I love holiday baking and I love my friends, so I’m very grateful I took a day off today to just bitch and bake with one of my best friends. We ended up making almond toffee sandies, sugar cookies, mint chocolate fudge, and something I think we’ve decided to call Christmas puffs. The Christmas puffs were Mary’s idea. She figured the kids needed something they could do with minimal supervision, so she melted some chocolate and set that out with big marshmallows and crushed candy canes. The kids dipped the marshmallows in the chocolate and then in the candy canes and then set the results aside to cool. Very simple and we only had minor squabbling about who’s turn it was to dip marshmallows next.

We split all the cookies and treats between the two families before I grabbed my brood and headed home. Tomorrow’s task will be to portion out all the goodies into small packages and deliver them to our neighbors. We’ll save a few for ourselves, obviously, but only a few because it’s not even Christmas yet and I’m already having problems fitting into my jeans. As the Pixie is wont to say, “Mama haff a big butt!”

And that’s pretty much it contentment-wise this week. Just baking and bitching with Mary while the rest of the family kicks back. Not really sure how I could top that, except maybe to have had a couple more friends with us to help bitch and bake and add to the general chaos.

Have a good Sunday night!

“Mama! Mama! Pixie wants a piece of chocoloate!” Princess screams.

Pixie dances around, something small and most likely chocolate clutched in her tiny hands.

I look at the pile of work on my desk and sigh. “Do you two know what *I* want?”

Pixie gets a funny look on her face as she cogitates this. “Um, world peace?”

“Exactly,” I say. “When I get what I want, you can have what you want.”

Princess bobs her head. Pixie keeps squealing and spinning in circles, smooshing chocolate in her hand.

“So does that mean we can have the chocolate?” Princess asks.

**If that’s what it takes to get some peace and quiet…**

I hate this kind of drama. First, it’s sad to see people’s lives combust right before your eyes. But second, it really is self-inflicted, and it’s mainly because of that mindset that everything in life should be without flaw. People, jobs, relationships are not perfect. They never will be perfect. And when you get involved with any of these things, when you make a long term commitment to someone or to something, you ought to understand at the start that there will be mistakes and rough patches and even a little outright misery.

And you know what? That’s okay.

Seriously, this is where the Buddhist in me comes out. When Buddha said “Life is suffering,” I think what he meant was, “There are tough times in life, and there’s no way to avoid them.” And that’s true enough. But I also think he meant that people want things to be perfect no matter what, and they get upset when things turn out to be otherwise. Things, people, and situations are all impermanent. They CHANGE. What was perfect one day will be flawed and blemished then next. And that’s okay. It’s the natural state of things. Nothing lasts forever. But people refuse to see that, refuse to accept that the job they took on now has additional or different responsibilities, the person they made friends with has picked up (or probably always had) annoying bad habits, that the house they bought has bad plumbing, etc., etc., etc. And that refusal to accept always leads to anger and strife and worry and misery.

And people wonder why they’re suddenly so unhappy with their once perfect lives.

I figured out a long time ago that nothing was ever going to be perfect in my life. I have a husband I love. He’s handsome, smart, responsible, kind, generous, and good with kids. He also drives me nuts with his coupon clipping, his budgeting, his technobabble, the way he riles up the girls right before bedtime, the way he leaves his shoes lying around, his mile-wide streak of perfectionism. We’ve had more shouting matches and head butting over these things than I can recall. And somehow, we’re still married after 16 years.

Then I have these two beautiful daughters. They’re smart, funny, loving, healthy. They fight non-stop some days and drive me batty with endless questions and attitude and tantrums, not to mention their refusal to eat a meal I made because they specifically asked for it, and oh, did I mention the youngest scribbled on my freshly painted walls, and the oldest can’t focus on her homework to save her life some days? The whining and the fussing and the fighting never end. Yet somehow, I look at them and think, “I want a third. One more baby would make this family complete.”

