When kids get their feelings hurt

The hardest thing about being a mom (in my opinion) is that sometimes I must see my children get their feelings hurt and there is nothing I can do. I can only give them a little extra attention and try to explain the actions of other children. It is a situation which I never feel I have handled properly. I saw my ineptitude again tonight. Cora has a friend -- someone she considers her best friend. Tonight she learned that her friend is planning a small birthday party and didnt invite Cora. It sounded as though the friend can only invite 2 or 3 girls. But if Cora could invite only one girl this would be the girl. I saw that Cora was hurt by the fact that she wasnt on the list of three girls invited. How do you help a child deal with hurt like that? I think I do everything wrong. This time I explained that her friend probably knew we would be gone for spring break and so she didnt even ask. But, is that helpful? Or did I make things worse than they already were? And what will happen next year when they all move to the middle school? Will these events happen more often? How do you handle similar situations? What would your response to this particular situation be? And how do you keep your children's pain from becoming your own pain?

Mountain Fashion

My favorite attire is a warm pair of flannel pajama bottoms an a tee shirt. Sometimes they do not even match. I wear a skirt to church but otherwise you will find me in denim or my flannel PJs. When I was much younger I loved fashion. I dressed in all the crazy 80s 'inspired by The Go-Gos' clothes and loved to shop for clothes. My lifestyle was different then. I went out to clubs, and dated boys I knew in the military. Rarely was I home on a weekend. Even week nights I was often out with friends or boys. Fashion played a role in that lifestyle. Now I spend my evenings playing board games, reading books, watching TV. Family activities. And my fashion reflects the crazy weather of the mountains rather than the crazy music of my young adulthood. I call it mountain fashion. :)

Music Memories

When I first discovered the world of blogging (admittedly long after most) I read posts by a friend about the memories evoked by the music of her youth. I loved the series and I have often reflected on those memories in my life. Back in the mid-1970s, when I was in Junior High I fell in love with what I term folk music but is really more appropriately named light pop/rock/easy listening. The Carpenters. The Turtles. Olivia Newton John, before disco. Mac Davis. I owned a all-in one stereo with AM/FM radio, a 'record player' and an 8-track tape player. (Yes, I am that old.) I would put a stack of records on the turntable plug in my massive headphones and stretch the cord as far as possible so that I could sit in my closet under my hanging clothes listening to my music for long stretches of time. Why in my closet? Privacy from my annoying little brother. Feeling sheltered from the world. Hiding from my problems. Getting lost in the perfect, romantic world portrayed in the lyrics of Karen. I sang every memorized word and formed a distorted view of love and relationships that lasted well into adulthood. Aside from that I remember the escape offered by the beautiful, high notes of Olivia in "I Honestly Love You" and Karen in "Close to You". I remember loving the fact that my Junior High teacher chose the song "Happy Together" for us to sing in show choir and that I felt every word was for a cute, blond boy named Doug. When Crystal Gayle sang "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" I cried along with her plaintive words. Mac Davis created a world of expectations for my first pregnancy in the song "Having My Baby". I grew up and learned that life is not a love song, though love does have its own musical soundtrack. I learned that pregnancy is not always filled with only happy moments. I learned that I didn't want to sing about either happiness or heartbreak. I also learned the power of music in my life and each era of my life brought with it a soundtrack (is there a synonym for soundtrack?)which calls forth its own set of memories -- good and bad. I love all those soundtracks and eventually I would love to have a digital play list for each of them on my iPhone. Wouldn't that be fun? What are your favorite soundtracks and what memories do they arouse?