I need infrastructure!

I decided that I would be better served with either a course in anger management, complete with shock treatment and heavy, psychotropic drugs, or infrastructure. By infrastructure, I mean STAFF! I seriously know a few women, moms, young women, not the over -65 crowd, who look great ALL the time, and never appear stressed. The reason, I believe, is that they all (the 3 or 4 I know) have mucho amounts of the I-word. We're talking nannies AND assistants AND full time house help AND trainers AND holiday/special occasion decorators (not a finger lifted to decorate/undecorate for the holidays). The kind of women who ALWAYS use valet parking and some of these women NEVER even fly commercial...no delays, no lost bags, no wripped bags with broken handles. OH! and nanny comes with. Now, I ask, who couldn't do with some of that? These women still spend great amounts of time with their children and are hands on parents. They also (so far as I know) have happy marriages and are not in the throes of some kind of substance abuse. I have to stop and remind myself that MOST of the women I know do not know, and will never know, this kind of lifestyle, and they seem happy enough, too. I just seem to notice the really fresh-faced (read: plastic doc on speed dial), luxury oriented women. I am still, as of this writing, under 40, and the few women I know of the above description are younger than I am. I am not a believer in previous lives, but I do wonder if I was of royal descent in another life and I was really awful, so here I am today, noticing more these women, while I have my crosses to bear with a, very often, absent husband. No one I know notices these women like I do. Maybe I'm being punished. I say all of this because the past few weeks have not been traumatic or newsworthy, but there's been a constant, barely audible, yet very present, sucking sound. I feel like I'm being slowly, cruelly drained. I told my husband that his travel schedule just has to stop, yet in this economy....I'm not STUPID. Any changes will have to wait. The minute he left for the airport, the fighting began, the antagonizing, the bullying. So, I'm feeling desperate yet again, with nothing concrete to point to as the cause. Another week of school for the children. What I need most is a new attitude.

The blood is everywhere in here.

I'm going to blog but I don't feel like it. I've been trying to wait until I can "say something nice or say nothing at all", but that may take me a while. There's been a raging Battle Royale at our house for the past three days. I really don't know how to pick my battles. I don't know what to let slide and what to shake 'til it's dead. I also tend to be a bully. When Austen does something, or several somethings that are way out of line, then I start looking for things on which to nail her. One of the rules in our house that's been, admittedly, loosely applied, is that I really do not want the children in our room without permission. As a child, Austen was a snoop (I think that's the nature of girls, so this is not a criticisn), and now that the children are older, I want them to have permission because Jack is only 4, and I don't want him in our room because he's been known to carry things off. I can honestly say that the snooping won't net our daughter anything (there are no "naughty toys" or adult films hidden away...my husband may be embarrassed that I admitted that we don't have anthing, but he never looks on here!). The worst thing that ever happened to her as a result of snooping is that once she came to us crying hysterically because, while snooping, she'd found her baby teeth in a prescription bottle in my nightstand and she was terrified the tooth fairy wasn't real. David thought quickly on his feet and told her that the t.f. was too small to carry the teeth, so after she laid the $$ under the pillow, we would come in and gather the teeth to keep. That seemed to work...but I digress. I do not want her to snoop because I just don't want her in my stuff, plain and simple.
Last night, I came home from Jack's little church group clear across town. Though there had been unauthorized t.v. watching in my room, AND unauthorized use of my computer (I know because Austen had left the mouse plugged in), she had not finished the fundraising flyers that she was doing as one of her community service projects for service hours toward graduation. Showers had just been taken, and there was wet hair needing to be dried. Generally speaking, chores that have been discussed ad nauseum (like wringing out washcloths to dry properly after a shower), in addition to the things already mentioned really got me fired up. As I was discussing this with my dd, she very subtly attempted to shut her bathroom door (by snaking her leg behind it to shut it), while I'm standing in the doorway. She added a flip, "I have to dry my hair now", under her breath barely audible. I was floored. I do not know how to stop the utter disrespect and lack of obedience coming from her. She actually, a bit later, attempted to shut me out AGAIN, and this time, her brother saw it happen and said, "Whoa!" This morning when she asked me if she could make herself a cup of hot tea, I told her no. I don't care, really, but it's just the idea that she'll still ask me for things even though she treats me ugly.
Another rule I have is I do NOT WANT TO SEE PHONES IN MY CAR UNLESS THEY'RE MINE! I know the phones exist, I just don't want to see them or hear the incessant flipping closed sound. I feel this way because the car is one place where we can talk about whatever...the day, a test, teenagers kissing in the hallway at school, you name it. I think it's very disrespectful to be half listening and half trying to txt a friend and hoping I don't notice. So, the rule is just wait until we get home to text/call friends. Both the older ones break this rule DAILY, and the phones are in my purse before we get home. I said that not responding immediately to a text makes them look busy and active. Besides, they neither one respond to me with that kind of gusto! I've seen teenagers (one in particular) just speak attrociously to her mother who is a very educated, with it woman, who wouldn't ordinarily put up with much mouth. For some reason though, this child got away with it. She's now about to graduate college and is, for the most part, lovely. This mother chose her battles, evidently, correctly. I could easily see, though, how this situation could have gone wildly wrong. To me, that was a situation that should've been nipped, even if the child turned out great in the end. This is the kind of thing that I just don't know how to handle. I only wish I'd had the childgood of example to see how to choose properly. I feel like I've been put into a surgery with no medical school training. Parenting is hard for everyone, but I think it's extra hard for those who grew up with no guidance or active parent in their lives. **The title of this post is partly because of the battles being fought under our rood, but also because my little one has had several nosebleeds today and he bleeds VERY quickly and it gets everywhere. I think it's because of the rather dramatic weather change from yesterday to today (nearly a 30 degree difference for a high temp) and that may have started off this bleeding.

