Trading Spaces Back

It's funny how things work... a few weeks ago my mom wrote about how she never felt a need to blog until she was left alone with four kids for the weekend. For the past few weeks I have had other things occupying me besides blogging. Dave and I went on a trip to Maui for our 10th anniversary and then I was caught up in the whirlwind of concert preparations. Aside from being too busy to write about it all, I honestly didn't really feel much of a need to blog about my life: I was happily occupied in lots of things and while writing about it would have been nice, it was an easy enough thing to get sent downward on the list of "to-dos". But real life will intrude itself and suddenly blogging is looking like a good sanity break again.

The Cantico concert went very, very well. I was so happy with it and enjoyed the process immensely. It was a lot of work, but it was very satisfying, fulfilling work. My sister, Alisa, came out from Utah to play the organ for our concert. My mom and dad and two good family friends came from California for the concert and my mother-in-law flew out from Utah to be there for it as well. It was a great week, filled with family fun, beautiful music and good times all around. As I drove my mother-in-law to the airport on Tuesday, I had a conversation with her about how happy and grateful I was to be doing what I am doing, to have the opportunities I have and so forth. I also commented that despite Dave's crazy work hours, we've been able to find a routine that seems to work for us and I just feel like I've really gotten into the rhythm of being a mom and I enjoy what I do and just enjoy life. [Warning, warning...obvious signs of post-concert and family visit high... warning, warning, high wear-off is imminent, look out below....] So I drove home from the airport, secure in my feelings that I finally had this mom/music/life balance thing figured out.

Starting on Tuesday night, the high started to wear off. By Tuesday morning it was a full-fledged, drop-off-of-a-cliff straight shot into the dumps. Jackson was being a stinker, tantrum-thrower and mess-maker; the house went from pristine to completely trashed in less than 24 hours; Jared and Camryn were fighting like cats and dogs; Dave stayed at work until 10:00 pm for the umpteenth night in a row; Addy wanted to be held constantly and Jackson discovered the water in the kitchen sink (Jackson + water = wet hardwood floor and mad mommy. This was after he dumped half a can of formula the night before, making a very sticky, expensive mess).

But the clincher was when I saw a picture of me from that weekend that someone had posted on Facebook. I had no idea I was that fat in real life! What was I thinking going out in public looking that chubby? I had finally decided that I was OK with my remaining post-baby weight and while I was not super-skinny, was at least at a reasonable, healthy, moderately-attractive weight and I would worry about the rest at some point in the future. I also thought I had reconciled with myself that while it is important to be healthy, your whole life can't and shouldn't be about looking perfect, trying to stay the weight you were when you were 18 and going to the gym. I was wrong on all counts. How could I be so stupid and blissfully unaware that that was how I looked to other people? Oh horror!

My life had quickly transformed from a peaceful haven of love and beauty to a black abysmal pit of misery and despair. So what had precipitated this sudden fall? Aside from the fact that my fun concert was over, my family had gone home, I was on my own watching all the kids again, my house was a mess, Dave's work is crazy and the 24 series finale was disappointing with no closure.... :) On Tuesday night I read a facebook blurb about an upcoming concert featuring violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (who is amazing, by the way) and ended up internet-hopping and reading about her. Not only did she graduate from the Curtis Institute and Juilliard and play first-chair violin for the National Symphony for a bunch of years, she has multiple best-selling albums, tours the country playing concerts... oh and she's skinny and beautiful and has four children in the midst of all this.

But the nail in the coffin was how she wrote about how she performs with her two older children and practices with them for 90 minutes and 45-60 minutes a day, respectively. So now, not only does my fantastic concert not seem quite so fantastic anymore, enter severe mommy-guilt that I have skipped piano lessons and enforcing piano practice with my kids for the past 2-3 weeks as a result of being wrapped up in concert preparations. And even on my best days I can't get myself to sit and practice for 2 1/2 hours daily with my children. (Usually enforcing no Wii or TV until practicing is done is the best I can muster....) See, not only am I an artistic and musical failure, I'm a mommy-ing failure as well, stunting the future musical growth of my children by my lack of discipline! And I can't even keep my house clean to boot!

