A while ago (I use that phrase like one uses a scarf for fashion) Maureen put up a post that started something like this: “Dear New Moms Everywhere – where do we go when we die?”
I immediately thought, Oh! I know just what she’s talking about! How we have these children and it’s like our former selves have just died!
Wrong, and I should have paid attention to my reaction. Continue reading
Man. Being an adult is so fucking stupid sometimes. Bills. Slowing metabolism. Age-appropriate clothes. Hangovers. Not going to that show you wanted to go to because you got drunk 2 nights ago and now you’re tiiiiiiired. Yard work. All of that shit? SO DUMB. And when you’re a parent? Shit is even WORSE because you are expected to SET AN EXAMPLE. So that means you can’t punch that dude in the face who won’t shut up about his kid’s affinity for learning Japanese and love of organic kale chips. And you can’t call that woman a “fucking twatwaffle” at the top of your lungs just because you hate the way she runs that committee on the PTA (please note that EVERY SINGLE PERSON I’ve met on the PTA at my kid’s school has been VERY NICE and these are just EXAMPLES of what COULD BE.) Continue reading
I’m getting my angry liberal/feminist on. If you think that might offend you, you’ve been warned. I also curse. A lot.
I think I’m fairly even-tempered. I don’t fight, I don’t get in yelling matches, I don’t break random objects in a fit of rage. When someone makes me upset, I try to tell them. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just ignore them. I believe in the anger management philosophy of walking away and settling down.
But that’s not cutting it right now. Today my anger has reached critical mass and is about to take everything out. I want to scream and then hulksmash everything. Once my deep, cold reserve of anger is tapped, get out of my way before I take it out on you.
Why so angry? Why today? Everything has just been building and now here I am. And, you know what? You should be really angry, too. We should all be spitting nails and blowing gaskets and losing our cool.
Random musings on the books in my life
I’ve mentioned I had an…untraditional childhood. We were Jesus people. Hardcore believers. When you’re on the edges of the fundamentalist Christian movement, you don’t allow secular entertainment in your home. Our music was Christian, our movies, our tv shows and our books were carefully monitored to block the path of Satan into our hearts. It wasn’t an issue most of the time, and most of what we were allowed to do was just good, wholesome kid stuff. Little House On The Prairie was big, The Chronicles of Narnia, of course, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgeson Burnett, L.M. Montgomery. These were my love and my escape.
We left the church after my 5th grade year. I started middle school and began to wade into the pool of secularism. I was 11 or 12, and naive as hell. I don’t remember each specific step out of the world of Jesus. It was a gradual thing, coinciding with a new school and puberty. Lots of changes were happening and the details have faded. Except my first horror novel, The Shining by Stephen King.
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Dear Moms at the bar,
I want to apologize for all of the times I’ve rolled my eyes and snarked in your direction. For the times I’ve complained not quietly about your exuberance. For the times I’ve muttered for you all to grow the fuck up and act like you’ve left your house before. For the words said and implied, the haikus written, the faces made – I apologize deeply and sincerely.
There were times in my life when I went out drinking frequently. I had favorite bars, drinking buddies, high tolerance and disposable income. I’d go out and there’d be a mom group at the bar and I’d sigh in disgust that they were THE WORST. I’d make sure to sit far away from them, hoping they’d be ignorable.
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Another great post from Melissa. I don’t know how she does it.
My daughter’s favorite song is “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. And Macklemore & Lewis “Thrift Store” and “Can’t Hold Us” are close behind. She’s two. Epic. Parenting. Fail.
I have a lot of parenting fails throughout a day. The amount of TV we watch. That I will give her a cookies as a snack. That she knows how to shoot the Nerf gun with amazing accuracy (my poor dog). Sometimes, we don’t even make it out of pajamas until after her nap. At 3pm. And only because my husband is coming home and he will not be pleased. That she can use the camera on my phone without ever unlocking it. The documentation of her life should be a coffee table book.
