Things that annoy me in no particular order

1) When Matt buys a box of 50 doughnut holes and he eats two doughnut holes and I eat FORTY EIGHT doughnut holes.  For the love of all that is holy (HA!) man, buy a bag of doughnut holes without a number on it. I don't want to know.

2) Nate's new obsession with brushing his teeth like a big kid and subsequent screaming when he can't stand at the sink, his eyes barely clearing the rim even on our tallest stool, intoning AHHHHHHH.  AHHHHHH. AHHHHHH. Gleefully.  Until someone sticks a toothbrush in his mouth, which makes him tail-wagging happy.

3)  Hampton Noodle.

4)  What, you want specifics?  a) He's currently chewing on my sock.  It is on my foot; b) he stops periodically to hork up sock fuzz in the vicinity of my foot; c) he eats toys; d) he can shove his head under my typing hand so hard that my hand flies off of the keyboard; e) he then rests his face on my laptop on the dining room table.

5)  Waking Nate up from a nap to pick one of my children up at school because - OH. MY. GOD. I'm not even going to say.  I don't want any of my children to be humiliated by my writing some day, but please, please, someone make it stop, I can't take it.

6)  Collapsed one-hundred-year old sewage pipes.  Related annoyance: Cheerios floating in sewage on my laundry room floor.

7) Casserole clubs.  They really do.  I'm sorry, casserole club lovers, I still think you're wonderful. I don't blame you for your casserole insanity.

8) Rotorooter men who inform my husband that there are tampons wrapped around tree roots in our collapsed 100-year-old sewage line.

9)  This conversation:  Matt:  We've discussed flushing tampons.  NO! FLUSHING! TAMPONS! Me: I haven't, not in years, I swear, I've barely had a period in six years.  Matt:  And yet, you just started having them and mysteriously our collapsed 100-year-old sewer pipe backed up.  Me: Not. It. Matt: ?  Me:  I might have forgotten one or two.  OMIGOD. THEY SAY THEY ARE FLUSHABLE. I am not fishing one out after I've already dropped it.  Matt:  They say they are flushable because they were invented WELL AFTER OUR SEWER PIPE WAS INSTALLED.  They mean, flushable in a toilet connected to sewer pipes installed after 1910.  Me:  Well, it should say that on the packaging then, shouldn't it?  Rotorooter man, staring into his stupid little pipe camera:  It might be a wet wipe.  Matt:  FUME&#^&#%^@*FUMEFUMEFUME.  Me: You are not helping me, rotorooter man.  Matt:  FUME@%#&*#@*FUMEFUMEFUME.  Me:  Oh yeah, well you are not here; one of our children is going to have a colostomy bag installed if he/she/it doesn't knock it off.  Matt: You use wet wipes?  Me:  You have a better method for extracting crusty shit from someone's butt cheeks?  Matt:  ----  Me:  I thought not.  Matt.  NO! FLUSHING! WET! WIPES!

10)   Finally ordering new sheets for our bed in a lovely "cafe" color that ends up being satiny 1970s disco gold/green.   Not shipping them back because I am too cheap to pay return shipping and my punishment shall be: the ugliest new sheets in the history of new sheets.  Let this be a lesson to you all.  White.  You want white sheets.

Things that delight me:  You. Thank you for the lovely comments on the last post. I cried and cried. They grow up, don't they and we can't stop them.  Our surprise extra week of summer. Heaven.  The gorgeous new color Matt painted our kitchen. Hampton's ears. They cross in the middle.  It's ridiculous.  Matt is home early from work!  Good night, sweethearts.

And, I just fished soggy paper shoe stuffing out of Hampton's mouth.  Good feeling gone.

Nanny Blanket

"Momma? When I not need nanny blanket any more?"

They are all in their beds, lined up in adorable orderliness in the Snow White room.  I have already tucked and covered and kissed and I sing John Denver lullabies as I fold clothes and put them away in the tall, honey-stained wardrobe.  I love this room.  I love this moment of the day.  In this moment, cleaned and tucked and kissed, I could do this forever, I would keep them this age for ever.

He holds up the faded, newborn-yellow waffle swaddling blanket in his arms to make sure that I understand the query.  It is one of seven or eight identical blankets that I rotate through the laundry and into his hands for hard love and then back to the laundry.  Some nights, no less than three nanny blankets will do.

"Whenever you're ready, baby." I tell him.  "You don't need it any more when you don't want it any more."

"I all done."

My heart twists and I am a new mom of three, bent blearily over the bassinet beside our bed, gently shaking, shaking, shaking. The motion mustn't jerk or slow. Watching, rapt, the sleeping days-old baby, wrapped tightly in a newborn-yellow swaddling blanket.

