Growing

One of the best parts of being a parent is watching the process of your child growing.  You know, the enthusiasm that they show when they learn a new skill.  The amazement, the wonder.  Everything is brand new.  They are not jaded yet.  Your child sees and experiences things in a way that you don't.  Hell, in a way that you don't have time for, in between bills and laundry and having to feed and clothe them as well as make sure that the exploration of their universe does not include a little experiment on what a fork does when it goes into the outlet or what bleach does to Dorothy the goldfish.  We are too busy being focused on keeping the little explorers alive that we don't have time to appreciate the wonder that is that lovely three leaved plant over there.  We have to snatch their asses up before they roll in the poison ivy and make tea out of it.

Charlie is beginning to discover her literacy skills.  Which is both awesome and terrifying because, hey, she is starting to read and spell!  and FUCK, she now is starting to know how to read and spell!  When children start to learn this shit, a major mode of communication for the adults around them disappears and the ability to have an adult conversation or to talk about the children in front of them is decimated.  It is both a moment to be proud as well as a moment to slightly panic because that is one step closer to not being able to keep the lubricant out on the bedside table. "Mommy?  What's Ky Jelly taste like?  Why can't I eat it?  I want a peanut butter and jelly!"  You just know that they are going to go to your mother in law and complain about how Mom is hiding the new flavor of jelly in her room right next to the funny shaking rabbit and her police man fuzzy handcuffs...

The whole sex thing is slightly terrifying too.  I tend to be slightly (ok, way) liberal when it comes to these kind of discussions with my children because I firmly believe that knowledge is power and my girls sure as hell don't need to be popping a baby out at 16 like I did (even if that whole situation did turn out well for the both of us, surprisingly.  I thought for sure Elizabeth would have been in a mental institution by now with me as a mother...).  It still doesn't mean that I don't die inside a bit when I get questions like, "Can you have sex with more than one person at a time?" or "But why would you let Daddy put that in there?  That sounds gross..."

Elizabeth is currently taking a class where they get to bring home the baby that cries and you have to tend to it.  I suppose that this is an effort to scare the teens into abstinence by illustrating that parenting isn't all cute babies and whatnot.  I was cracking up looking at her sheet she had to fill out about when the baby cried and what the reaction was...99% of the time she was annoyed by it.  Guess that one learned her parenting skills from her mother (or this is directly related to what I was talking about above...).  Good thing she recognizes this and has informed me that I will not be getting grandchildren from her.  Anyways, she asked me to baby sit for this "kid" while she went to commencement this afternoon, so I get to play at being grandma for a bit.

I hope that in real life, any grandchildren I might get aren't as creepy as this thing is.  Seriously, this thing is like the devil baby.  I feel like I need to cross myself every time I handle the thing.  It's cry sounds like the hounds of hell are being summoned back to their lairs.  Plus, it's arms don't really bend so they are outstretched like it is beckoning you to come over to the dark side like some kind of diaper clad zombie:

 Come to me...I will eat your soul...

I think I will be scarred for a while from this experience.  I can only imagine what it's mother feels like, having to deal with the Infant of the Inferno.   If the school's objective was to scare teens into abstinence, I think that this would do it because after caring for this thing, I never want to have sex again and I have my tubes tied.

Could you imagine the stuff you would have to stop this child from doing?  "No, honey, you can't skin the cat and drink it's blood."  "No, sweetie, Daddy does not steal Mommy's soul when he puts the baby in her uterus."  Guess I should be happy with just having to walk into the other room when I want to say something adult to my husband.

Musings

I always feel vaguely guilty about my lack of enjoyment of breakfast foods.  My ability to function in the mornings is as severely limited as an infant's ability to drive a car is, so any kind of food that takes actual preparation is out.  Plus, I never understood people who could eat like pancakes or waffles and then go work.  I usually drift into some kind of coma after eating those, either from the sugar in the syrup or the heaviness that goes with the territory of eating basically unleavened bread.  Seriously, a spoonful of flour is like the whole foods equivalent here folks.  I also generally find eggs to be the devil and always gag whenever I try to force their rubbery disgustingness between my lips.  Muffins are basically glorified cake and I am not so much a cake fan.  Cold cereal also makes me gag.  Bacon and eggs involve grease and that could be potentially a fire hazard before I have had my pot of coffee in the morning.  I usually settle for a handful of almonds or walnuts, mostly because the only effort I have to put forth there is to not miss my mouth and to chew.

