How many of you have watched the new videos produced by Momversation? I like them, although secretly angry that nobody has asked for my opinion. I also find myself disagreeing with many of the “moms” on these video discussions. The most current topic is which is more difficult, motherhood or marriage? Apparently, I’m in the minority on this topic.

For me, marriage is SO MUCH EASIER THAN MOTHERHOOD. I’m always amused when people say to me, “you guys must have the funniest arguments.” Although I’m flattered that people find David and I so funny we have had very few funny marital arguments. I am the kind of wife that cries at a drop of the hat and so most of our arguments include me crying and David rolling his eyes. However, no matter how angry, frustrated, sad, or crazy I get I can ALWAYS talk to David and he can understand what I’m saying. He may not agree with what I’m saying, but he understands the words coming out of my mouth.

Motherhood is filled with pitfalls and moments that make you crazy. David has never asked me to get him chocolate milk (or any other beverage) while I’ve been sitting on the toilet. He has never tried to ask me to fix his My Little Pony while I’m talking to the doctor’s office. He has never purposefully spilled his Diet Coke on the floor to see what would happen. He has never asked me to wipe his bottom while I’m eating breakfast. He has never willfully ignored my requests to put his shoes on even after I’ve repeated it three times, or touched the public toilet with his hands and put them in his mouth during which I’m yelling “DON’T TOUCH THAT!! DON’T TOUCH THAT!!” and then “NO!! DON’T PUT THEM IN YOUR MOUTH!!”

I love my children, and I love being a mother but it is by far the hardest job I’ve ever had. I’ve sat in meeting rooms with angry men yelling at me because their $500,000 project is now going to cost $2.5 million. THAT experience was far easier than trying to get Max to sleep through the night at 9 months old. I’ve locked myself in my bathroom numerous times to cry out of sheer fatigue and feelings of failure. No job has ever made me feel that way but motherhood.

Marriage is hard, but it is so much easier to maintain than children. All I have to do to keep David happy is scratch his back and watch movies with him (and I’m not even talking about “adult” movies. I’m just talking about whatever came in on NetFlix). All he has to do to keep me happy is do the dishes and take me out once in awhile. Our needs are simple. Perhaps it is because David and I have had such good marriage role models in our parents, or perhaps it is because we have never violated the trust in our relationship. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that my marriage has always been comfortable and full of respect. Motherhood, on the other hand, feels like every day is my first day of boot camp.

Whenever we spend the holiday season in Texas it ends up being a three-Christmas affair. This year was no different.

Part 1 – In Nacogdoches
We spent five days with my in-laws this year and celebrated Christmas Eve and Day together as a family. These five days were uneventful except for the annual brotherly argument. I love my brother-in-law. I do. He has a zeal for life that is contagious and a wonderful sense of humor. However, he and David have a way of resorting back to ten, maybe thirteen year old boys when

together. This inevitably brings out the worst in each other. The topic of argument is irrelevant, what is predictable is the escalated voices, the name calling, the threats and the not speaking. This lasts for less than an hour and then there are apologies, hugs, jokes and peace is resumed. It is like a thunderstorm blowing into the house – you can see the clouds building but there is nothing you can do to prevent the inevitable. You just have to have faith that the rainbow will return, and it always does. My sister-in-law and I have learned to blissfully ignore the argument, wait for the storms to blow over and then we both put on our peacekeepers hat and negotiate an accord. Men, brothers, they make no sense.

Part II – At Home
Once we returned from Nac we had four days to do a couple of projects at home. Our biggest project was to reorganize our home office. Our home office is approximately 12′ x 11′ and every inch of wall space is covered in shelves — and I mean EVERY INCH. It gradually became that way when David and I were running our business out of our house. However, that was at least 4 years ago and we no longer need half the stuff that is cluttering our little space. I finally transitioned my desk from being that of an interactive media project manager to a working professor. It feels good to have SEO reports from 2001 in the trash and my current copies of textbooks and resource material around me. I’m a geek, but I’m comforted by having my books around me.

Part III — At the Lake
David’s family owns a wonderful house on a nearby lake. Every New Years weekend is spent at the Lake celebrating the final Christmas event with the entire extended family. This includes 40+ people. It is a wonderful time complete with chili-cook off, Christmas Pageant performance, and gift exchange. Although it borders on chaos, everybody has a good time and it is always nice to see how big the family has gotten since the last get together.

David’s grandmother (who lives there permanently) has wonderful pet doves. However, the pet doves have multiplied over the years and she now has close to 20 pet doves. For an 85 year old woman this is quite a bit of work to keep up with and it was decided that something HAD to be done about the birds. Friday morning David’s Uncle Bo killed the doves, cleaned the doves and by Friday afternoon they were wrapped in bacon, stuffed with jalapenos, and sizzling on the grill. Although I did not eat any, David’s grandmother did. There is something authentically Texan about killing your pet birds in the morning and eating them in the afternoon.

