This week has been an odd one for me. By most standards this week should be considered a good one, in the sense that nothing bad has happened, I've been lazy and yet productive at the same time, and life is good.
Yet this week has been filled with the little things that grow and gather in my mind until I am so full that I can do nothing but escape in my mind to day dreams and contemplations.
Pumpkin has been clingy and "toddleresque" this week. I'm not sure if it's sibling jealousy or just the terrible twos. But her standard high volume demands are getting to me, and I don't understand why she must repeat stuff over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and....you get the idea. It doesn't matter if I tell her I'm cooking her supper RIGHT NOW! She'll still yell in a whining voice that's too loud for my sanity, "I want something to eat!" Etc.
And, she's been downright defiant to all requests Boom or I make. Whether we ask nicely for her to share with Rugger, or demand after requesting nicely that she put down the legos and go to brush her teeth, or threaten or even do spank her after we've amptly warned her. Nothing is working. She just says, "No." I reason with her, I tell her how things are. I threaten her with no cookies, with bedtime now, nothing works.
And she's only two and she already has conquered me. The one thing you aren't supposed to let your kids do. They are supposed to know that you are the authority, the one in charge, right? *sigh* I don't know. I hope it goes away and she becomes the compliant one again soon. I really don't know when to worry about these things. Right now it's just an annoyance.
And Rugger has taken his first steps, or at least more than one step in a row! I'm so proud of him! But then comes the issue of it being fall and him needing some form of footwear on his little feet before he romps around outdoors. So I try to put shoes on him. I remember this with Pumpkin, and it's yet another reason I'm not one of those ladies who so kindly recalls the infanthood of her children. Why is it that one-year-olds (or close to it) cannot straighten their feet? Why is it that with much yelling on my part (not wanting to, just getting frustrated to that point...I'm not proud of it) and crying on his part, instead of pushing his feet into the shoe, he tries to pull them out of it! Why is it that when I want to leave in 5 minutes and I'm already behind, it takes 15 minutes to get 2 pairs of shoes on two kids?!? Surely managing a hormonal teenager has to be easier than this!
I know, it won't be. But let me be happy in my delusions that it gets easier. At least then if they go barefoot it will be there choice and any injuries that incur will be an "I told you so" on my part. For now I'm the responsible one if anything happens due to lack of proper footwear.
On a nicer note, last Wednesday when we left church (after dragging a literally kicking and screaming Pumpkin to the car from the beloved playground where I told her she could play a few minutes since, being the nice Mommy I want to be sometimes, I told her she could since she didn't get to during class time) Pumpkin looked up at the moon from her carseat and said, "The moon followed us from the playground!" It was sweet, and if there was more of that, and less of the other stuff that she does, I'd venture to say that I enjoy them when they are this young.
But, on to the other peculiar thing of this week. After ranting about not having a kiln, it looks like I've been given another chance. I'm bidding on a kiln on ebay that is in my parents area, so they could pick it up for me. It looks pretty good in terms of not looking like it's abused or used too much. And I might get it for under $200 which is pretty good, I think. But after bidding the first time (I know, I know. My sister pointed out that I should wait until the last 5 minutes, too. But I'm too eager, darn it!) and thinking I'd get it really cheap, someone later in the day came and bid, and I thought that since this person bids on a lot of stuff, vs. the other bidder who hasn't, that I'd for sure have to battler for this kiln. And so I moped the rest of the day about not getting the kiln I had dreamt all night about the night before...literally, I dreamt of clay and kilns...
So I am holding my breath and watching the clock. By tomorrow morning I'll know if it's mine. Ironically, I've been looking around for a used kiln vent, since new ones usually go for around $400. For about a week I've checked and nothing. Then last night I found that Dick Blick is having a sale on the Orton Master Kiln Vent and it's 40% off! So if I spend less than $200 on the kiln, then I'll both the kiln and the kiln vent for under $500! Which would be so cool!
And then, and I know you'll think this is where I lost it, I felt guilty. Guilty because we don't have money to throw around. Guilty because I was lamenting about not having something so material that I really want. And guilty because I might actually get it. I don't know whether God is teasing me or going to bless me. Because I sure don't deserve it. Even though I feel like I eat breath and dream about sculpting, and that I feel that it's something that I've always wanted to do but never knew about, and even though I feel that this may help alleviate some of my pent-up emotions from being boxed in with little ones day in and day out, and even though I justify it by knowing that I could make homemade gifts and use it for homeschooling, etc. All these things are just feelings. For whatever reason, I feel that I don't deserve to get this, that my dream should remain just that. That it's money better spent elsewhere. That I'm selfish and spoiled, etc.
And yet, don't I have a right to express myself creatively, and if that opportunity comes along where I can do it to the highest degree at a fraction of the price, isn't that a good thing?
I feel like I'm on Dr. Phil and he's asking me why I don't feel I'm worth something good. And I've always felt that way. Like with my family...I'm almost always aware that there is the chance that I may lose them. And it makes me feel all the worse when I screw up and yell at them. I keep thinking that I'm not lucky enough to be able to spend all my days with them, watch my kids grow up, grow old with my soulmate, and enjoy grandchildren. I see all these people on TV or in magazines who thought that they would be fine in life and then BOOM! someone dies. Or gets a horrible disease and is crippled in some way for life, or whatever. And I keep thinking, "When will that be me?" Or will I lose my dad soon, when I have always thought that he'd be around for awhile...other people my age have lost parents in accidents...
Or maybe I'll get to be sort of old. My kids are teenagers, and then I lose them. On the verge of adulthood. Like two teens this year....
And so I always get wary when things go my way. This past year I had a wonderful birth, a nice new (for us) house, Boom is coaching a teaching, and now I may get a kiln and begin a dream of mine....but this means that we are at the top of the roller coaster, ready to descend, and I wonder......into what?
I know that's not how I'm supposed to think, but it's true. You can't stay up forever. And I just wonder...
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