I try to Skype with my niece in North Carolina at least on a weekly basis.  One could say that I am a good aunt, but really it is because I need her to like me because my children will most likely not pick out a good nursing home for me.  She totally waved to me today and I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me as well.  Just so long as she realizes that the good nursing home=I won't live with her, I think I am golden.

We got rid of our Directv earlier this month.  Best damn decision I have made in a while.  Still doesn't top the decision to stop using tartar control toothpaste so I don't get horrid canker sores anymore, but it definitely ranks up there.

I taught someone about the cognitive triangle today.  They called it the "magical triangle of wonder".  I am beginning to wonder if this means I need to wear an aluminum foil hat to work now.

I started new medications recently and upon obsessively reading the enclosed pamphlet (cause that is what the anxiety ridden do to see what awful things we can worry about next) I saw that I could potentially test positive for amphetamines now.  Fuck yeah.  If I am going to fail a drug test I want it to be for something unusual.  None of this marijuana or heroin shit.  I wanna fail for speed.

Struggling

It's never being good enough.

It's forgetting what it is like to function outside of the constant fog cloud of fatigue.  Forgetting what it is like to wake up after 10, 12, 14 hours of sleep and feeling refreshed and rested.  Wanting to spend all day in bed asleep because the time you have to be aware of how you just hurt is less that way.

It's wanting to curl up within yourself, except that you are intensely uncomfortable in your own skin so you really don't want to do that either.  So you exist in limbo, simply existing for a while.

It's the never ending cycle of thought that flows through your mind, unbidden and unwanted and uncontrollable and unwelcome.  "You suck.  You're awful.  You're less than.  You MUST be perfect.  You will NEVER learn to cope.  You will ALWAYS feel like hell."

It's recognizing the cycle of negativity yet feeling helpless to stop it.

It's the constant worry.  The catastrophizing.  The panic attacks.

It's seeing the reminder and freaking out and dying on the inside.  A touch, a gesture, a scent.  Triggers.

It's being numb.

It's the guilt.  The constant gnawing guilt of feeling like you are failing everyone around you.  Like you are to blame for your circumstances and why you are here and in this situation.

It's desperately wanting to feel better but lacking the motivation to even get up and make the call.  The fear.  The stigma.  The lies that run through your mind.

Make the call.  It gets better.

Random IV

Charlie was playing with some miscellaneous dried noodles, rice, oats, etc., and was "cooking" with it.  She was quite content to do this when she very quietly got up, came to me, and said very low and dramatically "I need a knife."  Uh, holy fucking creepy!  And speaking of creepy...

Let's talk the Easter bunny.  Seriously, who the fuck thinks of this shit?  Why does anyone think that the Easter bunny is a good idea?  And why do we continually condone Breaking and Entering?

Easter is a pretty creepy holiday overall if you really think about it.  Now before you get all up in arms about this, a man dies then three days later comes back to life.  How is this not disturbing?  Sure, Christians believe he did it for our salvation...but honestly.  I sure hope that God did his son a favor and made him not stink when he rose up because I could see how that would cause some social problems fo' shure above and beyond the "I died" thing.

Does that mean the Apostles could say "I see dead people" in a creepy Sixth Sense voice?

I also take issue with these "resurrection rolls" I see on Pinterest all of the time.  I could have totally seen myself as a kid missing the whole symbolism behind them and thinking that Jesus melted in the tomb like the marshmallows melt in the biscuits.  Like being raised in the Catholic church was not scary enough...next you give me melted marshmallows and expect my crazy ass mind to make the leap?  Yeah, it would leap right to Jesus melted like the wicked Witch of the West.

Still reading?  Haven't offended you with my sacreligiosity?  I am well aware I am likely burning in Hell in the future so feel free to judge away...cause that will totally get you a ticket to heaven.

But I digress....

I am seriously considering going into the Dog Toupee business.  I could gather up the fur I brush off of Spartacus and Maximus and fashion some toupees for those dogs plagued by premature baldness and receding hairlines.  It could be like a hair club for dogs.  But maybe like on a donation basis like Locks of Love?  Maybe 'Do's for Dogs?  Anyways, it totally sounds like a solid business idea to me and I am pretty sure the market here is wide open...Any investors interested?  I could totally put you in the commercial..."I'm not just an investor, I'm a member myself".  But that would only work if you had a dog...Possibly a cat too but a cat wearing a dog hair toupee might be like a human getting a pig heart transplant.

