The New Girl

Scarred.

I just knew something was wrong--in that awful way you just know. She was running, having been sent to her room, and she slipped and fell. Whacked her face. She got up, crying, and continued to her time out. And I just knew.

So I followed her to her room.

"Did you just hit your face, baby?" I asked.

She held her face in both hands and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked down.

Blood.

Big, fat, crimson, drops on her purple sheet.

"Are you bleeding?" I asked, prying her hands away.

Flowing. Pouring. In a way that was so, so, wrong, I instantly knew beyond any doubt, we were headed to the emergency room. And stitches.

The beautiful ingredients for my dinner were all prepared and laid out, ready. I'd baked a cake for my sister's birthday. And just like that--our plans changed. In an instant, everything was different. Upside down.

My emotions went wherever they go when there's a crisis. Away. I become super calm and organized. Getting the directions to the best ER and heading out with a panicky pre-schooler, leaving behind my husband, son and our soon-to-be-arriving dinner guests. Luck was with us and the hospital was great and we were in and out in under an hour. I know. I KNOW.

They swaddled my baby and stuck her with a needle and sewed her lip back together, while she cried and yelled, "I want to leave RIGHT NOW!" and, "EVERYONE TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" and my belly got woozy and my heart broke into a bazillion pieces, even when my head was all, "It's only four stitches. Get over yourself. SHE'S FINE."

And she was. Is.

Fine.

There's something about it, though. About the knowledge that one minute you can be fixing an awesome dinner and the next minute, things can, well, change. Something about those tense moments, that time when realization blooms and you know--know--things aren't going the way you thought they were going to go. For whatever reason, for me, it dipped right into the place where the memories surrounding my mother's dying live. The place where tragedies alter not only your plans, but your life. That place is hard to find when you're looking for it but you recognize it in a flash, when you're passing through it.

I know a woman whose son was attacked by a dog. He required stitches all over his torso, arms and legs. His mother grieved for his skin, for the scars that would mark him now, forever. Even though I was childless at the time, I understood her sadness, her sense of loss. On the way to the hospital with my girl, I remembered her. I remembered her grief as I thought about my daughter's face. Flawless up until now. This will be her first real scar.

When I got home, I ate the take-out The Man ordered after he'd butchered the dinner I'd intended. We sang happy birthday and cut the cake. I ate a piece as big as my head. And when everyone went home and the kids were snuggle-buggle in bed, my feelings came back from wherever it is they go in a crisis.

And I bawled my eyes out, even though she's fine.

She'll have a scar.

And so will I.

By The Time You've Finished Reading This Post, I Will Owe You For The Hour Of Therapy. You've Been Warned.

Ah, you guys.

I don't even know where to start. I've been struggling with Parenting Issues in my little [hidey hole] corner of the internet and it's been...a struggle. It's a teeter-totter-roller-coaster up in this piece and I debate even how much to write about it, since the internet is all PERMANENT and someday, my beautiful girl will be able to read and do internet searches and well, I wouldn't ever want her to stumble on something that would have her feeling like I didn't Like her all the time, even though, I feel like, well, like I don't Like her all the time.

Oh my word.

Seriously.

There's nothing that makes you feel more reptilian than admitting there are moments that you don't Like your own offspring.

And by you, I mean me.

This is a fairly new occurance around here, actually, but it's not at all new to me. I see it in my job occasionally. Worn-out, anxious, exasperated, parents of a child who has a 'Difficult Temperament' or other challenging behaviors will come into my office for help. They sit on the couch and discuss their child and his behaviors and list all of the books they've read and the techniques they've tried and the meetings they've had with school personnel, counselors, therapists, and doctors. They tell me about the frustrating, irritating, and even humiliating situations that have resulted from these behaviors. And what is abundantly clear, as they are talking and confiding and crying, is that they Love their child. That much is so obvious, it goes without saying.

But equally obvious, and almost always unspoken and (I imagine) carried in the pits of their stomachs like a stone, is the fact that they are having great difficulty Liking their child. And I'm not talking about the flash of anger or resentment that comes with the territory of your kid being an ass. I'm talking about an ongoing, chronic disconnection from feelings of fondness, tenderness, or anything else resembling a Warm Fuzzy.

And so it is for me, internet, these past few weeks. My girl, my feisty one, has always had a tough temperament. She is not terribly flexible. She is tenacious in all the most challenging ways. She is easily frustrated, sometimes anxious and overwhelmed. She needs about 748576 feet of personal space around her or she starts whacking people. She's a little wired and a lot sharp and likes to rattle cages. Kind of like her mother. Go figure.

