Peace of Eight

Originally when I wrote that title I was trying to find a witty compromise between my inner geek and the fact that I have eight points.  I also think that eight is the perfect number and then I remembered that eight people live in my house.  What I'm trying to say is that for the past three years I have lived with children that were not my siblings and I have learned a lot.  I'm sure that any real parents will laugh at my rules and no doubt will have lots to say later on the extent of how much I have yet to learn.  And yet, in spite of this knowledge, I present to you the Gabbie Lady's simple Rules of Eight of parenting for beginners. 

1.) Don't let them see you laugh.  Once they know you find them funny any productivity, seriousness, or listening has gone the way of the last donut that the five-year-old ate in one piece and is now coughing up fluffy, white powder as she attempts to swallow it whole and keep from giggling at the same time.  It is best to instead to hasten an escape with as calm a demeanor as you can manage while biting your tongue and holding your side with laughter.  Return when you have calmed down (or after you have texted someone who will find it just as funny and will be able to laugh for you) and calmly continue with your life lesson of "why that was a bad decision." 

2.) Don't let them see you get angry.  Really, as good as they are at stealing control with laughter, they are just as conniving with anger.  My recommendation is the same policy.  Take a second- compose yourself mentally and remember that someday this will be a funny story, and if it isn't you probably will not remember it in a year.  Let things go... after you give them a stern lecture as to why your favorite red stilettos cannot double as ninja stars and should not be thrown at your sister.  

3.) Pretend to be angry when necessary.  I know this seems backwards but sometimes you need to show the seriousness of the situation in order to a) maintain or regain control of the room, b) show exactly how stupid the thing they just did was, or c) how very scared you were when you caught the baby carrying five knives across the kitchen, dropping and almost stabbing half her siblings along the way.  Remember not to laugh.  Never laugh.  At least not for a year.  Then you can laugh until you cry. 

4.) Don't make it all about you.  They don't care about, "Well when I was six I had to walk to school.  In the snow.  Up hill.  Both ways."  When they are telling you their problems today they want you to hear, sympathize, and help them.  If you always tell them how their failings make your day difficult they won't tell you about how their day was difficult.  and if you always go into how hard your life is/was they won't want to tell you about how hard their life sometimes is. 

5.) Don't let them see you cry... and by cry I mean sob.  I know we all have bad days but so do kids.  They need the stability to know that you can keep it together and that you haven't given up everything.  Crying for them can usually be solved by a hug, a kiss, or a lollipop from one of their parental units, but when you cry they can't be the parental unit.  They need to believe you are a superhero... at least until they are old enough to fight their own super villains. 

6.) Don't lie.  They are the best liars in the world.  They practically wrote the book on telling a believable whopper and they have less to lose from lying but lots to gain by catching you in a lie.  I realize that I have told many stories of "lies that I have told my children" and even blogged about it once but there is a difference between lying about magic stuffed animals and lying about whether you were going to do something fun before they misbehaved. 

7.) Have a sense of humor.  In ten years it won't matter if they finished their green beans instead of hiding them in their pockets, said please before helping themselves to half the strawberries, or covered the cat from head to toe with stickers.  Remember when I said, "never laugh."  There is a time and a place for everything.  Tell them funny stories.  Laugh at their stupid kid jokes.  Laughter gives you a common ground and will bring you closer than all the quality time in the world.  Remember that you laugh with them, not at them.

8.) There's nothing worse than a bad day, right?  No one understands you.  No one will listen to you. The world is out to get you and nothing is going your way.  Sound familiar?  Now factor in that you can't reach the top of the refrigerator.  It's not easy being a kid.  It's not easy being ten.  Or eight, or six, or five, or any age prior to eternity.  Sometimes I find that I lose sight of this when I get caught up with how hard it is to be twenty-three. Then I remind myself (out loud usually because we all need to hear it), "It's hard being five, isn't it?"  I usually get a resounding, "YES!" but the subtext is, "ZOMG!  She understands!!!!"  And then we can move on and have conversation about why we can't hurdle the harp.  Or a compromise on folding the laundry.  Or a sympathetic hug when it is raining outside and we can't go to the pool.  Or something along those lines.  Listening to them is just as important as guiding them as young Christians.

Echoes from the past- I screamed

I recently came across some of my old blogposts from before I had a blog and decided to share them again because they make me laugh.  This one took place in 2009.

