Oh my god I'm a mom

Pre-Mother's Day thoughts

2009-04-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

I can hardly stand this cuteness... without sharing it.

You'd say these boys look happy and healthy, right? Alive, well and thriving, too?

Yes of course they are because not only have I not accidentally or purposefully psychologically twisted, physically killed or emotionally ruined them yet, (((thank god, thank god, thank god))) but I think I've actually mothered them well. Nothing, and I mean nothing could make me any prouder to list on my personal resume.

As Mother Day approaches this year I am in tremendous awe that I've accomplished this precarious task thus far... with a generous side dish of gratitude for all the stolen smiles and hugs we share regularly.

the butts that rule my life

2009-04-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

Since I am a slave to the functions of these butts right now, I thought I'd post a tribute to their cuteness. (freshly steamed and cleaned from the bath) G's new way of alerting me to a recent dump is to come meandering over waving his right index finger smeared with poop for me to see.

happy bath time boys

2009-04-21T16:36:00.001-07:00

Just a picture to make you smile :)

Noah's One

2009-04-13T15:24:00.001-07:00

My little cuddle bunny boy turned one yesterday. His snuggly hugs give me the warmest fuzzies and his smiles send twinkle lights asparkle through my heart.

I am knock down, drag out mad crazy in love with him, can't stop staring adoringly at him and am a slave to the snot factory that is his nose right now.

One year ago yesterday I arrived at the hospital 9cm dialated, was rushed to delivery and unmedicatedly pushed him out so fast the doctor nearly missed the delivery. She came running in as nurses shimmied her into gown and gloves and said "Let's have a baby." And I did approximately 4 pushes (and 2 poops) later. It was the most powerful moment of my life as woman and so warranted my involuntary "Fuck yeah!" triumphant Call of the Wild. I let another one of those bad boys rip just after they pushed out my placenta. Is that not the best feeling in the whole wide world?!

Anyway, today we've officially moved into the post-first-year supposedly "getting easier" part of having two boys this close in age. Hmmmm... so far today's been just as silly exhausting as ever. But there's a helluva lot more smiling and laughing going on between the three of us. We've become quite the little trio - G, N & I - and I like it this way. I wouldn't go back to my life alone, lonely and without them for the world. I feel an enhanced sense of purpose and service each and every day we are together.

I am honored to be the one who cares for, nurtures and protects them. I am exhilarated by their growth and thrilled by their thriving souls. Now all I need is my cute, curly, pre-baby hair back and everything will be perfect. :)

got body issues?

2009-04-12T16:14:00.001-07:00

got body issues?

duuuuuude. me too.

get on over to my new other blog devoted to loving our bodies NOW, dammit!:

http://www.imbeautifuldammit.blogspot.com

Blechy Doodah Body Image Blog

2009-04-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry I'm writing this. I really really wish I didn't have to. But I've got to.

Is it me, or is there a grisly hiss of jealousy stewing just under the surface of every mommy gathering hole? A covetous glancing of eyes at other mothers' midsections while simultaneously scouting out her youngest child and calculating how long since she popped that last sucker out and got so fucking skinny?

Body image is a bitch.

It's still up for me, if only in my most hidden and silenced judgmental thoughts.

I'm 40 now.

I thought this was so my 20's and 30's.

I wrote a book on it.

I travelled nationally speaking to girls about it.

I broke through archaic layers of my own psychic sludge to supposedly free my poor body from my maniacal mind's reign of terror.

And yet here I am on the playground day after day finding at least one other mother's cute little flat belly to covet. Compare and despair. Such a useless pastime. I'm so embarrassed to admit this petty crap in writing, using the 'publish' button as my confessional/spittoon/outhouse. But this is the only way I know to rid myself of the torment and shame: out myself.

FACT: I weighed a fit and muscular 150 pounds before pregnancy at age 37. I gained only 26 pounds the first time, lost it all immediately while breast feeding, then a repeat cycle for my last pregnancy a year later going down to 138 due to my skyrocketing metabolism ala one voracious nurser and one heinous case of PPD.

FACT: Everyone commented on how thin I got with praise and envy.

FACT: This made me even sicker in the head, obsessing about the inevitability of weight gain once N stopped nursing.

FACT: N stopped nursing and I am indeed gaining back the weight.

Moral of the story?: Hmmmm, is there a moral to this story? How about I'll make some up:

FIRST MORAL: Never ever comment praisingly on a woman's weight loss. You may very well be reinforcing an extremely negative behavior/thought pattern. They may be puking their guts out, starving themselves, over exercising, undergoing chemo, or in severe physical or mental pain.

SECOND MORAL: Other women's body sizes are not our business. Period. You can say she looks 'beautiful' or 'healthy' or 'glowing'. But please do not use the words 'thin' or 'skinny' or any of their derivatives. They just feed our society's obsession with thinness and our own volatile and highly conditional relationships with our bodies.

THIRD MORAL: My own body size is not my business. If I make it my business, I'm fucked. Sure as that. My life will become as small, isolated, pathetic and insular as it was when I made both a professional and mental career out of taming and whipping it into shape.

Sorry such a downer. But I feel my truth's got to be told in it's rawness or else I'm doomed to more of the same ole' same ole'.

getting into it

2009-04-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, the following admission is most likely due to the fact that I'm coming into the final stretch of year one with baby and toddler. (((!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!))) Or perhaps due to 5 solid months of lexapro firmly kicking my seratonin into gear. Or maybe because N is weaned and my boobs are mine again. Or it could very well be because orgasms (mine that is) have appeared back on the marital menu.

Anyway, for some or all of these reasons, I admit I'm getting into this full-time motherhood thing. I've ceased incessantly denying this is what I've done to myself and have finally gotten full throttle into it. Our primary mission is to find bliss and wonder daily exploring San Diego's incredible plethora of kid-centric adventures. I've become one with playgrounds, play dates, and play groups. And fantastically enough, am finding it suits me well. That is as long as I did my job correctly and tired the crap outta my guys so I get my well-deserved daily reprieve while they snooze away the afternoon.

A big part of accepting my wonderfully enhanced lot in life is realizing that I am a Challenge Junky (among many other less desirable addictions). Every single day of mommying these guys presents me with a myriad of extenuating circumstances to navigate, negotiate and conquer. G & N have a knack for setting up increasingly difficult obstacle courses each successive day, inherently testing my agility and creativity in problem solving. How do I get the gas tank filled, the overdue library books returned, those few extra ingredients for tonight's dinner and our play date in without overtiring N and/or surrendering G's full at-home nap time to a shitty 15 minute snooze on the way home? How do I keep N from grabbing G's poopy & sandy penis while changing a smash poo at the beach with all hands busily trying to secure diaper, wipes, changing pad and blanket from the roaring ocean wind? How do I stop N from instantaneously throwing any and everything into the open toilet bowl while quickly hoisting G off the potty? These and many other confounding scenarios grace my career regularly. And I have to admit, I get off when I maneuver stealthily enough to avoid seemingly imminent disaster.

Finally on an amusing note, just as women who live together begin menstruating together and isolated heart cells in a petrie dish begin beating together; my boyz have begun pooping together. Isn't that so considerate of them? Just when I'm knee deep in shit from one sloppy joe diaper mess, the other one shoots out a good one. Mommy just keeps her sleeves rolled up and the wipies comin', knockin' 'em both out at one time - doesn't get much better than that. Kinda makes your heart sing, don't it?

us in pix

2009-04-09T06:36:00.001-07:00

some photos of us for my peeps...

1 - m'boyz drinking their o-jay-jay in their p-jay-jays

2 - the three of us

3 - how in love am I with these two gorgeous creatures?

A word from my struggling ego

2009-03-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

You know something's wrong when even a good tube of mac lipstick won't do the trick. Today I thought a little touch of lip color might make me cute, might give my washed out face a lift. mac used to pick my face up on drab days, but today it didn't even make a dent. 'allure' couldn't even pretend to replace any of the juice that's been sucked out of me in the last 11+ months since I sacrificed any last vestiges of The Rachel Show to become a baby buncher: pushing the pedal to the maternal metal with two under two in order to give them to one another. The toll on my physical body has become apparent each time my fading ego stares into the mirror and sees frayed, squiggly grays coming in, brand new sunken-sometimes-swollen circles under my eyes, and a general sense of dullness pervade my once shiny face. This year's altruistic doling out of my life force for the growth of my boys has leaked a tremendous amount of my inner and outer vitality, which is a beautifully hard-to-swallow thing all at once.

Beautiful because it's what I'm made for: procreation. My body is entirely geared towards propagation of the species and I've now fulfilled the first chapter of that feat. So I do feel a tremendous amount of accomplishment and pride, having successfully performed my evolutionary duties. Beautiful because I get to feel and give such tremendous love to my children. Beautiful because I am Mother -there is no more meaningful, immediate, challenging and rewarding title on the planet.

Hard-to-swallow however because unfortunately my very humanly-faulted ego also houses itself in this humanly-faulting body that is now finally slooooowing down and (((gasp))) aging. I used to happily anticipate waking up in the morning, hopping out of the bed at the crack of stupid to hike or walk for hours. Now I lie with earplugs and pillows barricading my head, blankets pulled up to my nose, praying for just an hour more peace and quiet in the early morning before I must start my daily rigamarole. And I wait at least an hour after waking to glance into the mirror to see what state my face is in, hoping beyond hope my right eyelid isn't drooping any further.

My ego and I have the following conversation something like every other day now:

Ego: "You're not cute anymore."

Me: "I'm not supposed to be 'cute' right now! I'm being a mother of two very young boys!"

Ego: "You're not pretty anymore."

Me: "My prettiness drained out my left boob nursing N. Shut up!"

Ego: "You're not sexy anymore."

Me: "My sexiness spiraled down the sink with the last 5 nights of endless dishes!"

Enough. You get the drift. All I'm saying here is that I either need a new shade of mac or an attitude adjustment. Oh please, you know that's not true. What I really need is a new shade of mac and an attitude adjustment. Thanks for your patience and witnesship as I remedied today's malady. :)

If it were not for snot...

2009-03-25T05:43:00.001-07:00

... I'd be unemployed for starters.

In these difficult and trying economic times, I should be sighing in relief instead of rolling my eyes every time I swab down a snotty nose. My job is recession proof. I am an irreplaceable cog in the wheel of mucus' freeride through our family's respiratory system this season.

This photo hardly shows the offensiveness with which I deal most days. Here N's snot is clear, contained and gleaming, held back from overflow by his upper lip. I just wasn't patient enough to wait for a camera shot of the real thing: the abominable runaway nose with yellow and white marbled snot pliantly hanging in abandon off his lip and dangling in thin air. Those ones should be memorialized in a wax museum somewhere, they are so unbelievably ridiculous.

Not only would I be laid off if colds and teething let go their tenacious grip on my poor innocent family, I'd also be terribly out of shape. The amount of sprinting under play structures and through sand with tissue blowing in the wind I must do to catch G each time he races by taunting me with an ornery grin and appalling runny nose yelling, "snot!" would give even Rocky a run for his money. And puh-lease, screw wimpy, faddish kettle bells. I hoist these mucoid monsters all day long wiping down snot, drool, tears and sniffing for malodorous diaper situations.

Oh snot, piss, shit and drool... where would I be without you?

A mother without a cause is a terrible thing to waste.

Part II (later that same day): It's a lush life

2009-03-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

You know it's a lush life when you've completely forgotten about your very favorite body product brand in the whole wide world and amazon.com is right there to remind you of how many gloriously aromatic butters n' balms n' splashes n' potions you can cram in your virtual shopping cart with your husband's $150 Corporate Rewards gift.

Ladies (and gents if you're actually reading this trash) it took me approximately 21 minutes from the time I pressed "publish" on my last post to the time I pushed "order now" on amazon.com to lasciviously spend every last penny on the most delicious, tasty and tempting products ever. OMG, I had waaaaay too much fun. Shopping really is a girl's best friend. I'd take it over a blow job any day. Speaking of... let's see, some of the more provocative products being shipped my way: Lush's 'Soft Core' massage bar made of cacao and coco butter (yummmmmm), 'Fever' massage bar replete with juicy red lips emblazoned on it for good measure, and 'Ohh La La' soap, to name a few. Oh, maybe you're sensing a theme? Perhaps you're on to something? Possibly you've guessed already? Okay fine, if you must know, yes my husband and I have tested out the newly improved and permanently DONE birth control situation and all is good in the hood.

Part I: Online shopping - a mom's best friend

2009-03-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

Every once in a random while my husband receives these generous little electronic $50 Corporate Rewards gift certificates to amazon.com for his institutionalized slavery. After selfishly hoarding them for himself only to have them expire unredeemed in his inbox, I've finally trained him to forward them immediately to his well-deserving Intuit Widow. They make my toes curl in delight. There is no pleasure guiltier for me right now than slumping back in my black pleather chair in front of the computer during afternoon naptime and SHOPPING! Since there is no such thing as enjoying a nice leisurely stroll through Anthropology these days - frantic races through Costco, Target and Trader Joe's don't count! - online dates with amazon make the leftover girl in me grin bigger than amazon's smiling arrow.

Ahhhhhh... what to buy? I'm temporarily savoring the sweet anticipation of all the nonsense I can possibly order. Right now I've got $150 worth of credit racked up with no definite idea of how to spend it. I've got to spend it, of course. No use saving it for a rainy day when there are frivolous and most likely unnecessary purchases to be made. The credit amount on my account is burning a whole through my virtual pocket, waiting impatiently for my next splurge on incidentals. Biggest question being: Do I spend it on myself? Or do I be a good, altruistic, self-sacrificing mama and spend it on my kids and husband, painstakingly picking out board books, pj's, toys and other absurd crap I've thought I should use the credit on? Puh-lease! The last three surprise purchases I made for my husband were scoffed at. I thoughtfully picked out music and books that fit him to a tee. But not according to him. They collect dust now. So fuck that. I already ordered stupid swim diapers and boring outdoor park blankets for us last week after schlepping the kids around looking for them in vain.

So I'm gonna buzz on over to amazon right now and see what I can find for myself. You'll probably find me in the beauty section, salivating over all of the facial, body and hair products. Pray for me to be foolish and irresponsible. Pray for me to purchase from my heart, not my head. Who knows, maybe I'll cruise through formerly uncharted categories and find something truly odd and fun to purchase. Will keep you posted.

