Nice girls finish last, but they get to wear the princess dress

We have reached the portion of the vacation where I may have possibly run out of nice. One of the best perks of my job is that I get to spend great portions of my time alone, whether it's in my car driving to and from my jobs or working on my computer, all alone. I love spending time with family but I most certainly reach a point where I just need to be alone some, too. Luckily, I always have work with me. So when I open my laptop and put my headphones on, everyone leaves me alone.

I used to want to be NICE to everyone. I really did. I loved being nice and having people be nice to me. If someone would smile at me in the hall at school, it would just make my day. As I got older, I realized that I don't need someone to be nice to me to make me want to just be nice to everyone else. Now, don't get me wrong. I still want to be nice. I strive to be nicer, gentler. But there's a drawback to that, as well. Take, for example, my sister-in-law. She's possibly the nicest person I've ever met (aside from her mother, my mother-in-law, who may very well be sainted). She is kind and gentle. A true motherly figure. My daughter calls her Nicki-Mama with good reason. She is gentle and kind and reminds me of Snow White in the woods with all the animals surrounding her while she sings a song. But because of this, her children take advantage of her kind nature. She waits on them hand and foot. They merely say "I'm thirsty" and she jumps up and gets them a drink. And when it's the wrong drink or not the right cup or straw, she smiles and goes and gets the right one, washing the wrong one by hand and putting it away without a complaint or dirty look. "I'm hungry" and she's off to McDonald's or into the kitchen to fix them a snack. Now, understand, her children are 14 and 11. Spoiled children are a whole other blog.

But I just can't do it. I don't mean to say I don't take care of my two-year-old. I do. She's two. She can't open the fridge or pour herself some milk. Yet. But she will when she's able. I will never forget my friend's three-year-old going to the fridge, getting his yogurt, getting his spoon, bringing it to his mother to open, taking the lid to the trash and going and eating his snack. At three. His mother is also one of the kindest, sweetest, most caring people I've ever known. But she's not a slave to her children. She is teaching them to take care of themselves. And she's still nice, kind, and gentle.

I try very hard to be gentle and sweet with K. I really do. When I lose my temper and yell, I always apologize. But I also talk with her about it. I want her to understand we all get mad, frustrated, lose our tempers. And it's okay. We can't BE NICE every minute of every day. I always use the Belle/Beast analogy with K. Belle is beautiful and kind and patient. The Beast yells and is snarly and mean. I want to teach her to be kind and "nice" to people. But at the same time not to the point of being a victim or a slave to others. As with everything else, I think it's a balancing act. We all want to be a nice person. But sometimes it is necessary to growl and snarl and let a little of the beast out, too. Sporting events are good for this. Yelling loudly at a football team is very acceptable. Whereas, screaming at your child for dumping flour all over the floor is not. (I did not yell at her this morning, by the way. I laughed when she dumped an entire cup of flour on the floor while her grandmother smiled and watched her be creative...I'm pretty sure all she "made" was a mess)

I will wrap this up. Maybe I can find the place to be, between sweetest ever and mean, foul bitch. Maybe not. Just stay away if you see me with a snarl on my face. I will have the yellow, flower Belle dress on again later.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question...

I watched Julie & Julia the other night and it really made me want to write again. Not because I think I'm such a talented writer, but because it's one of my favorite outlets and I don't get many opportunities to be creative (not counting entertaining K while she's pooping by seeing how many things I can make out of a square of toilet paper, because I did this for 20 minutes today and she was hysterical.) And I love giving my opinion. Having a blog is like the perfect opportunity for someone like me to just rant and rave about whatever pops into my sometimes deranged mind and then go on about my day.

But then I read a post like my sister's tonight. And it was talking about how this stranger e-mailed her to trash her and tell her what a horrible person she is because of a blog she wrote. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not so thin-skinned that I give a pile of steaming poo what Joe Schmoe from Alamo thinks about me. I stopped somewhere in my 20's caring if, as Sally Fields put it, "You like me." But at the same time, I don't exactly want to get lambasted because I made an off-color joke, or talked about my dysfunctional relationship with my mother. I realize that with the freedom of speach for me comes the freedom of speach for these wing nuts. (you really gotta be angry to go out of your way to write a stranger an e-mail about a blog they post)

And then there's the privacy factor. My husband is a very private person. One of my favorite things about him is he never talks about himself or anyone else. (sometimes this can be maddening, like when he gets off the phone with his cousin or a friend he hasn't spoken with in years and I ask what's new with them or what's going on and he's like "oh, not much" and that's all I get) And he certainly never shares his thoughts and feelings like I do on a regular basis. I like just being me. I like that I don't have to be a different me depending on who I'm with. I like being somewhat of an open book, no mysteries here. But then I had little K. And things really changed. I shudder at the thought of some pervie stranger whacking one off to pictures of me bathing my beautiful little girl. Or the thought of one of my less-than-stellar ex's finding me and then *finding* me after they're released from jail or the military or their cult or whatever. I really waver back and forth between wanting to post every little thought that pops into my brain to never writing anything more personal than a one-liner once a day on facebook.

I had a friend say to me the other day, "don't you blog? Give me your Web site, I want to read it." And I had to laugh uncomfortably and say how I don't really write much anymore. And I HATE that. Because writing used to be one of my biggest passions. And it sucks when I read people's blogs or facebook posts and it's only ever "life is so amazing and here's us making Christmas cookies and posing in front of our perfect tree" Because doing what I do for a living, I hear people's secrets. I know no one leads a perfect, happy, straight from a yoga class-high life. I tend to be more amused by the splashes from a puddle when a bus drove by me type of life introspections anyway. That's the real stuff. The zit on your face, can't poop after 20 minutes of straining, farting in a crowded elevator, bad breath when you're whispering in a movie theater. That's way more interesting to me than the posed pictures and fortune cookie insights.

I guess I need to learn how to balance it. Because this not writing at all thing is really getting to me. Or I need to just make my blog private or something. I don't know the answer. I do know that putting my thoughts out there on the Internet for all to read is what I do when I hit publish.
I also know that besides my sister and maybe one friend no one is going to read this anyway. So I'm pretty sure there's no book deal, reality show, or People magazine interview in my future.
Maybe an Oprah makeover (I wish). I don't know. Maybe I can let go of my hangups and figure out how to share and not overshare. There was a part in that Julie/Julia movie where she and her husband are screaming and fighting and he's like, "and do NOT blog about this fight" and I really don't want that to ever be us. But what on earth do I talk about if not him, me, our daughter, our life and my experiences in it? Maybe I just make lists of good books and movies.
Or celebrities who need to be my friend. Or I just go back to not writing and lamenting the fact that I never write....