Author Archives: bonnybard

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About bonnybard

A weaver of tales of truth and fiction.

Girls’ night out – a post where I prove once again I have no concept of brevity

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So I’m trying to organize a night out with the girls. I’ve mentioned before that I have a great group of friends here. In fact, I’ve found I’m pretty lucky in the friendship department. I still have a few good friends (some even amazing friends) in Houston though I haven’t lived there in many years now, I have some great friends in Milan, and now I have some awesome friends here. Even though when I came to this tiny rural town seven years ago (my God has it been that long?!?) I thought I would never again make friends like the ones I was leaving behind. In fact, I remember clearly stating to my  best friend in Milan that I would never find such good friends again, that at thirty, working full-time, in a company where, for all intents and purposes I was, not only the boss, but also the owner’s wife, I would never find the time to make friends and I couldn’t befriend my co-workers.
And instead, here I am, seven years later, two kids, no longer working full-time, and with some fantastic friends. As I said, lucky.

Amazingly, most of my girlfriends here are from English-speaking countries. I don’t know if I can fully convey how incredible (literally as in hard to believe) this is, we live in a mountainous area of northwest  Italy specifically known for how closed off the general population is and yet I’ve managed to find a group of girls my age (take or leave a few years) from the US, England, Australia, Canada, South Africa… and this fact, isn’t just surprising from a statistical point of view, it’s actually been a lifesaver for all of us. It’s hard living away from home, it’s hard always being a little bit foreign no matter how integrated you are. I’m Italian, but all of my childhood experiences, all the things that speak of “home” to me, many of my best and oldest memories are “American”, and even though I speak perfect Italian my first language is English.  Being around other people who feel just as foreign, who gripe about the same things, with whom I can, jokingly, rag on Italians without fear of offending anyone is liberating, it gives me a feeling of belonging.

Anyway, getting back on track (it’s astounding how I always manage to take off on a tangent for half an hour), we try to organize an evening out a month (it doesn’t seem like much, but just try organizing ten to fifteen women almost all of whom have kids and/or husbands, it’s like  trying to organize scattering ants) and at least one coffee a week. This week we’ve decided to ditch our husbands home with the kids on Friday night, right at dinner/bath-time so we can go out to the movies and possibly grab a quick bite first.

We need these girly nights, in fact we deserve these girly nights. We usually go out to eat somewhere nice, where the wine flows freely, or we (rather more rarely) go out for drinks, or dancing, but we’ve never all gone to the movies together. It should be fun, and er… funny… most likely. And now that I’ve hopefully got your curiosity a little bit peaked I wonder if you can guess what could possibly grab a group of thirty something women’s attention away from the wonderful dinner with free-flowing wine we normally would be having, diverting it instead to an evening of candy-smacking and popcorn-crunching at the movies.

Those who guess will be named my new super-duper best friends on the internet!

The if you can’t say something nice… Monday Listicle

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Happy Monday. I’m late posting today, I’m a little tired, and my allergies are just plain trying to kill me, so no long preamble for me.  So, as per Stasha’s instructions here is a list of ten (actually nine) compliments.

The ten most bizarre compliments I have ever received.

1. you have the most beautiful hands, are you a hand model? This was a pick-up line by a sleazebag in the center of Rome. I’m pretty sure that, had I let him, he would have segued straight into: why don’t you come up to my apartment so I can take some pictures of your hands… and then quite possibly try to molest you.

2. hmmm, you smell like hay. Hay? Seriously?!

3. you have great teeth. What am I, a horse? And also, I don’t have great teeth, I have straight teeth thanks to my orthodontist, but my teeth are pretty average.

4. you’re so quiet and reflective. I am, indeed, both quiet and reflective, no one could ever possibly accuse me of being the life of the party or a prima donna, but as this was said to me at a dinner party, I’m assuming they meant boring and spaced out.