The interesting thing about temperament is, objectively, there's no such thing as a difficult or easy temperament. They just are what they are, kind of like feelings. It's the context that decides what's easy and what's not, see. Parenting or teaching a flexible, regular, generally contented, movable child is just....easier. (And, uh, I know that from personal experience, as well.) I've always known this stuff about my girl. Re-reading that post I linked was a little mind-bending. It seems that Four is a recycled Two but with more vocabulary! And horse-power!

Without going into the grizzly gorries because, oh my holy hell, she's four years old and her worst isn't that bad, suffice it to say it's bad enough. Bad enough to make me feel like I'm standing off to the side and watching myself watching my kid. With no smile, no tenderness, no warm fuzzies. It feels cold and a little scary to be here at four.

I'm getting my wits about me and we've embarked on the latest round of lollipop rewards, sticker charts and positive reinforcement (all of which usually end up working for us). We've got family meetings and loving talks to counter-balance punishments and frank rage, fueled by my helplessness and fear.

I understand my own feelings pretty well. I know I'm not a reptile. I know it's a normal part of parenting and it waxes and wanes and that, if I'm feeling it, others are too, somewhere. Maybe, one day, I'll be on someone's couch, crying and listing and hoping it all comes out right enough to convey the intensity of my love for this kid.

Because it's like the blazing sun in the desert, you know.

It really is.

What Am I Doing Here, Again?

Don't worry. It's not YET ANOTHER post about how I feel like I have so much going on and so much to tell you and yet I feel YET ANOTHER log-jam in my brain and so I go on and on about THAT before I get to the real point of my...

Oh, wait.

Shit. I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Let's start over.

I have a lot cooking right now. Some on the front burners, some on the back burners but it's sizzling and smoking and if I don't pay attention to it all, it's going to boil over or burn the fuck up and well, I'm tired of this metaphor already. The point is, I'm working out consistently, laundry is piling up and threatening to take over, the toilets need to be scrubbed, I have a new job opportunity developing, I'm trying to do a professional website, my kids are crazy-insane, The Man is way less available and way more stressed due to a number of factors unrelated to any of the aforementioned issues and well, it seems I'm tired of this even when it's not in metaphor.

The working out is good. I have been experimenting with counting calories (!) using an app (My Fitness Pal) on the Ipod. It's a great app, really. It factors in your goals and activity level, giving you a STARTLINGLY LOW (at least to me) calorie limit for each day. You enter in your food intake and it calculates automatically (obviously, or it, uh, wouldn't be very effective, I suppose.) You also enter your exercise and it adds the calories burned for you to eat.

Those are some very tasty calories.

I have found the value in this experiment in a few ways. One, it just forces me to pay attention. For me, not paying attention to my physical self (not exercising, mindless eating) is the NUMBER ONE culprit. So, just applying the gentle but consistent pressure on my Will to focus on what I'm doing is, in and of itself, helpful. The second is when I started keeping track of calories, there were two behaviors that, as my dad would say, came to a screeching halt. Eating while I'm cooking or preparing food and eating from my kids' plates.

Seriously. Cold Turkey.

It's also kind of a fun little game to get in under the goal for the day. Strange fun, maybe, but fun nonetheless. 

Anyway.

The last thing I want to get into one of those horrible, internet misunderstandings that go along with weight discussions. I normally put all of this kind of thing over on Balancing The Scales but, eh, I don't know what I'm doing here or what that blog is for, anymore. Is it a food blog? A weight issue blog? Fitness slash baking blog? How INNOVATIVE!

The other stuff, I don't have time to tell you because the one crazy-insaner is hiding all her toys and then going to find them ("We're playing HIDE AND SEEK!") and the other is in his crib, bouncing up and down, up and down, waiting for me to come in there so he can immediately tell me he wants his "COARS."  (OMGCars.) (Some kind of Boy Switch got flipped and all of a sudden? It's ALL COARS ALL THE TIME.)

Vrrrrroooooomm.

 

*Do I even have to mention that this isn't a sponsored post? No. I didn't think so.

Maybe I'm From Crazy World. Because It Sure Feels Like It Sometimes.

I can't BELIEVE that it's been, oh, over a MONTH since I've posted. So, so, SAD, isn't it? I think at this point, I've basically re-virginated myself, in the blog-publishing sense.

Hey look, everyone! It's a brand new blog!

