S-T-R-E-S-S....at the playground?

I got SO stressed out yesterday - at the playground.

I met a dear friend and her 2.5 year old at a park near their house which was new to us. When I arrived, I was delighted to see that it had plenty of shade, a great sand area, and the best part: the toddler area was gated.
Before too long we noticed that it was getting pretty crowded - it seems that a moms group had descended with their children who all seemed to be around 2 years old. I initially thought this was great, but it got chaotic quickly. There was one young, fit, tattooed mom who was basically in the thick of it - playing tag/chase with the older kids. The rest stayed on the periphery chatting, with the occasional dash into the fray to break up a tug-o-war over a shovel or pick up and dust off someone who'd fallen down.
I had made the mistake of bringing some things for Sadie to play with which immediately became objects of attention for the other kids. Sadie is pretty passive and ends up getting things taken from her by other kids all of the time at parks, etc. I generally try not to hover and step in every time this happens, because I want her to get a sense of the world as it is. I will get involved if the interaction is overly aggressive or intentionally mean (at this age, it's usually not - kids just take what looks interesting to them). She seems bewildered at first and then gets visibly frustrated, but she doesn't usually grab the item back. She actually asks for it back, which of course gets wholly ignored by the tiny perpetrator. Luckily, there were about 4 different Bucket/Shovels and plenty of extra sand toys that were being shared. Sadie is in a sand loving phase right now, so I was able to distract her with that while other kids kicked her ball and pushed her stroller around.

Anyway, the moms group seemed like a nice group of gals and they all seemed to be watching out for each other's kids, which I thought was cool. I love seeing any and all examples of "it takes a village" philosophy in action. However, there were a few tumbles, some tears, and a good deal of shouting. I think the shouting is what puts me on edge most.

After a while, Sadie wanted a snack, so I set out a few of her things on a bench and kept talking to my friend. All of a sudden I looked down, and a little boy had wandered over and picked up her water bottle. I was able to get it just before he put it in his mouth. I knelt down and said "hey there! that's her water bottle - and remember, we don't share things we put in our mouths, right?" all the while glancing around for his mom to appear. He seemed unphased thankfully (I suppose he could have screamed bloody murder when I took the water away from him) so I kept mommy-talking to him. "This is Sadie. She's having a snack. Did you bring a snack to the park today? Where's your snack?" etc. still waiting for his mom to pop into the interaction. Finally I offered him one of Sadie's Bunny Cookies and BAM! out of nowhere comes this woman (his mother) frantically saying "He's allergic to peanuts!" and grabbing the cookie out of his hand. He hadn't eaten it yet, but I was rattled because I've heard of kids who swell up and can't breathe if they even get a crumb of something that has peanuts in it or was processed in a facility that also handles nuts, etc. I mumbled something like, "oh, I'm so sorry - I didn't think of that" as she hurried him away. I felt about this big.
My friend gave me a reassuring mother-to-mother supportive look and I felt better. All was fine until a few more minutes later when the kid reappeared at my feet with a handful of Sadie's cookies and one in his mouth! I freaked and immediately grabbed a piece of paper towel and began desperately fishing the food out of his mouth - all the while picturing myself in some horrible altercation with the mom trying to explain A) how I'd managed not to see him take the cookie and B) why I had my fingers in her son's mouth. Shudder.

Well, that did it for me. We packed up and got out of there. I'll have to think twice the next time I decide to take Sadie to the park; it's certainly not relaxing for mama!

me & my thithsters

We rarely get a picture of the 3 of us,
so I want to share.
I think you can tell we are related, but at the same time, I think we each look so different.
It trips me out.
I want Joanne's height, Jill's eyebrows and both of their flat tummies.
Love you both, girls!

Feeling the love from the USPS*...(not)

I love mail.
I love to give and receive. Especially birthday missives.
Today, I tripped happily down to the mailbox with Sadie after her nap,
anticipating a couple of belated birthday cards.

(deleted pic of mangled piece of envelope with my address on it - no card)

Just the mangled top half of the envelope

that my friend Holly sent my birthday card in.
No chance of ever seeing which
perfectly appropriate (clever or corny)
bee-themed greeting she found for me this year.
No hope of recovering the undoubtedly funny, sweet and
heartfelt words that were in it.

I guess I'll just have to call her and test her memory.

*I will say that in my 20+ years of written correspondence, I've never had an experience like this.

Caption Contest...

Anyone care to take a guess at what she was thinking? And by the way, I don't have the answer!

