So, call me a bad mom

My 6 year old just got up...she catches the school bus at the end of our driveway, and heads off for a full day of kindergarten every school day. The bus will get here in about 35-40 minutes, and she sits on the sofa still in her PJs, cuddled up with a handmade quilt, drinking 'favorite juice' (cranberry-orange) and breakfasting upon a chewy granola bar.

The television is on, and as her eyes get less bleary, and she wakes up the rest of the way, I stop and reflect upon the fact that the uber mommies out there would probably become apoplectic if they saw our morning scene on any given school day. "Muffia" moms, as WTM (one of my favorite bloggers, btw) would call them, and in my quiet hamlet, these moms all seem to have the same bottle-blonde streaked hairstyle--long layers, not quite touching the collar, with lots of product giving the roots the appointed lift: not too much (the 80's are over, you know...) but enough, to be sure. I call them the 'Finished' moms--as in, everything is 'finished', perfect, and life as these women knew PK (pre-kids) is over--finished...life is now restricted to being someone's mom. Nothing more, but certainly never, ever anything less! Unless by less, you mean, emaciated, because 'round these parts, said Finished Moms are also woefully skinny. Scary-skinny, turn sideways and become invisible-skinny.

Now, I am hardly a Finished Mom. My physique certainly supports that statement--though I'm just a normal regular size. For that matter, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but if it involves writing, I'll be good. Yes, I'm a mom. No, my life is not over. And while my parenting methods may not be traditional according to the Finished community, my kids are happy. And honestly, that's all one wants to see in the long run, isn't it? Not just happy, though. They are healthy, and active, pleasant to be around, good to their friends, and incidentally, doing very well in school. What we don't have here in the Bee household is a lot of school morning yelling, frustration, arguing, rushing around and the like.

My father visited in the fall, by himself, and made it a point of letting me know how surprised and impressed he was at the laid back nature of our morning routine. The 6 year old gets off to school with minimal drama...and the 4 year old, on most mornings, is happy to get dressed, brush teeth, and get ready for his school days--three quiet, blissful, delightfully solo days a week.

As I sit here tap-tapping on my laptop, the 6 year old is off to get dressed, brush her teeth and then wait by the front door, watching for the giant yellow school bus to come rambling down our road. I should sign off for now, and drag the brush across the child's head, so she's presentable for the day. So, she watches a half-hour of PBS Kids in the morning, while having a breakfast of granola bar and juice, and sort of zoning out. So, I don't drive her to school as many of the Finished moms do. I'm actually waiting for her to get gone already, so I can scurry down cellar to run a load of laundry (that's Mara-Speak for grab a cuppa and a smoke--another thing that excludes me from the Finished community). But, to that I say, Tough Shit. We're all happy here in Bee-ville.

Blogging Dry Spell

Last year, I sort of took a hiatus from blogging during November and December, focusing instead on my ebay business. This year, well, no excuse like that to be had. Just a sort of hermit response to the winter season, it seems.

In any event, the blog is not dead...just taking the scenic route to developing a well traveled blog, or at least as well-traveled as my previous endeavor was. I've got to join some blogrolls and such...but that will happen after the holidays. We're planning a New Years Day party...so sometime after that, I'm sure! If you find yourself in the wilds of New Hampshire on New Years, stop on by...