Thursday, April 19, 2012

"The Ultimate Manufactured Man"

Years and years ago - sometime in 1996, I think - the people in my life were... concerned, we'll say, about my choices in men.  Not because they were horrible human beings, or anything, just that they weren't as into me as my people thought they should be.  So, one of my instructors sat me down, and we made a list.  I haven't looked at the darn thing in years - not since I met Tim - but something reminded me of that list today.  And, since our 9th wedding anniversary (12 years together) is coming up on May 17th, I thought I'd get it out (yes, I keep stuff like that) and look at it for fun, see how he did on the checklist!

My handsome husband on our wedding day
Positive traits he must have
Good looking to me
Kind hearted
Athletic
Intelligent
Caring
Consistently Perceptive
Strong Willed
"No wimps"
Fun loving
Independent thinker
Spontaneous
Dedicated to me
Passionate
Outgoing
Sense of humor
Integrity

Hmmm....  So, far, Tim's kicking butt!  He needs a little work in the spontaneity department - he's a planner - but I also find that much less important as an almost-40-year-old-Mom-of-2 than I did as a 20-something-year-old single girl.  On to part 2!

NOT Acceptable
"Wimpy"
Negative
Condescending
Dumb
Too macho
Mean
Prejudiced

The best decision of my life was saying "yes."
Psh.  My husband totally knocked it out of the park.  Good thing I chose him.  And I'm SO thankful I waited for him to appear.  <3

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

One of Those Days

My son.  The good one.
I love my son.  I truly, truly do.  He's a wonderful kid.  He's kind, loving, considerate, smart, snuggly, respectful, athletic...  I couldn't have asked for more.  He's the best son I could possibly have wished for.  I just want to hug and love on that kid all day long.

On the other hand, sometimes I really don't like him very much.  He can be a pain in my @$$.  He can be mean, hateful, inconsiderate, dumb, stand offish, disrespectful, spiteful...  and when that is the son I'm faced with, when that is the Connor that shows up, I just want to wring his little neck.

I try to breath.  I try to remain calm.  I try to be reasonable.  I occasionally succeed.  Someone (a lot of someones, actually) once told me the biggest lie about my parenting ability that I've ever heard.  Before I was a parent, of course, so I had no idea how horrid the lie actually was at the time.

"You're such a great Instructor, being a parent is going to be a breeze!"

And I actually believed that!  Oooohhhh, how naive I was.  I suppose the argument could be made that because I had all these coping skills from teaching martial arts for so long - 10 years before I had Connor - that God decided I needed a challenge.  What is that twist on the old saying?  "God never gives you more than you can handle... I just wish he didn't have so much faith in me"?  I'm feelin' that!

Part of me feels like I shouldn't complain.  He really is wonderful most of the time.  And I've seen other people's kids.  Some of them, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  And Connor's bad days really are few and far between.  But when they're bad...  they're epically bad.  Last week, he had a complete melt-down-fly-apart.  Over what, I can't even remember, that's how minuscule it was.  But he was in a funk the entire day.  He lied, he back talked, he threw a tantrum, threw stuff, kicked his headboard like he was running on it, he screamed - yes, SCREAMED at the top of his lungs, both at us and just for the sake of screaming.  In our house (as in mine when I was growing up), when you are asked (read: told) to do something, you say "Yes, Ma'am/Sir" and you do it.  You might ask if you could please finish/do this-or-that first, but you most certainly do not cross your arms, stomp your foot, put a puss on and say, "NO."  That right there sends me 'round the bend.  And that happened a lot that day.  I wanted to choke him.  He was so insolent, I was at a loss for a solution.  I was so angry, I couldn't think straight, anyway.  So, I sent him to his room to avoid the throttling that I knew I would later regret, and prayed that Tim didn't hit any traffic on the way home.  He was no better for Daddy, apparently (I got to escape for a grown-up meeting.  Yay!). Although it took me the majority of the afternoon to be done, Tim was at his wits end within an hour of me leaving.  I say it's the Chinese in him.  No patience for disobedient children.

I frequently flash to Bill Cosby's bit about children not being able to sleep properly without a good beating.  Sometimes I think he might have something there.  Maybe it's lack of sleep (i.e., lack of a good beating) that's causing this abhorrent behavior.

You will be thrilled to know that despite all of this, I have not, in fact, wrung his neck, throttled him, choked him or beat him in any way whatsoever.  I haven't even so much as muttered an inappropriate expletive.  Thought it...  yes.  Said it... no.  I may have told him he was "acting like a brat", but I've never actually called him a brat.  Fine line, I know, but sometimes I need to split hairs, ok?  Because I do get angry.  I do yell.  But I try to take a deep breath and act like he's not mine.  Like he's one of my students.  I try to step back, be objective, and deal with the crap as it comes.  I'm not always successful, mind you, but I'm getting there.  And one of the things that keeps me motivated to deal with him?

I know that tomorrow, he will wake up and be the sunshiney, smiley, happy, kind, loving, considerate, smart, snuggly, respectful kid that I know and love.  And thank God for that, because if that other kid, that wretch, got out of bed in the morning, one of us would not make it to old age.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Growing Up

Today is my birthday.  At somewhere around 1:00 today, I'll officially be 37 years old.  I have no problem advertising that, because I have a 7 year old who does it on a regular basis.  He also likes to announce that "my Mommy is older than my Daddy!"  He's a real charmer sometimes.  :)

I also find that I have no great connection to the number 37.  When I was a teenager, 37 seemed pretty darn old.  I mean...  that's almost forty, and forty is downright ancient, isn't it?  Only...  when I was 15, my Mom was 43, and she was no where near ancient.  She didn't look it, and she didn't act it.  So, the older I got, the more my Mom redefined my perception of "old".  She turned 65 this year, and doesn't look or seem - physically or mentally - a day over 50.  If even that.  For Pete's sake, I have a friend who's mother-in-law is 65, and she's with a walker and oxygen.  Talk about contrast.  Then there's my Martial Arts Grandmaster.  Grandmaster Rhee is 81, and up until he got hit with the shingles last year, he was doing 100 push-ups in under a minute.  And over 1,000 a day.  AT EIGHTY!!  So, yeah...  I've had some people in my life who have forced me to continuously redefine the meaning of "old".

So, what is "old", then?  Certainly, it's not any given number.  I'm turning 37 today, but I still feel like I'm 25.  Even though it's cliche, age is just a number, and old is just a state of mind.  I'm sure I'll get to the day where I both look and feel "old", but I pray that day is decades and decades and decades away.  For now, I get to enjoy my blessings for my birthday...  I am so thankful to have so many of them, and these two are my favorite...