Motherhood has been on my mind a lot lately. I've been trying to figure out what exactly motherhood means and feels like. Maybe it's different for every woman. For me, I've felt like a mother ever since Harrison came into my life. I didn't carry him but I've tucked him in at night, I've made sure he understands his homework, I've made him happy, which makes me happy, he's made me smile, laugh, cry, rush home from work to be with him. For all intents and purposes, I've been mom for a while now. But now that I'm facing the prospective of carrying his brother or sister in me, giving birth to my biological child, I wonder if other mom's feel differently with their different kids. Would they admit it if they did? Do we have different relationships with our mothers than our siblings do? I think so. I think every mother/child relationship is different and unique on some level, right? Does that make some relationships smaller than other- or just different? It depends on the mother and the child right?
One thing that is certain though is that being a mother makes you appreciate your mother so much more than you ever did before. The late, sleepless nights, the stress over how to handle different things, the tutoring and the hours spent helping with homework, the vacations, the laughs, the dinners and the grocery shopping. Honestly, having only one child, I have NO idea how my mom handled having 4 kids at one time! That is just craziness!
One of my favorite moments with my mom that I will always remember, and that she probably doesn't remember in the slightest, occurred probably 20 years ago! We were driving in the car, running errands and decided to take a detour and run one more errand that was out of the way. I ask the question: "Can we get there from here, though?" Her response: "YOU CAN ALWAYS GET ANYWHERE YOU WANT FROM WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW." That, to me, is the essence of what my mom has always encouraged in me. She has always supported any path we have found ourselves going down. She has always done everything she could do to help us achieve our goals, to get us where we wanted to be. She has been encouraging, supportive and proud of us the whole way.
Mother's Day is still a few days away- but I think it's such an important day of the year. So, mom, this year, I wish we could go back in time, make breakfast for you and bring it into your bedroom early on Sunday morning. But, since I can't be there- I hope you know that you are loved, cherished and honored, every day of the year!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
mama mia
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Random Ramblings
I don't have much to update, we really have been up to much lately. Easter break ended and now we are just back to our normal schedule, and just relaxing on the weekends. Harrison has the STAR testing for the next 10 days at school. The No Child Left Behind Act has so severly increased the need for the students to grade high on the STAR test that the kids are nothing less than having nervous breakdowns- even in 3rd grade. It's getting pretty freakin' ridiculous with this nonsense. Seriously, why does my 8 year old need to know how to add and subtract fractions, decimals and do extremely difficult long division. What else is there going to be to learn after 3rd grade?! He knows everything there is to know now! Dunno if y'all experience anything similar or not. But we've been blown away by the academic expectations ever since kindergarten, when he had to be able to read short books all by himself when he was only 4!
In other randomness, I was reading this article on women.com about how women don't like to work for other women. It made me think about how competitive we, women, are some times. We just can't root for each other? Can there only be one successful women in one work place at a time? Does this happen with women, even outside of the work place? It's difficult for me sometimes, because I was the only girl among my 3 brothers. I never really had to compete against another girl, so I just never realize there was this animosity amongst us. Was this just a random sampling of women who had this opinion? Is it reflected of the real world? I work with many great, great attorneys, most of which are women. I do work for the State though, which I've heard referred to as a "women's job" by another male attorney. Still not sure what that means though....just some good food for thought.
We've seen some really good, highly recommended movies lately. If you haven't seen any of the following, go rent them:
- The Wrestler
- Marley & Me (mom, watch this movie and then call me to discuss)
- Hotel for Dogs
- Slumdog Millionaire (better then expected considering the hype)
One really good show we've been watching is Amazing Race. We really love this show- expect for the part we had to skip over because of the explicatives! Seriously, since when can you use the b---h word at 7pm on a Sunday night on prime time TV?!?! We were seriously appauled and I wrote a letter to the network. Other than that, the show is really entertaining and its a great way to show Harrison around the world and different cultures.
Okay, I think that's enough rambling for now. I just haven't updated in 2 weeks but really there's been nothing to update! We are having a good "down time" right now before summer break and many vacations start. Soon we'll be heading to San Diego, Central Coast and Las Vegas this summer. We are excited, but I'm spending plenty of tiem at the gym, getting ready for swimsuit season.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
With flowers in your hair
The BEST thing about moving to NORTHERN CALIFORNIA.....being SO CLOSE to my (second) favorite city by the bay...SaN FrAnCiCsO!
The Academy does have a pretty cool Coral Reef with a ton of things to look at. There's also this guy who resides at the Academy:
Monday, April 13, 2009
Finished Product
Okay- so James worked VERY HARD this weekend to get the stain onto the jacuzzi and gazebo. It's a lot darker than expected, but actually looks great!
And the after picture:
And now for the jacuzzi before and afters:
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Raingutter Regata
The past month, the boys have been spending a lot of time creating their Regata to sail against the other boyscouts at last weeks "Raingutter Regata". Here's a picture of them making sure the boat floats and practicing the "blowing" technique it takes to win. 
And here's Harrison and the rest of the pack at the even itself. We didn't win, but we had a lot of fun! And our boat looked awesome. James did an amazing job carving the boat and painting the skull and crossbones on the sail. 
P.S. Harrison's new thing is his hair- he wants to grow it out to be like Zach and Cody (from Disney's The Suite Life). So, here he is with half-grown out hair. Great....
Spring, Sprang, Sprung
Spring brang with it some of our favorite things to do (and some chores we've been putting off all winter): gardening, backyard beautification, camping, cub scouts, long bike rides before dinner, walking the dogs after dinner when the sun is still out, and lots of gorgeous wild flowers springing up!
This was how our backyard looked before we started anything. We had a pool and some concrete. 
Here's the gazebo framed and the grass planted. We still have to stain the frame of the gazebo and hang cutains and sun shades from the sides. We haven't done that yet- that's tomorrow's project. Today, we worked on getting the jacuzzi sanded down, so we can stain it the same color as the gazebo. This is the before picture of the jacuzzi.
This is the outside of the jacuzzi- it's in need of a new cover and some new stain on the wood. We spent all morning sanding it down and now it looks like this:
And now we stain it! Wish us luck. It's fun having home projects when its actually your own home that you are working on!! Now I understand Homeowners Pride!!
I'll update with pictures of the final product to show off all our hardwork. Can't wait for summertime!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Cats and Dogs