Our car was burglarized last night. This will be the third time in the seven years we’ve lived in this house. I know some of you may be thinking; “wow, what a bad neighborhood” but you see that is the joke. I LIVE IN THE SUBURBS. And when I say suburbs I mean the quintessential suburbs of Dallas. We are 45 minutes north of Dallas. There are no crack houses, prostitutes or gangs running around our little bedroom community. Nope, just bored teenagers who are looking to pawn money for drugs. (At least that is what I’m telling myself). Each time our car is ravaged I’m struck by the stupidity of the thief.

Break In #1 – the car was unlocked (lucky us) and he took my case of CD’s. Joke was on the burglar since they all had been copied from real CD’s and thus he couldn’t actually sell them. What value is there in a CD with “Christina Aguilerra” scrawled across it with a Sharpie marker?

Break In #2 – He smashed our passenger side window (car locked this time – unlucky us) and took my book bag from school. I’m assuming he was looking for a computer and when none was found kindly dumped my book bag in my neighbors yard. All contents were returned to me with the addition of bugs in my bag and $150 to fix the window. The burglar did NOT take our satellite radio which was adhered to the dashboard with velcro, my case of CD’s or even my day planner which had our bank account numbers in it. Very smart

Break In #3 – Car was unlocked (lucky us) and he kindly opened every compartment in the car and emptied the contents on the front seat. This time the joke was on him because having just arrived home from being out of town we thoroughly emptied the car (in order to sort through everything in the house). I don’t even think there was an old french fry in our car.

These break-ins are in addition to the prostitute who showed up at our house one night and the vandalism we suffered to our giant, inflatable, Halloween snow globe. (I will spare you the details but alas we had no snow globe for this year). I guess I’m old but I really don’t understand the motivation here. We live in a very nice middle-class neighborhood with good schools. If these are kids doing this for kicks — well, it frankly isn’t funny. If it is kids doing it for drug money then get smarter about what you are stealing. (Our neighbor said they tried to steal his 100lb hydraulic jack, but when they realized how heavy it was they dumped it 6 doors down).

I share this with you as a cautionary tale. Let me summarize the lessons learned here.
#1 don’t lock your car
#2 don’t leave expensive things in your car overnight
#3 the suburbs are not safe
#4 teenagers are as stupid today as they were 50 years ago.

Perhaps I should leave a personalized note and some home-baked cookies in my glove box just in case they come to visit again.

Goal setting and resolution making seem contradictory to parenthood. I can set the goal that Max will be potty-trained by July or that Lucy will be reading by October but I’m not the one that actually has to achieve these goals – they do. I remember years ago my parents lamenting the fact that parenthood NEVER stops. This idea that you are done when the kids are 18 is a ridiculous myth, because it is when they turn 18 that the job gets hard. It is at 18 when kids start making the really important life decisions and who is still there guiding them? Mommy and Daddy. How do you know when you’ve finally crossed the finish line of parenting? When are we done?

I suppose each parent defines parental success differently. Whether we consciously or subconsciously realize it we are all raising our children to be a certain kind of person and it is this idealized person that is our imaginary finish line. I want my children to be educated, inquisitive, imaginative, charitable, honorable, emotionally strong, physically healthy and spiritually happy.

Am I all those things?

I can’t help but wonder if my parents have passed the parental finish line. I just called my mother the other day to ask her how to thread the bobbin in my sewing machine. I still call them to share my successes, ease my burdens, and calm my worries. Isn’t that still parenting? Have I become the kind of person they set out to make me? And even if I have, does that free them from their parental duties?

I suppose our responsibilities lessen, our children grow less needy of us and us of them. Now, while Lucy and Max are little they need me to survive and as they enter young adulthood they will continue to seek my approval. Some day, some undefined moment they will need neither of these from me. They will be able to care for themselves and their family. Will I then cross the finish line? Parenting is made for the long distance runner. The person who is slow and steady, consistent in spirit, and bottomless in strength. I am not eager to reach the end of this race and would like to prolong the finish line for as long as possible.

Thank you to Michelle from Scribbit for the ideas as I send my post off to her monthly Write-Away Contest.

In households across the country people will be making their New Year resolutions. This has never been the tradition in my house. My parents always took a piece of paper and wrote down their New Year PREDICTIONS. They would predict what was going to happen in the coming year and then seal it in an envelope. On the following New Year they would open their predictions to see how many came true.

I would like to continue this tradition by asking YOU to write your own New Year’s Predictions. My family always liked to cover a wide range of topics from the political to the mundane. Write 5 predictions (feel free to use the graphic here) and then tag 3 of your friends to write their own predictions. You can also just leave your predictions here in the comments area. I will be the keeper of your predictions and next year we’ll see how we all did.

1.) Britney Spears will challenge Keven Federline for full custody of their children
2.) Gasoline will see $1.15 a gallon before creeping back up to over $2.00 a gallon
3.) Michael Jackson will move back to the United States
4.) Lucy will start school and discover that it isn’t nearly as bad as she anticipated. However, Mommy will discover that the home-schooling part will be far more challenging than she thought.
5.) Max will discover his independence and easily rid himself of his pacifier addiction. (I think this is wishful thinking more than a prediction).

