I can't wipe this Stupid Grin off my face.

Harvest in Aroostook County

2011-09-26T12:06:00.008-04:00

Harvest in Aroostook County has a long-standing tradition of making honest young men out of gangly, pimply-faced boys and strong, hard-working young women out of teenaged girls. Harvest in Aroostook County can be a turning point for many young people, a serious of pivotal moments, usually occurring just as the sun rises above the foggy river to the East, when they learn exactly how much Mother Earth will demand of their time and bodies. They may greet the prospect of a potato harvest job with enthusiasm as joyful thoughts of spending their own money parade in their heads. Or perhaps they revel in the break from school, imagining how much better their time spent outside the class room will be, not solving algebraic equations or deciphering dangling participles, instead kickin’ around a few potatoes.

The rude and often bleary-eyed 5:00 A.M. awakening is that nobody really prepares them for the reality of working the potato harvest in Aroostook County. You can warn your eager teenager about how terribly their back is going to ache and throb after awkwardly leaning at a 60° angle for nine hours as a moving harvester belt rushes by, although they may not heed your experienced caution. You can scold them to bed by 8:00 P.M., encouraging them to “get some good sleep” as they roll their eyes at you and unwillingly plod to their bedroom, mumbling about not being tired. You want to remind them of how the darkest hours of morning always arrive too soon, but you don’t. You will tell them to dress warmly and to always keep a spare chap stick in their pocket and an extra box of band-aids in their cooler, but the invaluable minutiae of potato harvest experience will come to them much the same it came to you; the hard way.

There is no time to flat iron your morning bed-head hair or apply perfect mascara and make-up at 5:00 in the morning. The discomfort of reluctantly crawling out from under the warm blankets and fumbling in the dark for flannel layers and long warm socks is frigidly humbling as you barely find time to wipe the crusty sleep from your eyes and pass a toothbrush through your mouth; hopefully with toothpaste. A warm woolen hat pulled down to your ears proves difficult for a good hair-do, even if your hair normally falls in just the right places when you toss your head. Your usual routine of careful wardrobe selection and meticulous grooming is suddenly exchanged for grabbing ratty, mismatched tops and bottoms and reaching for whichever pair of gloves smells the least like a dead animal. And after just one day of cold mud and the chill of rotten potatoes seeping through your very pores, you learn the valuable potato harvest lesson #612: clothing choice based on warmth and practicality is far more important than wearing the jeans that make your butt look good.

Even when you’ve learned to dress warmly and in layers, you still greet the early morning with a thread of hope that you’ll see raindrops against your bedroom window pane as you open the blinds. You flip on the TV to The Potato Picker’s Special on WAGM-8, squinting at the bright screen in the dark living room, waiting, hoping to see your farmer’s name scroll across the bottom of the screen followed by “not digging today” or at least “late start 10:00AM.” Seven days a week, all hours the sun shines and so many hours it doesn’t, you sort, dig, pick and handle potatoes.

And despite it all, the dust in your eyes from the harvester fan, the dull ache in your lower back and the seemingly never-ending sea of un-dug potato rows, you accept and complete your job. This is harvest and there’s work to be done, but also there’s fun to be had. You never have quite heard a whoop of joy until you tell a tired bunch of teenagers in the potato house that the harvester has “broke down.” Those are the moments we reveled in, flipping open our lunch pails, eager to see what special foods our mothers had packed us that day. Our hands were dirty as we reached into those small tin cans of Vienna Sausages, wiping the salty gel onto our pants and feeling around for the dish of mustard we hoped she didn’t forget to pack. We wallowed in all the Twinkies, Nutty Bars, Pringles, Potato Stix and cans of soda our hearts desired, loving every bite of our harvest lunches and knowing our usual healthy diets would return along with our usual sleep and school schedules all too soon.

We learned a few life lessons no class room could ever teach us and we heard jokes our mothers would have definitely disapproved of. But we were growing up and a stretch of the bridge that took us from kid to adult was on a potato farm.

We met and bonded with new friends from surrounding towns, our less-than-glamorous working conditions setting the stage for loyal friendships to grow and remain, even when we would face one another on the basketball court five months later.

There was something about working the potato harvest that set us kids apart from the rest of the state. We had the inside scoop on what sustained our local economy and we lent a hand, albeit a muddy, blistered hand, in helping to bring another local Aroostook County tradition to completion and we were stronger, healthier, wiser and richer kids because of it.

I’m the mother now and I’m the one packing the lunch pail for my 14 year old son. I now understand how my mother must have felt when her grocery list included the junk food mine currently does. And the dial on my washing machine will stay on “2^nd rinse” for a few more weeks. I somehow forgot exactly how many pair of gloves a 12 hour shift requires and I also forgot that one pair of harvest work boots can stink up an entire garage. I smile when he complains about being tired and I just hold my breath when the stench of rotten potatoes follows him through my front door. But mostly, I’m proud to see that despite so many differences between his generation and mine, some things really do stay the same and I’m thankful my kid is part, truly part of Harvest in Aroostook County.

Yes, cupcakes again.

2011-09-20T11:46:00.005-04:00

I’ve only got them for a short, fleeting few years before college acceptance letters begin arriving in the mail and they’re chucking their packed bags into the back seat of a beat up Volkswagen bus with a bunch of floppy-haired college freshman and I’m left with empty bedrooms, walls of old Johnny Depp posters, small fingerprints and no idea how I even got there. He’s almost 15 and for the love of Pete if you think three years is a long way off, you’ve never had children. It’s about as long as one of those extra-long blinks you have in your 3PM afternoon budget meeting. The one where a 3^rd cup of coffee would keep you up all night but if you don’t close your eyes for just a few minutes you’re likely to slide under your desk. Your eyes are closed just long enough to exhale and it’s over. I’m almost on the exhale. I’ve almost mothered them to that safe place where they’re expected to make good choices without me hovering over them singing “remember your good choices.” I’ll exhale a both a sigh of relief that I helped them reach adulthood relatively unscathed and a sigh of regret that I didn’t have them longer.

She asked for cupcakes on her 13^th birthday, which also happened to be her first day of the fabulous 7^th grade and a home soccer game. Then she asked for cupcakes for the rest of her soccer team. Then those adorable little punks asked for more cupcakes at the next game. Then, of course, they wanted more. Who wouldn’t want more cupcakes when you’re 13 and already covered in sprinkles? Isn’t sugar and spice and everything nice part of what makes being a middle school aged girl fun, sweet and not-yet a full blown teenaged catastrophe? I love her and I adore the gaggle of girls who keep asking me for more cupcakes.

“My god why do you keep bringing them cupcakes?” “That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” “Are you going to do this all the time?”

They’re not for you.

They’re for the sweet daughter of mine who is growing, changing and crossing over into her own world full of battles, decisions and conflicts that sometimes pull her in the opposite direction of me. It may be temporary, but it’s a rough few years and if bringing her special cupcakes at every game is what brings us close together that day, I’m all over it in that checkered apron my grandmother made for me.

My intentions always come from a place of love. If you’d like to treat my child to brownies or ice cream sundaes, please do; I don’t think there can ever be enough loving adults in a kid’s life. Anyway, I’m under qualified for the Best Mommy Award because I sold my mom jeans in my last garage sale and I don’t even own a pair of Keds.

Besides all that, a good portion of my days are spent scrubbing toilets, sorting laundry, taxiing to swimming or music lessons and reading Frog & Toad books with a six year old. Being able to bring a heaping pile of frosted joy to some hot, tired, soccered-out kids is a welcomed highlight to my otherwise wonderful, but very routine life.

I don’t mind if my cupcakes annoy you.

I can't forget.

2011-09-12T14:41:00.001-04:00

I don’t need to re-watch footage of terrified people falling hundreds of stories to their horrific deaths. I don’t want to see the Boeing 767 planes heading straight for the World Trade Center towers, holding my breath that they’ll somehow miss, even though I know they won’t. I don’t want to watch the backs of those brave first responders as they unknowingly run towards their death. I can’t listen to the desperate screams of emergency phone calls for help, as phone operators tried to keep the victims calm, not knowing they would be the last person to ever speak to them.

I don’t want to look at the mug shots of the al qaeda terrorists, their dark, sinister eyes reminding me that not everybody is capable of love.

I didn’t lose my husband, child, parent or friend to the rubble, but somebody else did and I wonder how it feels to have an entire country reminding you.

I remember what happened on September 11, 2001. I remember where I was, exactly what I was doing and how I felt the moment I heard the breaking news. I remember my curly-headed toddler in the red wagon with me that morning. I remember the confused McDonald’s workers, staring blankly at the television monitor instead of making breakfast sandwiches and pouring hot coffees. I remember my boyfriend’s frantic phone call to me, his voice crackling with panic as if the dreadfulness was somehow also in our town.

Respectfully, silently and with less blustery patriotism, we can show those who lost that we still remember. This is not the time to whoop and holler. This is the time to turn off your television and hug your kids. This is not the time to damn the terrorists to hell. This is the time to shake a soldier’s hand and make a donation to your local food pantry. This is not the time to commemorate the ten year ‘anniversary’ of the attacks by spreading virtual flags and flowers around Facebook. This is the time to exercise your right to vote and send a care package to a soldier. This is the time to say more by saying less.

lunch money

2011-09-07T22:27:00.004-04:00

I am suddenly stuck with the notion that perhaps they are becoming something more than just my children. They are growing into themselves, soaring above my expectations. They are running past my outstretched arms towards their own visions of the good life.

He was just five when I met him, still excited about nightly bubble baths, sword fighting and smitten with my homemade pancakes. She was the dimpled shining star who took hold of my soul and breathed new life into my family, coming into my world the exact moment she was needed. And him, the smallest one of them all, is the child who reminds me there will be no more. He is my last child. He is the last to learn to tie his shoes, the last to stop believing in Santa Claus, the last to let me rock his small sleepy body. I can never kiss or smell the top of his head just once, as if the scent of “last baby” is somehow more bewitching than any other.

The years pass as if I’ve wished them away. He goes off to college in less than four years and she is a teenager tomorrow.

And him? He’s still happy to hold my hand.

Another back-to-school morning awaits my teenagers; the backpacks are stocked, the lunch money checks are written and they’re eager to find their way. I never thought I’d find my way to mothering teenagers but somehow, some way, here I am. And there they go.

I knew this day was coming.

2009-08-25T08:48:00.003-04:00

Like a freight train rolling down the tracks it crept closer one square calendar day at a time. I kept looking ahead to the dwindling days of summer as though they would never actually have an end. There couldn’t possibly be anything more to this familiar life than baseball, ice cream and home. Could there? This brown-eyed boy and I would continue on our regularly scheduled agenda as nothing monumental was waiting just around the corner. Right?

It’s just pre-k I kept telling myself. It’s a playgroup for four year olds and we need the quiet time, I affirmed to my reflection as I curled my hair and powdered my nose. He needs to spread his wings and be taught another way to fly, I repeated, not quite believing myself but not disbelieving either. I need to give my Boy and Girl the kind of attention that an energetic four year old boy can only hinder, I reminded myself, all the while second-guessing my intentions and plans for the school year.

But no matter how firmly I planted my feet at the starting line, my knees were undoubtedly weak when the gun sounded. I listened this morning as his father quietly explained what the word “nervous” meant and whether or not he was feeling that way. I listened as he chatted on about every early morning thought he could think of. I filled his new backpack with all the things I thought he might need while reminding myself that goldfish pretzels and a juice box would be enough and that adding a photo album of us might be overdoing it. It’s only three hours, I reminded myself with a bit of embarrassment at the knot looming in the back of my throat.

He slurped his honey nut Cheerios and talked with his mouth full.

I slowly sipped my coffee and blinked my eyes often.

I made slow, deliberate moves in a subconscious effort to delay the inevitable while he couldn’t move his small feet fast enough. It must have been the new sneakers.

You talked incessantly on the ride to your new school. I listened as though I was bringing you to boot camp and wouldn’t be seeing you again for six weeks. Honestly, I sometimes wonder how I muddle through life being such a sentimental slop.

You took big steps; again those new sneakers seemed really something. You let me kiss your cheek and didn’t look back as you took your teacher’s hand, which was probably for the best because watching your Mama snivel while wiping her nose on her sleeve is never a good way to start your morning.

Waffle night

2009-08-16T20:27:00.021-04:00

We’ve all got family traditions and memories from our childhood, things our parents always made sure to do with us and for us. We remember things like pizza night or movie night, silly made up songs that were only sung at bedtime, private handshakes or speaking in secret code when out in public just because it’s entertaining (well, my Girl and Boy hardly think that one’s much fun but I still use my own version of Pig Latin in the grocery store just to see exactly how much embarrassment I can cause them. It’s the small things in life.). It’s what every parent strives for: giving their children happy memories to carry them into adulthood. Life is just one set of memories after another and we’re all just hoping they’re good ones.

On Friday nights I like to make a colossal stack of pancakes for Saturday morning breakfasts. And the reason I don’t make them in the mornings is because I don’t like mornings. I don’t like doing anything other than getting caffeinated before 7:00 AM and I’d never get around to making the batter if I didn’t do it the night before. I think it’s nice that I know myself so well.

But on Sunday nights I make waffles. Waffles are so different than pancakes because they require more preparation and always seem to taste more special. I don’t know why this is, but the reaction I get from making a batch of waffles always has loads of cheering and “I LOVE YOU MAMA” ‘s.

Because I’m a really good friend and blogger who likes to please, I’m going to share my waffle making with you. You’ll never be the same, I promise. You might even cheer and tell me that you love me too.

It all starts with a good recipe doesn’t it? I tried tons of them too before I found The One. You know that feeling when you find a good recipe and everything just works together in harmony and it’s beautiful? I found that waffle recipe.

It’s really old, wrinkled and covered in dry batter. But I don’t care because I love it. I fantasize about this piece of paper being passed from my daughter to her daughter in a deeply special family tradition.

Shall we move on to dry ingredients? This blog entry is going to be incredibly stimulating – I know you’re gripping the sides of your chair in anticipation right now. But, sadly, this is the most boring part of the process because everything is white and powdery, not much excitement happening. Although every once and a while I’ll use one less quarter teaspoon of salt just to arouse my wild side. I get so nervous when I do that! And then I have a shot of pineapple rum.

