Category Archives: Ma’am, try not to get so worked up.

Running on empty

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April’s Runner’s World has an article that promises to tell me “Why [and how] a pair of busy mothers make time to train for races and why [and how] you should, too.”

Spouse brought it home for me after he read the issue because he has a) time to read magazines, b) additional time to train several days a week and the resulting endorphins lead to sharing, c) the speed to win half marathons almost every weekend, the endorphins from which also lead to sharing, d) had enough of me complaining about baby weight and no time to exercise, and e) a death wish.

The article consists of the impressions, opinions, and feelings of two moms. They enjoy running. They race. Yay! I should, too.

(To the two moms whose stories are featured in the Runner’s World piece? I’m glad you’re enjoying your running. Really. Keep it up!)

But there are no data points in this article. How do they fit in runs? When? How many? How long do they race compared with their weekly mileage? Who helps with their children when they run? How old are their children? Does current research show that training while you exist on 5 hours of sleep is good or bad for your body? Should moms who are lactating run less, more, or the same as they would normally run? (That last one is answered on http://www.kellymom.com in case you need more than rant-iness in today’s blog surfing. I aim to be a resource even as I snark, yo. Power to the runner mothers.)

Aside from the indignity of claiming to include a “how” and then neglecting to do so, the article also highlights a wildly insulting quiz written, I’m guessing, by a male editor. In assessing what my next race should be, the quiz’s author mentions having “a baby attached to my teat” as though I were a beat of burden not a human. He also mentions the milestone of having a “child extracted from my loins” as though I just laid there and had Roto-Rooter do the job for me.

Putting aside such condescending douchebaggery for just a moment, let’s look at the pathetic options given in their quiz. According to Runner’s World, having multiple children, a fried brain, years of sleep deprivation, intense isolation, poor eating habits, and relative inactivity (all my actual answers to their stupid multiple choice questions), I should run a 5K. Jackalopes, with those qualifications you should be offering me a vacation, not a freaking three-mile race. Don’t make me stick you in my life for a month, dillweeds, to enable your writing a weepy article on how to handle a 5K when your soul is worn down in ways BodyGlide could never ease.

The other quiz results, by the way, are this stupid: go race soon, race longer than you think you can, or try a longer distance. Um, from which third-rate school did you graduate if your choices are “specific distance, unspecific distance, yay, and more”? Anyone teach you “mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive?” Thought not.

Look here, fathermuckers. Stop pandering with covers that proclaim a “Mommy Solution” and cease publishing sub-standard bullshite.

Here’s a real quiz for you.

You have only the following three choices for running:

1. get up at 5am to run before the kids wake. But you go to bed at 1am every night because that’s what business hours require for now.
2. run with the toddler in the jogging stroller when it’s time to go get the kindergartener from school. NB: you’re not a noontime runner, the toddler resists the stroller like I resist compliments, and the way to school always involves a significant uphill stretch that, with a 25-pound stroller plus 25-pound kid kills what little energy you have to run.
3. Run at 8:30 pm, despite being a morning runner; and after being beaten down all day, using all you energy to pretend patience, and binge eating once the kids finally get into the bath.

Tell me, you smug douche canoes who wrote and printed this useless pseudoarticle, which of those three options is the best for a runner who just cancelled payment on the family subscription?

You did WHAT to make a baby?

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We’ve dodged a bullet on the sex talk so far, and I had been lulled into a false sense of security.

But Kate at And Then Kate has shaken me violently from my fantasy world into a world full of reality and questions and a ticking time bomb in the form of Judy Blume chapter books.

Seriously, I don’t know how we’ve avoided The Talk. Except that I do, because our six-year-old hasn’t asked yet.

He was 3.5 when I told him we had to go to the doctor because either I had a germ making me very very sick or the chemicals from a growing baby were making me very very sick. He eventually asked how the baby would get out and I explained uterus, cervix, vagina. He asked if the baby had a key to open the cervix. I explained contractions. He was satisfied with the answer, though disappointed that the baby didn’t get a key and that, by extension, he didn’t either. Please. Like I’d give that kid the key to my cervix. He’s way too facile with a fire extinguisher and there’s no way I want my cervix opening when I’m least expecting it. Like at Target, when I’m lording my fabulous parenting skills over the people screaming in the dollar aisle. Terrible place to have your cervix flapping open.

He never asked, over the seven subsequent months, how the baby got there or why. We were prepared with a “when two grownups love each other…” but never got to use it.

He did ask that year why his cousin looked different from her family, and I told him about how some families really want children and how other people really want to give a special gift to those kinds of families. We talked about how families come in all sorts of varieties and how great that is. We talked about how some bodies can’t have babies and how some people don’t want to. But he didn’t ask why or how some people get to choose. I was ready. But never used that conversation, either.

At two different points, he asked why he’s a boy not a girl and I said the seed that grew to be him was a boy seed, and how it was full of all the information called DNA to tell his body what to be like, but that who he is—the thoughts and dreams and choices—is not in the seed and that though he can’t choose a lot about his body, he gets to decide who he is. Mostly because I really didn’t need “well, the seed that I grew from just doesn’t eat vegetables/say please/put away toys.”

