by Heather Plett | Jan 10, 2005 | Uncategorized
I haven’t written about the tsunami yet, ’cause I just don’t know what to say. Or think. It’s beyond comprehension. I remember how my gut felt like it was being wrenched from my body when I saw the images of the mothers wailing over the bodies of their dead children. I remember wanting to hold all of my children close when I heard the story about the mother who had to choose which child to hold onto when the wave came. (She chose the younger, more vulnerable one, but fortunately the other one survived too so she didn’t have to live with the guilt all of her life.) I remember thinking God was evil and didn’t deserve to be in my life any more. I remember trying to imagine standing on the beach, watching the huge wave come and swallow your whole village. I remember trying to visualize and comprehend what it must have felt like to walk among the ruins and see the broken houses, the broken playgrounds, and all those bodies of people who used to be your neighbours, your classmates, your children – all the people that filled your life before this moment.
Roger Kamenetz (Beliefnet) says it well: “I am trying to connect to this tragedy the best I can. The pictures help a little. I see dead children on the floor, a parent weeping. The little ones look like they are sleeping; it is unimaginable that they are dead. I see a parent holding his dead child. I feel in my body what it is like to hold… that weight. To feel the life gone, and the heaviness of a body that does not have life. It is different from holding a sleeping child, carrying a child to bed for instance. I can feel what this father feels in the photo, can reach in my imagination, and in my memory.But I can’t multiply what I feel by 10,000 or 40,000, or even by ten. We know more than we can feel. And we respond as best we can, I think. This is our situation in a time of instant global communication.”
What I like about Kamenetz piece is that he says we shouldn’t focus on whether God was in the tsunami. The tsunami was. Period. We don’t need to explain it. What we know for certain is that God is in the response. “And now another wave is spreading, and it is also vast, and it spreads through the hearts of those who let themselves feel it.”
And now, as I prepare for what I’ll see in Africa, I wonder if I can accept the questions there too. Can I accept that a loving God lets it happen without intervening? Can I “sit with the questions” and still find peace?
“The disaster is. It happened to a ‘dear one,’ someone’s ‘dear one,’ many dear ones. I open my heart and feel it. The place it touches in me, touches God.”
by Heather Plett | Jan 10, 2005 | Uncategorized
Why it’s hard being a mom:
1. Privacy. Just for a change, I’d like to be able to pee without having someone walk in.
2. Time. Some times it feels like I own none of my own time any more. It’s all been usurped by some member of my family or another. Oh how I long for a guilt-free Saturday – to sleep in late, have a leisurely bath without anyone climbing in the tub with me, go hang out in a bookstore or wander around the Village for awhile, maybe stop for a nice supper and a glass of wine at a quiet non-family oriented restaurant, go home and read a book all evening. Oh what a dream!
3. Poop. I’m sick and tired of poop. Poopy diapers, poopy panties, poop, poop, poop.
4. The arguing that never stops. “Mom, she punched me!” “Mom, she took my book!” “Mom, tell her to get out of my room!” “Mom…” Sometimes I’m sure my head will explode.
5. Laundry. Mountains and mountains of laundry. I never liked laundry to begin with, but when there are 5 people in the house, all of them needing clean socks and underwear every day, it feels like laundry rules your life!
6. Too many decisions! “Mom, can I have another piece of cake?” “Mom, can I invite someone over for a sleepover?” “Mom, can I watch TV?” Sometimes, by the end of the day, I’m sure I’ll burst a blood vessel if I have to make ONE more decision!
7. Worry. I never thought I was a worrier, until I had kids. Now there are so many things to worry about. What if they won’t make any friends at school? What if I make too many parenting mistakes and they grow into messed-up adults in need of psychotherapy? What if the bus crashes on the way to school and they get killed or hurt? What if they don’t do well at school and they’ll always feel inferior to their friends? Oh man, I’m sick of worry!
8. Vomit. When they’re sick, they never make it to the toilet or the bucket and I always end up on my hands and knees cleaning up the revolting mess.
