Do you ever spend an entire day wearing makeup and hanging out with a man who is not your husband, while your son mistakenly calls him Daddy?…
About Me
Only One
Getting into the car this afternoon Magoo made a great find of a several week old animal cookie. He immediately stuffed it in his pie hole.
Laylee: Oh MOM! I want a cookie too.
Me: Laylee, it’s a disgusting germ-infested piece of cookie trash.
As she gave me the saddest face I’d ever seen since 2 hours previous, I remembered who I was talking to and responded, “And besides… There was only one.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I wish events like this still sent me silently reaching for my minivan airsick bag but at this point I am unmoved.
When I Grow Up
Sometimes Ashton Kutcher really makes me think.
Tip Tuesday — Don’t Waste Your Time
I spend a lot of time wasting it. This is not always bad. Sometimes “wasting” time is an enjoyable recreational activity. Here is a list of a few time wasters you’d be better off avoiding. Please add to it and save us all so we can waste our time on other nothings worth doing.
-Running errands at rush hour
-Blaming myself, overanalyzing, feeling guilty
-Scrubbing socks
-Fighting about broccoli
-Continuing to visit preschools when you already know they’re not “the one”
-Talladega Nights
-Trying to remember things I should have written down when I first thought of them
Reversion
When I stay at my parents’ house, something happens to me.
I find myself searching the fridge, freezer and cupboards for any special food I may be able to consume at no cost to myself.
Although I do far less cleaning here, I do it with a greater sense of pride and magnanimity. “My mom is gonna be so proud of me that I cleaned up… my own breakfast dishes.” …
God Knows We’re Lost
It’s coming up on two years since Magoo was born and I still struggle with anxiety and depression issues originally triggered by his birth. My brain hurts from thinking about my brain. I’m tired of wondering what constitutes chemical deficiency and what is just normal for a stay-home mother of 2.
I go off medications. I struggle. I get back on a dose so small I could swear it was a placebo amount and suddenly the people around me are a little less annoying, I’m slightly more likely to do the dishes and less likely to wake up in a panic with no idea why.
When things were really bad at the beginning, I came to a point where I said I would be willing to do whatever was medically necessary to function and take care of my family, to alter my brain back to the way it was before the crash. I said I would take medication for the rest of my life if necessary. Now that the post-partum period is almost up, I want to be DONE with brain meds. I want my old brain back. It wasn’t always sharp and sometimes it was a tad twisted, but I could trust it.
I recently told my therapist that I didn’t want to go on anything at this point because that would mean I was “depressed”. She asked the logical question, “Do you think taking medication will make you depressed?”
“No,” I bawled, “It will make me NOT depressed.”
There you have it. And what’s so bad about that? The dependence, the fallibility, the HUMANITY, the admission that yet again God doesn’t chose to heal me instantly but provides a humbling way for me to be healed by relying on other people and medical advancements.
The other day Laylee and I were on the way to the therapist’s office and I got lost in a construction detour. I said a few faux naughty words and Laylee asked what was wrong. When I told her we were lost, she said calmly, “It’s okay. God knows we’re lost. We’ll find it.”
I believe he knows I’m lost. I believe he cares I’m lost. I believe he will help me untangle my steaming pile of grey matter. I’m not at a point yet where I always understand his methods or even pretend to know what they are.
For the next 2 weeks I’m going to do everything I physically can to stave off the next round of brain science. The sleeping. The exercising. The meditation. The prayer. The water. The breathing. Then we’ll see. We’ll try and then we’ll see.
Tip Tuesday — Just a Smidge Country
I grew up hating country music. HATE. I’m not sure why except that hating country music was the cool thing to do and since I was not cool, I spent a lot of time doing the things that would supposedly transform me into that enviable chilly state.
No one probably cared that I didn’t listen to country music but I knew that if I was ever shoved into a junior high locker and forced to admit ever listening to the detestable stuff, I could answer “NO! Take off, eh?” with a clear conscience.
When I moved from Canada to Houston my junior year of High School, I was slowly exposed to country music by friends and more importantly boys. I liked boys who liked country music, who went to rodeos for more than the funnel cake, who knew what FFA stood for. I needed to speak their language and during that time became familiar and somewhat in like with a few big country artists.
When I left Texas, my interest dwindled and I’ve become indifferent to the twangular style of music. Lately I’ve been trying to expose the kids to a bunch of different musical styles. Laylee still loves Bob Marley but I’ve been having trouble finding something that really moves Magoo. He will not dance. This week I was playing the second movement of Verdi’s Requiem when Magoo started going nuts, rocking out, bopping and laughing hysterically. There’s nothing like Funeral music for dead poets to encourage this younger generation to get their freak on.
