It's sad

 

This is Sam Pucket, from Nickelodeon's iCarly. This is what TV thinks a bullying tomboy with a chip on her shoulder who comes from a bad home looks like.  Notice the curled hair, the lip gloss, the pink shirt. This is a 14 year old tomboy!

 

This is from Xena: Warrior Princess (retro, I know).  These women are rogue warriors trying to make it in a man's world. Notice the cropped top on one, the bustier with boob-centric ornamentation on the other, and the mini skirts on both. You can't see it really well here, but both have extensive eye make up, which they applied every day back in 500BC.  Because when you're waging war and on your guard against constant attack, you have to have eye liner and a push up bra.  No really.

I have always hated this, and apparently I'm the only one who notices it. Strong women, women who don't go for the frail=beautiful notion of femininity, always end up somehow looking like they put every thought in their head into impressing men.  The tough FBI agent, the hardened cop, the CEO who clawed her way to the top; in movies or TV they all look sexy as hell.  Because above all else, women have to cater to men's ideals.  What does it say to young girls when Lara Croft has to look like a porno Barbie?  What does it tell them when they look around the media and even the non-superficial role models have to fit the superficial criteria?  Everyone important has sex appeal.  If you want to matter, or carry any weight, in anything, you better turn men on. Men can be ugly, or even just average; women can't. They have to be thin, and beautiful, and extensively groomed.  No skipping the blush for these workaholics.  No flat shoes or sensible pants suits. No, it's long lean legs and underclothes made to accentuate.  Remember, even in 500 BC, it was eyeliner and mini skirts.

What am I becoming?!

I want to make quilts.  I'd love to crochet if Tommy would leave my projects alone and not unravel them.  I see a shirt with ruffles and think, "That's cute."  I look at soda and see thick goopy corn syrup.  I shop for bras and look for coverage and support, not sex appeal and fashion.   I read about politics and the economy, not celebrity gossip.  I think dark lipstick looks tacky.  I think hickeys look trashy ('cause they do).  I watch PBS and documentaries. I wear sweaters if the temp gets below 60`.  I regret my tattoos.  If given a thousand dollars, I'd probably go shopping for household goods like sheets and towels, or maybe a new handbag. 

I fear what the future holds.  I think I'm becoming an elderly Jewish woman, at least from what I've seen on the TV.  You want I should bring you a jacket?

Better sorry than safe

There's a chance that there's a god, I suppose, although the more I think about it the more I suspect that the only reason a supernatural creator even exists as a possibility is because you hear it nonstop from all directions. I mean, if we weren't constantly brainwashed to believe it, would it occur to us to assume there's some invisible anthropomorphic being pulling the strings?  Anyway, I guess it's possible that there's a god.  And I guess it's possible that he gives a shit about what happens in his ant farm. And I guess it's possible that he has put down some random arbitrary rules of conduct to make sure we stay in line, and that he only lets people who follow the arbitrary rules into happyland later. I also guess it's technically possible that he would design a horrifically terrible place full of pain for people who don't follow the random and arbitrary rules.  I suppose that each of these things could happen.  And I guess that's the reasoning behind the "Better safe than sorry" argument for worship (which only makes sense if there's only one religion, but you never hear of someone who worships ALL gods just to be safe).
But even though a very distinct possibility exists that the Christians have it right and that I will eventually regret living my life outside of the cone of protection afforded by choosing a religion and hoping it's the right one, I cannot help but fall back to playing the odds.  There's a slight chance I'll go to Hell and wish I'd done things differently.  But what if I lived my whole life in self-denial? What if I refused to do things I wanted to do, and refused to love people I wanted to love (as in the case of gays who remain celibate because of their churches), and followed all of the rules both explicit and implied, and then it turned out to be nothing? What if, in my last moments of life, right on the cusp of death, it became clear that all we have is our one life, and I had wasted so many opportunities? What if life is just a series of small pleasures and happy moments, and I had walked away from some of them in hopes of a reward that would never come?
There might be an afterlife, but there is a life.  I've known people who don't allow themselves to fully experience one in the hopes of being allowed to experience the other.  But we're guaranteed to have one, and only vaguely suspicious that the other one exists. (Sure there are folks who claim to know, but the whole point of faith is believing in what you can't really know.)  So when people (family) say "Better safe than sorry", my first instinct is to throw back the whole "What if the Jews are right, or the Buddhists, or the Shintos?" argument, but the real reason I'd rather be sorry than safe is because if there is a god he gave me this life, and I don't want to squander that gift on the off chance that he weighted it down with a ton of random and arbitrary rules.
Also, even if St Peter is the bouncer turning people away from the club, what's to say he's forcing people to go into another club instead?

It's just not worth the payback

I went shopping with my friend on Friday.  I shouldn't have. I should have remembered that this is the same woman who takes her 2 year old with her when she goes shopping and doesn't get home until after 10:00. We exist on different schedules and I should have remembered that before leaving at 2:00pm, but I didn't. I got home at 9:00pm.
Tom went golfing on Saturday morning.  He always golfs one weekend morning and then I get to sleep in the other morning. He told me that he had to make the painful decision to actually turn down golf (insert mock pain here) when some guy was looking to set up a game on Sunday and Tom had to say no, his wife only lets him golf once a week. I made the comment that I'd almost be willing to let him go again if he gave me some time to work on my quilt in return. Part of the joke was a sincere desire for free time to sew, and part was me just not liking the whole "My wife won't let me" comment.  Either way, we went back to watching TV.
Tommy went down for his nap at the usual time and I started working on something here at the desk, in the living room.  I printed out Ryan's name in huge font, cut the letters out, and was pinning them to fabric, to iron and sew as appliques, when Tom told me to just go ahead and go back to the bedroom (where my sewing machine is) and do it without the distraction of Danny reaching for the scissors and pins.  I probably got 2 hours to do stuff, with the boys banging on the bedroom door, before Danny started crying for me and I gave up and came out.
So last night, at 11:00pm right before bed, he says, "So since I gave you time for your quilt, I get to play golf in the morning again, right?"  I got 2 hours of listening to my children cry and bang on the door while their father ignored them and for that I have to give up my only day to sleep in all week?  But again, I'm not his mother and I kind of resent the implication that I have to "let him" do things.  I just told him to do whatever, that if he was gone when the boys woke up in the morning that I'd get up with them.  So sure enough, he left before 7:00 am, and the boys woke up not long after.
I'm not going shopping any more. Or working on quilts. Or doing just about anything else that's fun and just for me.  It's not worth the price.  Anything I get, or get to do, comes back to bite me in the ass because I have to pay for it, later, at a cost I never agreed to in the first place.  Tom has his golf, and his wood working, and his 12 hours a week of televised football all fall and winter, and I'd just like to be able to leave the house without screaming children, and piece together old t shirts and sheets for fun (can't afford to buy fabric), and it turns out that a hobby is too much to ask for.

Maybe my next tattoo. Maybe

"Mommy! Looka me! I'm Meeos*!"  Tommy comes lumbering into the room, in slow motion, making stomping noises with every step.  He's smiling ear to ear and waiting for me to say "One, two, three, Roast Him!" and then fire imaginary proton packs at him. I really never want to forget that he did this when he was little.


*Meeos is how Tommy says marshmallows. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is a Mar Meeos Man, or Meeos for short.

So now he knows why.

There are days when after dealing with a toddler, an almost-toddler, and a sullen teenager, I need a beer.  I feel that this is okay. I put the baby down, I know I have hours until he'll want milk again, so I have a beer. Tom looks at me sideways but he doesn't say anything. And yet I know he disapproves (not because of the nursing but because he disapproves of drinking in general).
Yesterday I left at 2:00 pm and got home at 9:30 pm.  He got the boys up from their naps, made dinner, fed them dinner, cleaned up after, and then dealt with the pre-bedtime and bedtime routines. When I got home, he had a beer.
Life is funny.

I will be able to get things done

I have, for the rest of the summer, 4 hours a week to myself.  I've hired my friend's daughter/Ryan's friend to come watch the boys every Thursday so that I can get stuff done. I am simply giddy with the freedom. I have projects and now I can actually do them, all for the same price Tom pays to whack balls into trees on the golf course.
I want to make this quilt.  I want to make it and sleep under it and drink tea out of a chipped mug under it amidst a sea of crumpled tissues when I am sick. I am therefor on a hunt for fabric with which to make it.  This hunt takes time, so until I find all of the fabric I need (anyone have old sheets for me?) I am making Ryan a t shirt quilt out of all of her old rec league shirts and kiddie marathon shirts, stuff like that.  Today I worked on that quilt and can already tell you that it has the potential to be awesome.  Unfortunately I have the potential to fuck it up, so we'll see how it turns out.  The thing about t shirts is that they are made out of very soft, very stretchy material.  This doesn't work well for a quilt because the fabric puckers up and sags and after a few washings the front of the quilt is bigger than the back and it all hangs wrong.  So you have to buy interfacing to make the t shirt fabric act like quilting fabric. (Interfacing is the stuff they use to make collars and cuffs stuff in dress shirts.)  So today I spent almost my whole 4 hours cutting out interfacing and fusing it to my shirt-fronts (it irons on like a patch) and now I have 23 squares of non-stretchy t shirt logos all ready to sew together into one big quilt of childhood memories.  Unfortunately 23 is not a number conducive to even rows.  So I need either one or two more shirts.  I may go steal shirts that still fit but that she never wears, or I may have to go replace lost shirts from her past.  When she was in elementary school the kids wore their school pride shirts every Friday.  Tom sold that shirt for a quarter at a yard sale and now no one on facebook has one to give me as replacement. :(  But, Ryan has souvenir shirts from vacations, including one she left out in the yard for a week to be leached out by sun and rain. I may steal that one for the quilt.  But still,  I'd like to find a school pride Friday shirt.  I'm almost desperate enough to go pay the full $10 for a new one, but it seems like a colossal waste of money for something I'm just going to cut the front out of.
I will post pics here when I get the quilt done.  I have no idea what Ryan will want to do with a quilt made from old Girl Scout camp shirts, but she will have it nonetheless.  And hopefully she will continue to amass souvenir t shirts and I can continue to add them to the quilt and eventually she will have a giant useless quilt made of ratty old clothes. And who wouldn't want that?

