Eggs and Niki Just Don't Mix

I have noticed a trend of late. I cannot buy, carry, hold, take out of the fridge, take out of the carton, move 2 inches...I cannot ANYTHING....eggs...without them breaking.

I don't know what it is. Is it some inner egg hating-ness? Is my psyche lashing out in jealousy after several anovulatory cycles in a row? Worse yet, is my very presence weakening whatever life-force remained in the eggs after the laying, gathering, cartoning, crating, refridgerating, boxing, trucking, shelving, carting, conveyoring scenario?

Either way, I've broken a hideous number of eggs lately. In the store? Yes. In the shopping cart? Yes. Transferring them from the cart to the car? Yes. Transferring them from the car to the house? Yes. Placing them atop the counter while gathering ingredients for pancakes? Yes. As I grab them to pick them up and put them in the water to boil? Yes.

I have come to the conclusion that one of two things must be done. I must either tell my psyche to stop expressing itself by ruining my favorite snack food, or I must start buying thicker-shelled eggs.

Self Images

So the lovely ~L~ pointed out to me that I've got quite the self-depricating tone going on in my blog. So I read through it, and fuckit, it's true! I do sound like I hate myself or something!

So I am going to take this opportunity to say...

I LOVE ME!

In the last couple of years all the real insecurities in my life have fallen back. It is not that, at 26, I am out of my youth and have found the stability of age. It is that the last chunk of true insecurity fell away when I managed to find friends here in Washington that were not, in any way, forced to be with me, near me, or in the same general region as me. As I've slowly grown into myself, my shyness is dissappearing. I went to the interview for SMS and I wasn't even really nervous. I have met with doula clients and not felt anxious. It is like a big hurdle has fallen away as I've been more able to see people as people and not worry so damn much about what they think of me. Because honestly, if they're looking at me and trying to pick apart my imperfections, I don't really want to know them anyway. And if it is in a doula/client relationship, I don't want them to think I'm perfect, either. A human being is so much easier to deal with when she's a human being. I'm no goddess, you know, and it benefits the both of us if you know that one right off the bat. It also behooves you to know that my self-worth is no longer wrapped up in what people think of me. Strangely enough it took having new friends in a new place for me to get to that point. Just knowing that SOMEONE likes me of their own volition is enough for me; if everyone else in the world thinks I'm a damn fool, it's their loss.

So back to the blog and all; it isn't that I hate myself. It is that it is so much more entertaining to talk about the wood-drying-rack fiasco than about the time the drill, the rulers, and the screws all lined up correctly and made neat little hanging shelves on my bedroom wall.

The kids are awesome too. Love them to bits. It is just so much more interesting to talk about the time bebegirliness broke two dozen eggs on the floor of Safeway than about the time she spent two hours communing with the dandelions and bringing them to me to 'smell'.

So I suppose that the point of this post is to counterpoint all the ranting and venting that is all over most of the other posts. Enjoy the ranting and venting and depricating and all that, knowing that I love me, I love my husband, and I love my kids :). Enjoy it without guilt or sorry-for-the-kids-that-are-stuck-with-me feelings. Go, enjoy nonguiltily the ongoing fiasco that is my life.

Nature Kids

So my kids are darker than me. It is official. Even little miss are-you-sure-I'm-part-Hawaiian...is darker than me. The first photo has nothing to do with her darker-than-me-ness. It is more about the fact that she is the cutest thing on the face of the frigging earth. And I will never, ever cease being friends with ~L~ because she does stuff like leave 2 pounds of cherries in my refridgerator when she comes to visit, which results in much baby-sized happiness and cute photos of the baby-sized cherry-adorned happiness. This first photo also serves the purpose of providing photographic proof that bebegirliness is, in fact, my husband's child (I mean come now, look at the skin and the LIPS, those are HIS not mine).

But whatever the dark-or-not repercussions of it happen to be, we are enjoying a TON of barefoot outdoor time. Ah, I have such a soft spot for dirt-covered, barefoot, smiling, climbing, oversunned, fun-having kids. And OH the fun they are having now that it is finally hot enough here in Washington for some water play. And yes, that is my 4yo son wearing nothing but spidey boxers and rainboots. Oh, the lovely blackmail-the-teenager photos (that this blog will never contain) I got out of the rest of that series. Not that I had any shortage of blackmail-the-teenager photos, I mean, come now, he dressed like that all on his lonesome.

By the way, the really GREAT thing about using the full-sized tarp for a slip-n-slide is that you aren't constrained to one direction or one-at-a-time play. What fun they had when they finally figured out the damn thing (I was starting to wonder if I'd birthed two completely common-sense-impaired children, they kept running ON the tarp instead of SLIDING on it and wondering when the fun was going to start).