Ever consider what kind of psychotic person you would be?  I had that conversation once with my coworkers.  I like to think that I would be a crazy person even amongst the crazy people. 

Grown

Everyone tells you when you are pregnant (or in any stage of child rearing, really) that "It goes by so fast".  Never minding the poor grammar, that statement can't be more true.  I swear, Elizabeth was just starting kindgergarden the other day.  Of course, those who know me know that my other day can mean two days ago or 6 years ago...but I digress.

It goes by quickly.  Alexis had competition this weekend.  Yeah, this feminist, crazy liberal Mama lets her daughter participate in dance competitions.  Her studio maintains a degree of decorum regarding their routines.  They don't sexualize anything and their costumes are age appropriate.  I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but by God "Itsy Bitsy Spider" should not be sexy (and yes, there was once a routine for 7 year old girls to that song that was...)

It was a couple hour drive to the venue.  Alexis spent most of the drive down contentedly reading her Ramona book, but once it got too dark to read she started to talk to me.  About Santa and the Easter Bunny.  And how she *thinks* that they might really be parents doing all that stuff.

My heart broke a little bit, though I was expecting this because it was around this same time that Elizabeth started to question it.  I mean, kids are smart and they will only believe this shit for so long.  I guess I was not prepared for this yet.  Alexis is still so innocent in so many ways.  I was not prepared for her to give up that magic quite yet I suppose.

Next thing I know, Elizabeth will be leaving for college, Charlie will be starting kindergarden (in the same year, no less...really poor planning on my part).  They will start periods, have boyfriends, have to navigate friendships and heartache.

Soon they will start families of their own.  Have children, life partners, houses of their own.  I can't protect them forever.  Hell, Elizabeth is already more independent than I am comfortable with sometimes.  I am continually reminding myself that she is 16.  Time to let go.

How can I do that though when I still feel at times that I am masquerading as an adult?  When things can get incredibly confusing for me and I don't have all the answers?  How can I possibly expect them to go and be productive adults when sometimes I am crippled by my own thoughts?  When the demons inside my soul threaten to overcome me and I have to fight to get into the light from the dark depths of my very being?

I constantly question myself as a parent.  I joke about the decades of therapy my children will require, but the very insecure core of my being questions if that is really a joke.  I was just a kid myself when I began to raise a child...how will that affect things?  Will my children grow up to leave me and not want anything to do with me?  Did I give them too much freedom?  Not enough?  Did my depression and anxiety leave its mark on them?  Are they forever scarred because of it?

No, I am not ready for my children to be grown.  Mostly because I am not sure I am grown myself.

Groceries

My husband must have again decided that sprinkling bath salts on my dinner was a fine idea because I took the two little girls shopping with me this evening.

They actually did really well during the shopping part itself.  Hell, even the drive home was good.  We talked about how they were going to get home and get in the bath with no fits and then if they did a good job with that they could have a donut and a juice box.

Yes, I am totally aware that that constitutes a bribe.  With food.  My anxiety is already through the roof contemplating all of the eating disorders they will develop.  Don't judge me because I judge myself enough for the both of us.

I forgot one fact about my kids though.  Their bed time is their bedtime is their bedtime.  When Alexis was a baby, it was a struggle to get her to stay awake past 5:30 PM for the longest time. (After, of course, she got over that whole "I am never ever going to sleep ever so stop fucking torturing me MOTHER" thing as a very young infant...)  We eventually worked her up to 7 PM as a bedtime, which was rough during the summer time when it was still totally light out and I wanted to go outside and the above mentioned anxiety made me stay within monitor range...Charlie was not *quite* that bad, nor was Elizabeth, but by God, if you fuck with their sleep the demons of hell are released and the zombie apocalypse may as well start because you, my friend, are totally screwed.

We got home.  I took Charlie out of the car seat, attempted to trudge through the mud to bring the groceries in (no attached garage, or any kind of garage at all really, on the homestead, unfortunately) and I had the audacity to ask Charlie to carry in a roll of wrapping paper.