I love my parents. They’re far from perfect. I love my friends. They don’t hit that goal of perfection either. And you know what? Neither do I. I nag, I bitch, I get angry, I yell. I’m rude, obnoxious, a loud-mouth. I’m carrying around an extra 10 lbs I can’t seem to lose no matter what and my oldest child tells me my butt jiggles funny when I run.

No, nothing is ever perfect. But there’s plenty in life that’s good enough, and I want to appreciate those things as much as I can. Case in point. Hubster and I were rather shell shocked after being hit by the shrapnel of someone else’s drama (and that’s my biggest bitch about drama; it doesn’t just affect those directly involved, it takes out the bystanders too). Feeling nervous, upset, out of sorts, we deliberately decided to take stock of what we had. We had dinner as a family, laughing and joking with the girls. We ate fortune cookies and giggled over the ludicrous fortunes we got. We read comic books together and tucked the girls into bed with kisses and songs. Then we curled up together on the couch to watch a movie. Before we went to sleep, we made love.

None of it was perfect. Pixie wouldn’t eat her dinner and threw a tantrum when she only got one fortune cookie because of that. Princess pouted and whined over not getting extra stories or being allowed to stay up late. Hubster and I argued over how good the movie was when it was over, me rolling my eyes yet again at his elitist standards for cinema. And the sex? It was comfortable, not earth-shattering.

And I’m good with all of that. Really, I am. It’s a quiet life with minor issues, and I don’t set out to make mountains out of molehills by digging up every little thing that goes wrong. And I think that’s good, because when the mountains do come along, the real ones like a natural disaster or a death in the family, I know I’ll still have the solid ground of a contented life to keep me steady on my feet.

*****

Helen’s list of contentment’s for today:

• Two little girls who love singing along to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
• Waking up with a half-decent story idea in my head for today’s writing
• Cheese and onion pie with fruit salad and iced coffee at the Briar Patch Tea room
• Running into an old friend at lunch and reminiscing about the days I used worked at the newspaper
• Reading Bone by Jeff Smith to my girls
• Having time to do random doodling on in my sketch book
• Picking up an old paperback I’ve had for years and finally starting to read it (Gojiro by Mark Jacobson)
• Summer dresses and nice weather
• Long phone calls with my friends
• Learning how to knit a potholder
• Watching Stranger Than Fiction with the Hubster and discovering Will Ferrel can really act
• Sleeping late, curled up with the man I love. He smelled too good and felt too comfy for me to get out of bed.

Really, what more could I want than all this?

Anyway, I thought I’d talk a little about Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants, since I haven’t mentioned it in a while. So far, most of the plants are doing… okay. Not terrific, but not dead. For some reason, a few of the plants had a delayed growth spurt and are only just now graduating from sproutling to actual plant. The vegetables we planted aren’t exactly producing a bumper crop, probably because I started the seeds so late. I have been told that next year I need to start my seeds in February, which leads me to wonder where the hell I’m going to keep all those tiny plants for the two plus months I’ll have to wait until we’re past the final frost (which I have been told is on Tax Day in April). I also may have not helped things by trying to make a homemade pesticide out of apple cider vinegar, dish soap and hot sauce. That recipe came out of a gardening book I have, and I thought it would help kill the leaf eating pests we’ve been having problems with. Well it did, but it also caused the plants to shrivel up and nearly die too.

In spite of my attempts at planticide, we do have a few ears of corn coming up, but the bugs got one and now the others seem to afraid to come out of their husks. We have the odd tiny green tomato and banana pepper hanging on the plant. The herbs have done the best, though for some reason my basil took forever to hit puberty (do plants do puberty? I dunno).

The best grower by far has been the beans we planted. I have no frikkin’ clue anymore what kind of beans we’ve planted, but they grew like weeds, trailing all around the tomato cages I set up around them. We harvested about 25 pods and got enough beans out of those to feed myself and both girls one serving of beans each. They turned purple when I boiled them (the beans, not the girls), and the girls thought that was a little too weird so yours truly is the only one who would eat them. For the record, if I die suddenly in the next few days, it was probably the beans.