Nice, normal post

2009-03-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm having a normal mommy moment. (Thank god no drama right now - my tubes, gut and throat can't take another moment's turmoil.) It is a run of the mill, garden variety sensation of undying adoration for my lil' N who is now walking. I dorkily giggle with effervescence every time he staggers diagonally across the floor, arms poised in preparatory martial arts stance, face alight in pure delight.

Even more normal and appallingly cringe worthy, I've found myself showing off his new skills. I'm so embarrassed for me. I actually want to impress. OMG. How mortifying. Shame on me, shame. When he won't do it on demand, which is most of the time, I feel compelled to continue prodding him to walk until I've proved my claim. "No, no, really. He really is walking," I say as he teeters a couple of steps, falls on his butt and crawls fastidiously onward, refusing to reprise his stagger all the way across the floor at home.

The only problem here is that my ego doesn't like becoming a normal part of the human race: One of the million bazillion bragging mommies expecting everyone to be terribly interested in every single one of her baby's normal developmental milestones. It's amazing my ego even tries to butt its stupid head into my business anymore. It's been kicked to the curb so hard by motherhood's reworking of my identity, I'd have thought it took up residence somewhere else by now. But it's so fun to be normal and be so proud of my little guys. And I reckon I've got many more normal landmarks to bliss out on as they both grow. Mmmmmm, for today it feels damn good to just be a good ole' normal mom, proud as punch of my kiddies.

Trojan-enz anybody?

2009-03-12T14:52:00.001-07:00

Hmmmmm, what to do with the 13 leftover rubbers from our Costco 40 pack that I'll NEVER EVER not EVER NEVER have to use again? (thank you tubal) Auction them off on eBay to some horny underage kid with stodgy, clueless parents? Donate them to the bathroom of our local suburban strip mall Starbucks where the over-privileged, angst-ridden, Sex Pistols look-alike Carmel Valley youth groom their mohawk, sip Double Fudgey Lattes, drag on fags and cruise chicks? Give them away to a frantic mother of 3 screaming children pushing her stuffed cart through the diaper section of our neighborhood Vons? Or perhaps make a postmodernist collage of them randomly thrown onto our old (ahem) stained bedspread (where they oftentimes were not used in time, hastening my frantic final fixing fer good), glued down for good measure, and hung inside the garage wall (my man's man cave) as a memorial to the good ole' days. (not)

And while we're at it, does anyone want my leftover Vicodin stash? I've got 16 out of the 20 they supposedly generously-but-really-premeditatedly prescribed me after my tubal. Who are they trying to fool? They're so trying to get me hooked. And while I'm spring cleaning, I might as well add in the big fat bottle of 600 mg Motrin they padded the Vicodin with. I've got 58 out of 60 of those fat suckers left.

So if any of you dear readers are jonesin' for some cheap pain relief or a good case of constipation or perhaps wanna remember how much you hate latex in your dry vagina, holla.

fixed n' fried

2009-03-10T14:44:00.001-07:00

(how fuckin' funny is this picture??)

Well now that I'm finally fixed fer good, you'd think I might be jumping my husband, or he might be jumping me, or something sexual might be percolatin' over here.

Not even.

I'm am indeed staying in bed these days. But faintly groaning "oh god, do I feel like shit" rather than screaming "oh god, oh god, oh god, yesssssss!" No purring, moaning or giggling over here. Snoring, sniffling and coughing soundtrack our bedroom these days.

I've been flat on my ass, fried from the cold-from-hell that circulated thrice through our household hitting everyone but me since December. The mommy who unbelievably took care of everyone else's snot n' coughs n' puke n' nighttime wake-ups without getting sick has now been takin' down for the count. Yup, that mommy is me and I don't care 'bout no church or no sex or nothin' right now 'cept gettin' me some good, strong sleep. So my newly filshie-clipped fallopian tubes are getting a chance to settle in and get comfy before they go for their first ride 'round the block.

And when I needed my mother

2009-03-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

And when I needed my mother and I called her

She stayed with me for days

These Indigo Girls lyrics from their enigmatic song Prince of Darkness have clung in the corner of my psyche for over 20 years. I first sang them as a senior at the University of Michigan working as a jewelry designer & cashier at The Bead Shoppe. The song became my teary-eyed anthem to the angst & denied yearning surrounding my estranged relationship with my mother. She'd left our family when I was 4 years old and we'd maintained very minimal contact to that point, and would continue a sparse relationship for 10 more years until I moved to LA at age 30. That was exactly 10 years ago. We've slowly picked up the frayed threads of our kinship and weaved together a loose framework for relating and learning to love one another again. But always very carefully, with kid gloves on.

God works in the weirdest and truly most twisted ways. The first times I needed my mother enough to call her in spite of my intense resistance to her possible rejection was in the midst of severe Postpartum Anxiety after the birth of G. She jumped on planes time after time, hopping from her home town of Sacramento to mine in San Diego, to help me stutter through the severe shell shock I suffered upon becoming a mother. It was crude, painful and awkward as I tried allowing her to help, and she tried knowing how to help.

By the time N was born and I made the I need you now call, we had the schtick down. Only this time she carelessly hopped on the plane only to be thrown into her own shell shock as the birth of my second son catapulted her into a serious healing crisis over the recent death of her second son, my one full blood brother. Agonizingly brutal, mother and daughter suffered intense anxiety side by side like two magnets trying to come together in need, but tragically pushing each other's like-poles away out of sheer suffering.

When I called my mother to come help me for my first and second permanent sterilization procedures, she was here. There's something about getting ready for anesthesia and surgery that invokes thoughts of mortality and hastens deep conversations. That small curtained waiting room became a confessional. Hidden and held deep in a dim corner bowel of the hospital, my mother and I wept unselfconsciously as painfully stowed memories seeped their way out of the concrete that formerly separated us, transforming into a binding, healing salve.

I finally felt my mother touch me three days ago. We held hands for the first time on (fixin' to be fixed) Friday as she escorted me, groggy and post-op, into and out of the car and bed. We slept in the same bed for the first time that night. I felt her stroke my hair for the first time yesterday. She may have done it in the past, I don't know, but this was the first time I felt like her little daughter that I always wanted to be. I wished time to stop and keep us in that sacred, comforting moment forever. But N woke and duty called.

Today is her last day here, for this trip anyway. I will miss her advocating for me in the hospital, demanding I demand help from my husband, urging me to rest, calling me on my control-freak shit, and looking at me with love in her eyes. Thank god for needing my mother enough to call. And thank heavens she came and stayed with me for days.

going to the clinic, and I'm gonna get clipped

2009-03-06T05:10:00.000-08:00

I'm going to the clinic and I'm gonna get cli-i-i-ipped

I can't help but deliriously hum this retarded lyric to the tune of "going to the chapel..." this morning as I await my date with Dr. Pat, the anesthesiologist. Only two hours and counting 'til I make my great escape to the hospital for my tubal.

Let's hope it all goes smoothly and no one's bikini line gets marred.

uncle, uncle, UNCLE!

2009-03-05T05:43:00.000-08:00

I'm waiving my white flag of surrender over here at 5:43 am after approximately 5+ hours of non-sleeping limbo since N's two coughing crying wake-ups. He finally woke me for good at 4:54 am out of this bizarre masturbation dream in which I was hopelessly trying to find a hidden place on a playground to get off. A playground for godssake. First I was precariously lying on a crooked suspension ladder of a Dr. Suessian jungle gym trying in vain to rub myself right. Then I was swinging from some hanging contraption trying again when a little girl came over wanting my swing. Damn, foiled again. Finally I wondered out of the park to a strange porch swing hanging beside a busy road where I frantically stuck my hand down my pants only to have pedestrians come ogling by. Duuuuuuude, can you tell mama needs relief and she needs it bad?! My pitiable dreams are heartbreakingly trying to help a mother out here, and even they with their superpower capacity for morphing reality can't get me there.

So, uncle. There, I said it. Uncle. Uncle. Uncle. I give in. No more fighting the motherhood thing anymore. No more keeping score of what's fairly or unfairly dealt to me in a day's work. And for godssake, no more trying to figure out why anything happens the way it does or does not.

Just go 'head n' hook me up with that anesthesia tomorrow, clip up my tubies, and bring on that long overdue worry-free orgasm sometime this decade please.

Still so in the weeds

2009-03-03T19:51:00.001-08:00

I think I've just put my finger on what my major malfunction is these days: I feel like I'm forever in the weeds. In my waitressing days, being "in the weeds" meant something overwhelmingly flustering like the hostess just sat you with 4 tables simultaneously who all want separate checks and different labeled top shelf cocktails that toppled over on your tray as you realize you forgot to put in their order for appetizers and, oh shit, that table over there asked for a a forgotten side of mayo like 15 minutes ago. I still, after 15 non-waitressing years, have occasional anxiety dreams in which I realize I'm naked while running out the front door of the restaurant to fetch a side of mayo that the kitchen just ran out of.

Mommyhood catapults me into these weeds on a daily basis. There's just something so unnerving about trying to scrape sticky poo off my toddler's ass with a flimsy baby wipe before my infant grabs his penis or the poopy diaper or pulls out all the wipes. I tell myself to calm the fuck down. Who the hell cares if G gets his wanker wanked? So what if every last wipe gets pulled out? But the buck stops at the poopy diaper contact. "STOP!" I yell as I desperately try one-handedly sealing the soiled diaper without contacting shit, while trying to other-handedly install the clean one around a wriggly, protesting G, and somehow lean my upper torso on the wipey container to stop the outflow. Whose blood pressure do you suppose is rising just about now??

The magnitude of the tasks is obviously not what throws me for the loop. Anyone can fill endless sippy cups - oh shit... is that mold at the bottom of the cup?? gotta get a new one - while screaming baby drags on leg and mischievous toddler climbs up on teetering table to grab glass vase. It's this simple: I feel out of control all the time. You'd think by now I'd know there is no such thing as being in control. I can't stop N's pernicious teeth from coming in right after he's recovered from his last ear infection any more than I can control who's gonna nap for how long or control G from pouring bathtub water all over the floor or dribbling his chocolate milk all over his gorgeous new clothes Grandma just sent from France.

Control is a futile endeavor with two small children. It's a pointless undertaking for life in general. And it's causing my gray hairs to accelerate their arrival, my brow to furl itself further, my right eyelid to droop and my husband to cower in fear of my next bad mood. Not good.

So I'm praying to let the mayo slide. Ain't no such thing as perfect mothering, and if there were, its definition certainly would be more about loving kindness and patience as opposed to perfect control. When I was pregnant the first time, all rosy-cheeked and sparkly-eyed, a mother of two said to me, "Enjoy this time. It is the only time you'll ever feel like a perfect parent." I shuddered then, knowing the truth of those words would soon become my reality. And they have. But for now, for the rest of today at least, I'm gonna let go the perfect-and-in-control syndrome, welcome in the weeds, and try to roll with the one-two punches. I'm down with that. Shit, anything's better than serving up greasy fries and burgers to rude non-tippers, especially if your unintentionally naked and out of mayo.

Fixin' to get fixed

2009-03-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in awhile because I've had no sense of humor whatsoever. Not an iota of wit, not a fleeting shred of satire, not even a speck of mischief hiding out on the back burner. I've been flattened, pummeled, leveled, and shot straight back to hell by another baby illness, mommy period and daddy absence. (((sigh)))

The only thing I can possibly squeeze a drop of amusement out of right now is that I am finally on the runway to getting fixed again this friday. How can someone have to get fixed again? Because the damn non-invasive procedure option (essure) didn't work. This time I get to have the invasive-but-hopefully-only-through-the-belly-button-laproscopic-filshie-clip tubal ligation.

And this is what I have to say about it: I'm really looking forward to the anesthesia. Damn is it sad to look forward to 30 minutes of anesthesia in a hospital operating room like it's a spa vacation. If bright lights and sharp scalpels are what it takes to get a good couple of inebriated hours off of mommy duty, sign me up. After the two mandatory pre-op appointments with both boys in tow, mama deserves some good hard drugs. Yesterday's gyn appointment saw G pulling speculums out of the dirty water pan under the sink and N screaming so hard at the top of his teething lungs I took him out in the hallway to let the doc know she'd better get her late ass in there immediately. And she did good: she ran in, hastily put an X on the permanent sterilization consent papers, handed over the pen and sent me on my way. Fuck yeah I consent to permanent sterilization. Do you see what I'm dealing with here??

Who the fuck cares about the resulting condom-free uninhibited sex? Please mofo, I don't give a rat's friggin' ass about that right now. Just put me out and ensure I'll never get pregnant again.

Until further travails force me to the brink of insanity, so much so that I must blog or die again, that's all I've got for now.

Angry M.O.M.S.

2009-02-24T09:34:00.000-08:00

Never before having children did I feel the dire need to martyr myself like I do today as a mother. It comes in gushing spasms at the most chaotic moments, when I feel the only way to relieve my suffering would be to scream at my husband, best friend or next door neighbor because they could not possibly imagine in their wildest nightmares how hard I've got it.

I've termed this phenomenon M.O.M.S. ~ Motherhood Onset Martyrdom Syndrome. It hits me at those circuit blowing moments when I cannot believe I am not only supposed to survive, but actually handle what my children are doling out to me.

Thank goodness I keep all my sinister thoughts to myself at these boiling points, because they'd acidicly melt through the skin of some non-mother's woe-is-me-I-can't-decide-whether-to-schedule-my-manicure-or-haircut-or-yoga training-or-hiking retreat-or exotic Indonesian vacation-this-week song and dance.

Not that my own self-righteous M.O.M.S.-driven rant would be worthy of anyone's ear. Hey, I chose this. I did it to myself. Fuck, if god had listened to me the first time around begging for twins just to get the whole procreation thing overwith, I'd have been a goner, an absolute goner.

But just when I'm really basking in my martyrdom - lying on my life raft of crucifixion, floating in my sea of suffering, soaking in my sun of agony, sipping my tall umbrella'd drink of self-sacrifice - a Reality Check comes smacking me upside the head. It is of such massive proportions that it takes the wind out of my billowing sails of complaint and steals my whining thunder right out from underneath me.

Why does there always, always have to be someone who has it so much worse than me, dammit?

