Incomplete

Still loving this song. :-)

Incomplete
by Alanis Morissette

One day I'll find relief
I'll be arrived
And I'll be a friend to my friends
who know how to be friends
One day I'll be at peace
I'll be enlightened and I'll be married
with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture
this whole time of being forever incomplete

One day my mind will retreat
And I'll know God
And I'll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I'll be secure
Like the women I see on their thirtieth anniversaries

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture
this whole time of being forever incomplete

Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous
And torturous
But never done

One day I will speak freely
I'll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I'll be trusting and spacious
authentic and grounded and home

I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture
this whole time of being forever incomplete


~RCH~

First day of school

Uno started kindergarten last Monday, the 18th, and I am now the mother of a public school kid.

I didn't cry; I didn't get emotional over my little girl growing up. Who are we kidding? She's been ready for this day for years already: She's anxious to learn. She's desperate for a wider social circle than just me and her sisters. She wants to take that small step away from me and toward the rest of her life, and it's my job as her mother to cheer her on to independence.



Go Uno!


~RCH~

Traveling Tales: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I apologize in advance for the length of this post and all the pictures you'll have to load (especially if you're on a crappy dial-up connection like I am).


I drove around a lot in a rented minivan.

Lucky for us, gas is cheap in the Midwest. If, by cheap, you mean $3.60 a gallon. *Sigh!*





I went to a minor league baseball game.

FIL snagged some sweet seats behind home plate at a Miners minor league baseball game (yeah, it sounds like I stuttered, I know) against the Chillicothe Paints. We ate hot dogs and popcorn and drank lemonade. Tres flirted with the people behind us. Uno and Dos -- who were delighted to discover that real life baseball is a lot like Wii Sports baseball (but with better graphics) -- alternately paid attention, danced in the aisle, and dragged me on unnecessary trips to the bathroom. Though we all had fun, I'm grateful for the Miners' decisive victory (6 to 2, I think?) so we didn't have to sit through any extra innings.



I lazed around while the girls played with their grandparents, aunt, and cousin.





I went back to Metropolis!

I'd been through Metropolis, IL -- including obligatory stops at the Super Museum & Gift Shop and the giant Superman statue -- once before, innocently unaware that my future husband lived a mere 40 minutes away. (Actually he was probably in Oxford, MS at the time getting his PhD. But still.) I'm a total sucker for kitsch; Metropolis is my kind of town.



I spent time at Kentucky Dam Village State Park

Our family plus MIL and DH's nephew stayed in a cute little 2-bedroom cottage with a view onto the golf course (though DH didn't play, thanks to the 105F-degree heat index). We had a mouse and a broken sofa bed the first night, but both of those issues got resolved so we declined the resort's offer to switch to another place.



We specifically chose a cottage instead of lodge rooms so that we could save money by cooking our own food, but then DH declared, "I didn't come on vacation so I could cook things! Let's eat out!" And I didn't disagree. ;-)

The restaurant at the lodge is great, but if you go, make sure you also check out the Catfish Kitchen on US 641 out toward Benton. I don't eat fish at all, but those who do raved; I ordered the chicken and it was fantastic. Tres really liked the ambiance (see below). Dos liked the butter.



Kentucky Dam Village is part of an area known as the Land Between the Lakes, but we didn't actually play in any lake water. Instead, we swam at the resort's pool every day. The girls were much more confident in the water than they had been earlier in the summer; floaties helped, as did the kiddie pool (2ft 9in at its greatest depth).




We also spent a day at a water park. Tres -- my only baby who's ever been happy in the water from her very first bath on -- cooed and squealed and clapped as soon as we got there. Uno and Dos floated in tubes down the lazy river with some apprehension at first, but soon warmed up. Before long, they were splashing in the "tad pool" (sans floaties!) and racing down water slides. By the end of the day, Uno refused to leave. She moped on the shore of the kids' play area, wishing she could live there forever; after documenting her heartbreak with my camera I had to physically drag her away.



While at LBL, we also went mini golfing (or goofy golfing, as the girls called it) a couple of times. Man, it was hot.



Back in DH's hometown, I turned 33

DH, in an incredibly sweet gesture, bought me the new-ish REM CD. (It's sweet because he doesn't like them at all, and he usually gets me things that he wants me to have, lol.) His super romantic gift presentation style (unwrapped, still in plastic Walmart sack, price sticker visible, receipt at the bottom, and a "Here, I got you this") came in handy this time because he accidentally got me a Reliant K CD instead of REM. I have no idea who Reliant K is, but I exchanged it with no problems. Yay DH! :-)

I took walks around town with the girls

To exciting places such as DH's elementary school (below), which is now a senior living center. (Insert DH-is-old joke here.)



I went fishing

Or rather, DH did. The girls and I mostly just went along for the ride. (You want to know what's creepier than fish? Fish with whiskers.)




I went to the Evansville Zoo

Our local zoo membership gives us benefits at other national zoos who are part of the same accredited association, and apparently Evansville is one of them. We got in for free! That's always nice.

The zebras and giraffes hang out together at this zoo, and one particular giraffe kept following a particular little zebra around wherever it went. I commented on it and Dos said, "That's because he's the zebra's mother." I told her it didn't quite work that way. "No, he is his mother. See, he's bigger and the zebra is littler, so that means the giraffe is the mom and the zebra is the baby." Well, okay then!



