House Rules

Every house has rules, that's just a fact of life.

We all had rules in our homes when we were growing up, and as we became adults ourselves, and either cohabited with roommates or boyfriends, or got married or had children, we developed rules for our own homes.

Some we adopted from our parents, some we just made up as we went along, as evidenced by the list of some of the rules in our home:

- No yelling inside

-Unless Mom is yelling. Mom is allowed to yell. 

-But don't make mom yell!

-No feet on the dinner table

-No farting on other people on purpose

-If you do fart on someone else, whether on accident or on purpose, you have to make them a treat to make up for the damage you can never really undo.

-Don't bother mom when she's in the closet with the door shut

-We don't do homework in the bathroom while Mom is peeing, we do homework at the kitchen table

-Don't bother Mom while she's in the shower unless you're bleeding

-I am not putting the cat in time out

-Do your homework before you go outside

-If you don't do your homework, you have to practice filling out McDonald's applications until you're ready to do your homework

-Don't moon me

-Don't lick me

-Don't jump on me naked

-My bedroom is not your playground

-Don't eat my chocolate

-After Halloween, Mom can eat your chocolate

-Lying kills Santa

-If you make me coffee, you're my favorite

-If I have to put down my coffee to chase you, find you, grab you, or otherwise stop you from doing whatever bullshit you're doing, you are going to regret it.

-Pee goes in the toilet, not on the floor, walls, front yard, my leg, the back of the couch, the back porch, the cat, or any brick wall you see. 

-Same goes for poop JACKSON

-If you pooped or peed on it, you're cleaning it

-Do not wake me before it's time to get up unless someone is missing, bleeding, losing their arm, or literally dying.

What are your house rules?

Do Parents Have Favorites?

 

People who do not have children, ask me all the time if I have a favorite child.

When my sisters and brother and I were growing up, we asked all the time if our parents had a favorite.

The correct answer that you give your child, always, forever, is no. I do not have a favorite. I love you all the same.

The truth of course, at least in my opinion, is yes.

Parents have favorites.

The caviat to this uncomfortable truth, is that favorites change over time, depending on the age and the stage that your kids are in.

When your 16 year old daughter is screaminig that she hates you from the top of the stairs, as she throws the expensive shit you bought her around the bedroom in the house you pay for, over something as trivial as what you made for dinner, she is probably not your favorite.

In that moment, the child who is sitting quietly at the table coloring you a picture, probably looks like they're sitting in a golden ray of heaven's light. Perfect.

But, when that lovely angel baby who was coloring you a picture yesterday, throws a screaming tantrum in Walmart over a water gun today, and your bratty 16 year old daughter is the one to calm them down and distract them, you would suddenly give anything to bathe in the glow of your precious teenage cherub's spirit energy.

Sometimes favorites change by the day, sometimes they change with the beginning or end of a new phase, or particularly difficult age group.

 

I don't like the fact that this isn't something we can admit to, at least among other adult parents, far from the prying ears of our sensitive children.

Of course I would never say to my lovely son that because he has been acting like a meth addicted lab monkey for the past 6 weeks, and making my hair fall out in crazy, horror movie stress clumps, he is not my favorite right now.

But I wonder why we're so scared to admit it to one another, as parents.

Are we scared to admit that our children are not perfect?

Is it uncomfortable to look at them, and our relationships with them, that nakedly?

Does it feel wrong to admit that there are aspects of our children's personalities that are hard for us to deal with or accept?

As parents we're supposed to love completely, 100%, and unconditionally.

Does admitting that we sometimes don't like every single thing about our kids every day of their lives, feel like we're not loving them like we're supposed to?

Maybe we're being too hard on ourselves.

To be fair, we don't get a lot of say in who our children are, in the most basic aspects of the personality anyway.

When we have kids, we have as little control, if not less, over what kind of personality they will have, than we do what eye color they're born with or if they're right or left handed.

There is no guarantee that we as human beings, will mesh perfectly with every aspect of their ever evolving and changing personalities and unique identities, all the time.

We will love them, we will cherish them, but we may not always harmonize with them.

There will almost definitely be times where our relationship with one child is requiring more work, while simultaneously our relationship with the other is in an easier phase, a period of closeness and harmony that just happens to be coming more easily at that exact moment.

And that's ok.

And, if we're being honest, there will almost definitely be qualities or traits to our children, that we would not like very much if we encountered them in a perfect stranger, and therefor will require more effort from us in order to be patient and accepting of those things all the time.