Some starving, war-ravaged, orphaned, widowed mother of 8 dying children in a leaking grass roofed hut somewhere that disallows me to remain wallowing in my cesspool of martyrdom and makes me glad to be me again. So glad in fact that I spontaneously begin reciting how much I love my life and every single thing about it.

And then *poof*, for at least this quadrant of the day I so don't mind my affliction of motherhood that I'll gladly haul G's motorcycle up the hill because he's tired of riding it and breezily take the 19th clump of dirt and mulch out of N's mouth. But when this bubble of gladness wears off again, look out boys, mama's M.O.M.S. will rage again!

Monday is the new Sunday

2009-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

Before reading this post I want to make sure every single one of you out there is part of a good mommy group, because if you aren't, you really, really do not know what you are missing. It is imperative that we not do this alone, that we bond through our shared weakness of being clueless mommies, and that we share a cocktail (even if you don't drink) every once in awhile! If you are not currently in a mommy group and aspire to good mommydom and extended marriage, by the time you finish reading this post I hope you will be convinced that it is your birthright to be in one or start your own up.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Although the weekend is my husband's time to play dead in bed and on the couch, it has become my doubled up chore time. Because his presence is at least here -no matter how inert - I feel it necessary to take advantage of his semi-able-bodied babysitting skills (read: letting the kids crawl all over him in bed or on the couch) by tackling the overflowing laundry basket and at least taking a stab at some of the unmentionables like toilet bowl scrubbing and kitchen floor mopping. I oftentimes find myself working even harder on the weekends than on the weekdays.

That is why today, Monday afternoon at approximately 1:02 pm, I drank a margarita on the rocks with salt. I don't even drink really. But damn does a two-sip buzz do a mama good. Especially on Monday afternoon with the girls.

Let me set the scene: We were 15 all together in a reserved room far away from the main dining room of a local cheap n' cheerful Mexican restaurant. Half mommies, half toddlers who had all just spent the last hour jumping and running in an open gym. Needless to say, our wing was insane. We had the wait staff shell shocked, working off their last lard-laden lunch by hauling the essentials they would have known to bring in the first place had they ever fallen prey to such a demanding ticket: high chairs, napkins, plastic spoons, little plates, another high chair, more napkins, waters, straws, sides of beans, sides of rice, sides of guacamole, extra tortillas, and more napkins.

It was total chaos, but do-able chaos. Worthwhile chaos. All the invaluable woman-bonding stuff transpired amidst the cacophony of whining, misbehaving children:

Constant Commiserating ~ "I can't get my kid to eat either"

Intuitive Helping ~ "Here, can I take your baby off your hands so you can eat in peace?"

Necessary Networking ~ "I'm doing a mommy spa nite girls, wanna come?"

Important Informing ~ "Yes, Confessions of a Shopaholic was stupid but cute"

Mindless Gossiping ~ "Did you see Kate Winslet's look at the Oscars last night?"

Shopping Secret Sharing ~ "Check out the bargain room in the back of Anthropologie, cool clothes you can almost afford"

And the priceless and unspoken most important thing:

Being together in the company and comfort of our fellow mommies on the journey, traveling the tricky path of motherhood in tandem.

It really helps to burn off the burnout.

Just as I was sucking that tiny cocktail straw for the last bit of savored abandon, I heard one of us proclaim from down the table, "I wanna do this every Monday!" Me too man! We're so worth it. Laughing mommies are happy mommies, and happy mommies have happy kiddies and even happier husbands. And happy kiddies might, just might, cooperate with their mommy's well-deserved-Sunday-come-Monday belated breather with the ladies.

Un-pc ugly baby inquiry

2009-02-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

I'm being very careful here trying to word this as gently as possible so as not to offend but rather amuse. This could be a touchy subject, or more likely just rude and shallow. But out with it already:

If someone's baby is ugly, do they know it?

Do mommies of undeniably ugly babies think they're cute? Naturally they love them to death because thank goodness we have our selfish heads extracted out of our asses by the gift of altruistic love so fierce you'd give up sleep and decent sex for a year. But did god make it so that no matter what your child physically looks like, you will think he/she is gorgeous?

My disclaimers: First, I feel extremely blessed that I was not only able to get pregnant so easily twice, have two trouble-free pregnancies, birth vaginally twice, breast feed twice relatively drama-free and come out with two totally healthy, perfectly developed children: but they are both also aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I truly enjoy looking at both of them at times simply for their beauty. Secondly, yes of course I know this is a rhetorical, stupid, small-minded inquiry, but is it true? If your baby is ugly, do you know it's ugly or do you think it's beautiful?

Undoubtedly, love is blind. And hopefully most people don't see only through societal norms of beauty. And obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And clearly, my definition of good-looking is totally different than yours or anyone else's, blah, blah, blah.

But do mamas of ugly babies know they're ugly?

Just curious.

Dare I admit my ignorance

2009-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Dare I admit my ignorance...

... to anything and everything outside the realm of immediate motherhood survival. (Okay, I do know Obama's our president) But ask me what the hell the stimulus package is and I'm staring at you blankly. (I guess I do know two things: It's controversial and it's pissing lots of people off) Night after night my husband comes home and tells me about another 20-30,000 people laid off in our country and I give him that same stupid stare as I'm desperately swatting G from standing precariously on top of the dining room table while trying in vain to scrape the day old dried up fish off the floor before N eats it. I just can't bring myself to care anymore about even my gossip staples of the past: Madonna, Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. You know Mommy's blitzed when she doesn't give a rat's fat ass about how Shilo is adjusting to Knox & Vivienne. Of course I haven't seen a single Oscar nominated film ~ so this Sunday's Oscars meen squat to me. If it ain't on Netflix, I ain't seen it.

I don't know anything about all the UFO's my husband insists are about to abduct us, the whole Middle East thing was so the 80's for me, and damn if I have the time to understand the bailout, the economic downturn, or the whole financial crisis thing. If it ain't helping me potty train a defiant toddler or extract snot from my teething baby's pouring nose, I don't know about it.

I have, however, accumulated some very useful wisdom in my 2 1/2 plus years spent with my head up my ass : Charlie & Lola books by Lauren Child not only entertain my toddler but also actually satisfy mommy's sweet tooth for quirky artistic beauty. Living amongst all Asians might not be conducive to the most interesting social life, but their perfectly quiet demeanor is perfect for keeping a quiet household when sleeping babies are your priority. Getting the dreaded dinner dishes done directly after eating, even with baby dragging on leg and toddler pulling Ziplocks out of the box, is far better than having those scuzzy dishes looming over me in the morning when I must nurse, feed, change, clean, wipe, read, referee, shush, shower and blog.

And finally that knowing diddily squat about The Financial Crisis, The Middle East and Angelina's current and supposed babies helps free up a few more brain cells, ensuring I successfully accomplish my days tasks as G & N's mommy.

mummummummumm

2009-02-19T06:06:00.000-08:00

mummmummmummmummm

This is the sound of my 10-month-old crawling furiously towards me to be picked up. It translates to ...... mom. (his first word!) Finally, finally, I get the credit I deserve. Finally I get payback for the sleepless nights and overworked boobs. Finally I am recognized for what I am: The Queen Bee, The One and Only, your dearest Mommy Dearest.

My firstborn's first word was "daddy," which was totally fine with me. I knew he loved the shit out of me and couldn't live a day without stalking me. More pertinently however, I knew that the "d" sound comes developmentally way sooner than the "m" sound. I never told my gloating husband that. Sorry daddy.

I do have to say however, that N's first word being "mom" not only obviously tickles my ego, but fuck yeah it better have been his first word! The amount of hard labor this mummummummumm has clocked in these first ten months of baby bunching demands to be memorialized as his first word, dammit! I didn't earn all these gray hairs from prancing around the Prada store. Being his mummmummmummmummm nearly drop kicked my ass into an asylum.

I feel entitled to be his first word. Mummmummummm is an homage to me, the woman who's bottomed out and begged for antidepressants again. The mommy whose hiking shoes have grown smooshed and moldy at the bottom of the closet. The mother whose nipples have been pulled permanently pointing outward like windblown trees grown crooked.

All this to say... I'm ecstatic! My baby not only knows his mama, he calls me when he needs me. Love is a many splendored thing.

weather.com and a mom

2009-02-17T14:49:00.001-08:00

Weather.com has become my cyber BFF. As a mother needing to fill lots of time, I need to know the atmospheric 411 so that we properly exploit whichever free entertainment fits the bill. Oprah recently did a show following The "Coupon Queen" as she feverishly searched Sunday papers and online sources for hidden discounts. When our weather becomes questionable, I often find myself fervently hitting weather.com like that crazed bargain bitch, trying to get a one up on the forecast and hence ahead of the curve on my daily and weekly mommying entertainment picks.

You'd think living in San Diego would make this a mute point, since 9 out of 10 days are seemingly 72º and sunny. But not so in the winter. There's a very fine line between a day that can or cannot be spent at the playground for $0 and zero clean up (my favorite) when weird things like the Santa Ana winds or even weirder things like rain or clouds visit our idyllic Pleasantville.

But ironically and pathetically enough, I have to disclose that one of my favorite things about convening with weather.com is seeing how many times it changes its mind about what the sky is going to bring. I'll go there on Sunday night and click on the 10 day forecast to get my Type A planning and scheduling jollies off. It'll say Monday sunny & 70º, Tuesday sunny & 70º, Wednesday sunny & 71º, Thursday sunny & 72º, Friday sunny & 70º, Saturday rainy & 63º, Sunday rainy & 64º, Monday sunny & 69º, Tuesday sunny & 71º, Wednesday sunny & 72º, and I'll think pointlessly to myself, "Cool, I've got a handle on the weather situation." Then I'll compulsively check it again on Monday morning to find everything has shifted so that the rainy days now fall a couple of days later, pushing out of the weekend when I could have counted on my husband to help me with the indoor time and back into my weekday territory. Then I'll obsessively continue checking all throughout the week to see how many times they change their minds about when the hell that weather is actually going to come. You see, here in San Diego, we all say the same thing when a cloud comes strolling by or it actually rains a drop or two: "Oh my god, we're actually getting weather."

The most ridiculous thing about all of this is that even our "worst" weather is a cake walk compared to most other parts of the country. Especially where I hale from: Ohio. I'll be chatting it up with my dad on a Sunday afternoon in January sitting on my porch in a tank top while he's trying to free his door from the hanging stalactites of ice threatening to pull down his gutter. But it is exactly this man, my beloved father, who planted the seeds of weather.com addiction within me. He is consumed with the intricacies of weather features and geological functions and could fill up an entire 10 minute father-daughter check in with talk of pressure fronts, temperature averages, weather trends, water tables and humidity indexes.

For now thank god my rapport with weather.com is sweet and to the point. Tell me my crystal ball, is it gonna be the playground or the library tomorrow?

A shout out to my sistahs

2009-02-16T14:55:00.001-08:00

The kindness of my womenfolk cannot be underestimated. It's funny because I was one of those twits who spent her whole life pining for "the man." For the entirety of my singledom, my female friendships were only with other single woman and we spent 100% of our time yearning for men. (((sigh)))) Today, even married to the right man, my girlfriends are so much more fun than my relationship with with my husband, and in fact save me from imploding my marriage.

Women need women... bad. It was necessary that we all shared our desperate achings for men back then. And now that I'm a mother, all my friendships are only with other mothers and all we talk about is how to survive mommyhood. (OH, and how hard marriage is with children.)

Women have this cool knack of magnetizing to one another to get exactly what we need. The universe conspires to our advantage if we all just admit to one another that this motherhood thing is kicking our asses: that days can be really, really long, and that we need help! Help me! Help me! Help me! Where do I find size 7 diapers? What should I do with my teething infant? Where'd you get that perfect sippy cup that doesn't leak or mold? How do you get your child to keep his sun hat on? Are there any shoes that actually stay on your baby's feet? The list of urgently needed answers goes on ad nauseum.

This post was spurred by an ordinary chain of events that culminated in a mundane miracle in the life of a mommy. The miracle was that on a rainy day when we desperately needed something, anything inside and stimulating to do: we found a $5 open gym day just minutes away from home. It was marvelous. It was magical. Tons of super happy kids frolicking in a ginormous padded room. G didn't stop running and jumping for the entire hour. N was blissed out just watching the whole thing go down from his vantage point down on the mats.

The ordinary chain of events went something like this: While sitting at the fountain feeding N applesauce and trying to keep G from jumping in headfirst, I bumped into a fellow mommy of two. Due to the minute period of time either of us would have for conversation while watching our charges, she immediately began reciting a litany of new cheap entertainment finds she'd encountered, one being this open gym. Note to self: remember this one. Three days later I was checking my email and found that a mommy group I peripherally participate in was meeting at that same gym on said rainy day. Voila. Done dealio. Through the non-stop networking of mommies, we had a date.

Aren't women the best? By getting a cute new cut and wearing it out to playgroup, we stealthily spread the word about a great new stylist at Supercuts : 15 minutes and 18 bucks later you too can be out the door with a clean new 'do, after 10 months of overgrowth due to new baby lockdown. By wearing a killer new hat on a bad hair day to the playground, we graciously tip our fellow mommies off to the ultimate multitasking feat: combining a trip to the zoo for the kiddies with shopping (!) at that hidden gem of a gift shop that actually has good fashion. And finally, when I've lost all sense of humor and just become one big furrowed brow, one of my homies (sp?) alerts me to the damn funniest mommy blog ever, and I'm practically in tears of joy knowing other mothers are out there making their baby-misadventure lemons into hilarious posts of pink bubbly lemonade.

Making love to myself this Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

It's not what you think. Not at all.

My inbox's spiritual gem this morning directed me to show some love ~ to myself this Valentine's Day. And the way I do that these days is to blog. Writing is by far the most self-fulfilling, self-esteemable, self-a-licious thing I do right now. So if I may, I will proceed to indulge myself in a Little Love Story in 3 Parts: I'll start with a reflection backwards, then get current with today, then end with a wish for Valentine's Days to come.

