Summer is here. Bummer? Summer ? NO.

Summer is here.
It's hot, it's bright, the days are long, the nights feel shorter.
The pool is a daily staple.
The days are long.
Did I mention that the days are long?

My kids are together most days, all days with me, and perhaps a few other lucky moms.
That means I get to see them fight, get along. fight, get along. Laugh, hit each other again. Fight again, scream, cry, get along. Play a game like they're best friends, fight over the game, cry.
Chase each other around, fall, cry, blame the other one for hitting, hit back, get up.
Do it all over again.
Oh, and Jaxson gave emma her first fat lip with a water gun.
Really, what a joy.

Summer makes me think about my mom.
My childhood.
I remember so many little things.
Small memories.
Imprints in my mind.

The traditional trip we would take to Lake Tahoe every summer for two months.
Where the water was pure blue liquid cold.
The kind of cold that made your skin numb and your hair freeze.
Then the hot sun made it all feel good.
The sandy turkey and cheese sandwiches, the cheez wiz on wheat thins and the smell of hot wine coolers.
The smell of pine needles and inter tubes.
Sun tan lotion and sun-in.
Do you remember Sun-in?

My mom was single.
She was not the sad single mom that men ran from.
She was the pretty, robust, slightly nuts (in a fun kind of way) mom, that all the men
fell in love with.
She had a few suitors, but she pretended they were all just "friends".
When I would say, "Mom , Michael is totally in love with you." (annoying 10 year old valley girl voice)
She would say,"oh stacie, come on, we are just friends."

Come July, we would start getting ready for our adventure.
If there wasn't enough money to go, my mom would pawn some jewelry, or write a bad check.

We had a cat, McKenzie, two dogs, Tasha and Stormy, and a parrot,Daffy.
Tasha and Stormy were black labs and Tasha was blind in one eye.
It was her left eye that was blind, and it was dark blue and glossy.
She literally ran around in circles.
Daffy was our green parrot.
My kind and moral brother Jesse, taught Daffy how to say hello and fuck you.
Daffy was mostly an asshole who either bit you, or said fuck you randomly.

They all came in the car with us.
It was a shit brown toyota corolla with a bumper sticker that said- " You had one of those days? I have one of those lives."
We would also rent a u-haul, which made the four hour ride that much longer, and only drew that much more attention.

My mom always wore cut off daisy duke jean shorts in the summer.
She would wear a t- shirt with a american flag on it or a cheesy rainbow.
She was a size double D .
She always smelled like copertone. (even in the winter.)

So there we were: my mom and her daisy dukes,
The parrot , the two dogs , the cat.
My brother was Judd Nelson from the breakfast club.
My sister was a big 80's dork with braces and a shirt that said "Bo Derek is a 10.... I'm a 15,"
And myself.

We would argue and hit each other most of the way there.
My brother called the punches to the leg muscle "charlie horses".
They hurt so bad we would laugh.

For some occasional entertainment, we held up a few paper signs with scribbled letters that said things like : honk if your horny and honk if you think we look like national lampoon's vacation.

Then there was the customary half way stop at the same restaurant.
It was called Sam's off highway 50.
My mom would always order a bloody mary with extra celery.
My sister and I would order shirley temples and my brother would tell us we were "Lame" for ordering them and make fun of us the entire lunch.
We would get back in the car and all the animals would assume their positions.
Daffy was always on my mom's shoulder.
There was bird shit all over her right shoulder.

Finally,
We would arrive with excitement and call the rooms we wanted in the cabin.
The deck was our favorite spot to hang out.
The Pine trees stood tall and green and the air was fresh and real.
The cabin was always a 70's motif and smelled like an old fire from the winter guests.

As the weeks passed, we would fill the rooms with the smells of sun tan oil, cigarettes, and barbeque steaks.

About a week into our vacation,
My mom would take us to these beautiful waterfalls.
We had to hike quite a ways to get there, it took about an hour.
Then, we would have our own watering hole to swim in and dive from the highest rock.
It was hot.
We would complain about how thirsty we were as we would hike the hills.
We never brought a cooler with water or food, just towels and sun tan lotion.