5. your cooking style is so eclectic and interesting. i.e. gross and inedible. This was said to me by an Italian friend of a friend who only eats Italian food, ideally cooked by her grandmother, not an adventurous person to say the least. That day we had grilled meat, which, though it can be “interesting” at times, it can hardly be called eclectic. I had made a regular lettuce salad and a tomato and mozzarella salad, as well as baked potatoes, we grilled steaks and sausage, I’m not quite sure what she expected to eat at a barbecue.

6. your feet are so big! This was said to me with, I kid you not, a hand clap and squeal at the end. Now, I’ve got, as my mother would say, a very stable base, there’s very little risk that I’ll fall over, my roots are well spread out… my feet are, in fact, on the larger end of the scale for someone my height. That said, they’re not freakishly large or anything, it’s certainly something no one has ever noticed before. In any case, I’m not quite sure exactly why she was so excited about the size of my feet, as far as I know, there’s no correlation between a woman’s feet and the size of her… well, anything in fact, that could possible elicit that much glee.

7. This is the best glass of water anyone’s ever poured me. Truth be told, I’m not quite sure if this person was complimenting me, the glass, or the water therein, in any case, it’s altogether too much complimenting for a glass of water.

8. You write divinely. Well, this one just kind of pissed me off. There’s really no need for hyperbole, I may or may not write well, but divinely? I think not. In fact, I know not, because if I did in fact write “divinely” I’d be a published author now wouldn’t I? Or a very, very religious or illuminated person. I’m none of the above, and frankly I find this misrepresentation of something I actually care about a bit insulting.

9. Mama, you’re so old. This was said with love and something akin to pride in his eyes. I’m perfectly aware that to my four-year old being old is the absolute best thing that you can be, as a lot of the cool things he really wants to do will happen when he’s “older” (like “when I’m older I can ride my bike to school by myself” which gets repeated approximately every hour on the hour at my house) but honestly, there’s no reason to ever say that to a woman. Even if she is your mother. I’m just saying.

I’m capping it at nine cause I can’t remember a tenth. Forgive me?

A little of this and a little of that

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WordPress is driving me insane. My old blog was on blogger and though missing some of wordpress’ more interesting features, most of which I do not use as I’m neither curious nor computer literate enough, blogger had a fantastic widget for blogrolls. My blogroll automatically updated each blog’s new posts so I always knew when to go read them and could conveniently click on them directly from my homepage. I didn’t need to check my reader, my email, and my carrier pigeon, it was all in one place, sorted by most recent, the pinnacle of convenience.

Word verification irritates me. I understand that very, very popular blogs need some sort of filter to minimize the amount of spam they have to deal with, so they make their readers register. Fine. But these blogs are few and far between. Regular blogs can probably do without this, and those blogs with 20 followers and no social media anything probably don’t get all that much spam to begin with. So, why, why make us jump through hoops to leave a comment? I hate word verification. I hate having to try and decipher the stupid letters that look nothing like letters that spell out words that don’t exist. And half the time that isn’t even enough, I have to put in numbers too, or worst of all, do math. Gawd! I mean honestly, isn’t the pleasure of reading your readers comments enough to justify spending a couple of minutes erasing the crap in your spam folder?

I don’t know what to watch on tv lately. Italian tv, even Italian satellite tv, is just abysmally terrible this year. I keep downloading stuff on itunes, but it gets expensive. Also, most of my favorite shows are over (permanently) so I don’t know what to watch. Any suggestions on this front would be greatly appreciated.

I would like to find (or put together, though it’s quite possibly more work than I can handle right now) an honest to goodness book club for me to join. One that suggests a book, gives reading assignments so everyone is always on the same page (double entendre intended), and moderates regular discussions on the book regularly. Is there such a thing? Where might I find it? Also, I’m on goodreads, if anyone would like to befriend me…

I’ve been going to the gym regularly (almost every day) for three weeks now. I’m pretty upset that I have lost not one kilo. Though my jeans are starting to fit a wee bit more comfortably. Apparently, this is a good thing, though honestly, I’d like some reassurance from my scale.

