checkpoint...mate

Lifes winding road has once again delivered me l checkpoint. Not much unlike the checkpoints us 80's babies (like myself) will remember from our Nintendo games.  A place where one hits save, and doesn't  have to struggle to conquer the levels they've  played before because the Nintendo God's  have deemed us worthy of advancement...well at least until someone erases the save.  For those of you that I have just shocked into the realization of middle age with my nostalgic metaphor I apologize, but the fact remains that the relavance and relatabililty of it all is something that simply cant be overlooked.

So often in my own "game" I delete these saves, I will replay the same levels, I'll battle the same "bosses" and come to these same checkpoints where im afforded the opportunity to save my progress and avoid the failures and frustrations from the preceeding level, however find myself deleting my progress and trying again because I feel there may have been something i missed.  Funny thing is, sure, I may collect some hidden tokens, I may get to indulge in some secret hidden level by ducking down the right pipe, but when it comes time to defeat the enemy the strategy is more often than not, nearly identical.  In theory all that I have done is proven that beating the level the first time was as good as it gets, sure there were interesting deterents but I had managed to level up the one correct way already so i find my self questioning why i didnt just honor my checkpoint.

I know it seems silly to compare valuable life lessons to an antiquaited version of a video game, but, is it really that different if you think about it?  Whether it be a poor choice in a relationship that yields the same outcome over and over again, or a professional folly that keeps you from advancing to the next level, it could be a life decision like reverting back to a behavior or substance that brought you down the first time,  it would seem that it is in our nature to repeat our mistakes until we are so wary of the game we just quit.  Im hear to say QUIT stop playing the level, quit when you have beat it. Save at your checkpoint and advance, you have earned it. Then if ,by some stroke of luck, you are faced with the same challenge or game boss, remember how you defeated it in the first place and defeat it the same way.  You've already learned how, you have already won.

Passing seasons

I write this now as I'm weeping in my bathroom whilst hiding from my children.  I can hear them in the living room. They are marveling at the gap in the front of Gages' mouth (my 6 year old) where his 2 front teeth used to reside and passing around the last of his two front milk teeth, examining it and appraising it, in an effort to guess what value the tooth fairy will think it has (they are very generous with their valuations).

This brand of weeping isn't new to me.   I've been here many times before.  Every time one of my babies lose a tooth. When they began to crawl, then walk, then talk.  The fist time they pottied on their own. I weep every time I packed the clothes they have outgrown up, or when I clean out their toy box's. When my eldest daughter questioned the existence Santa Clause after Christmas this past year.  I cried every time I passed the baby isle at the grocery store for the first time without any need for the products within it.

Yes I cry... I cry alot about my children growing up.  I embrace the beauty of their milestones passing and their blossoming into toddlerhood, the preschool phase, school age, and adolescence.  I'm grateful to God for their health and I know we are incredibly blessed. But I'm heartbroken because as they cross each of their developmental thresholds my life is forever changed.  I'm reminded at these times that they will not be my babies forever, that the days of their life prior to the milestone are written in a previous chapter, a chapter that cannot be edited or revised.  I think about my behavior and my involvement and interaction with them in the completed chapters and I am certain that I didn't take enough photographs.  I always feel that I spent too much time in my day to day to stop the clock for a moment longer and savor my babies. I worry I didn't give them enough of me, and that I didn't relish the best of what that particular stage in their life offered, and now it's too late and I can't go back.