My mom carried her benson and hedges lights 100's in her jean shorts back pocket.
The pocket had a 60's patch on it that was a big crimson red pair of lips.

She pulled the cigarettes out of her pocket and slipped the cellophane wrapper off the pack.
Then she skillfully held the cellophane wrapper under one of the small waterfalls on the edge of the mountain to fill it with water.
We each got a cigarette wrapper filled with delicious, fresh spring water.
You could only faintly taste the tobacco remnants.
That ice cold fresh water quenched our thirst like no other water.

I thought my mom was a genius.
Small memories imprinted in my mind.

Ah........................ Summer.

Life's a beach and then you .......?

I don't know why I always feel the need to write a blog when I am going fucking crazy.
Maybe it's cathartic to tell the truth.
In hopes that someone will read it and hear me inside their crazy life.

I felt like a terrible mom on Thursday.
I screamed and yelled at my kids and threw my Nike running shoes across the room.
Then I sat in my car in the driveway and listened to NPR for 5 minutes just to get away from them.
Oh, and on Friday, I sat on the toilet in the bathroom stall at the YMCA and cried (the silent, shaking, martyr cry), hoping no one would see me.
I just felt so pent up and tired of life, kids, money and my insane thoughts.
Thoughts like: would a mental institution give me some time away, some peace, a quiet bed and tranquilizers?
And really and truly, I had no idea parenting was going to be this demanding....really I had no clue.
Why then, when I see a sweet little baby in a mother's warm arms, do I want another one????? (re:mental institution fantasy)

OR, for that matter- am I just a terrible parent?
I said shit and fuck in front of my 4 and a half year old today.
Who gives a fuck!

It's been a long month.
I ran a half marathon (almost died).
I've been protesting the Atlanta public school system to keep our neighborhood school open.
My neighbors and I realized that there is still segregation in Atlanta, in the year 2012.
Shocking.
I find few things in life shocking, but that one is sad.
Is Moral courage something you learn?

Then, we went to Pensacola for a family vacation.
I had very low expectations because I haven't quite experienced that "vacation" feeling before, amongst toddlers, I mean, my kids.
It's usually more stressful to be away from home, but somehow, we got a reprieve - well, some of the time.
I was surprised, I did relax (some of the time), and we had a great vacation.

Yes, the kids fought and made messes, and broke something in the condo.(woops, forgot to tell them.)
Jaxson threw Matt's credit cards down the deck slats, after desperately searching for them, he found them the next day in the parking lot.
Jaxson also lost my keys and we finally found them under the comforter after a frantic 45 minute search.
Emma peed in the pool while announcing it to all the people lying by it.
One woman looked so disgusted, I thought she was going to tell the managers to remove her sassy ass.
So, trust me, it was not without perils.

The car ride to and from was also pretty grueling.
Mostly the serene sounds of fighting, screaming and pleas for a new snack every five minutes.
Emma asked me over and over again if she could throw her brother in the garbage.
My response was, "CAN I?"

I really enjoyed being with Matt, we had fun.
We laughed and lost our minds breaking up sibling rivalry and washing sand out of hair and butts.
I realized how much I missed him, being away from it all.
The stresses of everyday life seemed to fade.

I told Matt he was in isolation.
Essentially because he couldn't go to work... he had no escape.
Sounds petty, but he was getting a taste of my everyday life (minus the paradise beach setting), and I secretly enjoyed that.

Even at a beautiful white sand beach with clear blue water and soothing breeze, there was still a shitty diaper to change and bickering toddlers to bribe.

There was a dock just outside of our condo.
It stretched for hundreds of feet out to the ocean.
The kids ran back and forth and back and forth screaming and jumping.
They marveled at all the fish and little crabs, seeing things for the first time.
Yes, I had visions of them falling in the ocean and how I would promptly save them.