The rest of the yard isn’t looking too bad, except for the one side where the Hubster planted a slew of creeping juniper a few years back. I hate creeping juniper. Weeds get in there and the only way to kill them is to reach into the prickly, scratchy branches of the juniper to pull them out. I tore up my arms good this past weekend and only managed to weed about a square foot. I’ve still got another twelve square feet or so to go. Joy!

But the flower garden in the side yard looks good, as does the small herb garden in the back, plus a few other odds and ends I’ve managed not to kill over the years. Here are a few photos I took a week or so ago.

Princess, standing by the towering Russian blue sage in the side flower garden. I’ve also got some calla lilies in there, plus some daisies, yarrow and button flowers and a few other things I can’t recall the names of.

The containers of herbs on the back deck. Note the delightful chalk art the kids drew for me!

Our vegetable container garden. The big bushy thing is the beans I ate that are probably going to kill me. And next to that is our stunted corn.

A mixed pot of sunflowers, colieosus, and marigolds. Probably the weirdest combination of plants ever thrown together, but they’re doing pretty good. Nothing’s blooming yet, of course…

This is not my garden. This is Norfolk Botanical Garden, about an hour from where I live. Norfolk Botanical Garden is gorgeous. I wish I could get my yard to look even a little bit like it. Yes, they teach gardening classes there. Would they help improve my black thumb? Probably not. Drives me crazy.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with Operation Kill A Lot Of Plants. It’s not a roaring success, but we are getting outside and digging around in the dirt, and I consider that a sign of success, even if all we manage to grow is a bunch of purple beans that kill me.

It’s a sticky issue. There aren’t a lot of little girls Princess’ age in the neighborhood. Only two, to be exact. Everyone else is either a boy, and only wants to hang with other boys, or quite a few years older than Princess. Of the two little girls who are Princess’ age, one is getting ready to leave for a cross-country trip this summer. The other lives within walking distance, but I’d have to walk over with Princess (no biggie, I can always use the exercise) AND… Pixie is not invited to go with her.

I hate that. As with Princess, there are only two children in the neighborhood around Pixie’s age. One of them is sister to the girl who’s about to leave on that cross-country trip, so she won’t be around either. The other is allergic to just about everything under the sun, so arranging play dates requires a lot of pre-planning and logistical discussion (choosing a restaurant can we all eat at, scrubbing my kids down before going over to make sure they’re allergen-free, etc.).

So essentially, Pixie is out of luck in the local friends department. I’ve made arrangements to have Princess’ one little friend come over here a couple of mornings a week, to ensure that Pixie isn’t left out when the girls play together, but even then it’s a crap shoot they’ll all get along. Every time this particular kid comes over, she has a nasty habit of dragging Princess into her room and slamming the door on Pixie, who then comes sobbing to me. I’m going to try to prevent that scenario from happening this summer by making the kids play outside all morning while I garden (and I’ve already told the other mom that’s going to be the rule – girls stay outside!). Even so, I can’t guarantee Pixie will included in the older girls’ games.

All this means I’m not inclined to have Princess’ friend over every day of the week (especially since she also annoys the hell out of me). In fact, I’m thinking along the lines of one or two mornings a week at most. Then I’ve got a standing agreement to meet with a friend of mine and her kids one morning a week. Patty’s got two boys, one Princess’ age and one Pixie’s age. It’s a bit of a drive to get together with them, but doable once a week. That gives us three mornings a week of play dates. And of course I’ve planned to take one day a week for day trips, just me and the girls, to the beach, the museum, Busch Gardens… I’m thinking that’s pretty good right? Plenty of activity all summer and lots of play dates with other kids!

