A few of my real life friends have forwarded around "rules that kids don't learn in school" from the book Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Sykes (not Bill Gates, as a few messages stated). Since Mr. Sykes' rules weren't consistent with what I believe, or want to teach my children, I thought it would be fun to rewrite them for myself. So, here is my version (with his original at the bottom for reference). And since neither Mr. Sykes nor I may fit with exactly what you believe, feel free to come up with your own and share it too.

Rule 1: Life can be unfair, but in the face of it, you can still cultivate a spirit of generosity, kindness and understanding.

(Also a sense of humor. Because you may find that when people say things like "Life is not fair - get used to it!" it may be because things are unequal in their favor, they like it that way and they're kind of being dicks about it. But you know you don't have to be a dick too. You can think of this and secretly smile when people rant at you. It will make it seem like there is justice in the world again, even if you are actually being a little dickish yourself.)

Rule 2: Every human being has dignity and is worthy of love, respect and understanding, whether they are living in a cardboard box or a mansion in Beverly Hills. Treat yourself, and everyone else with respect and kindness, and you will deserve infinite esteem regardless of what else you accomplish.

Rule 3: Find a way to enjoy and be proud of the work you do each day. Thinking you will only be fulfilled when you reach a certain salary or title or level of accomplishment leads to a disappointing and empty life.

Rule 4: If you have a "tough" teacher or a "tough" boss, especially one who prides themselves on it, they're probably not nearly as good at their jobs as they think they are. My best teachers and bosses haven't imposed difficulties and demanded I worked until I burnt out, but met me where I was and worked with me to help me learn to tackle new challenges and reach my potential. Stick with the ones who do that for you.

Rule 5: See Rule 3, with the caveat that, while working toward being a bazillionaire won't make you any happier, it's reasonable to expect that earning a living wage and health benefits will.

Rule 6: You are, for good and for ill, the product of everything around you and everything that came before you. For the positive contributions (from DNA to supportive people to wherever you happen to live), pay humble debts of gratitude each day. For the negatives, be forgiving of yourself and others, and trust that every imperfect one of us is doing the best we can living in imperfect circumstances. Learn from mistakes when you can, but also learn that sometimes things just go wrong, and there's nothing anyone could have done about it.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents may well have been just boring as they are now. (I know I've always been this boring.) Or not. It's not really important. For now, forget your parents, and go ahead and save the rain forest from the parasites of their generation; someone needs to do it. And it's not like the world is going to benefit from your closet being cleaner.

Rule 8: There are no winners and losers in life. The person who dies with the most toys does not win, nor does the person with the highest grades. And if you don't learn something on the first go around, don't feel bad, because believe me, life will keep smacking you in the face with the same lesson over and over until you do learn it.

Rule 9: Many employers will happily rip your heart out and eat it if it helps the bottom line. This is why you need to work on your boundaries. Also, try to formulate a plan that involves driving profits up by having employers serve you free pie instead.

Rule 10: Learn to tell fiction from reality, but also never forget that fiction can be a window on a larger truth.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds, because, well... See Rule 2.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

I was reading a guest column in the New York Times blog Motherlode today about the ways in which we spend our time as mothers. It included a claim that "the average mom who is not in the workforce and whose youngest kid is under age six, spends less than six hours per week playing or doing hobbies with her kids, and just over two hours reading or doing educational activities," which led one reader to wonder what stay-at-home moms are doing with the rest of their hours each day. A thousand other stay-at-home moms jumped all over the answer (housework!) before I could, but it did get me thinking about what I do with my day. My friend Mama at The Elmo Wallpaper has had some fun by the numbers posts about her beach vacation, so I am stealing her idea for my own day...

Time at which I crawled into bed last night: 11 p.m.

Number of times my son woke me up in the middle of the night to ask an urgent Mario Brothers related question: 3

Number of times daughter woke me to tell me her throat hurt and it was too cold in her room and she needed to sleep in my bed: 1

Maximum number of consecutive hours of sleep I got: 2, maybe.

Time at which Austen woke me, informing me it was daytime and time to play: 6:34 a.m.

Number of hours of sleep Austen got: seemingly zero.

Number of minutes Austen spent in meltdown, wailing in the hall over the trials of having such a mean mama, because I wouldn't carry all 65 pounds of him from my bedroom to the living room: 21.

Number of times this woke Janie up: 0.

Number of seconds spent getting my fine self together and presentable for the world: 30 (and it looks like it).

Number of minutes spent getting Austen dressed and fed and on the bus to summer school: 40.

