Friday, March 21, 2014

My Kid Beating Me Up

I had a couple of extra kids at my house yesterday. My favorite comment of the day, one that I desperately wished I knew the context of, was made by the five year old boy. "Sadie, you're my last girlfriend because all the other ones...DIED!" Sadie responded, "Okay."

I also enjoyed the three year old girl wearing a princess dress and an Albert Einstein wig for over an hour. I wish I had taken a picture.

I'm glad my face doesn't bruise easily like my legs do. Hopefully, I won't get two black eyes and a giant bruise across my nose. Sadie just hit me harder than I have ever been hit before in my life. I can't believe I didn't get knocked out. And I can't believe such a little person can cause so much pain. I screamed when it happened, and it freaked her out. She ran out, crying, "I don't want you, Mommy!" She NEVER plays by herself, but she has been for the last ten minutes because she is so upset with me for getting upset when she whacked me.

Last night, I said something about how I had always thought that cartoons showing people with tears shooting out of their eyes horizontally were fake until I saw Preston cry. If he is crying hard, you can see tears flying out of his eyes, even from the back. It's so weird. Carter said, "Maybe we should make a comic book about a super hero who shoots tears at the bad guys. He could be called Cry Baby. Do you think anyone would like that idea? I mean, would a company pay me for that idea?"

I have finally come to terms with not finishing school. It no longer bothers me. I realized that I have taken more than enough credits to graduate with a Bachelor's degree. Finishing the last three required classes will not make me more educated. They are not at all useful for my life. Not in any way. They might give me the official paper, but that doesn't really do me any good anymore. I can't ever really work a regular job because of my health issues, so the only real good that would come out of graduating would be for my own sense of accomplishment. 

And I finally don't feel like I need to do it. I have been stressed about it for the last eleven years. It didn't help that several people pressured me so much that I felt like a failure for not graduating. Nevermind that I have been doing more important work, raising incredibly difficult and busy children, trying to teach them to be good people who contribute to society, hoping that someday they will actually like each other. I have always known that it was a more important work, but I still felt that stress of not completing what I was expected to do. I felt unequal to my educated husband, and I was many times pressured because of his incredible genius and education. Luckily, he was never the one pressuring me or making me feel unequal. He always seemed to be happy with who I was and who I am now. I appreciate that acceptance. 

And that acceptance was not like, "She is less than I wanted her to be, but I guess I'll accept her anyway." His acceptance of me has been, "I love her, and she is intelligent and actually knows how to spell things even if she is not an awesome rocket scientist like me. I don't want her to be like me. I want her to be her own person, one who makes up stories and songs about closets and green buttons and a little girl named Daddy just because the two-year-old asks for them. I want her to be happy. She is not less than I am because she is different. She makes me greater because she is different."

He hasn't actually said those things...because those are way too many words to come out of his mouth in one sitting. He does show me that he loves me the way I am, and I appreciate it. He hasn't complained about all the extra things that he has to do when I am unable to take care of the children and the house as well as I would like. He does seem exhausted, and I can't imagine what it would do to him to have even more to do if I were to take classes. He would be happy for me to finish school if it was something that I wanted to do, and he would watch the kids and do more of the cooking than he already does and all the other housework that would need to be done while I was busy studying. He wouldn't complain about it. He is awesome like that.


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