Joni Mitchell's Twisted:

Love that song. Love the Better Midler version of it, too.

Good gods, Erin. That's a week, all right.

{{{{Erin}}}}

Jesus, Erin. That's seriously fucked up. How are YOU doing?

Looking seriously forward to doing nothing tonight and sleeping in tomorow. It's been a stressful week. But I also have a metric fuckload of schoolwork to do -- it just never seems to stop. I can't wait till Xmas break. When I will adapt "Romeo and Juliet" into Romeo and Juliet: Kansas City 2007 version for the spring play. Which will actually be pretty fun, I think.

In brighter news, I have bookcases for my classroom and a crapload of books to organize into a library next week!

And I showed "Welcome to the Hellmouth" to my 1st and 3rd hours, because so many students were at the funeral that I didn't want to do anything new.

Oh, {{{Erin}}}

Happies to Sail!

That's quite a fucked up week, Erin.

Hmmm, inner tape. Lately it's mostly, "Do you want kids? If you do, DECIDE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW! You are getting old and even though you'd adopt, you don't want to be some old lady with a little kid. So what's it gonna be? Huh? Huh? HUH????!!!!"

Ugh. Just threw up again.

Is this a "go to the doctor" thing? I don't know. And I can't reach my mom to ask her. (I don't care if I'm 25. When I'm sick, I call my mom.)

That is why we HAVE Moms. I'm convinced.

(Though I've got to say, you really hamstring her Jewish Mother abilities with that refusal to eat chicken soup)

gods, Erin, that's some week. Those kids are lucky they have someone like you, for real, and all the other awesome teachers in the world.

I've always been a big advocate for Good Enough parenting so I try not to get too spun by the Shoulds. I know I'm going to make mistakes, but if I err on the side of patience or kindness it usually turns out okay. Except with boundary setting where I have to force myself to be tougher than I would be normally.

I think every parent tries to find some balance between their own happiness and the sacrifices you have to make for your kids. I'm feeling a bit loserland right now because I'm not playing out the breadwinner role. But I'm juggling that Should with the knowledge that after 8 years of HR office work, I find that kind of job stressful and deadening. I need to make a career change and I've been working on that.

But the flipside is that I also know that having both parents home during the early months of a newborn makes life much less stressful.

Emmett's made it all a bit easier by basically validating the choices we've made so far. Frankly, he doesn't like doing art projects. As far as TV, I just decided at some point that (a) I watch TV because I need the entertainment and relaxation; (b) why shouldn't he get that?

Of course, he has limited TV time and it's only one part of his day that includes not only school, but doing homework, spending time with his friends in aftercare, very active in sports, playing with me when he gets home, evening reading etc.

My parenting Shoulds are mitigated when I try to think of what my hopes for Emmett are. I don't need him to become an academic superstar or a Major League basball player. I just want him to be a good person who can tend to his own happiness and bring that to others. Letting him discover and explore his strengths and giving him tools and confidence to deal with his weaknesses.

He's certainly had his stumbling blocks, but basically he is very balanced like that.

ION, Trudy and lisah are both quite attractive and should update their tapes to reflect this.