A word from my struggling ego

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...

... 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

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

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

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?

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

(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

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

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!

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

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

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.