I didn’t bother with the detail that it takes two half- seeds to make a seed, nor how those half- seeds find each other. Because I’m smart enough to answer the question asked, not insert my own interpretations.

[You know this one? Boy runs into the kitchen and asks, “Dad, where did I come from?” Dad replies with love and sperm and egg and intercourse and gestation and birth. Boy, mouth agape and increasingly horrified, manages to say, “Wow. Jimmy says he came from Los Angeles.”]

So every day Peanut doesn’t ask, I’m happy. I could handle it, I guess, but I don’t want to.

But soon, the questions will pounce on me and I will die, right there, on the spot.

Except I won’t. Because Kate says this book, available through your local, independent bookseller, will fix everything. My indie bookseller says that the window for that book is almost closed and I might soon need this one. And this one for boys about puberty. [slight panic sets in.]

And Near Normalcy told me how to handle everything.

Except one part. I have boys. Part of my discussion about the fact that some day you’ll think your penis is more than something to grab *constantly* whether you’re awake or asleep, is that you may not do whatever you want with your penis. When you’re alone, you may do what you want with your body as long as it doesn’t hurt. But when you’re with other people, you cannot do anything you want. For one, a penis is a private thing and not for sharing. And even when you’re a grownup and you love someone and decide to share your penis, it is only okay if the other grownup you love says “yes.”

You have to listen to people’s words about their own bodies and they have to listen to your words about your body. Your body is just for you. Sex is not for kids, sex is private, sex is only when you’re a grownup and another grownup you love says yes to you. Until then, remember that your penis is private and only for you. Private, only for you, no means no.

[Holy guacamole. Panic now full blown and I am in serious need of self medication. Easter chocolate already gone. This is too big a job for jelly beans. I need something stronger. Is there such thing as Jack Daniels over jelly beans? An Amaretto Jelly Bean Daiquiri? I think that’s a thing. I think I have a recipe here somewhere and I’m going to…oh, screw it. I’ll just wing it.]

Oh, boy. I am so glad he hasn’t asked yet.

And I’m so glad I just jinxed myself right here on the Interwebs. Good job, Me. Way to freaking go.

Nauseating

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I had no idea how stomach churning it would be to get a letter from the teacher saying my kid was being rough with another kid. Repeatedly. Playing the chase-and-grab game with someone who really didn’t like it.

Last week he told me about the game and said he tried it on this other child and decided to stop when she didn’t like it.

I just heard today it happened at least four other times. In the past two days.

Each day, when I pick him up, I let him get settled then ask, “what part of your day was fun,” and “what part of your day was sad,” and “what part of your day was exciting,” and “what part of your say was frustrating,” and “what part of your day was boring?” Today he told me there was something really fun that he couldn’t tell me. I asked if he couldn’t tell me because it was so good or because it was bad.

Bad.

But it was fun?

Yes.

Oh, dear child, are you a sociopath? Are you normal? Are you going to be a bully? Are you reacting to our bad parenting? Are you just a bad person out of the box? Are you going to learn when I tell you things that should be obvious but seem missing from the Child 1.0 programming? If you haven’t yet, when will you?

Where did we go wrong? And which, of those, was the worst? And is it reversible?

Little boy, no matter how a person says it, stop it means STOP IT! It doesn’t matter if you like someone; you have to respect them and listen to their words. Always. Not just because you expect that of other people. Because it’s the decent thing to do.

He wrote a sorry note. He drew a sorry picture. He promised.

And I’m sick to my stomach. I emailed the child’s parent and the teacher, explaining how I’m dealing with the issue and how I wish I could apologize for my child.

We can’t apologize for our children, world. It’s beginning to seem that all the modeling and talk are totally wasted…is this true for all kids or just mine?

Conundrum

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A post in which I tell the story of 2012: prioritize, realign, whine, pout, self-chasten, turn to gratitude journaling, feel grateful *and* defeated.

***

December was a month in which I made list upon list of priorities and goals and dreams so that I could begin 2012 realigned, making choices I could fee good about and avoiding the detritus I had been mired in for too long.

Because I chose to stay home to raise my kids, my life got shoved into a closet, where it sat unused, unexamined, and devalued. Each time we moved, my hopes, dreams, goals, and interests got pushed further and further into the dark, cobwebby spots of our lives. Any time the old me called out from the dank recesses of the attic, the utilitarian me shouted her down.

“QUIET back there! You have no right to raise your voice to me! You chose this, so you have to do it really, really well 100% of the time!”

I wasn’t allowing myself time or space for my mind or body because I harbored this secret belief that, if I decided to do my best to raise my kids, there was absolutely no room for doing what I wanted. My job, 24 hours a day, is my little boys. Putting myself first, even for an hour, meant compromising and giving them less.

And it was driving me mad. Seriously. Both the insane and angry connotations applied. I have been losing it and just barely hanging on for almost six years. But this winter has been hard core. I’ve been climbing out of my skin, wasting time berating myself for every poor decision I made pre-kids because now I have nothing to show for my life. Oh, sure, those, but they’ll leave me and hate me and tell their therapist about how I was an empty shell of a zombie Mom. Or, rather, and empty shell of a zombie Mom who’s trying strenuously hard yet seemed to be failing miserably at just about everything, from personhood to motherhood.