Can I just say this?

Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy.  It's supposed to make you married.  Here's how it's supposed to work.
A large portion of our single lives is taken up with trying to find a mate.  Once you find that mate, a large chunk of life is left free to explore life, develop hobbies, pursue interests.  So then you go become a well-rounded person and become happy, content, satisfied.  And he does the same.  And at the end of the day you come home to someone who cares and asks how your day was.  And then you are happy, content, and satisfied, and together.  You are happy together.  Not necessarily just because you are together, but side by side.  But then people decided at some point that the other person in the marriage is supposed to shoulder the responsibility of keeping you happy, of making you happy apart from hobbies and outside interests. That the old model of Grandpa in his wood shop and Grandma in her sewing room, together until they die in their teak rocking chairs, was somehow bad.  They were only companions, just roommates, and that wasn't enough.  So now we all expect some sort of impossible fireworks from our marriages and when it doesn't happen we get upset.  Perfectly functional, happy, content marriages are now unsatisfying because our spouses are ballsy enough to expect us to go forth in the world and make ourselves happy.  Didn't they know that was their job?!

I wonder

I have a deeply philosophical question. I plan not to debate any of this at all, because it has just occurred to me and I'm just interested in hearing other viewpoints and options.  Here it is:
If it turns out that there is no afterlife, that at the moment of death everything just goes dark and shuts off, which is the worse consequence?  Is it, A) that we will never again see loved ones?  Or is it, B) that there is no universal justice and that horrible crimes committed in life and never caught will just never be caught, such as a serial killer getting away with it?
Discuss.

In my next life, I'm a dyke all the way

I hate when we fight right before bed.  He goes to sleep, I stay up to make the point that I'm mad and not just going to trot off to share a bed with him, and then I'm the one tired but without a bed to sleep in.  Plus, he should be the one awake in the living room alone.  He's the one who refuses to confront or resolve anything.  He's the reason our fights never die, only hibernate. And now I'm yawning into a computer screen that gives me headaches and he's the one snoring into the baby monitor.  I hope I roll over in my sleep and hit him in the balls with my knee.

20 things I've learned about myself from my Spam folder

1. I have erectile dysfunction (and apparently have been sitting here with it just waiting for unsolicited email to fix it for me. I am so freaking lazy!)
2. I have some sort of Hot! Asian! Teens! fetish.
3. I am hopelessly confused by my medicare benefits and would appreciate someone explaining them to me.
4. I have several relatives I've never met, and they've all died after being hit by cars in Dubai. But they died lonely, I am their only legal heir, and they were rich. My poor rich lonely relatives, smooshed into the pavement of Dubai.  
5. I care what David Plouffe has to say. (I really don't.)
6. I owe a shit ton of money in student loans.
7. I suffer from hot flashes that can only be cured by natural homeopathic soy pills.
8. I need coupons! Lots of coupons! And I have to download a printer app to get them.
9. I am expecting a package from UPS.
10. I am expecting a package from DHL.
11. My nonexistant paypal account has been hacked.
12. The amazon.com order I didn't place has been cancelled, but if I sign in I can fix this error.
13. I won a free 52" LCD TV!
14. The federal government wants to help me with my tax debt. (What tax debt? I'm gainfully unemployed!)
15. I like webcam hotties.
16. I am a webcam hottie?!
17. Errr, Canadian Ambien? (explains the webcam thing, though, doesn't it?)
18. I sent myself an email about discount c1alis.
19. I spell cialis with a 1.
20. I am a man.

I'm sure I'm saying this wrong, because that's what I do.

I am so tired of feeling like everyone's happiness and mood depend on me. Everything I say seems to be insulting or mean and then people are pouting and moping and slamming doors. It's like, if I'm not tongue kissing their ass, I'm insulting them.  If I tell Tommy to quit pushing Danny, or to share a toy, he bursts into tears and lies on the floor and then slams the back of his head into the floor, and then wants lots of hugs and kisses because he's hurt. If I tell Tom that I think we should let professionals dig up the perimeter of the house and waterproof the basement, I have no faith in him and I never think he can do anything and I called him stupid.  I causally mentioned to my mother today, in response to her asking me what I've been up to, that I've been going through the boys' room getting rid of old toys, and her response was "Well go through and add up how much every toy cost and then remember that when you buy them new stuff for their birthdays and Christmas!" I said, "So now I have to leave teething rings and rattles in the toybox forever because getting rid of toys they don't play with anymore is a waste of money?" and she got all huffy and offended and apparently my response was needlessly insulting.  I just feel like I can't contribute to a conversation, or make a suggestion, or have an idea, without it somehow being taken as second-guessing someone or correcting them.  I feel like I just don't want to talk, to anyone, about anything, for like a week. Not a "hi" or "bye" or anything, because hi leads to what's up and what's up leads to why whatever is up must be wrong.. Just take a break from it all. But that would be insulting and rude and then they'd pout and slam doors and hang up. Although, to be honest, there's not much you can do but hang up when someone's completely mute.

Why would he even think of it?

Danny has a sippy cup of water and takes it into the bedroom to play with his brother. Ten minutes later I hear crying.  I go in to check.
ME: What happened?
Tommy: "I bit on Deeny."
ME: "You bit Danny?"
Tommy: "No. I bit on Deeny."
ME: "You sit on Danny?"
Tommy: exasperated. "No. I bit on Deeny."  He then mimmicks a hocking throat-clearing sound and (thankfully) pantomimes spitting on his brother.
ME: "You spit on Danny?!"
Tommy: "Alright."

Danny's water cup was empty, his hair and clothes were soaked. Tommy's shirt was soaked. Tommy got his butt smacked, all while crying "I dorry, Deeny. I yuh you. I dorry!"  Danny seemed relatively unscathed, nothing a boob couldn't fix.  But, why would he spit on his brother? What could make him think to do it, and then tell on himself for it, too?

Why I'm more careful with birth control now

• I was 21 years old and was pregnant by a one night stand with an ex, an ex who got back with his son's mother the next day and was thus unavailable to me and wouldn't even take my phone calls.  I worked 2 jobs to pay my $275/month rent and still had to use my mom's washing machine because I didn't have money for the laundromat. So I made an appointment, borrowed money from my mother, and went to terminate a poorly timed and insurmountable pregnancy.
  They assigned me a counselor who gave me a prophylactic antibiotic pill and explained the procedure to me.  They would give me a local anesthetic shot in my cervix, dilate me with a series of increasingly large metal rods, and then suction out the cells. I asked the counselor, a bright-eyed college student, how far I'd be dilated and she held up her pinky finger. pointed out that at this stage (11 weeks) the fetus was way bigger than that; how would they suction it out.  She reluctantly admitted that there's a blade in the vacuum that "breaks down the tissue". (Ever see a Roto-Rooter commercial?)  But she assured me that it was just a clump of cells and asked me to not make the mistake of confusing "tissue" with "flesh". I had done my homework and told her so.  I knew that the cells had a functioning heart, the beginnings of arms and legs, and tiny undeveloped eyeballs.  She stammered and gave me the consent form to sign.
  When I backed out, on the table and in the stirrups, the doctor ripped off his gloves and threw them at my exposed crotch. "I have real patients waiting for me," he snarled. I looked up at my counselor, crying, confused, and scared, and feeling a LOT of pressure to make up my mind right this very second no you can't have a second to collect your thoughts we're busy, she stood up and left the room.  Apparently I wasn't pro-choice enough to warrant her services.
  I wonder what would have happened, how I would have taken it, if I'd accepted what they told me at face value and then found out later about the arm buds and "neural tube" spine. I think I would have had a breakdown. They lied to me.  For all I know, they lied to that college girl when they told her what to say to patients.  I assume they did it to lessen the trauma of the situation, as a kindness to me, but they did me no kindness. And so, because I don't feel that they deserve anonymity, I hereby post a link to the clinic:
  http://www.emmagoldman.com/

Pets, including Frog Babies

I never really thought of myself as an animal kind of person. I've never dreamed of living on a farm, I fear all dogs larger than a beagle and anything large enough to ride on.  But every time we get some new type of pet and I hear my mother sigh when she hears about it, the more I realize that while I may not be an animal kind of person, I am an animal kind of mom.
Growing up, I had pets. Or rather, we had family pets. A dog and a cat, and later a dog and two cats. But no fish, no birds or hamsters or guinea pigs or snakes or turtles or anything like that. Every once in a while we'd have a caterpillar in a mayo jar, or some ill-fated lightning bugs, but no one had any pet that Mom wasn't willing to snuggle with.
Ryan has a bird. She bought it sometime around the first of the year, with her own money, and it lives in her bedroom.  I told her from the beginning that it was her bird: hers to feed, hers to clean up after, and hers to bury if it comes to it. Surprisingly, Fibonacci is still alive.  So we did some asking around and found a great used cage, much larger than the one she had, for free and for her thirteenth birthday we got Ryan a second bird. And so far Fibonacci and Wycliffe are the best of friends in a giant cage in the corner of Ryan's bedroom.
We have a turtle named Spike. He lives in our hallway and eats veggies and bait. He lives next to the albino catfish who has managed to outlive and/or kill all our other fish. We also have a cat named Cat, a dog named Cheyenne, and 5 of what Tommy calls frog babies in a tub on my kitchen counter (to keep Cat from getting them). I named one of the tadpoles Blondie, because it is slightly lighter than its brethren, and I can't wait to see what kind of frog or toad they all turn out to be.
I understand why my mom didn't want a house full of animals to take care of. But dropping fish food into an aquarium or tadpole tub doesn't take a lot of time.  Neither does setting a cup of nightcrawlers in a turtle tank or giving him some lettuce.  As for birds, I guess the joke is on her.  Her boss loves birds and part of my mom's job description now is to take care of the parakeets, macaws, African grey, cockatoo, and other assorted pet birds in the office. In fact, her boss is the one who gave us the giant cage. It wasn't giant enough for the bird it came with.