And that's ok.

 

I don't believe this means I love either of my kids less than the other.

I think it means that I recognize their differences.

They are two completely individual and unique people. Both have their own wonderful set of charms and blessings that they've bestowed upon my life. Both children also have their own unique set of challenges and struggles, and both children go through their own phases of growing up that are hard on me in different ways.

 

And maybe it does even mean that I love them differently.

Not different amounts, but in different ways.

Love is not a blanket that can be blindly tossed over everyone in the same way.

It's a unique and precious bond between two people, a commitment that takes work, and flexibility.

My children are not identical to each other,

they are not identical to me,

they will not be the same people for the rest of their lives.

They have to be loved in different ways.

 

In the end though, when we have kids, it's like entering a marriage that we can't ever get out of.

It won't be a honey-tinted Pampers commercial all the time, any more than marriage is a rose colored Zales commercial all the time either.

It will require work, it will get hard, it will sometimes be your least favorite thing to do.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with admitting to that.

 

What gets us through raising little humans, is not that its all roses or that our children never irritate, infuriate, or disappoint us.

It's that unlike a marriage, you can't ever fall out of love with your kids.

No matter how much they scream they hate you and your tasteless chicken, from the top of the stairs.

 

 



Mothering Girls

Raising girls, and raising boys, are two very different things.

I've written before about what it's like to mother a boy.

About the amount of damage they cause which you can measure in dollars and trips to urgent care, because boys are wild and dangerous. I've written about how they can be tearing the backyard apart one minute, and cuddling sweetly with the kittens on the couch the next. Sword fighting, and asking for hugs for no reason.

Girls come with their own unique set of contradictions.

Girls are emotional, from the time that they're born.

Girls are complicated, and their relationships with their mother tends to be even more complicated.

They are all at once telling you you're crushing their soul and all of their beliefs because when they asked if the house was haunted, you said no, and then in the same breath calling you their best friend and can they please paint your nails?

Girls most natural instinct, is to be just like their mother, without being anything like her at all. We have to rebel against the woman who made us, to prove that we are our own person. But we also have to make her mistakes and steal her shoes, because she is the highest idea of womanhood that we know.

Girls don't break things, and their rooms are usually a little cleaner.

They would never think of taking a black Sharpie to your leather couch, and they make you birthday cards with glitter on them and are the first person to tell you that you look pretty before a job interview.

But they also are overflowing with emotions much bigger than they are, and their second strongest instinct, which is to find and keep a feeling of safety and security, dictates that when all that emotion comes spilling out in waves that overpower them, they will always direct the storm at the person they know loves them the most, and therefore is the most likely to forgive them, and still let them paint their nails.

Mothering girls is very different from mothering boys.

When You're Outnumbered in the Morning

In the morning, I have three people to get ready: me, and both the kids.

I remember when Lainie was two or three, thinking "God it will be so nice when she's a couple years older and can dress herself in the morning." 

Flash forward six years, and I'm still picking out her clothes, and dressing five year old Jack like he's a damn toddler.

It's hard.

Luckily I've never been one to care too much about how I look, so going to work every day looking close to homeless because I was the last to get ready, and I was subsequently out of time, is nothing new to me.

For the most part Lainie can physically dress herself, and Jack can too if we all have 5 hours to sit around while he takes 1 hour to put on each item of clothing, allowing for 10 minute play breaks in between each thing, and as long as I don't mind Lainie being too lazy to get clean underwear out of her drawer, or trying to leave the house in a sundress in February or a sweatsuit in August.

At any rate, mornings can be a fucking mad house around here, and while I'm not by any means perfect at navigating them calmly, these are my tips for any one else who ever has to get more than one kid ready early in the morning by themselves, and still also put their own clothes on before leaving the house:

1. If one of your kids is not a morning person, but another one of them is, always get the morning person up first. Let the morning grump ass sleep a couple more minutes, and use this time to like, brush your teeth or wash your face, or any of those other "little things" that are always done in the last half second before you ABSOLUTELY MUST LEAVE NOW OR BE SUPER LATE.

2. Pick clothes out the night before. I say this, yet I'm terrible at it, so I do one of two things: I either pick out the outfit for the morning grumpy kid {Jack} during those couple extra minutes I gave him to sleep, or I if I do remember to pick out his clothes the night before, I try dress him in them after his bath and before bed.