So I reevaluated. I decided to find a sitter for the toddler a few hours a week so I could blink. I finished some client work and turned down new projects to focus on my own work. I convinced Spouse to be with the kids at 6am so I could start running again. I made manageable lists of short and long term goals with small steps to get to each one. I put one foot in front of the other. And I ditched facebook.

So far so good. On paper.

But I didn’t find the sitter. I checked out a few home-based daycare centers and read ads for sitters and remembered why we didn’t have anyone stay with Peanut (except my parents, and only a few times a year) until he was 4: I don’t want someone else raising my children. Until the boys can speak for themselves and express their needs and feelings, I don’t think someone else can do the best job with my itty bitty people. That’s just me, but it’s how I feel. Yes, I want to be with them because I want to see and hear everything in their day. Yes, I don’t always sound as though I do want to be with them. Yes, I think being a full time parent is important but I also feel it’s necessary to prove I’m not a freeloader absconding from my other jobs to do this job. I’ve already mentioned, I believe, my borderline insanity and obvious tendencies toward perfectionism that are ill-suited to my current role as Court Jester of Chaos, right? Okay then. Now I can mention that I don’t think I deserve to hire help when this is my job. The battle of the boxed goals and the utilitarian judgement are at it again, deeming who is worthy and who doesn’t deserve.

Good times.

So I’ve been whining about how hard it is to have a toddler and a kindergartener and a Spouse who works long hours. How very, very difficult it is to not blink for 13 hours straight. Boo hoo, big deal, people seem to parent with debilitating diseases and in the midst of trauma and major depressions, so I can take my withering hopes and dreams and shove them up my unfulfilled goals, right?

And someone offered to help me. Sweet Mary, Mother of my Cousins, someone offered to help me.

Normal people might sigh with relief and take a friend up on a sweet offer of help.

Ah, but I’m not normal. Instead, I felt chagrined that I’d complained so loudly. I vowed to start a gratitude journal and practice saying thank you for all the great things in my life. I promised myself I would focus on hopes and dreams and goals in my spare time but would refocus on my current, unpaid, disrespected, thankless, maddening, amazing, exhausting, important job.

And I heard this interview on KQED’s Forum, in which Chip Conley explained that more important than having what you want (oh, how I want and want and want) is wanting what you have. Appreciating all that is rather than longing for what might be.

So I spent the day being present and mindful and grateful. And by 7 p.m. I was in tears because I still don’t like being with my kids all day every day forever and ever amen without cease or break or freaking showers. I don’t want to make or serve or clean up food ever again. Ever. Ever ever ever again.

So I’m torn. I want to be happy with what I have. But I need. I have hopes and dreams and goals that are not well suited to tightly wrapped boxes in the back of the closet.

How do you balance being grateful for your life and still want desperately to change at least 12 things right now?

Blerg.

http://www.kqed.org/assets/flash/kqedplayer.swf

Okay, break over.

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Aside from the fact that I can’t be quiet (like, ever), I found some interesting articles for your consideration while doing my hour of Sunday Internet time. Guess that thought about maybe abandoning the blog was foolish talk. My Internet limit, though, means you’re in for a wild ride this post…

Fascinating article on Trader Joe’s, the highly secretive and mum company that supplies 75% of my family’s food. The LA Magazine piece is quite interesting and revelatory, though the last two paragraphs are almost the lamest conclusion I’ve ever read. And given that I taught freshman level English at a community college, “lamest” is saying a lot.

The controversy swirling about LEGO’s horrific decision to create pink and purple LEGOs for girls in which the characters lounge poolside and drink frothy beverages has me so angry I can barely speak. I’ve already ranted about Melissa and Doug‘s disgusting choice to have career dress up dolls for boys and fashion dress up dolls for girls, the hatefulness and ignorance of which made me stop buying their toys (a decision on which I doubled down when I realized how much of their stuff has PVC in it.)

And, in the interest of public service, a good read on how to affect public policy</a. I found Information Diet searching for a list of which companies support PIPA and SOPA, the terrifying congressional attempts to regulate the Internet that will make American access to information a lot more like so-called access in countries with overt government-sponsored censorship like China and Iran.

So. Learn about Trader Joe’s, debate toy pinkification, and wrangle with your legislative representative about the Internet. These are my contributions to your first day of 2012. What do you think?

Plan B

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Hold the phone.

After promising that science would “inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health,” President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services has overriden an FDA recommendation to allow over the counter sales of Plan-B, an emergency contraceptive quick access to which is necessary for efficacy.

Since when did we decide that setting a precedent of overruling the FDA was a good idea? Is that a power you want future Presidents to have, Secretary Sebelius and President Obama? Because believe me, the next Republican President will gladly take your idea and apply it to every FDA recommendation he doesn’t agree with. (Yes, I assume the next Republican President will be male, even if they don’t take the White House for 12 years. That was not a casual lack of gender awareness; that was an intentional choice of gendered pronoun.) Science and math are not something one can disagree with. To paraphrase Ira Flatow today on Talk of the Nation, “Pythagorean Theorum? I don’t believe it. It’s only a theory.”