O. M. G.  The world collapsed around her, E no longer equaled MC squared, and peas and carrots had a bitter divorce and are currently engaging in smear tactics in the media.  I am pretty sure the howl of protest that child emitted tore the space/time continuum.  She had a melt down that made Chernobyl look like an X-ray.  I thank God we have pretty cool neighbors and that the old man who lives across the street is in Florida with his wife...because otherwise I am pretty sure the law would have been called.

I unpacked the groceries, studiously ignoring the meltdown like the good parent that I pretend to be on occasion should.  Alexis hops into the bath, gets herself the donut and the juice as promised, all the while Charlie is screeching like a banshee.  In the meantime, she has also gotten herself put into time out for trying to hit me and Alexis.  (To be honest, I am surprised she stayed there...I thought for sure it was going to be a chair in the middle of the room with nothing around and her being strapped in kind of time out.)  I go over to her to attempt to get her naked for her bath...she grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls down in an effort to keep me from taking it off.  I put her in the bath and she is sobbing so hard that she is choking on the boogers.  She never even sits down.

I get her out of the bath and get the bright idea that she needs lotion on her body because her eczema is flaring up yet again.  Since I am slightly crunchy (OK, probably pretty crunchy for the rural standards I live in...) I grabbed the coconut oil I keep in the bathroom for oil pulling as it has proven far more effective than the prescription cream at clearing that shit up.  I pull off a chunk (for those of you who don't know, coconut oil is solid at room temp) and use it to lather her up.  Dumb idea.  Ever hear of a greased pig?  Yeah, she was not exactly being compliant at that moment, so it was interesting to get her into her jammies to say the least.

I got her a tissue and she blew her nose; then she FINALLY decided to try to belly breathe.  I take her upstairs, she snuggling against me and burying her face in my neck.  I tuck her in and give her kisses, singing her the Charlie girl song I made up for her when she was a baby. 

"Charlie girl, my Charlie girl, you are my Charlie girl".

She looks at me, so sleepy and exhausted.  I tell her, "Mama knows.  I know what it is like to have those kinds of feelings and not feel like you can control them."  I do.  When I was little, my emotions frequently overpowered me.  I was my own worst enemy most times, though to some extent I was reacting to things around me as well.  It is incredibly scary to have such powerful emotions.  Especially when you are over tired and just done like she was.

It might be a while before she comes grocery shopping with me again.  And also, I am very grateful for the Raz-Beer-Ritas I bought tonight.  Great planning on my part!

Spring

Everyone I know is all like, "OMG, I am so over this winter and I cannot wait for Spring!"

Me, not so much.  Spring is the least favorite of my seasons.  If we could go directly from feeling like it is 0* Kelvin to the sweaty, humid hell that is known as summer in this state, I would be perfectly OK.  Sure, spring has new flowers!  New life!  Christians believe Jesus resurrected from the dead!  The weather gets warmer!

It just doesn't do anything for me.  Here are my top reasons why I hate Spring:

1.)  Daylight Savings Time.   Who the fuck thought that this would be a good idea?  Shifting time around like this is akin to me shifting money around to pretend like I have enough to pay my bills.  Someone pays, somewhere, and it usually involves lots of lost sleep, crankiness, and fantasies of winning the lotto so I can move somewhere warm and tropical.  Which leads me to...

2.)  The cold-ish weather.  Seriously.  Somehow bridging the gap between the cold and the warm seems so much worse when you are going from cold to warm like now vs the warm to cold of fall.  "Oh, but it's warming up" you say.  "There is hope coming from the depths of cold in winter", you say.  Fuck that shit.  It might be warming up, but it is still cold.  Come talk to me when the weather is consistently over 75*.  Not this 50* teaser shit.  What good is 50*?  You can't hold food at that temperature.  You can't freeze food at that temperature.  It exists solely to fuck with your internal thermostat.

3.)  The food.  OK, think of a spring food.  You can't, can you?  Winter has Christmas cookies and hot cocoa.  Fall has pumpkin and stews.  Summer has ice cream and watermelon.  Spring has what?  Ham maybe?  Easter candy?  Guess what, spring?  The Internet now exists and I can probably get Easter candy year round if I wanted.  Aw, snap!  Plus, Reese's has seasonal peanut butter cups for every season now, so I don't have to wait till Easter for the eggs to get the same deliciousness.