I know that sounds lazy and terrible, but hear me out: I usually only put the shirt on him, and only if it's a t-shirt, and obviously the clean underwear and the socks. He HAS to wear gym shoes to daycare, and finding socks in the morning for three people is similar to dismantling a bomb in the rain with someone giving you instructions in Japanese. I put his bottoms at the foot of his bed, and throw those on him as soon as he gets up, before he can argue.

3. Relax about TV in the morning. Once you've dressed both kids, or at least provided the ones that are old enough to dress themselves with clothes, let them read or watch TV or play a video game, or WHATEVER, so you can have a couple minutes alone in the bathroom to get ready. The mornings I get the most pissed off and stabby are the mornings when both kids are under my feet in the bathroom while I'm stumbling around trying to get ready. Also, you can use TV as a reward, for say, putting on your Goddamn shoes. "Put your shoes on in the next 30 seconds, and not only will I not leave you at a fire station, but I'll also let you watch TV for 10 minutes before we leave"

4. Give warnings. I like 15, 10, and 5 minute warnings. I announce that we are absolutely leaving in X amount of time, and I stick to it. If you aren't done getting dressed or getting your stuff together in that amount of time, you are getting in the car as you are, period. I have definitely taken kids to school in pajamas, without backpacks, or clutching Ziploc bags of dry cereal because they screwed around and didn't get ready until there was no time for breakfast. If you have to put your shoes on in the car on the way to school, fine. 

Trust me, it only takes a couple times of this for kids to really pay attention to your warnings.

5. Do it together. I've learned that once the kids are all dressed, it's sometimes easier to do stuff like face washing, teeth brushing and hair combing all together at one time. Sure the bathroom is super crowded, but you can go through in one swoop and do all those quick tasks at once, and nobody's teeth or hair gets forgotten. Yes, I've done that too.

6. Last but not least, coffee.

For the love of all that is good and sacred in this world, motherfucking coffee, please and thank you.

How do you get your minion army out the door on time?

Monday Momisms: Having More and Having None

I'm not sure why this particular topic sprang to mind today.

The idea of some women not wanting more kids.

The question that seems to linger for so many people about whether or not some women can truly not want any kids, and not because they're just scared of commitment or of being shitty parents, but just because kids aren't there thing and they don't want any.

I know a lot of people who seem to be convinced that all women want a bun in their oven. That we all, deep down have this unspoken desire-nay, need, to be mothers, and the only reason a woman might choose not to become one is because, like I mentioned before, she's either selfish, or afraid of something.

I disagree with this.

I've always disagreed with it, but only recently have I become personally offended on behalf of all those no-baby-wantin ladies out there. 

Not because I don't want kids {clearly I wanted children} but because I don't want any more children. See, even after producing two beautiful, 100 percent healthy, mostly well behaved children, every time I get asked if I'm going to have more, I cringe. 

Because I know what's coming.

If the women over the age of 25 is asking that question at all, it seems to most likely be because she's hoping the answer will be yes, and then we can swoon over nursery plans and fond memories of vaginal tearing. When I say "Nope, I think I'm done" I'm always met with one of two responses:

1. "Oh are you suuurrrreee? Your babies are so beautiful!!!!" While I appreciate the compliment, the sad hopefulness in their eyes makes me feel like I owe them something. Like my ability to produce attractive off spring makes me somehow indebted to the general population, and I am now single handedly {single uterusedly?} responsible for providing planet Earth with the next Ryan Goseling. 

This is too much pressure.

2. "Oh you'll have more. You're young, just wait. Your clock hasn't started ticking yet. You'll want more" This reaction is usually handed out by older women, who I suspect are beginning to suffer the wrath of empty nesting, and are now publicly and proudly projecting on me, their repressed wish to be able to have just one more baby. To do it one more time.

They think that because I'm young I must not know what a precious gift my endlessly fruitful uterus is, and once old age begins to set in I will panic and feel the need to procreate as much as possible before "my time" is up.

I always want to say to them "trust me, I know what a gift it was for me to be able to have not just one healthy child, but two. I know how many women can't, and believe me, that sounds terrible to want a baby and not be able to have one. But it sounds just as terrible for me to find out I'm having a baby when I know I don't want one. I promise you, this has nothing to do with my age. I know I don't want more kids because I've done it. Twice. And I have no desire or biological need to do it a third time. I'm satisfied."

But I'm always scared if I start down that road I'll snap completely and ask them if they remember what pooping for the first time after they gave birth was like, and then see if they still think I'll want more some day.

