Julie Pippert: Using My Words

For Mother's Day, my husband arranged a weekend away and a luncheon at Driftwood Estates Winery and Vineyard. It was spectacular! The kids love the open space and beautiful scenery (and trees!) there. The food was great, the wine as good as always, and we met the nicest ladies from Austin -- one is a fantastic photographer and she kindly took photos of our family! A wonderful Mother's Day. Topped off by adorable drawings, cards and homemade gifts from my fabulous children.

Last night I told my daughters, "You should be ashamed of yourselves." I know modern parenting has it that we should never let our kids feel badly, especially about themselves, but the truth was...by our family's morals and ethics my kids should have felt badly about what they did and about themselves. We had just returned home from a short four-day holiday visiting my mother. A couple of those days I was at the South by Southwest Conference, and to cover my absence -- which nobody seemed to notice much, a good thing -- the family went on the Fun Run: lake, picnic, boating, kite flying, park, and more. It was days of outdoors and good times, which the kids loved. After an easy and speedy drive, we arrived home shortly before dinner, and that's when the kids launched into bickering and insults that escalated into vicious behavior. My husband and I both tried several times to redirect, direct, intervene, and every other parenting measure in our arsenal, to no avail. I t...

I remember my Valentine's Day childhood parties well, even though these days it seems like a hundred years ago. I went to a lot of different elementary schools so the parties are distinct, rather than a blur of similarity of places and people. There were a lot of common points, though, regardless of place. We'd sit at our desks---the old-fashioned kind (now) with the wood top, attached by a metal bar to the hard, slick wood seat (one size fits all, hard for smaller bottoms). The cubby was underneath the seat, so children's heads tended to bob down as if going under water to get a fresh pencil. We'd have ants in our pants, the teacher would say, because not one of us could sit still. Every now and again a child, usually a boy, would explode up from his desk, no longer able to sit at all, and the teacher, resigned to this sort of thing, would say something like, "Mark...Mark, what are you doing up?" And poor Mark, a victim of a heady case of excitement beyond hi...

In the morning when they crawl into bed with you, half asleep still, warm and scented so poignantly of themselves, when they stretch their ever longer bodies alongside you, give a wiggle to snuggle in, when you wrap your arm around them and by habit they lift their heads a little, when you bury your nose in their hair and your mouth reflexively kisses the crown of their heads, when the sky outside is shifting from navy to a dense gray, the time before the pinkening...you feel a contentment so deep and perfect it feels like a quiet joy. It feels like a joy so marvelous it is near silent, with no need to trumpet itself. Your hope rises with the dawn, glowing with the yellowing sun. You think it's good, this is good, and it's okay, it will all be okay. That's important because you---those of you who mother---know that every day somewhere in at least one corner of your heart is the fear that your child will be hurt (or worse) in this life, and you can't get rid of it becaus...

When the phone rang, I was a little annoyed. I'd finally gotten the kids settled into a task for longer than two minutes, with no fighting, and was actually making progress on my project. "Hello," I said, a little more brusquely than I should have. It's not the caller's fault that I'm stretched too thin in too many directions from too much multi-tasking. "Hello," I said again, this time more kindly. "Hi Julie," the voice of a lady I know said brightly, "How are you?" "Fine, fine, and you?" I said, biting back 'busy' as an answer. "So how are the kids?" she asked, omitting an answer. "The kids? They're fine. A little rambunctious, you know. It's time for school to start." "Oh," she said, "Oh. Right, they're fine, that's good news." "Why do you ask?" "Well, you know, they were over here playing the other day, and my kids are sick now. I just wan...

Yesterday we ran out of bread. That surprised me because we don't tend to eat that much bread in my family, and we spread what bread eating we do across a plethora of products (Kashi waffles, bagels, English muffins, etc.). However, apparently this past week saw a big run on the bread and we ran out, on a week I don't have a shopping trip planned.* Of course I didn't even have stale crusts left over from the previous weeks because of the Ginormous Seagull Feeding Disaster.** That's fine, though, because you can't keep a good woman down. I rooted in the pantry and found a box of bread mix. Excellent, I thought, I'll just whip up some homemade bread. The kids can help and we'll have an Activity! Some Fun! The house will smell delicious and we'll have bread for the week! I got the kids set up at their table with "helping" tasks (mixing flour and water) and set to it. Yeast and warm water, check, waiting, mixing bread ingredients, check. Waiting. M...

