Your Thoughts About Me Cost Too Much

I try hard to not care what you think, really I do.
But there’s an underlying understanding that I need your approval. I need to be thin enough for you. Or pretty enough. Or smart enough. And you are everyone and you are everywhere. Even when I’m alone, you are still there looking through my eyes.

I want you to think I’m a really good mother. While today I might doubt I’m very good. My humanity, vulnerability, self-doubt, and need to get it right makes me easy prey for your thoughts that I am sure I can read.

How doubly heinous the world expects anything from you when you are pregnant. Like how many pounds are acceptable for you to gain during your pregnancy. The rule book ceased to apply because my body decided that in case of the plague, flood, or famine, I needed a belly fat pad the size of Norway.

When people were rude enough to point out my enormous gift of girth for my child, I proclaimed I was building a lounge for my baby. And tried to ignore their insensitivity. Now Fiona’s left the building and the lounge is still standing.

The entire time I was pregnant, I did not know how much I weighed. I just put my back to the scale and thankfully the nurses kept my secret.

I’m an approval seeker in varying degrees. I need you to like my writing enough to keep reading it. And I need friends to want to have lunch with me and to have me listen to their lives. I’d also tell them that my opinion of them didn’t matter. What they think of themselves is the most important thought out there.

If we are dependent on the opinions of others for our happiness, we are prisoners of perceptions. Their perception and your perception and her perception of us.  And we have forgotten or never knew we hold the key to freedom from this bondage. By the mere admission that we can not read or control the minds of others.

My opinion of me is the only one that matters. Your reassurances are however kind. I will be out strolling when the weather breaks. Say hey to me. And try not to look at my barf stained clothing. I’m not.

The Nursery Inspiration

So, if you’ve followed our baby story, you know that we didn’t know which flavor baby we were having. And that meant the redecorating effort went to Eamon’s room. I couldn’t even begin to think about a gender neutral redecoration of the guest bedroom cum baby’s room.

It was already very purple.

The quilt square was made for Fiona by my friend Jean

So when we had a girl I was relieved. The purple room was OK. But then again.

It would also seem I had already started shopping for new inspiration despite myself.I found these curtains a while back at the Goodwill. The colors are sort of Kate Spade and the floral is unique and old. Rachel Ashwell would covet them.

I acquired the paper lantern during my Christmas shop at Bella Luna. There’s that blue and the pink again from the curtains. Plus gold and green. Hmmm.

These bay windows and I stuck one of three valances I also found at Goodwill that I didn’t use for Eamon’s room. I love my pink chair and my faux rose from Allstate which look a heck of a lot like my favorite real roses, celebration roses. Then there’s this wooden dresser. I really like the raw wood and want to do some wood and white combo that I’m inspired by some others I’ve seen. Check out my baby Pinterest page if you want to see the inspiration piece. Otherwise, soon enough.

We have more than a few wooden dressers. This one’s drawers were a little rough to pull out and push in. So we went to the Lowes and asked a guy if there were drawer gliders we could buy. He laughed at us and said that we should buy teflon spray. Say what? He said he’d used it on every drawer in his house. Well let me tell you, Dude was right on! I have begun to drag every drawer outside and douse them with DuPont Teflon Lubricant. It was only $4.

And then there’s the lilies of the valley handkerchief. Boy how I love the girlishness of this. I’d frame it or make a pillow out of it. So excited to have an excuse to use it somehow. Isn’t she pretty in pink?

Yet to decide the wall color but I’m thinking something sunny and linen like.

Stay Tuned.

The Birds, Bees, and Kitties

I recently had to explain to my seven year-old why I was shooing the kitty away from the house and away from the girl kitty who was acting kinda funny. We were having a birds, the bees, and kitties talk in which we discussed how boy kitties have spikes on the end of their winkles to ensure their parenthood possibilities.

My poor son will never be able to shake the images of that conversation. Good. He did understand there’s a biological imperative for species survival. They don’t even realize they are programmed to continue their existence. People too. And our job is to ruin their job when propagation is a bad thing.

If left up to their funny business, this is how cats would multiply and procreate. One mommy kitty can have three kittens three times a year. So she can potentially spawn 9 kittens per year. Second year and you multiply those 9 kitties by three and three again and now you have 81 kittens. And by the third year, 775 cats in your backyard howling and spraying.

So we treated our girl kitty to a cab ride to the clinic and unkittened her. Because I feel that if you’re going to feed them, then you need to make sure there will be no other mouths to feed later.

We’re just lucky enough to have an old country vet down the road who’ll take their crazy furry butts out of the trap and fix ‘em up. My husband and I live near a river and this is a highway for all animals. We have taken care of at least 50 cats in one way or another in the past 12 years. And, although it’s been heart wrenching at times, it’s also the least we can do.

One week ago, we lost our Butthead to a surprise case of cancer. And although we got him from the streets of Denton, actually in a parking lot, that is no place for kittens. So please do an extra good responsible action toward an animal and spay or neuter or call the local authorities to humanely and compassionately end or deter future suffering of any animals. Our bigger brains suggest we are smarter. Right practices of any sort are a choice.