In retrospect, I should have recalled the wise advice of my college roommate Becki, who, when I contemplated calling and break up with Dave at 2:30 am one night for a stupid reason offered the following sage council, "Eat some Oreos and go to bed. If you still feel that way in the morning, then you can call Dave and break up." Problem solved.  But as I didn't have Becki to offer sage advice, I wallowed in my misery and failure for about a day and a half, I had a low-fat ice cream banana split with Dave (whose day at work had been equally miserable-- maybe my subconscious remembered Becki's advice after all), called my mom and talked to a friend or two to complain about my sad, sorry state and how HARD life can be and then perked up and had a perfectly cheerful day once my cleaning fairy arrived on Thursday to work her magic on my disastrous house.

Joking aside, the bad couple of days were very real and difficult. I struggle with the tendency to compare myself negatively to other people. To focus on my weaknesses and ignore the good things I do. To get overwhelmed with the demands of life and trying to figure out what the most important things to spend my limited time and energy on are.... And I tend to get guilty and down on myself because I know that I don't have a HARD life... my life is so easy in some ways, compared to the pioneers, compared to the homeless people in Portland, compared to any number of people, and yet I still manage to have a hard time of it sometimes. But regardless of whether it is "challenging" in any abstract sense, it is challenging to me.

I try to remember that life is meant to be a challenge and we will all have ups and downs, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, where you live or whatever. But this up and down experience is exacerbated when you are the kind of person that gets caught up in an idea, project, an ideal or goal and it propels you along until suddenly at some point reality whacks you over the head with a thunk again.

It kind of reminds me of "Anne of Green Gables":
Marilla Cuthbert: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them. [Or, for me, even when I do get them but the experience is over.]
Anne Shirley: I know. I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud.
Marilla Cuthbert: Well, maybe it does. But I'd rather walk calmly along and do without flying AND thud. 

I'm definitely a "flying and thud", not a "walk calmly along" type of person. And I pay for that. But I think the flying is worth the thud. Or the whack on the head.

How's that for a long ramble? Welcome back to my blog....

Wisdom From Panda Express

I just gave Jackson a leftover fortune cookie that was in my purse. The fortune said, "You are a bundle of energy, always on the go."

Maybe fortune cookies know more than I thought....

What's Been Keeping Me Away

I just realized it has been almost a month since I have posted on my blog. I guess I've been busy. I wonder what could be keeping me from my blog? Hmmm... besides my typical daily laundry avoidance rituals.... Oh yeah, I'm directing a concert that is one week from Saturday. Cantico, the choir that I direct, has its spring concert on the 22nd and I'm basically the lucky person in charge. :) 

It is a huge project, trying to keep track of all of the concert details, be prepared to conduct the music and still keep my head on straight, but I love it-- it is so much fun! The concert is going to be FANTASTIC by the way. We are singing everything from an a cappella Renaissance motet to The Beatles. And we have a couple of fun surprises up our sleeves.... :) If you are in the area, be sure to get tickets at www.canticosingers.org . That way we can still be friends. =] J.K.

But seriously, it really makes such a difference to have friends come and see you perform. It will be a great concert and you will thoroughly enjoy it. Oh, and you can use the coupon code KPORTER to get a 20% discount on tickets. So come and be entertained-- or just come to give me a figurative pat-on-the-back/high-five/show your support. :) Either way works.

Trading Spaces-- Reflections from Laurel (my mom)

My mom recently came to watch my kids while Dave and I went out of town for the weekend. During that time she not only found time to keep my four kids happy but also found time to write about it. So here is a guest post from my mom, Laurel:

I am not a blogger.  Blogging is a time sink. I have never felt a compelling need to do an emotional core dump on paper—until yesterday. But yesterday my life was different. I woke up at my daughter, Karen’s house, instead of mine. I woke up to her life instead of mine—to four children instead of my normal, quiet, simple existence. …and I woke up to a new understanding of why Karen blogs. Blogging isn’t just a time sink. Blogging is therapeutic. It is an amazingly effective way of making order out of a world that feels completely out of order and chaotic.

I vaguely remember that having six children of my own, ages ten and under, was chaotic. But the memory is very vague indeed…sort of like the way we forget about the reality of childbirth until labor actually starts the next time. I remember that the house got messed up more easily, that more laundry needed doing, that the noise level was quite a bit higher, that there were more places to go and more food I had to cook.  But, other than those sort of things, having children wasn’t much different than the life to which I have become accustomed in recent years. Wrong.