I vacillate between, 'Yes! I need to post and keep chug-chug-chugging along, until I get to a point where I can/will/want to/could post more often!' and 'Oh, holy mother of Whatever, what is the fucking POINT of all this?'

Is that weird? I don't think there has to be any Meta-Point to it all, really. Blogging, I'm saying. I can/will/want to/could write what I write, to have it down and to get it out and to put it out there and people can read it or not read it and it's all Cool and The Gang so, wtf? Right?

I've had this blog for a little over 4 years now and I've loved it, hard. I came out of the gate strong, even with a difficult pregnancy and a [crazy ass] challenging infant. I worked on posts and loved putting them together and hitting publish. The feedback and community were a bonus. A fantastic bonus that made the two trips to BlogHer, like, Trips, as in, 'It was a TOTAL TRIP to see these people in person. To hug them and eat cupcakes with them,' and all that. I read blogs and commented on blogs and kept up with what you were doing and what was happening in your lives.

I don't know.

After my second baby, I had less time. And more overwhelm. It was harder to read and harder to write. And the Waxing of the business side of blogging makes me feel a little...small. To be completely honest, the business of blogging is beyond me. And I mean that openly and without guile. I don't really understand how it works and it is beyond my scope to participate in it. I don't know my PR from my HR or my Advertisers from a hole in the ground. And while that is perfectly okay and I am infatuated with those who do--I feel a little...out of my depth when the latest Big Deal has to do with things of which I know not. If you can feel me. (This is total derailment, right here, folks. Get out now. RUN WHILE YOU CAN.)

When I started to write here, there were so many other bloggers who were anonymous. Almost all of them. As I write this today, I can think of only a few. Not that it's any big deal in the scheme of things but I think it's an indication of how things continue to morph and change, especially online, right? I blog as a hobby.

I'm a Hobblogger.

A Bloggbby.

Something.

It used to feel like I was a blogger with a secret identity as a therapist. I felt like I belonged to both worlds. I like to write and I like to commune. I want to tell you stories and hear/read yours. Sometimes I look at the accomplishments of people in this community. And I'm floored. I'm proud and I'm impressed and I'm amazed and I'm jazzed for them. With almost all of my heart.

But I would be being less than honest if I didn't admit that I sometimes feel like a fish out of water. I feel like my life is small. Not in the diminutive, not worth anything sense...I mean in the insular, kind of isolated sense. I'm not going to write books or be on morning television. I am not becoming famous or connected to famous people. This blog isn't a jumping off point. I am fine with that, forreal-forreal, it has just been making me feel kind of out of step, is all. And inside, with that little prickly piece of my heart, I kind of feel like I don't belong. Like this is another world, far away from mine.

This makes no sense at all. I'm rambling and fumbling. Probably because I'm all re-virginated.

I don't have a well-honed way to express what I'm feeling.

What I'm not feeling, though, is inclined to be misconstrued, so don't get it twisted. The people who are writing books and who are on morning tv and who are famous or connected to famous people, all through their blogs, are some of the people I like best in the whole world. As in, even outside the computer.

So, therapist world, blogger world, mother world, menopausal women world--whatever. I don't really know where I belong.

But here's a small truth: I am pretty uncomfortable writing a post that is all *Meta* about blogging and at the same time I really wanted to write this post, that was all *Meta* about blogging.

That, in a therapist's world, could be called a 'Dialectic Tension'.

Which sounds a whole lot better than a big bunch of 'I Should Have Cleaned The Bathroom Instead of Hitting Publish.'

Do You Like Onions In Things?

There are a few things that are absolutely GRATING ON MY FUCKING NERVES right now. Would you like to hear about them? [Too Bad.] Oh, good! Here we go.

The first thing is that every single morning for the past, oh, week or so, my son has been waking up at 4 in the morning, weeping and wailing, without stopping until I go in there, armed with a bottle, medicine and [my revenge] some saline nose spray and the nose frida. Even the time change did not disrupt his schedule and he seemed totally oblivious that the 4:00 was really 3:00. He just skipped right over that adjustment and kept on rocking the 4am wake up. As soon as the door opens and I present myself, grumbly and pissed off, the crying magically ceases and he says, 'Mama. Mama.' And then my irritation leaves and the dull resignation-slash-warm-sappiness-AKA-he's-only-little-for-a-little-while-feeling sets in and I hug him up and change his diaper and give him medicine and chuckle at how much he HATES the nose frida. I sit on that fucking exercise ball and give him a bottle and he is SO DROWSY. Then I go to put him in the crib and he twists his little bendy ass around so that he goes in STANDING UP.

