I knew I always wanted boys. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not a girlie girl.
As much as I'd like to have trendy Top Shop items hanging in my closet and feel like everything is right in the world because I own multiple pairs of designer jeans and sexy knee-high leather boots, I don't make fashion or make-up or pretty girl things a priority. I wish I did more so, but I don't.
I don't have the patience to spend an hour doing my hair. I'd rather take that time I'd spend on myself and spend it with my kids doing something outdoors. I'd rather read them a stack of library books then take the time to blow out my hair and put on foundation and eyeliner.
I'm not saying this is good thing. I know I should get my haircut and highlighted more regularly. I know I should probably look in to getting my teeth whitened and my sun spots lightened. I know I'd look better with bigger boobs, tanner legs, and a sassier hair style. And if the Zappos fairy did come and stock my closet with 12 new pairs of luscious leather shoes and boots, I wouldn't turn around and donate them to Goodwill. I love nice things but I don't want to go out looking for them and I don't want to have to pay for them and hence this is why I own next to nothing.
And so back to having boys. My guess is that as Dax and Skylar grow older they'll want to dress in hip, stylish clothes and do their hair the way other boys do their hair but they won't want to hit the mall every weekend to shop. Their vanity will stay in check, I hope. They won't invest all their time in their looks. They'll be too busy with sports and homework and exploring to think about it much.
But it seems more than ever, girls seem to be unhappy with what they were born with and absolutely consumed by needing to alter their looks to fit in with their peers. Do they get this message from their moms who are also tinkering daily with their appearances trying to get the look just perfect? Does it come from the media blitz - be thin all over but large chested on top! Be tan year round! Get that nose smaller, lips larger, and hair blonder! Turn your teeth as white as chalk and never, gasp, step into a pair of sandals without the toes painted!
I'm simply amazed that young teenage girls (I know many!) who are getting breast implants and putting the $8,000 bill on their credit cards. And their parents are allowing this?! Why do young girls feel they now need to be tan all year round? It seems getting sprayed weekly is just part of a normal beauty routine for them. The hours they are spending on their make-up and hair could be spent with a nose in a book actually learning something new.
Parents who tolerate and even condone this narcissistic attitude in their young girls is sending the message to their daughters that spending this inordinate amount of time on their looks is OK. Why aren't we teaching our girls that they are gorgeous just the way they are?
I understand that when you feel beautiful you feel confident and when you feel confident you feel you can conquer the world. But we need to also get the message out to them that they are perfect and smart and wonderful just the way they are. Being attractive gets one ahead. We all know this. But you've got to have the smarts to back that up or you're just a pretty girl with a bad paying job.
I give kudos to all those parents out there who are not allowing their baby girls to grow up too quickly. Who are not focusing all their attention on how their girls look - who don't tell them every day how pretty they are but how smart and amazingly gifted they are too!
I feel surrounded by some young divas and it bums me out. I want to see a return back to natural where we embrace our our imperfections and rejoice in all that is different and not the same.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
This one is about finding home.
When Dax was just four and a half months old we packed up our things and moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Castle Rock, Colorado. Tim had been hired by Douglas County as their new Water Resources Manager. It was June 2008. I did not want to leave Santa Fe - a place I had called home for nine years. I did not want to move away from family. And I certainly did not want to have some 400 miles separating me from some of my dearest friends.
I moved, physically. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. But emotionally and spiritually I remained tied to a city where homes have been made out of mud and hay since the 1600's, Hatch chilis are roasted on street corners, and fragrant pinon wood is burned in kiva fireplaces. Santa Fe had profoundly changed me. I thought I had the world figured out until I moved there. And then I met the most intelligent, creative, and non-conformist folks who showed me how to embrace "different" and "alternative" and to stay true to myself.
So because I resisted settling in to my new home town of Castle Rock, I treated this place as a temporary stop on the way to something better. It probably didn't help that we rented for the first three years we lived here. The rental home served its purpose. It had a huge yard for Dax to perform his bike tricks in and an area for growing vegetables. It even had a rhubarb patch that I got two pies out of every late Spring. But for us, renting was synonymous with rootlessness. We felt restless, unsettled, and merely visitors in a town we had now called home for three years.
And then that all changed this past June when we finally purchased a home here in Castle Rock. Waiting three years to buy goes to show that not settling for a home in a sprawling sub-divion pays off! We could not have found a home more perfect for us. As I write my blog today I sit in the cozy office looking out at a backyard of white pine, cottonwoods, gambel oaks, and aspens. The leaves which have gone from green to yellow are being blown off the trees. I see no people. I see only woodpeckers, mountain chickadees, and red squirrels and hear the gobbles of the wild turkeys in the distance. It's just the way we had envisioned our home to be.
From the stunning views of Castle Rock and the Rockies beyond from the master bedroom to the screened in porch that is so lovely to sit in on sunny mornings, I'm in love with my new home. And now when I visit Santa Fe I miss it a little less each time and that's a good thing. I don't want to pine away for a place I'll probably never live in again. I want to be fully present in the place where I reside. We have finally put down roots and it feels like now we can start growing again.
When Dax was just four and a half months old we packed up our things and moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Castle Rock, Colorado. Tim had been hired by Douglas County as their new Water Resources Manager. It was June 2008. I did not want to leave Santa Fe - a place I had called home for nine years. I did not want to move away from family. And I certainly did not want to have some 400 miles separating me from some of my dearest friends.
I moved, physically. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. But emotionally and spiritually I remained tied to a city where homes have been made out of mud and hay since the 1600's, Hatch chilis are roasted on street corners, and fragrant pinon wood is burned in kiva fireplaces. Santa Fe had profoundly changed me. I thought I had the world figured out until I moved there. And then I met the most intelligent, creative, and non-conformist folks who showed me how to embrace "different" and "alternative" and to stay true to myself.
So because I resisted settling in to my new home town of Castle Rock, I treated this place as a temporary stop on the way to something better. It probably didn't help that we rented for the first three years we lived here. The rental home served its purpose. It had a huge yard for Dax to perform his bike tricks in and an area for growing vegetables. It even had a rhubarb patch that I got two pies out of every late Spring. But for us, renting was synonymous with rootlessness. We felt restless, unsettled, and merely visitors in a town we had now called home for three years.
And then that all changed this past June when we finally purchased a home here in Castle Rock. Waiting three years to buy goes to show that not settling for a home in a sprawling sub-divion pays off! We could not have found a home more perfect for us. As I write my blog today I sit in the cozy office looking out at a backyard of white pine, cottonwoods, gambel oaks, and aspens. The leaves which have gone from green to yellow are being blown off the trees. I see no people. I see only woodpeckers, mountain chickadees, and red squirrels and hear the gobbles of the wild turkeys in the distance. It's just the way we had envisioned our home to be.
From the stunning views of Castle Rock and the Rockies beyond from the master bedroom to the screened in porch that is so lovely to sit in on sunny mornings, I'm in love with my new home. And now when I visit Santa Fe I miss it a little less each time and that's a good thing. I don't want to pine away for a place I'll probably never live in again. I want to be fully present in the place where I reside. We have finally put down roots and it feels like now we can start growing again.
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