Another day, another field to spray.

It is absolutely beautiful outside today. This does not feel like November. Though it makes me happy to be able to bask in the sunshine, I'm also a bit paranoid because it doesn't feel RIGHT. Damn global warming. I keep thinking, "Sure, we're all having fun now...while the POLAR ICE CAPS ARE MELTING."

In any case, the little man and I have been playing outside all morning. Who can correctly guess the piece of machinery pictured here?

A Hot Wheels motorcycle trike, you say? Pshaw! NO! Incorrect. Clearly, this is a manure spreader. He carefully threaded a number of sticks through the holes in the back of the trike and then informed me that he had to spray the field. "Oh really?" I asked. "Yeah, Mom. This is my 'nure spreader and the poop sprays out these hoses. (gesturing to indicate the sticks). So I'll be back when I get this field done."

"I see...can I take your picture first?"
"No, Mom. No! There's no time! I have to get to work."

Not long after I took these photos, the mail carrier came by, driving close to the edge of the road to reach out and stuff mail in the boxes. Eliot silently watched him pass and then sighed, "Well, the mailman just drove through all that poop."

;)

p.s. Does anyone know what's up with the gray edge at the bottom of my photos lately? I've switched to Picasa and it's like they're not uploading fully or something. Grrr...

It's compromise that moves us along.

Eliot does NOT enjoy having his hair washed. He's had recurring ear infections since he was a baby and has twice had tubes placed in his ears; he's also had his adnoids removed. I think part of the reason he hates hair washes is because he's afraid of getting water in his ears. I can't really say that I blame him there.

I've tried so many methods for trying to ease the torture of the hair washing. I've cajoled, pleaded, reassured, bribed and bartered, but only recently have we settled on a compromise that seems to work (the majority of the time).

Basically, the deal is, if he lets me wash and rinse his hair with minimal whining, he then gets to give me a bubble beard.

A bubble beard to match his own, that is.

I'm cool with this arrangement.

Dear, dear diary.

My house is a mess.

I haven't had pictures developed in months.

I miss Eliot, and I'm glad he's coming back home to me today.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family this afternoon.

I'm thinking about things and people I've lost.

I'm happy with what I have.

I'm going to try harder today.

I'm going to eat a bowl of cereal.

The boy girl scout.

Eliot got to attend a Daisy Scout meeting this week, tagging along with his cousin Z as an honorary scout for the evening. His total adoration of Z has been well documented here and memorialized in more photos than I can count, but I'm still touched every time I get to witness their interactions.

We drove down to visit on Tuesday afternoon and stayed until late in the evening. They played like siblings, alternately loving on each other and smacking each other around. Eliot came out of Z's bedroom at least three times that afternoon bawling that she had hit him in the head. In the first instance, I think she actually did hit him on the head. According to her matter-of-fact explanation, "Well, he wasn't sharing with Maggie, so I hit him." She delivered this line while shrugging her shoulders at me as if to say, "Hey, I did what I had to do. What's the fuss?" The second time tears erupted and I pulled him into my lap, he bellowed, "She smacked my head again," and Z yells from the bedroom, "Nooo, I DIDN'T" I asked, "Eliot, did she hit you?" and he begrudgingly admits, "No. But she just made me mad." Then the both of them ganged up on Maggie, shutting her out of the bedroom and causing her to wail. Naturally, a good time was had by all.

By the time of the scout meeting, however, they had reconciled and were BFF's once more. Elecia begins the meeting by gathering the girls (and boy) in a circle and reciting the girl scout pledge with them. (Did I mention that my sister is the Girl Scout leader? Behold, the cake she created for the troop's snack that night:

Holy overachiever! Even though she has the messiest house I've probably ever seen--and will very likely kill me for mentioning this fact in a public forum--that woman can out-domesticate me any day of the week with a toddler hanging off her hip and one hand tied behind her back. You should see what she does with cupcakes. Anyway, I digress...)

I almost cried as I watched my son put up his three little fingers as the girls were reciting the pledge. It was so adorable and sweet. A discussion about how we can make the world a better place followed, with the girls throwing out suggestions like "pick up trash" and "recycle."  hehehehehe. Cute stuff. Then the kiddos were invited to decorate cookies to celebrate the birthday of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts and Elecia's example of someone who made the world a better place.

And boy howdy, did they ever decorate. Eliot, as usual, was very diligent about his decorating.

It wasn't long before all the girls (and boy) were jacked up on sugar and going nuts.

I do not envy the parents of the child belonging to these goodies:

Hello, sugar coma! :)

By this time, I was about Girl Scout-ed out. I have a low tolerance for roomfuls of little people who aren't directly related to me. This is the text message conversation with my mother that accompanied the supervision of cookie decorating/cleanup/round up of sugared little monsters:

Me: "Somehow I got tricked into coming to Girl Scouts. These girls are wild animals and I'm pretty sure some of them have rabies."

