Seriously.  This was a rotten day.  No, even worse.  It was a Rotten Day, intensified by the fact that I haven’t had a “day off” in about a million years due to circumstances in our lives.  So, my disposition is a little less sunny than usual.  (Ha ha ha ha . . . that’s funny because you’d never say I have a “sunny disposition” under any circumstances.)

Okay, so the guy came to fix the heat pump.  He was here a few days ago, fixed it and still, it continued to leak water all over the floor.

The water seeped into the carpet and the carpet mildewed and has stunk up my whole house.

This makes me cranky.

The 4-year old will not stop SCREAMING.  The older kids will not stop provoking her and tattling until I was to reach my hand into their mouths and pull their lungs out through their esophaguses.  (Esophagusi?)  And the neighbor kids come over in shifts and they also cause the 4-year old to let loose a blood-curdling scream.  Or ten.
Oh, I have more.  But right now, I have to go.  I’ll be back.

Tess asks:  Do your kids eat what you eat or do you have to prepare separate meals for kids and adults in your household?  Any suggestions for kid friendly meals?

Answer:   If my kids choose not to eat what I’ve cooked, they have the option of eating healthy cereal or a sandwich.  For the most part, I don’t cook anything separate, though I modify food to suit my diet.  For instance, if they are having soft tacos, I’ll turn mine into a taco salad.  They might have soup with bread, while I only eat the soup.  They really love pasta with red sauce and I do not at all, so when I cook that for them, I make myself something separate, but simple.  (For instance, I’ll have a plate of cooked vegetables sprinkled with feta cheese or something like that.)

My twins were extremely picky as young children, but now that they are 14, they eat almost everything and in vast quantities!  I have discovered that they’ll eat any number of casserole-type dishes and soups cooked in the Crock-Pot.  My younger kids are not so excited about those kinds of meals, so they’ll eat alternate foods (cereal, cheese, sandwiches).  My experience with my kids has taught me that they will eventually broaden their palates and eat vegetables and fruits.  I never make food an issue with any of them, figuring they’ll outgrow their pickiness–or not.  Either way, why fret?

(My daughter has the oddest preschooler eating habits . . . she likes tuna out of the can, strawberries, kidney beans, green beans and all kinds of things that my other kids never ate at that age.)

Pam asks:  So…is there anything you regret in your parenting? Or your marriage?? Is there something you can say you’re really proud of, in your parenting? Or in your marriage?

Answer:  Parenting regrets?  I regret teaching my kids by example how to overreact and how to respond to each other with a voice full of irritation.  I regret my imperfections, I guess.  But I do not regret the major choices I’ve made with regards to parenting.  I don’t regret choosing to stay home full-time with them, nor do I regret any school choices.  I think I’ve done a pretty good job focusing on what really counts and overlooking what doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
I can’t think of much I regret in terms of my marriage.  In my early marriage, I tended to assume responsibility for things that weren’t my problem.  (He’s mad?  Must be because I’m an awful human being.  That sort of thing.  Now I figure he’s having a bad day and that it has nothing to do with me.)  I do wish I were more naturally affectionate–and I’m sure my husband wishes that, too.  I tend to be a really super self-sufficient and self-contained sort of person, which sometimes leads me to assume my partner is the same.

I am extremely proud of the stability of my marriage.  Never in twenty years has either of us mentioned or considered divorce.  We both came from broken homes and entered our marriage determined to make it last forever.  (And when you  do that, you figure out a way to make it the best experience possible.)  We really like being together and are very compatible in most ways.

Jennifer asks:  Um, if you could be any animal what would you be?

Answer:  When I was a child, I automatically answered “a lion” because I loved that mane of fur.  Now, as an adult, the question is so much harder to answer because I am aware of lifespans, the drudgery of finding food and the danger of being hunted by someone higher on the food chain.

I think I’d choose to be a rat.  Rats are smart and cute, if you overlook that whole disease-spreading tendency they have.  They are also so hard to exterminate, which has to be a plus, if you’re the rat.  They can go almost anywhere, climb anything, explore nooks and crannies.  Yes, I think I’d like to be a rat.

My daughter at the pool: “Mommy, I did a can-opener on the diving board!”

She just discovered the delight of jumping off the diving board after a summer of hesitation.  Now, she’s working on tricks, one of which is the “cannonball” which she mistakenly thinks is called a “can-opener.”  (She wears a life-jacket since she hasn’t pass the pool’s swim-test, but she has taught herself to swim this summer.)

Sarah over at the Anchored Nomad asks several questions: What keeps you motivated in the dieting/healthy lifestyle game?

Answer:  An awareness of the price of overeating, namely, that eating too many Oreos means I have to wear fat pants.  No thanks.  Also, blogging about it keeps me on track.  (You know, over there.)

Question:  What has been the most difficult age to deal with as a parent?  (please, no “they’re all equally difficult in their own ways”, that answer gives me nightmares)

Answer:  I have to say that I really did not enjoy my twin boys when they were 11.  Perhaps this was only because that was our first year of doing school at home, but I remember it as being quite unpleasant.  I prefer them as teenagers, I think.

Question:  Did you dislike living in Michigan as much as I do?

Answer:  I might have handled living in rural, northern Michigan (way way up there) better if I’d had the Internet then.  I felt very isolated and the winters were so very long.  My twins were 19 months old when we arrived and five years old when we left and it was tough being in an isolated area with them.  (The mall was two hours away.  The grocery store was thirty minutes away.  The airport was four hours south of us.)

Question:  Who would play you in your own version of The Preacher’s Wife?  (assuming it’s not Whitney Houston)

Answer:   Huh.   I have just wasted a good five minutes staring at my wrinkly hands–hey, when did that happen?–and pondering this question.  It can’t be someone too skinny, too brunette, too pretty, or anyone with sharp elbows.  I have no idea.  Any ideas?

Angie from All Grown Up? asks: What do you miss most about eating whatever you want before you started dieting?

Answer:  Well, I guess I miss eating whatever I want.  But you probably mean what do I miss eating?  I miss eating a lot of pizza in one sitting and I miss eating potato chips out of the bag.

But there are so many more things that I don’t miss.

I don’t miss having nothing appropriate to wear because I outgrew my clothes.

I don’t miss the tight waistbands on my jeans that made me want to unzip them and put on pajamas during the day.

I don’t miss being invisible in public.  It’s weird that the bigger you are, the less people look you in the eye and acknowledge your existence.

I don’t miss feeling stuffed with too much food.

I don’t miss my feet aching every morning when I first stood on them.

I don’t miss being out of breath walking up the stairs in my house.

I don’t miss hating myself.

I don’t miss being embarrassed to see old friends who knew me before.

I don’t miss ugly clothing, chosen only because it fit.

I don’t miss my double chin.

I don’t miss being the fattest woman in the room.

All in all, I don’t really miss eating whatever I wanted . . . because the cost was so high for that momentary pleasure.

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