Day 1 at Karen’s: We get home from the airport just before the two older kids get off the school bus and back home. Chaos doubles. Jared hurries to get ready for cub scouts while Camryn discovers that Jackson has opened the hamster’s cage and allowed Fredricka to escape. Not a big deal. One little hamster against four of us in pursuit. The hunt would be easier were it not for the fact that they have a three story house. 

Karen runs Jared to cubs—Camryn and I are the search party. A half hour later Karen comes back to get Camryn for her dance class. I make up the search party. A little while after that Karen drops Jared back off to join me in the search and goes back to pick up Camryn from dance. The hamster was no where to be found in the music room where he and his cage reside on the main floor…or the living room or family room or kitchen or dining area. We knew this after probing under the stove and through the closets with the end of a broom. Likewise, the hamster was nowhere to be found upstairs in any of the bedrooms. Camryn, however, was sure she was on to something later that evening when she announced, “We have a clue!”  I asked her what the clue was.  She opened the fridge and said, “Hamster pee in the fridge.” I looked, and although the substance at the bottom of the fridge was highly suspicious, I doubted that even a hamster as smart as Fredricka could manage to get in there. So I called Jared in for a second opinion. He opened the fridge and said matter-of-factly, “Yep….definitely hamster pee.” In reality, the fridge clue didn’t aid in finding the missing pet. It turned out that Fredricka had managed to find her way downstairs into a bathroom closet and had happily made a nest in a pile of shredded toilet paper. Jared returned the mini-beast to its cage and life was happy again in Porterville. On a happy note, Karen later determined that the clue in the fridge was actually some spilled canned milk. All is well—I can eat again without feeling queasy.

Jackson, on the other hand, definitely requires more than four people to keep track of. He wanted some juice with his lunch, so Karen poured him a small cup. He was happily occupied eating at the bar while Karen was sitting at the kitchen table busily engaged getting some work done on her computer for Cantico and I was not-quite-so-happily searching for some superior interest rate on homes. Both of us were within 10 feet of Jackson the entire time—so much for my theory that Jackson does what he does because he is running wild downstairs while Karen hibernates upstairs in her office. To make a long story short, Jackson invented a new taste sensation:  ½ half bottle of apple juice, to which you add all your left over mash potatoes and generous handfuls of Chex cereal. Top the concoction off with a steak knife dropped into the murky substance for good measure. My frustration when I glanced up to see the disgusting mess was mitigated by my admiration for the dexterity he was using to add additional Chex mix through the little bottle opening. All of a sudden Karen’s stories of finding the phone in the cereal box or dish cupboard made much more sense.

I have observed even in the few days that I have been here that Karen is not one to be easily defeated or even outsmarted. If keeping track of Jackson is critical to one’s success as a parent and Jackson excels at escaping—especially now that he is so dexterous at climbing out of his crib—there must be a solution.  I was dumbfounded when I went to put Jackson to bed and saw he had a “crib tent”….a very stylish version of what amounts to a “toddler cage.” It is made of heavy-duty white netting and curved supports—kind of like a dome tent—and attaches firmly to the crib. Once the intended creature is “in the cage” you zip it closed (from the outside of course) and said baby is confined until such time as you deem it appropriate to release them. Magical! Crib tents are the boon to bedtime that car seats were to car travel. The amazing thing is that she has Jackson convinced he likes it. I rocked him and read him four stories at bedtime—okay, I read “Are You My Mother” three times until I couldn’t handle it another time and finished off with a different story, said prayers with him and put him down in his crib. I covered him up and he pointed up and said, “Zip it, Zip it!” No problem, Jackson. Your wish is my command! Silence in the house until the next morning when Jackson is perfectly capable of making it clear that he is ready to be let out. I don’t know why the heck I didn’t have such a thing when my kids were little. Maybe I would have had a few more.

