Never Say Never - In parenting we learn too

                        If there is something having kids does to you is it teaches you to never say 'never'. Back in the day at the beginning of my mommy journey, I had no idea that through the course of being a mom I would be forced to become an expert on things I would have never dreamed of or ever cared for. Currently, my daughter, who is 5, is obsessed with Justin Beiber. She loves to learn lyrics to songs she hears and on youtube they often have the song paired with lyrics making it easier to help me help her learn words to her favorite song. It was one video of him singing and she began asking me to search out more of his songs....and the rest id history. It was THAT fast. For those of you who would not be able to pick this guy up from a line-up, think of me!!....I could not either, about 2 months ago. Now, I know ALL about this young celebrity, and I must admit, I actually think he's quite talented. I now know all his lyrics, I would easily be able to pick out which songs are sung by him, plus, I know lots of miscellaneous facts about the young man that now fill my head for no reason other than to be able to communicate and speak with my daughter on her interests. 

                 Now, don't think for a New York minute that you are exempt to this phenomenon. this experience I just described is not an exception to the rule, this experience is not a singular, one-time, freak incident of parenthood, this is a reality for ALL parents, plus, it happens many, many times, as the child grows. To illustrate, when my son was one and half he was obsessed with school buses, then trucks, then trash trucks, then construction trucks. Oh, how we'd run to the front door of our home each trash-pick-up day and observe the trash being hauled away and the school children being whisked away to school. We'd all wave frantically at any and all yellow buses as if someone we knew or loved was each of them. Furthermore, my husband and I learned the official name of all the trucks on any given construction site and bought videos and books pertaining to the world of trucks. Now that he is eight we are also experts in baseball, football, outer space, Einstein, basic physics and the list goes on and on. 

             You might go into child-rearing with a certain plan, a certain idea of how YOU are going to run this 'ship'. But we soon learn that we are not in control of who this little person wants to become. We find that the word 'never' has no place or power in this new reality. For example, I went into parenting thinking ' I am not a sports fan, I hate organized sports', but just a few short years later, I am  cheering like a crazy woman at your son's Little League baseball games and simply loving it. You see, this reality of parenting is not by any means a negative thing, on the contrary, it is an absolutely wonderful thing to go through (if you have the right perspective). Allowing the narrative of your child to unfold as his soul intended makes child-rearing into a true adventure for us. It breaks us open from our own pre-set, self-imposed limitations and makes us better. We soon abandon our need to make this child into anything we thought up and come to realize that he came here with his own set of instructions, and we are just there to provide support.  I strongly propose having fun with it and staying wide open for becoming, in essence, love. For it's this deep love for our family and our little ones that help mold us, slowly into much more open human beings. 

My baby turns 5 today!! it's a beautiful day

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All moms need ME time

With the kids going through this tough stage of sibling rivalry where they are constantly at each other's throat (figuratively) and requiring Chris or I to intervene and make peace, the one place and time I get a few minutes of peace is......(drum roll...) the shower!!!

To parents considering having a second child I think I should inform you the one BIG difference with a second child is drastically less time. You know how with your one child you have a set nap time where you know you will have some "me" time? Well, with a second child, they almost never sleep at the same time as the first child....so you do not get that time and when you do......oh, what a huge blessing it is......but do not plan on it.....you will just be sorely disappointed.

I love my kids more than anything. But I am a much better mom when I can get some "me" time in between the large amounts of "kid" times. Painting when they are asleep or watching great movies late into the night as I sip a glass of wine bring me back to myself. Try it. Or share with me how you take some time for yourself.

My mom's garden.....

My mom's garden.....in Long Island.

They have this amazing canopy arbour.....
Cute sculptures everywhere.
Private and cool...
I love these sculptures....at one point my mom was really into frogs and that's all enyone ever gave her for her garden.....no, I think she's no longer INTO frogs.
these are as big as our heads....
My beautiful mom and my sweet daughter.
Concord grapes.....almost ready. We have a war every summer with the raccoons who seem to know exactly when they are ripe and come and eat them ALL in one night....