9. Sometimes, I SWEAR there’s not an inch of kindness in them. They can be downright MEAN – to me AND to each other. Before I was a mom, I thought it was downright HORRID for a child to tell their mom or dad they hated them. Now it seems almost commonplace.
10. Whining and complaining. “Mom, do we HAVE to have Thai food for supper? I HATE Thai food.” “Mom, how come we never get to buy cocoa puffs cereal?”
11. Barney, Barbie, Mary-Kate and Ashley, Bratz, Hillary Duff – all those annoying mass market products, television shows, pop stars, and movies. They know how to make kids love them (or at least THINK they love them) and if you try to convince the kids the products they’re being sold are crap, they just assume you’re being an old fuddy-duddy.
12. Guilt. I’m sick of feeling guilty (or having my kids TRY to make me feel guilty) every time I do something for myself or go on a date with my husband, or go on a business trip and leave them at home.
13. Money. There’s never enough anymore. Everything costs money. Clothes, backpacks for school, piano lessons, soccer, birthday parties (theirs and their friends’), etc., etc. There’s no end of things that have to be paid for.
14. Baths. I want to have one ALONE sometime.
15. Stuff. There’s just SO much clutter around the house now – so many toys, books, clothes, you name it. There’s always clutter around and just when you get close to cleaning up and having it look a little respectable, they mess it up again.
16. You have to FEED them all the time. Even when you’re not hungry, you have to figure out something for them to eat a million times a day! And when you haven’t had a chance to buy groceries, and all you have available for their snacks is crackers and peanut butter, you never hear the end of it.
Ah yes, sometimes it’s hard. But just now, as I was writing this list of woes, my daughter came to kiss me goodnight, and as I reached out and touched her hair, my heart swelled with love for her. None of this stuff is really that important after all.
by Heather Plett | Jan 7, 2005 | Uncategorized
It looks like we’ll be getting our bathroom re-done. Yay! When we got the first estimate back for $6600, I thought there was no way we could afford to do it. But the second contractor is WAY cheaper (not to mention the fact that he responded alot more quickly!), and if we buy reasonably priced fixtures, we can do it for under $3000! Yippee! It’s probably a good thing we got BOTH estimates, ’cause it gives us a good sense of how much we’re saving. (And NO he’s not some fly-by-night contractor – he’s the father of our neighbour, which makes him at least somewhat trustworthy 🙂
I can hardly wait to soak in a tub that doesn’t leave little green paint flecks on my skin. Aahh! My first bath is going to be a pure delight! Now if only I could convince Maddie that she doesn’t HAVE to jump in the tub every time Mommy has a bath, and convince Nikki and Julie that I really CAN’T/WON’T help them fix their computer problems while I’m enjoying my Saturday morning soak! Why does EVERYBODY need me the moment I step into the water???
The girls came with us to Home Depot last night to look at fixtures, and this morning when Maddie walked into the bathroom, she said “Oh! We forgot to get our new bathtub!” Smile.
by Heather Plett | Jan 6, 2005 | Uncategorized
I found some of the files I thought had vapourized when our computer crashed! Yay! I haven’t retrieved everything, but this is better than nothing. In honour of this great event, I’ll post this poem that I found among my writings…
Drift
She is bubble
fragile and transparent
riding on the edge of a dangerous wind
some winds come softly
lofting her gently
to the heights
some winds come cruelly
crashing her blindly
against the cliff
She is bubble
iridescent and brilliant
riding on the edge of a dangerous wind
by Heather Plett | Jan 5, 2005 | Uncategorized
It’s funny how much pleasure I can derive from a good pair of long underwear. I LOVE my new long johns. They are so cozy and soft and warm and they help me maintain my sanity when I’m standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus to take me to work in this disgustingly cold weather. They’re SO much better than the old pair I borrowed from Marcel that were losing their elasticity and were constantly sliding down my butt and bunching up around my thighs. These ones fit so nicely and snuggle up against me like a warm blanky. (I’d say they’re “soft as butter” against my skin, but I’m not sure I’d like the feel of butter slathered all over my legs!)
What’s that they say about small things amusing small minds? Oh well, I don’t mind a small mind if it helps me enjoy simple pleasures now and then.