Things really start getting electrifying from here on out. Do you like eggs? Do you even realize how much fun eggs can be? Unless you have yourself a super fancy egg white separator from Pampered Chef you’re not actually living. I force Mother Nature to do something completely against her will: physically removing an egg yolk from its slimy cytoplasm! And yes, I had to Wiki that one, so did you.

It looks so slippery and gooey! I always gag a little while listening to the sounds of slimy cytoplasm dripping all over itself into a big steel bowl. It looks eerily similar to a big bowl of boogers, doesn’t it?

Aw! Look! A little bowl full of baby chicks! Hi baby chicks.

Why aren’t they peeping and chirping? Are they sleeping? I just want to scratch behind their fluffy yellow ears. Do chickens even have ears? Give me a minute – I need to research this…..

……

Yes! According to an extremely reliable Wiki Answers article, chickens do indeed have ears.

Okay I need to focus and get myself back on task.

Aw! Look! A bowl full of baby chicks swimming in milk!

I wisk those baby chicks until they become one with the milk. It’s always a good baking and cooking practice to prepare your dry and wet ingredients separately. It’s not always more convenient but it sure makes the batter yummier and more consistent. And when it comes to waffles, baby I know what I’m talking about.

Wisk it! Wisk it Good! (Do you remember that cheesetastic “Whip It” music video by Devo? No, me either.)

It’s time to make those wet and dry ingredients settle down and start a family. It’s all about creating the memories right? They’ve put it off long enough and neither of them are getting any younger. I don’t care if they go kicking and screaming – they’re making baby waffles.

Next is the completely unglamorous addition of canola oil. It does nothing for your waffles other than keep them from getting stuck to the iron and ending up completely torn, ruined and ugly. I tried omitting the oil once and ending up sobbing and banging my head against the garbage can for hours. Learn from my mistakes.

Let’s turn our attention once again to that big steel bowl of slimy cytoplasm! It’s time to make the egg whites work for you. They have the ability to make your waffles fluffier than anything from your wildest dreams. My recipes tells me to “beat them stiffly” but whenever I see the worlds “beat” and “stiffly” together my mind tends to wander and since I keep a CLEAN KITCHEN I just whip ‘em until they beg for mercy. Then I tie them up and call them bad names.

I continue to abuse them about three minutes before they turn into meringue. Meringue, tasty in its own right, has no place in waffle batter but is divine atop my Mum’s coconut cream pie. Mmmmm….pie.

Now we begin the most delicate part of the recipe. It’s time to blend our batter with our STIFFLY BEATEN egg whites (I assume you’ve had enough of me calling them slimy cytoplasm?).

I can’t perfectly stress the importance of being gentle here. You must treat the egg whites as though she were a delicate flower, likely to wilt and die if handled too roughly. You can do nothing but take your sweet, unhurried time when combining the batter with the egg whites. Turn and fold tenderly. Use your wisk like an artist uses a paint brush. Tell your batter how pretty she is today. Ask your egg whites if she’s lost weight. Don’t let the whites lose their fluffiness because that’s the secret to the most magical, most scrumptious waffles on Earth. IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO CHEER WHEN YOU BRING OUT THE WAFFLES THEN YOU NEED TO FOLD GENTLY.

It’s Go Time baby. Give that hot iron a good ladle full of your hard work. Start in the middle and drizzle outward. Too much and you’ll have goo cascading down over the sides of your iron. Too little and you’ll end up with crispy-edged waffles. Practice and eat the imperfect ones – nobody will notice.

Set your timer FOR TWO MINUTES AND FORTY SECONDS. You’re probably wondering why I’m yelling at you? Because I’ve been doing this every Sunday night since my Boy and Girl were ages three and five, which means I’ve perfected this recipe approximately….wait….5 times 9…carry the 2….THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY NINE TIMES. There aren’t many things in life I have full confidence about, but making delicious waffles is definitely one of them. So set your timers.

Oh my goodness the suspense is killing me! Do you even know what is happening under there?? Magic. That’s what. Open the lid of your iron slowly and take a deep breath of hot waffle air. “Hot Waffle Air.” If I could bottle that smell and sell it I’d be rich and famous. It’s the smell of always being loved.

I need to take a minute and discuss the other wonderful characters that make this Sunday night meal so complete and good for you. Real Maple Syrup should be taken for granted, implied and always assumed. If you are living in Maine and do not use Real Maple Syrup then shame on you! And it’s August. If you are not using freshly picked blueberries then you should be dragged out into the street and shot. Or just go to the school farm and get yourself some fresh blueberries and forget my last sentence. Butter. We don’t have to actually talk about the butter. It can just an unspoken, sinful agreement.

All that’s left is to live your life in TWO MINUTES AND FORTY SECONDS intervals. Turn that batter into pure love. You may find that you have extra time while the waffles cook. I like to let my mind wander towards images of Benicio Del Toro's sweaty chest. Or maybe you could think about whether or not you’re doing enough for the environment? Endangered animals? Global warming? Or you could just take pictures of your newly manicured toes. Which I did, by the way, but I’ve already accosted you with too many pictures as it is. You don’t really want to see my cute toe polish. Oh. You do?? Okay, if you insist….

When all is said and done, you’ll have a steaming stack of devotion to give to the people you love the most. It’s one of my favorite things about being their Mum. In all reality, I like nothing more than making them good food and watching them feel full and happy.

Every Sunday night I bank on my perfect waffles canceling out all the neurotic tirades that will inevitably begin on Monday morning.

Sometimes you just need three green buckets.

2009-08-14T20:51:00.008-04:00

And filling up your three green buckets early in the morning (as Mama stumbles around the yard, drinking her coffee and complaining about getting sprayed with the hose) so the water will be a perfectly warmed temperature by suppertime is a really wonderful idea. There’s something so refreshing about dipping your toes into water that’s been kissed by the sun for six hours. It can cool you and warm you all at once.

The water begs for your toes, knees and elbows to wade deeper. Just a few inches deeper. You reach for the bottom and wiggle your fingers on the way up. You pause to scratch for a booger.

It wants you to make yourself as small as possible and dive in. Don’t be shy. The water’s fine. If you can’t fit in this bucket, try another one. This is all very fun and makes you extraordinarily happy.

That feels nice doesn’t it? You tell your Mama how you wish to be as small as a grasshopper so you can swim in the green bucket. You can even put your face into the water and blow bubbles. You make her laugh with your funny grasshopper jokes. She's actually laughing at how your butt crack is showing but you don't know this.

You try and use your big muscles and pick it up, but there needs to be less water. You look to see if Mama notices how big your muscles are. As you pour, you listen and watch as it trickles over your toes, across the pavement and down the hill. "We are watering the neighbor’s apple tree with our bucket water!" you say. You ask to go visit the neighbors but I remind you how you’ve already been to see them twice today.

You get excited because water is cascading over your feet. You know exactly how much to leave in the green bucket. Just enough. Big muscles don’t grow on just anybody you know. But when a person is four years old, their muscles grow to epic proportions.

With your strong arms you pick up the emptied bucket and give yourself the happiest of showers, which is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. It doesn’t matter that you’re wearing clothes. It doesn’t matter that somebody might be watching. You feel good. Three green buckets and strong muscles.

During which I discuss the state of my hair

2009-08-13T17:33:00.004-04:00

specifically its style, or lack thereof, during the summer months. I don’t usually complain about my hair (not that I ever have a shortage of topics to complain about, because honestly, why are turn signals and the proper use of brakes such difficult concepts for some people??) but I’ve been letting it grow for so long that I’m starting to feel as though I have a second person living on top of my head. A hairy person who hates to be brushed, doesn’t think lying flat is fun and enjoys getting caught in bra straps and other various things that open and close, like car windows, kitchen cabinets, mouths and sticky four year old fingers. For the most part, I’m relatively content with the status of my hair and I’ve come to accept its thick, dark, almost carpet-like abundance. But I’ve definitely ignored it this summer, never really letting it out to play and be happy in its natural, curly state of twisty tangles. I’ve kept it locked away from the world as if something were wrong with it. I’ve treated it like some horrible, biblical skin condition that would’ve sent children screaming into their mother’s arms and young men chasing after it into the night, torches in hands. I think I’ve been neglecting it. I never buy it flowers anymore, never ask it how it’s feeling and I’m really starting to question our relationship. Sure it looks lovely in pictures, but the reality is nothing short of a sweaty, confusing mess that clings to the back of my neck on sunny days like a starving leech and expands like an anxious blowfish on the humid ones.

And since I had seven different places to be on any given day this summer, I gave up all hopes of pretty hair, put the flat iron back in the drawer and imposed an 8:00 AM curfew by putting the whole party on lockdown.

I have one in pink, green and red. I always color coordinated with according lip gloss and I even County Girl’d it up a few times with a baseball cap when I was feeling especially nutty (I even added a mouth full of Bubble Yum when I wanted to capture that “bratty 15 year old potato picker” look. Except my hands never smelled like rotten potatoes and I always wore cute shorts and adorable shoes this summer. I draw the line somewhere people.)

To add insult to my already injured mop, I’ve decided to grow the FABULOUS Jessica Alba bangs out to long length for Autumn so I can, you know, keep it fresh and interesting. Like you never know what I’m gonna do next. Boo!

So under the bandana or baseball cap, there are these angry things just waiting for you to reach up and touch them. They’ll bite your finger clean off.

In short I’ve forgotten how to make my hair look cute and even if I wanted to I can’t because I have angry bangs growing off the top of my head and they’re currently experiencing puberty and are just looking to start a fight.

I love living in a climate with such

2009-08-11T17:03:00.006-04:00

dramatic changes in temperature and season. I’m a mover, a shaker, a person who has difficulty sitting still for long periods of time. I’ll like to change things up. Ask my husband. I’m forever whining about altering the layouts of various rooms throughout the house because I love that feeling of walking into a newly painted or rearranged room and saying “Oh! It looks so different!” We all get off somewhere right? And I think it’s totally hot to move the bookshelf three inches to the left.

The month of August has always rendered me poetic. It’s a time when the hazy afternoon hours seem to drag by, the sun unrelenting. The sun moves closer to the south as it sets, and if you breathe in the warm air deeply enough you can smell the sweetness of autumn lying just below the surface, waiting as the minutes of dwindling sunlight tick by, getting closer with every sunset.

Autumn never comes as surprise; we always know she’ll arrive on time. And still we’re never quite ready to remember why the goldenrod flowers bloom so brightly and why the pollen sends small fists to itchy eyes. Yet we always act so startled to see summer’s last hurrah.

We’re never quite ready to release June and July for another year, as if holding on to them will somehow keep the chill of a Northern Maine winter from the backs of our necks and the cracks in our window sills. Or maybe if we close our eyes tightly enough and remember how the lazy river snakes its way across the County or how the fat bumblebees wobble from one blossom to another, winter won’t bring us to our knees this year.

It’s part of the dance. We say we’re not ready for summer to end but we revel in the blooming sunflowers and hold the plumping apples in our hands as they pass the time until the first frost sweetens them for pie. We dig our hands into our vegetable gardens, waiting to harvest our summer efforts. We anticipate nature’s painted landscapes of fiery orange and brilliant reds, knowing how sweet the air will taste as we hike over the crunching leaves in September.

It’s the goldenrods. Despite the warmth outside my window they never fail to put me in an autumn state of mind.

It's almost as if I had to choose

2009-08-10T14:03:00.004-04:00

between effectively home schooling my 10 and 12 year olds (you can assume the word “effectively” means without getting totally frustrated at my four year old every ten minutes for jumping off the kitchen table for the 87^th time while we’re sitting around it, trying to interpret some National Geographic article on why honeybees are not native to North America) and just being at home with him, giving him all my attention. The age difference between my Big punks and my Small, yet dynamically energetic, four year old is never more glaring than during the school year.

It’s so glaring that I feel like a teacher in a one room schoolhouse (but without the hair bun and ugly shoes) and Laura Ingalls Wilder is going to burst into my kitchen at any second and give me some pointers on teaching grades K-8 all in one day. I know some families home school all their kids from the very young to teenagers, but I’m having trouble finding a balance between “STOP TRYING TO FLY DOWN THE STAIRS” and “Okay punks, let’s talk about dangling participles for a few minutes.” Because I can barely explain adjective clauses and indirect objects to myself in a quiet house, let alone to two wide-eyed tweens in a very loud house being turned upside down by one of the cutest and most destructive 35 lb forces I’ve ever met.

I made a choice. And I chose pre-k.

I’ve played a mental game of ping pong with the pros and cons of my decision all summer, but for the most part I think this little child is going to have an incredible amount of fun in a brightly colored room filled with toys, music and other four year olds who think smelling each other’s fingers and galloping at light speed in circles in the best thing ever. I sincerely hope they pay those teachers well.

I chose three, glorious, uninterrupted hours every day to be alone to with my Big punks, having actual continuous conversations. I’m going to be able to speak in full sentences without being punched in the butt by a small hand wanting attention. My Big punks are going to be able to think about solving their algebraic equations without letting out frustrated sighs of annoyance because another remote controlled car has run away with their pencil. Granted, there will still be frustrated sighs, but they will be directed towards me and since I’m the big meanie making them learn this crap, that would make more sense.

But my baby! I’m sending my baby away! (Insert the image of a hysterical mother ripping out clumps of her hair and wailing at the feet of a bewildered and obviously frightened pre-k teacher.)

Dear God what have I done?! How will he survive without me?!

Five years ago I was trying to get myself knocked up and if somebody had just pulled me aside and gently warned me about the syndrome I’d experience with having a Last Baby I think I would’ve gone into this much better prepared. But nobody did that for me. I was simply given this brilliant, brown-eyed son and went about my business as if HE’S NEVER GOING TO LEAVE SOMEDAY AND BREAK MY HEART.

And he is breaking my heart because he’s so impatient to go to that damned school that he can hardly talk about anything else.

And I’m not the only one cheerfully lamenting this milestone either. My Boy would lasso the moon and stars out of the sky if he thought it might make his little brother smile, and he can’t stop mentioning how big his Bubby looks with his backpack slung over his small shoulders. And my Girl would cross her arms and punch the lights out of any passerby who didn’t smile at her little brother just right (Not that he doesn’t elicit that same response from her with his daily torments, but that’s his job as a little brother I say and WELL DONE I also say. I too, had a little brother and it’s the sweetest revenge to see her so utterly annoyed that her teeth actually become loose.). She dresses him in khaki pants and button up shirts just for practice and tells him how handsome the teacher will think he is.