It twists again and I pat the bottom of a nine-month-old boy.  He nestles down into his crib mattress, senses something off in his comfortable world and pushes up, looking.  He locates the yellow blanket and bunches it beneath him, kneading it like a cat, until, with a contented sigh, he closes his eyes.

One more wring of my well-used heart and I laugh uncontrollably on the floor of the Snow White room.  He is young, so young.  Just two?  Two and a half?  "I a naaaaaannnnnyyyy dose," he intones eerily, stalking, Frankenstein-like after a shrieking Saige.  The newborn-yellow waffle blanket, now a bit gray around the edges, is over his head and his arms stretch out in front of him in perfect zombie form.  "I a naaaaaannnnnnyyyy dose."

"Okay." I tell him in this just-before-sleep-quiet room.  My three year and two month old boy.  Okay.  "Do you want me to put nanny blanket away?"

"Yep."  I take the loved-soft fabric in my hands and press it to my face.  It smells of dryer sheets and milk and dirt and dog and little boy.  It smells like Quinn.  What do I do now, I wonder.  Do I put it away in a plastic bag?  Never wash it again.  That seems silly.  It would only be a dirty blanket.  Saving it won't hold him, any more than pictures, or wishes or tears will hold them.

I reach the door before he cries out.  "Nanny!"

"Do you want him back?"

"Yes. I not ready. Maybe tomorrow I'll be ready."

"Okay." I hand it back, letting the back of my hand rub the chub that still graces his cheek. When I lean down to kiss the same spot, I close my eyes. The tip of my nose touches the soft lovey as my lips touch his skin and I can't tell the difference by smell between the blanket and my little boy.

Okay.  Maybe tomorrow you'll be ready, but can you tell me something, Quinnigen?  Can you tell me when I will be ready? Because I don't think a million tomorrows will be long enough.

Stupendously inept parenting moments - Part II

We walked to an ice cream parlor, one afternoon not long ago, to meet Amy and Elise for an afternoon treat. I had all four kids and the triple stroller. At the last minute, for reasons unfathomable, I decided to take Hampton Noodle.

It's a twelve block walk. Four blocks in, I discovered that the eight-month-old Great Dane "puppy" could pull to the side so hard that the entire stroller turned around backwards. That is correct, I had a dog stronger than I am chained to my triple stroller containing my two youngest children. I chained him to the rear brake, which kept him from spinning the thing like a top but put him directly under my legs and desperate to see around one end of the stroller or the other.

He also barked the entire way, but I was prepared for that and he wore his bark collar. Which made it something like this.

BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK! whimper. BARK! whimper whimper whimper.

We straggled raggedly forward.

Two blocks from our destination, Garrett trailed his customary block behind us. Quinn screamed snottily in the triple stroller.  Saige cavorted merrily on the curb of the large busy street that we had to cross without actually putting her toe into the street because then her world would end and also she wouldn't get any ice cream, but ohsoclose in order to ensure that I hyperventilated and yelled at her to stay back from the street the entire length of the block.

There wasn't a lot of traffic. Only one car was in view, driven by a thin woman with a long face and straggly gray hair. She coasted to a pleasant, helpful stop in front of the crosswalk and I smiled and gave her the distracted, polite, move along wave. Garrett still had yards of meandering and navel gazing and fuzz picking to mosey through and I had to get everyone attached to or otherwise holding the stroller and the damn dog kept lunging forward and twisting it around backward and so I had engaged the big foot brake.

I wasn't ready to cross the street is what I'm trying to tell you.

Crazy-ass helpful car lady (CAHCL) got all excited and insistent with me, waving madly out of the window of her car that I should cross the street.

Annoying because 1) don't boss me; 2) I'm the commander of this small army of little, impulse-control challenged things, lady, don't tell me how to execute street crossing maneuvers; and 3) WTF? I did the polite wave, that's the end of our street crossing interaction. But, I'm actually a nice person, in general, and I don't often get grouchy with strangers who are trying to be helpful so I smiled sort of and gave her another polite, please carry on your way, we're not ready to cross the street, wave.

I promptly turned my back to her to assail Garrett with dire threats of sad little boys who don't get ice cream if he didn't get his butt over here and hold the stroller so that we could cross the street rightfreakingnowohmygodchildyouaresoslow. Saige hold the stroller. Quinn knock it off. Hampton. Just GAH. Hampton.

I registered, vaguely, on the edge of my consciousness, that someone was yelling, and since that's never a good thing when you are in command of an army of little things on a busy street corner, I looked up. CAHCL was still there. Now her entire head and torso hung out of her car window and she yelled at me. "GO!! GO HONEY GO!!! GOOOOO!!!! GO NOW!!!

?