Since when does politics get to trump science? Didn’t you state as a goal, President Obama, that you wanted:

“To ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; that we appoint scientific advisers based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology; and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions. That is how we will harness the power of science to achieve our goals — to preserve our environment and protect our national security; to create the jobs of the future, and live longer, healthier lives.”

And didn’t you say this:

Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health…. The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions.

Sir, you are going to pay for this politically. Severely. You just ruined your relationship with liberal voters and women voters. Really, really dumb move.

Since when does the government get to tell women that they have to wait for the right pharmacist at the right pharmacy at the right time, else be forced to have an abortion? 72 hours is a tight window if you live in a small town and have to find a willing pharmacist during pharmacy hours when the people you can’t trust aren’t watching (for instance the husband who will beat you if he finds out, or the parents who will throw you out if they hear about your need for emergency contraception).

Hillary Clinton said that she believes “in the freedom of women to make their own decisions about the most personal and significant matters affecting their lives.” Once the FDA said Plan B should be sold over the counter, Secretary Clinton fought for three years to implement that recommendation.

Well, I hope she’s reading Obama the riot act tonight. I hope Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Obama are right this minute telling that man how reprehensible it is to let politics dictate science.

Politics, by the way, that the OTHER SIDE hold dear.

Your supporters, President Obama, DO NOT SUPPORT YOU IN THIS.

End of Rope Found

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Today was a day to go with the flow. I’m down to one client project, Butter has spent so long resisting nap that I just give up, and all the things I need to do are “wait until after bedtime” things. So I vowed to follow Butter and just be with him all day. No timing naps or tasks or emails. I don’t even pull out my phone for most of the day.

After we drop off Peanut at school, Butter asks to go see the construction site. Sure. It’s a block past the coffee I like and the cheese rolls we both like. So we grab a cuppa, a muffin, and a cheese roll and head to…oh, he wants to get down.

Sure.

He then proceeds to walk all over the neighborhood, closely supervised, touching every single rock and leaf and dog and flower and bee. (Yes, bee; he has this uncanny ability to pick them up and have them walk all over his arm and blow them off and they never sting him. Weird.) We traveled every inch of a one block radius several times. We used the bathroom in CheeseBoard Pizza five times. We got water from CheeseBoard seven times. We watched construction for what might have been two million years. He dug in the dirt and put rocks in his cup and carried them ten feet and dumped them out and started over. All unmolested but safe and loved. Awesome sauce.

For three hours. For the record, I started getting a little twitchy at two and a half.

He finally asked to be held and fell instantly asleep on my back. And I knew I couldn’t take him out or he’d refuse a nap. So I took him home and edited with him asleep on my back.

And when he woke just as Peanut got out of school, I willingly followed them both as they giggled off toward home.

It took two hours to travel one mile. I let them do their thing except for safety and kindness issues. For the first 90 minutes. And then I found my limit.

Children, I cannot go slower than 1/3 mile an hour. I can’t do it. I know I hurried you along a bit toward the end, and kept saying, “I know their yard looks fun but we have to go home.” I was cold. And tired. And Type A. Yes, we can sort through all these rocks and choose our favorites and compare them and leave them for the homeowners who paid for them. Yes, we can crunch through leaves. Yes, we can throw them and laugh and play and rake them all back in a pile with a big stick to start all over again. But we have to get moving after 30 minutes because…because…well, because I guess I just don’t love you enough. I know play is important. I know unfettered and undirected and spontaneous is great. I know adult pace isn’t right for kids.

But I will stab myself in the eye if I ever again spend 5 hours moving at tiny scientist pace.

So. Lesson learned. Never, ever, ever, ever spend more than four hours doing what the children want. Ever. Ever.

Never.

Ever.

Take one step back

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Oh, my word, Interwebs. To say this day sucked rocks would be like saying a deluge can be a bit damp.

Wake up at midnight to screaming baby. Comfort measures don’t work. Endure *hours* of baby flopping all over bed trying to get comfortable, a feat he seems to think can be achieved by pulling my hair, head butting me, and slapping me. Any attempts at comfort get a screamed “nah nah nah!” and a push in the face.

By morning I’m a wreck but he screams that he wants to get down. When I take off his diaper he rages that he wants it back on. I offer comfort which he refuses. He pees all over the floor then rages when I take off his wet pants. I offer comfort. He refuses. I offer new jammie bottoms. He refuses. I offer pants. He refuses. All refusals offered loudly.

The morning proceeds like this. Offer food, he screams at me. Offer dancing, he screams at me. Offer to help when something doesn’t work and he throws himself on the floor, more mad at my suggestion than at the rat bastard toy. Which he then throws across the room to express frustration. Then throws himself down again to express longing for the toy.

He screams the whole way to school, trying to leap out of the backpack carrier. My back does not appreciate 0.8 miles of sideways baby lurching around, but I try to figure out the problem. Want your hood on? NAH! Want your hood off? NAH! Do you like the rain? Dah. (beat) *scream*

He wants no playground, no home, no cafe, no music, no anything. He nurses as though it’s his 3-week growth spurt. And screams as though he’s auditioning for something very, very sad and angry.

