List-y

• Everyone does lists on Fridays, so why can't I?
• I am supremely cold. I am wearing my boss's sweater and half considering going an grabbing a blanket out of our annual Silent Auction pile. Ok. Not really.
• It's like 80 outside. It is practically immoral for me to be this cold.
• My husband and I went to lunch at a yummy Mexican place. While we were driving, I noticed a long curly blond hair on his jeans. My hair is straight and brown. I gave him the fifth degree about it (mostly jokingly) until I realized that I was wearing my boss's sweater. My blond, curly headed boss. Who apparently sheds a lot.
• I am considering the pros and cons of putting banana trees in my yard. How 'invasive' is 'invasive'? Where would I put them? How tall will they get? Will they really attract tarantulas like my husband is threatening? Is it too late for planting this year? Maybe I will just pot one and see what happens.
• I want to participate in NaBloPoMo, but last time I tried, I made an ass of myself. And really? Do I NEED more commitments? I think not.
• Honey is at Jelly Bean's Halloween party being the peanut police. I am very glad of this. I was nervous about it. The last time he had an exposure that landed us in the hospital was at the Easter party.
• My mother and I are going skating with Brother this afternoon. Lordy, I hope I get some energy soon.
• Tomorrow is trick or treating! Everyone be safe!

Brothers

I have been feeling lately how needy children are. I am not begrudging them their need. They are children. They require things to live and grow and become. It is the job of the parent to provide these things. Now, I am not talking about a new video game system or another Elmo toy. I am talking the big things. Patience. Confidence. Attention. Feeling valuable and important. And I love being a parent. I do.

But I am feeling really inadequate to provide these big things lately.

I have never been good at having two friends over to play at once. I would always focus on one and leave the other out in the cold, which would lead to the inevitable fight and someone going home in tears. These children of mine? It seems sometimes nary impossible to focus on them both at the same time. There is animosity. There is a significant age difference. There is the desire to be the center of attention, please.

Maybe it is because there are only two of them and therefore so easy for them to dichotomize themselves? I don't know. And I can't really understand how to help because I was an only child and am not good at sharing, even as a grown-up.

Jelly Bean loves Brother and would follow him to the ends of the Earth. But he also is rambunctious and wild. In his glee, sometimes the bigger people get hurt feelings and hurt bodies. There is no satisfactory retaliation, because Jelly is so young, not that we are really the 'just push him back' kind of people. He is just 3 and I don't know how to contain him better than he is contained, short of a straight jacket. And I don't know how to teach patience to Brother when he has had it up to here with Jelly. And I don't do such a good job sometimes of not losing it myself. It never occurred to me that there would be times when I would have to choose whose needs were more important.

The whole thing just makes me sad.

TAP

So, you know that parental gathering that is usually related to educational activities that require daily attendance? You know what I am talking about. The one that is the anagram of TAP. And that is what we shall be calling it so that no one finds out that I am bitching and...revokes my cupcake baking rights, or something of that ilk. (Because I do like to bake the cupcakes. My family, however, cannot ever imagine that I should make food for someone that is not them, and therefore circles like hungry...no STARVING piranhas. And that annoys me.)

Anyway, I would like to assert that being in TAP does not automatically make you a good parent. In point of fact, I think it might make you a shitty parent. Case in point: you might have a major event coming up for TAP and have agreed, as an elected official type TAP person, to bake 4 dozen cupcakes, make signs, drum up membership, sell pizza, write grants, and a hundred other things that don't really actually improve the life of a child one little bit in any way you can see. Or your specific child at all. In fact, the added stress of being an elected official type TAP person might make it so there is much yelling at your own offspring for silly things like *touching* one of the 4 dozen cupcakes or being on Nick Jr. when OMG YOU HAVE TO DESIGN CUTE SIGNS ABOUT CUPCAKES! And there is the added conundrum of trying to get other people to buy into TAP and dedicate time to TAP when really, you kind of loathe it. Selling a product you would rather not use? Not easy.

Additionally, it takes a toll on your marriage as well as you will expect your partner to be inside your head, do everything fully and completely and *possibly* even better than you do it. And you will inevitably get mad, because lo and behold: You did not marry a mind-reader. Or even someone who is good with details.

And you will want to quit TAP less than 3 weeks in but won't. Choosing to sacrifice your family's sanity and stress levels so that you won't be seen as a 'quitter'. And you may kind of hate yourself for being so prideful that you would put the people who are most important to you in the world, on the back burner. You will pray for May to come as soon as possible. Because of TAP.