1) Not helpful; 2) I'm not ready; 3) now you're pissing me off; 4) are you insane? just drive away; 5) AS IF we weren't making a big enough scene already; 6) people are looking at me.

I fixed her with my sarcastic, D.C., you have got to be kidding me glare, which, I assure you is never, no matter how annoying you find the situation or the person with whom you are dealing, appropriate for the border of Idaho and I said in my "nicest" most precise, you are irritating the living hell out of me voice: "Please don't rush me; we're not ready to cross the street and it's not safe to straggle across."

Much as I love my adopted home town, at times, the natives baffle me. On the east coast, my glare alone would have earned me the finger and some choice expletives as she sped away. Then again, on the east coast, we never could have reached this point in our exchange because if she had stopped, which she would not have, someone would have gotten out of the line of 200 cars behind her to kill her by now.

Here, on the slow paced, friendly, oblivious border of Idaho, where in all of this five minute interaction, another car still had not approached in either direction on this fairly busy, four-lane road, making her behavior even more baffling to my alien sensibilities because lady, for real? It's not like this is my only chance in five hours to cross the road. She grinned even wider and nodded her head like an over eager puppy, missing my sarcasm and my death glare and my general please go away and leave me alone attitude and chortled merrily, while opening the door to her car.

CAHCL: Can I help you?

Um. Yes. Yes, you can. GO AWAY.

Me: No.

CAHCL: Oh.

Lady. No. People everywhere. No. Here's a tip, from a fairly confident mother of four small children who is stupid enough to take her pet pony on a twelve block walk to the ice cream parlor. No. I do not want you to help me. Unless you see copious quantities of blood or I lose consciousness, here's what I want from you: 1) ignore me and my entire brood no matter how much noise we are making; 2) do not judge me with your eyes, body stance, snort or other attitudinal postures; 3) don't make eye contact with the children; 4) If you do make eye contact, do it only to give me a sympathetic and encouraging smile, but keep moving at all times.

Not because I hate you or humanity or I'm evil - okay sometimes I'm evil - because I have a system. I have procedures with rules for absolutely every situation and despite appearances, I am maintaining strict order and some semblance of control until I am distracted by dealing with you.


She still didn't leave. I grabbed Garrett who was, finally, at long last, within my reach and I attached him to one side of the stroller, Saige held the other side and I turned back around to cross the street. She was still there. I cannot make this crap up. Did she have a bucket of popcorn in her lap or something?  Free show at L---- and 25th!  Ponies and midgets!  Another vehicle had finally approached in the opposite direction and so we had to wait while that driver appropriately ignored our entire three ring circus and blew through the crosswalk without so much as a brake tap.

There. You see? That is behavior that I understand. That is the kind of individual that I structure my world around. Thank you, oblivious cranky driver, for renewing my faith in the fact that most people are completely ignoring my insanity.

Finally, we crossed the street. We took our sweet ass time, too. Because Garrett's shoe popped off of his heel and he burst into tears, the dog managed to pull the chain to the end of the metal brake bar and around the edge of the stroller so that he could tromp on Saige from behind and oh yeah, Quinn totally still screamed.

Yay! Ice cream! Fun!

The car lady rolled down her passenger window and called, "okay, have a good day," before she drove away.


I have nothing. Imagine me here with an incredulous, bewildered, sarcastic look on my face.


I pulled up, thirty minutes late, to the Scoop, sweaty and red-faced, with sobbing children and the dog.

BARK. whimper whimper whimper. BARK! whimper whimper.

Amy and Elise eyed me like I had drool hanging from my mouth and a guy following me around with a straight jacket and they were all, the dog, really? It's not hard enough for you to get here, you have to throw your pony into the mix?

That I can appreciate. They speak my language.

While we ate ice cream, I girded myself for the long return trek with no threat of losing ice cream to hold over my oldest children's heads.  Elise shook her head and sighed. Notice how she features prominently in my parenting debacles. It might be all Elise's fault. Hypothetically.

"I'll take the dog in the back of my van."

"No. It's alright."

"Dude."

"Yeah, okay fine. Thanks."

See. That's helpful.


This post brought to you by poor decision-making skills, my magnetic attraction for crazy people and a lot of guilt about the amount of time our dog spends on his chain.

Stupendously inept parenting moments - Part I

Last week, I wanted to meet some friends for a morning chat/play date at a local park. I had time constraints. Our contractor was stopping by to suss out the plumbing situation for our addition. I also badly wanted a chai tea latte. I decided to drive for coffee (for everyone, of course), but take the stroller and meet up with my friends for the walk to the park. I assumed that our ginormous double Chariot jogger would just pop into the back of the van. Except that when I strapped Cue and Nater into the van and lifted the stroller with great effort into the general vicinity of the van rear, I found that it was too large by approximately a kajillion sizes.