He won’t nap. He won’t get in the stroller or the car or the sling or the mei tai or hiking backpack. At one point I leave him in the living room, crying, to go scream my head off in the kitchen. I scream so hard and loud that I actually wet myself. I’m not the only one, though. As with yesterday, the kid refuses to go in the bathroom. He pees his pants so much I almost run out of pants.

And he stays awake the whole walk to school, two hours past his naptime.

And when a friend greets him sweetly I tell her he doesn’t get any niceness today. He’s a b-a-d b-a-b-y, I say, so don’t talk to him. I’m only slightly kidding.

Brief discussion ensues. She mentions an asymptomatic UTI her toddler had around the same age. the treatment for which turned him back into a normal child. It’s Friday. I’m not going to put up with this all weekend or I will be homicidal.

Two hours later the doc finds two raging ear infections.

[brief note on second-time parents and gross stupidity: if the first one had been acting out of the ordinary, I would have assumed illness. It is evidence of the shell shock born of a really tough time with Peanut that made me jump right past “maybe he is in pain” to assume Butter had just turned the corner into his semi-long-term asshole phase. I plead exhaustion and end-of-my-rope-d-ness to excuse not seeing the signs. I also submit that he was clingy while sick and the refusing to be touch thing smacked of jerk rather than illness. Further, I offer that I used to be good at problem solving and am now good only at barely making it through the day.]

While the pharmacy mixes up some goo (don’t judge our easy use of antibiotics on this one; we’re a wait-and-see family and we’ve gone through nine ear infections with no antibiotics including one ruptured ear drum but this kid is not effing human today and I can’t let him or me go through another day of this) I take both boys to CheeseBoard for a treat. The eldest wants Peet’s instead. Fine. It was a long hour in the doctor’s office and you’re a tired, hungry kid. Muffin it is. Surely I can carry a miserable toddler and a pizza the one extra block.

Peanut gets a bran muffin, finds a table, and willingly shares with his baby brother without being asked. Things are looking up. All the little monster wants is a chair so he can sit next to the big guy. I ask a woman sitting alone at a two-person table if she needs the second chair.

She rolls her eyes and says, as sarcastically as she can muster, “Well, I guess not any more.”

I blink, unable to conjure all the replies she deserves, then walk away as she starts to point out a chair across the restaurant. Lady, I have two small children, one of whom is a Tasmanian Devil toddler who can open the door unassisted and who is currently roaming loose without supervision around strangers’ hot coffee. I’m not going to travel farther from him to get a chair.

“That’s okay. We’ll make do.”

I squat and offer the toddler my knee on which to perch. He throws himself on the floor screaming. I whisper, “Honey, sweet, I know it’s frustrating, but there’s only one chair.”

The condescending, poisonous, passive aggressive asshat says from three tables over, “Oh, geez. Just take the chair.”

Given one iota of energy and the guarantee that my children would be safe while I stepped away for a moment, I would have walked over and punched her square in the face, so help me Aphrodite.

Instead I lovingly scoop up the demonic presence inhabiting my youngest’s body and walk outside with him. I gently ask the beleaguered older brother to come with us. The wee one squirms out of my arms and almost knocks himself unconscious on the concrete. I help him stand and offer comfort and options. He pees all over the sidewalk. In his only pants. In the rain on a 45 degree Fall evening four blocks from the pharmacy.

And I actually don’t cry. Or bang on the window and curse at the fathermucking selfish c-word who couldn’t even admit that she needed the empty chair.

I put the screaming sadsack in the carrier and sing to him as we walk to the pharmacy. I pick up the goo while he screams. I pay while he screams. I walk him to the car while he screams. And sit down in the car with the five year old who willingly reads a book and eats his muffin. I want to cry but don’t. I nurse the baby, text Spouse a warning about my mood, and tell myself that if I can make it 10 hours into this day, I can do two more.

Look, I know sometimes you have a long day and want to sit alone in a cafe. I know sometimes you’re waiting for someone and need a second chair. I know sometimes the love of your life just occupied the chair across from you and you want to keep the essence of your bond alive by leaving the chair vacant. In that case, just say you need the other chair.

I’m not entitled to the chair. I am, however, entitled to some fracking human compassion. There are only two answers: Yes or No. Sarcasm and confusing condescension and weirdass nastiness should not be part of the equation.

I’ve been asked if I can spare a chair. I answer either, “Nope, it’s all yours,” or, “Actually I’m expecting someone, sorry.”

Isn’t that in the social contract somewhere?

Failure

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I don’t usually remember dreams, but I always remember nightmares.

My recurring nightmare since college finds me waking in my dorm room in a panic, realizing that I haven’t attended one of my classes all semester and that today is the final. My angst, though, is not that I haven’t studied for the test. In my version of sheer terror, I’m worried that I won’t find the classroom (haven’t been all semester, after all) and that I won’t do well enough on the final to offset a whole semester of homework and tests. The explaining as I walk in, really, dwarfs my realization that I don’t even have a passing familiarity with the name of the class, let alone the subject matter.