PART I

Just 4 years ago today I shared with you already that I was driving through the soaking rain to a cheesy single's mixer in a cheesy hotel lobby in the cheesy city of L.A. I never finished the story: I met a man that night. A really cool man. A distinguished man. A handsome man. He was so taken by my that he invited me away from the mixer to have drinks and dinner with him alone in the hotel restaurant. Our conversation flowed easily, our smiles gleamed readily and his compliments sprinkled me in wishfulness. He got my number and waited the obligatory 3 1/2 -4 days to call, we played phone tag a couple of rounds, had two very promising phone conversations, then nothing. I don't know why. He just disappeared. And that pretty much ties up in a ribbon and bow my 8 year odyssey of dating in L.A. Nonsensical, nonsequeter, nonstop.

PART II

Today my two early bird Valentine boys woke me up at 5:05am and 6:15am, we had morning story time, then dressed warm and went out on a puddle walk to Vons, got Daddy some croissants, played in the fountains and got back just in time for my husband to walk out of the bedroom at 9am to tell me "Happy Valentine's Day" with a kiss and hug. Not just any hug. But a good, long meaningful hug. That's all it took to erase my residual rage at G for noncompliance walking back up the hill home. I felt my husband's love for me and flashed back to all those days upon nights upon years I was waiting impatiently for him to come into my life. And he is here now and I love him so. He is my real life Valentine.

PART III

And so for the future my wish is that we continue deepening in our love, compassion and support for one another. That each successive Valentine's Day demarcate another year of life lived side by side, for the awesome better or the dreaded worse. Lord knows we dialed up a doosy having two babies within 3 years of meeting one another at that bar that fateful night. We've weathered some incredibly raw moments. May next Valentine's Day reflect a year just a bit more top heavy with fun than bottom heavy with toil.

mmmmmmmm, that felt good.

PS. In case you've been reading along with me, I did finally make it to Victoria's Secret yesterday with a boy in each arm, tethering their wildly reaching hands as the sales assistant helped me pick out my 5 for $25 cotton low riders. I'm of course wearing the ones polka-dotted with little red hearts today.

Just what exactly is my job description?

2009-02-12T14:34:00.001-08:00

Could it possibly be all of the following simultaneously in no particular order: Martyr, Masochist, Dishwasher, Waitress, Disciplinarian, Laundress, Nurse, Maid, Babysitter, Entertainer, Potty Trainer, Pacifier - to name a few. All with practically no prior experience and only on-the-job training.

When I signed up, was there small print somewhere I missed that disclosed: no sick days, no vacation days, no weekends off. I must have totally overlooked the even smaller print underneath that small print that said: in fact, you have NO days off whatsoever. sorry.

PS. On the posting layout page this looked really cool, but not so much here.

PSS. I don't have even an ounce more of brainpower to fix it or squeeze out any more tongue-in-cheek anything due to two consecutive nights of fucked up, I mean supercalafragilisticexpyaladocious fucked up sleep due to more teething and more illness in the crib. !@#$#$%^&*!

Jewish mother/Italian grandmother syndrome

2009-02-11T05:37:00.001-08:00

I never, ever thought in a million, trillion years it could happen to me: that I'd become that woman. That "Mangia! Mangia! Eat, eat!" motherling. Why am I trying to force feed my unwilling toddler when I wanted to kill my grandmother for doing it to me in my faux-anorexia/pre-compulsive eating days??

G is just as fine skipping all normal meals today as I was back then skipping my grandmother's brisket, kugel and potatoes. I escaped her centripetal feeding force when she passed away only to auspiciously land next door to Pina, Chianti's finest grandmother-cum-eating-disorder-interventionist. I'd moved into the farmer's quarters of an Italian villa in the outskirts of Firenze, where I was studying Art History for my junior year of college. I was smack at the height of my body-hysteria days and I became prey to Pina, the wonderfully round, pear-shaped maid of the rich folks in the Villa who regularly cooked up a mean 4-course dinner and insisted I come over to eat with her family. I'd bring my American health-food-obsessed, skin-n-bones-chic self to her warm hearth of a kitchen with fireplace ablaze and aromatic sauces bubbling, and push away plate after plate of meat, pasta and cheese. It drove her crazy.

Ain't karma a bitch? Now here I am doing the same thing with my son. Running down the verbal list of all the foods I've got tucked away in my diaper bag or stuffed in the fridge just in case he'll maybe, just maybe say "yes" to one of them. As I'm reciting the litany of menu options - and he's saying "no, no, no, no and no" - I can literally see myself depicted along an historic timeline of mothers back through the ages all trying in vein to do the same thing: feed their child food he or she doesn't want. And then I occasionally stoop to that pathetically stupid tactic of bringing the food-loaded fork up to his clenched lips, praying he'll get a delicious whiff and open up. Obviously everyone reading this blog knows that never, ever works.

G has better things to do than eat these days. He's informed me point blank, "I'm too busy to eat." His cement mixer, legos and doggie are just as captivating to him today as fitting into a smaller size was back then to me. I feel you, G. I really do. When you decide you've got a minute to eat, jus' holla. I'll be here. But until then, enjoy your busyness without me hovering with a fork of cheese ravioli. I'll keep myself occupied with other more pressing issues, like: Am I feeding N enough??

The Church of Costco

2009-02-10T06:00:00.000-08:00

Let's face it. Costco is the new church. At least for us and a bazillion other church-dressed families on Sunday morning. Puh-lease, all you dressed-up-to-look-like-after-church-shoppers don't fool me. You're all doing this instead of church, just like us. Costco is your church, just like it has become ours. And why shouldn't it be?

We enter your cavernous cathedral, oh Costco, flanked with aisles buttressed in boxes exploding with every gadget we never needed. My husband can oft be found staring in awe at your inversion machine, gravity boots up high like an alter to proper spinal alignment. We stand in your nave awaiting our communion wafers so deliciously disguised as beef chili, cheese ravioli & chicken nugget samples. We walk through your priorly Romanesque transepts, so brilliantly updated to warehouse chic... and we spend. Yes we spend and we spend and we spend our money. All in the name of stocking and stuffing our homes and hearts full of you, oh dear Costco. We love you.

Before I had a family of my own, I shunned you from my life. Now that I am a mother of two, I am your newest devotee. To run out of diapers or wipes with two un-potty-trained butts would be a natural disaster for our household. Your generously proportioned stockpiles enhance our home's welfare. To run out of goldfish, Cheerios, applesauce cups or string cheese sticks could be devastating to our playground snacking. Puh-lease, if it weren't for your monstrously ginormous bags of tortilla chips, we'd be freeloaders at all our potlucks. And to come up empty when reaching for a low fat organic chocolate milk box in the morning for G would be ruinous.

Costco, we have looked far and wide for a church to suit all of our needs as succinctly as you have. But nowhere, not the United Unitarians, nor the Self-Realizers, nor the Jews, nor the Catholics could come close to embracing our mixed-faith marriage as wholly as you do. And to sit down for fellowship with your congregation, all enjoying greasy slices of pizza together after our exhilarating experience inside your walls, just encapsulates our adoration.

You have saaaaayved us, dear Costco. We are forever indebted to your generous abundance (except rice milk - why don't you carry rice milk, dammit?) and forgiving nature (you don't even reprimand our kids for spilling their third sample of oatmeal or yogurt all over your polished concrete floors.) Where would we be without you Church of Costco?

Continued crock pot adventures/Valentine's lament

2009-02-09T14:16:00.000-08:00

Since adding the second boy to our clan, I've been the lame-o bringing Costco chips and hummus to every single potluck playdate we attend. It's all I can possibly manage, and it almost throws me over the edge to even get that together. My humble offering always pales in comparison to the beautiful and creative homemade treats filling the smorgasbord table.

But not today. For our Valentine's themed playdate I got to proudly use my new "Little Dipper" mini-crock pot warmer that came with the big kahuna I purchased at Costco last week. Damn have I turned into a cheeseball. But I was so excited to use it. Consulting the handy dandy user's guide and cookbook, I threw together a mean little bean dip that could stand proudly next to the homemade quiches, biscuits and banana cakes.

After grazing and gabbing, I got to make Valentines for my mother and my husband. One of our fantastic mommies brought all of her sumptuous card-making/scrapbooking supplies for us to use. I quickly crafted a valentine for my mother, then hesitated on one for my husband, flashing back to his underwhelmed response to last year's handmade card. I stalled staring at the gorgeous glittery papers wondering if I should even bother making him a card again this year...

(((sigh))) How sad am I? ... being in a new-baby-challenged marriage with Valentine's Day approaching - trying to pretend I don't care Valentine's Day is coming? Trying to talk myself out of caring whether husbandman does anything for me. And if he does it will probably just be a hasty, duty-driven stop at Vons for a token mylar balloon that's been looming overhead for weeks anyway. And I can't eat sugar so you don't have to bother with a last minute box of chocolates. And I know you don't really want to have to do anything anyway, so really don't bother and let's just pretend this whole damn holiday isn't approaching.

At this point, poor husbandman can't win for losing.

But of course I really do want Valentine's day to come. And I of course want him to be premeditating some incredible escape for two in which he whisks me off to a beautiful place where we sip Pinot Grigio and nibble smoked gouda while holding hands lazing on big cushioned outdoor couches under the stars next to a fireplace while listening to a live flamenco quartet. (The place is called La Estancia, and it is to die for in my opinion.) Oh to feel his big strong hand want to hold mine would be heaven. And for a long time. Not just the half-minute before the next baby duty demanded two-handed handling. But to intentionally be holding my hand without anything else to do but hold my hand in his... this simple pleasure would be a Valentine treat beyond balloons, chocolates and flowers.

A friend (you know who you are) relayed to me that none of this matters to a man - all the "romance" is for women only. I believe that. I really do. But this is not me as a single woman fantasizing about how to lead into the perfect fantasy sex with the perfect fantasy man. Rather this is me as a whole woman, a whole wife, a whole mother needing to feel beauty between us. Needing a small magical moment of re-bonding, a re-affirmation of our commitment to one another outside of our all-consuming parental duties. And I don't need this to happen on a regular bi-weekly date night just yet. (I can just hear our marriage counselor reiterating this marriage-saving must.) Just one sweet Valentine date could get a lot of mileage for now. And of course I know that Vday is a totally commercially driven fabrication - but it is my culture and it is real...

So I made him the card. And I packed up the boys and the almost-empty Little Dipper and drove home through the wind and rain remembering a mere 4 Valentine's Days ago when I was lonely as hell driving through the pouring rain in LA to attend a singles mixer in a cheesy hotel ballroom. Then I snapped back to my husbands' words this morning, "Drive carefully Mommy. It's dangerous out there." And I felt his love for me fill me all the way up again. At least for today.

But come Saturday...

anxiety dreams

2009-02-08T05:23:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamt I lost my diaper bag and wallet and was searching desperately for them when I realized it'd been hours since I'd left G home alone in front of a dreaded DVD, and left N alone with Daddy at work without any food or bottle and I'd missed his last nursing and he missed his last nap while sitting on Daddy's lap in a dire re-org meeting. And to top it all off, when I finally found my wallet: a) N was falling asleep lying on the shore of a beach with waves dangerously lapping up around his head, b) I realized it was G's 3rd birthday and we'd entirely forgotten it, and c) Husbandman was pissed as hell thumbing away at his crackberry telling me he needed to go out of town. Immediately. Gee, could you pile some more anxiety on top of that anxiety? Fuck, man. All this over my perturbation about N not napping yesterday afternoon.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaack. When will I ever be normal again? Actually, upon closer inspection, I think this is actually relatively normal for me. I've always been a type A stress monger. It's just that the things I stress about have changed drastically. Within 3 years they went from how the hell to make a living and pay rent in L.A. to how the hell to be a mother and survive so many diaper changes in S.D.

A friend once asked me to post more pictures with my blogs. The problem is that a cute snapshot of the boys would be entirely irrelevant to most of what I've got to say. Only varied depictions of my tormentia would do for most posts. And I think I tried to capture that in the title picture of me screaming in a halo of diapers. But I do fantasize about various post-able photos of me pulling my hair out watching G & N smear food all over their faces and clothes, me holding my hand over my heart while N screams and refuses to nap, me gasping in disgust while pulling N's hand out of G's poop-exploding diaper, and me reeling in horror as G sticks his finger into his anus telling me it's itchy.

Okay guys, take this all with a grain of salt. I love my life and I love my family. I really, really do. It's just that I'm also a drama queen at heart, and live for disgusting and alarmingly true stories to tell. So if nothing's really all that horrible in reality, I'll dream it and then write about it. How's that for dysfunction? Hey, at least I'm writing. And guess when I'm writing this? You got it: from 5:25am-6:03am, that wonderful slot of alone time N has so generously carved out for me by waking at 5:02am screaming.

everything happens for a reason.... it is what it is.... all of this is for my spiritual growth.... I am becoming a better person.... how can I go with the flow.... make lemonade out of lemons.... acceptance is the answer to all of my problems.... accept all people, places, things and situations.... it's all good.... just rel...a....x..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Now imagine this post topped off with a photo of me smirking, and you've got the entire picture.

Why did God make it this way?/ Semi-spiritual blog

2009-02-06T15:08:00.000-08:00

Why did God make babies be born so unready to be people yet?

I'm serious. I want to know.

Why does a baby come out so unable to just be okay for a goddamn minute? Why don't they just go to sleep if they're tired? Why can't they just eat without puking? Why can't they just spit out the words if they want us to know something so bad?

I'm so incredibly irked right now. N is throwing a cataclysmic fit about taking a nap that he knows he wants. He is so tired he just can't seem to get himself to sleep. How does that make any sense God? I'm serious. I want to know. He's so tired that after being rocked and sung to and put in his crib the same way he has complacently submitted to for the last 6 months now - he just can't bring himself to go to sleep. Instead he must scream bloody murder and ruin any chance I have at a decent blogging break. (((sigh)))

Come on N. I nursed you, I loved on you, I fed you blueberries and cheese and goldfish, I took you to play at Kidsville, I held you, I shushed you. It's your turn to pitch in. Just go to sleep, dammit! (((sigh)))

***

Okay, it's tomorrow ~ Well really today. But yesterday is when I wrote the above beginning to this complaint. After 30 minutes of screaming, N did eventually go down for his nap, only to wake screaming 30 minutes later. I nursed him and he fell asleep for another 40 minutes. If he was so damn tired, why couldn't he have just kept sleeping? I'm serious. I want to know. Wouldn't putting the 30 + 40 minutes together have made for such a much more satisfying and restorative sleep for his little brain cells? So why wake screaming in the middle? I don't understand.

