Christmas is coming...

As a child i was warned not to get to excited about Christmas...in fact, just last week i was told to be careful!  However, in my growing maturity i am beginning to see the journey, the preparation through advent, as the important bit. The love is not simply because i have a particular affection for Christmas tree baubles (though I do), it's the preparation, that anticipation of the quieter time of Christmas week, the look on mini-E's face as she beheld her first (incredibly tacky) 3/4 size singing Santa, Ittyjo gleefully removing all the lower baubles from the tree and legging it down the hallway.  I love seeing the magic of the story of the tiny baby so far away and so long ago being unraveled for my girls, even if the reality is washing over their heads the sweetest and the most mysterious moments are absorbed, enjoyed and questioned. 

I love Christmas time as much as i love Christmas day!  Whoop!

Today I did not...

...having written the title i realise there are many things i did not do today.  I did not weep. I did not kill or damage anyone.  I did not tidy the bedroom floor. 

However...I actively did not watch King Kong.  I don't know quite what has my heart aching when i think of the film...but roughly knowing the story line and catches snippets of the more actiony bits (cos it's really difficult to ignore Dinosaurs succumbing to the domino effect) I just couldn't quite face the pain of unrequited, impossible love.  There's something hopeless about it that goes against my understanding and hope for love.  I couldn't, having looked at the Gorilla's sad eyes journey with him through to the inevitable loss at the end.  I didn't watch with 3 people who were actively watching it.  Who are able to say "it's just an ape" or "it's only special effects"...I can't do that...if a film wants an emotional response it gets it, full force, from me.  It's why i don't watch slasher movies or tragedies...and...i have decided, i like it that way.  I like being sensitive to the plight of others.  I like to be able to empathise with other people's pain, even if it has me turning the news over when it all gets too much.  Funnily enough, I really enjoy CSI (when Channel 5 works!)...because the person i'm supposed to be empathising with is not the victim but the investigator...

Team Byass is a wonderful thing.  I'm loving my boy very much. He is wonderful even when i don't blog it.  The girls are particularly gorgeous today...even though i've been desperately trying to get a church magazine finished (before the end of December though it's the December/January edition!) they've played so nicely together.  Flis gets more gorgeous by the day, her personality shining through her activeness.  E's sense of humour and cheekiness is brilliant and she's always got a come back (which is fine as long as it's not rude or cheeky...she is learning the difference...'cos i tell her) 

Order for Creativity's sake...

Last night i sat with two of my favourite friends and we didn't do anything.  We sat and chatted about this and that without the usual background noise of TV or movies.  As is often the way, silliness prevailed and we found ourselves, almost against our will, measuring ourselves against the french windows with a large Usborne cookery book and a white board marker.  It was interesting to see the different proportions between head, shoulders and hips.  My legs, incidently, are as rediculously long as my body is short. 

We so rarely, as a group of friends or as a family, have empty time wherein creativity (or silliness) has room to reign.  When that is the case and chaos seep into all areas of my life my thinking juices dry up and it seems as if life is one long list of things i haven't done but really should if only i had some time.  So, today, as I'm in a super place mentally, I have tackled the issue of our lack of order with my beloved.  We have created an analy retentive morning, lunch and bedtime routine (via a beautiflly crafted windows table) with clearly defined blank spaces for le groom's work obligations and my time with the girls.  It involves some sacrifice on our part...the lazy mornings where we gentle lowered our sleep-deprived selves into the day have been replaced by an hour of quick changes and non-luxurious showers.  No longer will the snooze button (should either of us have needed it, heavy sleepers that we are) be pressed quite so many times.  However, the hope is that by consolidating the mornings into a neater package of daily jobs and chores, it leaves considerably more time for fun-filled activities and whatever-it-is-that-methodist-ministers-find-to-fill-their-time-with stuff.

And so starts the pattern of the perpetual optimistic reformer, ever seeking new ways to improve and move forward while trying desperately not to look over her shoulder for the looming gloom of depression.

Grumpiness breed grumpiness

We are all cross in our house at the moment. 

The girls both have hacking coughs and slimey colds.  R and  I are recovering from sickness bug that wiped us out at the beginning of  the week.  It's raining and its cold. 

The problem when you're cross is that every escalates it.  It's all too easy to snap over trivial things (like burnt gravy...oh the loss of beautifully crafted amber nectar) and to stomp and slam door and hold grudges.  It's easier to hold onto the grump and 'not care' when someone else snaps at you because it's easier to remain in your miserable little hole than reach out the hand of friendship and make yourself vulnerable. 

Grumpiness breeds grumpiness...just as violence breeds violence. You'd think, as i've taken the non-violent stance as a parent, that i'd be mature enough to take the same stance in regard to being a grumpy cow and stop it at once....

I shall.  I choose to do so.  Here is why blogging's so super (for me)...to be accountable to my 12 regular readers (whoever you may be) means i continue to reflect and hope to be better.  So...i'm going to go and make friends with my grumpy husband. 

First i shall tell you some cheery things about my woooonderful girls:

Ittyjo is growing in stature and personality this week...despite her cold she is smiling and chuckling more and likes to be growled at.  She plays chase with unabandoned glee...especially when wet and naked after the bath.  She's teething and getting some big, mean looking molars coming down (at 13months). 

Mini-E visited nursary this week, she'll start every morning after January.  She was upset to only be visiting! Her speech is sounding more mature and the anxiety gene that had her cowering from men seems to be receeding and the confident little girl that she is is more in evidence with other people. 