Grumpy Old Woman

I'm old and cranky. I'm a 34 year old curmudgeon. For one thing, I have a very vocal 2 year old. He narrates everything; it's just who he is. He runs up all the time to tell me what's happening in his movie, or in his book, or to explain to me what the toys are doing while he's playing with them. And when he isn't telling me what the toys are doing, he's talking for them, or making Vroom! noises, or laughing.  I also have a ten month old who has learned to make Big! Loud! Noises! and who exercises that ability all the time. He squeals, or laughs, and occasionally yells "Na!" for no reason. My children are happy, but I get headaches, headaches that last for days. 

And since I am a woman and a mother, I am inexplicably expected to be supportive.  Supportive I can do, if I feel it. I can support you going to school, or getting married, or redecorating your house.  But the theory that I'm supposed to support everything you do no matter what is where my headache and my loud children and my unending exhaustion draw the line.  I will bite my tongue. I will refuse to say anything if I can't say anything nice. But I won't light up and congratulate you or tell you the predictable tragedy was unforeseeable, or pat you on the shoulder and tell you something wasn't your fault when it totally was.

How to feed a baby is a choice, and you can make whatever damn choice you want. But when I hear that a woman is so worried about her baby daughter because she's having issues with her formula and now they're going to try soy formula but the Dr doesn't think it will help and they're going to have to go with a super expensive brand of specialty stuff, I think "No! You don't say! Really, synthetic chemicals don't agree with your newborn baby's tummy? How can that be?"  Look, formula is made for babies, but babies aren't made for formula. If you feed your kid the equivalent of a crushed up prenatal vitamin in milk, and the baby reacts poorly, it is 100% your fault! And I just can't pull off the "Oh no, that's terrible. I hope you find something that works soon." sympathy angle because you should have given her MILK int he first place. It sucks that the fake shit works for most babies but not yours, but you could have taken into account the chance that the fake shit wouldn't work for your kid before you decided to use the fake shit in the first place. Your lack of research is the reason you now how to pay out the ass for the expensive specialty formula.

"We had to bury our dog back in January and so just last month we went and let the kids pick out a puppy and everyone really loved her and yesterday I accidentally backed over her and killed her. I feel so terrible and I can't stop crying." Why is the response to this always "Don't beat yourself up over it, it was an accident," and never, "Why the hell wasn't the dog fenced in or on a leash instead of behind your tire?" Dogs aren't wild animals; they're domesticated pets. Domestication makes animals stupid. You cannot take a creature that has had the survival instincts bred out of it for a dozen generations and let it roam free, and then act shocked when it wanders into the path of a car. You also can't blame the driver when your farm dog runs into the road and gets creamed. Don't want your dog scraped off the blacktop, invest in a chain.

"I can't believe people refuse to spell my daughter's name right! At the doctor's, at school, even family members can't keep it straight. It's not that hard! It's Mikayleh, just like it sounds!"  Then name the girl Sue.  If you give your baby a confusing or complicated name, expect it to confuse or complicate people and situations.  I named my daughter Ryan and I don't get all huffy when the receptionist at the doctor's office says "he". I brought it on myself.

People who play passive aggressive games piss me off too. My neighbor loves to say, "Wow, it;'s about time you get that boy a haircut, isn't it? People are going to start asking how old she is." And if I didn't have to live next to this guy, I'd respond with, "Oh hahahahahah! I see what you did! That's hilarious! You connected his hair with his penis and then implied that bangs equal vagina. That's soooo clever! Hahahahah." But I don't. I just look pointedly at his saggy old fat man boobs and agree that yes, sometimes we have secondary sex characteristics that don't jibe with our gender, but that I like his hair the way it is.

I have opinions. Most of my opinions I have because I formed them. I formed them based on the information at hand, and until I'm given conflicting information strong enough to change my mind, they will continue to be my opinions. Apparently some people form opinions on a whim, based entirely on what will piss people off the most.  I say this because I have a friend who will argue with me for hours and then tell me later, "Oh I didn't really believe that. I was just playing devil's advocate, just for the debate." I honestly do not know for how much longer this woman will be my friend. She seems to have no conviction, and she loves to make my scream.

I have to go lay down now. My headache has returned.

The debil's in the details.

Tom is sitting on the couch in his robe (hanging open) and a pair of boxers with little devil faces on them. Tommy walks up and pokes one of the devils.
Tommy: "Base."
Me: to answer Tom's questioning look, "Face."
Tom: "It's a devil."
Tommy: "Debil."
Tom: "Yes."
Tommy: poking devil faces as he speaks, "Debil. Debil. Debil."
Tom: "Yep."
Tommy: poking one last time at a particularly poorly placed devil face, "Debil weiner."
Me: "Yes it is."
Tom scowls at me.  I laugh.

Pet owners I want to slap

Dogs aren't people. Your dogs aren't your children. It's both obnoxious of you to claim that they are, and insulting to actual parents. The question "Do you have any kids?" should never be met with "Yes, five. Two poodles and three schnauzers."  You can love your dogs as much as you want.  You can set them places at the table and buy them clothes and dedicate a whole room of your house to them, but it doesn't make them children.  If I absolutely had to leave town for a week and leave my children behind, they would be with a baby sitter, not a kennel.  And when I go to a doctor's appointment or to the grocery store, they come along. They do not get left at home with a bowl of food on the floor.  My children use either diapers or the toilet, not training pads on the floor or my yard.  My children go to a pediatrician, not a vet. My children do not lick their own (or anyone else's) genitals.

Human children are a whole different level of love and devotion than pets.  Even crazy cat ladies who would stay in a burning house for their pets feel an even crazier devotion to their children. Or they don't, but that's what makes them crazy.  And you'd be surprised how "parents" to dogs change their tune when they become actual parents to actual children. So please stop calling your pets your kids.  It's stupid and obnoxious and weird.

Migraines and mornings

Danny woke up at 5:00 a.m., nursing and chewing my boob and fussing. I switched sides nursing him a few times, because that generally works to put him back to sleep, but then Tom got out of the bed at 6:00 so we were up. Now, it's Thursday and I've had a migraine since Monday afternoon. I went to the hospital yesterday for it and they gave me a shot in the ass and a bottle of pills with the warning that the pills would make me drowsy, and the headache is still here. So Danny and I got up, I had a big bawling "All I want to do is sleep and not feel my headache and you won't let me!" breakdown, which Tom heard over the monitor.  He offered to go into work late and let me sleep but by then it was 6:30 and I'd been awake for an hour and a half so I told him not to bother. He told me to take a pill but I'm already exhausted and a barbiturate that'll make me drowsy isn't going to help.  I've been crying on and off about it for a while, but what's the point? I know everyone will say "You need to make time for yourself and do things just for you," and blah blah blah. I can't do that, I don't do that, and that's that.  I just need to power through it and deal. Put on my big girl panties and be a fucking mom.  But I will, just for today, try to nap while they nap.  And speaking of that, Danny passed out on a blanket on the floor at about 7:15. 

Offensive rants with f bombs

Religious people I can handle. Religious people I can often respect. But pot-smoking open-marriaging sailor-cussing very much not religious people who post religious facebook statuses 3 times a day drive me fucking nuts!

Also, although I am very happy that you've found Jesus (harder to spot than Waldo, that one), I wish more people would keep their personal relationships with God a little more, shall we say, personal.  As in, don't try to legislate against someone else's personal life and accuse them of "flaunting" things by merely not hiding in shame, and then loudly proselytize your pastor's interpretation of archaic script as though somehow butt-fucking is tantamount to child murder. Cuz it's not.

To recap (and it's sad that I need to post a disclaimer on what is basically me just screaming incoherently into an empty night, but I do): I have no problem with "Had a great time at church today; I am so blessed". I do have a problem with  "If you love Jesus and aren't afraid to post this, make it your status. Most people won't but if you're grateful for His sacrifice you will".  And I have huge issues with televangelists and political preachers (I admit it, I HATE Rick Warren). If God has taught you how to live then great. Live that way. Leave the rest of the world alone. God didn't spare Lot and Noah for being annoying as fuck; he spared them for following the rules themselves.  You can still be safe if Barney Frank gets married.

Welcome to the Hall's of medicine.

Tommy's rummaging around in my desk again.
"Mommy! Canny!"
"That's not candy, honey. That's a honey-lemon cough drop."
"My eat?"
"You won't like it. It tastes yucky. Ocky."
"My eat?"
"Fine. Suit yourself."

two minutes later

Tommy walks up to me, takes my left hand in his, carefully unfolds my fingers, opens his mouth over my palm, and lets the cough drop fall out into my hand, accompanied by a good amount of sticky honey-lemon drool.

"Canny ocky, Mommy."

This is at least the fourth time this scene has played out at my house.  And every time, every single time, Tom laughs so hard tears roll down his cheeks.

Because it's hot outside

Tommy is sitting with a bowl of ice cream in front of him. I am a kind and generous mother so I have gotten the cupcake sprinkles down for him. But alas, they have a big wide mouth on the jar and not a shaker lid, so we must be careful with this. I pour some into my hand and sprinkle them upon the ice cream.