I'm pretty sure I'm nonsensically {and graphically} rambling now, so I'll get to the point: I definitely think it's possible for a woman to just not want kids. And I don't think that's selfish. I think it's bad ass for a person to know so clearly and with so much certainty what they want, and follow through with it. It's much worse to know deep down you don't want a baby, but to have one anyway because it's the socially normal thing to do.

I definitely think it's possible to be done having kids after just one, or to not be done after 9 babies.

I think it all depends on how you see your life mapping out.

Does my uterus ache a little when I smell a newborn baby's head? Absolutely. 

Do I realize that I could potentially, someday in the very distant future be a step mother to somebody else's kids, effectively having more kids for lack of a better term? Yes.

But and that's all ok with me.

I still know at the end of the day, that I am done getting pregnant, growing a tiny human, and screaming it the entire way out of my body in front of a room full of overly curious people.

And there's nothing wrong with that, damn it.

Monday Momisms: Why It's Wet

Meanwhile in my mothafuckin bathroom, someone is playing in piss water.

When you have a three year old of either gender, boy or girl, there are things you just don't want to know.

But when you have a 3 year old boy,  there are a fuckload of things you don't want to know. Ever.

Things like whether he has chocolate or poop on his hands. You don't need to know what it is, just wash it the hell off. 

Or what he's eating, oh my God what is he eating, can you get his mouth open to see what he's EATING?!

Nope because he just swallowed it. 

It was probably something gross that he found under the couch or outside under a rock, or possibly in his own shoe.

And you especially never ever ever want to know why he's wet. 

Anywhere on his body. 

Ever.

Unless you just pulled him out of the pool or the tub, he is never going to be wet for any reason that isnt fucking disgusting, and you are never going to be happy when you find out the answer. 

So save yourself some Vodka, and just stop asking.

I learned this lesson the hard way last night when I gave Jack his dinner, sat him down at his little table, and started putting groceries away and cleaning the kitchen. 

He has some tater tots with his dinner, and a big cup of water.

My mistake.

I got caught up doing shit {read: distracted by something shiny or edible} and a while later Jack came to me with his plastic airplane that he couldn't get the cockpit open on to put Darth Vader in the captains seat. 

Jack insists that Darth Vader isn't really evil, he's just misunderstood.

Anyway, without looking at the toy first, I held my hand out for it and instantly felt slimy, greasy WET plastic meet my palm and all my fingers.

Without thinking I dropped the toy and yelled "Why the hell is it wet?!"

Jack looked at me and said "Nuffing". Let me be clear: he did not look at me silently. No, he looked at me and responded to my question of why his toy was not only wet but greasy  with "Nuffing".

If he hadn't been 3 I would've been like "THAT IS NO KIND OF ANSWER TO ANY QUESTION OF THIS NATURE EVER" but he is 3 so instead I asked again 

"Jack, why is the plane wet?! Where did you get it wet at?!"

My mind started racing trying to figure out where he could've possibly found water to play in, and the only logical solution came to me: the toilet.

The kids have their own bathroom, and in the middle of eating he had asked to use the bathroom. 

I was too distracted with stupid bullshit to remember when he came back...

It made perfect sense. 

He put his fucking plane, and hands UP TO THE ELBOWS in the toilet and played for God knows how long.

And then I remembered: JACK NEVER FLUSHES THE TOILET EVER.

He played in piss water.

I jumped up and told him to show me where the plane got wet, and as he lead me toward the living room he said "In the big big water thing!" 

In my head I was screaming "HE TOTALLY FUCKING MEANS THE TOILET"

When we got to the dining room he stopped and pointed at his water cup.

In relief I noticed his little table was covered in water, and that's where he must've gotten all wet. 

My relief was quickly dashed however when I picked up his cup to find it full of mashed up tater tots, lettuce from dinner, and his pilot Darth Vader floating in about 3 inches of dirty water.

And that my friends is why you never leave your children alone while they're eating want to know why you're child is wet.

Kids can be so gross.

The Friday Diary: March Wrap Up

Today is the last Friday of March, and by Sunday it will already be April, 2012. 

I can't believe that three months of this year that still feels new to me, have passed already.

It's all kind of going by in a blur, and time seems to be perpetually speeding up.

I feel like a lot has changed this year so far, and more changes are on the horizon, but I feel good about them.

This month, the 14th marked the end of three whole months at my new job.

The first three months were incredibly hard.

I have a boss who is difficult to say the least, and learning how to work with him without taking every little shitty thing he did or said personally was a huge challenge for me.

