. If anyone worries too much, it is moi (thanks to my mom!) so I take Patty’s concerns to heart. Anyway, Mario and I had gone to Tuttle Mall on Tuesday night, and he had cried right before he pooped, too. I figured it was because of a little diaper rash or because he knew since he pooped we would have to leave the playland where he was proceeding to tackle every boy from age 2 to 5 (by the way, shouldn’t there be a rule on this Earth that if a kid plays non-stop for an hour in a playland and a mom has to watch that entire time, that kid MUST go to sleep on the way home so mom can enjoy some down time?). So, Patty and I decided that I should pick him up and head to Urgent Care to get him checked out. Mind you, I have my four and a half year old daughter (she gets very irritated if I say she is merely “four years old” and not “four and a half”) with us, too, which always lends to such fun times at the doctor’s office, much less Urgent Care.
We walk into the Urgent Care center greeted by young kids wearing masks, coughing up lungs, and looking like zombies who would rather be back in their caves. Great, if Mario and Maria are not sick now, they certainly will be by Monday. We sign Mario in and get called back immediately (thank god)! Mario goes into ballistic mode as soon as he sees medical staff because he remembers his times at Nationwide Childrens’ Hospital when he had his surgery a year ago. The staff were wonderful but he got cut and he got knocked out, and he did not like one minute of it. Therefore, he will make it known to all medical staff that he does not wish to be near any of them ever again. So, there is the nurse trying to get his temperature and he is flailing those arms and kicking those legs and not letting her within a two foot radius of his tiny little body. She finally allowed me to put the thermometer under his arm and she gave up on his blood pressure, which probably would have measured at 200/130 with the way he was screaming his lungs out. We get to go to a room (I am quite sure we beat out others whose kids were acting civil and humane) and there was a golden nugget on the counter – a tv with a movie in it. Ahhhh…. It was Happy Feet. This calmed Mario down nearly immediately and Maria and I looked at each other with thankful grins.
When Mario started to squirm a little because of the wait, Maria stated “It’s ok, Mario, the doctor is just going to check on you – he will not hurt you.” She is his biggest protector and if she thought the doctor would possibly hurt her brother, the doctor would be taken down before he got within ten feet of him. She is the muscle of the family after all. We sat and watched Happy Feet and all was calm until that door opened and in walked a doctor. Mario clung to me like a spider monkey pleading “no, mommy, no thank you!” The doctor tried to play games with him and make Mario smile but it was a worthless cause and the doctor soon realized that acting in a stealth fashion would be much more productive. He did a check-over, including a look at his bottom, and then ordered an x-ray. Yet another fun time with Mario kicking and screaming and yelling “no, thank you, let’s go mommy!”. Everyone got a complete kick out of how polite Mario is when he does not want something. We eventually got through that and headed back to the room with a sucker to watch Happy Feet.
When we got back I had to thank Maria over and over for being such a good girl and a great help to me with Mario. She turns into my “second husband” at times when my “first husband” is not around. She makes sure we have Mario’s blankie and his binkie, she tells me if she thinks Mario needs something, she asks questions about what the doctor said. She is gonna be a heckuva mom someday. The doctor comes back in the room about a half hour later and informs me that Mario does not have a urinary tract infection or a yeast infection but he does have a lot of stool in his body ready to come out. He shows me an x-ray, from which all I can detect are Mario’s ribs. He runs his finger across certain areas and confirms that all of “that grey and shaded area” is stool. Therefore, Mario gets a stool softener to help him get it out of his system. “I expect that he will have a blowout sometime before Monday” What things we get to look forward to after having babies! The doctor then proceeds to ask me if I have a flashlight. I respond “of course” and he directs me to wake up at 2 am, go to Mario’s room, pull off his diaper, and shine the light in his rectum to look for worms. “You will see little white creatures that look almost like rice crawling inside his rectum and they may be on his diaper, too. You need to really open him up and look in there in case they are burrowing.” I looked at him with his serious expression and calm demeanor and responded “OK, that sounds awesome and fun and full of chuckles and laughs – I am all over it!” He squinted his brows in confusion obviously thinking I was insane but then my little hubby over on the chair gave a giggle and whispered “Mom, you are so silly.”
With that, we threw on our coats, picked up two popsicles, and headed to the car happy to head down south to our home and our flashlights.
Credit (or torture!) my sis for bringing me to blogging world
Ok, so I have been talking about blogging with my sister for months. I have been writing clips about the adventures of raising my kids and sending them to her via email with her responding “Mar, you should really consider starting a blog!” Well, she finally brought her tiny little self back to Columbus Ohio this week (only to travel to London next week and then head to Oaxaca, her home base), and we got to spend a little time together between whines from my daughter begging for Sarah to play with her. Sarah managed to set up this blog for me in 2.2. seconds (she is the world’s fastest typist ever!) and now it is up to me to maintain it and make it pretty! So, be ready for some posts soon about my crazy, endearing, over-the-top kids and life in general and Jeni’s ice cream and overdue library movies….
"MOM!" 