They threw sand at each other and ran through the waves.
I watched the gleam in their eyes, and the wonder in their smiles.
We were in the moment.

Emma loved the pool, all she wanted to do was swim in the pool because the sand was "too dirty."
Jaxson used the pool rails as monkey bars and threw my visor and sun glasses in the pool about 100 times.
He tried to climb into the garbage can and ate random pieces of food off the the ground.
Emma found candy in an oil puddle at the gas station and ate it. It was still in the wrapper so I didn't intervene.
Boundaries, I'm learning boundaries.

I thought about my mom when I would lie on the beach or look at the vastness of the ocean.
I thought about her ashes floating somewhere in the pacific.
I missed her, I have fond memories of our beach days growing up.
I could smell the copertone on her legs and taste of the cheese whiz and crackers.

I wished she could be there to meet my kids.
I can't believe my mom hasn't met my kids

Maybe she does see my kids.
Maybe she has met my kids in her own way.

I shed a tear or two as I watched Matt and Jax and Emma run along the shore.
I shed a tear or two just because....
There was no real reason.

Just a full heart, even in the midst of all the days I wanna pull my hair out.

I'm sad, and I'm happy... kinda like parenting, I love them and I wanna pull their hair out.

Change Changes You

I've been thinking a lot about change.

How my kids have changed me , how sobriety has changed me, how my heart and mind have changed.
How my geography has changed, how my friends have changed, how my body has changed. (code for:I used to have better boobs and stomach).

Maybe it's because I just had a birthday, and I have one more year till 40.
Maybe it's because living life changes you.
Or maybe living life is just full of changes.

Divorce changed me as a kid
Marriage changed me as an adult.
Certainly, my children have changed me forever.

If I think about how much bigger my heart has gotten since having my children, I cry.
Not just tears of joy.
Tears of fear, tears of sadness and just plain tears.

Change is inevitable.
Change is good.
Change has blindsided me.
No control.
I guess I illude myself, thinking I have some control of the chaos in a house with small kids.
There's a lot of laughing and crying.
That changes from hour to hour.
Certainly, I can't control that.

I already tried to control Emma, it was a pointless exercise.
Now, I just give her boundaries.
She wears one pink cowboy boot and one brown cowboy boot.
Scratch that, correction from emma, they are cowGIRL boots.
She is who she is.
It's hard to look in the mirror.

I have had to grow up a lot.
I'm 39 and I still have many childish moments.
Especially, when my I have my own tantrum, not my 2 year old.

Emma and Jaxson change all the time.
They change their minds, their feelings and their likes/dislikes.
Emma sleeps one night and wets the bed the next.
Jaxson wakes up in a bad mood on Sundays.
No rhyme or reason.

I don't want to analyze it, I just want to be here with them now.

Thursday, I hated being a mom. I wanted to leave them in the living room kicking and screaming and go for a long walk off a short pier.

Saturday, I loved being a mom. I sat and laughed with my son, he kissed and climbed all over me. He got snot all over my face and hummus from his snack in my hair, and I didn't care.

Last week, my husband and I bickered one day, I took it personally.
I cursed him in my mind.
Friday, he couldn't find the car keys.
He cursed me in his mind.
Saturday, all was forgotten, we laughed, we endured Emma's melt down together in the car and rolled our eyes (partly with love).

Ups and downns.
I know for sure that there are many.
If my perception would change, perhaps the downs could be more up.

The changes keep happening.
Since I married Matt and birthed these 2 multi- faceted monkeys, one thing hasn't changed....
I have never had so much to lose.

I hope that doesn't change.