Number of minutes spent doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen before Janie got up: 20.

Number of hours spent making Janie breakfast, making me breakfast, cleaning up, helping Janie with her clothes, running errands with her, making lunch, eating lunch, cleaning up: 5.

Number of minutes spent playing with Janie so far today during which we were not eating or cleaning or running errands: 0.

Number of hours spent getting Austen from the bus, cooking his lunch, helping him eat and use the bathroom: 1.

Number of minutes spent playing with Austen today during which we were not simultaneously eating: 0.

Number of hours spent doing dishes, cleaning up after our pets, putting away laundry, sweeping and vacuuming the floors while Austen and Janie played together: 1.

Number of times that (between kids and pets) I picked the same blanket up off the floor, folded it and put it away or supervised while the offending party did: 5

Number of minutes I spent considering where else to move the blanket so it wouldn't end up on the floor so often: 2.

Number of seconds before I decided that wouldn't work because the blanket would be next to my father-in-law's ashes and that would be too creepy: 1.

Number of minutes it would probably take me to clear out another space for the blanket that's not near my late father-in-law: 20.

Number of minutes that space would remain clear when blanket was in use before being filled by my husband with something other than the blanket: less than one.

Number of years I have resigned myself to picking up or supervising the pickup of said blanket: 10.

Number of minutes you would guess I spent cleaning based on the state of my house: approximately 10.

Number of Bakugan currently missing: 1.

Numbers of requests that I search the house top to bottom looking for it: 3.

Number of places I suggested the kids clean up to find it: 3.

Number of places actually cleaned by the kids: 0.

Number of friends who arrived to distract them from the Bakugan search operation: 2.

Number of Bakugan still missing: 1.

Number of kids who now care: 0.

Number of minutes I spent writing this blog post in my head while vacuuming: 2.

Time spent writing this blog post while the kids continue to play together: priceless.

Mary Ann did this little exercise on her blog a while back, and it looked like fun. You are supposed to list what you are about without stopping to think about it. Since the kids are on break, and I don't have time to think about much of anything, a post I don't have to stop and think about sounds perfect. So, I'm about...

• My God (although that still feels weird to say) and my spiritual life
• Becoming healthier: mentally, emotionally and spiritually (one day maybe physically will get in there too)
• My kids and being the best mama for them I can be
• My marriage and doing my part to make it work
• My family and friends (including my "imaginary" online friends)
• Animals: my pets, helpless strays, injured wildlife...
• Writing and this dang beloved blog of mine
• Leaving my part of the planet a better place than I found it
• (Striving for) compassion and mercy
• Horrible, merciless mockery of things I find absurd
• And in light of the two above... Progress, not perfection
• Letting go (but also not perfectly)
• Good books and beautiful words
• Laughter
• Sharing (sometimes, ahem, oversharing)
• Occasionally hiding in the bathroom to write a blog post (hm, maybe that should go under oversharing)
• The ocean
• Opening night at the movies
• Practically anything with sugar in it

What are all of you about?

My friend Mama over at The Elmo Wallpaper riffed on the Facebook "25 Random Things" meme and started her own "10 Things" meme. She did 10 random things about herself as a mama, and while I think she'd be happy with any 10 things, I'm going to stick to mamadom too. I was going to save this for Haiku Friday, but I decided that -- between sleep deprivation and sick kiddos -- this is about all my brain can handle. So, I'm going to bang out a little list as I eat some Pillsbury turtle cookies and wait for the kids to fall asleep.

