Crazy idea...Crazy Mom Podcast.

Five years into writing my book and I realize that it's not for lack of content, but lack of time and effort that it is taking me this long to complete my manuscript.  There's a new medium out there that I love and I am going to start a podcast.  I've been talking to myself for years, what could possibly go wrong?

Dear Daycare...

I recently received the results of an evaluation that indicated that Lorelai is struggling with communication and problem solving based on some information I filled out when she was 8 weeks old. 

First off, allow me to apologize. Had I known that this was an actual evaluation, I would not have filled it out at a red light one morning as I was running late to work on my 2nd day back from maternity leave.  I would have taken my time to think about the questions and my responses and probably would have lied anyway to make sure she got off on the right foot with the people who are blessed enough get to spend more time with her than I do.

I want to say how glad I am that I am not a first time mother. If I would have been a first time mom and received information stating my child has 2 areas of concerns and would be receiving additonal help at daycare, I might have been crazy enough in my anxious post-partum state to go right to Sylvan Learning Centers and requested newborn tutoring for the small price of 1K a month.  I am nervous and bad with money like that.

Luckily, I have lots of kids; one of which sat very still like a lump of cute baby doing little more than very loud mouth-breathing for the first 6 months of his life.  

 Spoiler Alert: He turned out just fine...mostly fine.

I hear you loud and clear educators of newborn babies. I did not realize she was attending daycare with the love children of Stephen Hawking and Oprah.  To advance her to the appropriate level of newborn intelligence, I have decided to put Lorelai on a very tight schedule of activities to expand her mind.  This Tiger mom is going to earn her stripes.

Lorelai on a conference call with marketing.

Lorelai writing her memoirs.

Lorelai preparing for end times.

Not pictured: Lorelai being cultured.

(I was going to have her Dad photoshop her in a balcony at the Metropolitan Opera House but he thinks I am being "a little dramatic" about the whole thing. He didn't come out and say that, but I can tell he is thinking it.)

As for specifics, I agree that her communication skills need work. She doesn't conjugate her verbs correctly AT ALL. Her vocabularly is... circumscribed.  She mainly just screeches like a pissed off pterodactyl. She can be a real crybaby, frankly.  We will continue to work on that at home.  We are still deciding on our second language. Would you recommend Mandarin or Spanish? I am not sure who is taking over first. The Bank of China or the cartels down south?  We just want her to be prepared.

Problem solving? Yeah. That needs some work.  Between you and me, I have seen her, on more than one occasion, pull her own hair...and then CRY over it.  It is like her cute and tiny brain sees zero correlation between cause and effect. Does Toys R Us stock reasoning? What isle can I find some logic, am I right?!  Honestly, this one is a little more than I care to tackle right now.  I am a busy, working mother and we are going to focus on that whole 'poopin' in your pants' thing first.

I guess some blame lies with us.  We were prepared for her to lack any aptitude for mathematics. Her father and I both count with our fingers still.  I am embarrassed to say that she has seen Sharknado way more times than any 2 month old should have thanks to quality time with her three older brothers. I will be sure to speak with them.  Despite some difficult taste in cinema, they are quite intelligent which is why I am confident Lorelai will catch up to the more advanced newborns under your care. 

Thank you for your time and understanding,

Lorelai's Mom. 

I did a thing...

Blogger, I have sinned. It's been eleven months since my last confess- er, blog.

I can't believe it has been that long.  To be fair, I am coming out of quite the year long haze.

You see, I did a thing:

In October of last year, I found out that we were going to have a Baby (Yay!) And since no one seems to have issues with asking such a rude and personal question, I will just tell you that YES it was on purpose.  Baby was hoped and prayed for and 6 weeks later, digital confirmation.

So we are pregnant, then what?

Then we went to bed at 8pm every night.  I was exhausted and Matt didn't mind the extra sleep.  I didn't write or even update social media much because creativity level was almost null.  I just sat there eating a lot and wondering if I did the right thing with the twins turning 9 this year.

I secretly suspected that Baby was stealing all my awesome for herself and later, this theory proved correct.

It turns out, we did the right thing.  We did it all differently than we thought.

The plan was:
-Get pregnant and take 6 months to a year to do so.
-Eat super healthy and have zero caffeine for 9 months.
-Not find out the sex
-Not tell anyone the chosen name
-Have a VBAC calmly while listening to classic rock

What had happened was:
-Got pregnant immediately
-1st trimester: eat hamburgers.
2nd trimester: eat the steaks.
3rd trimester: eat ALL the things.
Have caffeine every day because I will die without coffee.