Except Princess keeps whining that she wants to see her one girlfriend every day, in the afternoon, either at her house, where Pixie is not invited to come play, or here, where I will be hard at work writing the next great American smut novel.

My plan was that I would devote the entire first half of the day to the girls – play dates, gardening, going to the pool, throwing water balloons, karate classes, arts and crafts, etc. Princess’ little friend could come over during that time and join us for some outdoor fun. Then we’d come in for lunch and after lunch, when it’s hot enough outside you could fry an egg on the front porch, the girls would go upstairs to their rooms and play together. Quietly. While I worked in the office for a few hours.

I thought that arrangement sounded quite fair. They’d get to see friends and have all the fun they wanted in the mornings, I’d get the work time I so desperately need in the afternoon. But when I discuss this with Princess, I get a lot of arguing about how it isn’t fair, she never gets to see her friends often enough, she’s bored, she’s lonely, why can’t she play outside by herself, she won’t run out into the street, she won’t let her sister run out into the street, the three girls could play very quietly in her room and no one would fight or set the house on fire while I was working, etc., etc., etc.

Am I wrong? Should I try to have Princess’ friend over in the afternoons? Or have I set a reasonable schedule for all of us? I can’t say. I will say I’m not budging from that schedule. No kidding, I have a novel to write this summer, and a website to massively update. I can’t afford not to work those hours. Princess will get to see her friend once or twice a week, see some other kids once a week, and go on some fun trips every week. That’s enough, right?

Now to figure out how to quit feeling like a bad mom every time she asks for a play date…

Pixie and her sister, Princess. They don’t always get along this well, of course.

The Birthday Girl enjoys her favorite breakfast while watching Handy Manny.

The big present of the day was a doll house. To be specific, my old doll house from when I was a child. My mom provided all new furnishings. Both girls enjoyed it immensely.

Yep, someone’s having a happy birthday!

The success of the doll house was a bit of a surprise. I had been planning for a while to give my old doll house to one of the girls. One of the moms on our street told me that during one play date, Pixie had been obsessed with the doll house they had there, so I decided she could have it for her birthday, and then share it with her sister (doll houses are more fun when you have someone to share them with). It is an old doll house. My grandmother gave it to me when I was about 6 or 7, as a Christmas present. She was the only grandparent I ever knew, my maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother and grandfather having died before I was a year old. I still remember the day I got it, and I held onto it for ever, keeping it tucked away in the closet. When I pulled it out to give to Pixie, it still had all the original furniture in it, wrapped in tissue paper. We pulled out each piece to look at before putting the new doll house furniture in. Once I had the girls upstairs happily playing with their new toy, I came downstairs and cried. That I really hadn’t expected, but seeing that doll house got me thinking about my grandmother and how thrilled she would have been to see the kids playing with it. She died several years ago, long before Michael and I had kids.

Anyway, I wrapped up the old doll furniture and tucked it away in a box. I suppose I could have given Pixie the old furniture, but the old stuff is wood, and old, and I worry that it’s not up to the strain of being played with by an enthusiastic three-year-old. Besides, Pixie’s new furniture all matches. Still, my old stuff was pretty nice…

First, there was this in the kitchen…

…apparently caused by this blunt object…

…which landed on this little tootsie…

Apparently Pixie went into the pantry while no one was looking and grabbed a can of ice tea which she immediately dropped on her foot, rim first. While she screamed bloody murder, Princess ran and found the Hubster, who then spent several minutes chasing after a shrieking Pixie, then calming and staunching the flow of blood. She ran pretty far, so there was blood all over the kitchen floor, the living room carpet, and the love seat, the stairs and the kids bathroom. Hubster was wet vaccuuming the carpet and love seat when I got home. Princess gave me all the gory details… several times in a row.

It doesn’t look like any permanent damage was done. Pixie was running around on it only a short while later. But we’ll probably spend tomorrow at the doctor’s office and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get a shoe on that foot.