I grew up and became a CEO

I was raised Catholic. We went to church on Sundays and said a prayer before dinner. I didn't really mind any of it, but I also didn't really pay much attention. My clearest memory of church (other than the smooth, cold wooden pews we sat on) is of my grandmother giving us butterscotch candies, Lifesavers and Chewels gum (remember that stuff?) during mass. We always went either grocery shopping or to brunch right after, both of which I loved. I generally have fond memories of going to church with my family. We were one of the few families with 4 children, and I always garnered a kind of pride from that. I liked dressing up, listening to the music & singing, and (always the voyeur) enjoyed watching all of the other families interact. Sunday mornings were special, and I guess overall I enjoyed the ritual.

The only exception to that was my mom's insistence that we observe Good Friday. We had to sit in our rooms in silence from noon until 3pm -the hours that Jesus was on the cross- without books, toys, etc. (on a Friday afternoon in Spring when we were off school, no less!) I distinctly remember disliking that. We weren't even supposed to nap (although I suspect that might be what my mother was doing, and I can hardly blame her - that might have been the only 3 hour break she got each year when all 4 of her children were quiet at once.)

I remember her commenting on how crowded the church always was on Christmas and Easter. She would jokingly say "Look at all the CEOs - Christmas-and-Easter-Onlys." She was right - the parking lot was always jammed and sometimes there was standing room only in our very large church. I remember wondering why these people bothered to go to church on just those holidays, and as an adult I think have a pretty good understanding of the myriad of reasons why. It doesn't bother me in the slightest and I think it's sad if regular church goers allow themselves to be upset by the influx of worshippers on specific holidays. After all, it just makes the celebration that much larger and we aren't supposed to judge, right?

At some point we'll decide what kind of religious education our children should have, but I have a feeling it will be based much more on spirituality than following any particular doctrine. I'd like to get The Golden Rule imprinted in them and to foster a sense of awe, wonderment and reverence for the universe as a whole. But other than that, they'll just have to join the ranks of everyone else who is searching for meaning in this thing called life.

The last religious thing we did with Sadie was Christmas, and I did make a point to explain that it was "baby Jesus's birthday and that he was a very special boy who loves us all" (or something like that). I admit that I'm undecided about how to present the meaning of Easter to a 20 month old, but tonight I am putting together an Easter basket for her.

I guess I'm a CEO.

Seriously.

I sat down at my computer a little while ago with the intent to clean up my desk area while Sadie naps. I managed to tear up a few junk mail envelopes, add to the pile on top of the shredder, move some paid bills into the "to be filed" pile to my right, and generally just shuffle a few things around. Then I got sucked into my email and checking a couple of blogs...
Here I am over an hour later, and my desk is still a complete disaster. I am thoroughly annoyed at myself and I decided to punish myself by posting a picture. This is what my desk looks like, 90% of the time. I can't stand it, and yet I never seem to make any progress with getting organized.
I hate the whiny tone of this post, but I'm putting it up anyway.
Does anyone have any theories (aka armchair psychiatry) for me as to how a person who craves organization can't seem to accomplish it?!

(picture removed due to sensitive information on papers, etc. on desk)
but trust me - it was bad!

HELP.

Our new neighbors are not cute. (aka: I'm Getting Old)

It seems that we got some new neighbors. They must have moved in sometime during the 2 weeks while we were house-sitting at my folks' place.
It doesn't bode well that our first experience of them was a bunch of noise at 12:40 AM (shouting, laughing, car doors, music, more laughing and revving engines). Did I mention this was a Wednesday?
The next day, I watched as one of them backed his car into another car in our complex and drove away as if it hadn't happened. Now, I'll admit that I am predisposed to be wary of young men in these cars, purely a reaction to the very dark marketing strategy a couple of years back. "Little Deviants"? Seriously? That's a demographic for selling cars?
I digress.
Today I was treated to them pulling in at 4:00 in the afternoon, windows down, speakers distorting and bass thumping - singing along (loudly and oh, so poorly) to the last 60 seconds or so of one of my favorite (if sorely overplayed) songs. On a side note, it's quite possible that Andrew will be glad to hear that this episode may have ruined my attachment to it.
Anyway, I went over to introduce myself and have a very brief and polite "hey could ya try to remember to keep it down when you're the in the driveway of this complex because it's really echo-y and all of our windows including my one-year-old's face out?" KTHXBYE.

I have a feeling I'll be writing about these guys again. Soon.