-We lasted longer than I thought with not finding out the sex.  But we caved and I am so glad we did!  If I had done a gender neutral nursery beforehand and then had my girl not realizing that I was carrying my first  girl, we would have stopped on the way home from the hospital to buy a whole new wardrobe and nursery. 

-The moment we found out and announced that baby was a She (Spoiler Alert, Baby was a "She") we told everyone our name because I loved it.  And it made her seem real. And it was wonderful.  And there was never a discussion. The moment her name came out of my mouth, Matt and I both loved it.  Another name was not discussed after.

-I had a repeat c-section. I lived in fear of preterm labor the whole pregnancy. I had it twice  including a 10 day NICU experience with the twins in 2007.  Well at 39 weeks with not enough progress and 5 weeks of prodromal labor, it was time to relent.  The c-section went beautifully.  My doctor is amazing. 

And thus you have our 6th child. Our tiny human. 

Lorelai Marie. 

She was 6 weeks old yesterday and she is perfect. A wonderful and well-tempered baby who loves to sleep and is literally fuzzyheaded loveliness in human format.  

Her siblings adore her and the amount of help they have given me is nothing short of amazing.  We are madly in love with life right now.

I did a thing.

A wonderfully perfect thing.

September Eleven.

For my generation, time will be measured in two ways.   Before September 11^th,   2001 and after September 11^th   2001.  That day is the dividing line between the innocence of our youth and collective understanding that we were unsafe in the world.  I was 16 years old.  I remember that day like it was yesterday, but don’t we all?  As a country, we suffered the trauma together and each person has their own story to share. 

I won’t spend time to bore you with mine but what I remember most on that day was Mr. Peters, our high school Principal coming onto the loud speakers at the end of the day and gave a speech that I still remember.  As our teenage classmates called for war and retribution and revenge, Mr. Peters sadly told us that those of us in this high school would be the kids who fought that war.   We didn’t understand at the time, but 14 years later, I understand that he knew in a way that we couldn’t understand that we’d be living with the aftermath of the events of that day for many years.  We still are. We always will be.

We watched the news for days. We ate dinner in front of the television.  We talked of nothing else. The skies were silent and if you saw an aircraft, it was military.   It was scary.  It was scary to go to a crowded baseball game. It was scary to go to the airport.  It was scary to see someone who looked different from us.  We were scared. 

And mad as hell.

So we grew strong.  We watched the dust covered first responders of New York City and the families who suffered and the survivors from ground zero.   Many young men and women felt a call to join the military and help make our country strong.  American flags flew as many as they had after VE Day.  We praised NYC and its leaders and its people.   A president promised to track down the man responsible and hold him accountable. The next president was able to do so.

And yet, there is still so much work to be done.  The war did not end with Bin Laden’s death.  The news of that day was welcomed but it didn’t heal the wounds from 10 years earlier. 

We are a country constantly on defense now.  We’ve been fortunate to suffer very few successful attacks although there have been many attempts.   We are prepared and ready to fight.  We are strong.  We are no longer innocent but jaded. Those teenagers have grown up, seen war, and have been hardened.  Our children have only ever lived in a world with their country at war.   I hope my kids never have to grow up collectively in one day, the way we did in September, but I also know that each generation had its day.

And when their day comes, I pray that they make wise decisions.  I hope they turn to God in those hours of fear and hate.  I hope they know that the Sun will rise the same the next day as it had that morning.

The alone-bird.

Mason said this to me this morning while stopped at red light on the way to the babysitters house, "Mom.  You know what’s weird? Maddox is silent when we get to the babysitters.  He’s completely quiet."  

And Maddox fired back "You’re quiet too sometimes!’ and Mason said ‘No I talk to my friends and play with them."

And Maddox looked out the window and I heard him say this, "Do you see the birds on the wire over there?  Do you see the group that talks together. There are three of them. Do you see?" and Mason nodded and Maddox continued "And then there’s that bird that is over by itself on the line.   It is the alone-bird.  It doesn’t want to have to talk with the others."

I just listened and thought about what my way-too-self-aware-7 year old was trying to explain to his twin brother.  Mason is an extrovert.  He goes to camp bravely by himself while Maddox stays at home and worries about him.  He likes sports and mud and being outside with neighborhood kids while Maddox stares at the door with tears in his eyes if I try to make him go play too when he doesn't really want to.  Maddox entertains himself. He hides in his closet and writes on the chalkboard always jumping when I open the door to check on him. 

Maddox is kind and sweet like my older son, but if he’s pushed – he will lose control of himself. I’ve learned in the past few years that you can’t push Maddox.  Mason needs to be pushed but Maddox needs to do things in his own time. 