But anyway, I’m glad to be home, bloody sweet home, and I owe the Hubster so frikkin’ much for letting me take this weekend off that it’s not eve funny. Hope everyone made it home safe from Balticon, and had slightly less bloody surprises waiting for them when they walked in the door.

“Bad pony! Da pony spank me so I spank da pony!” ~ Pixie, while playing with My Pretty Pony

“Did the pony spank you or did you make the pony spank you?” ~ Helen, who can’t believe she just said that

“Did Buddha die in Jamestown?” ~ Princess, in a conversation exploring religion and history

“Dere are volcanoes on da lunar surface!” ~ Pixie (after listening to a little too much Jimmy Buffet)

“But if I give the bank all my money, I’ll never get it back!” ~ Princess, commenting on the current state of the economy and her allowance

Yeah, just another day of fun here at la Casa de Madden.

With the changing of the seasons, I had to clear out the old winter clothes from Pixie’s closet and put in the stuff we saved from Princess’ wardrobe. That’s a huge headache for me. I know it saves a ton of money, but I have having to sort and store all that clothing. We simply don’t have enough boxes for it all. And remember, my mom buys these kids clothing in BULK! We used to get a package a week, filled with little dresses and outfits, until I made her cut back.

Anyway, I decided to spend today cleaning out both kids’ closets, only I got into Pixie’s room and realized I also needed to sort through her toys and clean up a few messes, so I ended up only doing her room. And while I was cleaning and swapping out clothes, I found a few interesting things, like…

An old maternity top of mine. It’s a lime green t-shirt from Old Navy. I owned several of them when I was pregnant with Pixie, and thought I had gotten rid of all but one, that one being the one I was wearing on the day I went into labor. I kept that one for sentimental reasons. Now that we’re contemplating child #3, I wish I had kept them all.

The knitted yellow hat Pixie got at the hospital when she was born. It was the first article of clothing that kid ever wore, and it suited her. She had a touch of jaundice and was about as yellow as the hat. We had to lay her naked little butt on a blanket and scoot her from one sunny spot to another around the house for the first week she was home. She didn’t like that, and she announced her displeasure with a lot of explosive, projectile poops.

Several small brushes and combs for baby hair. Neither of my girls had hair when they were born, so these have never really been used.

One pair of nursing pads. I used to own a ton of those things too, and will need to stock up for child #3. God I hated wearing those things, and I hated wearing nursing bras, but now I want all that stuff back!

My breast feeding log for Princess. I put Pixie’s in the cedar chest in my bedroom. I didn’t realize the notebook I’d used to record all of Princess’ feedings was still in the dresser in the nursery. Now that really brings back some memories — late nights, trying to stay awake, swollen boobs, falling asleep in the glider, twelve feedings or more a day, a lot of those feedings spent scribbling madly in a notebook or typing stories on a computer. And yes, I’ll do it again gladly with child #3.

A dozen flannel baby blankets. Word of warning to new and expectant mom — you cannot have enough flannel blankets. Between leaky diapers, spit up, and other mishaps, new babies go through about five a day. You will do laundry constantly! I never gave away any of the flannel blankies I got during Princess’ first months, and I’m very glad I still have them. However, I did give away…

Cloth diapers used as burp clothes. That was stupid. The only thing we went through faster than the blankets was the burp clothes. I can still recall how they smelled, that slightly sour odor of spit up and the slightly sweet odor of fresh breast milk. I over-expressed with both kids, and stopped more than a few spray-a-thons by slapping a burp cloth over the offending boobie.

In the toy department, I found some interesting odds and ends. Namely, I discovered that Pixie and Princess own enough Barbies and Little People to repopulate the entire world should the Apocalypse ever occur and we are all wiped out. Please for love of God, if you have any intentions of giving my children a gift, do NOT give them Barbies, Barbie clothing, or any Little People. We’re full up.