But I'm incredibly proud of myself for sticking with it, and trying every day to find some way to make that working relationship work because I have a great job. One that changed a lot for me and my kids.

I feel like towards the end of this month my boss and I made some real progress, and I even got him to laugh yesterday when I gave him a bright pink file folder, after he explained to me that he needed a folder made for something in such great detail you would've thought he was talking to a 3 year old.

He laughed a little, and I could see it in his eyes that he knew he deserved that.

As a reward I replaced the pink folder with a dark blue one while he was in a meeting.

I hope that small "thanks for not being a dick about the joke I just made" didn't escape his notice.

Also on the 14th, Bill and I marked the anniversary of three years in each other's lives. 

It's frustrating that we can't say "three years together" even though in my opinion we were together, and the way Bill puts it "we weren't dating but we were definitely in a relationship" {whatever that means}

But regardless, it was a big deal to me to look back at three whole years of managing to hang on to each other in one form or another, in the midst of all the rain storms and outright hurricanes that befell our relationship over all that time. We survived a lot, and even though a good portion of it is far too personal to talk about in detail here, if you knew everything we've been through, I think you'd agree that holding on to each other, and managing to fall in love and grow ever closer to one another was nothing short of a miracle.

Bill and I have grown immensely, I think in the last three months but the last month especially.

I am learning how to love better, and how to have a healthier kind of relationship than I've ever had.

As sad as it sounds Bill had to more or less teach me that not fighting over every single little thing that made me feel the slightest bit insecure, would actually over time make me feel more secure.

He was right, and I'm still learning.

But we haven't gotten in a legitimate fight at all this month, and I feel really proud of that.

My temper still flares up from time to time, and my insecurities still rear their ugly heads, but I'm able to let the moment pass without making a huge issue of it.

I think so, anyway. 

The kids are growing up so fast, and once April starts Jackson will be one month and 18 days from his 4th birthday. 

I feel an odd sense of sadness that his dad will miss yet another birthday, Maybe because I know that the more birthdays that pass, the more aware of that absence Jackson will inevitably become. His 4th birthday feels like the last one he'll have where he won't notice that his dad isn't there for it, or that other kids dads are there for their birthdays.

I wish his dad knew what he was missing.

And I wish Jackson never had to be aware that he is missing out on something too: a father.

As of today there are only 23 more sleeps until we leave for Italy.

Bill thinks it's funny that I count the night before we leave as a "sleep" because he knows I won't sleep a wink.

I really couldn't be more excited, and I couldn't be any happier that I'm going to Italy with Bill.

I say all the time that Bill and I travel well together, and that probably sounds weird to some people because you'd think that if you generally get along with someone in everyday life, or are close with them, that you would also travel well with them.

I've learned that this is not the case, and some people, regardless of how good of friends or how close of family members or how great of lovers they are, should simply never leave their hometowns with each other.

Bill and I travel well together, and I am very much looking forward to the adventures that lie ahead.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this year, to be honest. And that's something I haven't been able to say about the future in a pretty long time.

I have a great job that I'm actually doing well at, I have healthy kids who are growing and excelling despite the challenges they've already faced in their so far short lives, I have a truly truly amazing boyfriend, who gives me a chick flick movie worthy kind of love and makes me feel like we must really have something exceptional, because words just can't describe the respect, trust and admiration I feel for him. And I have a beautiful, safe new home in an awesome neighborhood, where the kids and I can go for walks at night and collect rocks and pine cones without being scared of getting shot.

I always hesitate to say this because it feels like I'm tempting fate {knock on wood} but life is really good right now, and I am so very thankful for what the first three months of this year have brought to me and mine.

Happy Friday.

Monday Momisms: On Mom Friendships

 

I read a post recently about whether or not moms and not-moms can be friends. 

Good points were made for why they can't. Things like: as moms we become boring creatures with little to talk about except baby poop and nap time and the cute shit our kids say incorrectly that provides us possibly the only entertainment we get in a day, and grocery shopping.

It's true.

Since becoming a mother I have over the last 8 years become increasingly more boring.

And the prognosis isn't good. 

I see myself only becoming exponentially more boring until I basically cease to exists as anything other than a machine that puts clothes into another machine to be washed, and cooks food on yet another machine that gets hot and beeps and smokes.

It will eventually be an endless cycle of my boring machine self, communicating with other machines in order to complete tasks that keep my children alive.

This is quite literally a nightmare I have often.

