Don't negotiate with terrorists. Just don't.

You ever sit and listen to a first time parent talk about disciplining their toddler? 

"I don't yell, I don't take things away, I certainly don't spank. I don't even raise my voice, because it's bad for their self esteem.  They need something, that's why they're upset.  You just need to reason with them."

Yes, padawan, you've got a point.  The toddler is upset because his or her needs aren't being met.   However, I can speak from experience that a toddler's existential "needs" often include a third cookie, or that toy with all the lights and buttons they've been zoning on in Wal-Mart, or yet another episode of Octonauts.  Say "No," and you go from Beloved Mommy to the Unholy, Unfair and Most Oppressive Overlord of All Evil almost instantly.  I also feel obligated to point out that you want to reason with a being who craps themselves daily and hasn't mastered a fork, but, sure, let's try it anyway.

After all, sometimes it works out.

"Honey, I know you're upset right now, but no more cookies right before dinner."
"Why?"
"Everybody got two cookies, and it wouldn't be fair to give you one more than everyone else.  Dinner's almost ready, too, and you need to eat good food.  Do you understand?"
"Yes.  Luf you Mama."
"Love you, sweetheart."
*child wanders off to read their Shakespeare for Toddlers book quietly on the couch until dinner is ready, and they eat all their vegetables with a fork and no complaints.*

More often, though, it goes something like this.

"Honey, I know you're upset right now, but no more cookies right before dinner."
"Cookie?"
"No, you have already had two, and dinner's almost ready."
"No tell me no!"
"Don't tell me what to do, you're two.  No cookie."
*Pause*
*child bursts into tears*
"Stop crying, you're fine, it's okay to be upset but this is not how we deal with being mad--did you just throw your cup at me?!"
"Cookie?"
"No!"
*Pause*
"Please cookie?"

And at this point, you have two choices: stand your ground (while secretly admiring their cunning use of manners) and refuse to budge despite the possibly ensuing tantrum, or break and give them a cookie.  You've drawn the line in the sand, and it's up to you whether you cross it or not.  You can't say "Well, if you say you're sorry, I'll give you a cookie," and keep the moral high ground.  Why not?  It's certainly the quietest, easiest option...but in your heart of hearts, you and I both know that's not reasoning, it's a negotiation--and that's just a fancy word for "bribe."  It lets the little savage know they can do what they want AND get a snack.

I don't usually give out parenting advice because I don't like getting it.  However, I'll make exception for this: Don't try to reason with toddlers. You can't.  It's like trying to knock down a building with your face--painful, and ultimately frustrating.  It doesn't work because they're terrorists--adorable, chubby-cheeked terrorists--and terrorists can't be reasoned with because they're not reasonable.  Don't believe me?  Check this out.

The offense?  I didn't pick her up when I was carrying laundry down the hall, and then I didn't go back and get her once my arms were free.  She literally did this ALL THE WAY DOWN THE HALL. Sound reasonable to you? Before someone calls CPS, I did try to calm her down--I spoke to her, told her where I was, encouraged her to come down the hall, chastised her for throwing a fit... I did my due diligence, then shrugged and started filming.  Think of me less as a lazy parent and more as an educational documentarian.  This was for posterity.

You're welcome.

Now, I've been that first time "I'd never" mom.  I've eaten plenty of crow over the years when it comes to raising my kids.  I'm sure there's still more waiting down the buffet line, and I'm not taking a hard line stance on how to fix or prep toddlers, because I'm pretty sure you can't.  They fix themselves.  One day you wake up, your voice hoarse and your spirit almost broken from all of the thankless explaining, and they suddenly respond with a "'Kay, Mama.  I unstand.  Read story?"

It's a glorious day.

Until then, those of you without kids, you're welcome for the free birth control.  Watch it when you think you might want a baby, and remember that even the cutest, squishiest baby will turn into THAT. Those of you whose children are past this charming age, smile smugly and congratulate yourself on surviving it.  And those of you with toddlers, do what you have to do.  Talk them through it, draw boundaries, put them in time out--just remember: We don't negotiate with terrorists.

*Disclaimer: No toddlers or terrorists were harmed in the writing of this blog.  All emotional trauma was comforted and resolved off-camera. 

Blinders

In between the six year old refusing to put away dishes and the toddler melting down over her Play-Doh being the wrong color, I took some time today to look over Facebook.  That was my first mistake, because I got all agitated and distracted.  The second mistake came when I was so engrossed in an article about a certain poem recited today and the comments underneath that I failed to notice I wasn't alone until I heard Bren exclaim, "That's disgusting.  Someone actually said that?"

Thanks to Trump, Ashley Judd, and Nina Donovan, I found myself having to explain what a "Nasty Woman" was, where the term originated, and why women were protesting across the world.  She nodded and "Uh-huh"-ed through most of my explanation, but finally asked, "So, if everybody wants tolerance and acceptance, why are they being so mean?"

And so I got to teach my daughter about blinders.