His Father and I just stand over him, marveling at this beautiful creature we created, knowing deep within our hearts that he’s the link that makes us what we are. We were something good and safe before we met him, but now we are something else. He is made from pieces of each of us and not one of us can stop ourselves from giving him everything he asks for. Which, ironically, is one of the reasons why pre-k is going to be a good! positive! experience for him because he’s, how should I say this, SPOILED ROTTEN. In a good way.

And all he’d ever have to do is just mention breastfeeding and I’d be all over that. It’s sad really. I’d be so much less neurotic had we just gotten ourselves a puppy.

I'm just thankful

2009-08-09T09:52:00.003-04:00

that it started before I go on vacation because I read somewhere that wearing a tampon while riding a bicycle is one of the requirements one must under go while journeying through the 6th layer of suffering in Dante's Inferno.

Plus if my Husband and I actually have an opportunity to be away from our (lovely!) children for an extended period (drip) of time who really wants a white string hanging around, with no other intentions but crashing the party?

I never said this blog had manners.

It's like Christmas in July

2009-08-08T17:04:00.002-04:00

only without the overpriced wrapping paper, last-minute stocking stuffers and Goodwill bell ringers on every corner. It's a gift. A newly found sense of freedom and maybe even some fear thrown in for good measure (and good old fashioned Catholic guilt). It's like never needing a bra.

I'm talking about built-in babysitters.

I'm talking about older children who not only call you Mum but who are capable and willing to take care of the smaller child who also calls you Mum. For extended periods of time. Hours even. Did you even hear me?? It's like all those sleepless nights with the three-toed sloth clinging to my boob never even existed! Or if they did I've suddenly romanticised them into oblivion because I now have the freedom to leave my children safely at home without having to spend hours on the phone promising responsible teenagers that coming to my house won't be anything like the last time, that his pants will definitely stay on this time, and that he won't make them play that game where they have to guess which animal makes the sound "GARUMP SHLAHBEE POOPYBUTT" for seven hours straight (because an animal like that doesn't actually exist and he was just stalling to stay up later, but most teenaged girls are too naive and sweet to catch on to his tricks until it's too late). And by the time I'm driving them home their cute hair-do's are all messed up, they've got applesauce all over their new Hollister jeans and their phone is still drying out from being hidden in the toilet.

And I'm getting a little tired of paying lots of dollars for a few hours of freedom. The way I see it? I don't owe my big kids any money for babysitting their little brother. HE'S MY GIFT TO THEM.

See how nice I am?

I was totally cut out for this parenting gig.

Renée Chalou Ennis

2009-08-06T11:30:00.003-04:00

is considering a return to blogging.

Damn. It seems that Facebook has conditioned her to speaking in third person singular.

She may or may not be sharing her adventures in home schooling, preschooler-wrangling, tween-angst and a life in limbo for 2009/2010. Her house is still on the (lifeless) market and her husband has moved his office from down the hall to across town, much to her relief. It was getting unbelievably crowded and there was a brief moment in time when running around screaming with her hair on fire seemed like the right thing to do.

Oh. And she's been running and strength training.

It only looks glamorous in pictures. The sweat and foul language really detracts from any lady-likeness she may have once had.

See you on Facebook.

Merely smaller and bigger versions

2008-12-13T14:04:00.003-05:00

of each other.

Whether it's the way in which they verbally negotiate, read under their blankets with flashlights or fiddle with coins in their pockets, my two boys are one and the same in subtle, yet unmistakable ways. It's almost like seeing my own husband as a boy in stages and I often become nostalgic about somebody I never knew, yet somehow have always known in my own children. I think about my husband as a small boy and wonder about the kinds of things he liked to do or say. I don’t doubt he drove his mother to her limits with his incessant talking much in the same way my boys do to me (I'm starting to suspect that they enjoy my twitchy eye). And whatever his own parents did in raising him to be such a good father, I only hope I’m doing some of the same. They’re all so similar, these three boys I live with, almost as if they’re the same person. Each following a similar thread, but each at his own point in time, giving me glimpses of things past and things future.

And if I keep going with this train of thought, you’ll have nothing left to read but "A Christmas Carol" metaphors and symbolism. I’ve got sugar cookies on a cooling rack that need taste-testing anyway, so I really should be going.

Typical

2008-12-12T15:51:00.002-05:00

Partly due to an ice storm that plundered the entire east coast last night and to some degree my selfish need to drink hot coffee, blog and be inside my warm home, the kids and I have learned some interesting things these last two days. Yesterday we learned that our Little Boy could write his name and today when asked to write letters again, he threw an eraser at my head and laughed fanatically because I AM NOT THE BOSS OF HIM. Fine, I say, wash your own batman underwear from now on. See if I care you adorable thing.

Today started like any typical day as I as dragged myself across the dining room floor, collecting stray legos and string cheese in my hair as I strained to find the coffee maker with my one opened eye. I mentally noted that I should find time to blog about how much of a morning person I’m NOT, but by the time I find time to write I’m usually cheerfully caffeinated and both eyes have come into focus, so I forget about my morning fog. But today felt like an all-day morning except I couldn’t continue drinking coffee lest I wanted to be up all night watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network – which would’ve been all right except I’ve found I’m much nicer when I sleep.

So other than handing my big kids their structured math lessons, I didn’t have the energy or desire to put together paper lessons. (Despite knowing he’ll be home soon, having my husband gone on business creates a silent, invisible void that can be louder and clearer than anything.) Here’s where the internet becomes my best homeschooling friend. Actually the internet has become my best ever friend, long before the words home and schooling ever came together inside my mouth. Not only did we have excellent spelling lessons, but we were able to learn everything there is to know about leeches and their medicinal purposes and blood worms, their four black teeth and how similarly their bite feels like a bee sting. A most excellent person allowed themselves get bitten on camera for our viewing pleasure. I’m fairly certain there isn’t anything cooler in a tween’s world than biting worms. (Well, we all know that sword fighting the cracken with Jack Sparrow while drinking a case of Mountain Dew would be much cooler but I don’t like to think about that.)

And now, now that my all-morning day is coming to a close and children are starting to get hungry, I have struck gold with Netflix’s on-demand television watching experience. One swift search for rad 80’s cartoons and I’ve scored myself an hour of quiet, glassy-eyed children. If you aren’t lucky enough to remember Astroboy, then you’re probably from Easton. Enjoy.

Some days having kids can be compared to

2008-12-11T16:34:00.005-05:00

a tiny headache approaching, the kind of headache that won’t stop you from doing what needs to be done but still feels faintly bothersome. Having children can be, at certain times, just like somebody grabbing your big toe and pulling really hard – it doesn’t exactly hurt, just rather unpleasant. It can also be like waiting ten minutes for the shower water to heat up, until finally realizing the pilot light is out and running to the basement, while cursing your husband for not showing you how to light the pilot and freezing your feet on the concrete floor because you didn’t wear slippers. Having kids can be like that some days.

But most days? Having kids is like getting a birthday present months after your birthday has passed. On most days having kids around is like licking a glob of real maple syrup off clean snow or playing tug-of-war with a fuzzy puppy. Generally speaking raising my kids is like my favorite pancake recipe (the one that’s wrinkled with overuse and brown from egg stains): they turn out right and we like to eat them a lot – the pancakes not the kids. Incidentally I refuse to admit here how often we eat pancakes for supper.

I don’t often have a ton of confidence in my parenting choices because I’m usually a second-guesser. (I suspect we’re all second-guessers to some extent but showing the chink in your Mama armor can be intimidating.) I might act like I know what the hell I’m doing but I regularly make it up as I skip along, avoiding the cracks so I don’t break my mother’s back. That’s one more reason why I like blogging - I can always refer back to my insecurities or convictions to get a bit of justification. I’m not as crazy as I anticipated? Fabulous!

I got a chewy little morsel of homeschooling awesomeness today, and yes I realize how often I mention homeschooling but saying those words aloud somehow make it feel more existent and substantial.

It’s not that I wondered if my Little Boy (I can no longer call him Toddler despite me wanting very much to ignore his very untoddler-esque qualities) could or couldn’t write his name - I just haven’t focused on those skills with him because he’s a loud, busy boy. A loud, busy boy who just wants to move constantly. Letter recognition seems to come in short bursts of rare quiet time (like, say, him having a fever?) and matching sounds with those letters must somehow be associated with tractors and fire trucks racing to the rescue. And no sooner do I write his name on a piece of paper, he is compelled to destroy it with glitter glue and pom-poms because, well, that’s what one does when destroying monsters and saving the planet. I assume.

He brought this to me:

After sitting with her:

He was grinning with pride because of Mama’s apparent gush fest (OH BABY LOOK WHAT YOU JUST DID! OH MAMA’S SWEET BABY BOY! DID YOU DO THIS?!) and she was proud because that’s what she does so astonishingly well - teach small people with patience and perseverance. If given time alone with a small person and without any competition, she’ll love, teach, love and play.

There was the occasional moment today when it felt like my big toe was being pulled, but these kids never fail to do something that reminds why I’m home and why I’m grateful to be home.

What happens when something

2008-12-11T10:55:00.002-05:00

normally found in your own childhood memories, like a toy or gadget, resurfaces in your children’s present lives? Does it retain its previously trendy value? Or does it now fall under the retro category? Or neither? Maybe it’s just another something.

We found a cassette player (!!) with headphones at a local salvage/surplus store and lo and behold! Cassette tapes were also available for the bargain basement price of 2 for 99¢. We gave the archaic contraption to the Boy for his 12th birthday, along with a couple more contemporarily acceptable gifts and you would’ve thought we gave him a touch screen mp3 player/pocket camcorder that makes ice cream sundaes. I can only surmise his reaction came from not really knowing what the heck a walkman actually was or even realizing that he was born long after they’d served their sole purpose (to jog in neon-colored spandex while listening to AC/DC) and had died accordingly in 1990 following the birth of cd's. He likes the click whir click whir noises that accompany stopping, fast forwarding and rewinding. I suppose when you’re adapted to on-demand media and music it might be a mysterious treat not knowing where the next song is. It’s rather like he’s a sleuthy detective trying to crack the cold case #72 “Where’s That Song I Really Like?” and the fate the outcome rides on his mad button-pressing skills. That’s how it was for me anyway. I’d sulk on my bed, popping pimples and listening to Peter Frampton’s Premonition album, just wanting to hear number seven over and over. I had rewind button reflexes like a cat. An angsty cat wearing tapered-legs jeans and sporting a bad haircut that no amount of Rave #4 would fix.

It’s a good thing he’s homeschooled because as much I love him reading Calvin and Hobbes while listening to his walkman in 2008, I know that would totally get him beaten up in school.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

2008-12-09T16:24:00.002-05:00

those are not a few of my favorite things, but these are: holiday baking, black and white movies, cinnamon bun candles, cinnamon bun candles burning while baking and watching black and white movies….

By the first turn of leaf in August, I begin fantasizing about how much fun December is going to be, how wonderfully spicy and warm my kitchen will smell, and how joyful my kids’ faces will be after testing every baked treat I’ve lovingly pulled from the oven. I even wear an apron sometimes. I completely romanticize December, despite having successfully lived through 32 of them and knowing full well that even with best intentions, it’s not all baking and caroling…..

But it is! In my head! I want to bottle this time of year just so I can lift the lid mid-February and remind myself how wonderful snow can be, how refreshing and not-at-all irritating slush on the cuffs of your pants can be, and how fun it can be to wear another wooly sweater because your nipples have turned inside out and have practically fallen off from the chill.

I’d make every flavor of fudge, bake every style of cookie, plan every silly snowflake craft and let my kids stay up every night watching old Christmas movies if it could be December all through winter.

I like my kitchen looking like this.

I ~~live and die for~~ like licking boiled chocolate off my ~~shirt, jeans, stove top~~ fingers.

And no, I didn’t bother to wipe the crushed walnuts or condensed milk from the corners of my mouth. I’m keeping it real.

And when would I ever get another opportunity to smash candy canes with my rolling pin if not for December? Not only do I create minty sprinkles but I’m able to release little frustrations too. I like to pretend the curly ends are Dick Cheney’s decrepit, pasty legs. Total epic kitchen.

Die puppet! Die!

If we could all walk around

2008-12-08T21:04:00.003-05:00

with thought bubbles above our heads I think I’d write “The economy’s in the shitter and I’ve got three stockings to stuff” in mine for the month of December. I’ve become more frugal this year than I ever thought I could be. Actually more than I ever thought I would want to be. And because I’m in such a vastly different situation than my parents ever were, I’ve only viewed bargain hunting as a hobby, a chance to find a deal and get a thrill. Yeah that sounded SO DORKY. But it’s true, my mother bought us second-hand clothing because she had no other choice. I garage sale (yes, it’s totally a verb) and rummage at thrift stores just because I know I’ll eventually find what I’m looking for before the summer’s over and pay only a few dollars for it. But until recently, I didn’t view bargain hunting as essential, just fun. I’m truly starting to feel like it’s part of my responsibility in this family and I’m learning to adopt a more frugal lifestyle because it’s good for us, not just because I get a kick out of $2 Gap jeans. I’m so much less stressed about clothing my kids this year because I didn’t pay more than $1 for almost every single pair of jeans in their closets! And unless I divulge that information, you can’t discern what they’re wearing from store purchased. Although we’re fortunate enough to never go without new if ever I can’t find something frugally, there isn’t a day I’m not grateful for that. My parents never had that luxury and I’m not envious. I’m slowly learning how to acquire what we need and so much of what we want without feeling like I’m sacrificing. And secretly? I enjoy it. I think what has made the most difference is the group of people I’ve found through homeschooling. They live their lives in similar ways and having good company makes us feel more normal and less like a weird, homeschooled freak show who like to make their own Christmas toys.

Speaking of which, I tried my own version of homemade crayons and they’re pretty neat (Mr. Roger-speak is hip again in case you weren’t aware) and the multicolored drawings they create will totally make it onto the fridge (if you’re in competition with, say, your big brother for the most fridge art). If you’ve got broken crayons, cooking spray, muffin tins and an oven you can make these.

I coated the tins with cooking spray and filled them about halfway with broken crayons and crayon shavings left over from our autumn window hangings (I knew I’d use those later - yay for saving them frugal me!). Heat your oven to 200° and set the timer for 11 minutes.