Standing.

At 4:30am.

What the fuck is up with that, I ask you?

Anyhow, usually the crying part is over then and either he's up talking and laughing to himself or he is pretty quiet and falls back to sleep. I am, as you could probably guess, completely awake by that time and so, you know. I wake up grouchy and irritable and ill-prepared to handle the rigors of my days. And when I say rigors, I mean my daughter.

Which brings me to the second thing: she is making me nuts. Nuts! With the (intensified and inexplicable) baby-talking! And the (renewed after a long, lovely absence) Crazy-Ass Temper Fits! And the (brand new) Ignoring Me-Slash-Selective Mutism! Where she refuses to answer the simplest question! At all! I don't have to provide you with an illustration of how all three of these behaviors combine to create the MOST ANNOYING SITUATIONS IN HISTORY, do I? I didn't think so. You can trust that they DO. Every day, multiple times a day.

I am threadbare and due mostly to the sleep deprivation, my patience is thiiiiiiin. I find that I have an annoyed edge to my voice whenever I'm talking to my daughter and today it started at 7:03am, when she refused to say good-morning or give me our customary Morning Hug and insistently said the baby word, 'Powwnnyyyy,' over and over, to indicate, I suppose, that she wanted me to find her lost pony.

Can you hear that clicking? It's my MARBLES. I'm losing them one by one.

Anyway.

If it wasn't for my promise to myself that I was going to post more regularly, I'd be suffering in silence [and you wouldn't have had to suffer through this post.]

Before I go back to drinking coffee and breathing deeply before tackling the giant job of unloading the diswasher, I'll tell you the story behind the title of this post.

After my mom died, The Little Sister and I went back to my hometown to have Thanksgiving with my dad and my grandfather. We were making all the family favorites in our own way, really, and worked our aaaaasses off. We included my grandmother's mac and cheese. My sister, however, omitted the grated raw onion on top, since none of us liked it anyway. The crunchy texture just didn't suit us. This was our first-ever time making a Thanksgiving dinner. And we were without my mom. It was tough.

If you've never read about my grand-dad, this might not make too much sense but you have to know that he's sort of...er...difficult. Kind of obsessive and nit-picky and before and during dinner he made a series of remarks and comments that I'm SURE he thought were benign but were actually most annoying.

So.

After dinner, my grandfather was telling The Little Sister how good everything was. Then he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Huh?' And he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Uh. Yeah, sure.' And he said, 'You know what's good? For the Macaroni and Cheese, you take an onion and you just grraaaaate that onion right on top.'

And I had to suppress my deep, deep, laughter when my sister leaned in and muttered, 'You mean like how you're grrrraaaatting my nerves right now?'

All Right, Already. Manson.

I crack up every time you guys talk about Manson.

Oh, if only Manson knew how popular his ass is on the interweb.

It would, I'm sure, trigger an episode of paranoid ramblings, complete with crumpled grubby lists and squinting at every traffic helicopter while talking of a government conspiracy to earn money by telling his life story. Screwing him out of his identity or his inheritance or WHATEVERthefuck.

Anyway.

I love you guys for 1) remembering about Manson and for 2) loving on the Crazy.  Though I hate to say it, this might be the last, full-length Manson Story to be had.  There are a finite number of these gems, really, as I don't live there anymore (whoo hoo!) 

So, if you haven't ever heard of Manson, and you have absolutely no effing clue what I'm talking about, you should probably read to catch up.  (There are three separate links there. You're welcome.) Otherwise, I'll go ahead and tell you of the time that Manson turned his ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS INTO A DOG KENNEL. FOR BREEDING DOGS.

Yes, yes, my friends. Yes he did.

But we'll back up and talk a little bit about Manson's dog.  His [little fuckwad of a yapper] dog was a Boston Terrier.  It liked to [torment the shit out of my dog] run up and down the length of the fence, barking a hearty 'HALLO!' to anyone, anyone at all. For hours on end.

[Bonus TFS in a story: One time, Manson left pictures of his dog in our mailbox. I've looked for them, but I can't find them. One of the views was the back of the dog's head, hanging out the driver's side window, as Mason took a picture of the FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. One other time, Manson left his dog in his car when he went inside to get [high] something and just, er, forgot to come back out. It was hot as balls and The Man and I did a little Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who was going to have to go and knock on the door, so that little fucker wouldn't roast to death. I lost. Damned rock.]