The three people I’m tagging first are Jane from “What About Mom”, Annie from “The Daily Digress” and my old friend Holly from “Migraines and Mortgages” who has actually participated in the original version with real paper.

This is sort of my blog-i-versary. I don’t really have a set date because well, there were several starts and stops. It took me almost an entire year to figure out what I was going to do with my little corner of the internet and so my early posts are a very strange combination of topics. It wasn’t until I realized that I needed to filter LESS not MORE that things fell into place. I thought I would take this moment to tell you what I learned this first year.

1.) Writing several times a week is a lot harder than it looks. When I tell people I blog I get one of the following reactions; a.) blank stare b.) an “oh really? I should do that” or c.) “does anybody read it?” The truth is, it is hard to do. Oh, it was fun and heady the first couple of months but quickly (sometime around July) it started to get painful. Frankly, I’m not that interesting and writing 3-5 times a week can be a stretch sometimes.

2.) The internet is filled with lovely people. I’ve made some amazing friends this year and met some incredible women. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve never met them in person, but I know their stories like I know my own. I’m proud to be a part of the “mommy-blogger” club because we are an impressive band of sisters.

3.) The internet is filled with people that have no sense of humor. I’m sarcastic and I get the fact that sarcasm doesn’t always translate well in the written world but c’mon people – really? I periodically post in some public venues and I’m always amazed at the vitrolic responses I receive on the most basic, humorous posts. It has made me very sympathetic and understanding of bloggers like Dooce. I can only imagine the hate-mail she receives. Eegads people, lighten up.

4.) I would do this even if nobody read it. The most surprising, and yet obvious, thing I’ve discovered is how much I have missed writing. My bachelors degree was in creative writing and I suppose I always assumed I would be a writer some day. My blog has really allowed me to pursue that. It is nice that people read it and even nicer when people comment, but fundamentally I do this for me.

Lastly, I have not finished this year without the amazing support of my parents, my husband and my readers. David has been unabashed in his support and even designed my header graphic. My parents have read every post, and as always, have been my most honest critic. My lovely, lovely readers who have rallied to my support, laughed at my jokes, provided me with wonderful tips and lead me down new paths of discovery — thank you. Thank you all. I hope in 2009 I continue to entertain you.

I’m not the kind of person who wins things. My luck just doesn’t run that way. However, somewhere in the cosmos the “Saint of Santa Pictures” has looked down upon me and taken me into his favor. I say this because I have had uncanny good luck with my kids and Santa Claus. Lucy’s very first picture with Santa Claus looked like it was taken from a brochure. Even Max has only provided me with one tearful photo in the 3 years we’ve taken his picture. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this and I’m sure that now that I’ve drawn attention to it I will forever be condemned to horrid photos. However, for this year we were successful:

For those of you living in the Dallas area I would like to let you in on my secret to some of my success. I always go to the Willow Bend Mall. Why? Because that mall is filled with stores that nobody can afford to shop in and thus is ALWAYS empty during the holiday season. If you get to the mall at around 4:45 during a weekday you are sure to not experience a line for Santa.

Lucy is very analytical for a 4 year old. She always has been. Where simple answers like “the cat died and is with God” would suffice for most 4 year olds with Lucy it is not enough. She is a thinker, she mulls, she stews, she questions, she reflects. So, it wasn’t all that surprising that we had this conversation this morning (while she sat on the toilet).

Lucy: mommy, do I have a beard?
Me: Nooo, you’re silly
Lucy: Will I ever have a beard?
Me: No, beards are only for boys
Lucy: That’s okay. I like being a girl. Do you like being a girl mommy?
Me: Yes, I like being a girl just fine.
Lucy: Me too. Do some girls, who are girls, not like being a girl?
Me: Um, some don’t like it.
Lucy: Why?
Me: I don’t know. I suppose some just don’t like being a girl
Lucy: Are there boys who don’t like being boys?
Me: Yes, I suppose so.
Lucy: Do they want to dress like girls?
Me: (starting to squirm at where these questions are leading) I don’t know, I suppose so.

Lucy takes a minute to reflect. This is when I get nervous. I know she’s working all this out in her head. She’s wondering why a boy wouldn’t want to be a boy and why would he want to wear girls clothes and I’m holding my breath in anticipation of the bombshell that is surely to come.

Lucy: (as she wiggles off the toilet) well, I LIKE being a girl.
Me: yep, me too.

And that was it — FOR NOW. I know the follow up questions are not too far behind. It may take her a couple of weeks but it will come up again. That is Lucy – that is her little analytical personality trying to get all the puzzle pieces of life to fit together into a nice, neat package. All the numbers need to add up, all the lines need to be straight, life MUST make sense to her. I bet my parents are loving this.