Kerry's blog

Looking at me, I am a walking contradiction.  I am soft and sweet but tasteless and crude; I am smart and funny but stubborn and really obtuse.  I am traditional... yet I really hate tradition. 

As a parent, I know there is no crazier time in the year than the selling of Santa and Jesus and good holiday cheer.  Yet, that's exactly how I need it to be in my life, because growing up, I worked my ass-off all year long hoping the Big Guy wearing a red suit would not forget me. 

<Using childish pleading voice>  "Please don't forget me... because as you and God know, I tried very hard to be good this year, even though it was very very hard, given what I had to work with!"

It was my brother who told me, "Santa doesn't exist."  He said he learned this truth from the priest at our church. I didn't believe my brother... at least I didn't want to believe him.  Perhaps the priest didn't want my brother to go to hell for thinking Santa was better than God or Jesus.  Perhaps the priest wanted us (as a family) to be better Catholics... it didn't matter... I knew I was not a "good Catholic"... I knew I was already going to hell (whatever that meant). I hated what the Catholic church did to me, as it broke me apart from my natural family, so how could I respect and praise a group that could not keep their stories straight? 

Later in life I learned how hell can be experienced on earth.

A few years ago, I made contact with an adoptee through the internet.  It was the first time I ever had written conversations with a person who spoke the same angst-ridden language I had when it came to being lost and not knowing if I'd ever be found.  We were both searching for the truth in terms about our adoptions, our childhoods, and how that all affected our relationships as parents and our marriages.  We wanted to find answers to fill the voids that became our life-stories, but didn't know if that was possible.  It was only within a few emails we compared ourselves to living like dogs, wishing to have better lives with better owners; we were convinced we were indeed twins, separated at birth, and all we needed was to find our super-twin activation decoder rings, all so life would be fine, and we could right all the injustices we could find.  At the very least we thought we'd find peace for ourselves.  Surely even a dog can have his day, can't he?

On paper, (or text), life can be as simple.

As our letters to each-other became more in-depth and more personal (thus complex), I would let my new-found friend read the panic in me.  He would tell me to "breathe".

Huh? 

"Breathe"

Back when I was working for a certain lingerie company, I was toying with the idea of writing a book about the inside scoop of what really happened behind the pink walls of vanity.  My co-workers loved the idea, because they knew the very stuff I would be addressing.  They loved the idea of me ripping apart aspects of a world they hated.  [Hey, who doesn't love a good ass-ripping from time-to-time?]

The truth is, such a book would barely hurt one man's business, and quite frankly I'm not that interested in ruining any one's life who employs thousands, and helps millions.  What purpose would that serve?

Adults have options when they don't like a given situation.  They can stay and complain or they can leave and make sure they don't repeat the same bad pattern that made them complain in the first place.

Children can't.  Children learn by what they see their parents do.

Ian, my oldest was named partly after a Scottish warrior,  Ian Wallace.  (William Wallace:  Braveheart.  Truth be told, it was the Mel Gibson movie that sold us!)  But with Ian, the name holds true... the lad is a born warrior.  Always has been, since birth.  All shoulders and thighs, and fierce determination, with a heart of gold and sweetness that could bring tears to your eyes.

I love my boy, but he drives me crazy.  Always did.

When he was little, he used to think he was a dinosaur.

For some reason that boy always LOVED to watch dinosaur movies. It started with Little Foot (a movie character).  His older sister was more of a Princess movie-girl.  Ian would not stand for that.  The only way he would watch a princess movie is if it had a dragon in it.  The dragon had to spit fire, and then Ian would want to watch the dragon part over and over, and want to BE the dragon.  He would tip-toe around the house, stomping loudly, spitting fire from his mouth BEING a dragon, saving me and his big sister from evil witches.  He would then take his yellow baseball bat and blue golf club and start swinging at imaginary villains (my legs) and protect us from evil.

I looked like Hedda Nussbaum.  My boy was 2 years old.  My neighbor, a retired Marine called Ian, Bamm-Bamm.

I found more papers last night.

My kids wanted to know more about my childhood... so I told them about the time I was in the bicentennial parade, dressed as Betsy Ross.  My grandmother made the costume for me.  At least I wasn't alone... I had my brother with me; he was dressed as Ben Franklin.  We looked like dorks.  I wore a hat, and held a flag, and he wore fake glasses and carried a kite.  We sat on this huge float made of fake flowers because we were kids, and our dad made us, because our grandmother made the outfits.

The whole time we had to smile and wave.  The whole time we felt like idiots, so we laughed and wished we were off the wooden death-trap, hoping none of our friends saw us.

