Avoiding Quarterbacks Named Branson Via Crafting

I'm not THAT kind of mother.  You know, the one who makes crafts every day and spends quality time nurturing and exploring and blogging about it and THEN makes a healthy meal for the whole family and then everybody plays shadow puppets on the ceiling at bedtime before journaling? Um, no.  I don't do that.

I mean, I'm not KNOCKING that kind of mother.  Gah, I wish it was in me to BE that kind of mother.  But the truth is, Will is much more that kind of mother than I am.  He plays games and romps and schedules.

I get up early in the morning so I can scrape the last of the peanut butter onto my toast and not have to be unselfish and give it to my kids.  It's true.

This is not the kind of mother I want to be.  I love peanut butter and having time alone, but the reality is that my kidlets are going to school in just a few days and...I don't want them to.  I want them to be here, with me.
It's weird, I know, but I would far rather them be here, being loud and messing up my concentration when I'm trying to write a blog entry then being a mile away from me, having fun with the children and learning stuff.

Part of it is that I'm going to MISS having a kidlet around.  I haven't been actively alone for five years now.  And while I'm excited about having time to devote to getting the photography business really running and writing and gardening and sewing and crocheting and maybe even trying to find a job outside the house, I'm also terrified of being so lonely that I start wearing grey only and lurking in corners and crying.

More than I usually do, I mean.

The other part is that...okay, this is going to sound Crazy McCrazyface, but I worry about my kids turning into Everybody Else and not these kids:

Not Jeffrey, so much.  Goodness knows that Jeffrey is immune to most influences.  He's gonna be the weirdo that he is, medication and therapies and interventions be damned.  But River...whew.  That girl.

Here's a story:  the other day, Nana came over for a visit.  She brought with her the shirts and dresses she had gotten the kids (I have no idea how the woman isn't in the poorhouse yet with the five grandkids...)  River took one look at the (adorable) dresses Nana pulled out of the bag and yelled, "Oh, I didn't want thoooooose."

Oh, HELL to the NAW.

I rose up like a Fury (or maybe a Goddess of Not Ass-hatty Children) and yanked her into the bathroom and gave her a talking to the likes of which she had never seen which resulted in her sobbing hysterically and moaning that she wanted the pretty dresses that I told her she couldn't have.  In fact, I told her she couldn't have ANY of the dresses Nana brought her ever again until River learned how to be grateful for kindness and a Nana with good taste.  (And yes, I used those words.  I was...a little out of my head.)

River is smart and strong-willed and cute and winsome and clever with the words--have I said this before?  It has occurred to me lately that it is entirely possible that she might wind up being...forgive me...a popular girl.  A MEAN popular girl, who makes fun of kids like her brother.  Or who doesn't want to hang out with the family and watch Labyrinth for the 700th time.

I know, I know...this is ridiculous kind of thinking.  River will be who she is because of who WE are and we are awesomely NOT popular people, so surely she'll just be Queen of the Drama Club and that will be enough for her.

But I'm freaking out enough about the whole nightmare of having to hide all my trolls when River's prom date --Branson, the quarterback who will be groping her drunkenly all night, the little turd...where's my battle axe?-- shows up that I went a little crazy yesterday and DID A CRAFT with my kids.  Because that's the kind of people we are going to be, folks.

We are NOT going to be drunkenly groped by dudes named BRANSON, okay?

Over my dead body, Branson.  MY DEAD BODY.

Ahem.

So, the craft was one of those "find the hidden object in a jar full of other stuff." (Yes, I got this from Pinterest.  See that little red button over to your right?  It's the gateway to a world in which your daughter will never be groped by Branson, that little piss-ant.)

First,  I found an old, clear plastic peanut jar with a lid.  I set River to using Goo Gone to get the sticky stuff from the label off of it and Jeffrey to finding alphabet beads.  They were very intent on their work and didn't argue once.  Angels sang from the cobwebs in my kitchen.

Then we toodled around the house to find little bits of stuff we could put in the jar:  beads, safety pins, coins, a sequin Jeffrey called "The Boss Object."  Heh.  He plays a lot of video games.

We gathered the stuff

catalogued the stuff

and put the stuff in the jar with a bag of expired sushi rice.  (I cleaned out my pantry yesterday.  TWELVE cans of expired food, a bag of sushi rice, and a metric crapton of condiment packets went into the trash.  The waste made me fall over.)

River loved it.

Look at that FACE (and try to pretend that the focus didn't fall on her collar.  She was moving fast, okay?)   Taking the time to do a craft with the kidlets was totally worth it.

You do understand that if there's a kid named Branson in her class next Monday, I'm totally homeschooling them, right?

Or sending this guy after the little punk.