I went back to Chuck E. Cheese!

Although we haven't been to one since we left West Texas, the girls still talk about Chuck E. Cheese all the time. You can imagine how thrilled they were when we pulled up to this one. :-)



That's all, folks!

And thus concludes our fabulous two-week vacation to Southern Illinois and surrounding areas.


~RCH~

Sweet girl

UNO: What's wrong, Mom?

RCH: Nothing; I just don't feel good.

UNO: What happened?

RCH: Someone I thought was my friend ... turned out not to be.

UNO: What's her phone number? I'll tell her to stop being mean. And then I'll tell her to SCRAM before I kick her butt!

Ah, it's nice to have a defender.


~RCH~

One more

Background: We've been trying to teach Uno and Dos that you can earn people's respect by being honest, kind, a cheerful helper, that sort of thing. We've also kicked around the idea of an allowance based on chores (beyond what is normally expected of them).

UNO, after helping me clean the kitchen: Mom, you said respect is earned, right?

RCH: That's right!

UNO: Can I have some now?

RCH: Well remember, respect isn't a thing, it's a good feeling.

UNO: Oh. Huh. Can I just have the money, then?


~RCH~

Quote Book Clearing House

We attended the local Presbyterian church with MIL during our recent visit. DH, MIL, the baby and I went to the regular service while Uno and Dos were shuttled off to children's church (the LDS equivalent would be Primary, more or less).

Apparently the children's church director is someone who has known DH since he was a baby. Upon seeing Dos she said, "Oh, you must be DH's daughter! You look just like him!"

"No I don't," Dos said a little indignantly. "He doesn't have any hair!"

* * *

DH, while having dinner: Dos, eat your corn dog! You've had enough butter. (She had been opening those individual butter packets at the restaurant and eating it straight with her fork.)

* * *

Playtime overheard:

DOS: I'm sorry, my mother says I can't talk to mosquitoes.

UNO: Actually, I tied your mom up in the closet. Does your dad say it's okay?

DOS: Yeah, sure!

* * *

This one's a year or so old, but I don't think I've ever blogged it and it still cracks me up:

DH was kvetching about someone he thinks is a little co-dependent. "[Person] couldn't wipe [his/her] own butt without help!" he said.

Uno, who we didn't know was even listening, excitedly raised her hand and said, "Oooh! I can, Daddy! I know how to wipe my own butt!"

The two of us then had to keep a straight face while we congratulated her on her mad bathroom skillz.


~RCH~

Traveling Tales: Fear Factor

Early in our visit, FIL made a horribly insensitive remark, which I will not repeat, regarding my older two children. Aside from being a completely inappropriate thing to say out loud (grrrrr!), his justification for the comment was based on the false premise that Dos is fearless and more of a tomboy than Uno.

He's wrong, of course. Dos is a happy-go-lucky girl who goes along with Uno's adventurous schemes, but Uno is the instigator, the mastermind. Uno is the one who would rather play pirates than princesses, who thinks she's a super hero, who declared last week that she wants to be a wrestler when she grows up. Dos is just glad to have a playmate.

FIL would know that if he spent more time with the girls -- as much time as MIL has, for instance. But he's missed out on a lot because (ah, the irony) he's terrified to fly (and doesn't like to drive farther from home than his local American Legion building) so MIL has come to see us alone.

He thinks Dos is braver because he once saw Uno run screaming from a dog that Dos sauntered up to pet. "That little rascal," he said in his thick southern Illinois accent. "She ain't afraid of nothin."

Well, she's not afraid of dogs, as Uno is, but she's my child; she's bound to have a few random phobias and neuroses -- and as it turns out, she has plenty. Hers include, but are not limited to, the following:

• House flies. On our final drive out of West Texas, a fly ended up in the car with us. She screamed and cried and screamed and cried until we shooed him out when we stopped for dinner at a Subway in Muleshoe.


• Forests, or even small groupings of trees because -- and this is the awesome part, lol -- that's where unicorns live. No, it's not the bears or the mountain lions or the disease-carrying ticks she's worried about, it's the unicorns.


• Unicorns; see above. She's concerned that one might poke her with its very sharp horn.


• The dark. That's a pretty standard little kid fear, though.


• Crumbs. I have no idea where this one came from, but she's paranoid that anywhere she sits or lies down might have crumbs on it. She does not want to have to touch them, so I am the designated sweeper of all crumbs, real or imagined.


• Public toilets and vacuums, because of the noise. That's another pretty common fear among kids, I think, though I don't pretend to understand it (children are among the noisiest people around, but they're not afraid of each other).

I offer you this list in Uno's defense (the only phobias of hers I can think of off the top of my head are animals and water), but I don't intend it to demean Dos in any way. I find these little quirks and differences endearing. I don't pit my girls against each other to make pronouncements or draw conclusions.

I also don't mean to paint a negative (if vague) picture of FIL; we all say stupid stuff sometimes, and this was just one interaction out of two weeks' worth. We had a lovely visit. I didn't address his comment at the time (it caught me way off guard), so he probably doesn't even know how much it offended me. And that's fine -- life has enough drama without adding to it, right? FIL loves his granddaughters; we love him; the end.

But for the record -- though she is wonderfully sweet and easy going and up for adventure and brave in the face of viciously licking puppies -- Dos is neither fearless nor the bigger tomboy. Just so you know.


~RCH~