After you take them out, let them cool for about an hour. When you’re able to hold the pan with your hands, run the bottom under cold water and give the pan a little twist.

Your new crayons should pop right out! I’ll be putting these in my three-year-olds stocking and I didn’t spend a penny. Oh god I’m awesome.

Seriously, I’m learning to reuse what we have and spend our money on more important things, like good dark chocolate or a babysitter.

There's a boy.

2008-12-08T11:35:00.003-05:00

And he’s mine.

He’s mine in that I never knew I always needed him until I met him. I met him and we played swashbuckling pirates with swords and sealed our fates. He chased me around his house, laughing and climbing on me and drenching me with his little boyness. I knew if for no other reason than simply to be his mother, I was going to marry his father. And yes, I often let my twisted emotions hold the flashlight as I stumble through life’s dimly lit tunnels. But that’s how I operate and it’s reason #592 why marrying a left-brained person was in my stars.

You, my son, are also left-brained….logically, rationally and objectively left-brained. You’re one of my loudest voices of reason besides that of your father and I sometimes wonder if I tell you often enough how much I appreciate your humble, unobtrusive pieces of advice. Example: “Mama, that’s the Spanish version of the manual.” Or “Mama, try turning it the other way.”

Thanks kid.

You helped keep me sane and truly unafraid during the year your Dad was gone. It was beyond difficult; it was a true test of our bonds and trust in each other to be without him for so long and to ~~know~~ hope he would be home soon. You? Stepped up and did the things your Dad asked of you while he was away. And you were never negligent or complained because that’s who you are. People repeatedly tell me what a considerate, kind boy you are and I although I’d like nothing more than to selfishly take credit for my marvelous parenting, it’s just who you are. It’s so simple yet so remarkable how good and faithful you are to those you love. I regularly question what right things I did to deserve your love.

I love you in such a different way than I love your sister and brother, and yet I love you in the exact same way. That’s exactly what I tell people when asked how it feels to parent a “step” child; it’s different but the same. They don’t know you’re not my stepson. They don’t know you’re mine and always have been. It’s just something we have and don’t remember not having.

You’re 12 today. You’re one year closer to leaving home and becoming a world-renowned zoologist. You're one photo album closer to no longer being my young child. You're one more angsty, hormonally charged tantrum closer to signing up for driver’s ed classes. You’re my first attempt at parenting a tween, a pre-teen and soon….a teenager. I already know you and I will compromise and make it out alive because we’re cool like that. (It’s your sister I’m terrified of.)

You were so thrilled because you got 12 wishes this time...

I’m going to borrow one of your wishes and hope that you never lose you what makes you so unique.

Shine on Keegan – I love you!

Lung infections and asthma

2008-12-08T10:42:00.002-05:00

drain my ambition to write creatively or otherwise. That’s my excuse this time.

Keegan and Hannah

2008-11-14T12:11:00.002-05:00

give a 'lil shout out to Sam, Haley, Sydney, Max and Jason!

Enjoy!

taking accountability for only myself

2008-11-04T12:09:00.004-05:00

"like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains" ~ Gandalf

Just like the song says

2008-11-03T15:57:00.004-05:00

(minus the wanting to have sex with Obama part) I’m obsessed with the outcome of tomorrow.

I have an O B S E S S I O N.

I’m compelled to check the latest polls from no less than ten of the most independent polling agencies once per hour (on a slow day). And when I say “a slow day” I’m talking about a day when I convince myself to peel my twitchy eyeballs away from all things political and teach my children life skills that have nothing to do with the my bleeding socialist heart, the silent escalation of racism or having hope despite a lack of fresh air within this thick, filthy cloud of economic decline. I’ve recalculated McCain’s slim chances at grabbing 270 electoral votes by inputting various scenarios on John King’s “Magic Wall” ad nauseum. Scenarios like the entire state of California losing its collective marbles and voting for Sarah Palin. Of course that only lasts five seconds before I let out a giggle of relief and quickly click it back to blue. I’ve spent hours scouring IReports, trying to decipher the general consensus. Which, rationally speaking, is impossible to do until the morning November 5th.

But it’s killing me softly inside.

I’ve been stifling the volcanic eruption that’s been tickling the back of my throat for two months by absolutely disallowing myself the pleasure of letting go and believing in the goodness and resilience of humanity. Because I can’t. I can’t feel that way again. I can’t take any of the hope for granted. I’ll always have that niggling fear over whether or not there is indeed a firm hand on the red button, waiting, skulking in the dark for the exact moment during which a terrorist attack is most needed.

And I silently and often noisily worry that a black man winning the presidency is precisely that moment for many.

I don’t want to subscribe to conspiracy theories by nature, but it can’t be helped it seems. I’ve felt so violated by the propaganda and rhetoric for song long. I no longer know what is and what isn’t politically speaking. I no longer wonder exactly how far somebody can go in the name of God. I no longer gasp in horror at the audacious decisions made by our elected leaders anymore.

I’ve lost my optimism and assurance that if we all just vote……if we all just make our voices heard.

*disclaimer* Renée is ordinarily an extremely cheerful, reliant person. She loves human beings and trusts them. She tries to and usually succeeds at seeing the very best in a person. Even GWB for Pete’s sake, she believes is a very good rancher.

She’s holding it all within her tightly-wound chest, guardedly anticipating a let-down but truly hoping for, with all the might she’s built up over the past four years, for her faith in humanity to be restored.

She wants to see herself as others saw her in 2004:

Except this time she wants to win.

Eight years later...

2008-10-30T10:25:00.002-04:00

watch this one first:

and this one second:

Scott McClellan

2008-10-23T19:53:00.002-04:00

Yes, that Scott McClellan is endorsing Barack Obama.

*thud* goes the sound of Renée falling face-first onto the floor.

I still think he's a dirt bag and I don't entirely agree that any this post press secretary book writing and Democrat endorsing absolves him of lying to the American people for four years, but I suppose everybody's allowed a change of heart. Even if it's too little too late and the war's still on.

Regarding undecided voters

2008-10-23T14:03:00.001-04:00

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

- Author David Sedaris, on undecided voters

I never think up the good ones.

No doubt they're mine

2008-10-22T17:43:00.003-04:00

My Girl: Oooh! The Situation Room!

Me:

My Girl: What?

Me:

My Girl: I just love the news okay?

Me: I don't know how I feel about this.

An October Surprise

2008-10-22T09:22:00.002-04:00

has nothing do with political scandals or major league baseball ‘round these parts.

I spent three days in Tennessee sipping weak coffee and strong sweet tea, eating piles of barbecued pork that melted in my mouth as easily as the waitress’ sweet Southern twang draped itself over my ears, and looking out across the Smoky Mountains, wondering if this New England girl could ever fit within the confines of Southern expectations.

It wasn’t home. But it was real nice. And I mean reeyal nahhce. Nice enough to make me want to go back someday for a little more of that sugared-up hospitality and tasty, rib-sticking food.

But this is home.

Home ~~Snowy~~ Sweet Home.

Just because she can

2008-10-14T14:07:00.002-04:00

The stalks have dried and the seed pods have dropped into the ground for next spring's bloom, and yet my yellow lily, who normally blossoms and shows off mid June, has decided to give one last mid October hoorah.

I have never seen her act so boldly! But waiting only three months instead of an entire winter to smell her fragrance again was lovely.

I just hope she's not going senile because I'm sure next year's pansies will be fairly particular about who they share a bed with.

We all have triggers

2008-10-13T18:00:00.009-04:00

and there's nothing like a good article on child-directed marketing to set mine off. My 15 regular readers already know full-well who I am and what I believe in so the rant directly beneath you isn't anything you haven't already heard me spew. Sorry for not talking about anything new. We're all sick with the creeping crud here and I've got to vent my frustrations somewhere. :D

There can be no further rock-bottom in parenting than allowing our children to be sexualized.

Objectified.

Glorified.

I believe with all my maternal instincts, that because we allow little girls and by proxy, little boys, to not only receive sexual messages but to receive approval for accepting these sexual messages, we are devastating an entire generation of human beings. Maybe you're thinking “How could a parent, a very capable parent, a parent who unconditionally loves and nurtures their child approve of sexualization? You’re just being a judgmental bitch again Renée.” It’s not that I believe most parents advocate and endorse these messages consciously. I think many loving parents just accept pop culture because it’s easy and it makes their kids happy. It’s pop. It’s normal. It’s regular. It’s what we’re told our kids are into these days. Like a colony of rats running in circles towards the same hunk of moldy cheese because it's what we've been told to do.

I’m not exempt.

My older kids could live, breathe and eat Disney’s Pirates of The Caribbean. Don’t think it doesn’t piss me off and frustrate me. Don’t think I don’t scrutinize the melodramatics of Kiera Knightley’s very nubile, stick-thin character. My daughter now covets and begs for posters of Johnny Depp portraying the suave Captain Jack Sparrow. My daughter’s watched many of the Disney Princess movies – classic stories we’re told, of helplessness and heroism that colorfully silence our daughters’ sense of worth if she is without Prince Charming. A must-have each holiday season as the latest digitally re-mastered DVD makes its way from the Disney vault. I bought into it for years and I can only ~~allay my guilt~~ be a better mother by re-learning how to parent without the excessive exposure. And I still struggle to find a common ground with my children, a happier medium between a pop culture void of individualism but bursting with total glorification of the mayhem and spoon-fed marketing. Hannah Montana clothing and cosmetics? Why not? Just don’t check out Miley Cyrus’ Myspace profile. HSM 1! 2! 3? For the love of puppies, how many years in a row do these kids get to go to prom and why are six-year-olds wearing pretty shirts with Zac Efron’s steamy gaze on them? The Fantastic Four may be rated PG-13 but that’s not really significant. As long as the movie figurines make their way into the Happy Meals that are likely consumed by the ten and under crowd, consider it a job well done. I get a niggling feeling that they didn’t cast Jessica Alba for her outstanding acting skills.

We’re drowning our kids in it and it’s fucking freaking me out.

Although presumably benign (it’s just a little bit of lipstick and nice set of hips Mum), the pop culture of Bratz dollz encourages those subliminally mixed messages to become normal wiring in the highly suggestible brains of an entire generation. All I know is that generation = a really big number. For so SO long I fought having any meaningful inner dialogue with myself on this issue because Oh Em Gee! Bratz are adorable! So sparkly, painted, bendy and new. Those shoes with that lipstick shade? A perfect match. And those evocatively charming tops are exactly what my husband would want to see me wearing the next time we go parking. And Barbie dolls are socially accepted, so why not these newer, more tween-intended dolls? Why could I never get onboard with the Bratz? Why did I get so angry inside if ever my little daughter showed any amount of interest in them? Why did they terrify me? The answer was always so blatantly obvious but recognizing it was too painful, too real. There was always something about the Bratz that made my inner little girl plug her ears, squint her eyes and yell LA LA LA LA LA LA LA. I can’t hear you.

More than anything in this world, I’m afraid for my daughter to be sexualized before she’s ready. That’s the reason.

But as with all progress, the sometimes hopeless voice of dissent refuses to shut its damned mouth and we slowly evolve.

Bratz banned from Scholastic book clubs and fairs.

I KNOW, RIGHT? It's about goddamned time an educational corporation woke the hell up from its bureaucratically-induced coma and advocated for our children.

Now if only Santa would bring me an inauguration speech from Obama too, then all my peppermint Christmas wishes will have come true.

A hilariously literal translation

2008-10-13T13:53:00.002-04:00

on my theme song. You'll appreciate the 80's even more.

It's a silent endorsement

2008-10-12T18:26:00.004-04:00

from John McCain towards this kind of behavior.

The fundamental, religious nut-jobs can only hold back their own self-loathing, bible-fueled emotional repression and control issues so long before they explode at the real possibility of a bold black man, a strong black woman and two beautiful black girls living in the White House.

It ain't right they say.

He's an Arab they say.

Somebody needs to kill him they say.

With a hopeful victory so closely within America's grasp, the true nature of social conservatism and the fundamental Christian religion slithers its way between the feet of McCain's rally-goers and coils itself around the podium, spewing venomous hatred, bigotry and anger.

These kinds of people truly exist and will harm Barack Obama if given a hair-line crack in the window of opportunity.

The somber irony of the Right Wing Christian (actual) Rules versus much of the Right Wing Christian (actual) Behavior is a stark paradox. They'll preach it until things don't go their way. And then their bibles will close as the gut-wrenching ferocity and wrath from years of oppression will hunt you down, spit bloody rage in your face and drag you for miles behind its truck.

All in Jesus' name.

I hope I'm doing it for the right reasons.

2008-10-12T11:05:00.000-04:00

oh SNAP!

2008-10-10T21:15:00.002-04:00

Is there actually a rationally thinking human amongst us who actually thought she didn't abuse her power? Is that you, Captain Obvious? I thought you looked familiar…..

On a grateful, more unanticipated note, I received a most welcomed shout-out tonight. I suppose when I normally think of a UPS driver in my area, I’m reminded of a hard working, blue collar guy. A man satisfied with a simpler way of life, as many people in this area of Maine tend to be. The kind of man you might see sitting front row at a Jeff Foxworthy HBO comedy special perhaps. I’d expect to hear country music humming from within his dependable brown truck and I’d expect to see his bottom lip protruding slightly, somewhat concealing the wad of tobacco chew that keeps him focused as the holiday shipping season begins. I’d assume he enjoys the same typical winter sports as Todd Palin, therefore he’d most likely identify with him on some fundamental level, or so I’d assume.

And just as he hands over another of my early holiday packages, he politely shifts the tobacco off to the side of his mouth and quietly asks where I found my Obama '08 sign. He tells me that they’re $8 online and maybe I know where to find them discounted? He wonders if maybe I’d know where the Democratic office is around here? I’m too bowled over with appreciation to even remember that I have an extra sign in my garage. I’m too embarrassed by the prejudices I hold against the people in my area, the very types of behavior I find so appalling in many of the opposing party’s members, but apparently prejudices that aren’t limited to one group of people at all - prejudices that exist collectively whether or not we openly admit them.

Mr. UPS, you saw the Obama ’08 sign in my window and you said to me, “I’m glad you guys are on my team.”

I don’t even know your name sir, but I will find out. And I will hand you my extra sign. And then I will shake your hand, your hard working, blue collar hand that tunes the radio dial to the local country station and tunes a snowmobile engine during the winter.

I’m glad to have you on my team too.

Be still my heart.

