4 Years With Spawn

Four years ago today, right now in fact, I was in labor, pretty heavy labor. In a short time on that rainy night I was about to meet my best girl, Lucinda (Lucy) Beckwith Rickart Webb. It has been a whirlwind of a four years. Happy Birthday my lovely daughter I look forward to many many more. I love you to the moon and back.

http://www.crankreport.org/southerngirl/uploaded_images/IMG_1266-748303.JPG

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Struggle

I have been struggling with my feeling this holiday season. The thing is I always seem to do this, it's just that this year I am paying attention to them. Amazing what happens when you are not distracted by crazy relatives and your meds have finally been working for months.

I think I really hate this holiday. I try not to be a Grinch. I try to be excited and happy and thankful and on and on, but really I want to crawl in bed, cover my head up and come out just in time for Lucy's birthday on the 27th. I have some ideas why I feel this way, but I have no real concrete go to clues as to what causes this general upset so I feel at a loss as the where to begin to figure it out and fix it. I really want to fix it. Mainly because I want Lucy, mostly, and also Marnie to get to really enjoy the holiday without a cranky gloomy gus walking around ruining things. I don't want Lucy to grow up hating Christmas because that is what her experience tells her to do.

Perhaps I will try to devote a decent amount of time this coming year to figuring out what is behind this and getting past it or at least up next to it so I can manage it a little better.

Another One

"Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality."
- Jon Stewart

Give List Update

Marnie's project The Give List is in the NY Times Online here http://tr.im/241y Check it out, click through and contribute.

Aimee Mann without Spawn

Sunday night Marnie and I had our first over night date since our beautiful daughter was born almost 4 years ago. Marnie bought tickets to Aimee Mann's 3rd Annual Christmas Show at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco. We decided to spend the night in the city and make an over night date of it. Thanks to our friend Adrienne and her wonderful daughter (one of Lucy's best buds) Stella we made it happen.

We had a wonderful time. We went for a great walk, then had dinner and then headed to the venue for the show. Mann was joined by Grant-Lee Phillips (I use to listen to him when he was with Grant Lee Buffalo, I loved, loved, loved them), Nellie McKay and some other folks. The show was great. A combo of Christmas music and Mann's music and some comedic stuff.

Mostly I loved being with Marnie like that. It has been years since we had that kind of time together and while I missed Lucy it did us a world of good to connect with each other without the spawn around.

It most certainly won't take us another 4 years to do this again.

New Picture

We were in the paper last Sunday. Here's the link: Family - Vallejo Times Herald

On a dime

There are moments in all our lives when things turn on a dime. When you meet your child for the first time, you loose someone close to you, you hear the word cancer. I came across this here.

There are moments that mark your life, moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same. And time is divided into two parts, before this and after this. -unknown

My first thought when I read it was cancer. Before I had breast cancer my first thought would have been Lucy. Hopefully one day cancer won't be my first thought, I pray one day cancer will be replaced once again with Lucy or something equally as happy.

What's your moment?

LOL

I know we are probably really close to having this conversation with the Spawn. I like the idea of elves being responsible. We have a little different challenge in our house because there are no men here and things happened a little differently for us.

Marnie's New Project

Marnie has a new project. It's a super cool. Pass it on. Check it out and contribute some info if you can: Give List

Something to chew on

I just found this via I Wrote This For You

"You are defined by the way in which you treat the people you love. And, the people you hate."

Certainly something to chew on considering my previous post.

Mother

I have no idea who in my family reads my blog so most of the time I refrain from writing about my parents and brother here, but I feel it necessary to for go that rule right now. I have some things I need to say about parenting and I can't say them without mentioning my mother. So if you are part of my family and don't want to hear anything negative about my mom then turn away, close your browser, get a beer, watch some tv, do something other than read on.

I spent a lot of time in therapy trying to figure out if I should have a child. Mainly because my childhood was so bad that I didn't want to visit that kind of crap on my own kid. Well we all know where I ended up with all of that.

My 77 year old mother left this morning after a five day visit with us. I was pretty stressed about her coming. She is not very mobile and it makes it difficult for us to really go anywhere or do anything. Being home bound with a almost 4 year old is not fun for more than 24 hours believe me.

What I didn't see coming was how completely pissed off I was going to be at my mom the entire time she was here. You see it seems that the older Lucy gets the more pissed off I get at my mother. Now let me tell you I spent a ton of money in therapy working through my feelings about my mom and I thought I had it down. I was at peace or so I thought. What happened to me this weekend and what I have now come to realize so clearly is that I am stunned, flabergasted, floored that she could treat her children the way she did! I look at my own daughter and it is beyond me how she could do even half of what she did to me. I know, I know she had her own terrible mother, she came from a generation that didn't go to therapy, she did the best she could, yada yada yada. The thing is her complete and utter lack of introspection is stunning.

So where does this leave me you might ask? Well, I must get some concrete skills to cope with my anger when I am around her. It's not fun for anyone and I am not okay having a repeat performance of last weekend ever again. It also leaves me with the clear vision of the kind of mother I want to be and am trying to be. I am stopping the cycle with me. My daughter will not suffer the sins of my mother through me, period.

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world. Everyone one says it and it's true, really. I hope that Lucy knows how much I love her. I try my best to listen to her when she talks to me, treat her with respect, and treat her like a person not a possesion. Right there, just with those three things I am leaps and bounds beyond my mother.