Speaking of baby accessories…I was never really into the baby-food thing as a mom. I sort of went from “nursing baby” to “sit-in-the-high-chair-and-stuff-finger-food-in-yourself” stage. However, that isn’t an option here since Addy is a nursing baby whose mom left for four days. Enter in an invention second only to the Crib-tent. Its called a Bumbo and I don’t know exactly how to describe how wonderful it is to someone who has never seen it. It is basically a cleverly molded plastic seat that is miraculously shaped in such a way to support a baby as soon as they are strong enough to hold their head up. No flopping from side to side or slumping over. It sits on the counter or table in front of you and holds the baby in the perfect position and angle to stick little spoonfuls of food in. In fact, if you picture a little baby bird with its beak open ready for dinner you can picture what Addy looks like in the Bumbo. It's quite adorable and almost makes it enjoyable to deal with the whole rice-cereal-mushed-fruit-and-veggie stuff. Combine the Bumbo with the Baby Bjorn, the ExerSaucer, the Jumperoo, the Floor Gym, the Motorized Swing, the Bouncy Seat, The Co-Sleeper, Latch-System Car Seat (which is a huge improvement on my generation of car seats), the single stroller, the double stroller, etc, etc, and I’ve got this kid covered! Ignore the fact that it took hours of training to know who to use them all.

Yesterday morning Camryn woke up to find that the Hamster had gone AWOL yet again. This time Jackson was safely locked in his crib tent so we realized that after eight months the hamster had figured out how to let himself out of his cage when we weren’t looking. A frantic search ensued before school, but to no avail. The children left for school totally distraught with grief. I on the other hand, had a much more pragmatic outlook. One escape constitutes a crisis. A second escape constitutes stupidity on the part of the rodent and elicits very little compassion for the creature from me. The search after school was equally unproductive. By bedtime Jared had come to grips with the fact that his pet hamster might be permanently gone. It seemed to me the situation had only a few very stinky alternatives:  1) The hamster would die somewhere in the house…a stinky alternative, or  2) The hamster would NOT die somewhere in the house, but would continue to run freely around doing what hamsters do best…making yet another very stinky mess all over the house. Neither alternative looked particularly attractive when we headed to bed last night with the hamster still missing in action.

This morning Jared woke up bright and early, went downstairs and looked for the hamster. Apparently the hamster liked the familiarity of the downstairs bathroom closet because during the night he had returned to his previous nesting haunt. This was much happier alternative, but definitely not a stink-free scenario. Now Jared has to come home and not only do a thorough cleaning of the hamster’s cage (way overdue, by the way) but he has a good collection of “hamster souvenirs” to clean up all over the downstairs. All this reminds me that however superior hamsters are to mice, rats, etc, a rodent is still a rodent!

Jared shouldn’t feel too bad. While he is cleaning up after the hamster, Camryn and I can clean up after Jackson. The boy has a fun pastime… he takes every toy he can find and hucks it over the top balcony three floors down to the back lawn. The mystery is that no one seems to see him do it, but the evidence down on the ground is undisputable…the only thing Jackson loves more than Curious George is hucking things!

Well, I will give up this blogging pastime for the time being and get back to the more pertinent realities of life like cooking lunch, changing diapers, putting in laundry, doing dishes, sweeping up the floors…  Gosh…maybe I should change places with Karen permenantly!

What-up with Jackson

Hey everyone, this is Jackson. Mom thinks that all I ever do on her computer is press random buttons, try to hit the power button, close the lid while she's typing or sit on it. This will show her!

I've had a busy couple of days. I have tons that I have to get done, but Mom keeps getting in the way. Don't get me wrong-- I love her and all, but she can really keep me from being fully productive. Sigh. I guess I just have to do the best I can.

Yesterday I was practicing my drums for "Band Hero" (offline, of course- ever since Dad installed locks on the TV cabinet it has seriously inhibited my Wii practice), but mom put the drums away in the corner. I couldn't stand in the corner to practice drums so I had to find some multi-level practice surface in the middle of the room. Hmmm, baby Addy's Exersaucer tray... and her head! A perfect substitute! Nice and round,  just like the drum pads, and a very convenient height, to boot. I was getting in a great practice session until Addy had to start making a big fuss about it. Then mom came in and took away my drumsticks! The nerve of her! Doesn't she want me to be a musical child? Or at least a rock star? Luckily, I had a bunch of other things to get done to which I could turn my attention.