2008-10-10T11:58:00.002-04:00

Stumbling upon the scattered pages of my little girl’s notions and finding her intimate preferences so adorably illustrated was nothing short of enchanting. As I giggled and appreciated this chance to peek inside my daughter, most of my occasional hesitations or uncertainties were quelled. My ideals are good enough for her to accept and, more significantly, believe in.

I grabbed my camera, took the picture and ran upstairs to kiss her head, only to have her pull away because I was messing up her perfectly positioned bangs. I didn’t even care.

(click on picture)

Liberal Democratic Cowboys??

2008-10-09T10:28:00.001-04:00

*swoon*

VP Debate '08 live blogging...

2008-10-02T22:24:00.003-04:00

Sarah, a "quasi-cave-in" isn't a furry creature found only in the remote mountains of Alaska. Just sayin'.

Sarah, again, "walk-the-walk" and "talk-the-talk" are overused. How about "gallop-like-a-giddy-school-girl" and "talk-without-that-nasally-midwestern-accent?" Just a thought.

And Sarah? Don't threaten us by with fear about "losing our freedom in only one generation." Not cool.

Big word used by Biden: certitude

And me without my dictionary.

VP Debate '08 live blogging...

2008-10-02T22:16:00.003-04:00

Cheney is dangerous and a master of invention Joe, right on.

Sarah, kindly shut up about your "world view." Are you referring to your world view of when you look up and see Putin flying over Alaska on his way home to Russia?

Egads. She even snarls like Cheney. Hold me Mama.

VP Debate '08 live blogging....

2008-10-02T22:08:00.002-04:00

Um, no Sarah. No we don't need any Wasilla Main St. influence. I'm good, really.

And for those of us watching CNN? Rollins needs a jelly donut shoved into his conservative piehole. He's padding the analyst numbers. Nothing she's said yet was worth that ten point jump he added.

And Sarah? The Vice President breaks a Senate tie. Just thought you might want to know considering how gracefully you skip-roped over that question.

VP Debate '08 live blogging....

2008-10-02T21:57:00.003-04:00

I like the way Biden looks as though he wants to yank those porno librarian glasses off her face and remind her that "the surge" isn't "the war." THREE WEEKS DOESN'T EXPUNGE SIX YEARS. Unless we're using the Alaskan calendar - which is entirely plausible.

When Palin says "oh man, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider" what she really means is "oh shit, I have no idea what you're talking about Joe because I really don't have any political leadership experience other than my short term as Alaskan governor. So I'm going to just repeat these here talking points that John wrote down on this here peice of paper. We can see Russia from our front lawns." Then she bats her drawn-on eyebrows and winks at Bill Clinton, who's sitting in the front row, holding Hillary back.

VP Debate '08 live blogging...

2008-10-02T21:51:00.003-04:00

Number of times Palin's blinked long and thoughtfully: 72

Number of Palin's wide, doe-eyed stares into the camera while saying "friends": 593

Number of times Biden smiled frustratedly because he just wanted to scream "look bitch! I've been fighting against this war for almost six fucking years! You've just recently been prepped and informed about what's been going on in Iraq over the past three days while chilling on McCain's ranch in Arizona!": 684

Melted crayons and vivid leaves

2008-09-30T13:51:00.006-04:00

Sounds colorful doesn’t it? My kids and I spent the better part of an afternoon crafting, making messes, dripping wax all over the kitchen table and abandoning any chance of getting the next math lesson done. It was worth it.

This is a conventional autumn craft with a waxy twist! As with most autumn crafts, you need leaves. It’s peak fall this week so we were able to find the freshest, brightest leaves today. Mmmm….fresh, bright and crunchy.

Along with Mother Nature’s beautiful contribution, you need:

Crayon shavings (or glitter if you’re not up for spoiling crayons)

Wax paper

An iron – and a large sheet of paper and a paper towel to keep the iron from directly touching the craft

Scraps and glue for framing

(Adorable children not necessary but recommended)

The first step is shaving your crayons, which is totally rad if you’re a kid because don’t you normally get into trouble for breaking crayons? I always did. My own kids looked at me skeptically when I gave them the green light to “sharpen” their crayons and save the shavings in a bowl. Their trepidation lasted all of three seconds before they got down to business. Even purples and blues added amazing color to our project so mix up your color choices!

Once you’re happy with your rainbow of shavings, put them all together and crunch up the bigger pieces with your fingers. Super tactile Montessori fun! Even I couldn’t keep my fingers out of the bowl.

Now it’s time to get creative, channel your inner Warhol and get funky baby. Place one sheet of wax paper atop a large sheet of paper and become one with the leaves. Feel the leaves, let the leaves tell you where they want to be.

After you’ve achieved happy leaf placement, sprinkle your inspiration with shavings. Don’t be shy now! When I say sprinkle, I really mean heap those yummy-looking shavings all over the wax paper and leaves. And yes, they really are yummy-looking. However my three-year-old will tell you they don’t taste very yummy and unfortunately, he discovered that from first-hand experience. I’m sure he’ll have a rainbow poop for me tomorrow.

And we're sprinkling darling. Sprinkle like you mean it.

Now you step in and get the melting done. Set your iron on medium and apply pressure slowly and evenly. Don’t forget to put a paper towel between the iron and the wax paper! Because that would be bad. I’m not telling you this from experience. No I’m not. Okay, maybe I am.

I spent about five minutes on each craft.

And we have a melty masterpiece! Stars in my eyes they're cute kids.

As for framing them, we cropped the crafts evenly across the top, bottom and sides and used all kinds of scraps to glue along the edges. My son color-coordinated a green border with red corners. I was impressed. And a little jealous that his looked nicer than mine.

Or, if you’re my daughter, you decide to cut out 293 tiny triangles for a most charming mosaic frame. Straight lines or funky shapes - whatever works, right?

Hang them where they’ll get plenty of sunshine and ooh's & ahhh's.

Concerning baby killers

2008-09-28T22:28:00.002-04:00

(of which I personally have no first-hand knowledge) and concerning people who choose to take a pro-choice stance.

I received an electronic communication today calling me a baby killer.

Apparently I need to clarify any mixed messages Fundamental Fred may have about the differences between pro-choice and pro-abortion.

We, and I’m fairly confident when I speak for the collective pro-choice “we”, don’t like the idea of dead babies. I mean honestly, who does? Who actually wakes up each morning thinking “Sweet, somebody’s getting an abortion today.”? I don’t know people like that. I’m not saying there aren’t freaks out there, because there are. But generally speaking, abortions aren’t something pro-choice people wish for. The abortion itself is a small dab of black in a larger, uglier painting that most people are unwilling to see. It’s the reasons behind an abortion that are exactly the things most forward-thinking, pro-choice, liberal people are invested in putting a stop to. Things like rape, incest, or the pathetic lack of sex education to middle-school aged kids. I’m not saying rape and incest don’t happen worldwide, but it’s no wonder Europe looks at us like we’re complete assholes with our Puritanical approach to sexually educating our kids. We don’t want our pre-teenage daughters knowing the fundamentals of reproduction and self-empowerment of their own bodies and we let our seven year old daughters wear shirts adorned with Bratz dolls, who by the way look like they’re just about to climax, to school. Hello? Mixed message? Very confused and vulnerable daughter speaking.

Ahem.

Give me a moment.

Blood pressure’s getting a smidge high.

………..and we’re good.

A pro-choice opinion shouldn’t automatically suggest that I like the idea of abortion. It should suggest that I don’t approve of the government having ultimate control over my body. Does it imply that I would get an abortion? It shouldn’t. Because I wouldn’t. Does it imply that I’m undisturbed that abortions happen every day in my country? It shouldn’t. Because I’m not. I’m actually very disturbed.

I don’t like abortions.

I don’t want for abortions.

But in the words of Bill Clinton, “abortions ought to be safe, legal and rare.” Rare. Operative word. The entire principles of abortion should be influenced by that word. In the United States of America safe and legal should be assumed, but rare? That’s not something medical advances and a rational justice system can manage. That’s our cue as parents, teachers and keepers of all children to enter stage right and give the star performance of our careers. We teach rare. We demonstrate rare. We support and give alternatives so that rare becomes normal.

My stomach’s in knots trying to defend myself to somebody who knows nothing of my love for humans and our ability to make babies.

I don’t believe in killing babies. I believe in rare.

Twice over

2008-09-25T21:31:00.005-04:00

It seems that John McCain hasn’t panicked about public debates just once. No, my friends, his toes also got cold back in 2000 when scheduled to debate Texas governor George W. Bush. Yeah, that Bush. The Bush whose IQ most likely rivals that of the giant crap my husband just took. Honestly, who can blame the guy for having trepidations and anxieties about facing Barack Obama? I wouldn’t want to be debating against one of the most eloquent, intelligent politicians of my lifetime in a live, televised event either.

But you chose this John McCain. You chose Sarah Palin. And you continue to choose tired, worn-out “maverick-isms."

Short-hand your Straight Talk Express on to 5x7's and haul it to the podium my friend.

Get your fat Jewish asses on a plane.

2008-09-25T12:48:00.001-04:00

Otherwise Sarah will call you a douche-nozzle.

I'm totally dragging my fat French ass up north to convince my Catholic grandparents that Jesus won't abandon them in purgatory if they vote for a pro-choice Democrat.

.....

2008-09-21T17:16:00.001-04:00

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for 'The Vagina Monologues', wrote the following about Sarah Palin:

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

****I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.'

I think of teeth when I think of drills.
I think of rape.
I think of destruction.
I think of domination.
I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent.
I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

-Eve Ensler September 5, 2008

Concerning mountain biking

2008-09-16T16:28:00.005-04:00

Specifically, why do I do it? Why do I cram my butt into padded, not-at-all attractive, spandex shorts? Why do I continue to stuff my cumbersome chest into a too-small sports bra and suffer the effects of armpit-boob? Why do I choose this particular extreme sport over another, like say, street luging or base jumping? Wait - that actually sounds fun and probably involves cooler clothing – I’ll give it earnest consideration and mention it to the kids.

What attracted me to riding my bicycle over tree roots and down jagged, rocky slopes wasn’t the risk of catapulting head-first over my handle bars and eating a pine tree. No, that wasn’t it. I wasn’t interested in mountain biking because it looked easy or leisurely, or that it wouldn’t make me sweaty or make my clothes smell bad. That was NOT it. The only reason I’m up on the mountain is because my kids are up there, pretty much kicking ass. So because they decided to buy mountain bikes and get all tricksy and bold, I’m up there making a mess of a perfectly good manicure so that I don’t lose sight of them as they morph into angsty, distant pre-teens who like to do really cool stuff without their parents around. Of course had they chosen bull riding as their “thing” I’d probably be complaining about how rodeo clowns freak me out and wondering if chaps make my butt look big. Or I’d be dead, either way.

Point being, I wouldn’t have chosen this sport without my kids’ influence. Sometimes the irony of the situation cracks me up considering I’m their teacher. I’m learning that it doesn’t always work that way.

I’m also learning that I make the most idiotic facial expression when I’m concentrating really hard on not falling off my bike and dying. I can only compare my facial expressions to the one people usually make the instant they realize a spider just landed on their arm. Or the moment they open their property tax bill.

When I’m on my mountain bike, I look like I’m perpetually freaking out. Or constipated.

Or sometimes I'm just closing my eyes and wishing the big scary mountain away in a puff of pretty purple smoke.

Or there are those times when I'm leaning off the side of my bike and watching the giant tree come at my head in slow motion, wondering if I kissed my children goodbye and if I had done all the things in life I had hoped to.

And sometimes, when I finally make it (in one un-mutilated piece) to the bottom of the mountain, I feel tough and assured – as though I’ve accomplished something I didn’t set out to accomplish but did anyway. As though a goal was set for me and without even knowing I’d be capable of doing it, I did it.

I know I look foolish and I also know there's a pretty good chance I’m going to really hurt myself one of these days, but apparently I’m okay with that.

Ten

2008-09-14T10:48:00.007-04:00

little fingers and ten little toes stuffed and swaddled in pink. Ten times ten I counted the soft, baby-blonde hairs on your perfectly round head. Within ten seconds of your bloody, hurried arrival I had fallen painfully, irreversibly in love with you and the first ten minutes of your heart-shaped mouth urgently suckling at my breast was strangely familiar, as if cradling you there was exactly what I’d been waiting for. I never dreamed I would look back on you ten years from that moment and wonder why it felt like only minutes had passed.

my baby daughter
you led me from selfishness
on gossamer wings

You mended my broken heart with tranquility and soft baby noises, as we lay together in my old bedroom, your face softly against mine. Even though I spent many nights crying and holding your small, warm body as you slept, you were completely unaware of any turmoil that existed in the adult world around you. You helped me accept the abruptness of motherhood with toothless smiles that cast warm light on my beautifully different body.

You not only endured but thrived despite my ineptness, inexperience and inabilities and you brought my father and me together again, in an entirely different kind of relationship. You taught me how to be needed and your grandfather how to be needed again. You filled my childhood home once again with smelly blankies, baskets of dirty baby clothes and all the crumbly, chewed-upon reminders that often follow behind children.

You reunited me, my father, sister and brother with love ten-fold.

And it was you who shot cupid’s arrow into your step-dad’s back. He saw the impish way you led me around on a string of affection and desperately wanted it tied around his finger too. Your wide-eyed helplessness caused his chest to expand protectively and his head tilted with curiosity and fondness at your dirty blonde curls and throaty laugh. You filled him with a desire to be somebody important to you and without ever saying so, you told him and his son that we desperately needed them.

You’ve given me ten years of experience in motherhood, and even now I often wonder how you’ve survived so brilliantly despite all my blunders and self-doubt. You were destined to be my first, my trial run, rallying around my knees and tugging on my sleeve as my parenting prototype took shape.

I’m so thankful you came to me then, wrinkly, warm and crying for milk. I’m so thankful to have you next to me now, long and muscular, growing and questioning this life and your purpose.

I love you Hannah. I love you more on this day than I ever dreamed I could love another.

note - For those of you who know us, you know her birthday was a week ago, but as luck would have had it, my computer got very sick and died. It was a sad, sad day. I cried, my husband cried. Then we got over it and I made him build me a new one.

The Spin Zone

2008-09-05T09:12:00.003-04:00

Even when presented with their own pandering double-standards, the bobble-headed pundits and puppeteers can only roll their eyes and whistle Dixie while polishing their flag shaped lapel pins. What? I said what? Look! A terrorist!

