Dream On Day

It’s my dream day. I told you I’d update you on my dreams every Friday. I’ll let you know how my wrestle with the dreaded clutter monster went, but, before I regale you with that horrific battle, I thought I’d fill you in on yet another dream. It’s one of my favorites, and I’ve been living the reality of this dream in Technicolor and High Definition Sound for the past 16 years, 10 months, and a few odd days. It’s the dream of being a mom. Thursday, I celebrated my 9-year old daughter Lea’s birthday, and last night we invited some of her friends over for a little party.

Lea is my adventurer. Being the first girl after three boys, I went overboard with the girl stuff. It started the day we found out she was a girl. I was pregnant with her, of course, and decided that after three surprises, all boys, we wanted for the first time to find out the gender of our baby through ultrasound. So we took all three boys (8, 5, and 2) to the Dr. Appointment with us. Don’t ask me what we were thinking, because obviously we weren’t. They were not the least bit interested in seeing moving black, white and gray meaningless images and a super small screen. Now if you could view ultrasounds in none-fuzzy color on a large screen with sub-woofers with the main character dressed in a military uniform, you might be able to hold their attention a bit longer. Anyway they acted like typical-for-our-family little boys and jumped on furniture, talked extremely loudly, and teased and tackled each other constantly. The ultra-sound tech (obviously a little stressed) asked to have them wait in the lobby with dad until the end of the ultra-sound. Out in the lobby they continued their extremely active and noisy behavior, much to my embarrassment. After taking another look at my boys, he looked at me and said, ‘Well, it’s your lucky day… you’re going to have a girl.’ Being fully hormonal I of course, started bawling with joy. I had to buy my first little girl dress on the way home that very day. And wouldn’t you know it; Mickey and Minnie were on it, being the Disney freak that I am.

Miss Lea, however, has turned out to be more of a tomboy than the girly girl I was expecting. Hence the Jedi before Princess Fascination she had at Disneyland. Maybe she got the tomboy gene me, or maybe it was because she followed in the footsteps of three brothers. Whatever the reason, she‘s a tough little cookie. When she was little, there was a constant fear that she would take off and go on one of her own little wandering adventures. Starting at age 15 months, if the door was open, or unlocked, she would be outside, up or down the hill and off into the great unknown. There didn’t seem to be a need, in her mind, for her to stay close to home, too many curious places to discover. This however, led to a very anxious and paranoid mommy me. So we had to keep an extremely close hawk eye on her, install a couple of extra-high locks on the door, activate a very annoying security beep whenever entrances were opened, and get a family dog (Bridget) who could keep her company and alert us if she decided to take off. My paranoia got so bad I had her on one of those kid leashes while on our boat. She was constantly leaning over the edge in order to see if there was anything in the water. And if she couldn’t see anything, she would toss whatever was closest to her in so see if it would float. Good-bye, scuba goggles, watch, tee-shirt, glasses, etc.

Fortunately, she grew out of the run-way, run far away, really fast and chuck things stage and has decided that home isn’t such a boring place to be. Today, Lea is the greatest older sister and little mommy’s helper there is. She takes care of her little sisters with the experience of a girl much older. Someday she will make an awesome babysitter. Yesterday when I was getting ready for her party, she would constantly ask me what she could do to help, and then follow through and ask again. The persistence she had as a toddler has turned into a positive persistence for doing good. Lea has also has inherited my love for arts and crafts, and unlike her three older brothers, she loves to do school work. And let me tell you, that is an amazingly great thing and rare thing in our family. I don’t have to bug her to get anything done. So happy 9th birthday Lea, I love you and admire what a great job your doing as big sister, daughter, and friend. You are a true Princess and make my dream of being a Mom truly joyous.

Now back to my other dreams. I know, I know another too long blog, so just a quickie here. I’m doing o.k. on my ‘finding a place for everything dream.’

I'd show you pictures but my blog editor seems to be under attack at the moment.

So you'll have to take my word (yes, it's still good) for it, but I am making progress on my back room. I’m doing it, and I’ve been working at this whole de-clutter / find a place for everything, all week long. I’ve come to the conclusion, that like the layers of Shrek’s onion, this dream is definitely going to take a lot longer than I thought it would. But I’m here for the long haul, and dang-it I really want this dream. So even though I didn’t finish the room in a week, I was able to tackle and finish some other projects like my dining room and the front porch. They were not on my list of to-do things, but I had to bump them up on account of my daughter’s birthday. You know the CHAOS factor – Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Well the Chaos is almost conquered in the front of my house. Yeah.

I promise a much shorter blog next time, and pictures.