Speaking of not understanding... He woke up screaming this morning at 5:45, I nursed him and now he's back down again. Why couldn't he just stay asleep, dammit? He's done it many times before. I know he's not hungry. I'm serious. I want to know.

But just in time to save me from myself comes this message in my inbox from my bestest daily spiritual source: "Nothing is what it seems. Everything is always happening to assist us in our spiritual growth. How can you enjoy the ride today?"

Fine, just fine. Make me look on the bright side. Make me realize that this time between N's pre-morning and real-morning wakings is exactly when I've constructed the vast amount of my blogs. Make me practice my unused wisdom preened from my toppling piles of spiritual self-help books by simply accepting what is.

Yes, it is what it is. N's wakings are what they are. His nonsensical change-ups simply exist, like my couch does, or a potato does. I don't wring my hands wondering why one of the potatoes in the bag went rotten while the others didn't. It just did. So move on sister and pick out another one. I don't question the couch pillow's decision to flatten on one corner due to uneven user use - it just did, so sit on the other end sister.

So N just does what he does because he does what he does. And I'm just going along for his ride. Okay, fine, that'll work for now. But why does it work this way? I'm serious. I want to know.

It's a crock pot life / Carrie Bradshaw detour

2009-02-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been far more obsessed with my new crock pot than inspired by this empty posting screen. Meat. Falling apart, tender and juicy. Better than new-parents-of-two sex . Speaking of sex... really what stole me away from my blogging for the past two afternoons is the Sex in the City Movie DVD that arrived 2 days ago from Netflix. What glorious diversion. Such complete abandon: two consecutive afternoon naptimes spent in Carrie Bradshaw's chick-flick-to-the-hilt world. This is the best excuse on record for being M.I.A. Their ridiculous opulence & mandatory midlife drama were the perfect escape for a thank-god-no-longer-single newly married and mommied 40-year-old. Needless to say, I've been intoxicated by their travails.

And also needless to say, I'm once again jealous of Carrie Bradshaw. Not her extreme wardrobe and not her retarded drama with "Big." Just jealous as hell that she has such a cool writing gig and I don't. My first jealousy of her occurred in the SITC episode detailing her book release gala. It was grand. It was artsy. It was chic. The day my book released, I sat at home alone staring quietly at my blank computer screen thinking, "Is this it?" (((sigh)))

But me and Carrie Bradshaw have a LOT in common. My wardrobe was always eccentric, although not label heavy. And my pursuit of love life in LA was retarded enough to warrant my own manuscript bi-lined: A comic travelogue of breeding misadventures in LA ~ which unfortunately was rejected by 10 quarried literary agents. (((sigh))) And I also ultimately got married to the love of my life at City Hall for 100 bucks.

On a brighter note, the Caribbean Pork Chops over beets, sweet potatoes and carrots I crock potted yesterday were super tasty. And the lime-roasted chicken I've got on deck this morning promises to be just as delicious. And I do have to admit that the pork chops made the man happy last night ~ happy enough to do the you-know-what in the 30-minute window of opportunity between G down and mommy down.

So Carrie Bradshaw, eat your heart out. At least I don't have to don 4 inch stiletto heels and faux furs to grab a decent bite to eat in NYC. I can simply pad into the kitchen of my suburban San Diegan apartment in my husband's Costco mid-calf white plush socks, nursing bra strap hanging out of my long underwear top, and scoop me out a scrumpdillyiscious plate of meat n' potatoes from my crock pot.

nagging uninspiration

2009-02-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling uninspired to write anything post-worthy. I've started a couple of cute, lackluster titles like "Okay, fine, I'm starting to have fun," and "What took me so long to get a crock pot?" But they've just kinda sat there in draft limbo land, unstimulating enough to warrant any further fleshing out. But wait a minute ... there was something funny that flew through my brain this morning to write about. It's gone now... maybe it'll come back. Oh wait, here comes something... i'm picking up a faint signal of this morning's inspiration... could it be...? maybe it was...? I'm thinking I remember something interesting about...? ... the therapeutic value of vacuuming? Yes, that's it!

Yesterday morning I was Evilena embodied. I don't know exactly why. Maybe I was in a funk because my husband is imprisoned to his work during tax season. Or maybe I was warped because I had bad dreams last night. Or maybe I was pissy because N woke up too early. Or maybe I was the Wicked Witch because G dropped another disgusting bomb in his diaper instead of into the toilet where we sat reading potty books for 20 minutes. Who knows. But anyway, I thought to myself, "Something's gotta snap me out of this cesspool, and fast." That's when the brilliant inspiration happened. The skies opened up from above, a pulse of pure white light came beaming down on my snarling head and a heavenly voice said, "Vacuum." What more convincing did I need? It suddenly clicked. That's exactly what I need. I need to vacuum. There is nothing like that satisfying sound of dirt sucking up the vacuum hose to soothe a woman's nerves, calm her mind and boost her mood. It's euphoric, isn't it?

Because of our nap trap - the frustrating bermuda triangle of nap times demanding constant quietude - vacuuming has become challenging and infrequent. Plus G, who used to adore the vacuum, has decided to become petrified of it. He hides under his couch like a terrified cat and screams bloody murder the entire time, while N gets curious enough to come close and then starts dragging on my leg screaming. Needless to say, there are probably microscopic germ galaxies fermenting and multiplying within the thick pile hideaway of our carpeting. So to ensure our entire family doesn't get eaten alive by carpet varments, I pushed though the boyz noize and vacuumed that sucker up and down and all around... and felt much, much better... yesterday that is.

Now it's today and I'm still waiting for inspiration to hit me. But alas, the dryer has just turned itself off and a voice from above has benevolently whispered, "laundry."....

trash, bottom-feeding, and "freeganism"

2009-01-30T14:00:00.000-08:00

I loved the scene in the movie Sex, Lies & Videotape where Andy McDowell, playing an unhappy and obsessive housewife, sits on a therapy couch with her lap dog staring vacantly out the window lamenting that she can't stop thinking about where all the trash goes. "I mean really, how can we be happy when we don't know where all the trash goes?" or something like that.

I was almost not going to have babies because I didn't want to pollute or populate any further.

When I was first pregnant with G and all bohemian-earth-crunch-granola girl, I planned on using cloth diapers. I'd received packs of beautiful white organic ones from my optimistic baby registry and was all ready to save the earth one less disposable diaper at a time. That is, until the baby came out. There was that first thick sludgy muconium poo that stuck like taffy between the teeny newborn diaper and his little wrinkled butt that had me waivering. Then there were the split-pea-breast-milk-diarrhea poos that leaked all over, sealing the deal. I was having nothing to do with a cloth diaper that would need to be rinsed and further dealt with. I'd unwittingly joined the billions of us polluting the landfills with disposables and just figured an apology to god with each trip to the dumpster would have to suffice.

And I still do apologize to god with each Diaper Genie emptying, 2 1/2 years and another added pooping butt later. Damn do babies make a lotta doo doo. And damn is that stuff heavy and hefty. It composes the bulk of our trash output. But then there's also so much more child-oriented junk to throw out that increases my guilt: loads of wipes and napkins and paper towels and half-empty juice and milk boxes, and snack wrappers, and tons of uneaten food. Lord do I feel guilty about the wasted food. Which unfortunately segues into my new achievement in world class bottom feeding.

Does every other mother feel the compulsion I do to lick banana and avocado off the faces and hands of her children? And simplify clean-up by popping rejected cheese chunks into her mouth? Sometimes even going as far as the floor for spewn turkey scraps? Shamelessly drinking out of sippy cups? Letting her diet degenerate to fallen goldfish, thrown cereal puffs, spilled mac n' cheese and the applesauce remains in the little plastic containers?

I guess some of this can be seen as my attempt to keep the landfills just a little emptier by doing my part. But bottom feeding is not an ideal solution to the problem. And the taste of our cheerio/goldfish medley hastily thrown in my mouth instead of walking all the way to the trash will be burned in my palette forever. Perhaps ceasing to view trash as a problem is the solution. Becoming one with trash. Embracing trash. Which unfortunately segues into another trash related rant...

Oprah once did a show on "freegans," people who dumpster dive to stock their fridges and decorate their pads. Lisa Ling reported as she followed people around NYC at night picking through trash bags on the curb for produce as well as suburban professionals mulling through department store dumpsters for furniture and fixtures.

This was supposed to be shocking and unbelievable. Whatever. Dumpster diving was so the 90's for me. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. I learned with the pros where to find the freshest bagel and bakery dumpsters. And yes, I also got into the bad habit of nabbing fresh cookies out of grocery store bins, which I am not proud of - but it was sort of an extension of "freeganism," don't you think?

Anyway, now that I have kids, my version of freeganism has morphed into a much more benign How-To-Turn-Ordinary-Situations-Into-Free-Kiddie-Entertainment. Although we are fortunate enough to have passes to San Diego's awesome family destinations - Sea World, Legoland, the Zoo and Wild Animal Park - why get in the car when you have a Vons 100 yards from your front door? The double-seater fire engine shopping cart does the trick for us. We roll that thing in and out of Vons where we swipe as many free packs of oyster crackers and bakery samples as my diaper bag will hold. Then with G & N steering their little black wheels and honking their squeaky horns, we turn it out on the open parking lot, eventually ending up at the fountain where we have a wildlife encounter of our own feeding our leftovers to the birds.

Since it's all about killing time with kids, we get some good mileage out our complex's fitness center. Every kid loves water dispensers, TV, and running amok. So I let G raid the Sparklett's tank and have taught him to use the treadmill. He does his toddler version of circuit training by prancing uphill, coasting backwards and hopping off the end of the treadmill, skipping to his cup of water, taking a swig, glancing up and laughing at The Simpsons on the overhead flatscreen - and then starting the cycle all over again. Meanwhile Noah and I play with the exercise ball while I snicker under my breath at all the people toiling on the machines, remembering my gym rat days and sighing in relief I instead lift babies all day. Priceless toddler exercise and mommy therapy. Cost: $0.

We often stumble upon some invaluable morning "unexpected entertainment," as my friend so succinctly phrased the phenomenon. (Other forms are watching the mailman and the garbage truck) The gardeners have become big fun for us. They let G help with piling and tarping leaves and branches. G relishes the opportunity to go where he's not supposed to: deep into the heart of the bushes. His inner banshee is unleashed. This can kill an entire 45 minutes if I'm lucky. Enriching toddler exploration in the wild and mommy slack time. Cost: $0.

Then there's the Thomas the Train table at our local kiddie hair cut place. Too bad G's hair is far too adorably curly to officially cut, or I'd actually give the place my business. Instead we go there, I chat it up with the saleslady while G & N meddle with Thomas and Friends, and then we sneak out when she's assisting the stylist to shut up a crying kid in the chair. Motor coordination enhancing train play and shameless mommy "freeganism" thrills. Cost $0.

"You have your period, Mommy?"

2009-01-29T06:29:00.000-08:00

I preface this post with the obvious: I have my period. Always something to celebrate when you're as done having babies as I am, and unfortunately not as fixed as I wanted to be by this point in my life.

Since G is my right hand man, he knows about my period too. How is he not going to know when he's hovering around the toilet every time I sit on it? I've only had 3 since N's birth, so it's a new concept G is catching onto. But he wants to be an intimate part of this ritual, so I've assigned him the job of peeling the sticky backing off my pads. (Get your mind out of the gutter if you envisioned tampon insertion.) But then he also insists on placing them in my undies, which pushes my comfort zone just a bit. OMG, how totally almost completely inappropriate is this?! I mean, how too-much-information could I possibly get? This is the stuff that absolutely gets me off: truth in its raw form. Just tellin' it like it is.

Listen. I figure my husband has stared straight into my expansive cooch birthing two of his sons and still not only loves me, but wants me. Why not start his son early in the loving acceptance of and stomaching of Woman's lot in life. Every time 2 1/2 year-old G curiously peers into the toidy during my period, I internally cringe and want to banish him immediately from the bathroom. But then I think, "Hey, maybe I'm helping to spawn a new generation of men who can deal with this shit. Maybe I'm helping him become a supportive and non-squeamish partner to one lucky future woman. He'll be a rad boyfriend, that's for sure."

If you've read the book The Red Tent, you may know that there was a time when women would anticipate the privilege of bleeding together under the same roof. They sat on nests of hay and listened to stories passed down by the elders, were fed by the non-bleeding women, and obviously didn't lift a damn finger the whole time. Man, wouldn't that be great? It feels so unfair to not only birth two children and be menstruating within 3 months of their deliveries, but to also have to breastfeed while on the rag too? What the hell, man? Aren't I losing enough fluids and draining enough energy? Then add in two pooping butts to tend to and my period is so far on the backburner it isn't funny. I'm just lucky to slip into the shower and give her a soak down once a day. That, and wearing red, are about the best I can do to honor my menses right now.

But both G & N are honoring my period today in the most valuable way a mommy could ever wish to be gifted: with extra long, simultaneous afternoon naps. :)

ahhhhhhhhh

2009-01-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

OMG, don't make a sound, don't breath, don't even think about checking in on him.... Noah's still asleep at 6:13am. He went to bed at 7:30pm last night, and mama hasn't been woken by a single scream since. If that ain't god showin' up just in time, I don't know what is.

Ahhhhhhhhh, the sweet luxury of continuous, unadulterated sleep. Hours at a time of ongoing dreamscapes, so deeply surrounded by non-dreaming sleep that I awake not remembering what I dreamt. Now that's heaven. Usually I'm woken out of so many half-dream states that I have all these incomplete story lines buzzing around my foggy head in the morning. Forget sex - although we actually did it last night (!) - if everyone in the world could have this kind of sleep, world peace would prevail.

So here's to you profiteering pharmaceutical companies: This stubborn anti-establishment-alternative-health brat salutes you in gratitude for your drugs. Thank you for the Amoxicillin that has allowed my son to sleep, thereby restoring his mama to sanity. I'm forever indebted to you.

Now to the important footnote connoted above with the (!) symbol:

(!) After having an interesting form of safe sex last night (I'll keep the details under raps to "protect" my already exposed, very private husband who'd be horrified to know I've ever even mentioned him at all in my blog), I brought up the dreaded birth control issue. We've officially decided that I will go ahead and get my tubes tied or clipped or frozen or melted or whatever they do these days in the name of tubal ligation. We're waiting a couple of months to do it for a few reasons:

1. I'm tired of being tinkered with

2. It'll be easier to recover without having to worry about nursing Noah

3. We're really not having enough activity classified under the title "sex" to warrant doing anything about it at this very moment

That's all for now folks.