Chloe loved her dress up dresses when she was little.  We couldn't get her to take them off or even wear clothes underneath them.  One day a very disturbing bump appeared on her head behind her ear.  We went to the doctor and he advised us this was a lymph node.  After a couple of weeks of putting hot compresses on her head to try and get rid of the hard, fixed knot under our pediatricians advisement we were back at his office testing for leukemia.  In the several days it took to get the blood results back we were told to continue with the compresses.  This was not an easy task for a squirmy and energetic three year old.  I would lay in bed with her head on my lap and look at her precious feet dangling off of the side of the bed, poking out from her tattered, yet treasued ballgown and I would pray for her health and vitality Knowing that that vision of her in that dress was forever going to be imprinted on my memory.  Chloe did not have leukemia and the knot dissapeared a week or so later. A year later Chloe still wore her princess gowns, although less often.  I has cleaned her room and organized everything and could not for the life get her to pick even one toy off of the floor and put it away. Slowly but surely I began grounding her from her toys and putting them in the garage until she could learn to care for them properly.  The princess dresses were the last to go.  By the time Chloe finally surrendered to picking her things up and putting them away thus earning her previous toys back she had outgrown the desire to be a princess all day, she was uninterested in her dresses and many of her other toys. Time had passed, she had matured, the chapter was closed but I had ended it too early.  I thought I was teaching her responsibility but what I was really doing was teaching her to play with other things and robbing myself of the privilege of watching her twirl around in princess gowns for a few moments longer.  For this I will never forgive myself.

Parenthood is riddled with these sorts of regrets.  I mourn the passing of the seasons of my children's lives but no more than I try to cherish them. Try as I might however I never feel adequate.

Gage will soon have two shiny permanent teeth in the gummy gap in the front of his mouth and I will secretly weep in the bathroom again in mourning of prior oral landscape, but now, now I'm mourning those little baby  teeth I loved so much. The baby teeth that brought me to tears when they first emerged and rid him of his toothless smile forever.  Oh its going to be a rough road ahead. How does anyone survive this!

Gage singing "I Cross My Heart."

 sweet angel fearlessly singing the song of his choice today at the talent show. A brave little kindergartner

how about a rant?!

I think I know my worth. My value, while not monetary, is crucial in the operations of my home.  A homemakers job is so taxing, so constant and so taken for granted, that at times I even take myself for granted.  I find myself sometimes wishing I brought a paycheck home, then maybe my exhaustion would be understood  by my family.  Maybe, if I were paid for every meal, every counseling session, every ride every shopping trip and I was able to hand my husband a check and tell him to go deposit it, he would take on the morning ritual once in a while.

Maybe if I brought home the paycheck he would load up all the kids for a grocery run and get to experience all of the chaos first hand and I could be the one scrutinizing the freezer and pantry, i could be the one saying "it sure doesn't look like the got very many groceries for the money you spent".  Maybe if I paid the car payments and he hauled all the kids around all day I could climb into the car for a family outing and complain about the the car not being clean.

Maybe if I was at work all day, and my husband was home with the kids, I could walk into the insanity and say "you let them do whatever they want, you have to get them under control."

If I brought home the paycheck and he was the one doing laundry, i could stomp around in the morning and complain about picking my socks out of a laundry basket instead of my drawer, or my clean pants laid over a chair instead of hanging in the closet.

If I brought home the bank, I would have the freedom of eating lunch out everyday and taking a shower whenever I want, and I could ask him "did you shower today?", or say something snarkey like "love those sweats".

If I provided the money for our family I could say "what did you do all day", I could stay in bed when I didn't feel well, someone else would have to tend to the midnight diaper changes, the Crack of dawn bloody noses the playdate facilitating and the classroom party's.  If the children all had the flu and I had to go to work someone else would get to wash the vomit bucket between vomit sessions and wake up every two hours to check Temps and dispense medications. Someone else could be the ball of worry.

If I brought home the paycheck...wait, who am I kidding, even if I bought home the paycheck I would still do everything I mentioned, because  I am a mom, and just like every other hard working mom out there, especially the ones contributing financially to their households, I would make sure that all of my families needs were met, regardless if I was the one bringing home the bucks, because that's what we do.  I guess what needs to happen, is that dad's need to make a little extra effort to give us mom's a little special attention.  What we do isn't easy, and even when our efforts aren't rewarded with a paycheck, they should certainly be rewarded with respect and admiration. Just because mommy efforts aren't bankable it doesn't mean they aren't valuable.  when I get caught in the rutt of feeling unimportant and invaluable I'm going to remind myself of that, because even if no one else realizes my worth, I do. And if we could switch places for even a day, whomever were to question that, would query no longer.

