Parenting-How I Do It...Part 4

This final post in my parenting series is just a hodge-podge of me and my parenting behaviors...

My biggest goal with children rearing is this three word sentence...

Raising independent girls. 

I've started early. 

I try to free-range parent. 

I let them use the bathroom at Target or Walmart or the movie theater alone. 

When Zoe is with me I let her go into our local drugstore alone to buy stamps and mail our letters. 

I wait in the car. 

I'm gearing them up for the future. 

Small things lead to bigger things. 

I want them to leave. 

To see the world. 

To hear and smell and experience things I never have. 

And I know I'll mourn when that day comes. 

But it's what I've always wanted.  

It's what every parent, I think, hopes for. 

It's a life I never got to live...to go beyond these walls. 

A thing about me...I'm not a big "baby" person. 

I don't like baby-sitting infants. 

I don't enjoy the drools and cries and while I like the squishiness of babies, I prefer people who can talk. 

Who I can have a conversation with. 

Toddlers. 

I like toddlers. 

My parenting pitfalls. 

Sometimes I forget to feed Gigi breakfast. 

I'm not a big morning food person. 

Is she?

I should see sometimes. 

Sometimes I yell too much. 

I curse way too much. 

Sometimes I'm yelling and cursing all at the same time. 

At my kids.

Not fun. 

Maybe I'm too lenient with letting my kids hear the curse words. 

I'm not an alcoholic. 

I'm not a drug user. 

I'm present at all times. 

And I have a type A personality. 

To the umpth degree. 

It's my faulty gene. 

I don't openly express my 

sadness. 

I let it build up. 

And then explosions happen. 

These days are few and far between, but I feel bad when I finally burst open. 

Anger is my emotion. 

I should probably take some anger management classes. 

I feel horrible if I yell. 

Especially if I curse-yell

I apologize to them. 

And hope I'm not causing life-altering harm to them. 

And I try to remember that I'm just a person. 

In charge of two other persons. 

And I'm not perfect by any means. 

And I hope tomorrow is better. 

This is part four in a series I'm doing simply titled "parenting...how I do it."

Parenting-How I Do It...Part 3

I'm not a parenting expert. 

I still can't believe I haven't forgotten to feed and clean these kids of mine on a daily basis. 

Well, sometimes I do forget. 

An expert on raising another human...

I don't think anyone really is. 

There are too many variables and circumstances are constantly shifting and changing. 

We each have our own walls that contain our family and the ideals we want to share with them. 

In our house we talk openly about gay people. 

And our support of gay marriage. 

In our house, love is love. 

We talk about drag queens. 

My daughters love to watch RuPaul's Drag Race on television. 

The costumes, the wigs, the lip synching...and those are guys!

Say wha?!

And we discuss race. 

We have stated that we don't need to acknowledge the difference in people by declaring what color skin they have. 

Many parents I know teach their kids about differences in others by mentioning first their hair color or shirt color.  

I don't know if it helps or if we as humans are bound to merge with those that look similar to ourselves. 

But it's what we do and if it's right or not, time will only tell. 

We watch the world news and discuss war in other countries. 

The refugee families that must walk to safety through the desserts.  

We have talked about the missing Malaysia Airlines airplane. 

Death is life. 

They are entwined. 

My daughters know about death. 

Zoe watched her dear friend change in front of her eyes and then leave this world. 

We didn't get to see Jake as much as we would have liked because both kids were undergoing chemo at the same time, but they had a transcendent, heart warming bond. 

She helped to prop him up with pillows when he couldn't sit up on his own anymore. 

She fed him pizza when he couldn't move his arms anymore as they belly laughed while watching YouTube videos. 

And she was only 6 years old. 

He was 7. 

Life and death. 

We talk to our kids about other ethnic groups and watch war on TV because we want to teach. 

We want to teach our kids that the world is big and vast and not everyone looks like we do and not everyone has it as easy as we do. 

We are teaching compassion. 

Compassion for people. 

On our planet. 

That there's a big and fascinating world outside of this town they live in and go to school in. 

A world full of colors and smells and tastes and visions that will blow their minds. 

And if they want to one day go out into the planet and spread their compassion, I will have done my job. 

I've always wanted to go to Africa to work with orphaned chimps. 

Or adopt a child from a land I've never been to. 

Maybe one day one of my daughters will. 

And I'll visit and give out hugs. 

I'm an expert at hugs at least...

This is part three in a series I'm doing simply titled "parenting...how I do it."

