Things that I am, and am not.

I am not a world famous blogger. I would like to be. I would like to write things that are interesting to folks, or thought provoking, or maybe things that get people motivated. I am coming to terms with the fact that I am not one of these writers. I spend too much time doing stuff and not enough time writing about it. But then again, if I just wrote, and didn't do anything, what would I have to write about? Believe you me, my thoughts are way to scattered to become any type of post in and of themselves. I need concrete things to write about; stories about the children, stories from around the house. I have always been like this. My mom used to tell me to draw pictures and I was like, of what? I mean tell me to draw a picture of that table, or that dog and maybe I could stick figure something together, but to just create? Nah. I am constantly in awe of how creative Mia is. She will just fill any blank page that she finds anywhere around the house with amazing drawings of machines that make clown faces and poop out rainbows, or restaurants with lots of people waiting in line, or lakes with big bridges that she can actually walk across. I see now why when going through old boxes of stuff that my mom kept from when we were kids every scrap of paper we scribbled on has been kept for 30 years. I want to keep every scrap Mia draws on because they are all so cool and special! This is the sun and moon, obviously, and the figures are a bug playing with a puppet.

So here are some things I have been doing instead of blogging. I started knitting again! Finally it has become slightly more rewarding than frustrating. The knitting scale was definitely tipped the other direction for a while, but now I can start to see how it might be fun. The only problem is that I still don't really like how knitted things look or feel. Ask me then why I am doing it? Not sure. I just like a challenge. I wish I could take this need for challenge and focus it into the challenge of cleaning my house, but I have also come (or am coming) to terms with the fact that I am a mess maker, not a mess cleaner. I like to spend all of my time doodling around in the kitchen and zero time cleaning the cobwebs off of the baseboards.
( I made this last year.... look at that face! No wonder my mom calls her fat baby!)

I just finished these little boots. I have added flowers to Mia's since this picture...

This brings me to my final anecdote of the day. I think a lot about how my actions effect my children and what kind of example I am setting based on my words or behaviors. Sometimes I think I do a good job, when I keep my patience, when I spend time playing instead of working, you know, special times like that. Sometimes however, like Saturday, I do a very very very very bad job. We were driving in the car, all of us, with me in the passenger seat. Suddenly, Mia starts freaking out that a caterpillar is on Eleanor's foot. I didn't really believe her until Eleanor started to lose it. Mia was like "THE CATERPILLAR WAS ON HER FOOT AND IT CRAWLED OVER HER LEG!!! MAMAMAMAMAMAMA!!!" So then of course Eleanor was screaming and crying and flailing around and I was afraid that it was biting her or stinging her or something, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I was asking Rex very kindly to pull over and let us find the bug and get it off of Eleanor, but he said we were almost to our destination, she would be fine and we would find it then. Well right about that moment, I looked down and saw the stupid caterpillar (the ones that have been living in our tree, rendering me a phobic mess outside) crawling on my seat! So picture me, on my feet in the front seat, facing the back, behind almost out the windshield, screaming bloody murder (well I don't actually remember what I did. I have blocked it out. all I know is that after it was all over Mia asked it I could please make that sound again), and punching Rex in the shoulder yelling, "I hate you I hate you I hate you" (for not pulling over and ridding us of this creature earlier, and for laughing so hysterically that he almost drove us off of I-35). I grabbed a bib that was in the floorboard for some reason and used it so shoo the monster off of my seat onto the rear floor board. I thought it might be dead but I was keeping an eye on it, when low and behold it started crawling back up the seat. Oh my gosh, seriously just as I am writing this I literally have chills all over my whole body. I am so disturbed by this that I am almost unable to write it. I really think I need therapy. If I ever do go back to school and become a therapist I will obviously not be able to help people with exposure to phobias. Can you imagine? You go to therapy to get over some phobia that involved the outdoors and your therapist starts screaming and punching you and jumping over chairs when she sees a bug? Geesh. Anyhow, Rex ended up pulling the car over and I had to jump out and walk around a little big to regain composure. The kids by now think that caterpillars are hairy crawling poisonous beasts of death for the rest of their lives. All day Eleanor would freak out and say "Capiwer! Capiwer!" so scared that another one was on her. Last night we tried to eat dinner outside, but Mia, who a month ago was going outside collecting them in cups, now would not sit down because she was scared they were going to get on her. I will admit that I might have made it worse by making her look around on every chair and the table and under the table and on the legs to see if there were any crawling around before I would sit down, so there ya go. Another generation of bug-a-phobes created, in a single instance. You are welcome husbands of my daughter's future, for providing you with years of cheap entertainment and the ability to be a hero on a regular basis by killing things for them.