  For those of you who know me, I don't cringe at many things. I am one of those strange girls who actually like "creepy crawlys." In fact I actually enjoy being around insects, arachnids, lizards, amphibians, snakes, etc.- or at least I did, up until today.
Tonight I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark... during which Suze jumped and adjusted her feet, making sure there were no spiders around (from the opening scene). Then when Harrison Ford found the snakes (specifically asps and cobras), we analyzed why they were hissing so much and how they could survive at all if they were supposed to have been buried for a few thousand years.
After the movie we went downstairs for a late night snack and Susan thought she saw something fall and voiced that she thought it was a cockroach. It wasn't, just for the record. Later, as I was climbing the stairs, Steven mentioned that they had once found a scorpion in their living room. I thanked Steven for not telling me this while I was in the living room, or even at ground floor.
Let it be known, that by this point I was more than a little skittish. I am not normally a jumpy person... but for the record, I have only held one of the aforementioned creep-crawlies... that being the cockroach and it was about eight-inches long, very much alive, and in a zip-locked plastic bag. I found it creepy then too, however this was not my greatest scare of the night.
You can imagine my alarm, as I was telling Steven that the only scorpions I had ever seen had been in three inches of solid glass when I had the terror of finding something alive in my sink! And now for the moment you all have been waiting for; I screamed. For the record, I somewhat sheepishly admit, it was only a silver fish. I have a queezy stomachs when it comes to killing things so I had Suze kill it. Normally I am a softy and I really don't like to kill anything period, but this is my fair warning to all bugs and vermin if I find you, you will die.  Also, I'm getting a squirrel.

The Rock (and other Emo poetry) written a long time ago

The Rock

I am granite                                                             I am marble
Cold, gray, and rough                                             Solid and devoid of love and strife
You may chip away at the surface                          You may wait to see me change
But you can't break a heart you can't touch            But you'll be all your life


Touch me; I won't feel it
Soothe me and you won't heal it
I was broken; am I still
You could find a way in
but you never will

I am a diamond
Never scratched- lovely to see
But all you notice is the surface
You think when you see through me that you see me

I am sand
Worn away and dried
Washed upon the seashore
Of an ocean I have cried
I once built a wall around me
To protect myself; an outer shell
But now I'm all alone here- my home here where I dwell
Every word I hear
Is an echo of myself
There's no one to see you cry
When your company is only yourself
No one can hurt me
You can't hurt what you can't touch
I may live to regret my wall
Perhaps I do now; but not much

The End

No more tears
No more fears
No more looking at what I could’ve done
God knows best
And knows the rest
And I would do better to trust Him
I didn’t do something wrong
He might’ve done something right
And I’d do better not to focus on them in spite
This isn’t the end
That boy is not my friend
And it can’t be the end if all is not right

Speak 

It’s the things that you don’t say
That get stuck in my head
That riddle my mind
That haunt me in bed
It’s what you say with your eyes
That tear me away
That hurt me inside
It’s what you don’t say 

The Not Dead Cat

This is not a reference to my geekiness, Big Bang Theory, mutants, Pirates of the Caribbean, the zombie apocalypse, or Schroedinger's Cat.  Perhaps that first thought was a moot point.  Two years ago this July began the longest 40 days of my life.  I'd love to say that is was a time of personal growth and something that I embraced and enjoyed, but then I would be lying; then again if I were lying you would never know, so let's say that I learned a lot and am a better person because of these days.  Also, if the world were suddenly taken over by zombies I would die of loneliness and boredom by day one.  Anyways, everyone who was friends with me during the months of July and August of 2010 were aware that my cat was not dead (at least according to Facebook).  What they don't know is the why- allow me to set the record straight. 

In May of 2010 I graduated from college in Ave Maria, FL, traveled across the state to Fort Lauderdale, flew back to Orange County, and then drove home to Round Rock Texas, three days before my best friend's wedding.  Then I rested... for all of a week before my Texas family received the most terrifying email and the date was set for their farewell to travel to Ukraine to find the part of their family that was still missing.  I'm going to gloss over the month of June as the only part of it that I remember is re-watching Joss Whedon's Firefly (again) paired with copious amounts of coffee followed by rum and coke.  I drove them all down to Houston and then returned home.

And then they were gone.

The first night I paced the floor rather than attempt to sleep in a silent house while I replayed images of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre over and over again in my head.  The next morning (after a gallon of coffee) it hit me that I was alone in a state where I knew all of three people I wasn't related to by marriage (my best friend's sister-in-law, Katrina, my soon to be roommate, Bronwyn, and my neighbor Elaine).  Right before they left the country my godmother asked, "Are you going to be okay?"  And I blanked and said my one great fear of being alone in Texas- that I was going to accidentally kill the cat.  She laughed so hard over this that it became a sort of joke.  You know those weird ones where they are only funny when you are a) extremely tired, b) extremely stressed, or c) both.  Well we were c.  So when they left for Ukraine I thought I'd keep them abreast of the situation with the cat via Facebook, our only means of communication. 