Tommy: My try!

Me: Ummmmm, okay.

He pours some sprinkles into his hand and they fall through his fingers.

Tommy: My try adenn.
He tries again very carefully and slowly and this time cups his hand right and pours maybe half a teaspoon on the ice cream.

Tommy: My try, Mommy!
He jerks the jar out of my hand, always independent. He very carefully pours a small amount of sprinkles into his palm and then... DUMPS THE WHOLE JAR ONTO HIS ICE CREAM!

Tommy: despondent My ice cream! then happy My nummy!
He is now scarfing down a 50/50 mix of vanilla ice cream and candy sprinkles.
 
Mmmmm Mommy!

An exercise in futility

It is once again time for me to make up Ryan's summer reading list.  This is a list of books that I feel kids should read, which I am ensuring she will never read simply by recommending them. Because I am an idiot and I never learn.

1. For the third year in a row, The Picture Of Dorian Gray
2. For the third year in a row, 1984
3. Jennifer Government (I think she actually wanted to read this book until I recommended it)
4. Pardon Me, You're Stepping On My Eyeball
5. Slaughterhouse 5

And this year I've decided to add movies to the list too, since maybe she'll sit down and watch a film for 2 hours to get me off her back since she obviously won't read a book to accomplish it.

1. Milk
2. The Breakfast Club
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. Better Off Dead
5. The Secret Of My Success

What fuddy duddy?

I had a friend tell me the other day that she was making it her mission to young me up, whatever that means. She said I act too old, and she's going to fix that.  "But I like being old," I told her. "Oh, you can keep being mature and adult. We'll just get rid of the fuddy duddy part."  Wait, what?
What fuddy duddy part? My cardigan sweater with the tissues in the pocket?  My gray hair*?  My cups of hot chamomile tea and 10:00 bedtime?  Maybe there's more, some horrifically geriatric aspect of my personality that I'm not aware of. But if not then I have to ask, why are we getting rid of my fuddy duddy part? I like my fuddy duddy part.  And I appreciate the thought, but I don't want my twenties back. I don't like loud clubs with flashing lights, I don't like late nights, and I don't like uncomfortable and attractive clothing.  I cringe every time I hear some fashion industry person complain about sweatpants and how Americans are getting slovenly picking comfort over looks.  Why not pick comfort? Why MUST fashion be uncomfortable? 
I suppose I'm supposed to dread aging, and fear being old, but I don't.  For one thing, If I'm destined to die at 80 I still have another 45 years left, even if I act 80 now.  Being a fuddy duddy doesn't bring me any closer to death than acting 20 would.  But also, every time I go to a funeral for someone who died in his teens, or twenties, or even thirties, I think about how sad it is that they didn't get to be old. Old is a prize, a goal, something you should want to achieve.  Quite literally, it beats the alternative.



* I was asked recently why I mention my hair so much and I realized that I'm embarrassed by it. Not by the gray, but by the fact that it's half red, half gray. I can't wait for it to grow out long enough to cut off the dye and be done with it, but until then I'm embarrassed by my tri-color head.

Nevermind

Rapture, traffic, and Jewish soldiers

Am I the only one who wondered if maybe the Rapture really was gonna happen today? Not like "Oh I better repent because Jesus will call home his flock today," but like "If I'm out in traffic and a driverless Caddy with a Jesus fish sticker takes out my minivan, and I kinda knew it was coming before I left the house, I am gonna be pissed!"

Also, on an unrelated note that occurred to me today as I drove past one of those stupid flat cemeteries where they make you have flat little stones so no one can find your grave unless they're standing right over it: What do they do when they bury a Jew in a military cemetery? Or are Jews not allowed?

Waycho Canny

Tommy: "Mom! C'mere quick!"

Me (Oh God no, what now?) : "Why, honey?"

Tommy: "Canny! Mess! Canny mess!"

Me (getting up and following him into his bedroom): "Where? Show me."

Tommy (pointing to a mess of bright red handprints all over his mattress) "There."

Me: "Who did this?"

Tommy: "Danny the baby."

Me: "How?!"

Tommy: "Waycho's canny. Waycho's mommy canny."

And now it all makes sense. Danny found a piece of Twizzler (Rachael candy) which Rachael's Mommy very kindly gave to Tommy and Rachael, and chewed it into a red pulpy mess.  Also, he seems to have spit the mess out onto the floor, and it dried into the carpet. I think I'll make Tom clean that part up.

Scars

I don't usually do this, but I'm doing it here. Dawn, close this window. Read this post in a year or two, but not today. I need to write it and post it for other people dealing with other things, but you do not need to see this. It's not bad or insulting, just in really bad taste to put this up here right now and not warn you away from it. I'm talking out my ass in a voice you own, and I don't want to make you sad with a cancer post.

Starting to think I'm the only one

I was chatting with someone the other day about those dual zone electric blankets, where each half has its own gauge, and I mentioned that I don't understand how they would work unless each person slept separately on their own side of the bed and who does that, really.  I got a blank stare.  Apparently everybody does that, everybody but me.
Tom and I sleep in the middle, or both on one side.  We sleep together, spooning or with one person curled against the other. And while I never assumed that everybody did that, I did assume that probably half of all couples did it and that the other half at least were near each other.  Apparently I was wrong and everybody but me and Tom sleep far apart from each other, with some sort of electrified barbed wire barrier down the middle of the bed.  That's an exaggeration, but you get my drift.  I've always wondered about those Sleep Number beds, and dual sided heated mattress pads, and those Craftmatic beds with the split down the middle.  But it seems like we are just the only couple who sleep all smushed together.  I just wonder why.

yet another pet peeve

I get so sick of people who ask for advice and then answer their own question with a refusal to fix the problem.  "How do I get my baby to go back to sleep? And don't say let her cry because I'm not willing to do that."  "Is there any reason I shouldn't marry my girlfriend and don't tell me 'because I'm too young' because that's not a reason."  "What's wrong with saying n***** and don't say it's racist because I don't use it that way."  Basically what they're saying, what they're all saying, is "How do I solve this problem and don't tell me how to solve it because I'm unwilling to solve it."  I especially hate this when I do it, because not only am I engaging in a practice that is completely ineffective and ignorant, but I'm being a total hypocrite by doing it.

mom body

If I were to wake up tomorrow and be 19 years old again, with tight skin and everything up where it used to be, I would not be thrilled.  I'd like being skinny, but I would miss my stretch marks and chewed on parts.

A loud day

Today is a loud day.  I don't have a headache, yet, but every sound just stabs into my ear like an ice pick. Tommy sounds louder, my cell phone rings louder, I've had to turn down the volume on everything I can.  I know I will have a headache by the end of the day, but right now it's just loud.  I do not like loud days because they make me a bad mom. To counteract this, I am trying to be a super-good mom today. I let Tommy make brownies, which invariably leads to powdered mix on the table, egg shells in the batter, and then somehow they turn out great anyway. But it's a mess and a hassle I usually try to avoid, plus it's jsut more chocolate and junk food in the house and who needs that?  Then I made him a big bowl of popcorn, which means he won't eat lunch, but he's only fed a couple handfuls to the cat and is watching Wall-E silently on the couch so it's okay for now.

generic

Ten things to never buy generic

1. KY jelly, Astroglide, etc.  I firmly believe that if you're looking over your budget trying to find places to cut back, and it's your lube expenses that are really killing you, you have issues bigger than buying generic. Also, generic stuff is sticky, which is the exact opposite of what you want in a lubricant.
2. Spaghetti sauce. It's all red and lumpy in a jar, but seasoning counts for something. Unless you want tomato paste with pepper, buy the Ragu.
3. Chocolate. Especially if it says "chocolately" instead.  Chocolately coated or chocolately flavored are just bad. Always. Without exception.
4. Diapers.  Plenty of people swear by store brand diapers but I've never been lucky enough to have a kid who can pee solely within the confines of a generic diaper's limited padding.
5. Tampons.  Whoever engineered Tampax must have been a genius, because getting the actual tampon to absorb rather than having the string just wick blood into clothing seems to be a very difficult feat.  Also, cotton must be woven just so to keep it from dissolving inside of body cavities.  No one wants to expel lint for a week post-menses.
6. Cheez-Its. Generic cheese crackers, and I've tried them all, are bad.  They're oily and taste bad.  
7. Laundry detergent.  I once loaned a 5 year old t shirt to a friend.  I got it back a month later completely faded because she washed it 3 times in generic detergent, as opposed to dozens (hundreds?) of times with my Tide.  
8. Toys. Fun Dough is not Play Doh. Transmorphers aren't Transformers.  Elmo doesn't have eyebrows. Kids know these things.  I think every girl my age received, at one point, a "fashion doll" as a gift with thin hollow limbs held on by very loosely molded ball and socket joints.  I think they still sell them at dollar stores.
9. Electronics.  A $200 big screen television probably won't save you money in the long run, not after you buy it, realize it's a cheap POS, and then go buy the full price one to replace it with anyway.
10. Ice cream. Vanilla should be beige, with flecks of black. If it's Clorox commercial white, it'll taste like shit and be a waste of empty calories. Splurge for the good stuff and just eat less.