For the first time, that dream has changed.

Last night I dreamt I was a spy. Kickass, counter-terrorist, highly trained Superspy. And I was assigned a mission to go save a bunch of innocents by stopping evildoers. I probably even had the skin-tight yet highly flexible costume of all highly skilled and intelligent women, as mandated by mainstream (read: feminist) television and movies.

But I realize as the appointed hour arrives and I leave the weird government building (which seems a lot more ASPCA than Langley, VA) that I don’t know where to go to stop the bad guys. And that I have no bullets. None. Big ol’ gun that I’m sure I know how to dissemble and reassemble blindfolded in under 20 seconds, but no ammunition. And somehow I’m supposed to get in my rental hatchback (wtf? how am I supposed to spy with this tin can?) and drive to…somewhere…and stop a major plot with an empty gun.

I awoke as I was trying to figure out if, somehow on my way I could stop and break into a sporting good store (my assassination/rescue mission began in the wee hours, naturally) for bullets.

Stress I get. Fear of academic failure…sure. Concern that I’ll be at the wrong place at the wrong time…clearly a theme for me. But worried that I can’t save the world because I’m ill equipped? Come on subconscious. Now you’re just scaring me.

Well, that’s that.

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Some of you know of the saga of the friend who disappeared and hid from emails and voicemail for over a year and finally admitted she didn’t like me anymore.

Well, last week (over a year after she severed all ties and two-plus years after she stopped communication) I sent an email, telling her how I missed her. I explained how the things around the house reminded me of how kind and generous she had been with me. I expressed nostalgia for our friendship and told her I was sad I didn’t know about her life anymore.

She returned my email with a curt message that said I should burn or sell the things that reminded me of her. And that she’s glad I have friends because she didn’t want to be one.

Damn, y’all. That is cold. I know I’m prone to melodrama, overreaction, and hyperbole, but damn! (Come to think of it, remmebering how I am prone to melodrama, overreaction, and hyperbole, maybe I’d stab me in the heart if given the chance, too.)

So I was sad for a while. And I was disappointed. And insulted. And I’m resigned now. A fifteen year friendship gone against my will.

I waited a week to unfriend her from Facebook. Because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t spiteful. I just think that someone who specifically says they don’t want to be friends shouldn’t get to see my neuroses, photos, or photo collages of neuroses.

So here’s my question. Why can I not let this go? Am I so upset because she doesn’t like me anymore or because she was so childish and then rude about it? Is there any healthy way to be grateful for the enormous loving effect she had on my life for a while without letting it cloud by her current behavior?

And is there any way to blame the partisan bickering in Washington for this deep hole in my heart? Because I do, really, enjoy blaming most of the malaise of our nation, times, and daily lives on those effing asshats.

And now we have ants.

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Today? One for the baby book.

The ants go marching through our house, hurrah, hurrah
The eldest has some kind of flu, hurrah, hurrah
But I can’t stop to clean his hurls
Because his brother’s demon spawn in curls
And we all go marching
to bed, in their room
despite the claims of “too soon.”
[Next time please nap…]

The ants come marching from the rain, hurrah, hurrah.
The eldest’s head is in such pain, hurrah, hurrah.
But I can’t spend one second there
Because his brother’s climbed a chair
and is throwing all the trash
on the floor
scales the counter,
for some more.
[Just please get down…]

The ants come marching toward our food, hurrah, hurrah.
It’s easy given the toddler’s mood, hurrah, hurrah.
He throws his breakfast, lunch, and snack
His brother whimpers for some slack
As the mini-dude blows through
the whole place, scaling walls
like it’s space.
[Dear gawd the mess…]

The ants come marching in my house, hurrah, hurrah.
As a parent I feel like a louse, hurrah, hurrah.
Because the sick one needs me, sure,
But we had our first real tantrum here
And I now know that Two’s going
to be great for exactly
none of our fates.
[Run for your lives.]

I bow to you

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Ladies and Gentlemen: let me begin with a nod to all humans who do their best—child-free or parental, gainfully employed or working your bum off for free—I acknowledge your hard work. I know life’s not easy. But I have a special something to say to a few of you…

Dear Mothers with Three Children:
I bow to you. I have recently gone from just-barely-hanging-in-there Mother of Two to no-way-I’m-going-to-make-it Mother of Two plus an immobile Spouse who eats WAY more than a child, but uses his words and can be trusted not to damage any of the stuff in his room if left alone for extended periods of time. Which he isn’t, with the ice and the food and the meds and the requests for a change of Netflix streaming to “I don’t know…what is there?” Three children must be more work, but I don’t know how it’s possible to actually do all that work without losing a limb or a child or your sanity or something. And I therefore bow to you. Namaste.

Dear 24-hour-a-day Mothers of Three Children:
[I reject the stay-at-home designation because it’s code for “easy job” amongst the uninitiated, and because you don’t actually stay at home.] I bow to you and fall over with exhaustion now that I’ve glimpsed one iota of what you do. But three inept people 24-hours with no break and I would. Break. Especially if they were all under 7 or so. Email for a quote of how far back into my head my eyes roll thinking about how you can possibly still stand at the end of the day if your Three are either very young or teenagers.

