...no really, one last thing tonight...

Does anyone out there know how long it takes eyelashes to grow back, or (gulp!) if they do at all? I am mourning the loss of mine from a very quick but hot explosion that left no lasting effects except robbing me of my precious eyelashes. The hair on my arms has grown back (oh joy) and my eyebrows are okay, but my lashes are struggling. Is there something I can do to make them grow back?

...just one more thing...

I really love the internet. I've been dorking around online, and have found, to my relief, that I have not felt one emotion or frustration, that mothers everywhere in the world and throughout time have not already felt before. What a sisterhood!

Halloween Complaints

Complaint #1:

I'm longing for a good old fashioned Halloween. One where children actually walk door to door and go good old fashioned trick or treating(GOFTOT). Not walking from car trunk to car trunk in a very small parking lot. Goodness. Are we so lazy that we can't get out in the neighborhood and meet our neighbors? Is walking around the block really that big of a deal? Is it unsafe somehow to go GOFTOT, even if you are RIGHT THERE with your kids and there is no possibility of them getting snatched? This is just one more reason why we as a nation are raising a generation of coddled pantywaists. Who invented these things anyway? Heaven forbid our darlings get any exercise in the form of trolling the 'hood for treats. And don't EVEN get me started on trick or treating at the mall. That is just wrong in so many ways.

Complaint # 2:

Why, when you go to the Halloween store to buy a costume for yourself, are all the women costumes slutty? Wait, wait, don't tell me. Because a man designed them?

Disclaimer:
We attended a trunk or treat last night and had a blast. Of course, there were games, and lots of hanging out getting to know each other beforehand AND, it didn't replace GOFTOT.

Just A Cute Scene I Saw

So I've seen this particular cute thing happen several times now. On Saturdays, we're usually busy going to Keller's football games. (Yes fellow Alta Hawks, that's a Brighton uni). This is Keller's first year playing as it is for most of the other boys he plays with. They are about 8 or 9 years old. They look adorable and tiny in their pads and uniforms. The referee for most of the games is this teenage kid who looks like he might be a high school football player? Not sure. But he's young. When the play starts and the ball is snapped, like most young sporties, all the players kind of just follow the ball around on the field. When the running back (or the kid who runs with the ball) finally gets tackled, they all dogpile on top of him and everyone winds up in a five foot stack of flailing arms and legs. The ref comes over and stars grabbing these little kids by their shoulder pads, picking them up in the air and setting them on their feet one by one, just like you would for a toddler who was learning to walk. I can't explain why it's so cute. And I'm not sure the cuteness is coming through in my words, but it just makes me smile every time. It makes them seem even smaller. Like little baby puppies or something.

Another moment of football cuteness: The smallest kid on our team (and I mean he's TEENY) ran and tackled the biggest kid on the other team while he was running for a touchdown last Saturday. I mean, he took that big kid DOWN! It was awesome and hilarious.

Stormy Days

Whenever I stop to think about it, I'm always astonished at the absolute necessity of good mothers. When you consider the responsibility of nourishing, clothing, teaching, and raising separate human beings to be excellent people, aren't you amazed too? Simply caring for their most basic needs is a formidable task. Add character training, discipline, teaching, and all other life skills into the mix and you begin to realize that it really is the career of careers.

Somewhere in the course of history we've decided that caring for children and tending to their needs is menial labor. That it's unimportant. We are wrong. In our society, juvenile depression and juvenile crime rates have risen for years now. These symptoms tell us we are wrong. The depression one makes me really sad. Depressed kids and teenagers can do weird things. They can do tragic things too sometimes. Should we keep thinking that child care is trivial? No. These symptoms tell us that it is vital to give our utmost energy to the tasks of motherhood. Rank those kids very high on your list of urgency. If we treat the job like it's unimportant, we'll get unimportant results.

I know where your mind is headed (some of you), because mine goes there too. Go ahead. Say it. "What about me?" I know, huh? I want to write. I want to craft, and make floral garlands for my windows. I want to knit. I want to sew and be creative in a thousand other ways. I want to do what I want to do. But. I made the decision to be a mom. So, there you go. I read a great line in "The Well Trained Mind". I can't quote it word for word because all my books are packed, but it's coming from a mom whose kids are grown and she's homeschooled them. "I came to realize that my kids were the most creative project I'd ever been involved in."

I'm not trying to tell moms that they can't have their own hobbies! By all means, take an hour or two a day for yourself and listen to your iPod full blast, or pound out your frustrations on some kind of instrument, read up on your favorite book, finish up a craft project that's been neglected and rejoice that it's finally done. Maybe just do these things while your kids are in bed for the night, or napping. I have more hobbies than I can keep up with. I'm just reminding us all how vital it is that we give of our time, attention, and concentration to these kids that we've decided to bring into the world. I'm going to risk offending someone, but I have to say it. It's selfish to bring kids into the world and then pursue your own interests or talents without moderation. You can be anything in the world that you want to be! But if you decide to be a mother, make a true and wholehearted commitment to it.

The best person to raise a child is that child's mother. Yes, there are grandmas, and daycares, nannies, babysitters, and friends that can step in now and then. But the best person is the mother.

Love and Money

The cool thing about money is that it's all relative. What I mean by that is that there's always someone with more money than you. On the other hand, there's always someone with less. This fact makes it easy to feel either very grateful and blessed, or deprived and denied, depending on how you choose to look at your life. I've been on the poor side of the tracks when it never seemed like there would be enough money for anything, but we were always happy. We never knew how poor we were! Even at the times when I couldn't buy a magazine without upsetting the family budget, there was always someone with less. Always, there was a reason to feel blessed. Like we had enough.

The cool thing about love is that it's not relative. If you have love, you have it. There's no comparing how much love you have in your heart with how much someone else has. You have it, it makes your life rich, and makes you happy, and that's it.

What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?

-Friedrich Nietzsche