There are these really annoying dangling things that hang down in front of our sliding glass door. They make it so you can't even see outside through the window. Since they just get in the way I started to pull them off. They even made great play toys once they were pulled off, but I only got to one of them before mom got in the way... again.

My parents are nice enough people, but they have really bad taste in decorating. Everything is boring. They need some color and fun to spice things up. I have done my best to add some color to the walls when I get a chance, but mom and dad never allow me to fully express myself artistically. Yesterday I decided that Mom and Dad's room could use a little boost, so I climbed on top of their dresser with a mirror on it and decided to add some nice wall accents above the mirror. I hadn't even finished when mom came and pulled me down, mumbling some garbage about pens needing to be used on paper instead of walls. How do they expect me to work under these conditions- always being interrupted?

Yesterday I realized that carpet in the living room hadn't been watered in weeks. (Are my parents trying to let it die?) So I got a water bottle from the kitchen to try and fix it. I couldn't get the lid off completely, but I figured out that if you turn the bottle upside down and squeeze hard enough the water will start coming out anyway. Phew. But I had only finished watering one spot when mom came and interrupted me again.

I've been doing all of this in addition to my usual responsibilities of keeping the baby entertained (she loves to have her eyes poked and my fingers stuck in her mouth), keeping Addy's hair done (she like it best with big bursts of slobber streaked through it) and putting the phone back where it goes (in the cupboard, of course). And two days ago, I managed to clean up a ton of stuff in the basement before mom interfered. (Why doesn't she realize that it's much faster to throw them over the deck railing into the backyard rather than put them on shelves? Grown-ups can be so dense...).

Anyway, Mom makes it really hard to do my job sometimes and she has a real knack for getting in the way, but I want her to know I love her anyway.

Love,

Jackson

It's a Hard-Knock Life

Last Saturday... where to begin. I was trying to steer this blog away from being a series of child-related disaster stories. But since I'm still trying to keep this blog in the "non-fiction" category, yet another child-related disaster is coming your way. Consider yourself forewarned.

Saturday was the first day of April General Conference. In case any of my 5 blog readers aren't members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year we cancel regular three-hour Sunday meetings and spend a whole weekend watching General Conference: eight hours of satellite broadcasts to the whole church (make that ten if you're a guy) over a two-day period. And you thought three hours was a lot of church, huh? :) Joking aside, I love General Conference. The prophet, the 12 apostles and other church leaders (including the leaders of the women's and Young Women's organizations) speak to us about what they feel is relevant for us to hear right now. It's also a nice chance to spend the weekend at home with the family.

We have a couple of Conference traditions: we print out a Conference activity book for the kids and we make "Monkey Bread": a caramel-y concoction of canned refrigerator biscuits, melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. (I know a lot of people who make homemade Cinnamon Rolls for their special "Conference treat" but after my last post I'm not comparing any more, okay? Besides, I baked it in a fancy bundt pan this year. That's totally as good as homemade.)

Having kids running around makes it a little bit harder to focus on the talks --and even with our best efforts we only made it through two of the four sessions over the actual weekend. (Hooray for DVRs!) But so far my favorite talks were Elder Uchdorf's talk on how we need to show more love and kindness to those around us-- even to people who are different than we are-- and judge others less. I also enjoyed the talks about mothers and daughters and the importance of a mother;s teaching in the home. But now I digress....

On Saturday afternoon, Dave left to go to the Priesthood session of Conference (for all the men 12 and up) and then had to go in to work after that. Not wanting to be stuck at home by myself with all of the kids on a Saturday, I decided to go out and kill some time hanging out at the local toy store and picking up a few things for the kids' Easter baskets. Except that by the time I figured out what I wanted and got it up to the counter to check out, the kids decided that the toys on display near the front were the most interesting and I had to casually wait for another 20 minutes before I could slyly get the presents paid for and to the car without them noticing.