The next two months should provide for some fancy GOP tap-dancing.

I have more to say

2008-08-30T07:57:00.002-04:00

on the matter of John McCain’s VP pick, but I don’t even know where to start. I could begin with how transparently laughable a move this was, but I’m too insulted to laugh. Let me preface my gripe by saying I would’ve been over-the-moon if Hillary Clinton had been the nominee instead of Obama; I respect and admire her incredibly. But not simply because she is a woman. And although her gender makes her accomplishments all the more admirable, she is Hillary Clinton because her lifetime of achievements and capabilities define her. Not her vagina.

But apparently Sarah Palin’s vagina is going to fill the 18 million cracks in the "glass ceiling" left by Clinton’s departure. That’s one hell of a vagina. I’d pay good money to see that.

Shame on you John McCain for assuming gender is the reason for Hillary’s success. In one general sweeping motion you have painted her supporters as shallow feminist sheep, following the golden vagina off into the sunset. And Mr. McCain? Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton.

And secondly, you’re old. You’re 72 and have had cancer four times. You’re one misshapen skin discoloration from the casket. And you want to put an inexperienced, first-term Alaskan governor one melanoma away from the highest position in the land? You think her mad skillz as a rural town mayor is exactly what she’ll need to equip her as President of The United States? Hello? Zero Foreign Policy Experience? Sarah Palin speaking.

Smooth move Mr. Maverick. You really showed those undecided Clinton supporters exactly what’s going on in your shriveled, geriatric gray matter. And it ain’t pretty. It’s frightening.

Thanks for clinching the next Democratic president. You’re awesome that way.

Ahhh.....

2008-08-29T12:30:00.002-04:00

just like a chunky burp after Thanksgiving dinner, the Biden-Palin debates in Missouri will prove to be quite satisfying.

Quite risky Mr. McCain, quite risky indeed.

Methinks the republicans are playing their last card.

And I like it.

John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt

2008-08-26T16:32:00.003-04:00

has never been paid such a tribute. It is with great happiness that I share such unbearably edible cuteness with you.

Resisting urge to bite his delicious cheeks.....

Step off Joe Francis.

2008-08-24T15:00:00.002-04:00

Your toned, tanned, titty-flashing, barely-legal ~~hollywood hopefuls~~ girls ain’t got nothin’. There’s a new babe in town and she’s got poise, attitude, experience, stretch marks, a 401K and she knows how to cook a mean lasagna.

Introducing Mums Gone Wild – New England 2008

Scintillating, isn’t it?

It was either that or My Mom’s Homemade Bread Is Hotter Than Your Mom’s Homemade Bread.

They’re both real headliners, aren’t they?

This is what happens when my dedicated Dad, also known around here as Pepérè, offers to take my ceiling-bound monkeys overnight. I frantically pack their bags, hurriedly smooch their faces and try desperately not to stub my toe as I sprint to my car after dropping them off in his capable, coddling care. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my ~~demon-possessed~~ enthusiastic ~~urchins~~ children, more than I can possibly express with my fingertips on this keyboard. But, when given the opportunity to lie horizontally in the afternoon sunshine without opening my eyes every two minutes to make sure nobody’s hungry, thirsty, in need of sun block, unhappy, arguing or drowning, you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to take it.

It was a slice of hot strawberry-rhubarb pie, an hour-long backrub from Pablo the cabana boy and a soft French pedicure all wrapped in one sunny afternoon.

Try not to gasp with shock when you see what I’ve been up to:

Crazy, I know. I didn’t intend to be so reckless with my free, childless time but sometimes I lack self control. I’m working on it.

And with them rides my soul.

2008-08-22T10:58:00.002-04:00

Watching hot air balloons inflate at my feet and float above my head always leaves me in slack-jawed amazement. I marvel at how gracefully fierce their looming presence above the treetops and church steeples can be, and at the simplicity of fast-moving air molecules treading so closely to a beautiful catastrophe.

I am so small and irrelevant standing beneath them.

I am so thankful to know that he’ll remember this day and refer to it often and incessantly. I’m also somewhat happy that he’ll remind me daily that it cost two hundwed and fitty dowwahs to ride in a hot air balloon and that he only had two pennies in his pocket. He’ll be disappointed about his lack of funds for a while.

I love this time of year with every fiber of me.

Two years ago

2008-08-21T07:54:00.002-04:00

my family stood beneath the colored sheaths of humbling proportions, marveling and squealing at the sheer majesty inflating above them. It's that time of year again and I'm beyond excited! I promise to bring extra batteries for my camera and an adult diaper in case I soil myself in anticipation.

Camping can be fun!

2008-08-20T15:43:00.003-04:00

Despite beach sand in your socks and torrential downpours of unwelcomed August rain that leave you stranded inside the arcade drinking an overpriced Slushie and handing quarters to your children every time the pinball machine cheats them out of their third ball.

Really. Camping can be fun.

It can be a wholesome family experience even if all the sleeping bags smell damply smoky and the daddy long legs have started a colony on the screened roof of your tent. It’s fun to lie there on your slowly-deflating air mattress, staring up at the ceiling while their long, spindly legs scurry this way and that, all the while knowing the only thing separating you from certain panic and blood-curdling screams is mesh. Did you know daddy-long legs aren’t actually spiders? They have only six legs. Trust me, I’m an expert on the amount of legs they have as I counted them over and over again while lying there in the dark, obsessing about whether or not they had eaten their way through my tent and were sucking the life from the sleeping toddler next to me.

Sand is for beaches. A leafy forest ground is for camping. Sand mixed with camping only makes for a gritty, impossible-to-keep-clean tent and sandy bits that sneak their way into your sleeping back and lodge themselves either a) up your butt crack, b) in your nose and armpits or c) up your butt crack. Either way you wake up scratching.

And partly due to my inefficient packing skills, we may have been without a few of the necessities that make camping ~~tolerable~~ fun. Like pepper, enough paper towels, and soap. Yes, I said SOAP. I didn’t pack it. Let’s just say I learned one of life’s lessons the hard way. Don’t wash your body parts with Head ‘n Shoulders shampoo. It burns.

Moving on.

Overall it was a regular camping trip filled with cheeseburgers, s’mores, canoeing, and general happiness.

Don’t I look happy?

That's because I'm drunk.

200 things for the 200th blog entry

2008-08-12T18:19:00.001-04:00

I’ve hit “publish” 200 times on this little emotional rollercoaster of mine. It’s been cathartic, entertaining, embarrassing, scary and fun. But mostly I just like telling people I have a blog. It makes me feel special. So here are 200 amazing things about me that you never even knew you needed to know:

1. I like wearing black nail polish.
2. I adore my full breasts when I float naked on my back.
3. That’s really the only time I like them.
4. I’d prefer my feet to be one size smaller.
5. I like watching HGTV’s House Hunters more than I admit to anybody.
6. I’d breastfeed indefinitely for life if I had a willing baby.
7. I think html is exciting.
8. I don’t regret remodeling my home.
9. But I do regret not selling it two summers ago.
10. I’ve had an ingrown toenail surgically removed from my right big toe twice.
11. I’m slightly attracted to the holographic doctor on Star Trek Voyager.
12. I’ve also got an itty bitty thing for Benecio Del Toro.
13. Tim Horton’s – large with five creams one sugar
14. I like the smell of my toddler’s stinky toes.
15. I don’t have many friends in this rural town.
16. Sometimes it bothers me and other times it refreshes me.
17. But the friends I do have are friends for life.
18. I’m scared shitless of aspartame.
19. I feel so much at home deep in the woods, alone and hiding.
20. I was a single mother for three years.
21. Mountain biking makes feel powerful and strong.
22. I have two guinea pigs and they are my wittle babeez.
23. I rock them and sing lullabies.
24. I wax my upper lip and my children find my mustache hilarious.
25. I wax their arms just for fun and laugh at their pain.
26. I’m just kidding about #25.
27. Well I waxed their arms once just to show them what waxing was.
28. And I totally laughed at their pain that one time.
29. Moving on.
30. I wish it could be September in Maine all year round.
31. I am a Trekkie.
32. I think my husband would look hot as a Vulcan.
33. He fantasizes about me dressed as an Orion Slave Girl.
34. Google it.
35. I shop second hand for clothes.
36. It helps me feel less guilty for driving new cars.
37. Once I start a game of solitaire I have difficulty stopping.
38. My garbage man comes early every Monday morning.
39. But I rarely it get it down to the end of my driveway in time.
40. So I usually have four weeks of smelly garbage festering in my garage.
41. But I do have exceptionally clean bathrooms.
42. My sister is my absolute best friend.
43. She was the most amazing gift my parents ever gave to me.
44. I feel a twinge of sadness that my daughter only has brothers.
45. I am a conspiracy theorist.
46. But I didn’t stockpile canned goods and generators for Y2K.
47. That would’ve been plain silly.
48. I’m on an antidepressant.
49. And I’m very much okay with it.
50. I’m happier at this point in life than I’ve ever been before.
51. Despite being rounder, fuller and more voluptuous than ever before.
52. I haven’t had the urge to starve myself since the birth of my son.
53. I think that’s pretty amazing.
54. My husband thinks my boobs are pretty amazing.
55. I wish he’d stop grabbing them every chance he gets.
56. The kids are starting to notice.
57. Homeschooling has been an incredible journey for our family.
58. A snickers bar always lifts my spirits.
59. I’ve never been in a sorority but almost pledged in 1994.
60. One of my favorite childhood books is Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo has fallen into the well!
61. My least favorite household chore is folding clean laundry.
62. I admire my parents and aspire to follow their examples.
63. I did not admire them when I was 16.
64. I was actually a spoiled little shit at 16 and tried to give them ulcers.
65. To this day I have no idea why they didn’t sell me to the gypsies.
66. I sell Arbonne to myself.
67. I have yet to reach regional manager.
68. That was a joke.
69. I’ve given birth to two children but am a Mama to three.
70. The one I didn’t birth has taught me a lot about selflessness and real love.
71. He’s pretty much the biggest lesson I’ve learned in life.
72. And he looks just like me so that’s awesome.
73. I was married in Auckland, New Zealand.
74. I make deliciously eggy homemade waffles.
75. We eat them way too often for lunch.
76. I lived in Connecticut for five years.
77. Those years are slightly hazy in my memory.
78. Age 21 was tumultuous for me.
79. And intoxicated.
80. But so fun and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.
81. My long hair is a security blanket for my head.
82. I’m constantly putting it up and taking it down.
83. I dyed the poor mop black for almost ten years.
84. I had to cut it extremely short to remove the black color.
86. My husband tried to say something nice to make me feel better.
87. But he couldn’t hide the fact that he really loves big 80’s hair.
88. Now I curl it up nice and big like I’m a member of Winger just for him.
89. That’s commitment, baby.
90. Every Saturday night my husband and I get Ruby Tuesday take-out and watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine as our date night.
91. I look forward to our date night all week.
92. I listen to techno.
93. And I’m not afraid to admit it.
94. I keep my heels pumiced and lotioned.
95. Cracked heels are gross.
96. I give my girlfriends pedicures.
97. I adore my friends’ children.
98. That’s one of the amazing aspects of good friendships.
99. If I live to be 99 years old, please let me still have bowel control.
100. If I don’t have bowel control at age 99, please let me be too senile to realize it.
101. I have a biological father who I didn’t meet until I was 25.
102. I have an adoptive father who fell in love with me when I was two.
103. I have a step-father who’d do anything for me or my children.
104. I’m a damned lucky daughter.
105. Blackjack gum is my all-time favorite gum but I can never find it.
106. I don’t like or wish for abortions but still believe in a woman’s right to choose.
107. I grew up Catholic.
108. But I would never subject my children to it.
109. My children are not baptized.
110. I had a dog named Frodo.
111. He barked.
112. I gave him to my sister.
113. She plots my untimely death each night because of that furry black mutt.
114. My theme song is “Take On Me” by A-ha!
115. Ally McBeal helped me discover it.
116. I have a pierced naval and a tattoo.
117. I suppose that makes me a bad-ass.
118. I’ve road-biked 350 miles so far this summer.
119. I’ve got solid calves to prove it.
120. The five of us constantly bike together in a pack.
121. But somehow I always get stuck pulling the toddler in his buggy.
122. Why is that?
123. Willow Tree figurines tickle my fancy.
124. I don’t think I’ve ever said “tickle my fancy” with a straight face before.
125. We’re due for a family portrait this year.
126. I’ll undoubtedly obsess about how chubby my face looks.
127. Stretching with my Pilates band helps me relax.
128. Shopping for new shoes does too.
129. I have a fabulous hairdresser named Sheila.
130. I’m having a love affair with my Tassimo one-cup coffee maker.
131. My husband’s totally okay with it.
132. I’ve caught him giving his laptop a backrub so we’re cool.
133. I was a beauty queen.
134. No seriously.
135. I won a beauty pageant in 1994.
136. There were five contestants.
137. I’ll wait for you to stop choking from laughter before I go on.
138. ………
139. Need a hanky?
140. I’m an eBay junkie.
141. But to my credit, I usually only buy school supplies and books.
142. The cashiers and baggers at my local grocery store know my name.
143. They also carry my groceries to my car for me.
144. Small town charm is not lost around here.
145. I smoked cigarettes on and off for the better part of ten years.
146. I regret it.
147. Watching my mother continue to smoke at age 52 breaks my heart.
148. I find Celebrity gossip oddly gripping.
149. My little brother is a police officer…..shhhh…it’s the po-po.
150. His fiancé is a lawyer.
151. I’m very well-behaved around them.
152. I hated Bush before it was hip.
153. And I was talking about Obama in 2006.
154. I suppose this all makes me very special indeed.
155. Sometimes I worry that I’m raising politically angry children.
156. But I don’t know any other way.
157. I believe we’re evolving.
158. But I’m not so sure that it’s into something good.
159. I’d like to raise hens.
160. I have dimples in my cheeks and sometimes people poke them.
161. My sweet toddler’s got them too.
162. Which is good - because other than that?
163. He’s a miniature version of his Daddy.
164. I’m going to write a book someday.
165. I loathe commercials with a burning hatred.
166. I’m trying very hard to keep my children from growing up in the pop culture of Disney.
167. I want to smash High School Musical’s teeth in.
168. I can’t even find a toothbrush without Hannah Montana’s face on it.
169. I’m making myself so angry just thinking about it.
170. But bookmarks made from pressed flowers make me happy.
171. I love watching black and white movies from the 1940’s.
172. Particularly movies starring Cary Grant.
173. My husband and I eat pepper jack cheese and Ritz crackers in bed.
174. Sometimes I worry that Africanized bees are going to take over the world.
175. Blue Moon has been our summer beer.
176. I’ve eaten more butter-crunch ice cream this summer than I’ll admit.
177. I tried to build my kids a tree house.
178. I got as far as a triangular platform.
179. And then I ran out of wood.
180. I have a pumpkin patch.
181. I almost always stop at a garage sale.
182. My husband and I watch two Netflix dvd’s a week.
183. The dvd’s are always Star Trek.
184. I have a red-headed Scottish friend named Kelly.
185. She even wears a kilt and plays the bagpipes.
186. I’ve signed my name on the Eiffel Tower.
187. I play Webkinz when nobody’s looking.
188. I’m a part-time college student.
189. Because I’m a full-time Mum.
190. I drive a black VW Jetta.
191. I danced with gay cowboys in St. Louis last year.
192. I drink 64 ounces of ice-cold water every day.
193. It’s a good habit I started when breastfeeding.
194. My husband’s genius is his sexiest attribute.
195. My clothing just falls right off when he geeks it out.
196. My egg salad is kind of a big deal.
197. I didn’t know the difference between an excavator and a backhoe until I had a toddler boy.
198. But now I can name every piece of farm equipment ever made.
199. I was pulling my daughter in a little red wagon down main street the moment the planes hit the twin towers.
200. I’m overly-protective of my children.

