Wake up, fish!

Miss Carole was in town! A church/preschool had a MacaroniFest fundraiser that featured Carole Petersen/Stevens. I found out about it that morning, and resolved to get the kids there. We made it, but wow was it stressful.

At first, there were crafts for the kids -- I think it was Nev's first time wielding a bottle of glue -- she did it with such glee Miss Carole herself came up to me and commented laughingly on Nev's enthusiasm :)

Dinner was a frantic affair, the kids barely ate any of the pasta even the usual guaranteed mac n cheese (of course, they'd never had it from Noodles & Co, might have been to salty?). They were probably over stimulated too.

Then the concert started ... Nev and I spent most of the time watching/participating. Nova, on the other hand, kept running in and out of the room and earned himself a whole bunch of time-outs (administered by Kosh, who happened to get out of work early enough to come with -- without him I have no idea how I would have coped!).

Bottom left: their first taste of ice cream, can you tell if they liked it? ;)

Purchased Stinky Cake to complement the already-known-by-heart Sticky Bubble Gum CD we already have. It hasn't taken long for these new songs to also embed themselves into our hearts / minds / dreams.

<3 A friend's kid made a comment about being in a castle (it's a church, which can certainly seem like a castle to young'uns, definitely) -- Nova and Nev have since embraced that concept, and enthusiastically look for the castle we were at whenever we drive around town ... and are also convinced we shared that castle with Rapunzel that evening :) <3

And now for why I'm fnally prompted to blog about Miss Carole... First, watch this video:

http://youtu.be/uCF3vBuxXS8

(It's not Miss Carole nor her version in the video, but it's one of the songs that was immediately a favorite of the kids)

Then check this one out:

http://youtu.be/VF787Ijtlfk

And finally, this one:

http://youtu.be/9dCXzgdTwXU

(I apologize for not properly embedding the videos -- I'll try to do that when I'm at a laptop/computer and not squinting at my phone!).

Enjoy!

Weekend survival

Housebound. Nova is running a fever (nowhere near as bad as his sister on Tuesday/Wednesday, though, thankfully!). And it's cold anyway, so Mommy's gotta get the grumpy out of her system (I am *not* a fan of the cold... and it's only mid-September... ugh) before she'll willingly go out in such weather :p

So... Indoor distractions ...

Here's what occupied them for a good ten minutes: match the outline w the object.

Now to find other things to do so we won't kill each other before the day is through... :)

Books that stayed with me in some way

Making its way around FB is this list of ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Here's my stab at it.

1. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) -- amazing retelling of the Arthurian legend from a priestess' perspective.

2. Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco) -- opened my mind to the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, and I seriously didn't know if this really was a work of fiction.

3. The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) -- Dracula story within a story within a story told via letters and flashbacks

(Which reminds me of...)

4. Blood Groove (Alex Bledsoe) -- refreshing disturbingly awesome vampire tale (I so need to reread this!)

5. A Crown of Swords (Robert Jordan) -- "what? It's not over yet? How long *is* this series??!"

6. The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Mohandas Gandhi) -- I'd not actually known much about him, so reading this was eye opening, mind blowing.

7. IT (Stephen King) -- the only book that had me afraid of what might be under my bed.

8. The Stand (Stephen King) -- something about being sodomized w a gun barrel can make quite an impression on an innocent mind...

9. American Gods (Neil Gaiman) -- magnificent look at "gods" in these modern times

10. Chariots of the Gods? (Erich Von Daniken) -- read this in my very late teens, and my view of religions has never been the same.

So there you have it. 

Feel free to leave a link in comments to your own list. If I have the time I'll take a look.

Adjustments

Adjusting to Nova being in school daily ... on one hand he's out of my hair EVERY DAY! On the other hand it's only for 2.5 hrs total, and if you include travel to/from I barely have 2hrs each morning ...  

(Prior to this, I had him in daycare three days a week) 

(very fortunate, but also, very $$ draining)

(so when the opportunity to have him in a free-to-us well-rated school came up, it was a no-brainer) 

(I just knew we'd be making quite an adjustment...)

(... and that's what we're doing this week (and beyond... This'll take us a while...!))

Yesterday I was in the middle of laundry when I realised I was going to be late getting him!!  Yeeesh!

So today I'm pretending I don't have anything to do, and am getting a pedicure to pass the time to his pickup.

Between this, and the parking hassle at dropoff/pickup, I'm wondering if I should reconsider my no-bussing stance... 

... that'll be another post for another day :p

Weeds

... they keep growing!

Nova's off to pre-K today.

Next time I'll make the sign a whole lot clearer :p

Yellow

"Yewwow!"

"No, lellow!"

"No, yewwow!"

... Nova and Nev correcting each other's pronunciation of "yellow".

I need this on tape!!

I was moved

Today I was moved to type some supportive words to two friends, relatively new ones (SPI-based, so 5+ years), not close at all really, but I have some fondness/connection/affinity for them for one reason or another ... both sent cries for help** out on FB today ... (** okay maybe not outright cries for help... but let's just say, I empathised with both their written and unwritten words, and was moved to respond with empathy, love and support.

It felt good.

Then it turned / I turned it into something else. Judging myself of narcissism. For needing self validation. Viewing my feeling good about it as a kind of *desperate* self-validation.

Underneath it all, it felt like a small child desperately wanting acknowledgment that "See? I *can* do good. I could matter."

Because a part of me was told / came to believe that I (she) doesn't matter.
That I was never good enough.

(Too Malay.)
(Not Malay enough.)
(and so many and so much more....)

And I feel my brain and heart skitter skitter skitter away.

So today, I also will be spending time with that piece of me. Hugging. Reassuring. Showing her what we've done, what we've achieved, where we are, how we matter. At the same time acknowledging her, and her fears, her hurt, her resentment, her confusion. Her hurt. That's a huge one.

I turn 42 soon. As good an age as any to help my inner children heal, perhaps even assimilate.

I have been broken, so. long.