Oh, I guess the only other little tidbit I feel like ranting about is that I now understand why those butt-ugly Crocs are so wildly popular: putting on any other kind of kids shoes is nearly impossible. It was hard enough just getting them on a squirmy toddler. Then came having to do it over my pregnant belly. And now it's just worthless trying to cram on spider man tennis shoes when the kid is rarin' to go destroy and my infant is screaming and my diaper bag is falling off my shoulder. I've resisted those fugly Crocs until now, but they're becoming an attractive option to our daily shoe-putting-on fiasco.

Okay, now that's really all folks.

Birth control is pissing me off

2009-01-27T10:37:00.001-08:00

These are my guys, the 3 beautiful men of my life. A fantastic husband and two wonderful new sons to nurture. I think that's enough, don't you? I mean, why not stop while I'm ahead? Why add more diapers to the landfills? But most importantly, why torture myself any further?

Two super healthy, super vibrant little boys... two cases of Postpartum Anxiety. One handsome, successful, guitar-serenading husband... one failed permanent sterilization surgery (!) (we'll talk about that soon). Two pregnancies and two deliveries survived with body and va-jay-jay in tact (an Oprah term that tickles my funny bone)... add those two + two and get the approximate 4 hours of sleep I get before baby wake-ups begin each night.

Shouldn't I be able to turn in my ovaries and leftover eggs to a Retired Reproductive Parts counter somewhere to receive a voucher for unlimited-for-the-rest-of-my-life, birth-control-free sex with my safe, committed, baby papa husband?? I'm 40 for god's sake. I've paid my dues. I spent my first 37 years trying not to get pregnant by enduring blotation from pill hormones, nonstop bleeding from an IUD, itches and irritations from latex, nonoxynol 9, foam, and "the ring." I'm done procreating. I'm supposedly in the years leading to my greatest orgasmic potential. You'd think it's my time to fly, man.

But no. The Costco-sized tacky electric blue box of Trojan-enz under the bed stares at me in mockery each time I look for a tucked away book to whisk me away from reality at bedtime. It tells me birth control is not a done dealio for me yet. It reminds me that I endured an entire Essure permanent sterilization surgery, full anesthesia and all, only to have it fail. Details: (sorry Essure peeps - I'm busting you right now) Essure is supposedly this awesome new non-incisional alternative to tubal ligation. It was a procedure in which tiny nickel coils were implanted in my fallopian tubes to cause scar tissue to grow and occlude the tubes within 3 months. The surgery went great. The 3 months waiting took forever. Then the x-ray contrast dye test showed that not only did my tubes not occlude themselves, but that one of the coils perforated a tube and is floating around somewhere. Lovely.

That was a circuit-breaker for me. It was so disgustingly disappointing, I had to simply turn off any and all internal dialogue about birth control. Which leads to a conundrum. I am a woman, a wife, with a husband, who is supposed to be carrying on some sort of sexual relation. But I don't want to have another baby. I don't want to worry about getting pregnant ever again. I don't feel like having hormones implanted in my arm, going in for a tubal ligation surgery, or using rubbers. The man ain't up for the big V-word. We're still paying all the bills for the failed Essure. So I'm just kinda at a stand still.

No cute wrap-up for this post. No round off, back handspring, double back flip with nailed landing. Just a dull sigh, confused shrug of the shoulders and lame question mark leading to nowhere for now.

get him noah, get him!

2009-01-27T06:08:00.000-08:00

Can I take just one quick sec to bitch and get it out of the way - I promise it'll be short: The 9pm hour is the only time I did not see on the clock last night. Please tell me I'll survive this.

On a much lighter note, what about this hilarious picture of Noah beating up Gabriel?? I LOVE it!!!! Since Gabriel first began hitting Noah - unfortunately within the first few days of his life - I've joked to my friends that I'm beefing Noah up as fast as possible (amazing feat accomplished by these little boobies) so that he can hold his own against tyrant big brother.

WWF here we come.

mad blog/sad blog

2009-01-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

Remember Angelina Jolie all twitchy and gnarkity in Girl Interrupted? Her brilliant portrayal of psychological disturbance beautifully demonstrates my mental discomposure with this whole Noah-waking-in-the-night bull!@#$! I write this post only to vent and not to beg for solutions. I want only a safe place to blow out my seething madness, to somehow make light of its ugliness, mostly to amuse myself by writing something entertaining about it. Anything, anything other than floating around all alone in the stink of my thinking right now.

Because my blog's main therapeutic strategy is to make lemonade out of lemons, I will say one really good thing has come out of my precarious sleep situation: I now value sleep more than food. This is monumental for a foodie of my magnitude. I actually crave good sleep far more than food, and good sleep gives me far more comfort than any sugary, fat-laden food right now. For this I am glad because food's magical qualities wore off a long time ago.

Okay, enough of the smiles n' sunshine, back to the vile anger. I'm so ¡@#$%^&*! pissed right now, I could just, ... I could just, ... oh, I don't know... spit? I would scream, but I've wrecked my throat far too many times in the past doing that. Yes I am super grateful for my two handsome, thriving, happy children, but this nighttime sleepus interuptus shit is pissing me the !@#$%^&*! off. Thank god I have this blog to puke all over in anger and frustration.

So let me indulge myself for just one more (long) paragraph of blechy exclamatives. (Yes, I make up lots of words. It's necessary when you take my compulsive energy and cram it into sentences) I'm so ¡@#$%! pissed that half my night is spent in "twilight" sleep as a friend so succinctly put it: somewhere between sleep and being awake. A sort of limbo faux sleep suspension between Noah's very rude nighttime wakings. A cheap knock off of sleep that leads me just to those weird little incongruous thought patterns of pre-dreaming... and then...WHAM, Noah cries and I'm awake having to wonder what to do this time and then how to get myself back to sleep... and what in the heck was that weird little gnome murmuring to me under the umbrella? Hopefully I can catch that hallucination on the flip side when my heavenly-yet-frustrating thin veil of twilight sleep mercifully takes over again.

((((sigh)))))

this just in.....

N E W S F L A S H

Noah's got an ear infection so I can't be mad at him.

Wait a minute. Was I mad at him or just the sleep situation? Is there a difference? Am I evolved enough to make a distinction between him and his behavior, not taking it out on him but rather being a good, all-loving compassionate mama? Well, sometimes. I ain't no angel. Not even close. I have to admit that in the heat of the heat of the every 20-30 minute cries in the night, I ain't thinkin' sprinkles-with-a-cherry-on-top kinda thoughts about my beloved son.

We went to the doc this morning because he was just SO out of sorts and she somehow maneuvered that ear-o-scope thing into his canals - between him batting pathetically at the sides of his head :( - and saw puss and prescribed antibiotics.

Okay, so now I'm really, really sad for him because he is the sweetest little suffering baby boy around, all pulling at his ears and miserably wanting to be asleep but not being able to. My heart is bleeding for him and wishes the amoxicillin could eradicate it, like, yesterday. Poor poor little baby Noah.

(((sigh)))

Oh the trials and tribulations of being a mommy. The intense guilt for ever feeling angry, frustrated, impatient or being mean. The acute dread, sadness and empathy for their every travail. The fierce pride of each milestone and extreme love with each smile, kiss and hug.

I love Noah so much. So, so much.

I love my sleep and mental health even a little bit more.

Here's to hoping both can coexist peacefully together.

no one got laid

2009-01-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

Since I last posted I've found out that there is actually public interest as to how my optimistic plan for passion restoral went. Let's see. It went like this: my husband got home, we got the boys to bed, we laid on top of the duvet in inverted spoon, facing fetal positions. I twitched to sleep and my husband went out and read the news on his computer.

And that's how it went for the next 2 nights, which brings us to today. Our excuse is that Noah is sick. He is really sick. Feverish and limp like a noodle all day saturday, projectile puking out any and all medication that night, and then brewing up a brutal ear infection that popped this morning = no sleep for mommy and daddy past 3 nights = completely neurotic mommy wanting to shut down the nanosecond they both go to bed to ensure at least a little bit of sleep = you got it: no sex.

sorry to disappoint.

tag team marriage

2009-01-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

Now I fully understand why my all my parents, step-parents, and parents' parents have divorced so many times: They had kids. It's the story older than time, "Where did our passion go?" It went to your kids, that's where. Every magazine loves telling you how to "rekindle" the passion. (please spare me of that word) But every confidential mommy conversation will confirm that we don't give a damn about sex after a baby's been sucking us dry all day nursing, pooping, demanding, whining and crying.

My husband and I have become a tag-team, baton-passing, relay-race, working partnership. "Here, you take this one, I'll take that one." We look at each other in disbelief most of the time as I exhaustedly shove a whining baby on my boob while he tends to an irrational toddler tantrumming about god knows what. How can we possibly survive getting so little of our own needs met by one another? We both crave each others' touch but are usually too spent to do anything about it. After our boys are safely tucked away we usually end up lying on top of our duvet facing each other curled in fetal positions. He puts a hand on my leg. I put a hand on his head. We close our eyes trying to erase the days challenges. And then I immediately start twitching to sleep. He gets up to go read the news on his computer... and night falls on our family.

Even though I may not want sex and am not willing to wear my enticing strappy red salsa dress without underwear like in the beginning, I want my husband to do all the beginning things for me: rub my feet endlessly, bring me flowers daily, stare dreamily into my eyes, leave his blackberry turned off for hours at a time. Without these things I've developed a stubborn ego ache. Three years ago my identity changed from single temptress to married mommy so fast, my ego had no time to downsize itself and adjust to its lack of daily hits. Lately it's an alley cat singing the Billy Holiday blues, "Well, my man, he don't treat me like he used to. He say he love me, but he don't bring me flowers no mo'." My achy, breaky ego shows up in my dreams at night, spinning tales of old boyfriends wooing me and handsome strangers sweeping me off my feet on the dance floor. It so bad wants to feel the rush of our courtship again - to be reminded that I am still that woman that he wanted so bad. I know I am not nearly the first wife to feel this, nor will I be the last. It's the stuff that keeps romance novels selling and advice columns thriving.

But then (thank god) to save me from myself comes a crystalline moment of family bliss, so pure, so strong that it banishes all this nonsense into vapor. The other morning the boys and I were reading in our newly fashioned "clubhouse" - Gabriel's walk-in closet decked from floor to ceiling in cozy blankets, pillows and stuffed animals - when daddy paid us a surprise visit. He's usually snoozing away and our clubhouse reading is my way to keep us all quiet to let Daddy get his zzzzz's. So all four of us snuggled up cozily and read books and I had a brilliant aha moment: Rachel, dear girl, you have a loving, healthy family. All of this sacrifice might become worth it. The scales might, just might begin to tip in your favor so that the enjoyment of one another outweighs the hard labor. The bliss I felt was so creamy rich. Time stopped for a moment while I internally sighed in happiness and loved my husband and boys like crazy. We warmed up the cubby with our loving embraces, me holding Gabriel and daddy holding Noah, and I felt whole as a woman, mother and wife.

Two minutes later my husband picked up his crackberry and whooshed into provider/worker/corporate slave mode that lasted until that night's inverted-spoon, twitching-to-sleep scenario. But I love this man, my husband man. I love him for all he does for us and all his quirks, I really do. As I type this he is away on a business trip, working hard for us, and I'm reading the book for women only ~ what you need to know about the inner lives of men. It's telling me in no uncertain terms that I need to give it up to my husband or else. So I'm psyching myself to stay awake tonight for him when he arrives home. Easy for me to say now in the morning. But come nighttime, it will be a sacrifice of some tempting pillow time. But my man, he deserves a little something more than just living kids as evidence of his wife's duties completed. Maybe the boys and I will swing by Victoria's Secret on our way home from Playwerx today and they can help me pick out some spicy new lingerie to motivate me for daddy tonight.

I'll let you know how it goes....

mommy flake factor

2009-01-22T14:37:00.000-08:00

I've become flaky. I never thought this could happen to me. I have always been chronically early, overly remembering, mega-methodical, obsessively organized - and judging others negatively who were not. Now I can't remember a damn thing. I can literally put a library return on top of my keys and somehow forget it on the way out the door. Somehow, I say. Hmmm, let's replay the getting-out-the-door-with-two-little-boys scenario: Sling gaping diaper bag over shoulder while holding baby and simultaneously wiping two pouring noses, getting two pairs of shoes on, stopping one child from eating playdough and the other from throwing heavy objects off the porch, and running back inside to grab hats, sunscreen and cell phone I've already forgotten. Oh, and when I bent over to do one of the aforementioned tasks, my bag of course spilled out half its hastily-packed contents, so now I must swat away four greedy, grabbing paws. On second thought, no wonder I forgot the damn DVD.

I often describe having two children this young as circuit blowing. The demands come in such urgent gushes, requiring such superheroic response that even this well seasoned multi-tasker falls short. So something's gotta give. And it does. Memory, vocabulary, urinary continence (just kidding). Words, any word that I need to use in a sentence... gone. "Gabriel, stop hitting that um , that, um, that..." God, I can't even remember what word I forgot. Lateness becomes the new early and organization is out the door. Who can possibly be on time when waiting for a napping baby to wake up who took 20 minutes of rocking and screaming to get to sleep? Who can possibly commit to which pocket, drawer or cabinet to put what in when a toddler is constantly grabbing it out and throwing it into the bushes or subwoofer anyway? And who can possibly get birthday and holiday gifts out to even their dearest of friends and family when teething, time changes and flu bugs keep coming at us. I can't even get it together to push a button and send a free eCard, that's how lame I am these days.

However, on the bright side, I've acquired skills I never knew existed. I've become brilliant at packing a multitude of finger foods into very small tupperware containers, at stocking my diaper bag with enough of both size diapers that I don't have to bum one off a stranger at the playground, at whipping out the kleenex and swabbing noses before a little hand smears it all over, and at making really good animal sounds when reading about Farmer Jones and Farmer Brown. Thankfully these skills have become far more important to me than my former ability to get all library materials returned on time.

