*kendraspondence*

Yesterday, I was:
- Face down on a massage table, propped up by a belly pillow, while Jose made like Patrick-Swayze-with-clay on my back.
- Feeling zen-like in a relaxation room, wearing a terrycloth robe, eating dried apricots and sipping chamomile tea.
- Pleased to be the only one in the pool at the Intercontinental Spa.
- Feeling guilt-free taking a long, hot shower, and using all and sundry toiletry items.
- Gleefully riding the train unaccompanied by a goldfish cracker chomping toddler.

Today I am:
- Irrationally close to tears at my inability to find my car keys anywhere.
- Irrationally close to having a heart attack when my kid falls and splits lip at music class.
- Plagued by diarrhea just as I was closing in on the cashier at the supermarket, with a cart full of frozen items, natch.
- Projectile vomiting up my lunch which included folic acid and iron pills I know FetusBaby needs but which he/she will not receive until tomorrow.

And that is as much as I know about tomorrow.

***
Yesterday

Today

I am pretty sure

I came into the world

grimacing like Popeye.

My face was not made for

posing Precious Moment-like.

Sugar and spice and everything

nice.

I only ever brought the spice.

Which is probably why

my parents had 2 more children.

Both, sweet as pie.

Unfurled tongues

snarled lips

furrowed brows

bunny ears

hands on hips.

I never saw a camera I didn’t spite.

And now, I watch,

I grab, I snap, I capture

a living legacy of spunk

a facsimile of funny face

my flesh my blood my own

daughter.

***

I confess.

Once upon a time, meaning 1 minute before I had a baby,  I thought that discipline was a cut and dry practice, that there were rules and penalties for breaking those rules, and probably some shades of gray therein.

I thought we came into the world with caretakers that were, capital “G” Good Discipliners, or the opposite of that.  I thought that there were parents that were just ill-tempered and those with short fuses, and pushover Pollyanna-type Mr. Roger parents.

But then I had a baby.  And that baby grew and learned to pull hair and wombat-teeth everything and cry at inopportune times and announce in the middle of a grown-up dinner party, “I’m SO poopy!”

I realized that discipline is not cut and dry, nor is it simply about molding a young life.  Discipline, I have learned, is like the navigation of a pilot.  Always hovering above or below the latitude and longitude of where you want to be, but rarely aligning with the exact coordinates.

Lovey Loverpants is an excellent co-pilot in all of this, so I give thanks for him, for helping me find my way back to that line of latitude I lost in the clouds of anger or pride. Although our approach to things is different at times, I know our goals are ultimately the same and that is so so wonderful.
Still, discipline is actually disciplining the snot out of this mama.

I don’t write often about the behaviors of Baby Girl we are trying to curb, partly because I am often bewildered/surprised by them, but also because I am still so much finding my way.  I have realized that my own hypocrisy, my own sin invariably stares me back in the face when I am looking into that little dolly-done-wrong’s eyes.  It turns out that instructing your child to exercise some patience when you say it through gritted teeth, one arm holding her shoulder, the other arm twirling the Swiffer broom in the air ready to clear and karate chop a whole bookcase?  Is not really effective.

I am a relatively patient person and yet when I am sleep-deprived and just got chewed out in an e-mail by a student and just burned myself on a cast iron pan because I was so tired I wasn’t thinking USE OVEN MIT, and then my child starts whiiiiiiiining with a whine heard round the world, let us just say that in those moments, I would not be mistaken for Michelle Duggar.

But I have been reading a lot of Child Guidance by Ellen White, and this has truly changed my outlook on discipline.  She says that there will be times when every parent’s resources, good humor, and energy runs dry.  In those times, it is necessary to call upon a Higher Power for strength.  I thought it was okay, that I was just being human, when I became grizzly or lazy or both in those moments.  But when I don’t ask God for strength to endure and correct, I am doubting God’s power to help me in my desperation.  I am also inclined to borrow power from another source.  White says that when we are cruel or violent toward our children, we are serving another master.  That really pricked my heart, and so my constant prayer these days is that in disciplining my child, that I would be disciplined enough in doing so to call on God for the help from above of which I am so in need.

***

Not that we’re keeping score, but today is the 10th anniversary of my first Valentine’s Day with Lovey Loverpants in which he was confused by my verbiage and thought that when I said, “We are going out to dinner,” I meant with him and not my roommates. This misunderstanding meant he drove 7 hours to my apartment in DC and was dressed in a BOWTIE awaiting my arrival so that we could go out to dinner.  Only, shoooooot!  I had just eaten!  With my roommates.  Don’t you remember?

So I ordered him a pizza and together we enjoyed it, he eating it, and me enjoying him in a bowtie.

To let the circle go unbroken, we celebrated tonight with a similar circular-shaped pie, only with Baby Girl (and, by extension, Wee En Utero Baby).  We all ate together this year, though, and that was sweet indeed.

***

Prior to that, though, there were CHOCOLATE BUFFETS to orchestrate, and this was perhaps one of my proudest feats in the kitchen to date.  I hosted a little Mary Kay showing of our new products (and still have a few gift bags and one of these gift boxes left if you are in the market, I’ll send it your way with free shipping). To sweeten the deal, I offered my guests a self-guided tour of chocolate.  Somehow we all managed to find our way….

***

Chocolate Pretzel Tart

Homemade strawberry marshmallows

Made with help from Baby Girl

The world’s largest shmallow

A glimpse of the buffet:

A few valentines made by Baby Girl and a gluestick:

A few of my sweethearts

My annual Five Dollah February sale is going on NOW!!!

E-mail me at kendratheadverb at gmail dot com if you are interested in any of the following books. Shipping free when you buy 2 or more. I accept paypal.  I will remove books as they are claimed.

Beach Music by Pat Conroy – paperback. Excellent condition

The Bone Woman by Clea Koff – hardcover.

Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding – paperback. Fair condition

The Conscious Bride by Sheryl Nissinen – paperback. Good condition

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway – paperback. Excellent condition

Restless Virgins by Abigail Jones and Marissa Miley