Dear 24-hour-a-day Single Mothers of Three Children:
I hereby elect you President of the United States. Because being the sole source of everything for three inept creatures with no other adult support IS HANDS DOWN harder than being the leader of the free world. [If you have a chef and a housekeeper and a Cabinet like POTUS does, I disqualify you from this election. Cuz you know nothing about anything and I resent that you tricked me into bowing and then voting for you.]

So I suppose that this is my way of telling the rest of the world that there is a Bermuda Triangle whose delineating points are:
Three Dependent Dependents
plus
No Breaks
plus
No After-Bedtime Partner
that equals the trifecta of Everyone Should Repeatedly Bow to You and Give You Their Spare Chocolate.

And if you live in that Triangle for more than a week, your local bottler and brewer should sponsor your evenings right here, right now. I know the first three drinks are on me.

P.S. Full-time Mothers of Four or More Children: I just passed out from trying to imagine. I’d like to give you all a cyber-nap because without one I’m guessing you’re all dead right now.

P.P.S. Full-time care givers of both small children and an aging parent: I did not forget you, but your situation is not at all funny, and no matter how I wrote this I couldn’t make it funny and I’m sorry that all I can offer you is deep empathy and wishes for all the best. And chocolate. I wish you chocolate, too. But keep it quiet because the Moms of Three think they’re all deserving and whatnot, and who am I to burst their bubble at how easy their lives are, relatively, since I just told them they have me glimpsing how easy my normal life really is, relatively. “Really” and “relatively.” I’ll bet your life doesn’t even allow for words of that many syllables, simple thought they are.

P.P.P.S. I must now go weep that the best modifiers I can conjure are “really” and “relatively.” Seriously.

Flummoxed

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And wangdoodled. And flabbergasted.

Let me ‘splain.

Peanut had a playdate with a friend at the park. They promptly went to their “secret place,” a hedge behind which he and all his other friends hide to pretend they don’t have younger siblings or parents, but do have swords, moats, and dragons.

I kept my eye on them, and they were talking and spying on people.

Fine. So I take Butter down the slide a few times. I overhear something about “and no grownups” and I overhear something about “castles” and I overhear something about “soda.” I’m only concerned his fantasies involve soda, and only because it’s not on my list of approved play time topics.

Kidding.

Kind of.

So Butter and I plant ourselves in the sandbox a few yards from Peanut (okay, 20 yards, but he’s 5 and we can kind of see him). The friend’s mom is hailed by another woman we know, and she heads to the secret place.

And returns, laughing, holding a box. As she gets closer I see it’s a case of Budweiser.

“They found this and were opening the cans and squirting them all over and I tried to take it but Peanut told me it was his and he brought it from home.”

I frown a bit. “I usually give him a 24-pack early in the week, but I doubt he’d have that much left at this point. It’s probably not his.”

She’s amused that I’m playing along. I’m amused that I’m playing along, too. Because by the time she hands off the beer to the rec center staff, eight thoughts have occurred to me.

One, my kid found beer and opened it without my noticing.
Two, he is completely slipping away from me.
Three, it’s all kindergarten’s fault.
Four, it could have been a needle or broken glass or drugs or a gun.
Five, I can’t believe I didn’t check behind that bush before I let them play.
Six, oh my gawd he’s gonna be the kid who gets killed playing with another kid’s gun.
Seven, wow the teenagers around here are stupid.
Eight, and they have really crappy taste in beer.

Clearly, that day we had talks about not touching things you find. And about asking grownups if an unknown something is safe. And about not doing something just because your friends do.
And about what makes a beer worth drinking versus spraying all over the playground.

I am too old for this

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Here’s the short version, because you have places to be and I’m exhausted.

I tell Peanut in advance about dentist visit. He’s been a handful of times, always has easy cleanings. It’s never easy convincing him, though. Have I mentioned, maybe a thousand times before about his strong opinions and his desire to be in control and his spiritedness? Yes. Spirited. Highly. And it takes my every trick to get him to open up. For the four minutes it takes to gently clean a small person’s teeth.

So I tell him. Week before, day before, day of. Explain we have a full day and I need him to move past the “I’m not going” to get his clothes, get in the car, go into the dental office, sit down, open up, and let the nice, gentle people brush, count, and paint his teeth. (No sealants with BPA. Don’t worry, people of the interwebs.)

Drive thirty minutes to appointment. Toddler gets foreshortened nap. But it’s worth it, right, to not have any downtime and to have an overtired seventeen-month old, because Peanut will have clean teeth. But he clams up. I relay his pre-appointment-specified requests to hygienist: no bib, real names for tools not lame kid-friendly names, mix mint and chocolate flavored toothpastes. Fine.

Nope. Won’t do it. I’m gentle for a while, I allay his fears. This is quick, this is easy, this is gentle. You’ve done this before. Then I remind him the dentist present in the car is only for people with professionally cleaned teeth. Ditto the playdate later. These are not new threats/bribes. Though this is my first bribe attempt, I knew enough to set up the bribe earlier and keep the promise consistent throughout.

