about me and this blog…
The sun has long gone down and the cold is really settling into my bones…I have this habit of turning the heat way down after we have eaten supper and the kitchen is cleaned and put away. New England winters can be rather harsh, and we are entering one such cycle.
I am enjoying the silence of the hour as I sit down to write. There are no noises to distract or beckon me elsewhere. In fact, I am pretty sure everyone else has gone to bed by now.
Tonight I worked with my husband to create this blog. Apparently this page is for my story, or rather a short version. Who am I, and why am I here?
Quite honestly, I thought the blog posts would paint a picture of who I am. I wrote my first one tonight and I think it tells a lot about me, however I will use this page to be more specific.
I am a 44 year old mother of three girls…my little women. I am also step-mother to three (two girls and one boy), owner of three dogs, and wife of a pretty nice guy. We live in a nice, mid sized town in northern Massachusetts.
I am the product of a blended family, and I rank as the youngest of five, the next one before me being nearly six years older. There is a 12 year spread between my oldest sister and me. My parents were born before the depression, so there is quite the generation gap. My father died in 1999 of ALS, and my mother (a cancer survivor) still lives in my hometown.
I was born and raised in the deep south (and after 27 years away, I am still very much a southerner), but received much of my important education in the northeast. I was educated in both the public and private school systems in my small town, then left and graduated from a private college prep school in NY state. I am a classically trained musician, having graduated from a conservatory with a B.M in vocal performance, yet I have done very little professional singing. Everything has been very small town. In some sense I am also a trained actress. The stage was my first true love…that and the spot-light 
I married my prep school sweet-heart right out of college. We were married for 14 years, and had three daughters together. Very early on, it became clear to me my calling was to be a mother. I will never know if I could have made it as a performer, as I never actually seriously pursued it. Once I married, I went to work straight away supporting my husband (or rather us) while he was in graduate school pursuing his Masters in English, then his law degree. Performing could not pay our bills, so that was never an option. Strangely enough, I didn’t mind. I was madly in love, and we had a plan. I hated most of my jobs, but did what needed to be done.
The day we decided to start our family, everything changed for me. That is when I knew…this was it for me. And for that, I will be forever grateful to him. I have three girls, and that has made everything else more than worth while.
My eldest is 16 and a junior in high school. We waited nine long, hot days in Virginia for her to make her debut, and she has been time challenged ever since Her birth was the least pleasant and the most difficult…not just because birth is difficult, but because it was a serious situation. When she finally made it out, she was gray and not breathing. They whisked her away before I could even see if she was a girl or boy. For a few hours, all I had was her photo. At 8 lbs, 1 oz. she was a comic contrast to the other new-born preemie babies in the Peds ICU.
She is not exactly your typical first born…a highly competitive, independent, organized, timely trail-blazer, but she is a perfectionist, and has always been eager to please - they call that a compliant child. She definitely has a mind of her own, and has always known what she wanted, but she has, for the most part, been able to express herself without causing waves. She is a free spirit and one of the most creative personalities I’ve ever known. That, I think, she gets mostly from her father’s sister, although I was described the same way when I was young. She was very quiet and watchful from the start, and while she was a very happy baby - laughing and smiling, rarely crying - there has always been a real seriousness to her.
She was two years and two months old when her first sister was born, three weeks early. That arrival upended our quiet little existence, and threw us off our routine…all three of us. My second born brought with her a force that was so powerful and, eventually, a laugh so hearty, it is hard for anyone not to notice her. Mostly in the beginning she was noticed for her crying, and her refusal to allow me to put her down. I rarely slept. She NEVER slept…I’ve since decided it was because she was hungry. I mean, she was born three weeks early and weighed 8 1/2 lbs! There is no question as to her due date. I shutter to think how large she would have been had she stayed in longer to cook! I have never known a child to eat as much as she did while growing up, and still always manage to out-grow her girth. She has grown to be nearly 5′11″.
She is now 14 and a freshman in high school. She fits more into the mold of the first born…timely, highly competitive, organized and a step ahead of everyone else. What she lacks in compliance, she more than makes up for in getting the job done,and keeping us on our toes. When she was three and a half years old - almost to the day - her little sister was born. She came only one week early, yet out-weighed both her sisters at 9 1/2 pounds and 23 inches long.
My youngest is now 10 and in fifth grade. While the divorce was hard on all three girls, I think in some ways she suffered the most. We separated for the first time when she was only nine months old, again when she was two (right after my father died and we had moved to Massachusetts), and for the third and final time when she was four. Keeping things on an even keel for her has always been a challenge. She suffered from an undiagnosed bladder/kidney problem until she was about three and a half. So, in the midst of constant invasive tests at Children’s hospital, this child was living in a house where her family unit was never terribly stable to begin with and now her family was being pulled apart. When she was seven she had surgery to correct her problem, and both her father and I remarried. Perhaps that was not such great timing on our part.