Matt could have told me this fact immediately because he always takes the wheels off of the stroller to load it into the van. Don't even ask me if I took the wheels off, I'm intentionally helpless when it comes to unscrewing things.

(I screw things just fine, thank you, OBVIOUSLY.)

I needed one of those bungee-stretchy things, because Elise only lives a few blocks from my house and I formulated a plan to tie the stroller into the back of the van, drop it at her house, run for coffee and then come back to her house for the walk. You would think, at this point, that I would just load the kids in the stroller and walk the few blocks, but you would be wrong because DID YOU MISS THE PART WHERE I SAID I NEEDED TO RUN FOR COFFEE OHMYFREAKINGGOD. I hit the garage and did a once over looking for those bright yellow bungee things but I'll be damned if I could find a single bright yellow bungee because of course I couldn't find one when I actually needed one. I've only been pushing around about seventy of the damn things for eleven years. (The length of time that Matt and I have been married. There were no bungees in my life pre-Matt.)

I finally found a stretchy jump rope and I was all: Same same! Perfect! As I balanced the large, awkward double stroller against my shoulder and attempted to secure it to the D-rings in the van floor with a jump rope, the handle popped off of the jump rope and broke my nail. Because apparently jump rope handles aren't glued onto jump ropes securely enough to handle the torque of a small woman pulling tight a knot around her stroller's wheels.

WTF, jump rope manufacturers?

(Matt is dying right now.)

Knot tied sans handle, we set off. I dropped the stroller at Elise's house and got coffee and walked to the park and the whole thing worked beautifully because I have madtastic problem solving skills. Except that while I was lounging at the park, sipping chai and chatting and watching only two children, one of whom is happily not yet mobile, Scot, our contractor called to say, Dude, WTH, you promised to leave the house open in case you were late and now I'm early and I want to get into your house. I was very grateful that Scot is kind of more like a brother than a guy we employ because I was all, um, yeah, coffee, shitty jump ropes, I forgot, could you just be a lamb, as Amy would say, and nip down here and grab the keys? And I will load the stroller and hightail it home, but it will take me awhile.

He did because he rocks, but then I realized like two seconds after he left that I didn't keep the van key, which meant that I would have to walk all the way home. That was fine, seeing as I already had my chai, but I would have to get the van later, which kind of sucked, because I forgot about Quinn's preschool at 12:30 p.m. Which actually ended up being a good thing. Stick with me here. Quinn goes to this REALLY crunchy, organic preschool on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and it's lovely and loving and we are all very much in tune with the butterflies and the wolves and the stars, etc., etc. They make their own snack there, every single day. The THREE year olds.

They make bread. I DON'T MAKE BREAD. In fact, I'm pretty sure that making bread involves unscrewing. I don't fit in all that well because I am lazy and Matt is a cheap bastard and to be organic and loving and grain-grindy-bread-makey you have to either spend a lot of money or be very, very productive and resourceful. Although, I did make a bungee out of a jump rope, let's not forget.

So. It was vegetable soup day at organic preschool and not only did we PICK tomatoes from our weed patch with one living tomato plant, we also WALKED to organic preschool. I know. Your awe is much appreciated. After we dropped Quinn at organic preschool with his home grown, hand-picked tomatoes, but without shoes, because, oh my god, I don't even know why. I put him in the stroller and neglected to look at his feet. I feel your awe crumbling. After we dropped Quinn, Nate and I walked to Elise's house to retrieve the minivan and I reloaded and resecured the stroller and started home, which involved turning off of her street onto mine and then driving three blocks "up" my street to my house.

"Up" being the key word in that sentence. (Matt is livid now, I may not have exactly told him this story yet. Hi Matt.)

Turns out, wouldn't you know, that apparently jump ropes are complete rubbish at holding heavy over-sized strollers in the back of vans and that in actuality gravity did the lion's share of the work on the way to Elise's house that morning. Nate and I soldiered on despite heavy adversity and I think the stroller only flipped over the bungee/jump rope and hung upside down from the rear of the van like four times in three blocks, so that went rather well, don't you think?

THEN, I unloaded the stroller and THEN I drove over to organic preschool with a pair of Quinn's shoes.

Notice how I never had to unscrew anything.


This post brought to you by stupidity and a frightening chai addiction.

Carrot

She has mahogany hair pulled into two, long, luxurious pony tails, almond-shaped brown eyes and a name that will turn the other girls green with envy in high school. A name not everyone could pull off. It is beautiful. She is beautiful, and though I think all children are beautiful and I understand, now, at 37, the mistakes of my youth; I understand that soft, new skin and powerful young bodies are always beautiful, there is no question about it, she shakes my faith because she is beautiful in a different way. In a way that will be difficult for some of these children, who are not beautiful in her way, in seven years.