2 year olds, toilets, temper tantrums and sobriety don't mix

Im not sure wether to laugh or cry.
I won't lie- I've been crying a lot this week.
I did run out of my Lexapro for a couple of days,
was that why?
Jaxson did ruin my comforter with lip gloss stains.
That must me why.
Oh, and he also flushed the plastic black and white dog and blond haired little people down the toilet.
The plumber fixed it, after almost dismantling the toilet to get them out.
Shortly after the plumber left, there went the dog and the little people again.
Maybe that's why.
Oh! I know, Jaxson has decided 5am is a conveniant time to start EVERYDAY.
That must be why.
I realize the toilet doesn't matter, my comforter doesn't matter.... sleep issues are usually temporary.
Bullshit. But.......
These are the things I am trying to tell myself.
Truly, it is the hope that things will change tomorrow, or that bed time is just an hour away. These are that get me through the days when I WISH I could give my kids up for adoption.
Surely I would be devastated. Right?
Aren't the terrible two's just a fleeting phase?
Nothing is fucking fleeting about it these days.

I walked in to Kroger on Friday with puffy eyes, and a pity pot stuck on my butt.
I was tired, crabby, hungry, and stressed.
I had just dropped Jaxson off at pre-school for that long 3 hour interval of time.
He had a 15 minute temper tantrum that lasted the drive to school and the walk into his classroon.
I was so exhausted from the 5 am wake up that I almost left him kicking and screaming on the wet side walk.

I love you, I hate you, you're annoying, You're my everything, I hate it when you do that, I love you, I hate you, you're the cutest thing I've ever seen, I need a picture of that, I might choke you right now..... This is what it feels like to be a parent.

I have been sober for almost 12 years.
I stared at that bottle of red wine at Kroger on Friday.
I was tempted. I could sneak it, no one would know.
It looked so warm and smooth- it would be like velvet wrapping around my heart, like silky potion slipping down my throat.
Ah, that bottle of wine looked good.
STOP!!!! alarms started ringing in my head.
Im sober . Im sober. I can't do that. I don't want to drink.
I just want some relief from how I feel.

Then I went to my friend Anna's house and her two year old was crying.
I already felt better.
My friends Hollie and Tia came over with their kids.
We watched our 6 kids dance and sing to Justin Beiber and laughed at how free they were.
We sat together and cried a little about our weeks.
Looking into Hollie's teary eyes made my eyes teary but it made my heart less heavy.

We are all trudging the road.
We all have the same thoughts.

I felt better.
We all felt better.
Because we just can't do this thing alone.

Google it

Christmas break was like a roller coaster, well, honestly it was a shit storm.
In short, it was too long.
And we we celebrate Hannukah, not Christmas.

After many hours/days of rain, I wanted to scream, yell and break small objects with large hammers.
So, I yelled at my kids too much, and felt guilty.

For about a week, I was just really down in the dumps.
I pretended like I was doing fine.
I didn't want to be a grump around the holidays, but I was on the inside.
I was growling and grumping and hating most people in crowded parking lots and stores.
I knew I was creating my own reality and I couldn't seem to change it.
I felt like pig pen with that smelly, gloomy cloud lingering above my head.
I still exercised and did stuff with the kids and my husband.
I just felt like a crunchy chip, about to break at any point.

When I feel awful, I have a tendency to fuel it like a fire.
Add another match, another newspaper page, another match, and see how big the flames can get.
It's a sadistic game.
The flames start taking over my mind, and soon enough it's a fire of negativity.

It all started with Google.
I google things that I feel, or predict I will be feeling in the future.
And all things that may happen as a result of feelings I may feel in the near future of which are usually very unrealistic.
I had a terrible cough, so I started to google Lung cancer symptoms. That made for a great wednesday.
Then I googled, unbearable 4 year old.
Then I googled, unbearable siblings that are also my children. That was during, and prior to hair pulling and fighting over meaningless, stupid toys that neither of them ever play with.
The googling continued..... Benji the movie playing in the background and an occasional blood curdling meow from the kitten being chocked by Jaxson.
Why do husbands still get to do whatever they want?
Can a four year old truly manipulate?
Is it normal for a 2 1/2 year old boy to be violent?
How many brain cells do you lose after pregnancy?
And now for the most important google- DO THEY EVER COME BACK????