The writer of the post about moms and not-moms being friends, also went on to say that efforts could be made on both sides: not moms could be more patient, and kindly listen to our crap ass mom talk, and then when we're done bitching talking, we moms can indulge in a little not-mom vicarious living by listening to our not-mom friends tell stories about the normal lives they're still carrying on, in a world where they get to take a shower ever single day. 

I agreed with almost everything the writer was saying.

But it brought up another question for me along the same lines - or maybe another question asked in a different way: can moms and not-moms be friends when their lives are just so different?

Imagine that you did have normal shit to talk about, and you didn't ever tell stories about baby shit or grocery shopping {yeah right}, and you were actually able to get away once in a while for a girls lunch without your babies?

Would you still be able to maintain friendships with your friends who didn't have kids?

Would the two of you be anywhere near the same place in your lives? Would you be able to honestly relate to the things the other person was going through in their very different universe?

Once you live a new life for long enough, your old life begins to feel very foreign. It becomes harder and harder to recognize the native language, and communicate with the inhabitants of that now very distant land.

Do you ever feel like you're a little more grown up than your friends that don't have kids?

I mean, with no disrespect intended to the childless women of the world, but doesn't getting married, or being in a serious relationship, or doing it all alone while raising babies age you a little, if not a whole hell of a lot?

I am 24 years old and I don't feel anywhere near the same age as the girls in my office who are even a couple years older than me, unless they also have kids or a husband or lead a somewhat similar life.

Would your not-mom friends never get bored with just having girls lunch and getting your nails done, if they're still hitting the bars on Friday night, trying to find a man or have some fun, or just enjoy being young and still relatively unattached?

I know that the experiences I've had tell me it's incredibly hard for me personally to have close friendships with girls who don't have kids. 

It's frustrating on both sides when it comes to going out together: I can't ever go to happy hour after work, I cannot go to a bar where my tab will be over 20 dollars for two freaking drinks, I don't can't talk on the phone with them every night and sometimes I get so busy/tired/rundown/forgetful that I may not return a call for several days.

And during the times when I am overwhelmed, lonely from being the only parent/adult in the house, and a little bored after months and months of nothing but Rugrats on T.V. and World War II over getting little kids to finish their goddamn mac and cheese, it's hard for me not to feel a little jealous of my friends who are seeing concerts, going to movies and surrounded by their other friends constantly.

The resentment definitely comes out, and that adds strain to an already fragile friendship, and before I know it I'm saying that our lives are just too different and I need to find more grown up friends.

So I guess I'm saying I don't know how it all works, I don't know how to balance those worlds. 

I don't know if it's about maturity, or parental status, or if one determines the other and in the end they're all the same. I don't know if my own immaturity affected my ability to be friends with people with less responsibility than me, without allowing them to be poor influences on me, or if the way that raising babies just naturally wears you out and wears you down sometimes, makes being friends with people who have less responsibility than you a bad idea because there's almost no way to avoid them being a bad influence.
Oy. It's confusing, and I think there are no hard and fast rules or absolute truths.

I just know that friendships only become more vital, yet simultaneously harder, as soon as someone says

"Here comes the head!"

 Quote = Jerry Maguire

I'm Sorry, Photo Challenge

So, I suck, I'm aware. I've missed two separate weeks of the 2012 photo challenge, one of them being this week, and there's just no excuse. 

I didn't even just forget to post the picture, I straight up don't have the fucking picture, period.

I know, I suck. I believe I started this whole post with that very sentimate.

Asshole.

Anyway, while I might now have a picture of "Play" which was this weeks subject, I do have some good pictures to show you and hope we can all still be friends.

Yes, these are just the pictures that happened to be in my phone that I uploaded to my computer and then into this blog, slapped a caption on each and called it good.

Deal with it.

They begged  for their own rooms. And when they get them, what to do they do? Come sleep together in mine.

Dude, are Jack and I totally twinsies in this picture, or WHAT?!

Conceited, I'm aware. This is just a picture of me I found on my phone and touched up a bit so you could actually see my face {the sun was initially totally washing out everything below my eyes} and I realized I liked it. A rare thing for me, to like a picture of myself. I considered it worth celebrating. 

So there you have it. 

I also had a SUPER cute one of Jack and Lainie in the tub together, but you can see Lainie's upper half, which is bare, and the world being what it is these days about pictures of kids, I figured I wouldn't post it. 

You would've just died though. Just died. I promise. 

Happy F*cking Father's Day!