That’s ten minutes of your life you’ll never get back. I hope it was worth it.

Even though our plan is three

2008-08-08T20:32:00.002-04:00

and fallopian tubes have been tied, the forever maternal longing within me mourned the loss of something that never even was. A little whisper in my ear giggling it’s possible. Maybe this little egg tried to wake something in me that I’d long since folded and neatly put away in the bottom drawer. This little one wanted to get noticed. It wasn’t getting reabsorbed quietly or without a fight. Its’ refusal to pack up and leave town stirred me. It gave me sore boobs and a niggling hope. It made me silently wish for a surgical failure.

As it turned out, my doctor was a proficient surgeon and my fallopian tubes have not re-grown together.

It was just two weeks of lateness, fatigue, and confused anticipation. And really, that’s okay because I never had it to begin with. I only had a possibility. Possibilities aren’t always endless. Some end.

But the baby that occupied my heart for the past 14 days did exist. And I named her Daisy.

Because I'm easily amused

2008-08-06T21:47:00.004-04:00

and have a giant crush on the sounds of Daft Punk:

Now imagine that with toes. I know, right?

News from The County Weekender

2008-07-27T13:02:00.002-04:00

During the peak afternoon humidity, a Local Lawnmower failed in his valiant attempt to win the weekly contest between himself and his neighbor for the best manicured lawn. In an unprecedented maneuver of untested effectiveness, he veered his lawn tractor towards a steep ditch, attempting a 90° angle strip of mowed grass with precise corners and criss-crossing patterns. Although he had never attempted such a challenging and uncommon technique before, Mr. Local Lawnmower felt confident in his abilities and blamed the mishap on outside forces over which he had no control. Had it also not been for his oversight in wearing unsuitable footwear, Mr. Local Lawnmower tells reporters “There’s no doubt my foot would’ve hit the brake instead of the gas.” Mr. Local Lawnmower deeply regrets his choice of sandals but insists “They are the comfiest shoes I’ve ever owned and were well worth the money spent.”

He also blames the accident on wet conditions, but justifies mowing despite inclement weather on his desire to get a “head start on the competition” while his neighbor remained helplessly trapped at work today. He told reporters that he “enjoys setting the bar by being the first one on the field.”

Although he does feel humbled by this unfortunate setback, he felt he was able to redeem himself by what he referred to as an “Indiana Jones-like pivot and leap” off the tractor and a “one armed hang” leaving him dangling from the stalks of the goldenrod flowers that have just come into bloom. Mr. Local Lawnmower also mentioned that the flowers look very healthy this year and he hopes for a beautiful blooming season.

Mr. Local Lawnmower’s wife refused to comment other than “I’m sick and tired of him almost killing himself. What the hell am I going to do with three kids and no husband if he up and dies on me? You know what? Go ahead and leave me with that life insurance policy.” Mrs. Local Lawnmower shrieked towards her husband with raised fists. “Know what I’ll do? I’ll sell that damned John Deere and hire a lawn service!”

Reporters left the scene as Mr. Local Lawnmower could be seen on his knees, pleading with his furious wife as she threatened to cancel his Tractor Home Magazine subscription and buy one for the neighbor instead.

Candy for Obama

2008-07-19T20:51:00.003-04:00

15 bags of Jolly Ranchers, Now-and-Laters, Tootsie Rolls, and Dum-Dums: $30.00

3 Metal buckets to haul said loot: $18.00

The sugar rush of being politically active in Big local parade? Priceless.

Not admitting anything

2008-07-07T13:10:00.003-04:00

my darling friend may or may not have left this box of ~~jiggly thighs~~ delightfully fudgy ice cream in my freezer:

It was a creamy symphony of fudge chunks (Does pairing the words “fudge” and “chunk” produce a Pavlov’s salivating reflex for you too? Not really you say? What’s that? Frothy drool in the left corner of my mouth? Sorry.) and the most adorable miniature chocolate-y sox swimming in a peanut butter and chocolate ice cream. I may or may not have just polished off the remaining ~~half~~ bit in the box.

I refuse to let the Catholic guilt get to me.

I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.

I can only hope she reads this blog very soon and returns to my freezer to remove the other box of mint chocolate chip ice cream she also left here and replace it with carrots and cucumbers instead. I can not be held responsible whilst it sings my name like a seductive siren...beckoning me towards the rocky beaches of my kitchen, only to lull me into a sugar-induced coma and leave me lying bewildered and bloated on the cold tile with only a chocolate mustache as evidence of my sins.

Dont cha, Dont cha

2008-07-05T08:34:00.004-04:00

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me

Dont cha, dont cha

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me

Dont cha, dont cha

I realize the sheer exquisiteness of my vogue-ness might be too much for the internets to handle, but do try.

I also apologize for referring to the Pussycat Dolls. I’ll never do it again.

Although my Husband no longer cringes when I wander into the living room decorated as the Demented Twilight Pantomime, I still have heaps of fun trying to frighten small children. Mine in particular. Imagine being snuggled in your bed, warm fleece blanket tucked beneath your dimpled chin, while patiently waiting for the good night kiss from your Mama. Now imagine, instead of the warm familiar face of your mother appearing in the doorway, the pale face of a mysterious person slowly enters the doorway wringing its hands and cackling.

If you were a nine or eleven year old child, wouldn’t you shrink beneath your covers and snivel at the sight of such a terrible monster? I know I would’ve.

Not my ~~coldblooded~~ brave little children. Not even a flinch. I may have caught a slight roll of an eye or heard a sniff of acknowledgement (or it could’ve just been allergies) but as far as scaring the pants off them? Nope. Nuthin’. Nada.

“Mama, what’s all over your face?”
“Why do you look so ugly?”
“Don’t kiss me like that.”
“Don’t touch me.”

Tough crowd.

I glimpsed my face as I passed the hallway mirror and twitched.

At least my pores were clean.

You want fireworks?

2008-07-04T10:41:00.003-04:00

I got yer freakin’ fireworks right heya baby. They’re the 2008 limited edition 36DDD ball-busters and they just were just released last night.

Here’s the thing. I know I squish my girls into way-too-small bras, but since having and nursing babies, they’ve sort of become out of control and I’ll do just about anything to subdue their presence. Getting the post-partum bits and bobs into my delicate under-things has become what some might call an Olympic Event. A Chicken Dance with an Elaine thrown in for leverage. A hop-on-one-foot and squat until all parts are sufficiently stifled into the lacy, cotton shackles otherwise known as bras and undies. An exercise in complete and utter futility.

Because sooner or later: KABOOM.

The Husband all but ripped my shirt off last night and forced me to stand straight with my arms at my side. He’d successfully googled “how to measure a bust” and had pilfered the measuring tape from my sewing basket, slinking towards me with an evil glint in his big browns. He’s been on my case for ~~years~~ a while now to get measured. I normally flat-out refuse him or pretend like I don’t hear and mention something about tacos and cheesecake. Honestly, I know they’re colossal but do I really have to face the stuttering DDD’s that would like to take up residence on the tag? No, I wouldn’t.

I like to pretend that all my current under-drawers fit just fine…and the bulging muffin tops you see under my armpits are just gas bubbles. Too much broccoli for lunch. And never-you-mind the red welts on my shoulders and back, I forgot my sun block today.

I had no other choice but to face facts as the smirk started in the left corner of his mouth and spread to his entire face as my eyeballs rolled out of my head.

So now Mama’s got a brand new ~~bag~~ bra that actually fits. Happy Independence Day girls – hope you enjoy your newly found freedom.

Me? Freak out?

2008-07-02T12:58:00.004-04:00

Over a 14 inch, harmless, curiously endearing, tongue-flicking grass snake? Never. I was completely cool, calm and composed the moment my precious darlings yanked it out from the flower garden. I was 200x its size for god’s sake. I was not crouching behind a bush, failing to flinch from behind my camera lens just in case the beast might catch sight of me and slither up my pant leg and devour my brains in one gulp of an unhinged jaw. Not me. I was unruffled by the mere sight of the slinking, scaly reptile and not at all petrified that my ~~mischievous~~ lively children might decide to play tricksies on their lily-livered Mama that could possibly involve snakes in her hair. Not a chance.

I was only standing 400 feet away so that I could practice using the zoom function. You can never be too good at zooming I always say. I was perfectly at ease as it slunk its way around the necks, hair and arms of my children. And I would’ve totally touched it but you know me – always thinking of others. I didn’t want to take any of the experience away from their curious little hands. I’m good like that.

And I didn’t even need those two shots of tequila just to upload and post these pictures either. I just threw ‘em back because it’s Wednesday afternoon and my toddler wants to play his most favorite game for the 37th time: Scream In Mama's Ear Until Her Ears Bleed And Then Knaw On Her Shins Until She Caves And Gives Him Anything He Wants.

As She gets older

2008-06-30T14:09:00.003-04:00

it gets easier in some ways, not so much in others. I’ve become an accomplice of sorts to her fashion whims and hair-do designs, book choices and preferred ipod playlists. There’s lots we disagree on but much more common ground to be found when I’m not stressing about the former. She’s still small enough to hug me in public, but much too mature-for-sure to hold my hand in parking lots. Fine child, have it your way. But don’t be rolling your eyeballs when I freak out and body-slam you out of harm’s way should a car start backing up towards you.

Just warning you.

She’s rapidly changing in ways that force my hand to let go of control, otherwise I should prepare to battle her and undoubtedly die on every hill. She’s stubborn like her Mutha, that one. She’s got the huffy exhale and upwards stare down-pact way earlier than I ever did. I’m starting to believe that curse my own mother put on my unborn children might have had some actual validity to it. And all this time I thought she was boiling wart of newt and toenail of toad for a stew….

I digress. Often.

She’s becoming her own person. A smaller, dirty-blonde, tan-skinned, muscularly-legged, green-eyed version of me. With a pink ipod in one hand and The Hobbit in the other.

If she doesn’t agree with it, want it or condone it, she’ll tell you in simple terms. And this year she’s wrapped up my summer in a beautifully shiny box with a big red ribbon on top by deciding that she doesn’t want any extended visits with her bio-dad ten hours away. She’s decided that a week in September will suffice.

Oh child.

I know he loves you in the ways he can and I know you’ll always need him present in one way or another. He is, after-all, half your story and you can thank him for those long bony toes of yours. But because Cool is very important to you these days, you have no idea how honored and happy I am that summers with Mama are where’s it’s at.

I’ll try not to disappoint you with too many dorky field trips to the science center and the library. Yo.

xoxo

Bwa!

2008-06-26T08:31:00.002-04:00

There are times when perfection needs no introduction. No explanation. No clarification. Sometimes an ivy league institute or marble sculpture just isn’t enough to honor somebody with such ~~war mongering~~ unwavering credentials.

A petition is making its rounds in honor of our beloved ~~patsy~~ president.

And nothing could blend so smoothly with my first cup of coffee.

In a nice place

2008-06-19T18:00:00.002-04:00

that’s where I am. A place that has nothing to do with the number on the scale or on the tag in my jeans. A place where colossal gas prices and a traveling husband still haven’t managed to drown me in gloom. A place where cheerful little pumpkin plants sprout up with excitement.

I’m in a freshly greened, mildly warmed, carefree place.

A place teeming with mosquitoes. And Indian paintbrushes.

This place has children. Happy, dirty-faced children slurping on blue raspberry popsicles and lemon wedges, always asking for ice cream and usually getting it.

It has a warmish pool of water for splashing in, a hill for rolling down and a window pane on which I can trace the rain drops as they trickle down in fits of delayed April showers.

It’s a place I never knew I always wanted.

My home – my happy place.

I’m relishing every moment of the happiest place on earth – knowing it won’t always be mine.

Racism alive and well within the Republican party

2008-06-18T10:05:00.002-04:00

oozing out, leaving behind a vile trail of fanatical bigotry and acidic regression.

OMG! NKOTB! In my livingroom!

2008-06-09T14:35:00.003-04:00

How's my hair?! Lip gloss look okay? My black flats - do they match my light or dark acid washed jeans better? Are my bangs in a straight line?

Where's my ~~hairbrush~~ microphone??

Exhale.

Ready?

All eyes on me.

Joey loves me. Only me.

Damnit why is my sister banging on the door again?!

Breathe.

I'm their best groupie.

Sipping Arizona iced tea and blowing Bubblicious bubbles.

Throwing my head back and laughing at everything they say.

Age 13 but wanting to be 17 and big breasted.

Age 32 but wishing they were smaller and perkier.

Hey now Mister

2008-05-10T10:16:00.003-04:00

there’s really no need for you to be in such a hurry to get all big and stuff. Honestly, it’s fine and dandy with me if you’d prefer to stay small and helpless, you being my last baby and all. How’s about we slap those training wheels back on that big boy bike of yours and pretend none of this is actually happening okay? Moreover let’s put the kibosh on all this no hand-holding business too.