If you're a horse-person, you know what I mean.  Blinders (or blinkers) are flaps of leather or cloth on the side of a bridle that limit a horse's field of vision and are meant to prevent the horse from being spooked or distracted by obstacles or other animals.  They don't hurt the horse or limit its movement, but no matter which way the horse looks, it can only see a restricted, narrow view.

The difference between people and horses is that people willingly put on blinders so they only see what they want to see.  That doesn't make what they see less true or real, but it does mean that they only see part of the entire picture.  The things that are inconvenient, disturbing, scary, or don't fit their narrative are blocked and forgotten, as if they never existed.  It's human nature to dismiss what we don't understand or like, and to demonize the people who we disagree with.  To see clearly, we have to remove the biases that blind us just as intentionally as we put those limits on our point of view.

I don't agree with some of the platforms espoused by the Women's March, but I understand why they are important to people and why this is a scary time for part of our population.  While I understand why people are defensive, I despise the hateful and ignorant rhetoric being thrown around by both sides.  Though I am glad some of my friends were touched by Judd's performance, I personally found it abhorrent.  I didn't like the style, I didn't like the language, and I certainly did not like parts of the message, some of which were subtly just as divisive and openly as crude, petty, and derogatory as anything that Trump has said.  It did not speak to me or my experiences as a woman.

I am not a Nasty Woman.  I do not need to claim that title and make it mine to take my individual power back, because I never lost it.  I have not been dismissed, marginalized, or diminished by men as a whole because of my sex.  I do not have to be vulgar to combat vulgarity.

I do not want to raise Nasty Women.  I want to raise Competent, Confident Women.  I want them to know their worth and their power, that it comes from them and God, and not feel threatened by people who don't understand or value that worth.  I want them to stand up for what they believe in without degrading or debasing themselves.  I want them to be able to tell the difference between actual injustice and convenient outrage.  I want them to not need blinders, but to be able to see all around them without being overwhelmed or spooked.  That's what I want for my daughters, and it doesn't come from a government or a program or a movement defining them, but from how they define themselves.

That's heavier than I wanted to go with this blog, especially right at the beginning, but this is what is stuck in my head and, hey, you don't have to read it if you don't want to (bet you wish I'd put that at the beginning).  There is a variety of opinions among my friends, and I'm grateful for them, for the points they give me to consider, and the fact that we can disagree without being cruel or snide.  Maybe I'm just being naïve, but taking time to understand each other, to speak to each other and come up with acceptable solutions that we strive together to implement, is how we solve problems--not snarky memes, not activist poetry, not catchy but misrepresented statistics or my-way-or-the-highway demands.  Just my two cents.  I'll be delightfully trivial next time, but for tonight, be kind to yourselves and to others.  You're worth it, and so are they.

I'm freezing...and it's kind of awesome.

I never expected to like the cold.  It's never really been my thing.  I spent my formative years in northeastern Arizona, where--to answer the inevitable question--we do indeed get snow, and temps occasionally sink into the teens or (gasp) even the single digits.  As a kid it didn't seem like a big deal.  As an adult, however, I am not a fan.  I've been known to spend entire Christmas vacations scuttling between warm places, sending other people to run errands and demanding my minions bring me food so I don't have to leave my blanket-nest on the couch.  I blame my husband's job, which has taken us mostly south and east, where people's idea of cold means you have to put on socks with your sandals.

Then we moved to Alaska.  Suddenly I was in a world of wool socks and layering fleece-lined stockings with jeans, a place where the cold could literally, not just figuratively, kill you.  This did not bode well for me.

(The above picture is from our latest cold spell last week)

We came in a year with the latest first snowfall since the 80s, with no appreciable snow until October 20th.  Once it fell, though, it didn't leave.  My past experience with snow is that it is freaking cold, pretty while it's happening, then it turns to gray slush for a day or two and then mud for a week.  Not exactly the stuff of Hallmark movies. 

Not here, oh no.  There is a strata of snow that dates all the way back to October, and layers have just been added to with every flurry over the last three months.  People told me constantly how awful the winters are here, how dark and dreary and long.  I rushed to make contingency plans for the winter, stock up on vitamin D, and get my oh-so-fly minivan winterized so we didn't all die because the car wouldn't start or the tires couldn't grip the super-slick roads.  I was anxious for the first three weeks we were here, and when that first snow-storm hit us in October I went to sleep a wreck.

I woke up to the inside of a snowglobe. 

The trees were frosted white, and the ground evenly layered with snow that literally freaking sparkled in the late sunrise.  The delight didn't fade when the temperatures kept dropping and the snow kept coming.  The first time we had to clean our driveway, Rick laughed at me because I was so happy about the "mountains" we were building on the edge of our lawn, the largest of which I named Caradhras. I loved kicking through the fresh snow when I took out the trash.  When the plows came to remove the 4-foot piles of snow we'd cultivated, the kids and I were equally distraught (even though, in all fairness, it was getting ridiculously hard to find places to add snow). Watching the day shrink until we averaged four hours of sunlight or noticing the 100 degree difference between the temperatures inside and outside the house just excited me. When we got back from Arizona in January, I spent one of the happiest half-hours I can remember excavating the van from 15 inches of snow before we could drive home after a 14 hour flight.  I'd been freezing all week long in Arizona where it never dropped below 35 degrees, but I was invigorated in sub-zero Alaska.