The following, beginning July 3rd and going through August 10th of 2010 is my daily musings about my cat, Jim.  I might add some explanations in the bylines and hopefully you will find it as funny as I do. 

Day one: didn't kill the cat yet.  It was the first day.  I had spent most of the night up with the cat, pacing he floor as he yowled for company, yet he was still strangely skittish of my presence.

Day two: cat still alive. Had breakfast with Jim's Tim. Quite possibly the most embarrassing moment of the summer.  I was invited to join a group of the choir members for breakfast and the local seminarian was there.  Halfway through the meal when I finally managed to talk to the seminarian he told me his name and I that this MUST be Jim's former owner- because how many seminarians named Tim in the Austin Diocese could there be?  Answer: more than I could imagine but either way I was right.  Unfortunately I discovered this by screaming, "I have your cat, Jim!" at an appropriate lull in everyone's conversation.  First impressions- they never go away.

Day three: cat is doing well, if not annoyed at my late awakening caused by a dose of benadryl last night. No wonder I was so exhausted. In retrospect I realize that I was probably just crashing from sleep deprivation. 

Day four: I got even with the cat for waking me up AGAIN. Tee-hee-hee-hee. He's still alive btw. By this point Jim had discovered that he could climb up on my bed and paw my nose until I awoke to get my attention.  It worked surprisingly well excepting that I am ungraceful waker and usually threw him across the room in my sleep or rolled over.  He learned to move fast and I learned to close the door. 

Day five: for the first time in almost a week, Jim didn't wake me up. This might have something to do with the laundry basket incident yesterday or maybe the door. Either way it was a blessing because I think I'm sick today. Huzzah. I always get sick when I am stressed.  I was very stressed by this point.  The laundry basket incident refers to me doing laundry and Jim jumping in said laundry.  So I flipped the empty basket over on him and started folding the laundry on top of the basket.  He got out and wouldn't come near me for the rest of the day, but oh that night. 

 Day six: cats fine but I feel sick. Next time he wakes me up at six I'm going to do more than push him away.  Like yawn in his face.  Evidently he didn't like my morning breath. 

 Day seven: a whole week and the cat is not dead. Now if only he would stop having bad reactions to feeling ignored I might be able to live with him. And so the job search continues.  I was also looking for a job to last me through the summer- any job.  Jim was feeling abandoned because there weren't many people around.  As bad as I handle being alone he is undoubtedly worse. 

 Day eight: cat still alive. Life goes on. Anticipating better days. :) I think this sums it up. 

 Day nine: Jim didn't wake me up but still alive. I woke up at 5.30 on accident and didn't notice until I got to Church.  Yes, alarm clocks are good things.  They are even better when your cat doesn't reprogram your timezone. 

Day ten: cat makes mess... has new job... a real one this time.  I got the job, and the cat threw up to congratulate me.  This was also the day I learned to work the carpet cleaner. 

Day eleven: didn't wake up to cat... or alarm... or weather... or neighbor. Today might be good. Btw, cat's still alive.  Yes, once I tried to sleep in the world was against me.  I'm not sure what was happening this day. 

Day twelve: cat still alive. Uneventful... Gabbie is learning more trades. By this I mean that Gabbie was learning how to mow the lawn. 

Day thirteen: an entire day away from the cat. Feliz cuple anos Snow Princess Nieve Schnee.  I have no idea where I was. 

Day fourteen: cat is doing fine and I think this day is going to be good.  Ha! Famous last words!  At this point I was trying to think positive. 

Day fifteen: ah yes, Jim. Your favorite part of the day... when you wake me up and I feed you. Very nice, sugar, stinky, fish smelling cat.  He might've been growing on me.  After all, we were alone, together, all the time. 

Day sixteen: cat still alive... nothing else to report.

Day seventeen: cat alive... today will be better than the weekend, as in, I will get sleep and cleanup... again.

Day eighteen: I really love my brother... cat still alive... life is good. I finally got hold of someone in California and had someone to talk to.  I was lonely. 

Day nineteen: in which we realize it was all so worth it. Oh, and the cat is still alive. I think this was the day that the adoption paperwork started going through, but I could be wrong. 

Day twenty: Cat still alive... everything else is irrelevant today.  Code for- it was a REALLY BAD DAY and I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!!