Immediately upon entering our lives, my youngest was a loving, affectionate child. Like her oldest sister, she slept through the night right away and rarely cried. Interestingly, she was born “under the veil”, which means completely encased in her sack of water. The old wives’ tale is that those who are born under the veil and survive - since most did not before the advent of modern medicine - are touched with the gift of seeing, or at least are very unusual. People at our church called her the angel baby and she became that to her father and me. Everyone thought she was serene.
She is most similar to her eldest sister…highly creative, free spirited, and severely time challenged She is a loving and accepting child, and eager to please as well.
My husband is 52 and lives with congestive heart failure…brought on by radical use of radiation back in 1975 in order to cure his cancer.
He lived a full and active life for 47 years, since it takes 25-30 years for the damage from radiation to begin to ruin your health. Then just eight months after we met, he suffered three life-threatening heart attacks in one day and had emergency quadruple bypass surgery. Since then his existence has been one of ups and downs. He spent 2003 and 2004 in and out of the hospital on a regular basis…at a rate of nearly once a month. He has had several other procedures and operations since the bypass, but as everyone says, he is the healthiest looking chronically ill person you will ever meet! We met at Target - for real - just before my 39th birthday, and married two and a half years later in the fall of 2004. We joined our two families in the garden of his house, which has become our family home.
My step-son is 13 and in seventh grade. My step-daughters are 19 and graduating from high school this year and 27, a graduate of John’s Hopkins University and working in research at BU Medical Center). His former wife lives nearby, is remarried and we are all now forever interwoven in each other’s lives. There is not much for me to say about my step-children as young children, since I wasn’t there, but each one has become a part of my life and has touched me in some very real and profound ways.
Our three dogs round out our immediate family…Stevie, named for Stevie Nicks, is a 10 year old female black lab. She is my secret favorite. Walker and Noah are both male cavalier king charles spaniels. Walker (tri-color) is five, and was a Christmas present to my daughters from their step-father. He carries my family name, as I always wanted to name a boy Walker. Noah (black & tan) is two and named for THE Noah. My husband bought him even though I told him there was no way I wanted another dog. He basically went behind my back! Like I said, he is a pretty nice guy
I have long thought of myself as a single parent, and my two oldest daughters feel strongly that I basically raised them and their sister on my own, until 2004. That is not entirely true, but pretty close. This genesis of this blog started out of conversations I have had with close friends and family members about our thoughts on parenting, family, and the modern world. It is wonderful to be able to share my struggles as a mother in this crazy world of britney & co.
I have wonderful friends who are like-minded mothers, and we call on each other to get a reality check - at what age should you allow the girls to wear make-up, pierce their ears, wear certain clothing, get an email, how have you managed to help your child navigate middle school, high school, handle peer pressure, homework issues and friend issues, etc.
We also share our shock and dismay at the parenting styles of those around us, and wonder how we will be able to stand our ground when there are so many forces against us - not only are there parents who are way too permissive and allow their children to call the shots, but we have the tv, movies, and internet blaring out concepts that frankly are frightening. And of course there are their peer groups. It all gets harder as they age. We started just dealing with the temper tantrums, and the “I gotta have its”, and the start of back-talk, sassing and sibling rivalry. Now the stakes are way too high!
I have often pondered…how in the world have I managed (THUS FAR) to raise three girls in a permissive society, without losing them to the outside influences that surround them, or without making them stand out like total losers in their peer groups.
I am known to be far more old-fashioned than other parents in our area. As I am very much a southerner, I am very family oriented and focused. That does NOT translate into child-centered. I am family-centered. There is a big difference and the former is not about the family.
My children live with rules and very definite boundaries, and are expected to respond to me, and other adults, with respect and honesty. It does not always happen to be sure but, for the most part, they are on the right track. I have taught my daughters, sometimes to my chagrin, to speak their mind and be open about what they are thinking and how they feel. I want them to know themselves.
When I ask one of them, “why” they made the choice/decision to do something, “I don’t know” is never an option. That’s a cop-out. Children don’t always know the why right away, but if you expect them to know why they did or said something, they will learn to figure it out…and understanding the why of your behavior is a wonderful tool to have in life. There are many people who have grown into adulthood who do not know themselves, and in the process of figuring it out, they have nearly destroyed their life, as well as those around them.
For children, can it take a while to figure out why…sometimes days, even weeks, but when you just let them go at “I don’t know”, you are doing a great dis-service to your children. I have found, if given half a chance, children will rise to the occasion. They will learn to know themselves, and learn how to express what it is that drives them.
Full contact parenting is not for sissies. It ain’t always pretty or easy or fun, but it has been the most consistently fulfilling aspect of my life…and my life has been pretty full and fascinating. I am here to share my stories and, I hope, get your responses in return. If the day stinks and I am tearing my hair out, I will record it. If I figure out how to avert a potential parenting calamity, I will share it…every glorious triumph, shining moment, as well as every trial, tribulation, and blight on my journey.
That is why I am writing in this blog…that and manners, or the lack there of…but don’t get me started! That will most definitely be a big topic in my blog.
Cheers!