Ten things to always buy generic

1.  Ibuprofen/acetaminophen.  There's no reason to pop for Motrin or Tylenol when the FDA ensures that it's all the same.  Plus, when's the last time you heard about a generic recall?
2. Paper.  Construction paper for the kids, notebooks, printer paper.  It's all pretty much the same. And if one generic "brand" sucks, just try another one next time.
3. Butter.  Most of us are so used to margarine that we aren't going to notice if one box of salted butter is less salty than another. Usually it's for baking anyway, so just buy generic. You can read the ingredients and make sure it's the same.
4. Saltines.  They're bisquick, water, and salt.  Kinda hard to mess up.
5. Bread.  With a few exceptions, store brand white bread is just like Wonder Bread, and whole wheat split top is the same as Sara Lee, but without the advertising budget.
6. Meat. Boneless skinless chicken breasts don't differ much, whether they're store brand or Tyson. Same with fish fillets, shrimp, ground beef, just about anything that just gets killed, butchered, and sold. Not a lot of room for error there.
7. Pasta. As much as they want you to believe otherwise, Creamette, Barilla, and Great Value are all pretty much the same.
8. Light bulbs. I suppose specialty bulbs might be different but regular 40 watt bulbs are differentiated by type (incandescent, LED, flourescent) rather than by brand quality.
9. Rubbing alcohol, peroxide, bandages, gauze.  Unless your wound really really requires Spongebob graphics, just about any bandage will work. There's no reason to spring for Band-Aid when Curad is the same. 
10. Kitty litter.  It's all basically clay with baking soda in it. They haven't yet invented the self-cleaning always-sterile kitty litter.

He's just odd

Tommy walks up to me, leans in really close, cups my face in his hands, and whispers, "Peeeeeeeeeeetsa."
"You want pizza?"
"Nooooooo. Meeeeeeeeeeeeelk."
"You want milk?"
"Nooooooo. Waaaaaaaaaaahyerrrrrrrrrrr."
"You want water?"
"Yessssssssssss."
I look over at the couch, at the water bottle he had to set down in order to come cup my face in his hands to ensure that I pay the utmost attention to his little toddler grocery list.  "Isn't that your water bottle right there?"
"Alright." And he walks away to go drink his water.  I have no idea what any of this accomplished.

Osama

Look at these men.  They just look different.  Probably the two most well known evil men in recent history, and only one looks the part.  Adolf Hitler just looks like a monster.  His expression is angry, severe, merciless.  He looks like the kind of guy to orchestrate a genocide.  Osama Bin Laden looks nice.  He looks like a guy who'd hand you a flower at the airport.  His expression is peaceful, serene, spiritual.  And yet he was a monster.  A monster in human form, who committed and orchestrated horrible atrocities against innocent people.  But in the eyes, he looked nice.  It's one thing that strikes me in the last few days, as the news is full of stories about his death.  In the history books my children, and all future generations, will see a serene face.  When I was in school and we saw a monster in the history book, he looked like a monster. He was Hitler, in stark black and white with his arm out in nazi salute.  He didn't look like a Mike Meyers movie.  I fear that the reality, the horror of the man, will be lost just because the worst monster of our time happened to have kind eyes. 

still yummy

I have decided that I loved my invention pasta dish so much that I am going to post the recipe. This would also be great with low carb pasta, especially Dreamfields.

one can diced tomatoes, drainied
one half polish sausage / kielbasa sliced into half inch sections
quarter cup fresh or frozen basil*
1T minced or chopped garlic
parsley to taste
salt & pepper
olive oil
spaghetti (I use thin spaghetti and I mix regular with whole wheat, but any kind would work.)

Cook spaghetti. When you put the pasta in the water, drizzle oil in a deep skillet (I use a chicken fryer) and brown sausage as evenly as possible, stirring occasionally.  Add tomatoes, garlic, basil, and parsley.  Warm through and turn heat to low/warm until pasta is done, stirring occasionally.  When done, strain pasta and stir together in skillet.  Serve hot.

yummy

Spaghetti pasta with tomatoes, garlic, sausage, and basil.  Roasted broccoli with salt and olive oil.  Tommy helped me stir everything and made sure the spaghetti water was salted every time I turned my back, and then he ate nothing.  Ryan ate the pasta, Danny ate/crumbled a little of everything and was carried directly from high chair to tub, and I stuffed myself.  Not a bad meal all in all.  At least, not until Danny sneezed in the tub and projectile spit a giant glob of chewed broccoli at me.

One bearded man was shot in the head yesterday

And today the same spot on the thermostat feels a little warmer. The breeze is more refreshing than chilly. The children are easier to tolerate, their incessant screaming not as piercing as before.  The sun is brighter, yet not as glaring. Even Squidward seems less annoyed/annoying in this rerun of Spongebob.  Today is better than yesterday.  Like in those allergy medicine commercials where the picture looks normal until they peel off the film of CGI allergies and the colors get brighter.

A rebuck gwoge

Tommy presses something small and brown into my hand. Maybe a piece of dead leaf or wet construction paper. 
"Mommy, a rebuck gwoge."
"A what what?"
"A rebuck!"
"What's a rebuck?"
buzzing sounds
"A bug?"
"A rebug"
"A real bug?" (he has toy bugs)
nods "Yes. A rebug gwoge."
"A real bug broke? How?"
holds up one finger "I poke a rebug."
Not construction paper. A smooshed bug. Ick.

wtf

Why is it that if I go around to the bathroom and laundry room trash cans and empty them all into one bag it's my job to take that bag to the trash, but if someone else empties them all into one bag and then sets it on the floor then the least I can do is take it the rest of the way to the trash? Tom left a bag of lint and tampons in front of my bathroom sink a week ago and wonders why I use his sink now.

I wonder

There is no gay agenda and no one "promotes homosexuality" or tries to recruit anyone, but just for a second ignore that and ponder this. What if people did promote homosexuality, and try to recruit people to be gay? Why would that be bad?
Keeping in mind that you're either born gay or not, which is, you know, fact, why would people care if someone were to tilt at those particular windmills?  What if I decided to promote blue eyes, and recruit people to have blue eyes? It would be ridiculous and stupid, but who would it offend? I suppose if I got popular enough, people might notice and decide that I was unfairly discriminating and treating poorly those without blue eyes.  And that might hurt their feelings, to be told, however indirectly, that blue eyes are desirable over other colors.  Is that the problem? Are the straight people sad because no one wants to recruit them to be straight? Are they upset that no one is starting a straight straight alliance, or holding big leather boy parades for them? Are they sad because we get Rupaul and they get Ozzie and Harriet?  (After all these years, I still say we.  How quaint."

on zombies and eggs

So the Romans and Pharisees who killed Jesus are bad. We don't like them at all. No, Sir!
And Judas, who collected the bounty and turned him in was bad, and we absolutely hate him! Bad dude, evil all the way around.
But the day Jesus died is called Good Friday. What the fuck? It's my understanding that it's good because that's the day we got our salvation and all that, but then wouldn't the people who made that sacrifice possible, who actually martyred the man, be good too? If the death was good, the killers should be saints.Right?

Just another Thursday

Hah! No wet sheets today but both boys seem to be on a nap strike and I got 2 emails a minute apart about detentions for Ryan for not turning in homework. Ugh.

Mourn it and go on

Can we all just agree that guyliner's time has passed? It was an avante garde little rebellious phase but now it's been over done. So, could all the gender-bending nonconformist teens find a new way to collectively nonconform? Also, could they look up the words collectively and nonconform and then smack themselves in the head?

Just another Wednesday

7:00 the alarm goes off. Ugh, Danny was sitting up in the bed for half an hour at 5:00 trying to play. I fumble for the phone and hit snooze.
7:05 the alarm goes off again. Danny stirs and latches on. If I don't want him to wake up yet, if I want a moment's peace this morning, I have to stay until he's done. I hit snooze again.
7:10 the alarm goes off. I turn it off and sneak out of bed, propping pillows around him as I go so he doesn't roll or crawl over the side, and get dressed. I take out my earplugs (Tom snores like a Jake Brake) and drop them in the nightstand drawer, making sure to close it because if I don't the cat will get in there and cleaning up cat puke and earplugs is so gross.
7:12 I pee, texting Ryan from the toilet to get up and brush her teeth, and brush my own teeth, listening for Danny the whole time. She texts me back, "Okay."
7:15 I let myself out of the bedroom and into the hallway.  Ryan is coming out of her bedroom too and I whisper to her to hurry up.  I shuffle into the kitchen to start my breakfast. I need coffee.
7:20 I plug in the coffee grinder and hope it doesn't wake up Tommy. I should have ground the coffee yesterday but I never think about it until the morning. I open the coffee can and see that I'm almost out. I hope I can make it a week and a half until our next shopping trip. I grind the coffee and load the machine.
7:25 Coffee maker is started, oatmeal on the stove is cooking, and I hear Tommy yelling for me. "Mommy!"  Maybe he'll go back to sleep. Maybe this will be one of those mornings where both boys sleep until 8:30. "Mommy!" Maybe not. I turn off the stove and coffee pot and go to get Tommy out of bed.
7:30 "My potty." "You want to go potty? Okay, let's go." "My pants. My shirt." The Pull-Up leaked. He and the bed are soaked in cold, fragrant, urine.  I strip him down and take him to the bathroom. Ryan is still in it, about to start brushing her teeth.
7:45 We all emerge from the bathroom, teeth brushed, and go to the kitchen. I turn the stove and coffee maker back on and mix Tommy's breakfast drink, the only nutrition he gets these days since he refuses to eat actual food. Ryan takes her morning pill, swipes one of my caramel calcium supplements, and lounges against the counter to leisurely drink her juice.
7:52 "Ryan, go to school. No, you cannot brush your hair. You have had over 45 minutes to throw on an outfit, brush your teeth, pee, take a pill, and brush your hair. You are now out of time. Go to school." "But Mom, I'll hurry! I promise!" "No. Today you look like a hobo at school. That's the natural consequence of running out of time and hopefully it's the lesson that will teach you to hustle a little more in the mornings."
7:55 Ryan leaves for school, hobo hair and all. But she has a brush in her purse and I can only hope she doesn't slow-walk to school to get her hair brushed.