These reach out to the sky.....
And even more sort of creepy sculptures...
love this refleciton...
Dalias......love them!!!

Cute birdhouse....

My mom in her garden...

A giant puffball....

Working Through Mixed Emotions......

I am having mixed emotions about relocating....I'm not changing my mind...just struggling to feel okay about moving my kids away from their "Lela.." (Grandma)

In less than a month we leave my mom's house, where we've been renting the downstairs apartment for the past 4 years, to move 250 miles away.

Although what's pulling me is THE job of my dreams, incredibly better pay, and a great school system for the kids.....I am still aching for my poor mom who will very much miss my kids....and vice versa...

She's been with my oldest since he was 1 and my youngest has always had her around...

Both my kids adore her (and my step dad) and I can't help to wonder if this is a good move or not. It's hard to tell.

I am willing to give it time....a couple of years and then decide whether to move closer or back to NY.... or maybe even stay...right now the sadness is raw and the anxiety slowly building.....all these questions. Will my mom be okay? will the kids be sad? will they remember those cozy Saturday mornings running into grandma's room to giggle and cuddle? Am I taking something away that I can never give back? Will it be worth it?

The love of a child is incredibly powerful and in its absence it has a tendency to leave an almost unbearable emptiness. I cannot even begin to imagine my mom's first few days without the kids....the silence..the house void of mess, rid of all the toys, no sippy cups left out overnight....

I trust that time will heal these feeling and eventually I know my mom and step dad will get used to having their place back; without all the mess.....Also, my hubby and I will learn to raise our kids like most Americans, alone and without the help of extended family.....

More than ever, technology becomes important. E-mails, family blogs, Video CD, Skype.....I am going to teach them all I know about these mediums so as to try to keep connecting....I am hoping that love will prevail and that my kids still know just how much they matter to so many people aside from just my hubby and I....even if they do not see them every day...

A Word About The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

I just had to read more about this Recovery and Reinvestment Plan and surprisingly found more info on it on Wikipedia.  I love Wikipedia, but that is an entire new post for another day. 

To set the tone for my views I have to bring out this one line first, "

"On January 28, 2009, a full page advertisement with the names of approximately 200 economists who are against Obama's plan appeared in The New York Times and The Wall St. Journal. The funding for this advertisement came from from the libertarian Cato Institute. The ad stated, "... we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s... To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, savings, investment, and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."

Remove impediments to investments! Isn't that what got us into this ridiculous mess to begin with....de-regulation?  BURDEN OF GOVERNMENT! Government is only a burden to bankers and investors who started this whole problem...These are the same people that cry "socialism" whenever the middle class (and all the way down to the poor) asks for the same benefits they enjoy.  

It makes me sad when this rhetoric of being against BIG GOVERNMENT gets repeated by people who would benefit from big government. These very people run around unaware that the public school system is a socialist framework, and so is the U.S.Mail.....We certainly enjoy these amazingly free benefits but then are taught to believe that a government-run anything is the kiss of death. 

When regular health insurance costs runs to over 1K/month how could any person be against universal health care for example. So easily we are persuaded against such an ideal by the very people who are getting rich off of this system now, the insurance companies. They say the lines would be too long, the quality would be horrible. We stupidly believe this and cry "no" to something that might save our lives one day. For as you all very well know, just because you have insurance does not mean you will be covered for all services. The pencil-pushers non-doctors have the last say as to whether or not you get that money. 

So friends more government does not scare me one bit. What DOES scare me awake at night is our military spending. We have bases in 156 countries, totaling in 702 overseas bases and another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. Our military spending budgeted for 2009 $651.2 billion dollars. With this money we could make the lives of every American live in prosperity, health and well educated....but the priorities of our country is not it's people, but maintaining its status as the world power. 