Am I disillusioned, or is it really maddening to spend millions of hours with toddlers?
I want milk, I want to paint my face with water colors and wear dumb princess outfits, I want to stick stuffed animals and paper clips down the toilet. I want to curl up in the fireplace and smear soot all over my face, I want to throw my food, I want to spill my milk for the fucking 20th time. I want to ask for something to eat and not eat it.
Is this supposed to be joyous? It's not.

In my rut throughout the week, I was on and off the pity pot.
I went to my friend Lori's house and she had a poem on her wall that really struck me.
It stopped me in my tracks.
It changed my perception.
It opened my heart again.

Really, I hate to admit it but I was regretting my choice to me a mom.
I was feeling depressed and tired of all the tedious, thankless tasks, all of the service, the unending service it is to be a mom.

Then I read this:


How to Really Love a Child *

Be there.

Say yes as often as possible.

Let them bang on pots and pans.

If they’re crabby, put them in water.

If they’re unlovable, love yourself.

Realize how important it is to be a child.

Go to a movie theater in your pajamas.

Read books out loud with joy.

Invent pleasures together.

Remember how really small they are.

Giggle a lot.

Surprise them.

Say no when necessary.

Teach feelings.

Heal your own inner child.

Learn about parenting.

Hug trees together.

Make loving safe.

Bake a cake and eat it with no hands.

Go find elephants and kiss them.

Plan to build a rocket ship.

Imagine yourself magic.

Make lots of forts with blankets.

Let your angel fly.

Reveal your own dreams.

Search out the positive.

Keep the gleam in your eye.

Encourage silly.

Plant licorice in your garden.

Open up.

Stop yelling.

Express your love.

A lot.

Speak kindly.

Paint their tennis shoes.

Handle with caring.

*Copyrighted to SARK

Pooping Princesses at the Park

I live in a big bubble with little crazies.
By crazies, I mean people under 5.
It's been one of those overwhelming, draining, fun, frustrating, blurry weeks.
Oh wait- every week is like that.

I know- the days are long and the years are short.

I am fumbling my way through this parenting thing, trying to be easy on myself on the days when I feel like an impatient, spiritually bankrupt piece of doo doo.
I change it enough, I start to feel like it.

I had no idea parenting was going to be like this....
Some days it's just fucking exhausting, trying to explain to my 4 year old why she can't have 4 candy canes in one afternoon, or why it's not nice to call her brother, "Bad Brother".

And, explaining anything to my 2 year old is really a mother- fucking joke.
I have been trying to teach him to be gentle with our kitten for 6 weeks. He's still choking her and biting her like a lion cub. I'm surprised she's still alive. (please dont call animal control- I have enough on my plate).

Change the sheets, do the laundry, wash the dishes, make the lunch, drop her off, pick him up, feed him lunch (pick all food up off the floor), put him down for a nap... listen to him play in his room and NOT take a nap until he falls asleep the minute we have to leave.
make breakfast, pack lunch, make dinner, iron shirts,clean up an occasional puddle of pee, do bedtime, read stories, spray fake ghost be-gone spray,(water in a green spray bottle).... the list goes on and on.

It feels like groundhog day.
The menial tasks that may be killing many brain cells by the day, by the hour, by the minute.
It's the repetitive task of filling and emptying the dishwasher that makes me feel like my head is going to explode.

Especially, because most of the things I do, become undone, or interrupted by the small children (animals) that live with me.

I really needed a good laugh by Thursday.
Emma provided me with that.
I can always count on her to do something that simaltaneously surprises, and humiliates me.

Emma's favorite friend is an adorable red haired, blue eyed 5 year old named Wisteria.
I really like her mom Tanya.
It's a blessing that I can have such great conversation with her while our girls run wildly.
They are a pair of whirling, giggling, dirty princesses in stained white tights and bright red glitter shoes.

Thursday, we sat at the school playground talking, while the girls threw their pretzels up in the air, pretending they were glitter. They wasted every bit of snack I had packed- oh well.