I had plans to take Jared and Camryn to see a community production of "Annie" that night, so we drove through Taco Bell and then raced Jackson and Addy to the friend who was going to watch them for us. I must have been really hungry (I think I skipped lunch) because on the way back to go to the play, I impulsively decided that I absolutely HAD to have another Gordita to be able to make it through the play. So I drove through Taco Bell again (yes, the lady in the drive-through recognized me... that was kinda embarrassing), got my Gordita and we were off to the play with a whole three minutes to spare. So imagine how irked I was when I pulled out my Gordita and found a Chalupa in its place! Instead of soft yummy flatbread goodness (okay, 'flatbread goodness' is a little bit strong for Taco Bell, but remember-- I skipped lunch so I was STARVING), I found super-fried grease-o-rama. I didn't have time (or gall) enough to drive through the drive-through a third time. I took two bites and gave up.

Because of my drive-through shenanigans, we got to "Annie" one minute before it started. We parked and set off at a run for the entrance, inciting piercing shrieks from Camryn of "I can't run, Mom! It makes my stomach hurt!" (Don't you love six-year-olds?) We did manage to slip into some seats on the end of a row just as the overture started and I even got Jared to run to concessions to get some Junior Mints and Skittles to tide me over through the play.

The play was really cute and having learned my lesson after chasing Jackson around the back of "The Music Man" last summer before giving up at the end of the first act, I was really enjoying the play in Jackson's absence. But after the first act Camryn started to get really tired and cranky. I tried to get her to lay her head on my lap to go to sleep, but she didn't want to. She ended up curling up toward the back of her chair, so I went back to watching the show.

Then suddenly there was a noise-- like something spilling-- some people on the row behind us startled and a girl behind us reached for something by her shoe. In the dark it took me a few seconds to connect all the dots; I thought maybe Camryn had spilled a box of candy or something. So it wasn't until there was another burst of the "spilling" sound from Camryn's direction a second later that I realized it was not a box of Junior Mints but throw-up that was landing on the shoes of the poor couple behind us. Dots now connected, I snapped into action, grabbed Camryn and tried to furtively head for the back towards the bathroom. Our attempt at a quiet escape down the exit aisle was thwarted by a loud burst of projectile vomit that spectacularly sprayed in every direction from Camryn's lips. So much for trying to be subtle.

This probably sounds horrible, but I had to try really hard not to laugh. You know how in movies they have those stupid fake special-effects where barf sprays everywhere, totally unrealistically? That is exactly what it looked like, except it was real. (And if I thought too hard about the poor people behind us trying to wipe barf off of their shoes I would probably have burst into tears, so best not to go there for now). After a few remarkable bursts of barf, we made it safely to the bathroom, only to have Camryn let loose another spray all over the toilet stall. I'll spare you the remaining gory details of cleanup (although I have never been more annoyed with those stupid hands-free paper-towel dispensers that only give you 5 inches of paper towel at a time) and how the staff had to set up cones down most of the aisle to keep people from stepping in the mess/cleanup attempts and close down the entire bathroom (I have to hand it to the staff- they were incredibly gracious given the mess that we made).

The play was almost over at this point, so Cam and I decided to hang out and watch from the back by the bathroom door so Jared could finish the whole thing. (She felt much better at this point- who could blame her?). She turned to me and said, "Mom, I guess I probably ruined everything for you, huh?""Of course not, honey. Things like this just happen sometimes." And so they do.

The good news is that Camryn felt better after that and didn't throw up again. Nobody else in the whole house got sick or threw up. (Honestly, I wasn't trying to take a sick child to a community event to spread germs around.) Maybe it was just too many Skittles in one sitting. I'll never know. But I know we had one performance that we'll never forget.

Soapbox Moment

This post was initially inspired by the fact that in one day I had several different friends who commented via blog or FB on how they had been "blog-hopping" and ended up feeling bad about themselves. Kept it in my "holding tank" for a while because I didn't want to sound like I'm on one (I'm really not) but hey, we can stir the pot a little, can't we?
...

