Thursday, September 30, 2010

Rebel

Rebel.

Yup, that’s right. I rebelled. Look out world…or should I say, Raleigh, NC. Generally speaking, I am not impulsive at all. In fact, typically I over analyze everything before even making a decision, then I usually question if I made the right one. I am definitely an over thinker, which is not always a good thing. So when impulsivity knocked on my door yesterday, I welcomed it.

Ah, yesterday. Hello impulsivity. My friend.

I cashed in on a gift certificate for my birthday for a manicure/pedicure (thanks Samantha, I enjoyed every minute of it!!!). It’s been a not-so-groovy week and I really wanted to take a break from the craziness for a little bit. I proudly entered the nail salon ready to embark on my nail transformation, shaved legs and all.

As I stood there, dizzy by all the colors to choose from, my mind started swirling. I usually think whatever color you pick reflects the type of person you are or perhaps the mood you are in that day. I perused the sheers and thought -nah, I want some color to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth. Then the pink’s -nah, I’m not in a pretty kind of mood. Then the red’s -nah, not in a saucy kind of mood either. Hmmm. What to do, what to do. Then there was black. I thought-Well hello there black nail polish. You sure do present an interesting dilemma and I LIKE IT. Of course I picked up the bottle, put it down, and picked it up, put it down. Looked around to see if anyone could see me that might comment. Then my internal battle began. However, my rebellion overpowered and won. I grabbed the bottle and proudly sat down in the chair to begin the pedicure.

Me: I chose black!!! (all proud)

Nail Salon worker: You won black polish?

Me: Yes, I’m feeling wild today!

Worker: Wha??? Wild? You jus call black polish wild? (Giggle, Giggle)

Me: Yes, I’m being wild…before I have to go to carpool that is.

Worker: If you won be wild, you paint nails black, den red, den white. Das wild. Not jus black.

Me: Oh no, I think I’ll just stick with black for today. I need to ease my way into being wild. (Doesn’t this person know how bad I agonized over picking black in the first place?!?)

Worker: (turns to speak to co-worker, in their language of course). Translation: dis why girl thinks she bein wild. Das funny!

Worker: Okay, we stic wif black if dat make you happy.

Me: yes, that’s exactly what I’d like.

Then onto the manicure…

Worker: you won black for fingah’s too?
Me: Yes, but not the whole nail. I’m thinking of just the tips for something a little different.

Worker: you won fake tips?

Me: What? No! Just paint the tips of my nails black is good.

Worker: Oh…

(Apparently I’m not as rebellious as I thought!)

Worker: Is okay wif you if I put lil silver on nail over da black?

Me: Um, I guess. (Otherwise you might boo me outta this place)

Worker: you won design on nail?

Me: No, that’s okay. I guess the black tip and silver is all I can handle.

Worker: ness time you come in, you be wild den okay?

Me: Sure thing.

I must say it was a great time. We laughed and laughed. Jill joined me in the experience and we were there over 2 hours. The staff was a lot of fun. It was a husband/wife combo. And I left with black toenails and black and silver striped nails. Not really digging the silver stripe so much but I gave into peer pressure what can I say?

I suggest you find your inner rebel (in a safe, unharming fashion of course).



Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mornings.

A glimpse into our mornings…

When I was younger, I always envisioned what I thought our “family” mornings would be like when I was married with kids. Mind you, I had a very normal childhood that really did not include these crazy fantasies I conjured up in my head. We, like the typical family, were rushed around in the mornings to get everyone to their appropriate places. That was just life. Most of my mom’s mornings were spent yelling at my brother to get up….that boy could sleep through a tornado. Actually, he once did sleep through a tornado, literally. Looking back, I bet she had to get up at least an hour earlier than normal just to start waking Adam up. I, of course, being the golden child, ahemmm, got right up when told and my reward was that my dad took me by Hardees for a sausage biscuit on the way to school. My downfall- I did not like to talk in the mornings. I don’t remember much talking, but it all seemed so normal. It WAS normal.