I have a very, very, sweet husband who is a very, very good guy, and I’d do well to remember this fact more often. I’ll tell you why in the next post. (or rather the next, next post as the next post will likely be the Monday Listicle). Creating some suspense….

Okay… all done with this week’s inanities. Leaving you with some stuff to read:

Some Like it Hot

http://hikingphoto.com/2012/10/04/dogs/

http://lemongloria.blogspot.it/2012/10/and-let-me-give-you-foot-rub-when-we.html

http://nutsaboutfooditaly.blogspot.it/2012/10/do-not-enter-unless.html

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to

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October 3rd. It’s my 37th birthday today. Normally I get very excited about my birthday, I love birthdays and celebrations in general. I’ve always believed that the older we get the more we should celebrate our birthdays because there are fewer and fewer of them ahead of us. Macabre, maybe, but true. We should take advantage of them, make them special, get excited, like when we were kids.

This year, however, I’m not feeling it. I don’t know why. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I feel like I’m going to be disappointed, in fact, I am disappointed, preemptively, which makes no sense at all. (What am I, twelve? ha, I could only wish!)

In any case, I’m done with all the mental masturbation (please forgive the vulgarity, but there’s no better word for what I’m doing right now… oh, I wonder what’s wrong with me, let me think back to my childhood and analyze every single significant moment in my life to see if there’s any connection with this current bout of mal de vivre…). No sir, I’m done.

I’m un-excited, I’m disappointed? Who gives a shit? Is what I’m telling myself this year. So I’m going to get excited about doing something nice for someone else.

I’m not sure what exactly, but I’ve got all day to figure it out. In fact, if you’ve got any suggestions I’m all ears!

(Isn’t that the most ridiculous expression ever? Who came up with that, Dumbo?)

The “Falling Leaves” Monday Listicle

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I can barely believe it’s October already, it was July five minutes ago. Where, oh where, does the time go? So, now that the day’s banalities are over let’s get on with the Monday Listicle. Today’s topic: top ten autumn must haves… I love autumn… not the crappy rainy autumn that it looks like we’re having, but the lovely, colorful autumn, the sweet cinnamon and pumpkin smelling autumn, the warm sweater and comfortable jean wearing autumn the catalogues show us.

No seriously, I mostly love autumn, I love the colors, the smells, the chill in the air, and the sense of wonderful new beginnings and possibilities that the start of a new school year always brings, even now that I’m all grown up. Despite the fact that I spend a fair amount of my time bitching and moaning about the weather, I actually love living in a place that has four distinct seasons.

But still, autumn has its peculiarities… for lack of a better word… so here are ten must haves for autumn in northern Italy.

1. apples – many, many bushels of apples. So you can make lovely apple pies, and apple butters and baked apples…

2. chestnuts – falling off the trees, ready to be cleaned and roasted (or boiled, or baked)

3. a fireplace – to warm up the house until it gets cold enough to turn on the heating (and to roast the abovementioned chestnuts)

4. rain boots and an umbrella near the door – because it’ll rain, but it’s not all bad, you need rain so you can go pick mushrooms.

5. mushrooms – to make risotto with, and to cover veal scaloppini, and to batter and deep fry if your liver can take it.

6. working heating – because at some point that fireplace isn’t going to cut it anymore.

7. cozy blankets – to wrap yourself up in on the couch, in front of the fire, as you sip hot chocolate and eat apple pie

8. coffee and cake – to enjoy with your friends cause the kids are finally back in school and you have the time to actually sit and gossip, uninterrupted, for a few short hours a week.

9. baskets – for all the apple picking, mushroom hunting, fire wood gathering, you will inevitably be doing.

10. a beach house – where you can run off to once you realize that picking, peeling, coring, and cooking apples for all the wonderful cakes and pies you’re making is a gigantic pain in the ass, that there’s only so many chestnuts and mushrooms you can eat before your stomach rebels, that, though romantic, that fireplace is a bitch to clean and you use up a box of matches every time you light the fire, and that the flippin’ rain isn’t going to stop till it turns into snow in November.