Why do women get so creative in finding ways to feel bad about themselves? This is a rhetorical question and yes, I am as bad as any other woman, but sometimes I even surprise myself with what I find to feel bad about. So I am going to step up on my soapbox and say it: Most of the things that women use to incessantly lower their self-esteem are silly when you really think about it-- or even if you don't think too hard. More than a handful of these things are counter to any common sense, if not completely illogical. Not that they aren't still effective when you want to give yourself an instant downer day --but, hey-- now at least you can add "I'm unrealistic and illogical" to your list of self-tirades. ;) In all seriousness, I don't think women are illogical and silly, I just think we are too quick to feel bad about ourselves without seeing how certain expectations (even if they are culturally prevalent) are inherently unrealistic and flawed. Here goes:

"I don't look like I did when I was 20." -- Since when are you supposed to be able to freeze dry yourself at a certain age and stay looking like that forever? Um, you will stop looking like you are 20 when you are, oh, around 21. Unless of course you want to undergo massive Botox and plastification and then you can look like a scary human zombie of a 60-year-old that bears an eerie resemblance to what a 20-year-old might look like if they had been coated in a semi-solid amorphous material.

"I've put on a few pounds since I had kids." -- There are a few models, marathon runners and mutants out there who manage to escape post-baby weight and look fantastic, but these are the exception, not the rule. (I know quite a few of them and what really stinks is that they are really nice people too so you can't hate them.) ;) For those of you out there who aren't entirely familiar with the childbirth process, a woman's body expands and adapts to accommodate an entire (albeit small) human being, which she manages to feed, shelter and nurture inside her own body for 9 months, despite nausea, discomfort and a large awkward shape. After delivering the baby she spends another 6 months minimum of extremely intense care, involving frequent feedings (often from her own, yet again changing, body), night wakings and nearly incessant needs. The incessant needs for care eventually diminishes but doesn't completely go away for about 18 years. There are those out there who manage to focus on "getting their old body back" during this time. I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for eating healthy, exercising and taking care of yourself. But how many of us really are motivated to lose weight more by a desire to be healthy and less by a desire to look great in a swimsuit?

"I'm not as cute or fashionable as I was before I had kids." -- Not to say that you want to abandon all goals of cuteness or fashion, but please see above paragraph. But really, being cute and fashionable is all that really matters anyway. That said, it's hard to be excited about cuteness and fashion when whatever fashion you attempt may be assailed by random spit-up, drool or boogers or probably won't fit in six months because of pregnancy/nursing/weight gain/weight loss or child-pushing-buttons-on-the-dryer-induced shrinkage.

"My house is a mess." -- Just so you know, this one is completely your fault. While your children are working their rear ends off, trying to keep things tidy, clean and sanitized, you are sitting on the couch watching cartoons and playing with toys, making messes for them to clean up. Shame on you! Enough said.

I know. This is an old rant. I've probably visited it on my blog two-hundred-bajillion times before. But it still is irritating that so often we/people/society give lip service to things that are really important (spending time with your kids, eating healthy, being there for other people, thinking about more than yourself or appearances) but so much of our culture is really tied up in appearances and the form rather than the substance of things (looking skinny vs. actually being healthy or being "free" to be objectified for your appearance or exploit your body for money vs. true equality for women). I really wonder if the problem of women having low self-esteem is worsened by the messages our culture promotes about women. Our "modern society" talks about promoting equality for women when so often what is really promoted is women used as objects of seduction to sell products. I know. It's all said like a women who resents losing her swimsuit body and would rather whine about it than get on a treadmill. OK, there may be some truth in that. =] But there's truth in my half of the argument too.

I believe in equality for women. But I also believe in respect for "womanly" [Can you even use that term?] characteristics such as tenderness, compassion, nurturing and giving of yourself for others (regardless of what gender the person is who is exhibiting those characteristics). Is it possible to have equal respect for a woman (or man) who chooses to raise children, care for elderly parents or serve in the community rather than pursuing money or fame? Is it possible for a woman to be "beautiful" who may not have a great body, but spends her time with compassion and caring for others? Is the only way for a woman to be equal for her to become more like a "man" (meaning obsessed with self, money, career, power, sex-- although I would argue that a true "man" doesn't exhibit these characteristics either)?

OK. Enough of my rant for the day. I'm really not as on one as I sound from this post. I suppose the problem is that really I wish I could have it all: care for others, raise children, lucrative career, impressive hobbies, perfect body. It's possible, right? All I have to do is buy the right products.... (After all, I'm worth it!)

 (By the way, does anyone buy soap in a box anymore? I'm assuming the term doesn't refer to bar soap-- box too small. Laundry soap might work, but I get it in a plastic container with a spout that would be tricky to stand on for too long.)