The tail wagging the dog.

I never set out to become who I am today. Mostly it has been a circumstance that has dictated the forging or adoption of new behaviours or models that become the routines and structures of our every day life. Of course having children in the house lean absolutely everything towards them. I am surrounded by 8x10 photos of their beautiful little faces, a constant reminder of who I am and what I am supposed to accomplish here. 

First and foremost, this is a childrens household. Whilst I may have a forked tongue and suffer from a bit of verbal diarrhea (f-bombs) I blame that on being sagittarius and a monkey and needing to make people laugh. I know that can be accomplished without such colourful language, but sometimes its just funny. I have told my six year old not to repeat the f word etc in front of her teacher, friends, etc... but shes well aware of it. I dont think in this day and age that its anything too shocking. I mean its all over the media. But is it boorish and common, yes. So yup not my proudest thing... rather a work in progress. 

It just occurred to me this weekend (I am a slow learner) that I have a very different style of parenting than other people. I am a bit loud naturally. So I often raise my voice. When I am aware of it, I may take my nagging and moaning and turn it into a joke to soften the blow, or a sing song, laugh along... meanwhile I am deadly serious, pick up that stuffed pony or I am going to throw it into the nearest dumpster because I am so darn tired of falling over it and listening to my own voice saying PICK UP YOUR TOYS!!!!!! 

So my girls know I am like Grandpa (always blame the patriarch) who has a quick fiery fuse, and like mom, we're kind of like cherry bombs, big bang, some smoke, but not a lot of damage. At least for the most part, on a certain basic level, you know where you stand with me. I dont hold grudges for eternity. I am quick to forget, but yes I do have a temper. 

I also do most of the discipline as poor Daddio is away working his 60 hour weeks... and is exhausted when he comes home :( Quite a burden and why I felt it necessary to quench my nagging suspicions that I am a slave driver parent, who pushes my kids too far. 

So dear Dr. Phil provided this lovely quiz http://www.drphil.com/assets/a/a0170fbd26b6c36fa62c08ef9bf049b3.pdf which enlightened me to the fact that I am not an awful parent, just a go getter parent, the authoritarian- equalitarian parent.... 

I spend an awful amount of time obsessing about my children and pondering, and ruminating on their welfare and development... So I am the pushy parent, we have chores, things everyone must do to make the house function. My kids are great kids. But even the two year old puts her diapers in the trash, her clothes in the wash, and gets in trouble for inappropriate behaviour. Whining and whinging are punished with banishment into ones bedroom. The old adage of seen but not heard is alive and well in our house. If you are being a fool you will definitely not be given an audience. If you are being a delight, we will smile at you, put you on a pedestal and clap with enthusiasm. 

Just I look around and I feel like I am the only one exhausting myself with the explanations, the education, the installation of mores and certitudes. When I discipline my kids in public (could be a smack for a dangerous problem, like trying to undo ones buckle and open the door before the car is turned off)...(or could be time out at the pool because of too much screaming)... I am met with these inquiring eyes... Like let them be kids. Dont push too much. Dont corral them too much. Dont define them too much. Dont choose for them too much. I dont choose for them on all things. As they get older I do take their feelings and wants and needs into consideration. Am I at fault for making my kids go getters. Am I at fault for telling them everything they cant do (like running with knives) and am I at fault for encouraging them and telling them everything they can do (like swimming and actually getting wet instead of being perched on the top of several floaties?)... 

Mostly I see them look to me. If I say I love playing tennis and I love hitting the ball, my daughters will say they love playing tennis and they love hitting the ball too. Both of my babies get water up their noses and in their eyes in the pool. I go under the water and get water in my nose, and in my eyes in the pool too! We emerge and I smile at them and say "good girls, you CAN swim like a fishy!" and they smile back to me.

My point is that before they can have an opinion about themselves, they mimic yours. So give them a good base. Give them a positive base. Encourage them. Coax them. Make them be a bit uncomfortable at times. The end result is so worth it.  My six year old rode a horse two week ends ago on a four mile trail all by herself. I cant express how delighted she was, full of SELF satisfaction. Where did she get the idea she could do it from, she got it from her mom and her dad. She got it from us.