Anyway.

Manson approached the fence one day, gripping the squirming pooch in his hands.  He had a couple [guys just out of rehab] friends over, lugging cinder-blocks into his downstairs and mixing cement in the driveway. I didn't think too much of this, as there were always cinder-blocks and rehab guys around and, well, let's be honest: I didn't really want to know.

He launched into one of his famous 'discussions.'  These generally started half-way through whatever the hell was running on and on through his head, and so it took me a few minutes to jump in mid-stream and figure out what he was trying to say.

'Do you like bulldogs?' he asked.

'Um. Yeah. Sure. I like bulldogs,' I said (while the inside-my-head voice was all eye-rolling and heavy-sighing, 'Whaaaat?  What'sThisNow?!')

'I'm making a kennel! I'm going to breed bulldogs!'

'Uhhh. Oh--uhhhm..'

'And Boston Terriers! (Lifts the dog up for emphasis.) I just ordered all the puppies and I'm making a kennel!'

I should say at this point, that the houses in my neighborhood had no basements. Manson's house was just like mine, only with a monster addition on the back/top, which gave his house a second floor.  The year before, [the rehab guys] his friends had sectioned off the front of his house and made it into an apartment that he used to rent out. So, the area in which the guys were working was like, The Kitchen and The Laundry Room.

???

'Sooooo,' I hazard a guess, 'you're turning your kitchen? and your laundry room? Into a...kennel?'

'YEAH! It's gonna be great! State of the art!'

???

So, a couple weeks go by and you can hear the yipping and the yapping and you can, every once in a while, see some puppies frolicking in the backyard.  I don't need to describe the smell of urine, right? If I tell you that it smelled like The Vet outside my house, you'd know what I'm saying, yes?  So, it would appear that Manson made good on his [insane] plan and is living above, his, um, dog kennel.  The sliding glass door was always covered and so, I had no idea what it actually LOOKED like in there.

Me and my other next-door neighbor [Gladys Kravitz] were DYING to know what's going on in there. How has a guy turned his Kitchen? And his Laundry Room? Into a...kennel?

And then, one day out of the blue, Manson sees me in the back yard and asks me if I want to come inside to see the kennel.

I'm going to give you a minute, so you can let that shit sink in.

Go ahead and take your time. I'll wait.

Yes. Yeeessss.

He asked me if I wanted to GO INSIDE his house and LOOK AT HIS DOG KENNEL. That was IN HIS KITCHEN.

I was thoroughly and completely torn.

On one hand, I NEEDED to go inside there to see a Kitchen Dog Kennel, first hand. But on the other hand, [as I looked and looked for another living soul who could witness me walking into Manson's house, in case I never came out] I was, er, a little skerrd. I mean, really, there were no Potential Witnesses to my disappearance. Manson lived with a [boyish looking heroin addict] his [air-quote] cousin, who was a tall, quiet [creepy fucking lurker] guy, who had nearly given me cardiac arrest, several times, when he suddenly spoke to me after minutes of standing stock-still, unnoticed.

Anyway.

You know my nosy ass wasn't going to turn down his invitation, just on account of the crazy. And so, although my dog was less than thrilled with the idea, I left the sanctity of my yard and entered The Kennel Kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was how...authentic...the smell of the urine/veterinarian's office was up close. Along with the yipping and yapping, it felt like I was walking through the SPCA. Seriously. I looked around and saw...kennels. They were built of the cinder-block and each had a gate for a door. The linoleum had been stripped and the dogs were kept in a room on a cement slab (with blankets/bedding for each dog.) If you didn't look at the sides of the room, you might have believed that you were in an actual kennel.

But that impression, friends, came to a screeching fucking halt the second you looked at the perimeter of the room. For the perimeter of the room was more or less, intact.  There were shelves and then, you know, the kitchen. A stove and a fridge and the door to the upstairs, all streaked and rusty looking and smelling very strongly of puppy pee. As I was walking through, I was completely preoccupied with two things. The first was the 29475084573 puppies who, free from their cages, came to mob me and for some reason were, ALL of them, trying to chew the bows off my slippers and the second was that every single inch (every. single. inch. EVERYSINGLEINCH) of available surface--wall or otherwise--was filled with a cheap, dollar store nick-knacks. Of a bulldog. Or a Boston Terrier. There were HUNDREDS of little figurines, bobble-heads, cups, ashtrays, plaques, doo-dads, you name it. They were e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

I was completely visually overwhelmed and as I wandered through the living/laundry room kennel, disoriented, into the kitchen kennel, the [creepy fucking lurker] cousin materialized out of nowhere and was leaning against the door-jam, standing there mute. Watching me. It was like a dash of cold water to the face and I was roused from my dream-like overwhelm state and tried to pick up the pace, wading through puppies, to get to the side door and out into the [real world] yard. It was like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together. Through six inches of peanut butter.

