Is This What They Call a Midlife Crisis

There is a girl that lives inside my head who I really admire. She's compassionate, talented, gracious, witty, confident and capable. She looks a lot like me, but she towers over me in strength of character. She's one of those people you'd like to hate, but who is so charming you can't help but love her. I spend a lot of my time and energy trying to mold myself into some reasonable representation of her.

Perhaps that is why I love making New Year's resolutions. I feel inspired and excited about the changes I plan to make in my life. I like to pretend that this year will be the year when I get a little closer to the mirage of my perfect self.

As I pondered what items to add to my to-do list this year, a strange thing happened. Instead of bringing the of the happy buzz of encouragement I expected, the thought of adding one more unrealized expectation to my seemingly unending catalogue of failures weighed heavily on me. And more keenly, I felt the investment of time was one that I could not afford as I am already operating on a severe deficit.

This time shortage is really an enigma to me. I don't feel like I do anything terribly important or productive during a typical day. I don't have a high-powered job. I'm not really what one would call a Super-Mom (you know, the type that has fun, enriching activities for their children all day long while somehow managing to keep a perfectly neat home, make a 3 course dinner, volunteer at the local homeless shelter, and read the NY Times from cover to cover each day). Mostly, I (hardly) manage to maintain a steady baseline of quasi-productivity.

I decided to spell out all the amorphous expectations I have for myself. I won't bore you with the banality of the items on the list, but to give you an idea, after reviewing the list my husband asked me if I had inadvertently omitted restroom trips. Were these mundane tasks really causing so much stress in my life? Could so much boredom really cause my stomach to churn by its incompletion?

I considered the list. Not much could be excised with out great sacrifice on the part of family members (grocery shopping really is essential, they all assure me), and some of the listed items are deceivingly time-consuming (i.e. physically caring for the children: one must also consider this includes providing an impromptu bathing when yogurt mysteriously splatters across the dining room). But most alarmingly, the few things on the list that I actually like doing were at the bottom of the priority list and often are the first casualties when time gets tight.

I finally came up with a few ideas that hint at making things better...you know: enhance efficiency on the most boring and routine tasks so as to free up more time for the more enjoyable options, wasting less time procrastinating undesirable activities (read: not signing into facebook or searching craiglist just "one more time" in case someone listed the serger of my dreams during the past 10 minutes), etc. But really, those strategies just seem like a diversion from the real problem: my life is dull. So dull I couldn't even bring myself to write Christmas cards this year.

It's true. I've become a typical boring thirty-something looking for a little pizzazz in life. (And not the type of pizzazz that comes from your two-year-old pooping on the kitchen floor. Side note: Jimmy-John wanted me to blog that story and entitle it: "Goose didn't lay THIS golden egg!" I laughed so hard, I almost regressed on my own potty-training.) I need something to get my heart racing. I need an interesting response to the question "So, what have you been up to lately?"

So, this leads me to my big question: Does any have a motorcycle for sale?

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Of late, I've been telling scripture stories to the children as I lay them down to bed. Because Goose has been having nightmares recently and scripture stories almost always have a violent element to them, I try to edit the stories to make them a little more G-rated. Occasionally, I make mistakes and include something I probably shouldn't have. Goose always locks in on it. A couple of nights ago I mentioned earthquakes in the Americas accompanying the death of Christ.

She immediately interrupted me with a barrage of questions. What is a earthquake? Where do they happen? Why do they happen? What does a fault line look like? Why do the plates rub against each other?

Goose has a hyper-analytical mind. She fires question after question at me all day, everyday. I try to be exact and matter-of-fact in my answers, trying to avoid the "because that's the way it is" answer but eventually she wears me down and I can't come up with any more explanations. I've thought about adopting the approach instituted by Calvin's dad from the famous comic strip: making up ridiculous answers in an attempt to avoid further interrogation, but 1) I can't bear to lie to my kids (I even have trouble with the Santa Claus deal) and 2) it wouldn't work with her anyway. She would still press until I answered with "because" or "I don't know". Sometimes I think this is her entire objective: to she how long it takes to wear me down.

But, I digress. Relatively speaking, the questions regarding earthquakes ended fairly early that night. But, I learned the next night they had made a significant impression. We were talking about something else completely and she started asking me about some strange subject: "sorry lines".

After a series of my own questions I realized "sorry lines" were "fault lines". (A cute insight into a 4-yr old's word association, in my opinion.) Goose wanted to know all about earthquakes. More specifically, she wanted to know all about the danger and destruction of earthquakes.

Uh-oh, my gut said. We've just barely gotten to the point where she can be alone in a dark room. What have I done? I assured her that we lived in an area where earthquakes really didn't happen and that she shouldn't worry about it, etc. She wasn't interested in my reassurances. She still wanted to know all about the dangers. I told her in the morning I'd show her some movies of earthquakes on the computer.

Still anxious about inciting a new irrational fear in my daughter, I set about screening youtube videos. I chose the most mild, non-threatening, earthquake videos I could find. A bridge (without cars or people) shaking visibly. Water in a pool rocking from side to side. And of course the dry films from 8th grade earth science with the maps of tectonic plates and fault lines. We wanted to stay as far away as possible from Lois Lane out of gas with a cracking San Andreas faultline in the rearview mirror.

Goose was unimpressed with my selection. "But, where are the things falling on people? I want to see the dangerous ones." Sigh...

I brought out a few of the more violent ones; the kind of videos one would expect to find on youtube. The messy, dramatic ones. I watched Goose carefully while we watched people hysterically run from falling objects. No fear crossed her brow, in fact, they were exactly what she wanted and she has since shown no signs of burgeoning anxiety - just more cold, analytical questions.

Still unsure about her emotional state, I asked her why she was asking me so many questions about earthquakes. She looked at me like I was the dumbest person in existence and said "Because I want to learn about earthquakes." My incredulity continued, but I humored her and tried patiently answer questions all day. We watched more videos, we talked, and we looked at maps.

Tonight as we were snuggling in for bed, we affectionately rubbed our noses together, a sign of love we've shared since her infancy. This time, however, it's meaning changed. "HEY MOM! " Goose exclaimed. "Our noses are like an earthquake!" Wow. She got it all. I laughed. We rubbed our noses again, and this time followed the gesture by shaking violently under her covers. We laughed until tears filled our eyes: she with the satisfaction of new-found knowledge and I with the rediscovery of wonder.