However, I had a different perception of how I thought my future would play out. Don’t we all? Call me nostalgic, sentimental etc. I’ve always known I would have done better living in a different era, such as the 40’s or 50’s, as my mom tells me all the time. I envisioned my day beginning with me getting up before everyone else, taking my shower and doing my devotion. I thought the mornings would consist of a big breakfast cooked by yours truly, fresh flowers on the table, Jon sipping his coffee while reading his paper, dressed in his finest work attire, the kids at the table all smiles, cute outfits, ready for school, wonderful conversations…you know enjoying that good, quality family time before we all parted ways for our days to begin. We would exit the house with hugs and kisses and couldn’t wait until we met again. I would send the family off to school and work while I got busy cleaning the house and cooking that night’s dinner, from scratch. Oh what a joyous life! I know, I know…Leave It to Beaver style but I loved the idea of it.


Where is the insert “screeching halt” sound button??????? Hello????? Really????? Someone slap me in the face and then do it again and then probably one more time for good measure. Am I crazy??? Yes.

Here is how most mornings play out at the Waterman household…

None of us are morning people but unfortunately we have to be. The day starts with me having really, really bad thoughts of all the ways I can crush, stomp, and kill my alarm clock. I hate that thing. In fact, a lot of nights, I choose to rebel and don’t even set the stupid thing. It is my enemy. Yes, I do have this weird internal alarm clock that rarely fails me so I don’t always need it. I learned to adapt without the enemy, but really time is the true enemy here. I roll outta bed after giving Jon a nasty look because he gets 15 extra minutes of sleep than I do (my choice to get up first though- hey I’m no fool, I want the hottest water possible for my shower!). I immediately begin playing the whole day’s schedule over and over in my head. Who has to be where by when and what do they need to take with them. Blah, blah, blah I just wanna go back to sleep. I drag myself to the shower, then I drag myself back out. In our old house I’d just bang on the wall (so lady like, I know) to let Jon know I was out of the shower and he had to get up (insert evil face for the pleasure of interrupting his sleep!) However, due to our current living conditions it isn’t feasible for me to bang on the wall and the bathroom is too far away from our bedroom (apartment living while we build our house), so I have the luxury of walking across the apartment, freezing and soaking wet in my towel (not as pretty as it may sound), to wake him up.

When I get out of the shower, I immediately have to start waking Drew up. Unfortunately, Drew inherited my brother’s inability to wake up easily. I’d say we tell him on average 10-15 times “time to get up Drew.” We know we are just saying it the first 10 times just to hear ourselves talk.

Emma is hit or miss. Some days I have to wake her up, others she is bright and cheery and gets up on her own. You never know if you are going to get “Sesame Street sunshine Emma” with her smiles and hugs or “Poltergeist Emma” with her scary face and crazy hair and mute self. I’d say on average she is sunshine Emma 1-2 days a week and Poltergeist Emma 3-4 days. It’s not pretty on Poltergeist days. She usually sits up in her bed with her entire head covered with the sheets and she doesn’t move or talk. Some mornings I’m too afraid of her to even go in the room. I’m kidding. Sort of.

Once everyone is up, we begin the rat race to find matching outfits, hair bows, shoes, breakfast, book bags, lunch boxes, keys, cell phones etc. I repeatedly shoot daggers and have Ally McBeal moments at Jon, as I’m sweating and need another shower before leaving and he is waltzing around, yawning, lathering up in eczema cream and cleaning his eyeglasses- EVERY MORNING. It’s quite comical actually. (I’ll let him defend himself and post on the late night version and how I shut down and can’t function after a certain time so he does it all then :)

Part of my dream about family mornings came true as we do have conversation in the mornings. Some typical things said in the mornings are:

“Mom, I don’t have any clean socks” (Drew)

“Eleanor, I need my work shirts dry cleaned so bad” (Jon)

“Mom, I forgot to do one thing for homework last night” (Drew)

“Mom, I forgot to have you sign this permission slip” (Drew)

“Drew hit me” (Emma)

“Emma took your cell phone and just called your boss.” (Me)

“Drew, didn’t you wear those shorts to school yesterday?” (Me)

“Chocolate pudding?” (Emma- asking for breakfast)

“Mom, we need new milk from the store. This one smells funny” (Drew- just this am!)

“Shut up Drew” (Poltergeist Emma- and yes we are working really hard on breaking her from this word, we do not even use this word)

“Do we have to go to school today?” (Drew, almost everyday)

“Where’s Emma’s book bag?” (Jon)

“Fruit snacks?” (Emma’s attempt at more junk for breakfast)

“Drew, get up the first time we tell you if you want to eat breakfast before leaving” (Me, everyday)

“Everyone’s gonna be late” (Me, everyday)

“Grab a hairbow for Emma” (Me to Jon)

“Where are they and what color?” (Jon back to me)

“Oh forget it, I’ll do it myself” (Me to Jon)- haha!