They went running up the hill together.
Emma pulled down her tights and showed us all her little bare butt- I yelled from the bench, "Emma! pull your pants up!!!" She laughed and put her tights back on.

Then, they disappeared into the bushes for a bit, probably innocent play I thought/hoped to myself.

Three minutes later they came running down the hill giggling, their glitter shoes covered in dirt.
Emma started shouting to me, "I pooped in the bushes mommy!"

Tanya and I looked at each other with that look.

"She did poop......FOR REAL!!!!!" Wisteria yelled.

I looked at my friend Tanya with that look, nodding my head - like what the fuck am I supposed to do now?
Can I pretend like she isn't mine?

we laughed for a minute, and I was crying inside, knowing what I had to do next.

I liked Tanya's suggestion, she said, "Well, you could just go sprinkle some pretzels on it."

I grabbed my trusty travel wipes and took emma's hand.
I looked at Emma with that look I give her - you little shit, you little 4 year old hellian, you shit in the school play ground.?????? You actually dropped trough and took a dump!!!????? WTF kid? you know you aren't supposed to shit outside.... much less outside at your school.

Instead I said, "Emma - did you really poop in the bushes?" (another endearing trait about the 4 year old- they often lie)
"Yes mommy, I did." She said with a wicked, "I got you mommy" smirk.

We walked up the cold, grassy hill. I told her that pooping is not something we do outside. I told her the obvious- come and tell me you have to poop and I'll take you to the bathroom. Do I really have to cover this?
Silly me.

She was laughing inside.
They don't call them the "Fuck you 4's" for nothing.

She said sorry and she said sorry, assuring me she wouldn't do it again.
That made me want to throw her, and her poop tumbling down the hill.

She better not do it again.

I cleaned up her shit (disgusting) and put it in the ziplock bag I had used to pack the pretzels they wasted.
Thank god I had that bag.
Then, I walked all the way to the disgusting, dirty green dumpster and threw it away.


This was one of those days I would've called my mom and said, "sorry mom." and she would have said, "for what?"
"Just everything."
"SORRY"

What is a two-year old boy?

I know it's a pointless pursuit......

But I just can't seem to figure it out.

Why do I love this obtrusive, unruly, emotionally unstable, physically out of control boy?

Is a two - year old boy a maniac with half a brain?
A mental patient?
A crawling, climbing animal who turns red when he screams?
A living example of how immediate gratification can ruin your day, your life?
A milk addict that doesn't seem to require food?
A hair pulling, stick throwing type of dog?
A rabid dog?
Oh, I know! a dog with 2 arms and two legs, instead of 4 legs.
A snot leaking, pooping and peeing diaper wearing miniature cave man?
A deaf dog who likes to grunt and watch Bob the Builder?
Does he hear me?
Yes, he ignores me.
Apparently, I am an object to ignore.
He gets lost in bushes, closets, hallways, and hills.
He climbs on dressers, tables, couches and T.V. stands.
He takes old food out of the garbage cans at the park and eats it. Mainly crusty week old cupcakes and stale corn chips crawling with ants.
He screams, kicks, and rolls violently on the floor when I say no.
He pulls Emma's hair.
He sits in the litter box and smiles.
He grabs the kitten with violent vigor and won't let her go.
He smiles at me when I put him in time out.
He puts on my shoes and tears my closet apart when I'm on the phone.
He unfolds my laundry and throws it all over the living room.
He calls, cries and screams for me at 3am.
He writes on my hardwoods with crayon.
He pulls his diaper off and pees on the floor,in the bath and sometimes the bed.(duct tape is an item on my grocery list)
He puts wash cloths and stuffed dolphins in the toilet for his personal entertainment.
He shits in the bathtub monthly.

After all this abuse........
I do believe I would stand in front of a car if it was going to hit him and walk through fire if he was going to get burned.
Is this irony or just plain insanity?
I put him to bed at night and look into his big brown eyes......
it's then that I forget he's a screaming, pooping, mad man boy who runs me ragged.