1. I hate parenting books. I read a few when my son was born. The ones I read espoused philosophies from opposite ends of the parenting spectrum and used what a friend of mine used to call "the friendless alcoholic" technique to support their points (and sell their books): "if you spank/don't spank, wear your baby/let your baby cry, sleep in a family bed/have you child to sleep alone, then your child will grow up to be a friendless alcoholic." There was absolutely no evidence to support any of the claims about what was right for the child other than the author's opinion. I had my own opinions and beliefs, so out the books went.
2. One of my beliefs is that -- short of actively abusing or neglecting kids -- I can't really screw up this whole parenting thing, and I try to remind myself of that when I'm stressing over not getting some relatively minor thing quite right.
3. I think the most important work I do as a parent is to model for my children how I want them to behave and that's what drives me to keep learning, growing, changing and working on myself. If I want my children to show compassion, I need to show compassion. If I want them to have good boundaries and be able to stand up for themselves, I need to have good boundaries and stand up for myself. If I want them to have happy, loving relationships, I need to show them what those relationships look like. I work to be the person I want them to be.
4. I thought I would love pretend play games with my kids, but I can't stand it. Unfortunately, it is my daughter's absolute favorite thing to do. Fortunately, her brother likes playing with her if he's around, and they are super cute together.
5. I love to color in coloring books, but my kids never go for my suggestions that we color together.
6. I love playing video games with my kids, but again I think I like it more than they do because I'm always the one suggesting that we play. Sometimes they play with me, sometimes they turn me down. I want to set up my Wii to be able to play with Jay so I don't have to rely on my kids to beat me at Mario Kart.
7. I used to use video game time to reward my son for eating new things. Now he doesn't care about video games enough for this to work. I'd have to charge him to access playing cards and board games if I really wanted results now.
8. I have no limits on how much TV, video game or computer time the kids have. I didn't have any limits on this as a child either. I mostly chose to read instead. My kids mostly choose to do other things, but when they don't, I'm ok with that.
9. My kids currently participate in zero organized activities outside school, in part because it seems like the thing to do and I tend to not want to do the thing to do. (I don't have problems with authority, shut up.)
10. I'm stealing my last one from Jay: the most important thing I've learned is that my children will show me how to be their mother if I can slow down and really listen to them.

I had a really wonderful, productive day yesterday. I got the kids fed and clothed and to school on time. While they were in school, I:

• did all the dishes
• washed and dried a load of laundry
• got some good writing work done
• meditated
• ate a healthy lunch
• went through one box of old crap from my closet

After they got home I fed them snacks and a healthy dinner and got them off to bed on time. Then my husband and I watched Lost on DVD (we're all caught up and ready for the new season!) and went to bed (too late).

Yep, all of that sounds great, until I consider that yesterday I did NOT:

• bathe the kids
• comb my daughter's tangly hair
• have anyone do any homework (homework was last done by my daughter before Thanksgiving in November and by my son, um, so far just one night in September)
• cook a meal (I microwaved pre-made foods I purchased. I cook with about the same frequency that I blow dry my hair, and I only do that for weddings.)
• fold or put away the laundry
• clean the cat's litter box (it's been, ahem, a while)
• answer the 233 messages in my inbox

I have proven time and again that I can only achieve about half of the two lists combined in one day, and that's only when I am at my absolute peak of performance, like an Olympic athlete breaking a world record. Unfortunately, what I too often expect myself to do is break world records every day, and more. I consistently want to finish both damn lists each and every day. It doesn't feel like my expectations for myself are unreasonable or the tasks are so unmanageable that completing them all regularly is a superhuman feat, and yet they are.

Now it seems I have another thing to add to the not done list. I did not:

• toss out the mental weight of the Not Done list.

Damn!

FIVE FABULOUS BLOGS:

I'm going to pick these from among the folks who didn't get a bookmark, because you were all fabulous for playing along. (And even if you're not on this list, I'm going to get to you.)

1. Addicted Rantings. And not just for being fabulous, but because I think that picture on the award is what A.R. looks like walking his dog. And because he's crying that he didn't win a bookmark. And because now I know he will be forced to read this whole post, even though it is just a list and not my usual fabulous prose.
2. R at Discovering Recovering. Not only is R fabulous, but she's been sick and will fuss and pout if I don't call her fabulous. And she'll like being at the top of the mountain because JW didn't comment.
3. Cate Subrosa at Project Subrosa, because there's no other way to describe how she looked on her wedding day!
4. Karen Maezen Miller at Cheerio Road, because among the rest of her fabulousness, raising a child who ranks dental floss pretty close to a Nintendo DS on a list of essential items (one of my personal favorite Georgia moments) is pretty dang, well, fabulous.
5. Jade at Discovering Jade, just for being her fabulous self.

FIVE FABULOUS THINGS:

1. My daughter's curls. Seriously. I'd play with them all day if she'd let me. People stop us in public places. They gape openly. My daughter's curls are just that fabulous.
2. My son's eyelashes. When my husband wears glasses, his eyelashes have been known to scrape the lenses, and my son has inherited these same long, lush lashes. They're so fabulous, I know people who would kill for lashes like them. (I guess that was two in one, since there are two sets of fabulous eyelashes in my house.)
3. My cat. Really. He's the most fabulous cat ever. My husband hated cats, until he me this one. I'm allergic to cats, other than this one. He's loving and friendly and soft and purrlicious and apparently hypo-allergenic. He uses his paws like hands to eat and drink and pull toys out of his toy box. I am going to teach him to use the human toilet and then he will be perfect.
4. Ice cream. How can I think of ice cream on a cold, winter night? Because it's the most fabulous food item every invented, that's why.
5. Curling up in bed at the end of the day with my husband, which is what I'm going to go do right now.