She stands at the top of the steps, a few feet from her oblivious father.

"Carrot." She says, her nose wrinkled into a teasing pout, at the sight of my own beautiful red-headed boy.

He puckers his lips, scrunches up his face and sticks out his neck in her direction with his hands on his hips. He looks ridiculous and it is all I can do not to laugh. "No," he barks, a foot-stamp evident in his voice, "Not Carrot. GARRETT."

"Carrot." She sings again.

It is not cruel. Perhaps she is too young for cruel or perhaps she will always be one who uses teasing kindly, to include, not exclude. It is light, laughing, but not derisive.

"GARRETT." My son repeats emphatically before he runs from her with his funny, shuffling run that does not bode well for future coordination. His genes are poor on both sides for grace. He will be a tall, lanky, clumsy boy. May he be as kind and loving as his father and less sarcastic than his mother.

His face is still scrunched into a storm-cloud of dissatisfaction when I join him at the bottom of the ramp. The girl with the pretty name waits a few feet away, having gone down the steps to her father.

"Why does she call me that?" He bleats.

"She thinks it's funny," I tell him. "You can tell her no thank you, or you can ignore her until she uses your proper name."

We walk toward the car in our customary little ball. Nate in the stroller, Saige and Garrett holding either side, Quinn "helping" me to push by standing awkwardly in my way so that any forward progress comes only at great inconvenience to me. Strangely, Garrett picks her side, so that Saige and Quinn and I are not a buffer between them.

"Goodbye, Carrot," A----- calls.

"A-----, that's not nice," her father notices at last.

"I don't LIKE THAT." Garrett tells me with crossed arms and an angry twist of his body.

I understand, I want to say, it's not nice, is it, it must hurt your feelings that she won't use your right name. But I can't choke it out around the sudden tears. I have to pull my sunglasses down and wipe my nose surreptitiously with my hand in the church parking lot.

Because, oh god, you will, though, won't you? You will long for her teasing sing-song voice. You will walk down a certain hall only to pass her and have her smile and call you Carrot.

All I can hope is that her voice will keep the edge of kindness and that your self esteem will be such that you see humor and not rejection. I'll hope it with all my heart for the next seven years, on the off chance that it will make it true.

My no need a yap

Clearly not.

(That's not glass, he had a plastic drinking cup full of tiny balls. That doesn't sound much better, does it? He was pouring them. It's very Montessori-esque. Stop judging me.)

(Comments are closed. Thank you so much for agreeing with me about God and laughing with me about poop. Have a wonderful weekend.)

Developmental delays

If you've followed my journey for any length of time you probably know that potty training and I are not friends. I loathe potty training. If you don't believe me, take a trip back to June and July, 2008. The summer before Ess and Gee turned three, wherein I answered the door in my bra, let Cue eat dirty toilet paper, oh and let's not forget when I had to fish a ripe turd out of a pool.

And, don't try to tell me about the foolproof method that you used to potty train your eight-month-old in two hours using nothing but double sided tape and dental floss. Don't bother leaving me comments about the awesome video or book or hypnotic potty training method that has brain washed and indoctrinated you into its potty training cult. I don't believe you. I love you, and I still think you're awesome, but you're lying. Potty training stories are like fish stories. Complete. Crap.

I have four kids and a horse that lives inside my house. The only way to potty train something that young and stupid is to spend 99.99% of your days, for a week or more, with its dim-witted little ass hanging over the toilet, until, by a sheer dumb stroke of luck it drops a load in the correct location. And THEN, you can't be all, omfg, finally, I was beginning to think you lacked a frontal lobe. No. You have to say - "YAY!! I'm so proud of you that I have forgotten that for last five days you managed to shit and pee on my floor in the .01% of the time that you weren't sitting on the toilet because I have to, I don't know, eat? drink water? Let's get you a chocolate treat for your amazing ability to soil whatever location your ass happens to be above."

POTTY TRAINING, thoust other name is HELL. With inferno-like, pee-smeared floors.

I adore diapers and I see absolutely no reason to rush children out of them. What is the big hurry? They catch the poop and pee and hold it until one is ready to deal with it. That is a beautiful thing.

So. Cue turned three a month or two ago. Who's counting? Shut up. I had no intention of potty training him despite the fact that he directs his diaper changes like he's freaking Gershwin. Then, we went to his three year well baby check-up. I really like our new pediatrician. She is no nonsense and knowledgeable and her corn rows kick ass and one of these visits, when she is not squashing me like an insignificant bug with her eyes for my inadequate parenting, I am going to ask her where she has her hair done or if she does it herself.

