What About You?

Beautiful and vibrant red, orange and yellow leaves; long walks through the cool woods; colorful mums and hot apple cider; wreaths and fall-scented candles and big orange pumpkins; apple crisp and apple pie; brisk nights and warm fires: these are but a few of the reasons fall remains my favorite season year after year. I appreciate the beauty of freshly-fallen glaringly white snow, I long for the renewal of spring and I celebrate the “woo-hoo, it’s finally here” of summer, but fall is first on my list.

What else can I tell you about me?

Here are some tidbits that are true, at this hour, on this day of this week, month, and year. As for who I am tomorrow, well, who can know? We’ll have to wait & see, won’t we? But for now, you can be sure that I:

…am a mother of three boys, and, as such, haven’t stopped moving for the past 13 years.

…have been married to my generous and merciful husband for almost 18 years. Because, you know, I was, like, 10 when we got married, right?

…cherish my friends and enjoy the camaraderie we share, particularly over a good glass of red wine or a thick, dark beer.

…still get out once a week to play in a basketball league.

…never met a beach or a palm tree I didn’t like.

…feel stunned by how quickly life has moved from a houseful full of toddlers to no toddlers at all.

…like to win. Just about anything, always. Wanna play?

…don’t like chores, but have finally perfected a chore-chart system for my kids, which I'm certain they will dismiss as soon as they walk onto a college campus.

…love to listen to my husband play the piano.

…am not giving up Diet Pepsi anytime soon.

…am not a morning person, and that’s putting it mildly. So don’t call before 8:00. You've been warned.

…didn’t like any vegetables other than corn or plain lettuce until after college.

…like snap peas, asparagus, raw spinach, and artichokes.

…am likely to be a few minutes late for our meeting.

…don’t like it if you’re a few minutes late for our meeting.

…try to be fair, but (see above) am not always just.

…used to think the dentist was fine, but now I never want to go again.

…wear glasses because after my third son was born I was just too tired to put those contacts back in.

…volunteer at my sons’ schools. All 3 of them (sons, and schools).

…love to take pictures but don’t aspire to be a photographer. I just want to capture my kids, and our family, at all of their ages and stages.

…miss my dog, Tucker, terribly. He gave us 13 ½ great years, and he was in a class by himself. We all miss him.

…like to be with friends and like to be alone with my thoughts. I find value in both.

…love to read, love to write, and love to gather with other writers to challenge each other to dig deeper, to go further, to discover more of ourselves, and to use it in our work.

…like words.

…will not give up my iPhone. Nope, sorry, it’s mine.

…love to travel and get my family out and about in the big wide world as often as I’m able.

…want to know more about you. Will you share something? How about 2-3 things that make you unique? Post them in the comments and link to your blog if you have one, so I can check it out.

Happy fall!

Kansas. It's Really Not As Bad As You've Heard.

Hi there! I'm Dawn, and I'm from Kansas. Well... that's not quite right. I've grew up in St. Louis-- went to school in Missouri, then Oregon, then met a boy that I felt the need to stalk into submission and somehow that devolved into living in...

Kansas.

But it's not as bad as you've heard. My town is actually quite hilly in parts. I've lived here nearly ten years, and I've yet to be swept away by a tornado. Our school district has one of the largest proportion of teachers with Master's degrees in the nation. And we have a nationally ranked NCAA basketball team.

But it's still in Kansas.

In a lot of ways, I am outside the norm here. I'm pretty liberal... Kansas is not. I'm pretty feminist... Kansas is not. I'm all about supporting equality. Yup, you guessed it-- Kansas is often not. Kansas is a bevy of contradictions-- one of the first states to give women the right to vote, and also the home of Fred Phelps, the jerk who picketed Matthew Shepherd's funeral. The forty-hour work week movement began here... but we still don't have a state minimum wage.

I don't believe in judging a person based on their best or worst act-- so I try to extend that philosophy to my state.

For all the cringe-worthy attention my fair state brings to itself, I love living here. I love my life in Kansas, the people I walk down the street with each day, and the life my husband and myself have built for ourselves here.

We have three kids-- Son Noise, 5 yrs, daughter Funk, 3 yrs, and son Squeak, 7 months. I worked full time until my son Squeak was born, and it became financially impossible to continue. I've been adjusting to the life of a SAHM for six months now, and it's been a heckuva ride. I don't believe it's the only way-- I'm not even sure I'd have chosen it if day care had not cost more than my salary-- but I am grateful for the opportunity just the same.

I write (albeit currently infrequently) at Growing A Pair.

I was a cheerleader in high school.

I have really bad eyesight.

I recycle.

We can figure the rest out as we go along.

Sometimes the life you get is better than the life you imagined

I was born into a military family. At the time, my father was stationed in California. He was a sailor who was away from home for months at a time on ships. We moved from California to Washington State to Governor's Island, NY before settling back in Minnesota, where my parents had both been born and raised.

Minnesota has been my home for most of my life. Most of my family, even extended family is here. Family is what keeps us here.

After high school, I spent 2 years at a local community college before transferring to what is now called Minnesota State University at Mankato. The college campus is where the Minnesota Vikings hold their training camp in the summer. I graduated with a BS in Mass Communications (public relations emphasis) and a minor in Speech Communications.

As a kid I always figured I'd be a famous movie star or singer, except you probably need to not be shy to be successful at something like that. So that didn't work out.

As a young adult I changed my vision to being a television or newspaper reporter (and a great one of course). I limited myself with options for jobs following graduation because I wanted to return home to be near my family. Communications jobs are hard to come by in a smaller city. Rochester is the kind of place that many people start in a job and stay there for the remainder of their working lives. It's tough to break in when you're just starting out.