Well, Fathers Day in the house of Sarah is coming to an end. I spent the entire day today with my dad, and...well, it went exactly like I thought it would. Holidays and birthdays with my dad are complicated, and to put it simply, I never look forward to them. I in fact didn't have a birthday that he didn't ruin until my 22 birthday. And he tried to ruin that one too. Every year on my birthday, either he would be depressed and not get out of bed, be manic and wanting to fight, or calmly and quietly tell me what a terrible disappointment I was, and how my birthday used to be something worth celebrating, but he just didn't feel that way anymore. Thanks pops. Love you too.

To be fair, he does shit like that on his birthday too. So at least nobody gets to happily celebrate the day they were born.

Holidays with him are always stressful and complicated and something I usually save my one Xanax refill for, mainly because he is NEVER HAPPY. By never I mean never ever ever in the history of ever, and by happy I mean easy to get a long with, cordial, polite, cooperative or even in a half decent mood.

The day starts out the same for his birthday and father's day:

Me: Happy birthday/father's day Dad!

Dad: *grumbles* thanks

Me: What do you wanna do today?

Dad: *LONG AWKWARD SILENCE WHERE HE LOOKS AWAY A LOT OF SEEMS MAD*

Me: We can do anything you want. Wanna go out to eat? Go see a movie?

Dad: *grumbles* Idunno. *long silence*

Me: Ok......*looks away and tries to make small talk to no avail*

And it goes on like this forever. Sometimes hours. Oh I so wish I was exaggerating when I say hours. No, I mean it. Hours. Once he finally decides what he wants to do/agrees to do something I suggest, and we set a time for me to pick him up, I can guarantee without a doubt he will absolutely positively with 100% certainty, be just getting out of the shower when I get to his house to pick him up. Not dressed. Not anywhere near ready to go. And the remainder of his getting ready process will take until. the. end. of. fucking. time. It once took him an hour and a half to get out the door when all he still needed to do was put his shoes on. You know how I say getting the kids out the door feels like herding turtles? Ya, I think they learned that shit from him.

Once we're on the road, and the day is underway, it becomes a long, seemingly endless day of pretending to have fun, faking being in a good mood, and hiding my frustration as he sits there quiet and pissed off looking, only smiling and conversing with the children, while acting like I'm not there. And God forbid I discipline the kids for something he doesn't agree with, or the house isn't as clean as he'd like (this coming from him, a bipolar hoarder) for all hell will break loose and he will spend the rest of the day telling me what a failure I am. Thanks again pops.

Assuming we can avoid that, and the day goes without a fight (which is so rare, I can probably count on one hand how many times it's happened) I spend the day catering to him, getting the food and the drinks he likes and enduring whatever he wants to spend ALL DAY doing, like today when we spent almost $100 on food, and 4 hours swimming and BBQing with the kids, and at the end of it, when I drop him off at home, he stonewalls me.

That's right. A BBQ in his honor for father's day. An entire day with his daughter (the only kid he has who still speaks to him) and grandkids (the only two out of the 8 he has that he actually gets to see) and we did everything he wanted to do, and at the end, no thank you, no "I had a good time" no "I love you" not even so much as a "Bye" or a mumble or anything. He kisses his grandkids, gets out of the car, and without looking at me, waving or acknowledging me at all, he goes inside.

Love you too Dad!

So, yet another holiday where the only family who still tries to have a relationship with him, spends the day doting on him and loving him, and at the end the person who put it all together and made it all happen AND didn't stab him with a fork in the process, gets stiffed. Not so much as a fucking goodbye.

And I ask myself: Why do I even fucking bother?

Happy Fucking Fathers Day!

Almost

My dearest Tiny,

It is a hot day in late May as you and your brother play upstairs, laughing and screeching and pretending you're pirates. I can't help but think to myself how right now, in this moment in time, you are almost a lot of things.

You are almost done with the first grade, and you did an awesome job this year! Being accepted into advanced classes and getting straight A's all year. A little trouble with talking to your friends during class, but hey, that's genetic. Sorry kid.

You are almost 8 years old. Your birthdays seem to come faster every year, and I love watching you grow. But 8 seems so old. Maybe it's because I don't remember feeling like a kid anymore after my 8th birthday, and I am just projecting on you, but maybe it's because I can't believe we've been mother and daughter for 8 freaking years. That is so much time, but I feel like it went too fast! Can we go back to some of the really good parts, and hang out there for a while? Suspended in time, on that afternoon when you were 2, where we played dress up in your room for hours and you fell asleep on my lap. That'd be awesome.