Teach your kids to be polite, well mannered, WELL GROOMED FOR HEAVENS SAKE, thankful, to be adventurous, to just try things. To just experience things. 


You only have them for such a short time before they are too set and too scared and too intimidated by everything. You only have today. 


Im not saying my kids will be perfect. But what I love most about them, is that they try. They lock eyes with us for reassurance. We smile at them. And they take the plunge.

Calorie calamity?!

My beautiful eldest daughter has put on about 10lbs in the past year. She is 6. She always used to fit into a size smaller than her age, she always was scrawny and had her little chicken breast ribs sticking through her bathing suit... she could suck her diaphragm up into her sternum and look like a person from a concentration camp. So this new change is nothing wrong, its just something different. 

Before you think I am a weight nazi I have to let you know more about my background. As a 12 year old I wore womens size 16 clothing or XL clothing. Most XL clothing if I am really honest, did not fit, but I would stretch it to make it fit. When I was a child, in the country that I grew up in, 14 was the maximum size on most things. You got 16's if you were exceedingly lucky. Add in braces, glasses, acne...and that I am almost 6 foot tall...musical, artsy, eclectic, eccentric... I am sure many of you now understand that I did not have the happiest time in school. 

I read an article lately about something worse than bullying in school, because to be very honest I was never bullied (by children at least... my 7th grade teacher would be considered in my mind to be a bully but there were extenuating circumstances that I dont have the energy to mention right now)...but what this article said was worse than bullying was the child who was invisible. And that resonated with me to the core of my being. I was an invisible child.

That was a two part puzzle. Partly because I was just the klunky fat kid, the weirdo, but not weird enough to tease outright (and because I was bigger than most kids, I would have and could have whooped some butt)... partly because I felt so rejected that I recoiled into the fibers of my being and used to hide myself amongst layer upon layer of defense and camouflage. I became used to playing  incognito. 

And of course I would never mention it to my overly burdened and loving but innocent parents.... They loved me, more than I could possibly understand at that age, but I always felt worthless. 

I was just speaking to my mom today, I am not a binge eater, or a person who binges and purges. I would just constantly be nibbling. When I was 13 I weighed more than my dad. Made me feel like a worthless bag of fat. So I just kept on munching my way through the void where I would have had a larger group of friends, or sports, or other activities where I had to leave the confines of my bedroom.

I sound like a total nerd, but honestly I have had a lovely fulfilled life. I used to read six books a week because my mom took me to the library only once a week, and I only was allowed six at one time... I went to piano lessons for 12 years...I had my nerdy friends (NERDS RULE)... I had a rip roaring early adult life (once I left high school and realised how little high school really means in the grand scheme of things)... and now at the age of 30 I feel satisfied and pleased with where I am and who I am. I like being me. Sounds cheesy but theres no one else I would rather be. 

The brilliance of my fleeting mind... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tn2WtgY5H4

Its just an incredible feeling looking at your baby who is no more, slowly transforming by  genetic process into part of who you had been. You want to swoop them up and protect them. In the same place you dont want to impose on them who you were. They are not you. They are not yours. They are your stewards and you are their guardians... They are not you. Yet the resemblance is uncanny. 

You want to protect their innocence. Guard them from hurt, pain, rejection and all of the prickly barbs. You want your darling baby angel to feel beautiful always. You want to wipe away the inadequacies. You want to be more aware than your parents were of rejection or shame. You want to be more in touch, in tune, in control... Yet also let them forge their own individuality and become their true selves. 

So I have decided to back off on the weight issue. To make it a non issue.. an anti-issue. 

My daughter is beautiful and perfect. And just like me, she will find her way. We have the most Perfect Guide. He is the key to wholeness.

Returning to Christ.