We were mid-visit and she ran efficiently through a long list of questions about Cue's development, speech, hearing, eating, physical abilities, etc., etc. I was nailing the answers, if I do say so myself. What's that? Yes, yes, Cue's well baby check up is all about affirmation of me as a parent. Why? Did you think it was about making sure he's healthy or something?

"Is he potty training?" She asked me with her eyes fixed on the blue formatted screen before her.

"Nuh uh. Nope. Not really." I gave a wide smile. Because, moving on, right? Who cares where the little darling puts his crap as long as I'm willing to wipe his butt. Which I am. Better his butt than my floor.

She turned briefly from her computer to survey me with Dr. Miranda Bailey-esque disdain.

"No," I said in a small voice, "he's not."

"Does he show any interest in potty training?"

"Um, no, I don't, not really, nope." Abject, unending fascinating with the toilet doesn't count, does it?

"Does he ask to use the potty?" All the time.

"No." I met her eyes squarely. I could take the pressure.

"Does he know when he's pooping or peeing and tell you?" Fully. Yes. With glee.

"Not that I've noticed." Today.

"Is he interested in his older brother's potty time?" Define interested. Likes to have his nose in the stream? Does that count?

"I mean no, I don't really let him in there." When I can stop him, which is never.

"Hmmmm. He should be showing some interest by now." I started to sweat. I couldn't sustain the lie, she was going to mark him as potty-delayed or something. I twitched a little when she raised her fingers as if to type something. But she turned back to me, placed her folded hands between her knees and leaned forward to convey the seriousness of the situation. "Developmentally, he should be potty training."

AAARRRRGGGG. She pulled the "developmentally" card. At a well baby check up. I cracked like a thin-shelled egg.

"It's me, okay, it's me. He's asked; I just don't want to deal with it. I'm not ready."

"He's. Asked?"

"Uh huh."

"What do you tell him?"

Oh god oh god oh god. The horror. "Go in your diaper?"

She turned her eyes slowly from the computer to my face and then back to the computer. I squirmed under the contempt in that gaze.

"I like diapers. I hate potty training. It's disgusting."

Stop talking.

"I hate to stop what I'm doing and clean up accidents or go to some gross public restroom."

Stop. Talking.

"You know, he'll pee on my floors. I'll have to clean that gross little Elmo potty. When Gee trained, Cue ate poopy toilet paper. It was a fiasco. I can't do it. I won't do it."

STOP TALKING.

"Diapers are so convenient. Don't make me do it, I hate it so much, oh please, please."

I might have been wrapped around her legs at this point.

"So, developmentally though," she tapped the form on her screen, "he's ready. He's asking. There's nothing wrong with the child."

"Right."

She turned pointedly back to her computer again. "I'm just going to mark here that he is appropriately interested in potty training for his developmental stage." She emphasized the he to accent the point that I clearly was not meeting the developmental standards for a mother my age.

"Okay." I laughed feebly. "I'm sure he'll be potty trained the next time we see you."

"At his four year check up?"

"Yes."

All I have to say is that never have I ever been more glad that well baby checks are only once a year after two years old. He'll totally be potty trained before I see her again.

I think.

He's just not that into you

In general, like most things in life, it's best not to write posts when you're angry. I find, however, five days after writing this post, that I'm not angry. I just vehemently disagree with the premise suggested to me and I want to say so.


TO: The "lady" who thinks "god" kills babies as punishment for painful life decisions


I've thought about this and I just can't believe I understand you right, so I'm looking for a little enlightenment here. Clarification, if you will.

If I understand this correctly, you believe that "god" - a loving and almighty force for Good, a being so powerful and all knowing that it understands us implicitly and completely from the moment we enter the world, an entity so forgiving and full of love that all of mankind can find salvation in its "arms" - this "god" kills babies on purpose - Kills them. Babies. In the womb babies, so like, hasn't even had an orange poop explosion up the back of mom's favorite onsie yet, sin-free, completely innocent babies - intentionally, as retribution for a parent's mistakes.

Not necessarily heinous mistakes. Not murder or rape or theft. Not mutilation of another. Not intentional harm of any sort.

This "god" of yours murders innocent babies on purpose as punishment for two parents in a loving, committed relationship adopting a child with love and every intention of raising the child no matter what, finding that the child's traumatic past causes behaviors in their home that they are completely incapable of dealing with, calling in professionals to help them determine how to help the child heal, being advised that the child is most likely not able to attach in their home environment, expending every single resource at their disposal to find the child a home without other young children that meets the child's needs, committing themselves fully to the transition process, following every single piece of advice and therapy recommendation, letting the child go, despite crushing heartbreak and judgment to this home that is, according to every single person who knows and is working in the child's best interest, better for him, and dealing with the emotional aftermath of that fact. For these crimes of failure to be the parents we had hoped to be, failing to meet a child's emotional needs and having to find another loving family that can do so, our sentence was, wait for it, this is rich: the death of our first baby.