So I found a job as a communications coordinator for a medical association. It was a job I loved, but the office politics were toxic. I left that job when the stress got to be too much and worked for less money and fewer benefits but also had few, if any, things to stress me out.

Then I got pregnant, had a baby and left the workplace.

I started blogging after following a link someone left on a BabyCenter thread. I had never read a blog before. I couldn't tell you the blog, and I wouldn't want to because I found the writing atrocious. I immediately and vainly thought that I could do it better. Cool Zebras was born.

Cool Zebras has given me, and at some extent, my extended family many joys. I've become closer to many of my relatives because they read many of my more personal thoughts that we never would have discussed in person. We’re reserved Minnesotans after all. Talk about feelings? In person? You can betcha we’ll be making excuses to leave the room.

By the time I started Cool Zebras I had two kids, Miss M and the K-Man. Miss M was born in July 2002, and the K-Man in July 2004. I wish I had a blog about them from the beginning. I love to read my own archives. Have I mentioned I’m a little vain about my writing? But the truth is I like to read about how my kids were when they were younger. They’re still young, but I like to read about the younger days and compare notes to today.

After 2 years of disappointment, in September 2007, I was elated to discover my third child was on the way. Ms. D has completed our family in so many ways.

In January 2008, I launched Midwest Parents on a whim. Things were smooth sailing for a while though we were pretty much unnoticed. Earlier this year it became clear that things weren't working the best. I decided to disband the blog.

In February 2008, I also started my etsy shop, Sentimental Journey. This shop is mostly a hobby for me, but I can admit that I get a little thrill every time I sell something I've made.

These days you can find me shuttling Miss M and K-Man back and forth to and from school and chasing Ms. D around the house picking up all the things she dumps out with such glee. She’s also a climber so I spend a lot of time getting her down from her various attempts at mountain climbing. After school, I check homework, make supper, and perhaps take the kids to swimming lessons or choir practice. The days, as it is with most parents, are hectic.

So in the evenings, I write. I write to remember these days with my kids, with my family, because these days are fleeting and I want to savor them all.

Welcome Back!

Midwest Parents feels like an old friend to me already. We’ve had our ups and downs but we’re sticking together. You know how you have some of those friends that you rarely see but can fall into the old rhythm in minutes? That’s what MP feels like to me.

We have some old friends writing for us and we have some new friends writing for us. We’ll be posting FIVE days a week. We’ll have some regular posts, familiar things like Wordless Wednesday and Foodie Friday recipes, but we’ll also roll out some new weekly features on books and tips for keeping your family happy and healthy in these busy times. Mondays will be left to the imagination of our talented contributors.

Speaking of contributors…we’ll all be posting a little about ourselves in the next few days. Come back and get to know us a little before we get set in our scheduled ways here.

We hope you’ll find our thoughts and ideas useful and that you’ll come back and visit us. I think we’ll fall back into our comfortable friendship in no time.

-Heather

A Rebirth is Coming!

If there is anyone still here...we will be returning to blogging here in October!

It will be, we hope, more consistent posting with regular topics Monday through Friday.

We hope to build this blog into a place you'll want to come for tips, ideas, friendship and more.

See you in October!

Nearing the End

We've/I've decided to discontinue regular posts here at Midwest Parents. My own personal blog is becoming more demanding, the contributors are getting more busy and leaving the blog, it's just not getting the attention it needs and deserves for it to grow.

That's not to say that MP will be totally dead. Or maybe it will. I don't know. I've invited our remaining bloggers to continue to post if/when they feel like it. And if you live in the Midwest, are a parent, and want an outlet to post to? Send me your post in an email and I'll post it here as a guest post.

At the end of June, our regular posts will be a thing of the past. I am a little sad, a little relieved, and a little disappointed. MP has become an old friend to me. I've met people I would not have otherwise.

Maybe MP will be one of those friends that you don't see often, but when you do, you're happy and you fall right back into the old ways. That sounds good to me.

Whew, It's Hot!

The bitter chill of the wind and constant return of fresh snow made for a long winter this year. As my little boy dragged himself out of bed early in the morning, and made his way down to the bathroom to brush his teeth, we shivered and stumbled in the dark. Hours later, when we sat down for dinner, it was dark again, and still cold. It seemed like winter would never end.

But end it did. And hurray! It’s light and bright long before we roll out of bed. It’s light and bright long after I tuck the boys in. The air is warm and scented with the smells of summer: freshly cut grass, chlorine-soaked suits, and grills galore. We savor these few months, this beautiful, sunny, warm respite from the cold Midwest winters.



We’re visiting Virginia this week, which isn’t warm. It’s hot. After 13 hours in the car, my boys tumbled into my parent’s yard, found every available ball, and began to play in the 99 degree weather. Minutes later, my eldest made his way into the kitchen.


“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”


“It’s too hot out there,” he grumbled.


Thus began my diatribe on how we should enjoy the warmth and sunshine, and how I grew up in North Carolina, for goodness sakes, where it’s like 100 times hotter than in Virginia. And humid. North Carolina is really humid. So much more humid, and you will never know, my son, what a really hot day is like, and if you think this is one, you’ve got another thing coming.
This is not an example of my finest parenting moment. But still.


Too hot?


And as I thought about how easily we forget our longing for the sunshine—how we take it for granted when it arrives and wish for even more—for perfect temperatures and no rain and mosquito-free evenings, I thought about true this can be in life.


We long and we wish and we wait, and when we get there, instead of enjoying wherever or whatever it is, we check it off and move on to the next thing on our list.


This summer, let’s stop. Let’s enjoy the warmth. Let’s enjoy the sunshine and the heat that comes with it. And maybe, just maybe, we can look around, and see a few other things else been forgetting to enjoy—and appreciate—too.



photo credit: lainBuchanan