The House Always Wins

My husband and I were blessed to have a wonderful  weekend away last week.  No children, just the two of us.  This was a welcomed break for both of us.  We hadn't been away alone together since long before I was pregnant with Sophia and it being the middle of February going to the beach seemed sort of a dissapointing option (this is typically where we vacation because we live in south Texas and it's near enough by to not spend too much of our valuable time on traveling) so we opted for Lake Charles, Louisiana as the drive wasn't too terribly long and we only had a Friday night, saturday and a few hours sunday morning to be away.  We decided on the Golden Nugget resort and Casino.  This was VERY exciting for me, I had never gambled or done anything that resembled it, I was eager to try my luck and was daydreaming of hitting big and coming home a winner.  I knew this scenario was unlikely, I was well aware of the saying "the house always wins", but I believed there was no harm in holding out hope, of dreaming, it all made the excitement of the trip that much greater, after all, the Longshot it certainly was, people do actually  win sometimes!

The resort was amazing. Clean, beautiful, bustling with excitement and boutiques and wonderful places to eat.  Our room was perfection.  I was sitting on the balcony of our 18th story suite staring down at the pool and fire pits and lazy river thinking to myself how lucky I was to be there.  Russell had left straight from work so when we arrived at our room he needed to shower and get dressed. I was so excited  to get downstairs I could hardly contain myself!

The casino was busy as I looked around the room taking inventory of all of the faces, i saw young and old alike and all of us were there with the same resolve, beat the house, go home winners.  We played the machines for a long time, we went up, we went down but this was not satisfying my urge to gamble, it was a dollar here two dollars there. I was itching to get to the tables for some real gambling and after much nagging Russell finally agreed.  I was really intimidated when we walked up to the roulette table, there were people crowded so densely around it i could hardly see it.  When we finally edged our way in i saw that the minimum bet was $25.00 this was a far cry from the .25 we had played on the machines and I began to understand my husbands hesitancy to play table games, a loss here would really put a hurting on our gambling funds.  But I had to do it once, had to try.  So i flicked my $25.00 chip on the table and held my breath.  A hit! A win!! My $25.00 became $50.00 instantly, what a rush!!! I snatched up my chips, beamed victoriously at my cautious husband and walked away.  I did it, i beat the house, I was up and it felt splendid.  We went off to bed shortly thereafter, and as I drifted off to sleep, all I could think about was doubling that money the next chance I got. I didn't know it then but the house was already winning, they already had me beat.

I did visit the tables the next day, I won $275.00 there but ended up losing $100.00 of it before my good sense kicked in and I walked away for good.

On the long drive home I got to thinking about how "the house always wins", started relating that phrase to my everyday life.  I really want to take the kids to the playground, but the house needs to be cleaned. The house wins.  I really want to write a blog, but the children need attention and dinner needs to be made. The house wins.  I would love a snappy new outfit, but the children's shoes are looking pretty worn.  The house wins again. The house always wins.  This is a fact and as a mother and a wife more often than not the odds are always stacked against me and I wake up every morning knowing I'm already defeated.

Then I began thinking, what if instead of focusing all of my energy on losing my "I want to" chips and consequently not placing a bet, what if I could hold on some hope of beating the house? What if I could feel as excited about starting my day as I did when I walked into that casino.  There is really little difference right?  I was excited about a Longshot win in a place structured to offer me the opposite, yet I held onto hope of winning instead of fear of losing.  And the beautiful thing about "I want to" chips is that they are in endless supply, in fact they multiply all by themselves!  So if I throw them all in everyday and everyday the children, the husband, the grocery store, the sick cat, the backed up laundry ...the "house" takes it all, well I've really not lost at all, I get another day to gamble on all of it.  God is so good.

So my resolve is to go "all in" everyday and wake up filled with hope and excitement about beating the house and turning some of my "I want to" chips into "goal accomplished" chips that I can stick away in the bank of "I am woman" and walk away a big, fat, happy winner. And if I lose, well there's more dishes in the sink, or one less entry in my blog but like I said before

"it all makes the excitement of the trip that much greater, after all, the Longshot it certainly was, people do actually  win sometimes!"