Parenting-How I Do It...Part 2

When Chad and I decided to have a child, we thought long and hard about how we wanted to raise this child.

We lived in Chicago at the time and we both had regular jobs. 

Not big fancy jobs. 

Just regular jobs. 

It was decided it would make more sense for me to not work. 

Why work all week long just to pay the salary of someone else who would be taking care of our child?

We have been a single income family since 2005. 

It can be hard sometimes. 

We don't have "stuff" like those two income families. 

We don't travel as much as we would like to. 

We are lucky that when we moved to our current home we haven't been saddled with a mortgage. 

We inherited our farm. 

And since becoming a stay-at-home mom, homemaker, domestic goddess I have learned to take my job very seriously. 

My kids are driven to school. 

In our car. 

Not the bus. 

It's my job. 

I have a bit of an OCD problem and like my home to be free of clutter, so I really try hard to keep the house clean. 

It's my job. 

I make homemade food. 

Bread, pizza dough, desserts, baked in the oven from scratch (I don't butcher my own meat like my friend Carla, though!)

We recently got rid of our microwave. 

The oven and stovetop will suffice. 

Homemade food. 

It's my job. 

I take care of the animals. 

Veterinary trips. 

Nail trims. 

Bathing. 

I administer vaccines myself to our barn cats. 

It's my job. 

When Zoe got sick things did get harder. 

The role of mom became more intense. 

And the money didn't seem to go as far as it had. 

It seemed to go into the gas tank more and more. 

But I sucked it up. 

The sickness wasn't happening to me. 

I had to help my child overcome her fears and struggles. 

It's my job. 

I drive my girls to their lessons...piano, dance, summer camps.  

But not too many extra curriculars in the mix because that cuts into a peaceful and balanced home life. 

It's my job. 

I do yard work, arrange social meet ups with friends (kid friends and my friends!), make appointments for everyone under this roof, and a myriad of other tasks.  

I don't know how my working-mom friends do it all. 

My hat goes off to them as they must struggle so much more than I. 

I've thought about doing something outside the home when Gigi goes to kindergarten in the Fall. 

Substitute teacher?

Playground supervisor?

Lunchroom lady?

So that my working hours are the same as the girls' school hours. 

So I can drive them home. 

And resume the old job I've had for the past almost decade. 

It doesn't pay anything in the monetary sense. 

Just in the heart sense. 

This is part two in a series I'm doing simply titled "parenting...how I do it."

Parenting...How I Do It

I can have a tough exterior. 

I've been known to be a hard-ass, no holds barred kind of person. 

I don't take crap from anyone. 

In grade school I was that girl who punched the boys if they called me or my friends a name. 

I've always been loud and boisterous. 

But I'm also really quiet. 

Introverted. 

I never liked raising my hand in school to answer a question the teacher posed. 

I didn't know how to subtract or multiply or divide when everyone else did. 

I was too afraid to ask for help. 

I've always lived a bipolar life. 

I often wonder if I do harbour some sort of mental illness. 

Seriously. 

When Chad and I decided to have children I thought, I think as every woman does, will I be a good mom?

Will I have the compassion and heart to give to another human being?

One who I must have patience for? 

Who I must provide constant emotional care for?

Then Zoe was diagnosed with cancer. 

My life's mission became to make sure she got better. 

The hard-ass in me came out. 

In full force. 

I didn't feel sorry for myself. 

I spoke for her and let her cry and held her hand as she slept. 

I asked too many questions and researched all treatments and read about the horrific side effects. 

I had to put that shy part of my personality aside. 

The scared side. 

I had to be stronger than the strongest I thought I could be. 

On a scale of 1-10, I needed to be a 15. 

I think sometimes my kids believe I'm too tough. 

I make homework and piano practice a priority. 

Time with the family comes before anything. 

I don't condone disrespect at all. 

With me and Chad or with each other. 

They know to call their friends' parents Mr. and Mrs. 

I make sure they don't get left behind in their school work. 

They know how to subtract. 

How to write their letters. 

My point of this post is this...

My hard-ass personality and the life I lived up until September 7, 2010 enabled me to be the mother that my daughter needed to pull her through her disease. 

I often try to tell myself that I need to calm down about something. 

That I don't need to be so tough all of the time. 

But, as Popeye said, I am what I am. 

And I am the mom of a childhood cancer survivor. 

And she and I are tough together. 

Because I taught her to stand tall. 

And now we can stand together. 

This is part one in a series I'm doing simply titled "parenting...how I do it."