I would put some recent pictures on...but someone has broken the memory card...on the same day someone else plunged my (new) phone into a full cup of tea...the same someones smeared the white walls of our loo with bright blue handwash....!?  "i was making it pretty" was the reason...Itty's consequence was that all her food tasted a little of soap as i hadn't been as thorough with the hand wiping as i'd thought...yum.

Today I feel: sad.

Today a friend has been sentenced to 3 years in prison.  She has 2 teenage daughters who will be adults by the time she is released.

There's no question that what she did was wrong (sex with a 15 year old student). She will never teach again and will be on the sex offenders register indefinately. 

I feel sad because she has lost 3 years of her life, 3 years of her daughter's lives and 3 years of her nephews' lives who have recently lost their mum (who, incidently, was suffering from terminal cancer at the time of the affair). 

I feel sad because she was a bubbly, intelligent, thoughtful and excellent teacher and woman and I wonder what 3 years in prison will do to that.  She was grieving the loss of her close sister and working through the end of her marriage.  She chose the wrong person to lean on and find comfort in. It doesn't justify the relationship and it was an abuse of a powerful position.  I don't believe she is a predator or a paedofile however. As the judge said to her,

"This is a very sad story for all concerned, not least yourself. It is clear your life had come to a very low ebb. You started to abuse your position of trust. Eventually you lured him into intercourse which should never have happened."

Councelling or therapy would have been a good way to go but i can't see how separation from her children and loss of freedom is going to help her or the boy.  What is the purpose of the punishment?  She is already all too aware of the wrongness of her actions, admitted them and is ashamed of them. She admitted to the fault being hers "at the earliest opportunity". 
 
I wonder how differently i would feel if it were a male friend and a 15 year old girl.  Or if it were one of her daughters, or mine, and a male teacher.  To be honest it makes me a little queazy thinking about it...

Today i have lost a friend on facebook. Her profile no longer exists. She is someone i have admired as a brilliant mum and as a teacher who made a terrible mistake for which she will suffer way beyond the 3 year prison sentence. 

Whether the sentence was right or wrong, harsh or not, today i feel sad.

Dear Reader,

I wonder, if you blog, how often you think about your readers.  Who's reading? Who's making snap judgements based on what you write? Who's shed a tear in response to your own happiness or sadnesses(?)...? 

I wonder what relationship you create in your head between yourself and your reader...if any...

Sometimes i write because i want to clarify thoughts i've had..  Sometime i write because moments with my girls are so precious that i don't want to forget them.  However I can never remember them clearly enough by the time i've experienced them, made tea, done bedtime and sat down inelegantly on the sofa.  I write because my motivation for writing a diary which would otherwise hold these memories waxes and wanes as it feels such a lonely occupation. 

Today i'm worried about my dad and write to my friend the reader who worries with me.  I'm worried because he's so far away in a strange place and strange hospital.  I'm worried that my mum's on her own in a travel lodge having driven up to be with him.  I'm worried that they won't find out what's wrong...or they do find out what's wrong and it does turn out to be the micro-alien invasion I initially suspected.  I'm battling with worst-case scenarios that have no basis in the reality of the situation which currently sounds ok they're just waiting for some test results to come back.  So, i've shared my worries today because it helps and because worries outside my head are far more managable than the ones that mutate and echo inside. 

And now for something completely different (well not so different as it happens):

Hope for Perfection

R has been away since yesterday, home tomorrow. 

It's interesting that, in his abscence, jobs around the house i wouldn't otherwise automatically do have been done without complaint.  The kitchen is tidy, the laudry on, the children's stuff put away and clothes are waiting to be folded.  However, when he's home it's always a battle of wills as to who can outlast the other as squalour steals over every surface until either we have a guest coming (in which case we go into our emergency blitz routine), I get cross and shout and stomp and do it all anyway....or i get cross and shout and stomp and demand that R does it, "for a change because you never, ever do it and i am not the house keeper, if i knew i was supposed to be the house keeper i'd have kept on in my rather well paid job and hired someone to do the housekeeping because i don't have the energy or inclination to do both the childcare and the housekeeping...."....(i'm a great believer in hyperbolie as a literary tool)

How horrible i can be...and i write this not to seek support in my argument but to hold myself accountable to others in the hope that the reflection back will enable me to change.  For, this has been our 'routine' for the past 6 years of marriage.  The pattern has not changed, routines have been dreamt of, agreed to and a day later disgarded as unfollowable. 

I have various patterns of behaviour that I long to change and that hold me back from leading a full and rich life.  I am inclined to be lazy which allows anxieties to take over rather than be battled with and faced.  If I don't take care of what i'm eating i find that my perception of what i 'should' be allowed to eat and what i have a 'right' to eat becomes skewed and i feel that i'm missing out if my diet is not full of high fat, highly processed food.  I find myself being incredibly judgemental and critical of situations and people which hinders how i can interact with both in a healthy way.

However,  I hope for change. I hope that I can grow and develop and be the kind of person that other people want to be. Not for my own ego but as testimony to the power of God to transform and mould me.  I wish it to happen, i long to gain the wisdom i pray for and the gentleness of spirit that stills souls in turmoil and resonates with the Holy.  I hope that in hoping and praying for it that i therefore give the permission for the transformation to take place, to continue to take place.