I was over reading Sci-Fi Dad's blog today. As I have been in general, I've been a bad, bad cyberfriend to Sci-Fi Dad and his wife, who is expecting. I'm behind on the pregnancy and life updates, how their little bunny is doing (especially with her new glasses), and so forth. I finally did my Google reader scan this morning (after clearing it the other day when it had over a 1000 unread, and since then, up to 200---you people impress me with your loquaciousness) and I was impressed to see that the bunny has a redecorated room and that Sci-Fi dad has been busy on his many blogs and columns, yet still took time to answer reader questions. Out of 14, 2 were dedicated to how he would deal with a teenage daughter/sexual creature. It suddenly struck me that we are all very, very keen to ask men this question: how will you handle boys (read: slavering sexual beasts---nudge nudge wink wink, you know ) coming on to your daughter (read: precious pure princess angel)? Hmm, that prese...

Me, engaged in a kid-approved activity: hovering over them at a birthday party in a gymnastic place. How often do you know what makes your kids perfectly happy, I ask you? So...I know, and they know I know, which is where the struggle comes in: every day isn't a happy birthday party at the Little Gym with mom on call. Ha! My last post was my 800th post and I missed that, being in such a rush as I was. So this is 801. That's pretty par for the course for me right now---catching it just one too late. I feel it from most angles, this sense of, "You're a day late and dollar short." Despite taking the kids to the Zoo Zoobilee bash last night---earning me the "For my kids' sakes I would walk 500 miles...in the godawful heat...at the ZOO...with crowds of melting people and animals hiding in whatever shade they could find" badge---and ensuring that each day contains at least one fun thing such as a trip to the pool, the kids and I have not launched summer o...

It always starts here, in the cute place. I know you read that title and expected a long, deep post. You aren't going to get it. In fact, this post, which is not be about politics or world affairs at all, is actually about mommying. More specifically, it is about Persistence, whom I adore, but who is also hmm shall we say in an extremely challenging phase that I am extremely challenged by. Persistence's pre-school ended nine days, three hours, and 22 minutes ago. That would be three weeks before public school lets out. It has been hell on earth ever since. I realize I should be overflowing with the joy of uninterrupted quality time with my precious child who I adore more than life itself, but pretty much I wake up and within ten minutes am humming, "I wanna new drug." I'm counting minutes until her father comes home by 8:30 a.m. This is because Persistence is THREE, also known as the Cruel and Vicious Age. People tell me five is worse, but I lived through Patience...

"Remember when the days were long And rolled beneath a deep blue sky Didn't have a care in the world With mommy and daddy standing by" Don Henley, "The End of Innocence" Oh those days will remain long and rolling under blue skies if I have anything to say about it, and as it turns out, I do. Because Patience is and always will be Our Very First Baby Precious Angel Love of Our Life , she is going to have to put up with a lot of parental freak outs---an unduly unfair number above and beyond what her sister will experience. On the flip side, Persistence will have an unduly unfair number of parental exasperations above and beyond what her sister will experience. So it all balances out. Last Thursday Patience got to experience yet another parental freak out, although she had no idea her father and I were totally melting down. We have mastered the art of hiding it well . But I must say...her father melted down WAY worse than me, for the record. He melted down so badly...

To find a perfect example of disproportionalism in life, look no further than motherhood. Motherhood: that state so many of us desire, and yet, despite 8th grade health lessons, is not so easily achieved. Motherhood: that somehow oh-so-public state that drives people to ask intensely personal things Motherhood: that state held up for public commentary---sometimes idolizing, sometimes demonizing Michelle Duggar is quite the mom. We watch her and her family like ants in a habitat: how does she do it? 16 kids! We discuss and dissect her methods. 16 kids! Can it be fair to any of the kids! "Another Duggar on the way," said the Discovery Health email I received this morning, "Happy Mother's Day!" Of course, I thought, she can have as many as she likes, healthy and lovely, whenever she wants. It was much more matter-of-fact than you might think. I have accepted---mostly---that life is not fair, is disproportionate, and this includes fertility and motherhood. When---af...