Anyway. (You still here?)

I was still a little shaken when I crossed into my yard. I was accosted by my own dog, who was hyper-smelling me all over, like, 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

I went into my own back door, awash in relief that I made it back out into the light, hooked off both slippers, stepped into my own kitchen and dumped them, unceremoniously, directly into the trash can.

The End.

 

Kidney Beans, Pink Ties And One Big Can Of Whoop-Ass.

I don't remember much of what she said after she whirled around and shouted at the three or four of us, a few paces behind her and her two siblings.

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE?!" is all I really remember her saying verbatim.

Seared into my memory, though, is the expression on her face--rattling fury mixed with broken-glass-sharp contempt.  I remember how pale her blond eyebrows looked against the crimson of her complexion and how the breeze caught some of the strands of her long, straight hair, sending them swirling around her head, as if she was electrified.

***

I am and have always been known to be a Fuck-With.  A Ball-Buster.  Cage-Rattler.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'll give you an example.  One day, when I was in high school, a popular kid wore a pink tie.  A Pink Tie.  It was the absolute height of Preppy TragiComedy and I rode his ass so hard about it, that he took it off in World History class and walked up the aisle to throw it at me.  He was laughing, though, and I put it on and wore it for the rest of the day (with my black nail polish and my braided side-tail. TFS!)

Sometimes I would tease a little and sometimes a lot.  It was humorous.  It was a way of relating.  It was my natural inclination.  I learned through the years that it was also a defense mechanism. It allowed me to connect without feeling too emotionally vulnerable.  To make others laugh was (and still is) one of the things that I do best and teasing others, picking up and playing with the little stuff that irked them a bit was one way to do that. 

My teasing was never, ever, meant to hurt anyone.  My aim was never to humiliate or embarrass someone in public or to demean them or make them feel less than. 

The funny thing about aim, though, is that even if you're really true most of the time,  you can still totally miss.

***

After my third grade year, the public school which I attended was closed.  My fourth grade year dawned with me clad in a plaid jumper with navy blue knee socks.  I remember being optimistic about the prospect of attending the Catholic school but my hopes were cast aside  like so many kidney beans out of the school lunch chili.  The kids there had been together since the first grade and they weren't taking any new customers. 

I was awkward, a horrible combination of deep, scratchy voice, false bravado, questionable hygiene and bad, bad hair.  I cried every single day before school, manifesting stomach aches and headaches that sent me complaining to the nurse.  There was one other girl from former school and when I reached out to her--a continuation of the congenial relationship that we'd had only a few months back and a few blocks away, she turned on me and pretended we didn't know each other.

I was excluded but I was never picked on.  I imagine that my acerbic wit and my speedy-if-somewhat-caustic comebacks may have been a part of what made me immune from the grisly treatment that two of my classmates received for the four years I attended that school.  I still had my neighborhood friends, who also attended the Catholic school.  They were all older than me and so even though we didn't see each other during the school day, we walked home together. 

It was during this same year that we would walk home behind the redheaded boy.  I don't recall his name.  I had a vague idea of where he lived but to this day I can't say I knew him.  I don't remember what we used to say to him.  I only remember that we used to walk behind him and tease him.  And tease him.  And tease him.  I don't remember him crying or yelling or doing anything in particular.  In fact, I don't remember any real response at all until that day his sister whirled around and opened up a can of whoop-ass on us all.

We stopped short, all of us, when she spun around, dirt and small stones crunching under her heels.

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE?!" she screamed. 

There was more but the details are lost to me all these years later.  The gist was basically, 'Who do you think you are?' and it was only a matter of seconds before she spun again and stalked away, siblings in tow.

It was as if she'd doused me with a giant bucket of ice water, that's how shocked I was.  I stood, stunned silent.  I was surprised by the intensity of her emotion on his behalf and that what I experienced as a little post-school fun, he must have experienced as long-suffered torment.  To have my perception changed so rapidly like that--it caused a kind of emotional vertigo.