At that point, and it will come sooner rather than later, you get a few friends, you leave your kids with your husbands at home, and you take off for the beach, wind in your hair, sun in your face, and the blessed sound of girlish laughter and rolling waves in your ears.

Four happy girlies taking advantage of happy hour… the sad face in the back left corner is very pregnant and drinking a shirley temple…

psyching ourselves up to get into the freezing cold water, along with the surfer boys you can barely see to the right, in their full body wetsuits… wimps!

Autumn at the beach! (Surprisingly, our teeth aren’t chattering and our lips aren’t blue, but we had just been rolled around in the surf by a larger than expected wave.)

No children on my plane, I’ve got rights.

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I’ve got a bone to pick. Several airlines (mostly in the east, and namely Air Asia and Malaysian airlines) have instituted child-free areas on some of their planes. Interesting concept. Now, I have kids, and I’m not wild about flying with them and I’m even less wild about flying around someone else’s kid on the rare occasion when I don’t have my own, who doesn’t want to enjoy their child-free time? But, I’m not sure I agree with the whole precedent. From my point of view, that of a mother often flying with two children, airlines would be better off creating child-friendly zones rather than child-free zones. Seriously. A happy child flying is a gazillion times less obnoxious than a drunk businessman flying, and if you’re making the child happy you’ve got happy parents flying and happy parents buy more tickets. When I get on a plane with my husband and two kids, whichever class I happen to be flying in at the moment I’ve just spent almost four times as much as the person flying alone next to me. Because kids practically pay full price.

And unless they’re making their child-free zones sound proof, it’s really just a marketing scheme because I can tell you, from direct experience, that if there’s a screaming baby in the middle of economy class you can hear him all the way at the head of the plane. So why not make the baby more comfortable, and his parents more relaxed, so he isn’t screaming through the entire flight and everyone can sleep.

Starting in the airports, with dedicated lines at security, where they scan strollers without having to close them and lift them onto the machine and preferential lines, not for the businessman and his teeny tiny laptop case, but for the frazzled mother travelling alone who has managed to take the concept of multitasking to a whole new level but could still actually do with some help. With amenities on the plane as well as basic necessities like diapers and milk, baby food and snacks because accidents happen, you can forget something and your child doesn’t have to go dirty and hungry for 6 hours. They remember to stock the gin, they can remember to stock the milk. (Like Japan Airlines does,  and Lufthansa) Make us pay for them, but make them available. Slightly larger bathrooms, so my toddler and I can both fit in there. Games and tv programs, specific seats for children so they can actually sleep and not drive everyone around them batshit crazy because it’s two in the morning and they can’t fall asleep sitting up (like the SkyCouch on Air New Zealand).

I’d gladly pay for my child to fly more comfortably, and any parent who’s ever had to travel with a young child would, I’m sure, pick the airline that made their flight more pleasant. After all, all these children that are such a nuisance, such an annoyance on flights, are future customers in the making.

And let’s talk about us parents. Flying is nerve-wracking. You’re wrestling your kids through a crowded airport with more luggage than a football team, you’re afraid of loosing your children and your sanity along with your flight. You’re stressed and that stress is going to make your kids go apeshit. Wouldn’t it be marvelous to know that you’re flying with a company that wants your business and wants to make you comfortable rather than the douchebag flying alone and giving you the evil eye when you and your brood make your way down his aisle, like his mere presence is somehow more relevant, more important, more untouchable than your own?

Airlines shouldn’t be making child-free zones, they should be making child-friendly zones. I’m betting there’s more money in it for them at the end of the day, because any parent is going to gladly spend that extra dollar if it makes their own experience more comfortable. And everyone else on the plane gets to be more comfortable right along with them. Win-win.

Because the next step is child-free flights, I vote for asshole free flights, how about you?