As an artist I often visualize nations as people; filled with their own unique personalities. I see the U.S. often as a bully who too often indignantly cries when other countries do not follow the established rule of law, yet, we cross those same lines as we see fit with little regard for other countries and their sovereignty. When our provervial muscles are driving our actions, the heart has no say. 

As Americans, we are still in our "youth" in terms of how we see ourselves amongst other nations. As we all know,  most young people often see things in black and white and in extremes. To a young person, BIGGER IS better, louder is best....they are all ego.....To a seasoned heart, bigger is not better, and it's actually a detriment to peace to be so centered around such fake ideals of grandeur. 

We all have encountered the young driver armed in a brand new vehicle zipping past us like a maniac down the road, without one once of through to the fact that all around them are innocent lives, just trying to get from one place to another. Living in America makes most young beings crave this form of grandiosity; we live in an imagined bliss shaped by TV and movies in which we are always the protagonist. Such forms of grandiosity can be so short lived and unsubstantial. On the other hand, compassion drives the heart of a wise person. Perhaps one day America's leaders will borrow ideals from the East which emphasize compassion and camaraderie and run this country with a set of priorities congruent with these ideals. To think that bigger is better is the ideal of a young mind....we need to grow up. 

Would love to hear your comments. 

MOST RECENT WORK

          In the midst of Luke throwing his typical 4-year-old fits and incessantly picking on Nora and Nora running up to me and pulling my shirt requesting to nurse, I was surprisingly able to finish a collage last night.  You can find it for sale in my Esty Store for $37.  My daughter sat beside me on the rug as we watched Babe, Pig in the City for the hundreth time and simultaneously tried to make her own punches. She was so exited every time she successfully punched out a shape. 

         I create these using recycled magazines and circulars, we had been waiting all morning for the mail to come to bring us more magazines to devour into our project.  When he came and left nothing I was reminded that I had cancelled all my unsolicited catalogs ages ago. My husband took pity on us and gave us his college magazine which he has finished reading and in the dusty shelf we found a teaching magazine copy of Teaching Tolerance. Very colorful results.  I love all the accidental words that come into the work....

A very close detail image...

Another detail image...

This is the view of the entire collage

 

An ARTIST MOM'S DILEMMA.....the time to create

         Filled with new art possibilities now with my new Fiskars puncher. Now if I can only get the time to create. 

         I know I am probably more creative daily than most moms I know, yet, if I had it my way, I would be pumping out work right and left; ten times more work than I make now.  I would be breathing creativity in and out. I have stopped painting as much once my oldest was born 4 years ago.  Once Luke (now 4) turned 3ish it became painfully obvious that painting was no longer possible for that period in time, he would want to explore into my wet tubes and crawl around my easel. Instead of putting off all creativity, I began using photography as a new form of creative expression, thousands of pictures of all the amazing moments became my new escape. Most people I share my issues with in this area offer the common solution of doing my work after the kids go to sleep. Sounds excellent in theory, yet in reality, most nights I have a hard time getting beyond the sleepiness I feel to even manage to check my e-mail. "Me" time has been reduced to blogging, reading the news on Democracynow.org and Al-Jazeera and catching a flick on Hulu. 

          Please do not misunderstand my words.  I do not see these current "accommodations" as negative in any way.  I have allowed myself to open up to all forms of creative expressions and going with whatever creative flows taps my shoulder. In the art world such short and uncommitted dips into various media can be interpreted as unprofessional or uncommitted to an real art career. Having been unconventional for most of my adult life I will forgo such messages and embark on this eclectic adventure full force. Slowly I have come to trust myself more and what matters most to me is the ability to be creative, period.  

         In writing this blog I aim to see for myself the ways in which all my ideas comes from life and daily inspirations I pick and choose on my journey; very much like a huge self perpetuating system. Therefore whatever form these works take, is unimportant.  What matters most is that the expression is allowed to grow and take off on it's own path.