While I usualy try and paint my pictures with words, occasionally a Kodak moment is warranted…. And now that we have broadband (Woo-HOOO!) I can actually post picures of my kids before they don’t look like that anymore..

So without further ado, here is Miss Abigail, and her brothers, The Monkeys:

Just look at the look on Beanies face- he has Scamp in his molecular make-up. Jeff is Buzz Lightyear, in his pleather suit and Abby is still clueless. I say IS buzz lightyear, because he, adamantly, is not just dressed up like BY, but actually IS the man himself. Beanie has a suit that matches, but he doesn’t live in it the way Jeff does- Beanie’s got too many clothes to rip off, binkies to find, monsters that live in his pants, butter to eat  and heads to break… 

(The suit also has big moon-boots, a helmet-like thing and wings to match… I wish I had one!)

Now let’s see if this works! (Holding breath…)

I have been trying, ALL DAY, to post, but life keeps getting totally in the way. The Internet is my enemy today, I cannot get a photo up for the life of me, I have HAD it with dial-up- (yes, we are still archaic here- all my posts to this point have been on s…l…ooooooooo…..w dial-up.) NO more, I say!

I called DH at work and asked him to call the broadband company and put in an order. I’ve had it. I can’t even send pictures of the kids to loved ones because it takes 7 (yes, that says SEVEN) minutes to upload a stinkin’ snapshot. I asked him to call, because I am so steamed and irritated I know I would have gotten mad at them when they told us it would be 3 weeks and they would be here between 7 am and 7 pm… I can be there, right? Now, I don’t actually know if it will take that long, because I haven’t talked to DH, but with my luck, or had I called, it would totally be that long.

It was just one of those days. Everything has been crappy or gone wrong, and I ought to just go crawl in a hole until it’s over.

I have a plea to great and mighty Internet: I need to set up a website for my business, and I don’t know what to do. Can you operate on one of the blogging sites, or is that taboo? How do I get a pay-pal account? And does anyone who has web-design skills want to do some sort of swap for time??  (Susan? Anyone?) I am short on tons of cash, but I got creative skillz coming out the eyeballs…. but technical skills are sadly limited… SO, anyone??? Anyone??

You can leave a comment or e-mail me at dandelionmama@gmail.com

(Do you have the song in your head about being Rosemarry’s granddaughter… a spitting image of my father…? Me too.)

I’m actually Kathryn’s granddaughter, and I only have my father’s hair… thank heavens. But that’s not what this is about.

Today was a bad morning. The DH and Jeffrey went to church without Eric, Abby and I, and that was most certainly a good thing. The willpower and patience to deal with Beanie in church was something I simply did not possess; staying home, where Abs can nap, and Beanie can help me work on a photo album, was the better road to harmony.

I really blew up at my boys this morning- they were not listening, which is nothing new, but when they got in my china cabinet and knocked over a bunch of our wedding china, (used all of three times) I pretty much lost it. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, it was an accident, and I know I really got more angry at myself than I was at them, but like most melt downs, it got all over everyone.

Jeffrey and DH managed to get out the door and off to church, and I sat stewing in the chair, holding Beanie in my lap, and comtemplating the morning. Why was I really so mad? What was really happening, here? And it dawned on, quite suddenly, that I was really angry at myself for not being the perfect mother. How dumb is that? But it’s true.  And while I would be the first in line to give my friends pep-talks about how no such woman existed, I wasn’t allowing myself the same mercy.

My kids are tough. They are strong-willed, hard-headed, curious, very busy and often into oodles of mischief. If I turn my back for a minute, things are liable to break, weather that be china or heads. Because of this, I have developed coping mechanisms- I try not to care too much about the little things, I try and give them latitude to explore and make being busy boys an OK thing to be… and intellectually, I believe those are good policies for my family. But sub-consciously and emotionally, I haven’t allowed how I mother to reallybe OK with me. It’s kind of shocking and sad.

This morning, contemplating these things, I realized I really don’t have to live up to anyone else’s model of motherhood. Only mine- but I damn well better be OK with mine, or I’m in trouble. I don’t have to be perfect, and here is the kicker, if I am OK with myself, I won’t feel the need to be defensive about who I am. I only have to be good enough- not perfect, not up to anyone else’s idea of what ‘ good mother’ means. I simply have to live up to MY OWN potential, and that will be good enough.

I am a mother. But unlike any idealized model, I’m other things, too, besides “mother”- I’m an artist, with a dire need to create, and sometimes I neglect taking my children to the park, and sometimes I let them watch too many DVD’s because I am busy making stuff. I am a wife, and sometimes their dad has to come first. I am  a woman, a good cook,  and a slave to whimsy…. and about a million other things.

I am a grapefruit in the fruit-bowl of life, and I will be big, and tart and messy, and some people love me, and others won’t. I’ve got to stop trying to stuff myself in the socially-acceptable “apple” suit. I’ll never be the “apple”. And hopefully my kids will understand that, and I will be good enough.