Anywho, it’s a bit disturbing. I don’t think it should take tympanis and operatic solos in a minor key to get Magoo dancing. So today I played some Garth Brooks and he appeared to like that too, if cautiously.
I’m ready to get my feet wet again in the world of country. What should I start with? What are the must have artists and songs to bring a recovering Backstreet Boys and Tchaikovsky fan into the world of belt buckles the size of your mamma?
I Support Choice and Natural Consequences
Today is Blog for Choice Day and posts are popping up everywhere in support of Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose.
The labels that fly around show the biases of those who wield them. I could be called “pro-life”, “anti-abortion”, “anti-choice”, “crazy conservative religious wacko” or any number of names due to the fact that with the ability to choose, I believe there comes a moral responsibility.
I believe that one of the greatest gifts we have in this life is the agency to choose our own actions. Before we choose, we need to think about the natural consequences our actions will have on us and those around us.
At a pretty early age, I learned what happens when a man and woman engage in sexual intimacy. At a slightly older age, the mysteries of birth control were explained to me, along with their effectiveness rates at inhibiting pregnancy and STDs.
It is every woman’s choice what she does with her own body. If she chooses to overeat, smoke 10 paks a day, run a marathon, or have sex with another person, then she has the right to make that choice and deal with the consequences.
When her choices put her in a position to have a dramatic influence over another person’s life or death, she suddenly needs to act more responsibly. If her husband quits his job and lays around all day expecting to be supported, does she have the right to cap him off so that he’ll no longer be a drain on her finances? If her 18-month-old turns out to be a destructo and a nuisance and she can no longer go out clubbing every night, can she toss him down the garbage chute and move on with her life?
Technically, a woman does not have the legal right to choose either of these things. What if the baby was only 3 months old and had colic? Still not legal. What if he was in utero and just starting to suck his thumb? Many people would like this to be legal and at times it has been. What if his little heart and brain were still developing at an amazing rate and he was completely defenseless? Bing! At this point, our country considers it okay to terminate the baby’s life so that the mother can move on with hers.
What if the woman didn’t make the choice to have sex, such as in cases of rape or incest? Of course she should be given the choice to recover her choice that was taken away by force. What if the pregnancy puts the mother’s life at risk? Of course she should have the option of terminating her pregnancy in self-defense. Either of these circumstances would be agonizing but the mother should have the option to save her life or reclaim her body after it was taken over by violence.
Having carried 2 children to term, I cannot imagine thinking its okay to kill a child of any age simply as a form of belated birth control, because the timing just isn’t right or to avoid putting a crimp in my lifestyle.
I think of wonderful people like my sister who anxiously wait to adopt a child when millions are snuffed in a quick and easy procedure each year. The idea that the only alternative to abortion for the accidentally pregnant is a lifetime of unwanted motherhood is absurd. There are so many choices available.
Personally, I choose to be responsible for my own actions and accept the consequences that they produce. I choose to love and protect the most innocent and defenseless among us rather than subjugating their rights because they’re too little to organize a protest rally.
I am Four Years Old
Shot Down
Being shot down by a three year old who’s almost 4 but still 3 but almost 4 but still wears pull-ups to bed so I’ll call her 3 is too funny to be painful.
Every night at bedtime she gets to pick 2 songs for Dan and me to sing. Sometimes they’re church songs. Sometimes she chooses something peppy. Frequently she requests
“the song about what’s in the nightlight? It’s people and things and combs and stuff that don’t belong in there.” Dan always begins these improvised songs with the line, “I was walkin’ down the street…” (And he wonders why he’s never won a rap battle around here!)
Lately she usually asks for songs from Disney movies. When she asks for the Snow White song, we take parts. I am the warbly young princess “standing by a wishing well” and Dan is the equally warbly and high-pitched echo.
Last night she asked for the Cinderella song. So I began “Sing Sweet Nightingale.” I was tired. I started low. Maybe I started a bit scratchy. Sue me.
Me: Sing sweet nightingale. Sing sweet nightin-
Laylee: NO! Not the one the stepsisters sing. Cinderella sings that song too.
So after stumbling around her room, gathering my splattered pride, I cleared my throat and began in a higher key for the future Simon Cowell to critique. Apparently it met her approval and I was moved on to the next round. What song would she chose?
She asked me to please close the closet so she could decide. Wha??? Surveying the princess stickers on the sliding doors, she settled on the Belle song. Luckily Angela Lansbury has no ugly stepsister that I’m aware of so “Beauty and the Beast” went off without a hitch… besides the fact that I made up the words as I went along.
Ever as before, ever as before, as the sun will rise.
Tale as old as time, tale as old as song
Ever just and same, finding I’m your mom
Beauty and the Beast.
the reasons: microwave popcorn, Dan’s freshly shaven face, ELECTRICITY.