8:00 I sip my cold coffee and use it to wash down 800 mg of Motrin. I can feel a headache coming on. I sit at my desk and open up blogger. This is a live-blog kinda day.
8:15 My coffee is gone but hasn't kicked in yet, my oatmeal is lukewarm but edible, and Tommy is sitting on the couch in a clean Pull-Up, drinking his milk. Oh crap, I forgot to strip his bed!
8:20 The bed is stripped, Tommy is jumping on it because for some reason one can not jump on a bed with sheets but one must always jump on a bed without sheets. I have to get these through the wash before nap time because while I do have more sheets, I don't have another waterproof pad to go under them.
8:30 Danny wakes up. And if he were going to fall back to sleep that dream has been ruined by the screams of "Baby crying! Mommy! Baby crying get up!" that the first fussing sounds bring.  Tommy and I go to get Danny, who has wiggled out of the pillow-walls but not yet made it anywhere near the edges of the bed. I change his diaper and set him on the floor to play with his brother.
8:40 "Mommy! Potty!" We go to the potty and he pees a little. I empty the potty, let him flush the pee down the toilet and wash his hands, then drag him crying away from the sink.
8:50 I load the washer with sheets, turn it on hot (the cold water hasn't worked for a week and a half and the repair man told me yesterday that he won't fix it and thinks I should call a plumber), and then realize that my detergent is at my mother's house from when I did laundry there last weekend. Also there, a hamper, 2 loads of laundry, and a basket.  I dig around and find 2 cement-like Tide Tablets I got in the mail a decade ago and hope for the best.

9:00 My oatmeal is cold and solidified. I scrape it into the garbage disposal.
9:02 "Mommy! Potty!

9:15, the washer is stuck on the rinse cycle because there's no cold water. I turn it back to 'wash' and run it without soap.
9:16 I ignore the world and check my email (I can enlarge my penis, and David Plouffe needs my help.) and the news. A hooker in Seattle was tortured in a dungeon for hours, Charlie Sheen wants to run for President, something happened to the First Lady's plane and she had to circle before landing (this is a top story on every news feed I get) and the highway in town will be one lane for the next 6 months because they need to pave over the bumps to get on and off the 30 foot bridge they built for 9 months last year.
9:20  "Mommy! Potty!" We go to the potty and he farts twice before announcing that he's done. I drag him crying away from the sink.
9:30 Tommy tells me a story about the Staypuft Marshmallow Man fighting a robot and a superhero. The Marshmallow Man was on fire but he still broke the robot with his hand and then a superhero came in and hit him with more fire and the robot got back up and quite honestly, I don't know who won.
9:45 Tommy brings me a clean Pull-Up. I tell him he already has one and put this one on my desk.
9:47 Tommy brings me a clean Pull-Up and whispers "Mommy! Potty!" I take him to the potty and pull down his pants for him and find a 4 inch turd. I clean him up, he poops a little more, we flush it, wash his hands, leave crying. You know the drill.
9:55 Neither my coffee nor my Motrin has kicked in yet. I know that if I drink more coffee I'll only feel it in my stomach.  Tommy comes out of his room yelling that Danny is chewing on a block. I tell him that's okay, that they're chewy blocks, and to let the baby have one.  I receive a skeptical look in reply.

10:00 Tommy gives up on blocks and comes to climb on me. After poking me repeatedly in the kidneys with his bony knees, all while shouting "Mommy! Looka me!" in my ears, he runs off crying when I tell him that mommies aren't for climbing. As he runs away he yells "I naughty" and hits himself in the head. I shake my head and wonder how to fix that, and how much of his future sexuality will involve paying women in leather to slap him if we don't fix it. I pick up Danny and silently promise never to spank him.
10:10 "Mommy! Potty!" I tell him to go potty (I just left the door open and blocked the door with a roll of carpet to keep the baby out) and plan to meet him there. I put the baby down  and get up to go help Tommy and see him waving the potty bowl in the air. I choke on a lump of panic and hurry to see the mess. The toilet is running and he tells me he flushed it, so I thank him for his help and rinse the bowl out. He washes his hands while I reassemble the potty and then I drag him crying from the sink.
10:15 I gaze longingly at Disc 1 of Dexter Season 4, which has been sitting on my desk since Monday, unopened in its Netflix envelope. I throw the sheets in the dryer.
10:20 I start to think about lunch. Tommy isn't currently eating food so part of me sees no reason to make anything, but offering him food to turn his nose up at and maybe throw on the floor is a vital part of my job description so I decide to cook something. But what?
10:25 I hear the baby crying. He's outside the bathroom and Tommy is inside keeping him out by pushing the carpet roll at him. It has rolled onto the baby's legs. I rescue the (fortunately unharmed) baby, tell Tommy in my best stern voice "We do not crush people under home decorating supplies!" and (say it with me) drag him crying from the bathroom.
10:30 I get an email from my mother asking why she got an email from cafepress telling her the shirt she designed in ready for her to order. I go to her account and see that Ryan designed a shirt. I reply to Mom's email and ask if she's called the plumber yet. I hate calling the plumber and since she's the landlord, I make her do it. I can't understand the guy because his Puerto Rican accent is thick and I always feel vaguely racist when I try, and my mother is of the generation that refuses to acknowledge race or color at all and therefor never feels racist ("It's no different than being unable to understand a thick southern accent."), so she can call him.
10:45 I take the sheets out of the dryer and make the bed. As I leave the bedroom I see Tommy's blanket on the floor. The baby blanket I crocheted for him before he was even born, that he loves and carries with him, that he sleeps with, that I didn't wash. And I'm fresh out of ten year old detergent samples.  I throw it in the washer with a scoop of OxyClean and hope that'll get it clean enough to last until I can get my soap and laundry from my mother's.

11:00 Tommy asks me for crackers. I decide to be a negligent mom for one day and let him eat crackers and fruit snacks for lunch.  While I'm getting the crackers out of the cupboard he sees my Calcium chews and wants them. I tell him they're medicine, not candy, and he starts crying and chanting "medicine medicine" at me. I take him by the hand and tell him "No!" firmly. He looks me in the eye without blinking for a very long time. After about 60 seconds of this I realize he's peeing his pants at me in defiance. I take him out of the kitchen, hand him his crackers and milk, and silently beg him not to dump the milk.
11:10 "Blue straw! Mommy, bluuuuuuuue straaaaaaaw!" I take him to the drawer to pick a new straw (is straw color really the battle I want to pick here?) where he reaches immediately for an orange straw, declaring it to be blue (we need to work on colors more, kid.). He pulls the old straw out of the cup, plunges the new one in, and happily goes to watch Dora and eat crackers. I look down at the old straw in my hand and shake my head. It is orange.
11:15 "Mommy! My milk!" The baby has the milk cup and is chewing on the bottom of it, while the orange and upside down straw drips milk all over. I take the cup, clean up the milk, and realize that I'm starting to feel shaky from having eaten nothing since the half bowl of oatmeal this morning.
11:20 Danny is fussing and crawling toward me.  My meal will have to wait for his.  I nurse him.  "Mommy! Potty!"  I briefly wonder if the ad guy who coined the phrase, "Calgon, take me away!" 30 years ago was adequately compensated.
11:40 I sneak into the kitchen to toast myself a bagel for lunch. Tommy hears the toaster and yells, "My eat!" I let him in and he grabs more crackers and then jabs his finger into the cream cheese on my bagel. He looks at his finger, calls it yucky, and wipes it across his shirt, as I'm reaching for him with a towel.  Danny is at the gate so I bring him in too. I strap him in the high chair and open a fruit cup for him. I give Tommy one too, to keep him quiet.
11:50 Tommy has eaten all the cherries from his fruit cup and is now trying to get more out of the cupboard. "No!"

12:00 "Mommy, can I climb? Mommy let me up please." He is trying to climb onto me to get Danny's cherries. "No, Tommy. No! Mommies aren't for climbing. Get off!" He climbs up anyway, saying "Thank you, Mommy!" the whole time.
12:25 Lunch is over and we are back in the living room. I am still tired but know that more than one cup of coffee a day won't do anything but hurt my stomach.  Tom calls and asks how my day is. I growl into the phone. He laughs. Tommy and Danny scream in the background and he laughs harder. I hang up on him. He's so used to it that he won't be mad.
12:30 "Mommy potty!" He pees, flushes, washes, I drag him screaming. All in all a good trip.
12:45 My neighbor calls. The dog is running loose in the back yard. I call her into the kitchen (She smells like dog poo! She smells like dog poo in my kitchen!) I hook her to a leash, throw on a coat, and walk through the muddy yard to find her chain unharmed. Now how the hell did she get out and how the hell do I keep her from doing it again? I come inside and get yelled at by Tommy for taking the doggie away.
12:55 Danny crawls up to me and bites my ankle. When I yell "Ow!" and look down, he smiles and crawls away.