Day twenty-one: ze cat iz steel alyve et Gabbie iz stoopid.  This was the time for silliness.

Day twenty-two: my cat is still alive... but I ran over a baby gecko this morning. I didn't even know we HAD baby geckos.  I had forgotten this and was extremely excited this week when I found a gecko again.  Apparently it took them two years to dare to come back. 

Day twenty-three: providing dates to the dateless may be an act of mercy and rewarding in its own way... but it is exhausting when the children who fall asleep are almost as tall as me. Cat still alive. Nothing else to report. I don't remember who's kids these were but I remember thinking of it as an act of mercy. 

Day twenty-four: I love this life I live... even when it's exciting... like today. Cat still alive.  My friend Lisa posted and asked the question, "After more than three weeks, I am still confused. Do we WANT the cat to live?" I wish I had an answer to this one. 

Day twenty-five: more than half way there... I hope... cat still alive... didn't forget the trash today... and I'm gonna get out of the house tomorrow. Life is good.  Please note: I say "more than half way there" but really I was thinking, "I hope we are more than half way there."  I spent lots and lots of time alone at home... except for work which was a drudgery. 

Day twenty-six: counting down the days that seem to all end in a maze... come home soon and brighten this gloom... it's been a long time (and you're never allowed to leave again) and it has not been sublime... and perhaps I'll lend back your well spoiled cat.... who is still alive. A poet I am not. 

Day twenty-seven: where do the days go? The cat might know... he's still alive btw, he just doesn't care to behave. Nothing serious, just a pain.  This is still true.

Day twenty-eight: I just want to go back to sleep... but the cat is still alive. I hate being at work at 6am to sit at a computer. My not quite boyfriend pointed out the next day that "You realize that by this point in time... you've missed day 31 as well as day 29." And I cried.  I had been so busy with real life that I had forgotten to update.  It was a blessing. 

Day thirty: AGH I MISSED A DAY!!!! WHERE DID IT GO!!!! Anyways, life goes on. Cat still alive. He woke me up this morning by batting my nose. I batted him back and now he's irked with me.  I feign shock and anger. 

Day thirty two: Why do I keep missing days? Maybe because I am too busy trying to catch my cat who decided to take a walk outside yesterday. Oh, he's still alive...but I think I'm ready to kill him. *menacing evil glare* The first time I had ever seen Jim willingly go outside.  He sat on the porch and looked out at the world, terrified by all the outsidedness.  And then he ran back in. 

Day thirty-three: well technically its not, but I plan on sleeping tomorrow, dealing with bees, mowing the lawn, and doing laundry. That being said I'm sure I'll forget to update this status for those that it is intended for. I hope your travels are going well, or at least better than when I last heard. I miss you very much and I cannot wait for you to come home. Jim's still alive but he's lonely and I think I am too. At this point I gave up thinking that anyone else was reading my statuses.  Really I should have just posted this on my blog. 

Day thirty-four: to quote a few country songs- "Up! up! Up! up! Up! Can Only go UP from here!" "And I thought I was tough." "Come home soon?" "People in Texas are crAAAAAAAAzy!!!!" Well, that last one's not a song, but it should be. Cat's still alive btw.  I still need to write that song about the craziness of Texans.  It would still be accurate... but now I've been assimilated so perhaps I should title it, "We're all crazy here." 

Day thirty-five: ow. Cat still alive. We have softpaws. Bronwyn helped me put them on him.  It hurt.  A lot.  Softpaws are like rubber caps for cat claws so that they can't claw anything.  The problem being that cat's generally hate softpaws. 

Day thirty-six: fb has lost all pictures. I think I made a new friend... and the cat is still alive. TWO MORE DAYS!!!!! Ha, yeah.  This would have been my friend Brittany, who is still a friend and is still in college but when she's in Austin we hang out. 

Day thirty-seven: La-la-la-LA!!!! I'm not mad! I'm not mad! I wear funny hats and have nonsensical tea parties, BUT I'M NOT MAD!!!!!! (cats still alive btw) I was a little crazy. 

Day thirty-eight: :) cat's still alive- I feel dead... and it ain't over till I say its over. This was August 10th, the day that my family was flying back from Europe.  I was running around like a crazy person, helping Bronwyn move out, cleaning the house, and tracking down all the car seats and booster seats I would need for the children, all of which I still managed to screw up.

This would have been day forty but I was lazy.  

I suppose now would be the time to restart the countdown with life as we know it being altered... but technically that started Monday night... so it wouldn't be accurate. Welcome to Texas my three newest cousins.