4.)  The mud.  It exists even when it hasn't rained for 4 weeks, simply because of the melting snow.  And it gets on everything.  This includes the inside of my house.  Mud does not belong on the inside of my house, SPRING.  Mud was fun when I was a kid.  It is not fun as an adult when you have to clean that shit up. 

5.)  The Easter bunny.  OK, bitchez, look.  The idea of a fat man breaking into your house to leave presents for you is creepy enough.  A tooth fairy who traffics in body parts, also creepy as fuck.  But a life sized rabbit that hides eggs?  RABBITS DON'T LAY EGGS SO SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE LOGIC???  Seriously, who thinks up this shit?  Lets tell kids about this humongous hare who ALSO breaks into your house and leaves eggs...back in the day they were actual hard boiled eggs so guess what happened if you forgot one?  No wonder people are fighting so for the right to own a gun in their home...it is probably residual trauma from their childhood and being told that all these strange humans and hares are breaking and entering.

6.)  The tulips.  Don't get me wrong...they are pretty and whatnot.  They also have the super bad habit of all blooming at exactly the same time and then disappearing at exactly the same time, so you are left with a garden full of empty stems of tulips.  Super depressing.  Spring's all like, "Oh, here are some pretty flowers...but you only get to enjoy them for a limited time so don't get so attached or plan any kind of significant landscaping around them!"  It's like those infomercials that are selling Bedazzlers.  You buy one cause it looks pretty, only to quickly realize the limited usefulness and that it will eventually make you and your property look like it is trying too hard to be attractive.

7.)  Finally...the clothes.  It is never OK to have to wear galoshes, a heavy coat, and a thin shirt AND carry an umbrella all on the same day.  You can shove your April showers bring May flowers BS up your ass, Spring.

Alone

If I could market whatever scent I emit when I sit down to, oh, eat, pay bills, or poop, the one that instantly attracts my children to me and makes them want to climb on my lap and snuggle at that exact moment...if I could do that and sell it to desperate people looking for a date, I would totally be a gazillionare and I would make Bill Gates clean my toilets with his toothbrush.

Seriously.  These children will ignore me until the exact second after I become not involved with trying to engage them in any given activity.  The nanosecond after my mind shifts from them to caring for, say, my basic needs, some kind of automatic honing device that was implanted in their brains at birth goes off.  They then feel the need to follow me around like a lovesick hound dog (minus the leg humping).

"Enjoy it while you can", they say.  "It goes by so fast and one day you will wish they were there doing that", they say.  First of all, who the fuck is the nebulous "they" that has so much to say?  Ever stop to think that there is a reason "they" are anonymous?  Yeah, it's probably because they give really shitty advice.  Enjoy being pawed at like a cat while I am trying to eat?  Enjoy someone climbing on my lap while I'm on the can?  Enjoy a child climbing on my lap, almost knocking my laptop off and causing me to spill my coffee down the front of my shirt while engaged in the already stressful job of "paying bills" (AKA, pretending that I have enough money to pay all the bills). 

I am sorry, but there are other things from my children's childhood I will enjoy.  I will enjoy the dancing in the living room.  I will enjoy the times they want to do my hair.  I will enjoy jumping on the trampoline with them.  I will enjoy the dance recitals, the art shows, the school performances and parties.

I refuse to fucking enjoy the fact that they instantly want my attention the moment I become engrossed in a task that has nothing to do with them.  Goddammit, pooping is a one man (or woman) job.  I don't need company for it.  In fact, I prefer to be alone.  And I do not require cuddling to get me to eat my veggies.  I can do that on my own as well.

The book "I'll Love You Forever" gets a bit of a bad rap.  Mostly because of the crazy helicopter parenting that goes on in there.  Seriously, B&E to get into your son's house when he is a grown ass man just to sing him that song?  That's a whole new level of crazy I can only dream of attaining one day.  But stop to think about that shit for a minute.

Paybacks, mothafuckers.  All those times when those kids crawled into bed with me at night cause "they want to cuddle?"  (Sleeping...another thing I prefer to do without help.) Better lock your windows as adults, girls.  Mama's getting herself some vengeance.

Crafty

When I signed up for this crazy thing called mothering, I knew that there would be sleepless nights, heartache, frustration, and various bodily fluids that I would wear at certain points in life.  No one told me, however, that it would also require mad Martha Stewart skills.