But wait. It gets better. This "god" that you follow is so vicious, so sure of our ineptitude, so brutally confident of its almighty righteousness, so lacking in mercy or belief in the human spirit, that it took this action in advance of our crimes.

Do I have this correct? Your "god" murdered our first baby before we had even committed the heinous act of failing to live our lives as perfectly as you obviously do. Since clearly nothing so damning has happened in your life to let you fall out of its favor or else you would have babies dropping dead all around you if you so much as looked at them, I assume.

Am I missing any salient detail here?

That is ... I have no words for that. It is stunningly horrendously awful for you.

That is the model for your life? That is the example you look up to? That is the lesson that you preach?

Lady, lean in, I gotta tell you a secret, you've got to find yourself a different god, girl. The rest of us don't have to deal with that shit, for real. Do you let your husband beat you when you wash the dishes wrong too? Do you tell yourself you deserve it? You're living under Trujillo over there and it's killing your soul. Think less brutal, sadistic dictator and more benevolent, kind power for good. Think peace. Think forgiveness. Think love everlasting. Think indifference, for God's sake (aha), just try not to think baby blood bath as punishment for heartbreaking family decisions.

I know it hurts, but listen, a "god" that would treat babies that way, that would treat people that way, isn't worth your time. Break up with your god. There are better gods out there, honey, I promise you. You don't need that controlling, baby murdering asshole. You deserve love. You deserve understanding. You are beautiful. You don't deserve the threat of bloody, dead children hanging over your every action and every possible future action for that matter. That is suspiciously anti-god like. Or at least, no god I want to know.

Unless you enjoy sadism? Murder? Crushing defeat of any who dare to live their lives "below" the standards you arbitrarily set for them? So yeah, on second thought, if that is the case, you keep your "god." You keep him busy over there where you are, slaughtering babies for violent retribution.

I'll just whistle my way back over here to my higher power. It flourishes in joy and order and nature. It understands that biological things live and die as a part of the natural order of life that it helped to create and that it continues to fuel. It loves the color purple and sunsets and spirals and perfectly balanced mathematical equations. It judges beings by the joy in their hearts, not by the short-sighted measures that we limited humans hold up to one another.

I'll strive every day to model my life after its example and in furtherance of the joy that sustains it. And I'll continue to live in happiness and peace, knowing that I try, I try so hard, to take actions and make decisions and live life in love. Even hard decisions. Even impossible ones. And that when I make a mistake, when I lose my way, it is still there, boundless joy, waiting for me to recover, to rethink, to repair and make amends, without slaughtering a single baby to convince me of the rightness of that path.

I'll focus my energy on being a part of the joy that underlies, permeates and sustains this universe. The joy that I call God.

Can you say the same?

Signs you should think about potty training your three year old

Q: Hi mom.

Me: Hi baby. What's that?

Q: The dwiaper bag. I have an owie poo poo.

Me: Oh. Should we change it?

Q: Yes. But, you have to be nice and gentwle.

Me: I will.

Q: No, sometimes youwr not.

Me: Okay. I promise I will be.

Q: On the cawrpet.

Me: Yes, Quinn.

Q: OWIE! That's not gentwle. There. That's better. That's nice and gentwle, momma. Good.

Me: Thank you, Quinn.

Q: Now, some cweam.

Me: If you put your poo poo in the potty, you wouldn't get an owie bottom.

Q: No. You just need to be nice and gentwle.

Me: I am.

Q: More cweam. Thank you. That's good.


I think micromanaging the diaper change might be one such sign. You?

Comments are closed while I catch up on my reading. XO.

Ridiculousness

Ridiculously cute.

(He got a haircut. Sob.)

Ridiculously large.

(He weighs 120 lbs. That's more than me.)

Just plain ridiculous.

(Seriously? A hundred and twenty pound lap dog. Of course he is.)

(Why yes, those are fleece snowflake pants. I have donned my freezing cold winter uniform and I shall not emerge until next May. The likelihood that I will appear on People of Walmart in the next six months is stupendously high. Matt calls it my full fleece body condom. You're welcome for that image.)

Comments are closed. I'm reading you. Between fairy parties and guests and Kindergarten, I'm way behind.

September Again

How does a year roll by so fast? This is an old post. A post I wrote exactly a year ago. Ella is gone two years today. I want to mark it with you, but I don't have new words, so I offer you the same words, with new tears. I'm so sorry, GG, I'm so sorry you lost your baby. I love you.