When daddy's away the mice will play

2009-01-21T15:05:00.000-08:00

I used to be petrified when my husband told me he was going out of town. How will I ever survive the kids at night all alone?? Now I rejoice - I don't have to cook dinner! Yippppeeee! It is nearly impossible to do so with two whiners grabbing at my legs, reaching for the stove knobs and putting everything in their mouths that I've hastily dropped on the floor in the name of rushed food prep. I've explained this to him and he's totally cool with my not cooking. But when he's in town I feel a decidedly wifely obligation to provide him with something relatively home cooked after a long, grueling day out in the jungle.

All this to say: the boys and I are free to do whatever we damn well please tonight and tomorrow night and the next night. They don't eat a proper "meal" anyway, but rather snack, smoosh, throw and play with their food, so why not take them out and mess up someone else's floor and give myself a well-deserved break from swabbing down the deck for 20 minutes after dinnertime.

I'll probably let them do a couple of other "illegal" things too, like run around screaming in the morning when chronic-night-owl, non-morning-person daddy is usually trying to sleep. Oh and shhhhhhh, don't say a word... I'll let them jump on the couch, eat sand at the beach, pull the toilet paper roll, and take out and clank every single pot and pan. Why fight the machine? I've got much more pressing issues to tackle like keeping them from killing each other and sticking forks into outlets. Not to mention the endless snot-wiping, nail-trimming, nappy-hair-comb-outs and diaper-duties.

So we're cool with you outta town travelin' daddy. We can't wait 'til you're home safe and sound with us again, eating Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream and reading bedtime books. Until then, mommy's off dinner duty :)

01.20.09 ~ Monumental Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T14:37:00.000-08:00

I cried this morning watching officers salute Barack Obama walking through the hallway to the Inaugural podium. This is an enormously meaningful event for me because my sons will grow up in a new era, never having to know the prejudice or discrimination they may have experienced had they been born in my birth year of 1968. Like Barack Obama, my sons have a white mother and a black father. Today they are inaugurated into a brand new United States where they can call themselves americans not african americans.

For a formerly self-admitted political ignorant, it is huge that I not only watched all the debates, but actually fought tooth and nail through baby defiance to do so. Noah was a newborn and his witching hour landed splat during the pinnacle of every debate, so I had to bounce him outside the living room door on our porch, straining to hear anything the candidates said over his screams. But I got to watch come hell or high water. Noah was a bit older and more well adjusted to the planet by the time the McCain debates came along, so it was much easier to make out the speaking points. Not that it really mattered to me all that much. Admittedly due to my political ignorance on the issues, I was much more aware of each candidate's facial expressions and body language than the content of their dialogue. So by performing my well-practiced multi-tasking skills I could intermittently glimpse the debate and distract two boys just fine. By the time election night came, both boys were peacefully asleep, so Charles and I got the pleasure of snuggling up on the floor in front of the TV when Obama's victory was announced.

Today the boys and I snuck out of the apartment early to our complex' fitness center while daddy was sleeping and watched the initial live coverage of motorcades parading and people flooding the National Mall. When we came home to wake up daddy for the main event, he was already dancing around the living room in his underwear with a sparkle in his eye I will never forget. Nothing, and I mean nothing gets that man out of bed early. But Barack Obama's Inauguration did! We actually got to watch the whole thing together as a family. Gabriel made it all the way until about 7 minutes into Obama's speech, at which point he chose Miss Spider's Bug a Boo Day DVD over the coverage. Noah made it a couple more minutes before he went down for his first easy-to-put-down, long-lasting nap in an exhausting week of illness and shitty, wakeful sleep. Guess he needed a little zzzzzz time to process the magnitude of today's events. :))

another disgusting poo blog

2009-01-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

On a non-offensive-to-the-senses note before I descend into the disgusting part... these are the boyz in the crib. Aren't they cute? We had a way too early morning call today which gave me the chance to read and reread just about every single book we own, organize and reorganize our bounty of new giraffe-sized and zebra-sized diapers from Costco, as well as field two really big poos from the boys, and surprisingly, two from me. Which brings me to the disgusting part...

How did I do personal hygiene before baby wipes came into my life? The thought of not using them for my own post-poo wiping is really gross to me now that they pretty much take the place of a shower 1/2 of the time. How could I have ever thought a coupla swipes with regular ole' big people toilet paper actually did the job? I know the truth now, and the truth is that there is still just enough residual crap left behind after a pass or two of dry toilet paper to warrant not just one, but a few more swipes with baby wipes to get the job totally done.

Alrighty then, is that disgusting enough for you? I may sound obsessed with poo between this post and the never poop alone one...because I am. How could I not be? Poo is my world with the diapering of an infant and toddler. Colors, consistencies, sizes, smells and guesses at its contents have become fodder for conversation between me and Gabriel as we deal with his, mine and little Noah's poops.

Which brings me to my idea for the first official event of the Mommy Olympics, should they ever be invented - Poopy Diaper Changing - the goal: effectively removing all offensive poop debri with as few baby wipes as possible. Using only one wipe at a time the competitive mommy would have to get a smashed up poop entirely off the baby's ass without getting any shit on her hands, letting the baby touch the poo or dip its heels into it. Ideally we'd see expert mommies come out of the woodwork tackling this feat with less than 3 wipes, as I've found that is my absolute minimum for a really messy poo.

Sorry so icky, but don't say I didn't warn you. :)

Singing Lexapro's praises

2009-01-16T14:53:00.001-08:00

I read a fascinating article after the Tsunami about many of the native animals who'd run up high in the mountains, far from the flood's devastation. They innately felt the storm coming and ran for higher ground. Amazing.

My children sensed my Postpartum Anxiety-fueled storms coming and unfortunately had no way to escape. Like the hard-to-identify, low-grade eating/exercise disorder I suffered with for 17 years, my Postpartum Anxiety was tricky to name and treat. But make no mistake, it was there. The severe insomnia, heart palpitations, obsessively racing mind (non-stop "monkey brain" as my doctor coined it), unfounded fears and intense anger became unbearable. Its onset was immediate after the birth of my first son, but gradual with my second. I scared my children, my husband and myself. I got worked up at the slightest challenge in the day, which is every moment when in the first months of raising two under two. (phrase coined by babybunching.com - so satisfyingly succint)

The truest truism of motherhood: "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy," (mamazine.com's tagline - so well put I could just cry.) I fought tooth and nail against going on SSRI's (dun dun dun dunnn..... antidepressants) the first time around, only to delay my sanity 'til 3 1/2 months into motherhood. It took even longer the second time because I was fine when Noah was first born - but crazy by the time he was 5/6 months. When I finally sought help from my primary care doc to get me back on antidepressants, I realized I had to set aside my idiotic ego and do it for my sons, if not for me. It wasn't fair to subject them to the intensity and unpredictability of my rage and fatigue.

With my first bout of Postpartum Anxiety I took Paxil. It worked, but was really hard getting on and off, leaving me definite I'd never do that again. This time around my doc suggested Lexapro. It was super duper easy and gentle to start. I've been on for about 2 1/2 months now and all my symptoms are gone. The two most important benefits: I can sleep, and I can cope much, much better with the daily challenges of the first year with my infant and toddler.

My boys need their mommy, and they really need her to be happy. And I am. I am enjoying them so much more. Gabriel my toddler took the brunt of my anger, never knowing what to expect when I'd come get him in the morning after literally one hour of sleep, or after nap time when I'd struggled with Noah for hours trying unsuccessfully to get him down. (at that point he wouldn't go down because I was so freaked out) Now Gabriel spontaneously tells me, "I'm happy," and "I'm having fun." My heart melts. I praise Lexapro.

Postpartum Anxiety is to Postpartum Depression as an exercise disorder is to an eating disorder: it is not as well acknowledged, understood or diagnosed. Many mothers think if they're not lying on the couch wanting to kill themselves or their child, then nothing is really wrong. However, as soon as I began opening my mouth about my anxiety, many mothers came forward relating their similar experiences. Please, if you or anyone you know or anyone they know suffers with postpartum anxiety, urge them to get treatment. It is rampant, it is real and it deserves immediate medical attention. It profoundly effects the health and environment of the entire family.

I am a bohemian-at-heart, earth-crunch-granola girl by nature, anti-establishment brat. But when it comes to illness affecting the quality of mine and my family's health... Lexapro, take me away!

Gabriel and the ladder of many rungs

2009-01-16T14:28:00.000-08:00

Last week I got to experience an incredible demonstration of the innate human drive to triumph. Gabriel decided he wanted to try climbing up the hardest ladder on our apartment complex' play structure - one he'd only unsuccessfully tried in the past. This time he had a few more months worth of growth in him and was able to get to about the second rung before he got miserably irritated, whimpering, "Mommy, mommy, MOMMY!" I gently coached from my spot perched at the top, coaxing him to try again. The next time he got one rung higher before tears of anger and frustration rolled down his face and the desperate "Mommy, mommy, MOMMY!" whining started. I persuaded him to try again and this time he struggled and moaned and complained and probably farted too, out of sheer exertion... and he did it.

When he stood up safely on board the structure, staring wide-eyed and speechless into my eyes, I could have died and gone to heaven - I was so honored to be there for him, witnessing and validating his achievement. But good thing I didn't because I would have missed the next best part as he excitedly did it over and over again, mastering his new skill. How totally cool. We're wired from the start to try and try again until we succeed. Such vital energy. Such life force. Such joi d'vie.

diaper bag drama

2009-01-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

This is my diaper bag. It is a stylish bag and a noble bag. As you can plainly see, it is struggling to stay in one piece. Its days are long, but it rests well at night knowing it has succeeded in a job well done keeping my shit together.

There is no way in hell one diaper bag could ever, ever be big enough to deal with the load that must be carried by a mother of two boys in diapers. My diaper bag is huge and it still can't come close to gracefully fitting everything I need for a simple 2 hour outing. How could any bag possibly fit diapers, wipes, changing pads, changes of clothing, burp clothes, tissues, hats, Cheerios, applesauce, grapes, crackers, bibs, bottles, sippies, and spoons. Plus just a couple basic toiletries for mommy like a backup tampon and a Burt's Bees lip balm. Can't even think about fitting in my past-life favs like lavender facial mist, two shades of mac lipstick, nail file, business cards, cute glasses, iPod, day timer and a pen. Aside from not fitting physically, Gabriel would try drinking the mist and eating the lipstick, Noah would chew the nail file and rip the cards to shreds, Gabriel would throw and break both the glasses and iPod instantaneously, the day timer would be history and the pen would be all over both their faces.

Every morning I beg the sides of my diaper bag to please expand big enough to shove in all the crap I need for a morning at the playground. It doesn't budge, already pissed off about the forthcoming beating it will take when Gabriel begins mercilessly grabbing at it's every pocket for hidden treasures (read: food) and Noah begins gnawing on it's buckle, sending drool rolling down it's strap. It ain't glamorous, the life of a diaper bag. But it is a life well spent. A life of duty and a life of honor - toting my shit. Thank you diaper bag. I love you.

Noah's avocado facial

2009-01-14T14:27:00.000-08:00

A million years ago when I was a massage therapist in LA, I worked at the high end Aqua Day Spa in Santa Monica where we had to do stupid and overpriced "treatments" like Cucumber & Milk Body Washes, Spirulina Mud Wraps, and Honey Scrubs. They were the most worthless and messy jokes-of-an-indulgence ever. I felt ridiculous pouring milk over someone lying on a sheet of plastic covered in cucumber guts, creating a standing swamp around them. The whole food-based body treatments thing just seemed like a big scam, but they continue to be an expensive staple on exclusive spa menus.

Don't believe the hype! You need look no further than our humble kitchen to get in on the fiercest new innovator of food-based facials around: Noah Philippe and his Fantastic Avocado Facial for Younger Looking Skin. Simple: just smear avocado all over face. Then smear some more, and some more. And then rub eyes (due to sleepiness) to make sure you get the mandatory eyelid area. Then grab ears (due to teething) and get the hairline. Make sure to wipe nose (due to snot) for a nostril touch up and...voila! You're lookin' and feelin' a million bucks. :)

It's the end of my vanity as I know it, and I feel fine

2009-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

I've proudly invented a new extreme sport called Speed Grooming. It takes place only in the homes of the pressed-for-alone-time mother who prioritizes a damn shower before eating, reading, watching TV, surfing the net, talking on the phone, and laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. Speed Grooming entails wetting, scrubbing and drying as many surfaces of your body as possible in the blink of an eye while still on mommy detail, but between mommy duties. When I get the >5 minute slot appear in my schedule - that heavenly flicker of peace when I've successfully gotten Noah down for his morning nap and Gabriel is still semi-content watching Cars or Chicken Run or monster trucks on youtube - I run straight to the bathroom. This window of opportunity for Speed Grooming is brief, because Gabriel will soon become discontent with what he's watching and signal his need for immediate assistance by letting out a demanding yell just loud enough to possibly wake the baby. (((!)))

So, fast and furious to the bathroom I run where first things are first: I offer myself a solo go at the toilet while I'm of course warming up the shower. Multi-tasking is even more imperative now than ever. Into the shower. Priorities in case of premature shower sabotage: underarms and crotch. Next is a quick facial scrub, then an even quicker shampoo and if I still have unencumbered shower time I go all the way and indulge in a full body once over with the scrubby gloves. Ahhhh... sweet indulgence. But no time to waste. Out of the shower. A slap of facial SPF, quick slather of body lotion, a quicker comb through the hair, drag the undies and bra over still-damp skin, race to the dresser drawers for a hopefully matching outfit and out to the living room to abate Gabriel's now non-ignorable calls for attention.

Gone are the days of perusing through my variety of mac lipstick tubes or running some yummy smelling product through my hair. Forget it. Ain't even worth the effort at this point. I've got hats, hair bands and cheap Goodie hair clips to deal with my non-styled do. If you see these on me, it's strictly business. I end up drinking from my son's sippy cup all day, so I surely don't want lipstick stains added to my already overloaded dish duty.