We resumed walking and my friends were whispering, keeping voices low in that Oh-Holy-Shit-What-Was-THAT? tone.  The boiling hot shame flooded me--filled me right up past my vocal chords--and threatened to spill over and out.  I was overcome with emotion and I had nothing to add to their conversation because even then I knew.  I knew she was right.

A few days later, I approached the redheaded boy and his sister.  I apologized for the teasing and told him that I would stop.  And I did.  Was I a bully?  I don't know.  I don't think so, not in the classic sense.  But I was definitely a Fuck-With in a bit of an emotional crisis, blowing off steam in an inappropriate way.

There was relief in giving a sincere apology and having it accepted.  And in doing better.  There was a giant lesson in the experience for me--an opportunity to reflect on my own behavior.  An opportunity to gauge the effect that my behavior had on others, regardless of my benign intent. 

 I don't know if an adult's intervention would have had the same effect on me.  It may have. 

But I still remember her face. Clearly.

The fury, the broken glass contempt.

The electrified, swirling, platinum strands of silk.

Either/Or.

It seems, these days, that it's either read or write.  It's either go out and do an activity with the kids or clean the house.  It's either grocery shop and return the library books or get the laundry started (it's never, ever, finished, am I right?)  Eat pudding out of the carton and watch an episode of The Wire or work out. Return phone calls and emails or spend 10 minutes on Twitter.  Chase my kids around or run the vacuum.  You get it, I'm sure.

Life these days is a never-ending string of reminders that my time and patience are finite and my skills at multi-tasking are abysmal.  I've got so much to do and yet so much of it seems...what's the word?  Repetitive.  Endless.  Ongoing and ongoing. Putting the toys away and vacuuming up the gross bits of rawhide today, only to have to do it again [whenever I can get to it again] tomorrow.  Washing. Drying. Folding. Washing. Drying. Folding. Washing and forgetting it's in the washer because omfg HOW CAN THERE BE MORE LAUNDRY?!  Scrubbing the toilet but foregoing the sink and tub because here comes the baby with an eye for the spray nozzle.

And so, when I look around, I see failure.  It's never as clean as it could be--or feels like it should be after working on it.  I'm losing tons of readers because I don't post regularly (and, then, you know--post THIS kind of crap.)  My car is a mess, my house is a mess, my bills are disorganized and I am still sporting extra poundage.

I'm caught up on The Wire, though, and in case you were wondering: It's Kick-Fucking-Ass.

We all have choices, this I know. I'm up to my ass in teaching this very thing to my now-preschooler.  Any dissatisfaction I have with the way things are is a direct result of my own decisions, and maybe even more so, my allowing my focus to fall where it does.  How I am perceiving things right this minute.  Seeing the fail, instead of seeing the progress.  Peering too long into negative spaces isn't healthy for me.

That's an Either/Or, too.

Right?

The other day, I painted my little girl's fingernails and toenails with a bright pink nail polish that she got me for my birthday.  I painted my toenails the same color, at her request. I am acutely aware those days are so very, very fleeting.  I already see in her face the shadow of a first-grader.  A middle schooler.  A pre-teen.  I see the long limbs and the training bras and the rolling eyes that are sooner rather than later headed my way. 

So, it might do to try and wrench my gaze from the negative space and focus on what's actually in the picture.  Toys on the floor, for sure.  Gross bits of rawhide, too.

But, man, those little pink fingernails could kill you from the cute.  And who's looking at my carpets anyway?

 

 

 

Because 'I Think I Can,' Won't Fucking Cut It & 'You Can't Give Them Away' Just Depresses Me More.

So, I don't know if we are deep into some kind of heinous sleep regression or if there's a general sucky sleep formula brought on by two back-to-back trips away, weaning, learning to walk and talk (for the baby) and impending preschool and learning to run and climb somewhat fearlessly and scream exceptionally loudly for TLNG.

Whatever the cause, the result is the same.

A level of heartbreak and angst that is unexplainable, for the sheer number of superlatives involved.

In other words: Oh My Holy Fucking Hell.

It's one thing to bring a newborn home, into an already established family with a well-functioning sleep routine.  You just KNOW that shit is going to get harshed. And good.  But when that newborn grows and sleeps SLEEPS! Through the night!  And your toddler-slash-preschooler (is she REALLY a preschooler? Holy Shit,) is also a champion sleeper! Well, this kind of thing can come right out of left field to simultaneously bite you on the ass and run you over like a truck.