“Mom, what are we doing after school today?” (Drew, everyday)

“I can’t find Emma’s other shoe” (Jon)

“No school, stay home” (Emma, everyday)

“Eleanor, I need to get my haircut today. Do you have a coupon you want me to use?” (Jon, as we are walking out the door)

“Ugh, I’m so tired and I hate school” (Drew, everyday)

I do manage to squeeze in hugs and kisses from everyone (Drew won’t kiss me anymore) before they leave me. And I do tell everyone to have a good day.

Once everyone is out the door (Jon takes the kids to school and I pick up), I have approximately 2 minutes (literally) to get dressed and get out the door to head to work. I’m doing good most days if I remember to brush my teeth and put underwear on! I have actually left the house without shoes. It actually happened last week but I noticed immediately.

Yes, mornings are insane around our household. Somehow I have fallen in love with our insanity. Sure we could make some modifications to make it run smoother in the am’s, but that might require me to get up even earlier…and that just goes back to the whole “time is my enemy thing.” So for now, I will continue to wish I lived in the 40’s or 50’s.

I hope your mornings aren’t as crazy as ours!

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Thankful

I woke up today feeling so blessed. Feeling thankful. I can’t say I wake up feeling like that every day, although I should. We all should. Though we face many struggles, our lives here are undoubtedly much simpler than many parts of this world. Just think of all the blessings we have before even leaving our house each day. Blessings we often take for granted, but others would give their lives for.

We wake up every day with our head on a comfy pillow, a roof over our head, cool a/c or warm heat to satisfy us, showers to clean us, towels to dry us, toothbrush and toothpaste for our teeth, clothes and shoes to put on our bodies, food with food choices to eat for breakfast, our spouses and children to begin our day with, food to pack for our children to have lunch at school, pencils and pens to sign papers for school, bookbags to aide our children in their educations, coffee to help you get that “kick start”, televisions to catch up on the news, laptops to check email before leaving. On the way out the door we grab our cell phones, ipods, car keys, pocketbooks, wallets etc. I just named 24 things that we consider part of our expected daily routine for us. The word “expected” should be replaced with “taken for granted”. I just named 24 things that we consider part of our “taken for granted” daily routine for us. And this is just to get us out the door each morning.

Let’s see what other parts of the world wake up to each morning:

A few facts I found on third world countries:

- Many children in Africa are desperate to go to school and learn how to read and write. But most can't - normally because they don't have enough money. You often have to pay school fees, and parents don't have the cash. Also, many children are needed to help out at home. Even children who do go to school have to walk for hours to get there. They have to leave home early to avoid the heat and arrive three hours before their lessons start.

- Children are sometimes forced to become child soldiers and fight - even when they don't understand what the war's about. In Liberia, children as young as seven have been found fighting in combat. Children often get separated from their family because of war - or lose their parents altogether. Many children are sent away from home if the fighting is really bad. And their fathers and brothers go off to war, and may never return. In Rwanda, 300,000 children have no mum or dad and have to run their own family, because their parents were killed in a civil war in 1993.

- Landmines - left over from old conflicts - also threaten children. No one knows where they are and children are often killed or lose limbs when they step on them.

- In areas where there are water shortages, it's usually the girls who have to trek for miles each day to collect it, while the boys might go to school. Girls as young as 10 sometimes have to collect the water for their whole family. Because the girls carry such heavy pots of water, which damages their necks and back, this can lead to them having terrible problems later in life. Girls who go out every morning to get water often can't go to school.

- Millions of children live on one meal a day, and many of them are forced to eat grass seeds and roots.

- In third world countries, you will see very young children begging in the streets because they have no parents, no food, and no place to sleep except for the cold, hard ground. They cry themselves to sleep at night because they're so hungry that the pain never stops. Many don't even live past the age of three.

Let’s take some time to really stop and be thankful for all the bountiful blessings we are given.

Today I am thankful for:

-My loving family who I am so blessed to see often

-A warm place to sleep and food to eat

-A job which helps provide my family with the things they need

-A car to transport my family places

-Quality time to spend with my husband and children

-The freedom to go to church

-Wonderful friends who lift me up

-Doctors who provide much needed care to my loved ones

-My faith

Today I choose to be thankful for the simple things.

What are you thankful for today?