348th Friday Blog Roundup

Thank you for the free therapy this week.  I would love to see a therapist (I was about to say “real therapist,” but what is a therapist other than a human being who listens to your thoughts and helps you make sense of them.  And isn’t that EXACTLY what you do too, minus the training?) but since time and money are factors keeping me from that, I am quite grateful for the free therapy.  It is helpful to hear your words in a different way or to hear about another person’s similar experience.

Please know that I will be foisting more free therapy on you in the future.  You’re that good.  I’m still mulling over everything you said.

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 My friend, C, and I loaded up the kids in the car this week and shuttled them all to the beach for a holiday.  It was one of those things that sounded great in theory, then we both grew dubious as the day approached, then we actually got there and theory prevailed.  Yes, the car was packed within an inch of its life.  Yes, we got bitten up by mosquitoes.  But damn it, beach trip 2011 was so much fun that we made reservations to do it all over again in August before we left the hotel.

I knew I would have a good time with C and that being together would make all aspects of the trip easier.  I think what was amazing was how the kids rallied, especially one day when it rained on-and-off and we had to keep shifting our plans minute to minute.  At home, all three kids would have fallen apart.  At the beach, it was an adventure.  They created a circus in the hotel room.  They didn’t even blink an eye when we scooped them out of the pool, threw them soaking wet in the car, and drove out to the beach to give it another try.  They didn’t even comment when it started raining and we announced that we were indeed staying on the beach.

A long time ago, I took my eighth graders to Ireland for a little over a week.  While in Dublin, we lost track of our tour guide.  I had just been to Dublin the year before and knew it fairly well, so I left the group at a restaurant with the other teacher, jogged across town to a visitor’s center, booked time at two different churches for the afternoon, and led my own architectural tour.  At first we told the kids that this was totally planned; we meant to take a little break from Mike the non-helpful tour guide.  But on our way to the first church, the kids were acting up on the sidewalk so I took them into a courtyard and leveled with them.

“You guys, we’ve lost the tour guide.  I’m not worried because we all have to end up at the hotel tonight, and I have planned the most rockin’ afternoon for us.  But I need you to pull it together and act for the rest of the day exactly as one would act if they knew the adults in their group were in over their heads.  In other words, help us out.”

Without another word, the students organized themselves into two single file lines.  For the next six hours or so until we got back to the hotel, they were perfectly behaved and perfectly quiet.  They took pages of notes while I spoke.

That was exactly what our kids did, but they did it without the speech.  Without the missing tour guide.  They just somehow sensed that the adults were in over their heads and they pulled their shit together for the entire trip (with the exception of a few moments here and there.  They are, after all, kindergarteners).

I didn’t think it was possible, but it made me love them all even more.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “We Share the Same Ominverse, Please Clean Your Room” (The Guild of Knitting Kninjas)
• “I Don’t Have a Title for This…” (The Bloggess)
• “Worth It” (Two Kayaks)
• “Bite Me” (Baby, Interrupted)
• “Enjoy the Ride” (Dear Stevie)
• “Sadness is My Boychick (or Girlchick)” (Raising My Boychick)
• “Understanding and Supporting Pregnancy Loss” (The R House)
• “Dos and Do Nots” (The R House)
• “The Grieving Process” (The R House)
• “The Other Side” (Bio Girl)
• There was another post, though the blog was password protected, so I couldn’t link to it.

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also thought Baby, Interrupted’s post “Bite Me” was amazing.  The post meanders a bit, and you read it wondering how everything ties together, and the ending packs a huge punch.  I was especially moved by her comparison to helping someone give birth and helping someone die.

Waiting in Sunshine has a post about what a gallon of milk means to her.  How it became a symbol through her infertility journey.  And how life has changed — from being able to go food shopping without feeling that pang of sadness in the dairy section to the joy she feels at purchasing her own gallon of milk.

Les Terres Fertiles has a post about starting a new cycle.  She admits: “I know what at least part of the problem is.  I’m one of those people who builds things up in my mind and heart so much.  I expect so much and I hang all my hopes on something doing what I want it to do when I want it to be done.  I know this just sets me up for let-down.”  And yet, how can you talk your heart out of feeling something?

Lastly, Slowmamma has a post about seeing into two worlds.  While she can give advice to others about having a second child, she can’t apply the same advice to herself.  She knows too damn much and the same rules don’t apply.  It’s about finding beauty and happiness in your own reality as well as finding beauty and happiness in another person’s reality.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thank you for the therapy.  Great beach trip.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 1st and July 8th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.