Magic and Mayhem

I’ve been reading random HS blogs that seem to be run by perfect people again.  I hate it when that happens.  I get caught up in the beautiful mothers with fancy, clean houses and 18 children whose hair is always perfect and who perform opera or do quantum physics crafts.  Hmmm.

To balance them out, I offer up these super quick confessions.  They have to be super quick because I’m running a bath to go soak in, not because I’m off to be a great mother or teach anything or even wrestle the kitchen into order.

1.  I never take my eye makeup off, despite knowing for several decades how awful that is.  It’s a combination of utter laziness and the knowledge that it may be days before I can put it on again and smudged eyeliner is better than none at all.  If you saw me without makeup, you’d understand.

2.  My friend Tiffany’s house is way more toddler-friendly than my own, despite the fact that her youngest kid is six.  She also has way better toddler toys than I do.  My kids act like the orphans visiting Daddy Warbucks’ place when we visit.  Or maybe that’s just me…

3.  We hardly ever do math.  I go back and forth between thinking that matters.  There’s lots of really cool articles out there about unschooled kids who learned high school math in a few weeks and aced all their tests.  Then there’s everything else out there to make me wonder if I’m shortchanging my kids.  Anna still scores higher than grade level in math anyway but I wonder what year the rest of the world will catch up to her and whether any of us will care as long as we can learn it when we want to.  Victoria is at grade level by the skin of her teeth and cries when she does math.  Then she insists on doing more of it.

4.  When I’m stressed out I play Webkinz games on my kids’ accounts and earn them kinzcash.  My children’s Webkinz are loaded.

5.  I feel guilty that I did so much cool stuff when Victoria was a kindergartener compared to Jack.  I think back to all the games, activities, crafts and learning adventures I made up day after day (and then meticulously documented) and I feel bad for Jack, who’s always asking to “do kindergarten.”  Anna got less than Victoria, Jack got less than Anna… it doesn’t bode well for Alex!

6.  I think my mother’s ghost would think I suck.  LOL  My mother played classical music for me from infancy and did flash cards with me when I was 2.  She made me write reports during summer vacation so my brain wouldn’t rot while school was out.  She once wrote me that I was dooming my children by bringing them up in the boonies away from “culture” and that I was wasting their neurological opportunities.  Yeah, we didn’t have much in common.  She also told me that she’d watch over me after she died but “not in an obtrusive way.”  I hope she’s moved on, because I’m pretty sure I’d make her nuts during her entire afterlife.  It would also make her crazy that she couldn’t sneak in and clean.

7.  I’m okay with all of this.  I suppose I’d like a nicer house and less worry and any number of things that could be better.  It’s cool though.  At the end of the day I don’t lie awake wishing I’d done everything differently.  When I think I’m sucking at something I try to change it, and it works out.  I guess I don’t really want to be perfect.  It seems like too much work and not as much fun.

So in light of that, even though I’d love to go play Webkinz I’m off to do kindergarten with a small, loud boy.     Happy weekend!