You are almost too old for a lot of things. I don't get bathtime with you anymore. You hardly ever want me to read the story at bedtime, because you want to read it yourself. I don't get to pick out your clothes. I don't get to hear all your thoughts. You don't take naps with me. And you don't want me to kiss you in front of your friends. You're becoming too cool for me. Already.

You got a phone call from a school mate last night, and as you two sat gabbing on the phone for a half hour, I sat there thinking "What the hell are they talking about?!" You are already in that phase of girlness where you have your own language with your pals, and I am becoming too old to understand it anymore. You have inside jokes. Jesus Christ, inside jokes. You're only seven! You're so pretty and girly and popular and so totally everything I was NOT when I was a kid....and a teenager, and it just blows my mind.

You are almost growing up right before my eyes, and in a whirlwind, a haze, a blur of time. I hope you're never almost gone. I hope you're never totally too cool for me and I hope you never, ever, even almost forget how very much I love you. And how proud you make me, every single day of your life.

Making Friends with Cumin

I am losing my schmidt. In a big way. I am now on day 3 of being home with The Jedi all day long, and not leaving the house, using the bathroom, cooking a meal or sleeping a wink without him. Right there. By my side. Looking at me with those big, expecting eyes, saying things like "Could I hold you?" or "Could I have somefin to eat?" or "Dragon Tails! Dragon Tails! WATCH DRAGON TAILS OR I WILL EAT YOUR SOUUULLLLLL!" Ok, maybe he doesn't say the part about eating my soul, but it is definitely implied.

I can't take it anymore. I need five minutes by myself! Preferably away from the house, but I'm flexible. Really, I am! If I could just pee by myself, I would gladly give some kind of awkward mouth love to whatever angel watched my kid long enough for me to urinate, all by myself.

It would be weird.

I talked to Cumin today. Yes, I am being totally serious. I spoke to a bottle (jar?) of Cumin. It wasn't pretty, but it was definitely weird enough to cause a .3 second break in my kids non stop attempts to kill each other with plastic lightsabers and dress up clothes, so they could stare at me all crazy like, and Tiny could ask timidly if Mommy was ok. No! Mommy is not ok. Mommy needs a drink. Mommy needs five minutes by herself. The kind of by herself where I am not sitting upstairs trying to relax by myself but I can still hear everything that is going on downstairs, as The Roomie tries to keep you all quiet and entertained, but a fight or a temper tantrum or a hissy fit inevitably breaks out anyway, and my relaxation is ruined.

I need the kind of by myself where you're NOT HERE! Or I am not wherever you are. No offense, kids. I love you dearly, which is made totally evident in lots of other posts on this very blog, where I gush about you constantly, and in the fact that you are both well fed, bathed, dressed and STILL ALIVE by the end of every day, and completely uninjured at the end of every week. Clearly, I love you. But I still need a break.

I am exhausted. I have been wearing yoga pants (possibly the same pair. Gross, I know, but whatever, laundry sucks) all week. Seriously, ALL WEEK. I put on jeans yesterday and all day I couldn't think about anything but taking them off. I haven't done my hair, worn makeup or shaved a damn thing all week either. I am just too tired. And when the only person who is going to see you is a stubborn and whiny 3 year old who likes to be near you even when you're POOPING, you kind of stop caring about how you look.

I am desperate for adult interaction. I have been texting my grown up friends probably way more than I should. I refresh my email like 36 times a day. I check my phone for new messages even though I never put it down anymore, so I would totally hear it if a message came in. I check. Just in case. I get chatty with the supermarket check out person. I get way too personal too. Yes, I have become that person. In only 3 days. Good job, Jedi, you broke me quicker than I thought.

My perception of "fun" has become totally warped. I hate the park, I am famous for how much I hate the park. I never go. It's Arizona, it's hot at the park in like March. But I went today. It was my idea. I was secretly hoping there would be other moms there I could talk to, and that Jedi would burn off like 98% of his energy and sleep the rest of the day. Neither of these two things happened, Jedi whined the whole time, I got mud all over my yoga pants which means I have to wash them now, and then a couple in their 40's showed up and started full on making out on the swings. Hardcore. Ass grabbing included. It was weird.

Hopefully I can make it through the rest of this week and get to Saturday, which is like my ONE night away from the kids, and the same night that I am supposed to go see The Hangover II with Batman. Maybe if I'm lucky, I will wake up Sunday with a hangover of my own, and I can spend the day hiding under covers with some vitamin B12 and a gallon of water. That sounds lovely. Really.