In the Barbie basket, I did find a couple of badly tattooed dolls. Pixie loves to color on her dolls with magic marker, and unfortunately, even the washable stuff is permanent on Barbie dolls. She also got into her sister’s Style and Curl Barbie head, and did a real number on that…

However, I noticed some of those markings are a little too well made, and I suspect Princess may have helped out with this makeover. I don’t care though. This damned thing has been a thorn in my side since the day we got it, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to toss it. I keep finding all the little rhinestones and barrettes all over the house, and honestly, a six-year-old does not need to apply makeup to anything. Nor can she really style the hair. Except for the marker makeover, this thing has mostly sat on the floor and collected dust. So today it was, “Hasta la vista, you painted tart!”

Speaking of tarts, I also found this in Pixie’s room…

Poor Steve. That dress really doesn’t fit him. But at least he has pants. None of Pixie’s other male dolls are that lucky. Most have a shirt, but no drawers, and some only get a pair of high heels.

Once I got past the toys, I was able to start moving boxes of clothing off the spare bed we keep in Pixie’s room. That’s when I discovered Pixie’s latest adventures in art…

Yeah, it’s marker. I spent so much time doing everything else today that I did not have time to scrub it yet, so I don’t know if it’s permanent or not. But I’m thinking either way, it’s time to take away the markers from Pixie again.

At last I got to the closet, where I pulled out a ton of old winter clothing, all of it 2T. In addition to her sister’s hand-me-downs, Pixie also got new clothing from Grandmama, so I had to do a culling of the clothes. Anything with a stain went, as well as anything I recalled Pixie would never wear. She’s big on comfort, so if she wouldn’t wear it, I doubt the next child will either. Then I got rid of a few things that were just ugly. Yeah, I’m picky, but with so many clothes to store, I needed to be. I got everything down to just three boxes, one of which was nothing but frilly little dresses Pixie will never wear again. I remember those dresses. Her sister wore them too. They were a big part of Princess’ wardrobe when I was pregnant with her sister. I’m sad to see them go.

There were new dresses to put in though, lots of pretty, colorful summer dresses, enough to keep Pixie happy no matter how many times a day she tries to change clothes. As I put those in the closet, I cleared out some tchotchkies that were lying around on the top shelf — wall plaques with Sweet Memories sayings and stuff like that. I know they were gifts and keepsakes, but I don’t hang on to stuff like that, and never did put any of that stuff up in either child’s room. So those went in the give-away bag. May they find a good home! Then I found the stuff I would keep no matter what — the christening dresses my mom made for each girl; the matching blankets she crocheted for their baptisms; a doll with a crocheted witch’s costume, also made by my mom; my old doll house, given to me by my grandmother when I was about Princess’ age; a Gimbel’s box full of Louis Marx Wild Animal toys, again a gift to me from my grandmother when I was very small. Those things stayed. Then while I was finishing putting stuff away, I found one last treasure.

A set of hospital bracelets. Two were mine. One was labeled, “Madden, BG… 2003.”

Pixie turns three in a few more weeks. I looked at that tiny little bracelet, remembered how small she used to be, and I cried.

Made it damned hard to finish cleaning up, I tell you.

Cassie’s holiday ornament. She did most of this herself. I helped by bending the wires after she beaded them and then finishing things off by making the final loop for the hook. Otherwise, everything else is all her work.

Sam’s new necklace. I used memory wire, which holds its shape forever. That way I didn’t have to add a clasp to the ends or tie anything off. She can just slip it around her neck, but it still has an opening so the necklace will come off if it gets caught on anything. Sam picked out the beads and handed them to me. I did the stringing and finished off the ends with some needlenose pliers.

There was a lot of fussing and fighting over beads and who got Mommy’s help when, but all of that taught me a very important lesson. Doing any sort of craft thing with kids can be frustrating and stressful, but not nearly as frustrating and stressful as what some adults (who should know better) do to others. I’ll take my girls over most adults any day of the week.