Mom: "Just like the two of you at that age! Enjoy."

Me: "I'm scared. Hold me."

No answer. *sigh*

The entire thing was apparently a big success, since later that week while walking Eliot up the steps into his daycare provider's home, he whispered to me conspiratorially, "Hey Mom--tell S__ I went to Girl Scouts!" I said, "Okay, sure. We can tell her about it." "No! Moooooom! YOU tell her, okay?" "Yes, dear. I'll tell her."

And then I told the entire Internet.

My two favorite Daisy Scouts:

Some days don't require words.

Perfect protest.

Coincidentally enough, as I have been thinking about perfectionism and paralysis this week, the very same topic has been all over the blogosphere (well, the little part of it that I inhabit, anyway). Clearly, I've been neglecting my blog reader, so I'm a bit late with this, but thought it was worth the post anyway. Thanks to Amy for linking me to this: Perfect Protest.

I love that you can see Steven's reflection in the window.



I usually find self-help books pretty hokey, but I'm looking forward to reading Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection. 
 
I'm sitting here this evening on a Saturday night, surrounded by puzzle pieces and random toys, dishes in the sink that need washing, thirty different craft projects and ideas in my little brain that I'm itching to work on, and at least a million and one student essays that need graded. And yet, I'm happy amongst the chaos. I'm lying on the couch under a quilt my grammy made for me, snuggled up with Steven as he watches Spiderman. I am doing enough. I am enough. Nothing is perfect, but all is right with the world.

I can think of a million and one reasons not to do something. Remind me to do it anyway.

I'm a thinker, and an analyst, and I tend to be hypercritical of myself. If I can't be the best at something, I don't want to do it at all. As a result, I almost never do anything.

I'm famous in my family for making ugly scenes out of moments that should be light-hearted and/or inconsequential. (Hey guys, remember that time I upset the Trivial Pursuit board at Thanksgiving, sending colorful little pie pieces flying through the air and skittering across the coffee table? All because I KNEW the right answers to EVERYONE ELSE'S questions, but not my own, and I got pissed off because I was losing? And I yelled swear words in the presence of impressionable children and stormed out, but forgot to take my purse with me? Yeah...that was fun, wasn't it. *sigh* Good times.)

If you beat me at Balderdash, or Scrabble, or even Chinese checkers, I'll respect you, but I probably won't like you very much.

In short, I'm kind of a jerk.

I can't cook if my kitchen isn't spotless. (It's never spotless, thus all the eating out.)
I can't sew if one stitch is screwed up. (At least one stitch is always screwed up.)
I can't scrapbook if I make one wrong cut. (I measure once, and cut...)
I can't write if I can't find the perfect words. (Hence the dearth of recent blog posts.)

Do you see where this is going, people? I am a perfectionist who knows she can never be perfect. I'm a master of self sabotage and a cultivator of discontent. No matter what I do or say, it will be the wrong thing. Therefore...I find myself on my day off crawling under a warm quilt, watching five episodes of Weeds back-to-back while eating three-fourths of a bag of orange creme Halloween Oreos.

Uber-productive.

And then I despise myself for all of my perceived shortcomings.

Somehow, I was under the impression that once I got help with my mood issues, sought and received medical attention for the depression I've suffered since adolescence, I would be fixed. Cured. Made better. It never occurred to me that depression is an on-going disease, one that I will battle for the rest of my life. The disease does not conveniently disappear just because I take a pill or two everyday. When I have a downturn, I get angry. I get ashamed, and I feel guilty about not feeling well. I'm supposed to be fine! I have no tangible reason not to be happy! But maybe...if my apartment were clean, I'd be happy. If I could sew without mistakes, I'd be happy. If I could finish a scrapbook page or a blog post, I'd be happy. It's not ME; it's these outward circumstances over which I have so little control...or over which I WOULD have control if I were just a smarter, more ambitious, skinnier, healthier, more attractive person.

Wrong. All wrong.

I'm not saying all of this to justify my being a jerk. I'm not blaming depression for making me act like a pain in the ass. I'm just saying that I'm a jerk to myself just as often as I'm mean to anyone else. Much, much more often, actually.

I'm mean to myself. I berate myself until I curl into a ball and achieve stasis.

In order to recover from this mode I have to allow myself to be imperfect, remind myself that imperfection is not only inevitable, but beautiful. It is what makes me who I am. If I were perfect, I'd be a Stepford wife, and truthfully, I'd much rather be fun, quirky, too-often-a-pain-in-the-ass Rachel.

I can list off in my head a million and one reasons why my feeble efforts at life are inadequate, why I shouldn't even try to cook bacon or knit a scarf, or hang a picture. And if I let myself, I will. I have an internal running commentary to remind me of the specific ways in which I fall short. But every once in a while, instead of listening to it, I tell myself to shut up. I kick my own ass, and I start hammering nails into the wall. I know my frame isn't ever going to hang straight.

Fuck it. I like it crooked anyway.