He Who Has the Most Facebook Friends In the End, Wins

In the beginning there was so much about social networking that I didn’t understand.  What was the etiquette?  What were the rules?  In the beginning I thought it was just about reconnecting with friends from high school, college, and university.  It was even quite a while before I confessed to Paul that I had a facebook account.  (I was embarassed.)  Turns out he had one, too.  So we linked ourselves and I felt a twinge of joy when we were officially listed as married on facebook.

One day I said, “you’ll never believe who added me as a friend on facebook.”  He immediately spouted out the name of an ex-boyfriend.  Somehow trying to explain that I was added by a girl who wouldn’t have even looked at me in high school didn’t seem so strange after that.  I was in a quandary; we didn’t know each other at all (yes I had seen her in the halls but I was fairly sure she hadn’t seen me) and I had no reason to believe that either of our lives had changed so much that we would necessarily be friends now.  But I certainly didn’t want to be rude, not accept the add, and be branded as the snob.  He counselled me to accept the add, which I did with a note saying “I didn’t think you knew who I was.”

Turns out I was right.  She thought I was another Heather.  The one that everyone knew.  The one that travelled from social group to social group without totally being part of any of them or losing the friends in the others.  I knew her because everyone knew her.  She was nice.  She was unpeggable to a group.  And she was beautiful.  I knew her best because Loren, and half of the other guys at school, was in love with her.  I, certainly, was not that Heather.

So now I’m facebook friends with a girl from high school I most certainly didn’t know in high school and with whom I continue to have nothing in common.  As I browse her profile I see that she’s collected the friendships of everyone who has attended our high school.  Good for her, I guess, I’d never have the gall to contact complete strangers and make a friend request.

I have a hard enough time with people I knew well but with whom I haven’t spoken in a decade.  (With each move I dropped off the planet.)  I’m always compelled to include a personal note with my friend requests, “Hi, it’s Heather Maidename, how are you?” because I’m convinced no one remembers that I got married and to whom.  I still expect to get a reply back one of these times, saying, “I don’t remember you” and I’m always surprised when they accept the add immediately.

I lost myself in the vortex of facebook early on.  I squandered an entire naptime finding people I knew when I lived in the Okanagan.  I found nearly all of them.  It was interesting to see who married whom.  I didn’t add any of them.  Mostly it’s because I was afraid of putting myself out there and having them not remember.  But also it’s because I figured if I haven’t had contact with them in a decade and a half, did I really need to go back?  It’s been so long and we’ve grown up so much it wouldn’t count as re-opening old friendships, it would require starting them from scratch.  I’m just not willing to invest that kind of time.  I don’t think I have that kind of time, really.  I don’t give that kind of time to the friends I already have.

I think I was afraid that in the end I would look like some desperate shell of a person, living online and collecting virtual friends to fill a void in my personal life.

It’s nice to have so many of my friends all together in the same cybercorner.  I like keeping up with their updates without having to email them all individually — I’m not great at keeping up with the emails.  I don’t think I’m going to remove the girl I don’t know from my friend list, or the other near-strangers from whom I’ve accepted adds, but I’m fairly sure that if we ever do have a high school reunion (doubtful, they aren’t common with our high school) she and I won’t seek each other out.  She’s going to be too busy with the majority of the student body.

And I’m going to be too busy with my five close friends whom I know personally and love dearly.  I look at her profile sometimes.  I think I’m happier than she is.  I’m happy with my choices.

On Control

It’s the funniest thing, really.  I know better, but since I started watching Aiden, which made my days infinitely more busy, I’ve been staying up later.  It isn’t even because I’m trying to stay on top of the laundry, either.  It’s because I’m goofing off.

The most recent time-waster has been Civilization.  I’ve had episodes with this game before.  I’m not proud of it, but when pregnant with Little Red I could spend all day in the game.

There are definitely better things I could do with my time.  (sleep.)  There are even better things I could do while remaining awake but refusing to do housework.  (crochet.)  And, of course, there’s always housework, but the whole point of staying up late and goofing off is because so much of how I spend my time is dictated to me that it’s the one thing I want to choose for myself.  I feel this larger-than-me compulsion to decide at least one part of my day.  And even though I know I’m not making the best decision for the long run, and even though I know I’ll be tired the next day, I continue to make the less-optimal decision.

It’s about being in control.  And I believe it is the exact same reason a toddler who stays up until 10 pm every night thinks that 5 am is a perfectly acceptable time to rise and play. 

Language

Remember last year when Little Red was learning to speak?  Boy was I embarassed that he taught a few of his friends the word truck but couldn’t yet make the “tr-” blend and used an “f” instead.  When he grew out of it I thought I was free for a while from hearing foul language.  After all, the worst words Paul and I use are “crap” and “gosh” and we’ve really limited those around the sponge.  (And we spell when we say things like “I was an i-d-i-o-t.”)

