It’s nearing the end of summer and my oldest daughter can’t wait for school.  Today she is home with a stuffy nose and a case of messy hair.  Technically she should be at her last day of Camp Raintree but instead she’s in our sunroom practicing her skills that she learned last year in 1st grade year.  In a way it’s weird to me that she would rather spend her day inside with a pen and paper then outside spending her last dog days in the heat exploring bugs or creating mudpies.  I think some parents have to beg and plead with their kids to prepare for upcoming school days, Siren on the other hand gets her kicks excelling in writing and arithmetic.  I find all of this hopeful and enduring, these are things that i’ve always wished that I had the passion for, it blows my mind that I could breed someone with these skills.  To my Siren, may your passions take you to amazing places!

This is the first piece of jewelry I designed a few years ago.  I took a bead class for something to do on a Saturday.  Usually I spend my weekends trying to entertain the offspring but on this Saturday there was a wild hair up my ass and I felt the need for being creative on my own.  I came up with this piece, a necklace that can be doubled up, or worn long or maybe worn as a bracelet.  A few years have past since this piece and I now have grown up and moved on to metal smithing. I hope soon to be sharing my work through Etsy.  We’ll see and when that happens I will let you know!!!

 When I became a mom just like everyone else I had my  ideals and my ways that I wanted to be.  Ways of change that  I would make against the way my mother was towards me.  I  love my Mom she does the best she can especially during  the really trying years I know that it was hard for her to  parent.  My Mom became a parent at a young age (like  myself), even thought that wasn’t that unique for her  generation, by age 40 she had 2 kids in college and 1 (me)  entering into my high school years. I think about that and  how hard it must to have been to try to find yourself  and  really know yourself with so much of your life focused on other people. This brings me to my morning with my girls, I sleep in till 10 past 8 (my husband rocks) I get up to make my oldest her lunch for day camp and my 3 year old loves to help when it comes to “make” anything. Well, lunches are a pretty easy and thoughtless thing to do it takes really 3 minutes tops if you’ve got the right stuff, well Stella (our 3 year old) came in half way through and at that point the fun stuff was done, I think all she really got to do was fold a paper towel and put it in, before she knew it we were done. This upset her, and made her not want to leave for her Montessori school that she attends.  Within 30 seconds my husband and I find ourselves in a desperate attempt to satisfy her so that we can get her into the car, “Do you want Mommy to carry you?”,  ”Do you want Dad too?”, “Stella what’s wrong, we can bake something as soon as you’re home, how about blueberry muffins?”.  Any and all attempts do nothing but annoy her, not to mention makes her cry louder so that we hear her and not our own voices as it would annoy anyone during and emotional burnout.  In all text book cases all those take-home nannies would say don’t give in, don’t feed into her manipulation, you’re the boss.  Well, those thoughts are in the back of my head, but, what is also there is this is my daughter a human being with feelings, and I do realize that this is just a sack lunch that this is over, my child may be feeling other things, like maybe I’m just 3 I want to stay home with my Mom and not go to school, there are too many pressures on me to say and do the right thing, I just don’t know what I want.  Well, I can’t expect her to know how to say any of this, if this is how she’s truly feeling, so I have had discussions with those adults around me, mom’s, dad’s, aunt’s and Gigi’s and Papa’s, maybe a few Nanny shows as well.  The response I get is this keep doing what you’re doing, you’re kids are fine, they’re great kids, Stella will be just fine. Hmmmm, somehow that doesn’t work for me, so I reach back into my childhood years and try to find that voice of mine that I never understood until now and try to let it be heard through my kids.  ”I want the world to be kind and my parents to be equally loving and not let temper be the first emotion to be seen, be open to others difficulties. All words that don’t exist in any child’s vocabulary.  Well, Stella, my husband and big sis Siren are off to school now and all I can hope is that her day is beautiful and fulfilling  even though her morning wasn’t as perfect as we would have liked.  I love my little bean and I send her sweet kisses and bear hugs as I write this in hopes that she knows that even through all our mishaps and misundrstandings that Dad and I do our best for our kids and love them all so so much and are greatful for every second we have with them.  Kisses to our babies, have a great day!

 So, this is my blog, a word I wasn’t even familiar with less then  a year ago, in fact I thought it was a strange and lonely  concept,but, here I am here now feeling fulfilled by letting the  world into my head.  I am a Mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter,  and more importantly a women whom is on a voyage of  change and curiosities. I hope with this new outlet I’m able to  dilute the fog that clouds up my brain, by that I mean as I sit  at home giving my newborn all the tlc he deserves I tend to let  my thoughts overtake my actions, I have become a fearful  person since I took on motherhood almost 7 years ago. I enjoy  my children more than life itself and wouldn’t change this part of my life for anything, it just has really opened my eyes to humanity and the fragility that life really is, I think for some that would create a sense of living life to the fullest and for others (like myself) it keeps me from venturing out and exploring different worlds with my family.  No, I’m not a recluse and you won’t find me curled up in the corner of my room (that was a few years ago).  Instead you will find me smiling, trying to look my best, being the sweetest mom and loving wife I can be, I try to be nice and open minded but really I can be so judgemental to others which says a lot about how I view myself.  I suppose this may be my current therapy, a way of change, a purge of sorts, maybe not, maybe just another self indulgent drug.  I hope not, and this is where you’ll find my daily dilemma’s I want to be positive but will shoot my self down in a second, I guess that’s just me, Smiling Mad.