On my eleventh anniversary

My doctor gave me cough syrup with codeine, so forgive me as I was nostalgic. It seems to me that marriage is a lot like motherhood. You make (in this day and age) a conscious decision to do it, and then you jump in with both feet, forever. There are hard times, and there are good moments, and even if the good moments don't outnumber the hard times, they do outweigh them. Some days you wonder why you ever agreed to such a thing. You think that, had you known what it would be like, you never would have signed up for it. And sometimes, you envy your friends who opted not to do it.  But the good moments, they shine so brightly as to make it all worthwhile. Marriage is a good thing. You don't have to take it from me; there have been a ton of sociological studies showing that having a formal legal marriage system benefits not only the people who avail themselves of it but also society as a whole. Domestication is good for the species.  But also, it is good for the individual. To say to someone, "I love you so much that I'm willing to smell your morning breath, to walk into a bathroom you've just left and smell your poop, to be without makeup in front of you, to see you at your worst as well as your best, for the rest of my life, as long as it means I get to be with you."  There is such a freedom in not having to impress so much, in not having to keep up appearances or worry about making a good first impression. There is freedom in being able to say, "I've found my partner, the one person, in this world of 6 billion people, who will bear witness to my life and to whose life I will bear witness. And now that I've found that person, I can stop the search and move on with living a life worth witnessing."  I am so glad that I found Tom, and that we met when we were both at a stage in life where we could fall in love and make it work.

This is when I could use a bit more self confidence.

I don't believe in ghosts. Or leprechauns, although I do believe in the rights of Irish little people to wear green and not be judged for it, or chased, or caught in large novelty butterfly nets, or forced to eat breakfast cereal featuring ethnic stereotypes.  I also don't believe in psychics, or mediums, or fate, or destiny, or signs from God/the universe. Basically, I don't believe in magic. 
This would all be well and good, if there weren't a sound behind me every time I turn my back.  Because as much as I don't believe in magic or the supernatural or anything like that, I also don't believe in my own infallibility. 
So basically, I don't believe there's a ghost behind me, but I've been wrong before, so....

Caitlyn Jenner

A lot of people are upset about Caitlyn Jenner being called a hero. They're posting photos of soldiers, soldiers' graves, firefighters, paramedics, etc, to show what a "real" hero looks like. Does this mean that I can no longer call my mother my hero? She was just a secretary, just a mom. She never fought a war, rushed into a fire, or saved the life of a stranger. So she can't be a "real" hero, right? And neither can I, to my kids, for the same reason. But if we can consider our parents to be our heroes then we can grant other people the right to choose their own heroes. And to some, Caitlyn Jenner is a hero. She is doing what so many can only dream of doing, being her authentic self, in public, no matter the backlash. And as the father to what, five?, kids I think she can be called a hero. Just like my mom can.

I am not a helicopter! Or a mama bear!

Dear Helicopter Moms and Teachers,
      When I drop my kids off at school, you may notice that I leave. It's because they are on the playground and other parents might want my parking space to drop off their own kids. I do not stay until my kids are in line, or until they're inside, or until they're in college. They're kids, they're on the playground, they're okay.
      You may notice that my children cross the street without waiting to hold my hand. It's because I've taught them to look both ways before crossing. They may forget, and I will yell for them if they do, but they learn more from trying than they do from being clutched in my death grip every time we touch pavement.
      You may notice that my kids play outside by themselves. This is because we have clear spots in our walls every few feet, which I use to watch my children from INSIDE the house. Rest assured that I have checked the sky and the hovering sex offenders and kidnappers aren't there right now, waiting to slide down ropes and snatch my kids once they close the door behind them. Crimes against children are lower than they were in my childhood and I'm grateful that my mom let me go on bike rides and walk to the park alone. I'm also glad she didn't sit in a car and stare at me until I entered the school. And she let me walk across 2 streets to go to school alone from kindergarten on. And I survived! My kids will as well.

No, I don't know where it is now. I like to think it just left.

So this is how I woke up this morning.
Tommy: Mommy! Mommy, get up! There's a real alive mouse in the house.
Me: What? Where?
Tommy: The cats have it now. They took it away from Danny. He HELD it.
Me: (wide awake now) Your brother held a living mouse? Did it bite him?
Tommy: No, but the cat did, so he gave it back. It's in the sewing room now.
And sure enough, 2 cats had a mouse cornered in the sewing room. Why do my sons have no fear? Who just takes a mouse and holds it?

My boys

They turned the ceiling fan on high. They threw raw eggs into the ceiling fan.  I give up. They've won.

Wise beyond a whopping SIX years

Tommy: (from his room in the morning) I can';t find my underwear!

Me: They're in the laundry room. I'll get them for you.

Two minutes later I run up the stairs with an outfit for him and he is standing in the dining room, hips thrust, shaking what God gave him and making jingle sounds.

ME: Here, put on your underwear and stop doing the dingaling dance. You know someday you'll find a wife and I'll meet her and tell her how you used to stand naked at the dinner table and do the dingaling dance!

Tommy: (laughing) And you know what my wife will say? She will laugh at you and tell you that I still do that. And that I fart in the bed, too!


I don't doubt for a minute that this is true. I just wonder how he can know it already. 

Wise beyond all 4 of his years

Danny: You're Daddy's wife, huh?

Me: Yes, I am. And I'm very proud of it. Why?

Danny: I know all about wifes. A girl has to marry a daddy to become a wife and then he's a husband. And wifes have to be very nice to the daddies. And husbands have to be nice to the wife and have to be good daddies to the kids. And then when the kids grow up the wifes have to take care of the husbands because then they will be very old. And then wifes become grandmas and make cookies. And that is everything about wifes.


These are the words of a child in a blended family, with zero living grandparents, and very few married couples to learn from.  (Which worries me, because Tom an I say inappropriate stuff all the time and these kids just sponge it up like it's normal.)

Legos, from my boys