I’m more like Mason.  The idea of a Saturday spent alone watching television with no human interaction is enough to completely freak me out and send me into a depression.  I need people around or I get very sad. I’ve been like this since I was a kid.  Silence is pretty much a nightmare for people like me.  I fill my time with plans, activities, things to keep me busy.  Before I was parent, it never occurred to me to understand the deep rooted seed of introversion in another person.

 Maddox doesn’t exhibit signs of social anxiety yet.  He will happily go somewhere to play with friends but when he’s done he’s done.  Sometimes that’s playing tag for 15 min outside and calling it a night.  Sometime that’s leaving a birthday party early.  Sometimes that means going up to his room after dinner and not coming out until the next morning.  But he’s not an unhappy kid as long as I give him this space. 

Of course as a mother who has no clue or understanding why a people would want to be left alone, I worry about the future.  Will he suffer from depression?  Will he feel left out?    Frankly, visions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold have crossed my mind. 

But no. Not Maddox.  He’s my shyest but also my sweetest child.  He’s the peace maker among the group.  Last weekend on the way to the drive-in lecturing his brothers, "I love you both, but we are the fighty-est brothers in the world!" He always gives up what he loves to his brother if he asks.  I have to take extra care that he doesn’t give too much.  He spends his extra money often times on gifts for others, like the bracelet he bought for me at Disney World and he still asks me every day if I wear it. (Fuchia doesn't go with everything, my dear.)

He didn’t like to cuddle until recently, in the last 2 years and even now, it’s limited.  However, he wants me to come in while he’s sleeping and kiss him on the cheek.  If I forget one night, he tells me in the morning letting me know that I forgot and again the next night before his daily reminder for that kiss.  I try to never let myself forget.

I let him be the alone-bird because that is what he wants even if it’s not anything I can ever understand.  

My Fail Blog.

Ugh. I know I'm failing at the blog task.  I'm trying to write  a book. All good ideas are going in there.  And then rewritten. And then deemed not worthy. And then kicked to the side.  And then I drink and question why in the world I ever decided to write and publish a book. And then my husband reminds me that I should keep writing and fulfill that dream.  And then I start the process all over again.

There are many things I fail at other than blogging:

1. Math.  I am so terrible at Math that I can't help my 5th grader with his homework. I've been told to not even look at it.  I have always been bad at Math.  Since 9th grade, any time a Math test has been laid down in front of me, it has resulted in immediate sweating and nausea and doodles of cats around the edges of the paper.  I don't Math.  And now they are teaching a common core style of Math that I can't really help my first graders either.  It looks like Chinese to me.  CHINESE! If someone tells you to find the double down in the number sentence, you're going to want to punch them in the face, I promise.

2. Organization.  My 3rd grade teacher told me my desk looked like Rumpke and she was right. It still does but I can find anything I need. I enjoy disorganization where I work.  Besides in my home, I am nervous about anything with a pristine, polished look.  It doesn't make a lot of sense because I'm a Capricorn and I allegedly thrive on organization.  I do love office supplies but I don't use them properly.  A lot of my post-its are rolled up and taped so that I can build lincoln log cabins with them when I'm bored.  I save all the other post-its in a drawer. Yes. I have a post-it drawer.  You never know when I might need that phone number of that one client, that one time.  My other drawer is full of mail I don't want to open at work.

3. Keeping my cool.  I could never be a 911 operator. In my head, full of SNL Skits that I'm constantly writing, I have a hilarious one that is based on around this premise. (Don't steal that NBC, I will crush you with a lawsuit.)  When I imagine teaching my children how to drive, it starts with me screaming this sentence, 'THIS IS A GIANT DEATH MACHINE!'  To say the least, I'm not allowed to teach the children Math or how to drive.  This also goes for situations that upset me like bad customer service.  There's actually a Goodwill in my city that I was escorted out by security and told not to return to.  There's actually a few places I'm not allowed to go anymore.  The older I am, the better I do at keeping my cool, but I'm not quite where I want to be yet.

This is just a small number of things.  I'll save the rest for you to wonder about on your own time. Just kidding. Please don't wonder about me on your alone time.  That's creepy...which happens to be another thing I'm no good at: Not being creepy. I was born this way, baby.

Elf on a freaking shelf.

I don't "Elf on a shelf." I'm not that Mom. Props to those who can keep it together to do that.  This summer, I coached Masons baseball team and during the second inning of one game, I ran off the field because just then I realized that I forgot to pick him up and bring him to the game.  So no. I don't Elf on a shelf.  I barely make it through the day.

Our tooth fairy also has a lot of union holidays and I already ate all the advent candy before Christmas.