 

If you liked this post please consider sharing it with your readers, almost all of us will have to travel with our children sooner or later and if enough parents raise their voices maybe the airlines will start giving a crap what we think…

Only hot, young, guys need apply

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It’s 2.30pm and I’m still in my workout clothes. At this point I’m not even going to shower and change out of them cause I have Yoga in another 4 hours so what’s the point. I mean, seriously, showering, shaving, washing my hair, blow drying it (cause I’m a wimp and can’t go out in wet hair when it’s chilly anymore)… only to get back into a very similar workout outfit? Talk about a hassle.

It’s 2.30 pm and it’s the first time I open the computer today. How does that even happen? I haven’t checked my emails, haven’t been on facebook, haven’t visited any of my “daily reads” blogs. And this is exactly what it’s been like for the past ten days, honest to God, I don’t know how this happens.

It’s not like I did anything earth shattering today, or any other day last week, in fact. I get up, I wrangle the kids, I take them to school, I run errands, I go to the gym for what feels like four, but is actually closer to one and a half, hours, I come home, I eat, I get the kids, I put them down for their naps and BAM! It’s 2.30. What the hell??

This nonsense started almost two weeks ago, when, getting up from the couch with a pain in my back, I decided I was done with feeling like I’m a hundred and three. My grandma, who is actually almost a hundred and three is more limber than I. I spent my days recently with pain in my shoulder, in my hip, in my lower back, in my knee. I have neither fallen or been in an accident. Is there any reason on this green earth why an otherwise healthy woman of some thirty odd years of age should have such a list of ailments? Absolutely not! Is the thought that started me on this road of not having any time for faffing around. Because I started going to the gym. Every day. E.v.e.r.y. d.a.y. for an hour and a half. With, thank god, a very cute personal trainer.

In fact, if he wasn’t quite so young, and fit, and blonde and blue-eyed, and smiley, and cute, I probably would have throat punched him by now. Because the pain I was in before is nothing compared to the pain I’m in now. The pain I’m in now laughs in the face of the pain I was in before. I’m doing squats, and lunges, and all manner of outlandish movements on weighted medieval torture devices. And then I walk, oh my lord, I walk for like forever, uphill, then downhill, then at a faster or a slower pace, I walk, and walk, and walk, and by god, I don’t go anywhere. Talk about frustrating.

And that’s why it’s 2.30pm and I’m sitting here for the first time all day, finally in front of my long forgotten friend, wondering if I’m too stinky to just stay like this until yoga tonight or if I really should go shower, and change into a fresh pair of yoga pants. All this so I can fit back into all the marvelous clothes I have in my closet and I can play with my kids without creaking and huffing, puffing and jiggling and complaining. Ugh.

Baby blues or I’ve got too much time on my hands

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You may, or may not, have noticed that my posting has been erratic lately… well, I actually have a valid (ish) reason this time. My kids started preschool last week. Scuola Materna, is what it’s called in Italy (translates directly into maternal school, which I think is kind of cute), and, though not mandatory is still when most Italian kids start school. So it’s a very emotional time. Very emotional. It gets even more emotional when you’re set to get your period. I’m just saying. So, the Girl, who’s turning three in November, started Scuola Materna this year (the Boy started last year) and I officially don’t have any babies in the house any longer. Or such is the sentiment that’s been pervasive in my mind all week…

Kissing her brother goodbye

She was very grown up about it, on Monday and Tuesday she went by herself, then the “big kids”, her brother included, started on Wednesday. She only cried once, and she was very proud of her new school smock (which they wear over their clothes at Scuola Materna, so it’s kind of like a uniform, but not), and she was thrilled to go to “the big kid school”. I, on the other hand, have been sniffling all week.

walking to school

in the classroom with her smock on, looking a bit sad…

When I had the Girl I assumed we would have more babies, then the husband got sick and now we would have to be highly motivated to have more babies if we wanted them. We can’t have them the traditional way (wink, wink) anymore, and though we do have a vial of “material” sitting around in a sperm bank somewhere, we’re not sure any of us would survive me having to go through all the hormones that come with assisted fertilization. I can barely deal with the hormones my own body produces.