1. Whenever I see an award or meme post on someone else's blog, I immediately scroll down to see if I was tagged.
2. If I wasn't tagged, I think "Oh no! What did I do wrong? Ok, calm down, maybe they just know I said I didn't want to do the whole awards thing anymore. No, I said that a long time ago when no one read my blog. I bet they didn't tag me because they don't like me. I bet I haven't been commenting enough, maybe they don't know I love them. No, maybe it was that last joke I told. I didn't mean to be offensive, but I think I go too far sometimes for a laugh and sometimes people just don't get that I'm not being serious. No, I bet it's because I come across as a goody two shoes, just like in junior high. I'm too nerdy and uptight and no one wants to be my friend. Oh, it's probably because I didn't acknowledge that last award right. Damn. Whatever. Fine, I hate awards."
3. If I was tagged for a meme, I think, "Yay! I'm loved and I have something to do on Haiku Friday!" If I was tagged with an award, I think, "Yay! I'm loved. But I don't want to deal with awards anymore. Now what do I do? If I don't post this I'm going to hurt and offend the person who gave it to me. But if I do I have to decide who to pass it to and put someone else through this. I hate awards. No, don't think that! You'll never get an award again, and it will prove no one loves you. Shh! I love awards. I'm grateful for them. Please love me!"
4. I get a little queasy whenever I check my inbox for comments, wondering if they are going to be critical or hurtful. They almost never are, but I still expect more criticism and less love and support than I get. I'm realizing that's odd, because I really believe in the deep down goodness and love inside everyone, yet I don't entirely have my expectations set that way. Hmm...
5. I've almost entirely stopped looking at my blog stats, because fun as it is to see the weird searches that bring people here, I get all self-conscious about who is looking at me and why and from where. I like to pretend that no one's looking when I write. I'm just here whistling and wearing a bag over my head as I casually get undressed in front of a window that opens onto a busy street. Shh! I'm an ostrich. No one can see me if I can't see them!
6. I had to look at my feed subscriber stats a little as I was moving the blog over here, and it made me anxious. I didn't like seeing how many subscribers I lost in the move. It made me worry that I wasn't working hard enough and doing well enough and that I had hurt or bored or offended people. I had to smack myself upside the head and remind myself that people are not numbers. How many holiday cards I get the year after I move to a new house is not an indication of how rich the relationships in my life are. And I had to remind myself that (gasp!) not everyone is going to like me, and that's ok.
7. All of the above is why blogging has been such a wonderful way for me to work through my personal issues. It forces me, every day, to confront my character defects and learn to deal with my own perfectionism, competitiveness and people pleasing, as well as my fears of rejection and criticism.
8. Because writing brings me closer to my God and because I'm sharing these posts (my virtual communion with God) with so many loving and supportive people, my relationship with my Higher Power has grown tremendously in the last year. I can see my God shining in all of you, helping me learn and grow. And when I feel that connection, everything else about memes and stats and awards and anxiety slips away.
9. I worry that this was all a little too honest.
10. I worry that, in having fun with some of my answers, this all was not honest enough.

I find tagging people, as you know, to be extremely sucky. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'm going to tag, but if I do, I'll do it in haiku form on Friday!

Four Films I Could Watch Over and Over:
It's a Wonderful Life (my favorite movie ever, ever, ever)
Ghostbusters
Star Wars
Duck Soup

Four Favorite TV Shows:
House
Heroes
Survivor
Amazing Race

Four Favorite Foods:
Gelato or gourmet ice cream
Nutella
Chocolate
Really good bread

Four Websites I Visit Every Day:
Google (Gmail, Reader and Adsense)
A secret locked blog
Sitemeter
My favorite blogs, but there are more than four...

Four Places I Would Love To Be:
Home, home, home and home -- oh wait, there must be someplace else...
The beach. Any beach -- cold, warm, sunny, rainy, whatever -- if it has waves and salt water that's where I want to be.
Any of my favorite restaurants.
A book store or library.