It might just be Stockholm's, but I think it's more.  It is a recurring theme I've noticed over the last decade and change of adulthood, something you hear a lot in the military community: bloom where you are planted.  Over the last twelve years Rick has dragged us all around the country--Savannah, where you can chew the air during the summer; D.C., where the roads make no sense and going to the store practically requires a lobbyist and political agenda; Yuma, which should have objectively been the worst--a small post fifteen miles from the town itself, in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, surrounded by dirt and spikey devil-bushes, where walking outside in the height of summer was like getting hit in the face with a hot cast-iron pan.  That, however, is the place that I remember most fondly.  In fact, everywhere had something redemptive.  You just had to find it.  We met so many people who, blinded by their circumstances, spent huge portions of their lives pissed off and complaining about things outside of their control, ignoring the things that they can actually change. It wasn't exactly shocking that they had such a miserable time.

Take what you can from that.  I'm going to play in the snow.

Into the Wild...

This is a big step.  I've toyed with the idea of starting a blog for years, but never actually took the step for various reasons--fear that no one would like what I had to say, that my life wasn't interesting enough to record, that I wasn't as funny or insightful or talented as I thought.  Tonight, however, I had an epiphany: Screw it.  Forget the haters, forget the self-consciousness, forget all that unimportant crap.  This is for me.  If someone likes it, cool.  If someone doesn't--leave, 'cause you probably weren't invited anyway, and your mother was likely a hamster.

I suppose that I should start off by introducing the main characters.  They'll be bouncing in and out as whim dictates, and sometimes may not appear at all.  Disclaimer: names have not been to protect the guilty.

First there's Bren.  She's the oldest, a precocious 11 year old with a startling (and probably genetic) ability for sarcasm and stating the obvious.  Her current interests involve Pokémon, baking, and anything written by Rick Riordan.  She is the long-suffering oldest child who keeps trying to run the house correctly but gets continually slapped down by her insufferable parents.  She also delights in her unchallenged reign as the Queen of Awful Puns.

Leah's next.  Thank goodness she's funny, because otherwise I'd have left her at a truck-stop somewhere by now.  She is the most kinetic of the minions, has a talent for non sequiturs and a penchant for squirreling.  As in, "So Bat was licking my toe, and then--Squirrel!  Let's go throw rocks at it.  Wait, what's that?  It's shiny.  I'm going to lick it." She's my superhero fan. I fought the comparison for a long time, but I must now concede that Leah is basically Louise from Bob's Burgers.  Less calculating, perhaps, a bit less violent, and certainly lacking the bunny hat, but Louise nonetheless.

Aeryn is our Feeler.  The injustices of the world can be heavy on her small shoulders, but they are balanced by her joys, which can make for a bumpy ride.  She is also Fancy, to the chagrin of her maternal grandmother, and loves to dress up, sometimes changing multiple times a day so that she is always appropriately dressed for the occasion.  Leah's sometime nemesis, she is not to be underestimated.

Janie is sweet, blonde, and fully aware of how adorable she is, something she tries to play to her advantage--I say "tries," because she has the misfortune of being number four in the lineup, meaning I've seen it all before and I'm pretty good at saying "No" almost reflexively.  She loves sloths, Pokémon, and has been known to fall asleep in cupboards.  Out of everyone, she is the least satisfied with our current location, but that is because she is small and loses body heat quickly.

Echo is thriving in her Terrible Twos.  She is just tall enough to reach what she shouldn't, short enough she can't reach what she really wants, and has no problem letting her opinion be known.  She's still freshly two, so she's still cute enough that she'd probably be the favorite if she would consistently sleep through the night.

Rick is the straight man, hopelessly outnumbered by us girls.  A Physician's Assistant by day, he is interested in politics, guns, and homesteading.  I would like to clarify that he is not some paranoid survivalist.  We prefer the term "prepared citizen."

There are two cats, Bat and Poxie.  Poxie's afraid of loud noises and sudden movements, which may or may not come from living with multiple young children.  Bat is just a jerk.  They are both fat enough that I get judging looks when I take them to the vet.

As for me, I'm the protagonist of the blog and the hero, no matter what my kids claim.  As a stay at home mom of five so far, I've got to make the hard decisions, and every day that doesn't end up with me screaming incoherently at the wall is a win.

We are often on the move, but our latest adventure brings us to Alaska.  (Yes, someone--you guess who--has already licked a pole in below-freezing temperatures.  I'm sure this individual is just getting started and is unlikely to leave Alaska with all ten fingers and toes.)  Both subjects will inevitably be revisited on a later date.

And that's us.  Nothing too extraordinary, but it's fun, and you're welcome to take the glimpse into our lives when my kids (or my husband, certainly never me) have done something so hysterical (or stupid, or both) that I just have to record it for posterity.  There will also be--apologies, but not sincere ones--the occasional posts when a rant has been building for a couple of days and I have to blow off some steam, or because politics.  Consider yourself warned.

Welcome to our crazy.