Part of it is that, with my son, I find myself losing track of those Sleep Regressions/Wonder Weeks/Whatever the hell reasons that you can find to explain the fucking insanity of early childhood behavior switch-ups.  I'm saying that next month (NEXT MONTH!) he's going to be a year old.  He's standing and cruising and balancing all by himself.  He's babbling and playing games and eating me out of house and home.  But because there's twice the motion and keeping track with two kids, I just..well, let's just say that a few nights ago I realized that I was going to have to plan a first birthday party and it took me..totally off guard. WTH?

I'm sure that the sleep deprivation is at least partially to blame.

I find myself slogging through, trying to force myself to work, to clean, to write, to address the frigging package to Jess already, because, DAMN.  The lack of sleep works on me, though.  It's one of the things that I most hate about parenting.  (One of the others is Mr. Potato Head.  Just saying.)

I know that I will sleep again.

I know that my son will start walking (send help when he does, cause, omfg) and talking and sleeeeeping again.  I know that my daughter will start preschool and will work through whatever the hell is making her scream her head off at 2:48 in the morning because she can't get her hair to go the right way.

It's temporary.  That's my mantra whenever we are in a 'bad spot,' sleep or behavior wise.  It's temporary.

The thing is: we're four weeks in already and there's no end in sight.

*sigh*

I think I might need a new mantra.

 

 

 

I Should Just Title This Post: Can't Skate On Any Of These Ponds Cause These Bitches Ain't Frozen Yet. Or, Alternately: If You Follow Me On Twitter, You Prolly Know All This Shit Already.

I feel wrung out. 

Like over the past two weeks, I've been full to bursting and then squeezed empty and then refilled and then squeezed again.  It's hard to imagine that only a short time ago, I was in NYC, staying at the Hilton and communing with some of the funniest, smartest, prettiest women (plus, like, two guys) on the planet.  There were lots of highlights for me, too many to link when I'm feeling so bleary-eyed and do you really want to read The Internet's Most-Delayed BlogHer Recap?  Honestly, in Internet Time, BlogHer was like, 10 years ago. So, it's like I'm sitting behind my word-processor, suited up in my Member's Only jacket, writing about something that happened before you were BORN.

I'll say that I got to see so many of my good friends and introduce myself and express my [writer's crushes] genuine affection for the work of most everyone on my 'I want to meet them and gush about their work' list.  I got to talk about things that really matter with a few awesome women.  I got to meet lots of people that I have wanted to meet. Plus, if you follow me on Twitter, you undoubtedly saw the CUPCAKE that I got to eat because I CRASHED the birthday celebration of a very sweet, tutu-making maven.

Of course there are 70 quadrillion people that I forgot to link and so, just know if it was you I forgot to link, I already understand that I suck. Prophylactically. 

And, if you are the ball-less motherfucker who stole the bag I got for [air-quote] running [air-quote] the Tutus-for-Tanner 5K? You know, the one with the autographed, sure-it's-awesome Dread Crew in it? YOU CAN SUCK IT. (I hope you liked the book, though, even though it WASN'T ADDRESSED TO YOU.)

Anyway.

I got home and it was official that The Boy was weaned.  Fully weaned at 10.5 months.  Hard to describe how I feel about it, really.  The fact that I went without nursing for 4 days and never ONCE leaked or felt full/tingly led me to believe that he hadn't been getting that much anyway.  My production was a challenge for months and months and man.  I really just don't want to totally get into it.

A couple days later, I had to turn around and leave my kids for ANOTHER four days to go to my childhood home to pack up my dad's stuff and move him close to The Little Sister and I.  It's hard for me to articulate what that experience was like but I'm sure that you can imagine it.  On Twitter I posted all the reeeeediculous things that we unearthed there (plus, the world's WORST EVER wallpaper which NO ONE commented on because by the time it made an appearance, they were all immersed in the crazy and didn't EVEN NOTICE,) partly because it was funny as hell and partly because I deal with the not-funny by turning it into the funny.

Then I came back to two kids who were crazy out of their minds, testing like motherfuckers, trying to adjust to Mommy being away-coming back-being away. Not to mention that they both had some bug that manifested in horrible napalm-poo explosions of the 'Requires A Morning Bath' kind.  When those cleared up, there came a baby who refused to sleep at all (AT ALL!) confusing the shit out of us before it became apparent that he was suffering from a cold, that he gave to his sister.

So, I had my first Total-Without-Sleep night since my son was 2 months old.  It was as sucky as I remember.

Anyway. So, now you're caught up.

Geezuz.

What's new with you?