So the Girl starting preschool this year, made me face the fact that maybe we’re done with babies, and I’m not sure I want to be done with babies. Okay, so she hasn’t actually been a baby for a while, she was a toddler, but you know what I mean right? She’s started on the long road to independence from me, my mornings are free, they’re out of diapers (during the day), I can sell my strollers, I don’t have babies anymore. Am I ready not to have babies anymore?

both of them off to school on wednesday in their smocks

I would have liked to go through my last pregnancy knowing it was my last pregnancy… sounds ridiculous, I know. What with so many people not being able to have kids at all, and others with more kids than they can handle, I’m sitting here whining, when I already have two, and a boy and a girl at that. I’m pretty lucky.

I’m just not sure I’m ready to close up shop, by the same token though, I’m not a hundred percent sure I’m ready to start again, with the added hassle of ivf… how confusing. Of course, I had no guarantee of having more babies even if the husband hadn’t gotten ill, but now I know for certain I won’t be waking up one morning wondering why my period’s late, and that makes me a little sad. And yeah, maybe I’m being excessively self-indulgent, maybe I’m making it more complicated than it actually needs to be, but still, sometimes I feel like I’m mourning the babies I didn’t get to have.

The – my readers are audibly groaning but I don’t care cause I love weddings- monday listicle

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Oh boy, oh boy, this week’s listicle is going to bore some of you completely out of your minds but I’m excited! Can you tell? I love weddings. Love them. Seriously. I simply can’t believe Stasha handed me the opportunity of showcasing my wedding pictures on a silver platter! Aren’t you thrilled! I did write an actual list, but you get wedding pictures in the mix, lucky you! (Seriously, Stasha, what were you thinking? You must have known some of us would go overboard and our readers would be groaning!) So, ten things wedding… ta-da!!!

(The following pictures are of my wedding and bear no relationship whatsoever to the text, I just figured you needed to see wedding pictures in a post about weddings, right?)

1. I attended both my Mom’s weddings. My parents were married when I was eight, they got married in Vegas because an immigration officer told them to (long story, fodder for another post). My dad didn’t want to marry my mom, not because he didn’t love her, because he did, more than life itself, but because he was twenty-eight years older than her and wanted her to be free to leave him at any time. She never did.

2. My Mom got married again last year, to a very nice guy. She had a church wedding with a full catholic mass, she had a beautiful white dress and long veil. She finally had the wedding every girl dreams of that she couldn’t have with my Dad (who was divorced and couldn’t, obviously, remarry in the Catholic Church).

My Grandma and me. You can also see my brother reflected in the mirror, looking like a 1920’s movie star.

3. I had the absolutely most perfect wedding (for me) courtesy of my wonderful parents.

 

Proud parents and younger brother (he doesn’t usually have an evil warlord expression on his face…)

4. I’ve often wished I was British so I could have an excuse to wear fabulously ridiculous hats to weddings.

5. I cry at weddings. I also sneak into church when I see a wedding is about to happen, I can usually be found in the back pew, dabbing at my eyes with a hanky. I normally leave before the end of mass, but I like to at least see the bride’s entrance.

6. A friend of mine got married in a gorgeous red gown and looked amazing,  I kind of wished I had thought to wear an unconventional color at my wedding, but I’m way too traditional (and I didn’t want to give my dad a heart attack).

7. I didn’t watch William and Kate’s wedding for no reason other than I got distracted when it happened, although I still remember Charles and Diana’s wedding (I was nine).

8. I hate typical Italian weddings, where you go to church in the morning and then have lunch, which usually starts late because the happy couple is off taking pictures and then lasts well into the evening. I went to a wedding once where we were at church at 11am, sat down to lunch at 2pm and finally got up from the table at 7pm. I wanted to shoot myself.