Like riding a bike

I love to dance.  I remember that long before I could read my Father and I would dance across the house to Madonna and Michael Jackson.  Sometimes I think that my first steps were to a dance and walking was just a necessary requirement for me to accomplish a more important goal.  Dancing with my Father is one of my favorite childhood memories.  My brothers and I used to chase each other around the house to Bobby Goldsboro, The Beach Boys, and the Beatles.  Yes, my childhood was a culmination of the classics, and I was almost out of elementary school when I realized that "Classical" didn't mean Barbara Streisand or the Monkees.  

When I was in second grade my Mother put me in a ballet and tap class.  I wasn't terribly talented at ballet; it was too slow for my taste and I was constantly fighting to put beats in the music that were just not there.  Tap shoes were my friend and when I had them on I felt like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly... not that I knew who they were back then.  Then my brothers started taking tap class with me, for occupational purposes, and, well, things changed.  Suddenly my dance class wasn't about dancing but more about avoiding the gargantuan steps of the Giant and Jip.  I don't know if they ever forgave my Mother for dressing them in sequins and after I danced with them it is a wonder that I have any toes left at all.  After a few years Mother gave up on us ever being real dancers and we were granted a temporary reprieve.  I think we were all excited to leave behind the world of sequins, tap shoes, and rouge. 

And that might have been the end of my dancing career except for one fateful day when I was working in the kitchen when I was about twelve.  I had the radio running and I was dancing as I had when I was a baby, but what had look adorable and innocent on a chubby toddler with dark curls looked very different on a girl becoming a woman.  What my parents had both missed was that the majority of my dancing was not the Grace Kelly of my tap classes but rather, resembled a pint size Jennifer Lopez.  And then suddenly my parents began to worry. 

Any good parent who has a daughter and abruptly realizes after they have become a teenager that perhaps the rest of the world does not see as a child can relate to their shock. They worried if other people had seen me dance that way- and if they had what would they think.  Would people judge me on the way I danced?

In my slight defense I don't know why it surprised them really.  After all, wasn't this how I had been taught since infancy?  Sure Bobby Goldsboro and Dan Fogelberg had been replaced over time with Christina Aguilera and Ricky Martin, or the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls (Daddy's choice, not mine) but is that really a reason to place blame?  After all, half my genetic material comes from a country where people can dance.  So they put us all in dance class- and this time we weren't classified as geeks to do so.

I remember on the very first day of our Cotillion, walking in with my brothers, who wore freshly ironed suits and shined shoes while I galumphed along in an itchy dress, sticky panty-hoes, and loud shoes.  To look at our expressions you might have imagined that we were being led to prison or physical labor.  Sarcasm dripped from every word as no one could pronounce our last name or remember any of our first names, or even tell us apart.  You'll remember that although there are three biological brothers there is a seven year age difference between my sister and I, and I was thirteen so... one might expect that we looked different.  

And then we started dancing.  I don't know if I was graceful.  I don't know if I looked nice.  All I knew with any level of certainty was that I could combine all my different dance classes into something they called Swing.  I didn't know then that this would become one of the greatest parts of my life.  

Swing dancing opened the door to Ballroom dancing and I've learned so many different kinds since then that I've lost count.  I've met some of my best friends through swing dancing and it always gives me something to talk about.  One of the greatest joys of my life is sharing dancing with others, and when I show the marks on my feet and legs (battle scars) left from swing dancing I have no regrets.  After all, if you injure yourself doing something you love, it's worth it- and then you have something to think about and look forward to while it is healing.  I guess what I'm trying to say is dancing is like riding a bike- you may stop practicing for a while, but is is something that never really leaves you, and if nothing else holds true, I will always be grateful for that first dance. 

The ring

Around my neck on a chain

I wear a ring with silver writing.

Its inscription is simple but it was made for me:

"True Love Waits" is a sign for all to see.

 My Father gave it to me when I was quite young,

To remind that there are all kinds of love.

When I see the chain and I see the ring

I am reminded of my family. 

On my left hand there is a blue stone

To remind me that I'm not alone.

A Mother's love gave it to me

To remind me of her and of Queen Mary

Eight points on a crown for heaven and earth

To remind me that she's with me since my birth

When I look upon the blue stone on my hand

I think of my family when I feel it's silver band

In my ear is diamond and a pearly bead

An ever constant whisper of an echo that I need

From a loved one that is gone and that I wish to follow

To a land that is grander and is greatly hallowed

The earring belonged to her when she was still young

And she gave her to her granddaughter, the child of her son

When I see the earring once so close and so dear

I'm reminded those that love me and pretend that they are here