She has some awesome moments, too. When she and her brother hug and snuggle and they read stories together. When she squeals with delight about going to the library. We won’t discuss the behavior when she’s there. How patient she is as we go grocery shopping. That she is learning her letters already and will point out E’s and O’s everywhere. When she burps or farts, which she does amazingly well, she always giggles and says, “‘Cuse me!”
I am a fanatical college football fan. I have had a subscription to Sports Illustrated since I was in high school. I LOVE to read about the human interested or behind the player/coach stories, but this last week there was one article that made me want to vomit. Or go into a rage black out. It is the 5 part story of Oklahoma State and how it’s recruiting is, to put it mildly, less than ethical. Of all of the parts to this story, the one that angered me the most was the “sex” portion of the investigation. Which you can read here. If you don’t know what I am talking about here is a little background. There are past players and coaches that have anonymously said that when being recruited by Oklahoma State that they had sex with girls from the Orange Pride. Continue reading
This guest post comes from Melissa, the first non-family member I called after the attacks. This was supposed to go up yesterday, sorry!
There are moments in life when you are able to look at something and say, no, this is definitely not right, this is not the way things are supposed to be. September 11, 2001 is one of those days. Tomorrow is the anniversary and it is always a hard day for me. 12 years ago I was obviously asleep in my college dorm room loving every minute of this fabulous life I had. And then, in a matter of moments, everything was different. And I knew, even then, that these were moments that everything went wrong.
The entire world changed in those moments. Lives of thousands of people were cut short, but there were countless other lives that were forever altered. People changed jobs, became activists, enlisted in the army, didn’t leave on a vacation… there were children that were never born because in a moment, mom or dad wasn’t there anymore. Or maybe they were, and love wasn’t strong enough to keep a marriage together. Or maybe you met someone, took a chance on love, because you just couldn’t hurt anymore. And your life is better because of that love. Maybe there is a beautiful blessed baby today in your life because things went so terribly wrong. How many paths were changed?
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I have one child. While I do happen to be a single mother, I have an ex who lives two miles away and splits custody. We live in Loudoun County, which due to the confluence of data centers and government contractors, is now the richest county in the country. However, contrary to popular belief, there are still cats, and the streets are in fact, not paved with cheese. High incomes breed high costs of living. The influx of hideous McMansions over the past decade or so only serves to solidify Loudoun’s Bougie reputation. As annoying as some of those qualities are though, Loudoun is a fantastic place to live and raise your family. This is where I chose for Cooper to grow up, and while I don’t regret that decision for a minute, my wallet certainly does.
Loudoun is great for families; it is great for single people. It is terrible for single parents. My ex works in the IT field and makes a good amount of money. I work for the local government, and make… less. However, if we were together, with one child, we would be living comfortably right now. Our combined income could get us a nice little house, pay for Cooper’s daycare/preschool, with money left over to put away into savings. Instead, we pay two rents, two sets of utility bills, etc. etc. All of this is typical single parent nonsense, but here’s the kicker: while I’m still paying off student loans ten years after graduation with no end in site, we (or more accurately, my ex), are paying more per month for our son to go to preschool and daycare than I paid to get my bachelor’s degree.
As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been quiet for awhile. We’ve had some major upheavals in our home that…I was not exactly expecting even though I was the one who had to make the call. Any of you who know me can surmise what this was, and for those who don’t, the details of what happened are not exactly relevant to the point of this post.
I’ve mentioned before how I don’t think parents, and moms especially, put themselves first, that they let their kid rule the roost and lose their identity as actual people and don’t exist outside of being “Junior’s Mom.” To be fair, it’s kind of our job to think of our kids before anything else. This was ultimately what led to me making the decision I didn’t want to make. I had to put my son in front of me. But now…now I need to parent through a lot of feelings. Like, shitty feelings. Depress-y feelings. Angry feelings. All them shits. And I need to do it in a way that my son won’t feel the effects forever and take it out on some poor lady in the future. I have to put myself first. So here is what I’m doing to maintain balance of Kiddo and me and our home. Continue reading
Put Your Damn Pants On! 