1:00 Nap time! Yay yay happy dance. But wait. I never threw the blanky in the dryer, did I? Don't swear in front of the kids, Charlie. Nap time shall be after Spongebob today.
1:05 I come out of the bedroom after turning on the dryer and watch the baby spit out a glob of Play-Doh.  I wonder how strict the laws are in china about tossing the term "Non-Toxic" around.  I decide that Play Doh feels pretty light and probably isn't made with lead.
1:10 The baby is rubbing his eyes. He's ready for a nap but I can't put him down until the blanket is dry. I nurse him instead, and hi kicks me for it.  "Mommy! Potty!"  Ugh.
1:15 check email and news again for a minute. Texas is on fire. I remember all the fundies ranting that Katrina was because God hates Mardi Gras. I wonder why He set Texas aflame, then. Suddenly I hear Tommy ask, "Hey! Where Ryan go?" Really, kid? She's been gone for five and a half hours! "She's at school, honey." I glance longingly at the coffee cup still sitting on the desk. I notice it is full. No wonder I'm so tired today.  It's too late for coffee now, though.
1:20 I check Tommy's Pull-Up to see if he actually peed at me before, and it's soaked. I sternly tell him that he is supposed to pee in the potty and NOT in his big boy pants. "Potty!" And we're off to the bathroom, where he pees approximately 3 drops, flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and screams as we leave.
1:25 I take the blanky out of the dryer and shake it to try and air dry the damp out of it. Thank God acrylic yarn doesn't actually absorb any water because the thing is pretty close to dry. I call Tommy to his room, "Tommy, the ghost just got out. They're flying around New York." He runs in from my bedroom to watch his movie.
1:30 "Baby coming! Baby coming!" Every once in a while Tommy pretends to be scared of Danny and treats his giggling crawl up the hallway as some sort of slow-mo horror movie chase scene. "The baby's okay, honey. Time for bed." I carry him in to bed and put a clean Pull Up on him. "Night night Mommy. Sweet Dreams."  At least he's good about going to bed. I grab the cat out of the crib on my way out of the room and notice that the baby, now at the bedroom door, no longer seems at all sleepy.
1:35 "Mommy! A towel, a towel!" Normally I don't go in when he yells, because if I did he'd yell the whole nap away, but today I'm afraid of leaky Pull Ups, so I do. "A towel, a towel. Baby chew blanky." Apparently the blanky wasn't as dry as I'd thought. I tell him it's wet from the wash, retuck him, and leave.
1:45 Danny is rubbing his eyes again so I hand him a toy and take him to bed. I come back out to the living room and decide to call Tom back.
1:55 Danny is crying in bed and Tom is telling me what a hard day he has had, sitting in a terminal waiting for the truck to get fixed. Three hours of doing nothing. I can only imagine the stress!

2:00 He tells me that upon frther consideration, he agrees with me and is reversing his point in an argument from last night. I roll my eyes. He does this all the time. I make my case and back up my opinion on something and he shoots it down and puts his foot down, then reverses his position a couple days later. It's as if the mere fact that my mouth is uttering the words makes me wrong until he decides to make him mouth utter the words instead. This is how we got married, too. He proposed to me 3 days after I proposed to him, almost word for word.
2:10 The shiny red Netflix envelope catches my eye. Dexter is dismembering someone in there and I can't see it. Rita was pregnant in the last envelope I returned. I wonder if they name the baby Lily Anne like they did in the book.
2:15 I get the mail. A letter from Ryan's clinic telling me they are terminating their relationship with her because of her unpaid bill. The letter is dated April 15. On April 18 they told me I was fine to make her an appointment. I taste panic because if I can't get her in to the doctor before her meds run out, she'll be thrown full-force into SSRI withdrawl and I can't let that happen. I get off the phone with Tom and call the collection agency mentioned in the letter. They have no record of Ryan at all. I call the outside billing company they were using and leave a message for them to call me back.
2:30 I call the clinic and explain myself and they say they've never heard of any legal filings and could I fax them a paper. They give me the fax number and I hang up.  I wonder who will prescribe Zoloft to a 12 year old just on her mother's word.
2:40 I call my lawyer's office and ask them to please fax the  paper to the clinic. They insist the clinic should already have it since the bill is on the filing, but I convince them to fax an extra one anyway.
2:45 The lawyer's office calls back. They had originally sent the letter to the outside billing company, not the clinic, but will fax it now.
2:50 My mother calls to talk about Ryan's birthday next month. Her groupon coupon is about to expire and we need to find something right now. I go to cafepress and try to guess what my own kid likes, because it changes week to week.

3:00 Danny wakes up. I toss the letter from the clinic on top of the Netflix envelope.
3:05 Nursing Danny. I call Tom back. His original plan to be home around 6:00 has been changed by traffic.  It'll be closer to 8:00 now. My day just got 2 hours longer.
3:15 Danny fell back to sleep. I lay him back down, practically jump on the cat to catch him and get him out of the room, and then go back to the living room. Ryan will be home any minute and she'll want a snack. Should I make her a bagel?
3:20 Ryan is home. She wants Cheerios, so it's best that I didn't make her a bagel. Danny is screaming again.
3:30 check facebook and email.  Ooh, Asian singles in my hometown want me. I live in freaking Mayberry. The only Asian single here is the old lady in the back of the Chinese Restaurant. I make a mental note to keep an eye on her, now that I know she wants me.
3:50 Read the news. The roommate videoing bully from Rutgers tried to hide evidence. Really? Did anyone expect integrity or a moral code there in the first place? I remember what it was like to be different and bullied, I feel sad for Tyler Clementi, and I remember to hate my high school guidance counselor a little if I find the time.

4:00 Walmart calls my phone. My prescription is ready to be picked up. I wish it were here in town so I could send Ryan on her bike but Tom filled it the first time so the refills are all at Walmart, 20 miles away. I should watch Dexter while I have the chance.
4:05 Crap! I left the lunch mess out. I clean up the kitchen and wash my oatmeal pot.
4:10 My friend calls. I am speaking to an adult. She has baby ducks in her chimney. I tell her I want one and she promises, through her laughter, to save the next one for me. Psssht. She'll probably get her chimney capped with no regard to my baby duck needs. I shouldn't kid about animals. I did that once with Tom and he kidnapped a baby turtle from its flock in the New Mexico desert. Spike is still in a Rubbermaid tote in my hallway, five years later.
4:30 I wander the kitchen, peering into cupboards, looking for something to make for dinner tonight. I decide on Rice a Roni and set 2 boxes by the stove.  I put beer in the fridge just in case, because it's been that kind of day.
4:45 I get off the phone. Fuck it, I'm watching Dexter. I tear open the red envelope, put the disc in the machine, and realize I have no idea where the remote is. Gaaaah! I find it under a cushion, play the dvd, skip the yucky breakfast in the opening credits (they make ham look so visceral) and watch Dexter!
4:55 Danny wakes up. I pause the dvd and go to get him.

5:00  He nurses to sleep and I decide to watch Dexter anyway. Oh my god, they made the baby a boy and named him Harrison! wtf?
5:30 I should make supper soon. Ryan has her church group at 6:30 and supper can't be late today.
5:40 I call her as loudly as I can without waking Danny and ask her to sit with him so I can make supper.
5:45 The Rice a Roni is browning when I hear Tommy calling. I turn the heat down and run to get him up. His bed is soaked again. Damn Pull Ups! If we need any after this case is done we're going back to the Easy Ups we had before. I call my mother to ask if she can bring my detergent down and drive Ryan to church group. Ryan tells me church group is at 6:15 this week. I tell her no it isn't and my homicidal expression  causes her to agree that no, it really isn't.
5:50 I add the water and powder to the skillet, put a lid on it, and come to the computer. How is it I don't even have time to narrate?
5:55 Ryan asks to play outside. Danny is awake and doesn't need to be held anymore so I say yes. What I really want to do is make her help me, but Tom and I don't like to use her as nanny so she's outside until supper.
6:00 I strip Tommy's bed and put the sheets in the washer to wait for the soap.
6:03 "Mommy! Potty!"
6:05 Tom on the phone. "You know, hon. I was a bit of a bed wetter when I was little. So it might not stop too soon."
6:06 I hang up on Tom.
6:15 Dinner is done so I yell out the door at Ryan and get the boys up to the table. Tommy scoops his own dinner, so I'll have some spillage to clean up later from that. Danny grabs the bowl I'm feeding him from and pulls it to him, reaching in with the other hand to crush a fistful of rice in his lap.
6:45 Dinner is over. My mother came and got Ryan at 6:30 and brought me my laundry soap, so now I can wash the sheets. Am I going to have to wash the sheets after every night and nap? I start the washer.
6:50 "Mommy! Potty!"  pee, flush, wash, scream, drag. I catch a whiff on myself; I need a shower. I'll add it to my to-do list.
6:55 Danny ate well at supper and there's yogurt he can have for a snack later. I crack a beer. Tom says he'll be home arounf 8:00 so there should only be about an hour left until I can (hopefully) have a break.


7:00 I hear a splashing sound and come into the living room. Tommy is squatting over a couch pillow, peeing. I scream and burst into tears. "Why would you do that?" I ask, sobbing, over and over.  "Mommy. What happened?"
7:10 I guzzle the rest of that beer and play Born This Way on the computer. Both boys dance and bounce and forget to be terrorists for a while.
7:15 the song is over. Now what?
7:20 the song is over again. I hope Tom is driving fast.
7:21 "Mommy! Potty!" Danny starts crying and I don't know why because they're both in the bedroom.
7:30 I play random disco songs at full volume. It seems to work.
7:40 "Mommy! My weiner!" What's wrong? "It broke!" "It didn't break; it's fine." "It's stuck!" "It's fine. You just have to pee." Seriously, though. How do you explain an erection to a 2 year old? And who wants to?
7:45 I swear to God, if Tom is late tonight I will punch him in the head.
7:50 Wow. The deafening music is working. They're relatively calm, dancing. This is good.
7:51 Gaaaah! Tommy's sheets!  I run to load the dryer.

8:00 Danny is crying nonstop. I decide it's teething and dope him up with Tylenol. He's a junkie for his Nol.

8:10 Ever see a kid poop while running full speed? I have. He's off like a shot into the bathroom while I try to get to the rolling turds before Danny does.
8:20 Tom is home! Yayyyyyyy! He picked Ryan up from church group and also stopped at my mother's and got the hamper full of clothes.
8:35 Tom has fed the dog and is ready to make himself supper now.
8:40 "Daddy! Potty!" I smile. I make Tommy's bed for the second time today, but I put a doubled up quilt between the sheets, just in case.