I distinctly remember a lively pre-marriage dinner conversation with all my super y single friends. We were out at our favorite mexican restaurant celebrating my move from singledom in LA to shacking up in San Diego with my soon-to-be-husband. They were all grilling me as to whether I'd be having children. But the subtext of the question was, "Are you really going to leave us and turn in your cuteness to become an unkempt, unstylish, unsexy mommy?" Every time I now leave the house without so much as having seen my reflection in the mirror, I think of one of my friend's face as she snarled her lip and raised her eyebrow and said she never wants to have kids because she never wants to be that mother who wears formless sweats and keeps her hair in a ponytail. Well let me tell you, I now understand why mommies do so. If I'm going to have my every shirt and pant immediately smeared in snot and food, am I really going to pull out all the stops and wear my y bright red salsa dancing dress to the playground? And if my hair and ears are going to be pulled, am I really going to bother scrunching, styling and adorning with jewels? So, yes, I've pretty much adopted the mommy uniform. One day I was feeling kinda feisty and decided to wear an outfit from my other life (eons ago) and that was the day Noah decided to spit up 7, count them seven times, on my green velvet low-riders and Cirque du Soliel frock. So now I'm super happy with a monochromatic Costco or Marika parking lot sale outfit. Pants: $8. Shirt $8. Why shop anywhere else?

But obviously I am still totally vein (why else even try with hats and goody clips?) , just not as vein as I used to be. And thank god because seeing my boys thrive is so much more fulfilling than being really cute. Well, at least as fulfilling as being really cute. :))

org and re-org

2009-01-12T14:31:00.000-08:00

This having babies business really meets my need for the feeling of accomplishment that comes with endlessly organizing miscellaneous things that can never ever be fully organized and are perpetually in a state of needing reorganized. Having two baby boys means I get the nonstop opportunity to hone my mess-moving skills. Here's me in deep thought with scrunched brow, eyeing the kitchen or bedroom or laundry room or bathroom situation : "Okay, what would happen if I moved this mess over there, and move that mess over there so I can clear a space for a new mess to be made right here." Add into the situation our family's weekly expedition to Costco and mama's got a full-time job stocking, restocking, inventorying stock, subbing back-up stock, and managing overstock mayhem.

A large part of this org/re-org cycle is cleaning. Endless cleaning. The amount of poop, pee, spit up, drool, cementified pasty cereal sludge, smashed-into-the-carpet oatmeal and avocados, shredded chicken and fish, and liquified crackers and applesauce I deal in is astounding. You'd think with the daily demand to do piles of dishes, swab up messy floors, and wipe down disgusting surfaces I'd have become a spic n' span expert by now. But no. My cleaning remains pathetic at best. It's really just another case of push-the-mess-somewhere-else-for-later so that I can stop my toddler from teetering on his step stool to pull a knife from the counter while my infant crawls with vigor under the table to eat some who-knows-how-old, unidentifiable crusty lump.

Reorganizing kids' clothing drawers is an exercise in futility second only to trying to keep sand out of a baby's mouth at the beach. Both my little guys find pulling clothing out of drawers supremely entertaining, mine included. I've found extraneous pairs of my panties floating around in their pajama drawers, and everywhere else in the house for that matter. Plus, I'm always in such a mad frenzy to get clothing on to one child while the other is either screaming bloody murder or about to endanger his life somehow, that I've no time to keep sorted drawer piles in tact. They're both growing out of sizes at light speed anyway - making an eventual reorg overhaul imminent - so what's the use in attempting drawer tidiness now?

But when it comes down to it, the truth of the matter is that I've become addicted to this reorganization cycle. I find it annoyingly satisfying. When I'm exhausted and burnt out from one mess I find myself looking around expectantly to see if there is more to do. It feels exhilarating to have it all momentarily "done" - as if that exists. A not-so-tiny part of me thrives on the accomplishment of a reorg well done. So in this light, I guess I've never had it so good. My reorg addict is permanently in business at least for the next 17 years or so. Good news for this junkie.

Never poop alone again

2009-01-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

I was reading the title of an article on the cover of a La Leche League magazine promoting the family bed (co-sleeping) called "Who wants to sleep alone?" I thought very loudly to myself, "I do! That's who! I want my very own entire night's uninterrupted sleep, thank you very much."

Now a much more pertinent question in my world is, "Who wants to ever have to poop alone again?" Why ... when you can have two brilliant little boyz buzzing around the toidy bowl while you plop away? And if you do want to poop alone again, don't be going around having babies because you will soon experience the non-optional family toilet, as opposed to choosing the family bed or not. And grotesquely enough, I like it this way. I honestly don't mind my infant yanking the toilet paper roll while my toddler hovers next to the flusher waiting for my cue:

"Okay Gabriel, wait until I'm finished. Wait, wait WAIT!!! Don't flush until I'm all done! I'm still pooping. ... Okay... all done. You can flush now."

Just thought I'd share a little slice of our morning routine.

ban boring baby books, dammit!

2009-01-11T05:55:00.000-08:00

OMG, if I have to read another round of "meeska mooska mickey mouse let's go to my clubhouse," I am going to end up crouched in the corner of a mental ward vacantly babbling "cheers we've got ears!" and "hot dog!" as I rock myself and stare off into space.

Why do so many children's board books bore me to tears? I'm supposed to use that enthusiastic mommy reading voice that intonates up at the end of each sentence when reading about such stimulating things as farm animals, front end loaders, and potties. Actually I don't mind the potty stuff due to my underground interest in all things poop.

Speaking of farm animals... Last Christmas I went to a free Santa photo shoot at our local public library where they generously gave out beautiful brand new books as gifts to the kiddies. They handed us a wonderful thick edition of Golden Tales' Farm Tales - something like 20 stories in one. What a gold mine, I erroneously thought. A year-and-a-half later I find myself neighing, baaing, honking, mooing, quacking, woofing, meowing and cockadoodledooing about a thousand times too many every single morning as we take our obligatory tour through Farmer Jones' & Farmer Brown's farmyards over and over again. Oy fuckin' vey!

I've flat out refused to re-read Smudge anymore, the on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller about a dog who notices it's raining outside so he goes inside. And then it stops raining, so he goes outside again. Enticing story line. How does this shit get published? Every time I had to read Smudge I thought to myself, "Man, who the hell writes this crap anyway? Anything can get published as a kids book. I spent a year-and-a-half of blood, sweat, and tears and went into a grave amount of debt getting my brilliant book inspiring women to love their bodies published only to have it fail... while some simpleton writes a couple of paragraphs about a dog going inside and outside and it actually winds up on my shelf."

Oh, and Curious George? Don't even get me started. Catatonia. Pure catatonia.

Okay, so ending on a gracious note, I do love reading to my sons and there are actually two totally cool books I like reading the most: Zen Shorts and The Three Questions. Both ironically deal with the eternal virtues of simply being present and of service to the one you're with. Which in my case boils down to getting real happy re-reading Smudge, Curious George and The Animals of Farmer Jones, 'cuz all that really matters is that my beautiful sons are in my lap, soft hands resting on my forearms, sweet eyes fixed on the page, ears tuned in to mommy... and I feel warm and whole and loved.

mean blog

2009-01-09T19:08:00.001-08:00

This is a mean blog. I apologize in advance to the weak at heart. If you feel up to the task, hear me out anyway. It's all in good fun, for my own guilty under my breath snarfy chuckles.

Unless I know and love you, I don't care how old your child is.

Just because I had babies doesn't mean I'm automatically interested in other people's kids. Giving birth did not magically turn me from a self-involved exhibitionist into a baby and/or child lover. Except for mine of course -I love them to death and am infinitely fascinated by their every mundane development. But that interest does not unfortunately carry over to every other miscellaneous child I encounter daily. And let me tell you, I encounter tons of them since that's what I do all day every day- be with my kids where other all-day-every-day-with-their-kids-mommies are. You know, the usual suspects: the grocery store, the park, the zoo, the library... the grocery store, the park, the zoo, the library.

It's the retarded default question that every catatonically bored parent pushing their kid on the swing next to mine or waiting in line at Vons always asks me: How old is he? I know it is a politehood, and I always answer back politely. But the fact is that I never re-gift the question because quite frankly I just don't care how old their child is. It doesn't interest me in the slightest. I'm sorry. I apologize for this socially incorrect truth, this blasphemy of motherhood, this overtly rude confession. But motherhood has not instantaneously transformed me into a child-o-phile. I don't coo at every passing baby and child. (okay, some of them...the teeny tiny itty bitty newborns do interest me a little, just because of the sheer tininess of them) I don't wonder what developmental milestones every random child in my path has hit. I don't suffer any burning curiosity to know what foods your child likes and dislikes, what stage or non-stage of potty training they're at, what you'll do or not do for your child's next birthday or when they nap or don't nap. And I certainly don't think every baby and kid is cute. Not even close.

So please, unless you really do care and are genuinely curious... you don't have to ask me my child's age just to make small talk in a boring situation. I'm fine with just glancing at each other's kids with an obligatory (perhaps forced) weak grin - without comment - and moving on to our next parental task like wiping down a gushing snotty nose or finding a thrown off shoe or ripping away the stolen snickers bar from my cleptomanic-in-training's greedy little paws in the grocery line.

Tantrumming toddler asked for a hug

2009-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Wow, I feel like I might possibly be able to begin thinking of myself as sort of a good mommy. Is this not the single biggest insecurity of every parent alive: Am I a bad parent? Am I doing this right or failing miserably?

A few dozen tantrums ago I asked Gabriel if he needed a hug during the height of his insanity. This generous action was inspired by a suggestion from a babycenter.com article on toddler discipline I was desperately reading in response to my current job description. He said "yes," I gave him one, and voila, tantrum aborted. I was shocked and amazed. So I asked him to please tell me if he needed a hug again. A few dozen un-aborted garden variety tantrums transpired over the next couple of weeks... until today. He didn't want to leave Vons for some unknown reason and was throwing a good ole' hizzy as I relatively calmly guided us towards home.

And then he did it.

"Hug," he asked quietly, stopping himself in his mighty crazy tracks.

"You want a hug?" I asked in beautiful disbelief.

"Yes," he answered.

"I would love to give you a hug," I graciously replied as I kneeled down in a rare and crystallized moment of parental satisfaction and bear-hugged the crap out of him. We then walked the rest of the way home peacefully and quietly.

Love oozed out of my every pore. Love for him for being able to recognize and articulate a need and get it met . And most importantly some much needed self love for witnessing a mommy job well done. A loving pat on my back for maybe, just maybe, being an effective parent.

(((sigh)))

Now, if he could just abort his impulse to dump his loads in his diapers and instead actually say "potty" before he lies and says "I'm pooping." Which translates to "I already pooped in my diaper and am now going to terrorize you by running away zig-zaggedly as fast as possible so that you feel like a total idiot chasing me and my poopy ass." :)

new year...new poop?

2009-01-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, I really don't have much to say about the new year except that the pooping situation in this household has got to change. Let's see...where to start? Hmmm... I guess life becomes a little bit unmanageable when your husband feels he must go down to the apartment complex pool bathrooms to take a dump, mommi has had to squat outside in the highly manicured bushes to unload in the dark at 5am, toddler G has so outgrown his maximally sized 6 diapers with his un-potty trained, maximally sized pee and poo that the soiled clothing, blankets & sheets overload the laundry basket on a daily basis...add into that lil' baby noah's contribution and i just can't even get the dirty diapers out of the house fast enough to prevent severe stinky trash build up.

whew, feels good to just tell it like it is.

you see, the placement of noah's crib in our 2-bedroom-apartment kitchen-to-bathroom hallway laundry nook (as opposed to in gabriel's room where they will wake each other up at this point in teething/time-changing/cold & flu time) has rendered both of our potties off-limits during sleeping hours. which quite frankly, sucks the big one. momma's gotta do her pooping when she's gotta do it. which most often comes between 5 & 6 am ( i know: obscenely early), which also coincides with noah's overly-awake too-early-in-the-morning wakings --- and since the toidy literally borders the door next to the head of his crib --- i either have to hamper any sound coming from my end (impossible...and pun intended), hold it for a long time (not a comfortable option), or find an alternate dumping ground.

(((sigh))) lord.

daddy won't even do this juggle. he gets his keys & his crackberry & heads straight for the pool bathrooms. it's his new sanctuary. his home away from home.

gabriel on the other hand has no problem dropping a load right in front of us in his diaper --- fully aware he's doing it, alerting us in proper english "i'm pooping", yet entirely unwilling to sit his ass down on the super cool baby bjorn potty seat with mommy in tow reading his favorite mind-numbingly boring mickey mouse book.

(((sigh))) lordy.

anyway, other than poop issues, the new year sees our family healthy, growing & looking forward to ever-increasing love between each other.

the short blissful dumpster walk

2008-12-30T06:15:00.000-08:00

these days i find myself slightly amused instead of suicidal about the never-ever ending trash production (read: diaper central) coming out of our lil' apartment: it means mommi gets to take the short blissful walk alone to the dumpster. ahhhhhhh such sweet serenity. a mere sliver of my former-life's daily hours-long jaunts along venice beach's crazy boardwalk, yet the 100 yards walking alone to our dumpster seems to help mommi get just a bit, a teeny tiny bit, of groove back into her step. so don't tell anyone that i actually like when the recycles demand i make multiple trips. it's just that good to step on out by myself.

daddy rocks!

2008-12-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

Here's daddy doing his circus trick with Noah and giving him his first piano lesson. He just bought a gorgeous new flamenco guitar and a keyboard and has been composing really beautiful music. I get serenaded regularly at bedtime, which lulls me into a very peaceful sleep.

cute hat mom

2008-12-29T06:31:00.000-08:00

I credit knitting with re-turning on my ability to creatively express myself beyond picking which book to read Gabriel as he sits on the potty not pooping. Here I am actually looking kinda cute. Little do you know my latest hat knitting frenzy was instigated solely as an attempt to hide my really bad mom hair. Most of it is gone from postpartum fall out. The rest of it is coming back in in scraggly little grey sprouts. Yikes! :)

In praise of Cheerios

2008-12-29T06:24:00.000-08:00

Cheerios truly are a mom's best friend as far as I'm concerned. I mean, Noah likes them as much as hummus, but look at what a mess hummus makes. Aaaaaaack. Cheerios would never, ever assault a mommie's need for cleanliness and order like this hummus did!

this is noah

2008-12-28T06:52:00.000-08:00

my sweet lil' one who I love like crazy despite excessive spitting up on my left sleeve usually, snot without borders and unwelcomed early morning wakings

this is gabriel

2008-12-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

He is my 2 1/2 year old boy toy. I love him like crazy, insanity, inappropriate pooping and peeing and whining and tantruming and all.