9. I love looking through other people’s wedding albums, if only to mentally laugh at all the out of date fashions.

10. The most important thing a priest ever told me was to remember that after the wedding was marriage…


The bad guy

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The thing about having kids, I’ve found, is that there is no way for you to really prepare yourself beforehand. Sure, you go into it with a lot of ideas, a ton of opinions and a truly ridiculous amount of information relative to the first year of a child’s life but you still end up just flailing about in the dark with nary a clue as to what you are doing and where you are going and how on earth you are going to get there, somewhere, anywhere.

I had a very strict mother, I didn’t want to be a strict mother, I wanted to be a laid-back and easy-going yet firm and friendly mother. Notice how that sentence is just a long, run-on oxymoron?

I’ve since realized that I can be easy-going and friendly but that’s not going to result in my also having well-behaved, respectful kids, the only way I can get that is to be firm, and be their mother. I’ll never be laid-back; I was born without that particular gene. And since I’d rather have well-behaved, respectful kids than not, I’ve found myself becoming stricter and stricter. Basically, I’m turning into my Mother. I’m living a cliché.

But still, I don’t want to be the bad guy. I don’t want to be the one always yelling and scolding, I don’t want to be the pain in their patootie (literally and figuratively). The hard part is trying to figure out how much is too much and how much is too little. I want them to have fun, I especially want them to have fun with me, I want them to be silly and enjoy their childhoods and I want them to have good memories with me, the good, happy moments have to largely surpass the annoying, boring, trite, ones. But I also want them to be polite and to listen to me and to follow the rules. When I say let’s go, we go, when I say we put up the toys, that’s what we do, but I’d like it to be done with much less yelling on my part and fewer sour pusses on theirs.

I don’t want to be the bad guy, but I do want to be the boss. I don’t believe we live in a democracy, I’m aiming for more of a parliamentary monarchy, they get to say what they want, but my opinion is the only one that really counts. After all, I’m their mother, part of my job is to teach them both manners and morals, neither of which can bear any argument.

I’ve been reading this book called “Bringing up Bebe”, written by an American mother living in France, it’s really good and quite funny at times and she brings up the notion of “cadre”, which literally means square and in this context is used as a framework of set rules that cannot be tampered or argued with. I’m very familiar with the French concept of cadre as I went to a French school (in Houston) and education is based on it. In it’s application to motherhood, though, it basically means that you have a set of rules that you do not deviate from, ever, that create the basic framework of your child’s education and within that framework you give the child the freedom to make his choices and do what he will.

I basically grew up in a “cadre-style” household, but until I read it described from an American’s point of view I had never realized what it was. To give you a very specific example (one which I’m in the process of implementing right now) I used to fight nightly with the kids at bedtime, yelling at them, chasing around after them, screaming, crying… it was complete chaos, but now they get ten minutes of crazy time, then they brush their teeth, they go potty, they get in bed and I read them a story. Within this framework, they pick which toothpaste to use, where they brush their teeth (I used to insist they stand at the sink, now I don’t care where they are when they’re actually brushing as long as they spit and rinse in the sink – as opposed to, say, the toilet), they pick which songs I sing to them and which story I read. They have some control, but they’re doing what I say. Now, if you’re reading this thinking, “we’ll that’s obvious, isn’t it?” then I envy you, but to me it was a bit of a revelation.

My cadre is still a work in progress, I’m still defining, both for myself and for them what the framework to our lives and routines is but it’s already making things easier. They have fewer rules to follow and they are clearer, more easily defined. It’s easier for me too, cause I’m not getting frustrated at every junction, I have to stop and actually think about what it is I want from them exactly and what is the best way to get there. I have to think more, but I yell less.

I’m still flailing about in the dark, but at least now I’m actually thinking about which direction I want to go in and formulating a plan as to how to get there.

I don’t want to be the bad guy, but I don’t want to be the good guy either, I guess I just want to be the person they look to for direction and for comfort as they live their lives autonomously. Or, you know, as autonomously as two people who still need me to wipe their bums can live.