9:00 "Daddy! Potty! Daddy,come on!"
9:05 "Daddy! Mommy! Potty!" Tom is watching people argue over abandoned L.A. storage lockers on TV.  I wonder how that episode of Dexter ends. Tommy does nothing in the bathroom.
9:15 "Potty potty potty!"
9:17 Brandy bought a locker with hair in it but Dave thinks his is better, and Barry is hoping the car in his unit has an engine. Why does Tom watch this stuff when there is a homicidal forensics expert in the dvd player on pause?!
9:20 "Mommy Daddy Potty!" I tell him to just go and I'll meet him there. He yells for me a couple seconds later and I go in and he has pooped in the potty! Awesome! I high five him and let him dump it and flush it and he doesn't even cry after washing his hands.
9:25 "Potty!" Okay now when will this end? He pees.
9:30 Bedtime! Which Pull Up does he want, Rocketship or Car? Rocketship. I put it on him, and then jammy pants to hold the thing against him and hopefully stop leaks. He throws a fit because he can't see the rocketship and wants another pair on over his pants. Fine. Whatever. But then he wants them under his pants and I leave it to Tom to deal with. Finally we get him to go to bed. "Night night! Sweet dreams! Bye!"
9:40 Danny is fussy and rubbing his eyes. I nurse him to sleep, and then take him to bed.  Finally. Peace. Except for the Storage Wars on the TV.
9:50 I put water on to boil for tomorrow's oatmeal and carry the bowl for the ice cream maker down to the basement freezer. I plan to make ice cream on Saturday and say a silent plea that no one else decides to make ice cream before then.

10:00 OMG there's a show on about old people arguing with traffic cops. I married a yokel in a trailer, didn't I?
10:10 "The kids are in bed. What are you writing about now?" "You." "What?! I need to read this!" So I post the blog, he looks it up. "Oh My God it's three pages long!"  tee hee hee  He reads it.
10:15 People are getting up in the meter maids' faces. You parked in front of a hydrant, you played the game, they ticketed you, you lost the game. That's a fair assessment of it, so why are you screaming at them? Oh frak, he's got me watching the stupid show! I stand up and change the station on him.
10:20 I read the news headlines. A war reporter was killed yesterday. I feel bad for his family, but this couldn't have been a huge surprise to them. I mean, he went into wars he didn't need to be in, and took pictures of violence. I would imagine this would fall under then "Well he died doing what he loved" category and not the "It came from out of nowhere" category. Dead lion, live sheep, that kind of thing. And Weird Al remade a Lady Gaga song.  I listen to it; it's pretty good.
10:30 I post my final version of this blog, put the address up on a message board I'm on, and log off the computer for the day. I know some people will think I posted too many minor details, but I did leave things out. I mean, I did use the bathroom myself today, and I changed Danny's diaper a few times too.  And while he nursed, I gazed down at Danny and hoped he'd always look at me so trustingly, and wondered what he'll be like as an adult.  And Tommy drew me a picture of the Staypuft Marshmallow Man after supper and he put the fire from the proton packs on it too, and even though it looks like squiggles to everyone else I will still have that piece of construction paper when he turns 50.  And I swelled with pride every time he used the potty, as though my son were the first human ever to control his own bowels. But the blog was about frustrations today, so I left out the mushy stuff. It's there, it just isn't written out today.

But for the most part, this is an average day for me, for just about any stay at home mom. And this is why we alternately laugh and cry when we hear the term "Working mother" and know that it doesn't apply to us.  Not because working mothers do less necessarily, but because they get coffee breaks and adult conversation throughout the day.  So I put this out as an open call to every mom who reads this (all 3 of you) to post in the comments section. And I hope that maybe someone will read it and realize that she isn't the only mom who goes crazy, or bursts into tears, or hopes that the next ear infection comes with a prescription listing drowsiness as a side effect. (Hey, I'd never drug my kids to make them sleep. But I would certainly defer to the wisdom of any doctor willing to.) It's not only the moms on the news who reach the end of their ropes. Good moms get fed up too.

My secret

I have a secret, one I rarely tell people and avoid talking about. I am anti-abortion. People just tend to assume that if you're a liberal woman, you aren't, so I nod and let them assume that, but I secretly don't approve of abortion.

Politically, as a matter of what legislation I favor, I'm pro-choice. But when people say things like "My body, my choice", I shake my head. And when when they say it's not a person yet, it's a woman's right to decide when to have a baby, women denied abortions are forced to become incubators, I hum to drown them out. Because I really am anti-abortion.

I believe that the reproductive systems of two homo sapiens are incapable of producing anything but another homo sapien, and that therefore any embryo or fetus is a person. I believe sperm and eggs are potential people, but the creatures they combine to produce are people.

I believe that a fetus is not a body part. A parasite, perhaps, but not a tumor or organ, or other body part of the mother. For that reason, I do not believe it's merely a matter of allowing women to do what they want to their own bodies. But even if it were, a transgendered person has to jump through a thousand loopholes just to remove an unwanted penis, which is inarguably one person doing what they want, surgically, to their own body. So it's easier when there's an argument to be made that it could end another life than when there isn't?

I believe that it is very simplistic and short-sided to make it a woman's right when it involves another person. If a pair of conjoined twins exists where one depends on the other for some vital function, does the one capable of living independently have the right to kill the other? No, being physically dependent does not equal being un-alive.

I believe that a woman has a right to choose when to become an incubator, and that choice (like the choice to become a father or not) happens pre-implantation. Birth control, condoms, (or better yet, both), and even the morning after pill, all exist to make it possible to avoid both pregnancy and abortion.

But I believe that I could, under extreme circumstances, seek an abortion. If I were raped, or if I had a reasonable fear that there would be something terribly wrong with the baby, or if some other horrible, drastic, tragic thing happened, I might want to go terminate a pregnancy. It would be ending a life. It would be killing a person (remember, I think fetuses are people, and they don't survive abortions). It would be doing what was best for me, not for anyone else. In fact, it would very much be doing something very bad for someone else (the fetus). It would be selfish. But I believe that I could make that selfish choice, if I felt I had no other option. And as long as I could see myself doing it then I don't believe it's right to declare that no one else should be able to. But I thin they should be honest enough to say that it is a killing (not murder, perhaps, but somewhere up the ladder from killing a bug, which people freely admit is killing), that it is selfish, and that it is drastic. I don't believe it is a right, but I believe I should be allowed to do it if I so choose. There are lots of things I want to be allowed to do that I never plan to do and do not consider a right. Learning to fly, taxidermy, clown college. Not necessarily human rights, but things I don't want to be banned from doing. This is just a little more serious than those.

Small comforts

I want to surround myself with things I love, one tiny item at a time. I have a purse that I love, and now I can stop searching for a purse, for a while. I have a coffee mug that I use every day. And a pot in which to cook my oatmeal every morning. And a tote bag to bring with me on days out. And an old lady cardigan sweater I wear when I get chilled. I like these little familiar comforts. I plan to eventually have everything around me just so and perfect. And when that happens, I can die.

If my kids bury me in a new outfit, an outfit that is not just so and perfect, I will haunt them.

first complex sentence

Danny! Dis nake, it issid your nake!

(Danny! This snake, it isn't your snake.)

Potty Training

I have dreaded it for over a year now, and put it off because of it. But finally, we decided to just do it, because it has to be done. And after washing urine out of 20 pairs of tiny jockey shorts emblazoned with cartoon characters in 2 days, he got it. I finally stopped putting the underwear on him at all, but he got it. He crapped his shorts, I dumped it in the potty chair, made him look at it, and the next time he pooped he sat on the potty to do it. He stretched his first morning's pee into 4 sessions, collected 4 candies for it, but ever since all of his pee has been in the potty, without prompting. For 2 days now I have occasionally heard, "Mommy! Chocket!" and been shown a potty in need of cleaning, and handed over the chocolate accordingly. Another few days of this and I might let the kid wear clothes. A week after that, maybe he can leave the house. And after a couple weeks of waking up dry (he is not doing that now), he can sleep in underwear. And then, God-willing, he will be potty trained. I am so very proud of him. He is so good with human waste.

I pee pure vitamin D now

So, my old lady calcium supplements (I went with vaguely caramel flavored chews rather than suppository sized pills) have 50% of my daily value of calcium, and 125% of my daily value of vitamin D, and instructions to take twice a day. So my question is, why do I need 250% of my daily value of vitamin D, or is it really impossible to make vaguely caramel flavored chews with any less vitamin D than these? I could be a photophobic albino and these pills would keep me swimming in vitamin D.

aging

I bought a pair of reading glasses yesterday, to help me with small print. I'm old. I also bought calcium supplements, to try and stop my shoulders from sloping any further.

Shame

I once read that shame serves no useful purpose. That guilt can keep a person from repeating a mistake, but shame does nothing but make you miserable. But, since I've been married, I've learned that that's not true. Shame, self-hatred, they are the get out of jail free cards of marriage.

I am fat. Not obese, but bigger than I really need to be. And, to tell the truth, I'm okay with that. I'd like to tighten my abs a little so I don't look pregnant, but I could be a size 14 forever and have no problem with that. But I have to hate it. I have to be ashamed of it and make myself miserable trying to change it. Because then, I at least know there's a problem. If I hate myself for my size and shape, it can be said "Well, she got up around 140, but at least she knew there was a problem. At least she knew it was bad." Because, somehow, to accept and like myself at this size would be to let myself go. And there's nothing worse than having let yourself go. Women get divorced for having let themselves go. Men leave over that shit. So, you see, self-hatred serves a purpose. Shame has a reason for being. It shows that we still want to impress. Being willing to spend the rest of one's life in a futile struggle against inevitability shows that we care. It shows that at least we haven't let ourselves go.