When do YOU give and not get anything for it?

The above question was asked to me today by my daughter when it was suggested that she might try giving to others, even when there existed no possibility of a personal gain. Umm. O.K. Can any of you mothers BELIEVE this question was asked? Of course, the first thing I did was remind her that I could do A LOT with the $$ I pay for both her schooling and her cheerleading. Plus, I have 3 children, not just her. I proceeded to yell at her all the way home from school. I think the problem is, I really don't know how to pick my battles. This is probably a very common issue. The words used may be different, but I have no doubt that teenaged girls do not (nor should they) have a CLUE what parenting entails. It just bothers me when she voices her cluelessness.
I was FREEZING at the football game tonight, and I have no pride when it comes to staying warm. My husband was embarrassed (he told me this), with the way I looked, mismatched, wrapped up in an old blanket. The highlight, though, was one of the parents whose daughter is Austen's age gave me a ride home at half-time, and we had a nice, mother-centered conversation. I really need to feel that I'm not in this alone!

Philbrook Museum

Today after school, I took the children to the art museum. I think starting this blog has helped me make more of a concerted effort where my daughter is concerned. I've made a point to create blog entries every day, because in some way, this holds me accountable. I can't very easily log on everyday and just say that she and I fought all the way to school or I jumped on her for the fact that every other word out of her mouth is "like". I'm realizing that I do tend to pick fights or push her buttons. I test her. I look to see if she's mentally "giving me the finger". Today was very long, and the museum was just the beginning. I made Austen go back to the syrup aisle 3 times in the grocery store, because she hadn't listened to me tell her the brand I wanted her to get (the same one we've used for YEARS, go figure). She was very helpful with her little brother in the museum store, and she wasn't even rude when I insisted on turning the heat on in the car on the way to the airport. We spent a lot of time in the museum garden today, and I thought the picture of JAck and me was good (I love my new camera), so I added it, even though this isn't a "family" blog, per se.

One of the things Austen and I do to re-connect occasionally is go to Polo Grill for lunch. It's not the same when we go as a family, and it's not the same with just my 12 year old son. It's only fun when it's just her and me.

For the past 7 years, this has been the one place where we have never fought, where the only conversation is good conversation. The booths in this restaurant are high backed and against the wall. The piped in music is jazz (my favorite), and the wine list is fabu! I order a glass of champagne, which tickles my nose and mellows me out (maybe that's the secret to all this!!) , and we just "be". I mean, literally every conversation that's important in the life of a girl has taken place there.

When Austen was told where babies come from, it was there. When Austen wanted to know a not-much-discussed family secret, it was there. Mama gets a glass of liquid courage, and all the hard stuff gets a little easier in that calm, high-end environment. This picture was taken just last weekend, and Austen actually took it because this was her first time out of the house since her "nose job" and she still had the splint on her nose and black eyes. She did not want to be included this time (I try to document these events). This was the yucky camera, but it did o.k. this time.

Oh, the journey

Hello!

I've decided to start a blog about daughters because, though there's a ton of material out there about raising children and/or daughters, I want more than the therapist's view. I want something local, something real-time, that walks the average mom through these rough years. I want something that doesn't represent an agenda (raising future CEO's, sports enthusiasts, body builders, etc). I will never give out personal struggle information without my daughter's permission, because this isn't a "vent" for me at my daughter's expense. I honestly want to get the best information from the best sources, on an everyday basis. A clinician's view can be helpful, but as we all know, what sounds good on paper...
I honestly don't know how much to chalk up to hormones. I also have no experience with a healthy mother/daughter relationship, so how am I to know how to do any of this? That's what I think about the most (yes, as a wing-nut recently told me, fear is unbiblical, so I'm saying "think", not "fear"), having SOMETHING salvageable at the end of these years. Because of my own history, I can't automatically assume that at the end of this we'll be friends.