It struck me that I have confused all of you. And perhaps I have not fully explained my sudden re-attachment to the Christian walk. As someone who had not been to church in over 17 years, the fact that I went in September 2010 was astonishing to me as well. I am still reeling from the sudden return. I shall recall the events as clearly as I can remember. This is a personal account, not meant to offend anyone okay? :)


I have long deliberated in the two schools of thought that plague me. Do I tell people the edited version of who I am, or do I delve into details that may make them uncomfortable or to think less of me. My dad has always said bury the past. And I desperately have tried to stick to that. Just my natural inclination is to spill all of me in one flurried gush. I dont only wear my heart on my sleeve, I wear my life on my sleeve too.

I am a recovered (past tense) drug addict. I have been 100% clean (not even one relapse) for almost 7 1/2 years. And I get, you hear this always in the news, you watch Intervention, you become desensitized, you see people shooting up on tv whilst you shovel food into your mouth at dinner time with your kids. You say to your kid, hey Junior, dont do that, its baaaad...

But do you have any idea how long almost seven and a half years is in junkie time? And whilst I realize my story or my life is neither novel or a wonder of the modern world, the healing and deliverance I have experienced in my life, IS novel and wonderful to ME. 

I went to a rehab in Johannesburg. It was a scientology based rehab program that I loved because it was NOT christian. Also they taught the antithesis of the 12 step program, which is once an addict NOT always an addict. I dont carry around some calendar, count days, say how hard this is, how much I pine for my old life... The  program was a total rehabilitation progam. You think youre there for drugs or alcohol, wake up, youre there for a full on life intervention. And it was hard and chaotic, but it was brief and temporary, and it opened up the doorway to so many new horizons and avenues beyond which I had ever thought of, because I never saw a future for me.

After the program I was offered a job. What kind of lunatic offers a recently clean junkie a job looking after money? (Genesis 39 v 20-22)... And I of course took the job, I loved the freedom, I loved helping people, being with people who were so positive and powerful and wonderful and I was good at my job and reliable.. and I started dating Kurtis.

And I just started getting these nagging feelings that the only reason that I made it out alive was because of Gods Grace.... and I brushed that off as a stupid fleeting notion.... what an idealistic fairy tale romantic stupid idea was that? I got out alive because I chose to... right? I mean that was the humanistic answer to it right? And things were going well because I was making them go well. You had good things happen to you because you were a good person. Kinda like karma, you pulled it in right?


Then in January 05 I had my daughter Shannon and in March 05 we moved to Atlanta Georgia. Soon we were working and had our own apartment in Sandy Springs. We bought a new car with money that fell like manna from heaven. I was working for the other rehab here but I hated it. I just wanted to get far far away from Drug Addicts in general. I wanted to have another baby and go back to school.

But the nagging suspicion of divine guidance and deliverance never left me. In fact I was plagued by it. All through out my second pregnancy I could not get two words out of my head, "Gods Grace"... they nagged at me, clawed at me, bit into my calm until I was gushing out potential thoughts or reasonings to it to my husband whom of course, did not acknowledge or approve of my new found crazy phase...

Well I thought it was a phase... now almost 2.5 years later I am still shocking people with my 'church phase'... yet I have to say I feel that all I did was come home. Come home from my wild wanderings and wonderings... I feel like I tried to disprove everything that was shoveled into my gullet as a child, but instead all I did was confirm and solidify that I was taught the truth as a child... and that I want my children to be taught the truth as I know it.

There are of course lose ends and many instances I cant fully explain or fully answer, I have to use faith to bridge the crevasses between thoughts and understanding... Questions about sexuality, perceived morality, perceived values, perceived norms, all of those I have to still work out.

I didnt become a Christian because I wanted a high horse to lean down from, to judge other people. I became a Christian because of the God sized vacuum in my soul. Most of you who truly know me know that I am exceedingly accepting of differences because I fully acknowledge that I am so thoroughly flawed and inept. In my ineptitude I wholly see and adore many different forms of beauty and I truly am washed over with boundless waves of gratitude for the colourful palette that I call my Soul Sisters and my Brothers from Another Mother. I love you all.