**********************************

Early September feels sad to me. Maybe it's because I don't like change and September is all about change. Changing seasons, changing schedules, birthdays, new schools. The days are long and light-filled. The sun still shines, but I can feel it, the cold, the damp, the gloom lurking over my shoulder.

I lost a pregnancy in September. My very first pregnancy. It was a fairly early miscarriage. I don't mourn the baby now, but my cells, my brain waves, my fibers remember the fear, the desperate sugar of hope mixed into the bowl with the clogging flour of despair. For four months in late 2004, I ate that sickly, sticky dough every single day. I woke up knowing exactly what day this was. Day one. Tears. Days 7-14. Sex. Days 14-25. Hope. And then day one. Tears. I wanted to go back so badly that it almost drove me insane. I wanted to be that silly, carefree girl who had no clue about her cycle, who got caught out every month without a tampon because she couldn't be bothered to track her periods. Because she didn't care. Who didn't know if she wanted babies. Who went off the pill just to see what would happen.

In those months I didn't know, how much of my life would be defined by this need, this pain? Gee was conceived four months after the miscarriage. Looking back, it was a laughably short period of time. Compared to what people endure, are enduring all the time, it's enough to make you scoff. Oh, you poor, sad, ridiculously fertile woman who had to try for three whole months before you got what you wanted. How do I unsubscribe? My heart bleeds.

Mine does too. Every time I hear a story about infertility or loss or both. Every time I read a post. Because I lived with that unknown for four short months and I could barely take it.

A woman I love with all my heart, have loved since I was twelve, lost a baby last September. Not a potential baby. Not the hope of a baby. Not like me. Her baby died.

I don't know why babies die. I don't know what makes them leave their warm, soft wombs too early, try to take on the bright lights and harsh cold air too soon.

I suspect there is no reason. Chance. Biology. Random contraction of the stars. I can't dwell too long on it or my vision contracts, my own breath constricts. I flounder in dark fear of the fragility of life, the frailty of lungs and tissue; I have to rush, gasping to see that each of my children still breathes.

I'm afraid, sometimes, GG, to touch the veil that separates your baby girl from us.

I don't know what it means to write into the void like this. Do the numbers mean anything? Do they really represent living souls? On any given day do almost 800 people really glance at my words? I hope so. Today I hope so because I hope it means that they will read her name and know that she was here, if only on one day in September, and is, always, loved. I hope that they will feel, briefly, the grief that you always feel and spare a moment to muster peacefulness and love and strength and hope and send it to you.

Her name is Ella. She lived and left on a single day in September.

Time falls away

Full day Kindergarten starts tomorrow. I'm not ready, but they are. I am handed the lesson, yet again, the catechism that a mother learns, over and over. What happens when unspeakable sadness collides with unimaginable happiness? Children grow up.

I am unspeakably sad tonight as they sleep their last sleep as mine and mine alone.

I am unimaginably happy to see them walk away from me, confident and bold and eager.



Saige and Garrett,

Here we go. Thirteen years of school, at least, before you face the wide world. I'm a beggar tonight, riding wishes, importuning stars, closing my eyes tight and throwing my rosy copper thought pennies into the mirror-still surface of the fountain of life.

I wish you letters, for they are the basis of writing and writing allows the communication of ideas.

I wish you numbers, for they are the basis of science, of everything that whirs and moves and computes and grows and spins in this grand universe.

I wish that you learn to play nicely with others, for this is the basis of politics and business.

I wish you an open mind, for it is the basis of creativity.

I wish you confidence and courage, for they are the basis of justice.

I wish you kindness, for it is the basis of peace.

I wish you humor, for it is the basis of laughter.

I wish you empathy and awareness of others because they are the basis of friendship.

But most of all, I hope our family has taught you, is teaching you, and will continue to teach you love. Because that is the basis of happiness.

I've always liked new beginnings. I'm a traveler. A mover. Unlike most people, I like goodbyes. They signify journeys, excitement, unexplored vistas just around the corner, new people to meet and new places to experience. But, I realize today that I have spent almost forty years in the role of leaver. Always the one walking into the sunrise, embarking on a new adventure. It's easy to see the beginning when your back is firmly and merrily turned to the ending.

The ending is the province of the ones left behind.

Today. Today I face the inescapable conclusion that for the second forty years granted to me - should I be so lucky - I will, forever and always, be the one left behind.

I'll be right here, babies, when you check back for the light in the window.

Love always, Momma


((AND OHMYFREAKINGGOD IS IT QUIET HERE. YEEEEEHAAAAAW.))

Title credit to --- Little Wonders, Rob Thomas

Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulder
Don't you know, the hardest part is over
Let it in, let your clarity define you
In the end, we will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made, in these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away, but these small hours
These small hours, still remain