Out of the blue, in the garden section at Target yesterday Little Red starting yelling something quite disturbing for all on the second floor to hear.  Acting quickly I thought of a reasonable substitute for the words he was saying but didn’t understand.  “Are you saying fun kit?”  As what he was really saying had no meaning to him he went along with my suggestion, but continued yelling it.  I calmly explained that when he did that it sounded a lot like a bad word that we don’t say.  We didn’t want people to hear him and think he’s a bad boy.  I’m not sure what all I said but he stopped, and I haven’t heard it since.

whew!  (for now)

Detached

There’s something really neat about growing up in nature — you develop a connection with the land.  Growing up I always had a really strong sense of where our food originated, the importance of reduce-reuse-recycle, and animal protection.  I felt very centered in the world and I fully understood that I was a small speck on a massive, complex organism that deserved my respect.  My first love was the Yukon, and while other puppy romances fade faster than memories I still swoon at photos of tree-covered hills with wild rivers cutting through.

I’d be there now, really, if I didn’t love Paul even more than the Yukon.  Good thing he’s an outdoorsy.  His parents live in the Garden of Eden and he dreams of being able to move there so we can always enjoy what Michigan has to offer.

Somewhere along the path of our collective life we’ve been so consumed with reaching stability in career, finances, family, that we’ve lost touch with nature.  We try to take our sons out on walks and talk about what they see, but more often than not it’s a lesson in municipal infrastructure than nature.  (Let’s face it, there are just a lot more garbage/recycling/police/fire/streetsweeper/mail trucks in the big city than opportunities to talk about the circle of life.)

We’re collecting stuff for a camping trip.  It’s okay for us to live in a very urban setting as long as we also make time for the boys to know the world under the concrete under their feet.  I’m working toward teaching the boys not just about how a city runs, but how the world works.  We have an orange tree that will [hopefully] bloom this winter, and we’re planning some fruit picking adventures.  I feel like if I can just get them in the woods near a stream, then I can ensure that part of my world will be transferred to them.  Every once in a while it hits me how desperately I need them to connect with nature.  This morning I saw pictures of the Yukon — it isn’t glamourous, but suddenly I remember how much I love that rugged, wild world.

Could he be any cuter?

After church today Andrea pulled me aside in the hall.  She just had to tell me about class today.

“We were talking about feelings and Little Red said, “sometimes Boy Blue is sad and I help Mummy by making him feel better.” “

***

Lately he has also been replying “of course” to most of my requests. 

Quick Update for the Casual Observer

For those of you not a part of my day-to-day, I won’t make you go back and read April and May to put things together:

Aiden is a little boy we babysit in the day while he’s on the waitlist for daycare.  He’s been coming since May 1st and I hope we can continue this for a while!  The days are long and I’m very tired but he’s a good baby, the boys really really love him, and I really like having some money coming in (–and going straight out again, of course.  sigh.)

He is to-the-day nine months younger than my little Boy Blue, but he’s a big bruiser.  At 4 months he was equal in weight to Boy Blue on his birthday, and now I’m fairly certain he has surpassed my lightweight.  When I have the two of them in the double stroller, although they look nothing alike, I get a lot of comments about the “twins.”  (although to be fair, I also get twin comments when it’s Little Red and Boy Blue.  People are stupid.) 

We still make excursions out of the house, and I’ve even ventured to Trader Joe’s with all three boys although usually I save the grocery shopping for Saturday mornings.  Having Aiden does represent a significant change in our lifestyle, we are staying home more and I’m not going out on my long walks.  But it’s summer and I was going to hibernate anyway, so I don’t feel it’s a loss.

Sorry for the confusion — no I did not suddenly have another baby.  But I did try to trick a friend into thinking I did, when we caught up with them at Travel Town last week.  Funny!

Where the Wild Things Are

We’ve completed an entire round of Phreeley Fridays (as I like to call them, but they are formally known as pajama parties so the kids don’t feel like we’re ditching them for date night.)  It was a total success and we have started the rotation again.

We celebrated solstice by hosting the mosh pit at our place.  (and I was babysitting random extras all afternoon, too.  It really was the longest day!  haha, but good)

We’re in the middle of a heat wave so I asked Paul to bring home pizza.  He complied, willingly — how often do I come up with the suggestion of paying for food instead of making it?  But seriously, after watching 5 kids all afternoon with only an hour and a half break before I had 5 kids again, and with it still 100 degrees by suppertime, there was no way I was cooking, cleaning, or even thinking of turning on the oven.