The explosion of sites such as Pinterest has led to super cute ideas circling the web faster than a line of coke goes up Charlie Sheen's nose.  Now don't get me wrong...I love Pinterest and the various ideas that it has given me.  Hell, I can wield a hot glue gun with the best of them.  What I really resent is the notion that we are going to pile on overworked, underpaid, and perpetually stressed mother's one more "requirement" to feel guilty about.  This activates in me some latent Oppositional Defiant Disorder and makes me want to give the universe the finger.  Then I feel guilty and sink to the depths of despair, convinced that because that one time when Charlie was three I didn't take the time to make a homemade (insert holiday) treat for her to take to class, she will be forever ostracized and bullied and will then become the next serial killer and end up getting arrested wearing her victim's skin as a fur coat while playing solitaire with a short deck.

Fuck that shit.  I sent in store-bought Valentines for the little girls.  I didn't even write names on the fruit snacks that I sent into Charlie's preschool class.  I felt a bit guilty about sending in those little bombs of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavorings and colors, but then decided that it wasn't enough to make me look for something else or to create a cute handmade valentine with an organic banana and a card that says "I go bananas for you, Valentine!"  I didn't have to feel so guilty about Alexis...her first choice, Airheads, was devoured by Spartacus because he is an asshole sometimes who emotionally eats everything that he can find because his owners don't pet him enough.  The second choice, purchased a half an hour before we had to leave for school, was temporary tattoos.  Let's ink all those bitchez in the second grade up, fo' shizzle!  What can I say; she didn't choose the thug life, it chose her.

If I have anything to feel guilty about, it is going to be my poor parenting choices and the amount of wine I consume to deal with my children's whining.  Not some fabricated requirement perpetuated by the craft industry to generate more sales in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.  I am going to have burnt fingers, be slightly high from paint fumes, and be covered in glitter on my own terms, dammit.  Not because some jackass in marketing decided that I needed something imaginary to feel guilty about...I do enough on my own to feel guilty about.  I certainly don't need any help, thankyouverymuch!

Frozen

I saw the movie Frozen today.  I had heard a lot about it from the whole "prince as savior for helpless princess" thing, and, without giving the ending away, I was pleasantly surprised (though of course there was romance...wouldn't be a Disney movie without the whole idea of a woman needing to be completed by a man, DUH).  I was also surprised at the fact that the movie seemed to be a decent allegory in favor of gay rights.

I figured that I could not be the only one who had picked up on this, and when I googled it I saw that most people seemed to get the vibe that Elsa was gay.  Now I have notoriously AWFUL gaydar...I have a story from college about that where I found out in the course of a day that FIVE people I knew were gay and I had no clue.  At all.  And looking back, one was pretty obvious and had basically every stereotype you can think of when you think of a gay man....what I am saying here is maybe that is the case in the movie and I totally missed it.  It's happened before, OK?

What struck me, though, was when the king and queen took Elsa to the rock trolls and the grandpa troll asked the king, "Was she born this way or was it a curse?"  As is the case with homosexuality, the response was "born this way."  Another scene that stuck out for me was when Elsa is building her ice castle and sings the song "Let it Go" and something along the lines of "I'm alone, but I'm finally free to be me".   Away from the confines of the kingdom, where her parents literally closeted her, Elsa was finally able to revel in the gift that she was given and be herself.

The persecution and fear that came from the people of the kingdom also stuck out to me.  Fear, revulsion, horror...all of what they did not understand.  She was something to be removed, hid out of sight...even the gloves were symbolic of her repression.  Don't be yourself, don't be different, you are dangerous to our society.  If you can't control yourself and who you are, we must eliminate you.  Very similar rhetoric that comes from aficionados of Fox News...

What sealed the deal for me was the ending.  It was love and acceptance that saved the day.  Elsa was still Elsa in the end...still had her powers, still was who she was born to be.  The very fabric of the society that she loved, however, was not worse off because of acknowledging her gift.  In fact, when she tried to hide and suppress it, she ended up harming not only the people she loved, but also society and causing herself emotional harm.  When her kingdom embraced who she was and not some false caricature of who they thought she should be, Elsa was able to enhance life in the kingdom and they all lived happily ever after in true Disney fashion.