40 minutes in we say he’s running out of time. 45 minutes in he says okay but refuses to sit down. I take him home, and I’m pissed. I make a return appointment before storming out.

At one point I tel P that we’re going to go back in three days and if he doesn’t submit I’ll have them hold him down. It takes about one minute to realize how terrible that is, so I change it to we’ll go back every single day after school with no playgrounds and no playdates until your teeth get cleaned.

At home, later, I say that we have another appointment for Thursday. Will you do it? If I drive all that way and pay I want to know you’ll do it. I would rather let your teeth get holes and fall out later than waste my time, money, and energy now. I want you healthy, I want you able to eat, I want you to feel proud of all that brushing. I want you to like the dentist, damnit.

“Please. Will you let them do a cleaning?”

“Yes. They can sweep the floor.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he can just buy dentures with the money from his comedy career.

In which I go all Yosemite Sam

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Frickafracka galldarned fanglewrangle pifflepoffle…

[UPDATED 8/21]
Searching for a child-sized non-toxic backpack for Peanut is some serious bullsh*t. Almost all the backpacks out there have PVC and lead, and I’m furious that I have to work so hard to find that most companies are a bunch of corner-cutting liars, thieves, and jackweeds. Not shocked, mind you. Mad.

Phthalates were banned from children’s toys in 2008 (but not other children’s products). PVC (vinyl) and small amounts of lead are allowed in the manufacture of children’s toys and in other products. Despite the hazards of PVC, shocking number of school supplies are still made of this toxic plastic, including binders, backpacks, sheet protectors, paper clips, and rain gear. And offensive as that is, since none of the parents I know are willing to buy products that invite their kids into the worlds of asthma, reproductive problems, cancer, obesity, ADHD, and learning disabilities; lunchboxes and backpacks with PVC have lead, too. That’s because PVC is made with heavy metals. Bonus, special for you today: (at least) two toxins for the price of one! (and don’t get me started on cadmium)

Sorry, what? They’re making stuff for kids to carry around and touch and eat from that are not free of lead or PVC? What the frickafracka glippidygloppedy…

Here’s what I’ve found (in my copious free time for such nonsense):

DwellSmart’s backpack is bigger than a toddler pack and smaller than a big kid pack. PVC-free and non-toxic. Cotton and whatnot. Thank heavens. Also? No chance my kid will want it. I would. But he likes bold and designs. And glitter and sequins and stickers and neon lights on everything. [sigh]

Dwell Studio offers some nice retro-esque prints and an ideal size.

Cute packs for big kids and for little kids by Beatrix are just the right size and fit our non-toxic requirements.

Ah, hemp. Can’t go wrong with natural fabrics, right? Rawganique has a whole selection, including a mini backpack just the right size. As with DwellSmart, small problem with the lack of kid-friendly prints or design. Perhaps they could add just a sweet cotton applique or stitched design? My kid would choose either if they had a stitched robot on the pocket.

Fluf Organics has my personal favorite kindergarten nontoxic PVC-free, lead-free, phthalate-free, BPA-free backpack.

Not Quite:
Wildkin pack-n-snacks are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free but don’t specify lead-free. They say they comply with legal standards. That pretty much screams “probably has lead but don’t sue us because we didn’t promise it didn’t” to me. There’s a big difference between lead-free and lead-compliant. Lead compliant means within the legal limit for lead. Federal standards for lead is less than 100 ppm (if they actually found that level feasible, having proposed lowering it from 300 ppm. So complying with federal law means less than 0.03% to 0.01% lead. Lead free, however, means no lead. Given how much energy I’m investing in these kids, I prefer lead free.

Crocodile Creek has some backpacks that are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free. Again, they say they comply with legal standards. Less than 100 ppm lead.

Hanna Andersson has a line of PVC-free backpacks, too. They will only say they comply with lead and phthalate regulations, which does not set my mind at ease. Plus, they don’t have any without pink and purple right now, though, and my long-haired, nail-painting, pink-loving son has enough hurdles entering kindergarten that I’m not showing him these.

High Sierra has PVC-free backpacks (and tents, which we found as we searched for a four-person tent [shout out to Butter, y’all!] But I can’t find one for kids and their pack-finding tool at the High Sierra website is broken, so I’m mad at them.

SafeMama, the guru of hunting down companies until they weep and admit their eco-toxic ways has a cheat sheet for us. Naturally.

But everything else out there is too big for my kid or too toxic for anyone.

[aside: if you have someone larger than a kindergartener, you might be interested in this link from Be Safe Net. That, plus SafeMama’s cheat sheet, might lead you to High Sierra and Jansport and Patagonia and Timbuk2 and Ecogear. Maybe not. If you have a smaller dude on their way somewhere important, like school or day care or from one room to another, you’ll check out Mimi the Sardine and Skip Hop zoo backpacks. And CBHstudio, which has the most adorable backpacks I’ve seen, PVC-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead free. Maybe you’ll make your own backpack. Maybe you can send me one and I will be grateful.]

Frickafracka…we’ll see which of the five options I found that work for us, DwellSmart, DwellStudio, Rawganique, Fluf Organics, or Beatrix.

Why can’t we just go to local stores and buy things that are safe?