Once the kids were over I left Paul with the younger ones, Logan and Boy Blue, and I took the 3-year olds (excuse me, Kyra just had a birthday) into the kitchen to make no-bake chocolate macaroons.  -so easy!  recipe at bottom.  And they played and played and played.

When Paul and I could stand the noise no longer, we turned on the movies.  Tonight’s double feature began with The Jungle Book and was followed by Horton Hears a Who*.  Miraculously, by 10 pm Boy Blue was in his bed and the older four were sitting quietly on the couch.  If we had just a couple more minutes before the parents came back I think I might have been asleep.  The kids all had to be carried out in the arms of their parents, and were sad to leave.  Whew!  another success, and now we have two date nights of our own on the calendar!

 

*You’re right, it is to early for Horton to be out on video yet.  There are benefits to living in LA.  One of our friends lent us a screener. 

 

No-Bake Chocolate Macaroons

Combine and set aside:

3 cups of oats

1 cup of shredded coconut

1 tsp of salt

5 Tbsp of cocoa powder

Boil together:

2 cups of sugar

1/2 cup of milk

1/2 cup of butter

Remove from heat and add 1 Tbsp of vanilla extract

Combine wet and dry ingredients together.  Drop by spoonful onto wax paper.  Chill in fridge.

Thee in Transition

Little Red stood at the top of the stairs one night after bedtime calling Daddy.  When Paul came around the corner he saw that the little man had taken off his nighttime diaper (which was still dry) and put his pjs back on.  He stood there ceremoniously holding the diaper and announced that he was not wearing nighttime diapers anymore.  End of story.  (Well, mostly, he was dry all that week but has had accidents since then.  It’s now been a month and a half and I think we’ve got the liquid cut-off-time figured out for optimal success.)

Boy Blue, who popped out six teeth at about four months old, is finally pushing through the rest of his teeth.  All.  At.  Once.  I think we just might run out of teething tablets.

Aiden has figured out that he loves his daytime brothers so much that sometimes he won’t even nap.  We’ve got a pretty good groove, and things aren’t usually really bad.  Since he started coming he has learned to roll back to front (which he does the instant you put him on his back,) can spent extended time on his tummy and pivot around to toys, and is learning how to sit.  It’s very exciting.  He’ll be six months next week and it’s so fun to watch him develop.  He can drink from a sippy cup with the stopper taken out, but is learning to suck and I’m confident that we’ll have him on a normal sippy cup (and by extension, he could take a bottle) before too long.

A Little Piece of Peace

I know I go all over the place with my rants on so many ridiculous things about California.  I don’t take back any of those things, but I’m compelled to go on the record as saying that there are a lot of things I really like about living here.  I’m still not-so-secretly hoping that we’ll settle in Seattle or anyplace less hot than here, but in the meantime I’m actually quite happy here.

I have the opportunity to make a little money while staying home with the boys.  It’s very hard work and it’s not a lot of money, but it feels so good to befinally improving our family’s finances.  It’ll be a while before we’ve undone all the damage that living here has caused, but just knowing we’re on the path is a very good thing.

We have amazing friends.  While we’ve had good friends everywhere I feel like we have the best support networks (more than one!!!) here than anywhere.  They are so uplifting and inspiring. 

I think we’ve settled on the kindergarten program in which we will enroll Little Red, next year.  I have to wait to do the school tour in September, when school starts up again but Jen and I are already planning on being the first two people on the list when enrollment opens in March.

There is so much going on these days, but LIFE IS GOOD.

Thoughts on Families

Families are funny things.  You see your family at it’s best, worst, and everything inbetween.  You know secrets, pet peeves, and things they don’t think you know.  And you think — wow, if this family can work, despite everything, then why do so many people give up?

I had a post in my head for nearly a year now, about my mother.  I’m nowhere near (nor will I be) the level of motherhood she attained, having borne and reared nine, but I’m starting to understand her more and more.  And I always wondered, on my weak days, how many times did she feel desperate and what did she do about it?  With a growing family and a small income, did she ever turn on the shower just to cry?

And now I add in the question of marriage.  It’s no secret that I never thought they were a great match, but surely she did for a while.  How often did she feel desperate and trapped?  What did she use as an outlet?

This week my mind is racing.  Suddenly I feel like it’s okay to think all those things I thought growing up, but I know it isn’t because it isn’t nice.  I hope my younger siblings are doing okay.  I hope that this change can bring peace, comfort, solutions.  But what I hope most of all, is that now that Mum is finally doing something for herself, after losing herself in the service of her family for three decades, that she will rediscover what a vivacious, intelligent, woman she is.  I hope that she will become the woman she wants to be, and that I always knew she was.