Seeing the Dark side on Ash Wednesday

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and I had an awakening.

But I will get to that in a moment…

As I mentioned in my last blog entry I have 3 children – boy children to be exact. To be even more exact, they are 2, 4, and 8. We are in an even year. The year I fear the most is the “odd” year of 11, 13, and 17. I don’t even want to begin to imagine what our home will be like that year. Perhaps, I will choose that year to go to grad school, a faraway grad school that requires me to live on campus – alone.

But I digress…

We call these boy children our “Minions” because of the Despicable Me movies. As a family we love them, and the boys really do act like the minions (especially the 2 year old).

This year when the godmother of Minion #1 asked what she should get them for Christmas, it only took me a minute to think about it before I enthusiastically texted:

(Me): LIGHTSABERS

(Her): For all 3?

(Me): Yes???

(Her): Even the 2 year old?

(Me): ???

And the conversation continued with her questioning my suggestion that a 2 year old would want a light saber, or perhaps why I would want a 2 year old to have a light saber. In the end the older two received light sabers, and the youngest a Mickey Mouse backpack.

I find that the lightsabers spend most of their time on the very top of the book shelf in our living room. I thought that this was because the noise annoyed me, the kids fighting drove me crazy, and also out of fear for the TV. But I think, “Maybe I was wrong about everything?” (Not about the TV. I do fear for the TV – almost constantly).

Husband took the older two to the Ash Wednesday service at our church, and I stayed home with Minion #3. We ate pizza, watched Pitch Perfect, had a Paula Abdul dance party…Oh what a time we had!

Then, I noticed the lightsabers and took them down. I handed him Obi Wan’s and kept Anikan’s for myself. I did this mostly because Anikan’s blue saber can turn into to Darth Vadar’s red saber, and seriously, who wouldn’t rather have that one?

I enthusiastically began to battle him. He stood on the couch holding his weapon while I hit it with mine. Anytime I would turn mine to the evil red color he would turn his off and sweetly say, “No Mommy.” So I would turn it back to blue, he would turn his back on, and we would battle some more. (I use the term battle very loosely here because it was mostly me jumping and spinning around tossing and catching the toy saying lines from various Star War’s movies while the child stood on the couch and watched.)

It wasn’t until I actually involved him by allowing him to “hit” me and acting injured that he really started to enjoy himself.

We had a great time until I realized what time it was, and that he needed to start calming down for bed. At some point during our game we switched weapons, so that he had the lightsaber that could switch to the dark side. I am not sure when it happened, but perhaps that was a pivotal moment in my son’s life.

I said “Ok Pal, It’s time to start calming down and put the light sabers away.”

He pushed the button, turned the damned thing red, held it in front of his face, looked me in the eye menacingly and growled,

“No. Mommy.”

His voice was far from the sweet baby voice he used only fifteen minutes before.  

In that moment, for just a brief second, I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry and run screaming from the apartment.

So, My Awakening?....

 1.)    I don’t think I take the lightsabers away from the Minions because the noises and fighting annoy me. I think I take them away because I am annoyed with myself that I have other things that I “have” to do that keep me from playing with them and, by extension, my kids.

2

2     2.)    Maybe – just maybe – a Mickey Mouse back pack was a better choice for the 2 year old as he cannot seem to handle the power of yielding lightsaber.       

Annnnd

3

3    3.)    The Force is strong with this one!  (I need to watch him like a damn hawk!)

Scaring the pants off of myself

It has been suggested more than once recently that I start a blog. Now I’m not gonna lie, I like that people say it, hell, I was a theatre kid, I can’t pretend that attention and “applause” doesn’t thrill me. But the actually doing it scares the pants off of me, and anyone that knows me knows that I only wear pants, no dresses for this “pastor’s wife”. The thing is though that a little over a year ago a dream that I had as a kid was reawakened in me.

When I was young there were three things I wanted to be when I grew up 1) a rock star that toured with either Madonna or the Monkees, 2) a teacher so that I could drink Coke in front of the kids like my teachers did to me, or 3) an author. I wanted to be one of the greats like Judy Blume, Marc Brown, or Beverley Cleary. But somehow along the way, somewhere among the dyslexia and the grades, the standardized tests and feelings of inadequacy, somewhere among the boyfriends and girl drama of adolescents and childhood I pushed my dream of being a writer into the deep dark crevices of my mind.

And so, I just lived my life. I grew up, made it through college, caught myself a man, got married, made some kids, had some jobs; life happened.  Sure there has been some messy, squishy stuff in between, and I already hate myself for using the phrase “caught myself a man” because the reader cannot read the sarcastic tone I am typing with (nothing against you Babe). But basically, to boil it down, in the deep, dark, childhood memory holding part of my brain there has always been this folder sticking out a little poking at me reminding to pick it up again one day and write damn it!

So now I have these kids that say and do funny things and on occasion I make observations about the world around me because here I am a liberal feminist stay at home wife of an almost pastor surrounded by 3 little boys and I wouldn’t change a thing. But if I could (change a thing or 2), I would like an outlet to voice my thoughts on certain matters, like say, the constant, never-ending presence of pee on the toilet seat, what the hell is that all about? But that is a topic for another day. So instead of keeping track of my misadventures on Facebook I am going to give blogging a try.  What the hell, let’s see what happens. Did I mention I like to cuss?