Four Favorite Colors:
Green
Blue
Purple
Deep, rich red

Four Names I Love But Wouldn’t/Couldn’t Use for a Kid:
Leyla (we almost named our daughter this, but found a name we liked even better)
Illyria (this was in our top 10 for our girl -- I like the "L" sound, can you tell?)
Auden (for a boy -- we thought other kids would punch our son on the playground with a name like Auden)
Grey (for a boy -- I really like this name, but my husband and I used to joke that because he is black and I am white our kids would be grey, so it seemed a little too silly)

Four People to Tag:
The first four people who read this and need a quick and easy post of their own!

1. I was once, long ago, in my early days of blogging, tagged in an 8 random things meme. But I consider this an entirely different meme, because it's about 7, not 8. They are two entirely different numbers. One is odd. One is even. One is lucky. One is infinity on its side. You get the picture.

2. I can't eat mushrooms. Feeling their texture on my teeth and in my mouth makes me vomit. However, I do like the flavor of mushrooms, so if they are made into a sauce (either ground fine or drained out, so that I don't have to chew them), I am fine. Hey, my son didn't get those sensory and food issues from nowhere!
3. Before I had a house or kids, I had an apartment where the only pets I could have were fish. My mom was so desperate for grandchildren, she called them her grandfish. She swears she never pressured me to have kids.
4. I've now lost over 35 pounds on the Shangri-La Diet just by drinking sugar water. I am finally back to a healthy weight for my height, thanks to Seth Roberts and my own vindictive nature. (Go back and read that 8 Things meme if you missed that story!)
5. I haven't made a new friend off-line in 15 years, yet I have made some of the best friends in my whole life in the last few years online. I met my friends Jay and Mama and the ever elusive Megan in a discussion group. And now I have met a whole lot more wonderful people in the blogging world. This weekend I am going on a trip to spend time with Jay and a few other of my dearest online-turned-real-life friends, some of whom I'll be meeting for the very first time! (I'm so excited!!)
6. My favorite movie ever in the history of the world is It's a Wonderful Life. It's so romantic and anti-capitalist and spiritual and full of friendship. I think it's as darn near perfect as anything gets in this world. I actually met Jimmy Stewart once when I was in college he was about a million years old, and I have his autograph on notebook paper, because that's what I had on me. I wanted to hug him and take him home with me, because there he was: a really old George Bailey, but I figured he must be tired of getting that kind of stuff all the time, so I just said, "Thank you, Mr. Stewart."
7. My daughter (the world's greatest 4-year-old therapist) convinced my son to put a new piece of fruit in his mouth yesterday! And for those of you following along with the taste testing miracles in our household, that makes two tiny tastes of new foods in one week for a child who has tried zero new foods in the past two years! Ok, that's not really about me, but I'm so thrilled, I had to throw it in there.

I'm too tired and worn down from this cold to tag anyone tonight. But if you want to tell me 7 things, consider yourself tagged, I'd love to hear them.

There's this wave of relief and regret that comes at almost the same time. For just a moment, there's a wave of joy that comes with knowing that this particular beloved star, who had been given up for lost, had actually been alive, as if she were snatched from the jaws of death and back among us. But then reality comes crashing in: that person is actually dead, and we missed those intervening years when we could have been enjoying her continued presence on this earth. Then we berate ourselves for having forgotten she was not dead and indulge in wistful rediscovery of their gifts as we dust off the DVDs or the iPod and treat ourselves to a favorite movie or song once more.

Likewise, there are things in my life I tend to forget I am missing, until they are thrust under my nose. Things like:

• Just how kick ass Stevie Wonder is. I'm not talking about his sappy 80's stuff (although I totally went for that at the time). I'm talking about things like "Superstition" and "I Wish" and "Higher Ground." Every now and then Stevie pops up as one of my iPod's random selections and consistently blows me away. I have no idea why I forget during the time in between that Stevie Wonder is amazing. And he is still alive, right?

• How long it takes to do anything on a computer. Printing a single page or making a little change to the format of my blog or e-mailing a file to someone should take a few seconds, right? But somehow it always takes hours of unplugging and replugging cables and rebooting things and combing through the Internet for help , especially if it's really important that I finish it now. And I'm decent with computers (or used to be when I had time for such things). "Oh, that's right," I always think, "I was supposed to leave time for all this futzing around next time."
• How good I feel after I get enough sleep. I am almost perpetually sleep deprived and have been since I got pregnant with my son. Whenever I do manage to go to bed early and on (the one day a week my husband does not have to be out in the morning) sleep in, I am amazed at how much less cranky I am and how much easier life seems.

You know, I can't think of any more right now because, by definition, I forget them. But with that last point still firmly in my mind, I'm off to bed!