At the end of the parade, we learned our float won first-prize.  My brother and I were stunned.  We thought we were instant celebrities.  Some guy, Buzz Aldrin, shook our hands and everyone was all excited.  I remember thinking we would win something.  We got a letter in the mail, that was it.

We got to keep the ugly outfits.

Are we born with the natural ability to love and parent?

I'm not so sure.  For me, I had to learn how to love my children... but that was easy, because they grew inside me.  As I learned each stage of development, I grew a deeper appreciation for what was happening to my own body, and I was better able to prepare myself for each baby entering my life.  I also got a better perspective of what my own natural mother endured for the sake of having me.  I was humbled by the birthing experience, as I think most women are.

I think it's the birthing room that separated me most from my adoptive mother.  At the very least, the birthing room is where I learned a new type and style of parenting.

The birthing room, for me was an overwhelming emotional experience.  I needed that time to be alone with my own thoughts about me, my own loss as an adoptee (my own mother and my own baby from my own body) but she, my adoptive mother, invited herself in the labor and delivery room because  as the role of Maternal Grandmother, she had that "right" to attend.  No, she didn't, she just assumed she did, as usual, and that really pissed me off.

My entire life, her role as my mom was always assumed as acceptable.

When I was little, I remember watching the movie Mary Poppins.  In my mind, Mary Poppins embodied the ideal mother-figure.  She was kind, loving, and attentive.  Oddly enough, in the movie, she was the nanny for two children whose parents were both alive and well in the same house as them.  The big-to-do in the Banks house-hold was the mother's discovery of women's suffrage and the right to vote.

Decades later, a new generation of an old theme came out:  nanny saves family from falling apart.

She comes when she's needed but not wanted and leaves when she's wanted but not needed. That's Nanny McPhee. She pops from out of nowhere although she swears she did knock.

Emma Thompson is Nanny McPhee who comes to the Brown household to tame Mr. Brown's (Colin Firth) seven bad-mannered children headed by Simon (Thomas Sangster, the lovestruck kid in Love Actually) who just drove away their seventeenth nanny. She introduces herself as a government nanny and is not associated with any agencies and promises Mr. Brown to teach his children five lessons.

But as the Brown children start to conceive plots to get rid of her, Nanny McPhee is way ahead of them. And with a magical tap of her cane, the lessons begin to unfold. Lesson no.1 - They will learn how to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Lesson no. 2 - They will do as they are told. Lesson no. 3 - They will learn to dress on their own. Lesson no. 4 - Learn to listen (which was really meant for Mr. Brown). And lesson no. 5 - Be prepared to face the consequences of one's actions.

But the magic does not end with the childrens' change of behavior. With each accomplished lesson, Nanny McPhee's face and figure changes as well.

This is a must-see movie for the whole family especially if you have school age children. Kids will enjoy the naughtiness of the Brown kids while parents, I'm pretty sure, will pick up more than just the five lessons Nanny McPhee taught the kids. You'll surely love Nanny McPhee, warts and all!    http://filteachlibrarian.blogspot.com/2006/02/nanny-mcphees-five-lessons.html

We have both movies in our house... and without question, the movie that captures our imagination and attention for the duration of the movie over and over again is Nanny McPhee.

I grew-up knowing how to cook.  Correction.  I learned how to cook, by default.  I remember my grandmother taught me how to bake.  Cooking and baking are two different things.  One is a science; the other is to taste.

Anyone ever have a salty Angle Food Cake?  Or sour whipped cream?

The thing I love most about my grandmother's cooking is simple:  I had to earn her trust to learn how to cook like her.

It took thirteen years to earn that privledge. 

I was the bastard child who had to fight her way to the top.  But when I did, boy, did I win her heart!

My oldest, Alexa, no longer wants her desk in her room.  Why?  It takes too much space, I suppose.  It's a beautiful piece of furniture, with a built-in-book-shelf that can be removed, if she'd like.

For Christmas, we gave her a TV to have in her bedroom.  We let her watch it before she goes to sleep.  I believe in the sound of laughter before drifting off into dream-land, so she has a DVD player and DVD's and a timer... and she watches them as her go-to-sleep-time.  (When she was little, she used to have nightmares about dogs and fire, and always required me or hubman to sleep with her.  Four kids, that's impossible.  She's 13, she can have a TV in her room now.)

We bought the desk when she was 7, thinking she would have it in her room to do her homework.  It turns out, the kids do their homework at the kitchen table, after dinner.  It makes sense she doesn't want a large desk in her room... she wants space... her own space, to do what she wants, her own way.  That desk was my choice, not hers, so I should let her take it out of her room like she wants to.  (I've been resisting the idea)

Ouch.

It hurts being truthful with myself.  I need to let-go of my input in my daughter's life.  She's 13.  She should be able to control her own bed-room.  It's HER room.