Deal?

No? You actually like your newly found independence? Huh? You don’t actually plan on living with me until you’re 65? What's that you say? It’s really not all that normal for me to want to wipe your butt for the rest of your life?

Oh.

Record snowfall brings flooding

2008-05-01T10:35:00.003-04:00

in Fort Kent, Maine.

Keeping friends, family and neighbors along the St. John River in my thoughts.

How lucky for me!

2008-04-27T12:36:00.002-04:00

Day two of my Husband’s sincere attempt at quitting smoking.

This would’ve normally been his week in the office (five hours south of home) but due to his MASSIVE head cold, EXTREME lightheadedness and confusion, and AGONIZINGLY SEVERE withdrawal symptoms, he’s decided to stay home this week and suffer right next to me.

I know, I know, tobacco addiction and withdrawal can be more powerful than that of heroin. Despite no longer being a smoker, I’ll always resist passing urges to light up and inhale. This isn’t easy for him and I’m so proud of him for trying again. And I’ll support him until he finally kicks it.

But Maine black bears are supposed to live outside, right?

That’s what I thought.

The moment the collective we begins

2008-04-26T10:29:00.005-04:00

making progress with alternative fuels, and suddenly there’s a food shortage.

Every major media outlet is making a big stink about how you can’t walk out of Costco without four 20 lb bags of rice.

Where’s the American Federation of Rice when we need them?! Fat America is suddenly in danger of losing a little weight because of rice “shortage.”

The horror.

Dudes. There’s no food shortage.

You can’t possible believe that big global oil corporations have nothing to do with this. They pay Major News Networks and America’s two largest food retailers (Sam’s & Costco) and then the Major News Networks and Sam’s & Costco scare us into believing that using a portion of the corn crop for alternative fuel will cause worldwide shortages.

Pretty tricky ain’t they?

Now please commence running in circles and panicking.

Why the hell do you need with four bags of rice anyway? Ever heard of potatoes?

It's 8 PM - do you know where your children are?

2008-04-24T20:07:00.003-04:00

I know where mine are. They’re safely ~~duct-taped to~~ snuggled in their beds. And so now, and only now, can I even begin to mention anything remotely Love Thursday-ish.

Because while the wee Toddler was upright and conscious, he was driving me to the brink of madness and if it were not for that unlucky barista at Tim Horton’s who kept the steaming keg of coffee siphoned to my face, I almost wouldn’t have made it to bedtime with my hair not on fire.

Thanks for that…..friend.

Today was what I like to call a Naughty Day. A regular old day sprinkled with fits of pointless hysteria, perpetual WHY’S and NO’S followed by crinkled noses and air slapping and ovulation cramps (to his credit, he had nothing to do with my cramps but they were still exacerbated by the general unpleasantness of his attitude nonetheless).

But then we made brownies. And you cracked the eggs and smiled patiently as I picked tiny shards of eggshells out of the batter. You carefully poured the water and oil without spilling a drop, and turned your big browns up to me for approval. You pressed all the buttons on my mixer and mixed like you’ve never mixed before. You licked the beaters with squelchy gladness. Raw Eggs (!!!). I’m over it.

And we ate the warm, gooey brownies.

You were happy, I was happy, and on the seventh day, we drank cold milk.

A happy ending to an imperfect day? Meh, not so much. You should’ve heard the rash of shit he gave his Father when it was bedtime.

Because I'm all about

2008-04-24T10:17:00.002-04:00

uniting the Democratic party (although I’m probably more of a Libertarian than I care to admit), I’ll lend my support to whomever ends up with the nominee in hand. Despite the fact that I’m pulling for an Obama/Clinton dream ticket I’ll be just as optimistic with a Clinton/Obama ticket.

Well, almost as optimistic.

I have a niggling fear of Hillary Clinton being the presidential nominee. And it has little to do with my own personal views on her political accomplishments or baggage. I find her incredibly dynamic, inspiring, fearless and capable. And I secretly think she’s had Bill in her back pocket for years, despite all the criticism she’s received for “standing by her man.” Girlfriend isn’t stupid.

My fears aren’t about how I view her. It’s about how others view her. I get the distinct impression that many people either like her very much or despise her. I understand the whole “like her very much” opinion because as I mentioned, I find her very likeable. It’s the whole not liking her bit. Some people simply will not head to the polls if she’s the nominee because they don’t like her. And yet they can’t really explain to me why they don’t like her. They just don’t. And for that simple fact, I think Obama is more elect-able against McCain.

Is it an educated dislike of Hillary Clinton or just a general dislike of her corporate helmet hair? Are people startled by her slightly bulging eyes? Her over-use of pant suits? (Hello? We don’t need Hilz to pull a Britney y’all – the pants suit is your friend.) Why do so many people I’ve spoken to vehemently oppose her?

I can’t figure it out.

Yes, she’s elite and yes, she’s as much a politician as Limbaugh is a greasy, pill-popping, hypocrite. But she’s a strongly-inspired woman, mother and leader. The fact that she’s birthed and raised a child speaks volumes to me. If mothers ruled the world there’d be no war because mothers don’t send their children off to kill other mothers’ children. I have zero doubts that she’ll have our troops on their front lawns before her first term is over and this ethereal War on Terror will have less of panicked-stricken effect on the blinder-clad masses.

And? We’ll have our focus back to the business at hand – alternate fuels, tax monies being pumped back into our public schools and nurturing early childhood education programs, and finding creative ways to reduce, reuse and recycle our way back to an actual Super Power that sets an example. Instead of a Super Power that sets its 280 lb ass into another SUV while noshing down a super-sized value meal.

All that having been said, I’m still an Obama supporter first. I believe his message of hope is one that’s been desperately needed for years. His lack of political experience bears little significance because it isn’t up to one man or woman. It’s up to us: small, grassroots efforts with a bit of hope in the back pocket. I believe he’ll inspire a wave of these kinds of efforts and because I know from personal experience – being part of a grassroots movement inspires in a way that can’t be explained. Volunteering with MoveOn in 2004 made me proud to be an American citizen working towards change, and that’s something I hadn’t felt in years.

Since the Clinton years actually.

Ironic.

Spouting forth

2008-04-19T09:43:00.005-04:00

Lately I've been getting a lot of concerns (from people who claim to really care about me ) on how well my children are “socializing” since we’ve decided to home school. Like how do I expect them to relate to their peers if they don’t spend eight hours crammed into a classroom all the while being expected to shut up and sit down? Or how are they going to be able to resolve conflict if they’re not experiencing a 15 minute daily recess spent hiding from bullies? Or how exactly will they learn to stand up to bullies if they don’t endure a completely unsupervised 45 minute bus ride with middle and high school kids?

Life is conflict. Moral conflict, emotional conflict, physical conflict and spiritual conflict. I believe the way we learn to overcome conflict is to actually feel a sense of triumph. How can our kids be expected to “win some lose some” when they’re inundated with conflict all day every day? In my opinion, all they’re learning is to accept defeat quietly when they’re sent to public school. In a safe environment, conflict can happen occasionally. And that’s all it takes, not four years of the malicious middle school years or the sheepish herd of the first five years. It took me until fourth grade to realize what was happening to my Boy before I pulled him out and allowed him to really begin learning - not only about life, literature and linear equations but also about himself.

I wish I’d written this this poignantly excellent article but I didn’t so you can just pretend I did instead.

“Socializing, on the other hand, is what they do with family, friends, acquaintances, people we meet in the community and even with dogs, cats and frogs we encounter. As for socialization … Would you want your kid socialized by 22 same-age peers and one adult stranger?”

I don’t.

From the tin-sided underbellies of the trailer parks to the GAP-clad cul-de-sacs of the suburbs, I don’t need other peoples’ children teaching my kids conservative spins on homosexuality, war, abortion, oral sex and Nickelodeon's latest marketed fads are all about. That’s my job thankyouverymuch.

Not spending all day with a bunch of kids and ONE teacher isn’t going to make my child socially retarded. It’s going to allow him to think for himself. And if life has taught me anything, it’s that intellectual autonomy is essential for personal success.

And I don’t blame the teachers. They’re at the bottom of a very high tower of Important People Who Think They Know What Our Failing Education System Needs Because Of All The Studies They Conduct and our teachers do what they’re told or lose their jobs. All kids must pass this test? Then they really have no choice but to spend the majority of their time preparing for tests that have no real basis for success in life.

I guarantee my kids won’t remember half the questions on a standardized test while quietly sitting in a stuffy classroom. But they will retain the content of a book they read while sprawled on the sunny lawn, loudly crunching on a snack.

Yes, I’m frustrated today. I’m just worn out from a somewhat steady flow of judgment on my parenting and educational choices.

I’m taking somewhat of sanctimonious stance at this moment but I’ve got a bit of mad under my collar. I’ll get over it. This blog is just way cheaper than therapy and I need a moment or two on the couch.

I prefer not the label "conspiracy theorist"

2008-04-16T21:25:00.003-04:00

rather reality theorist.

Grab nine minutes.

Dear Little Boy

2008-04-15T08:18:00.005-04:00

You are three years old. And yet just yesterday, you were two years old.

And I have no idea where to begin.

I suppose the best place to start is always the beginning.

You came to us a wrinkly, wailing miniature of your paternal grandfather with deeply black eyes and hairy earlobes. You have grown into a strong-willed, perfectly miraculous combination of your Daddy and Mama.

You are loved on your third birthday more than I can, within my limited forms of human expression, even begin to tell you.

From the moment I closely held the small bundle of you and watched in complete bewilderment as your soft head instinctively rooted towards my right breast, it hurt. It hurt with a force I could never have prepared myself to receive.

This boy child, this indescribably vulnerable human being who fit perfectly into the crook of just one arm, was mine.

I was overcome not only with the warmth of aching elation but also with a crushing gratitude; a sense of thankfulness for this child was in every cell of my recovering body. The entire 48 hours following your arrival, I was in a constant fluctuation between confusion as to whether I had only dreamt you up and bliss because I knew I hadn’t.

You transformed me into a mother I never thought I’d be and you spin my world on a honeyed axis of self-exploration and triumph.

You little stinker.

You 30 pound mass of confident muscle and cheerful energy.

How your big brown eyes make magic in this house! How you’ve managed to snugly wrap each one of us around your curiously chubby fingers. I could stare at your dimpled knuckles for hours while giving in to your every passing wish. You know this about me too and never fail to cloak your baby browns under the blanket of soft eyelashes while whispering “pweeeeeez.”

In your own sweetly tricky way, you can make my world come to a screeching halt and then demand it all over again. And I’ll give it to you. I’ll give it to you with sprinkles on top. How are you able to do this to me? How is it that you’ve taught me to enormously love not only you, but also your big sister more than I dreamed I would and your big brother more than I ever thought I could? I see their eyes reflecting in yours and the combination of my three children instantly spiders from one to the next before I’m able to distinguish one from the other. You are the glue that finished this familial art project. You curiously transformed us from abstract to concrete.

You make me a better mother.

And you make our house very loud.

With every new bicycle trick, song sung-aloud, newly tasted food or ~~temper tantrum~~ statement of independence – I love you my little boy….more than the stars and the moon.

April 2nd, 2008

2008-04-02T11:23:00.001-04:00

First World Autism Awareness Day

I’m intrigued by and admittedly terrified of autism. It’s not something I feel is a real and present threat for my children, and yet why couldn’t it be? I deeply dislike not having a firm understanding of something so devastating, yet not knowing what could cause or cure autism sends me into panic of another parenting predicament.

I’ve delayed my Toddler’s two-year vaccinations.

And I feel guilt.

Whether or not it’s been officially diagnosed, my Husband’s genetic contribution presents a slight display of behavior that could possible belong on the autism spectrum. I don’t see this as a negative, rather as a beautiful intelligence that allows one to focus on the details and contemplate in ways I can’t.

But isn’t that one of the possible risks for a normally high-functioning child to suddenly develop autism following vaccinations? And to what degree of autism? Nobody knows. Nobody can tell me that my little boy will remain as precocious, intelligent, socially aware and engaging if he is vaccinated.

I realize I’m (as usual) allowing my panicked nature to rule over logic, but logic also tells me that autism rates average 1 in 150 children, more prevalently showing in boys.

My Toddler, the one who melts and breaks my heart daily, turns three in one week. He’s due for a check-up and vaccinations - long-overdue for vaccinations according to his pediatrician. (Granted, this is the same doctor who thought breastfeeding past one year was unnecessary and circumcision would’ve been the easier and more practical choice, but rural life doesn’t always afford one a vast choice of progressive pediatricians.)

I’m struggling with this fear of an unlikely outcome.

Chances are (1/150) the vaccinations won’t trigger autistic behavior.

I hate taking chances with my child.

Sign it.

2008-03-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

Today's cuteness

2008-03-24T18:59:00.005-04:00

lovingly brought to you by croooked little toddler toes crossing their ankles,

crooked little toddler toes in cuffed jeans,

and irresistably soft, snuggly guinea piggies hiding within the safe, comforting arms of a child in a multicolored sweater.

You're welcome.

Holidays with my family are

2008-03-23T21:33:00.004-04:00

sometimes unusual, sometimes exceptional, but never ordinary. Easter 2008 had no cause to any different.

The day began with the typical drive. We’re on our way, we’re on our way, on our way to Grandma’s house. We’re on our way, we’re on our way, on our way through an icy tunnel of 27 foot high snow banks and windy, white-out road conditions.

Instead of noshing on the customary ham and sweet potatoes, we ate a giant cheese ball so delicious that I could have smeared it on my bare chest and died happily smelling of old cheese and chives, beef stew (although I’m not sure it wasn’t muskrat stew because my step-dad had that “I just killed something” look on his face), green salad and sinfully cream cheesy carrot cake (I swear my little sister makes such wicked desserts so she can forever keep me in her fat pants).

Plus nobody was drunk this year. So there was that.

And instead of a rousing hunt for cheap baskets ladled with ~~high fructose corn syrup~~ candy and more ~~plastic crap~~ trinkets we’ll never use, there was an icicle light saber sword battle (straight outta Star Wars I tell you) and a free-for-all snowball fight – whose casualties included a stinging wrist (Grampy’s fastball), a broken pair of sunglasses and four pair of little-kid jeans in the dryer.

I never realized how truly cutthroat my family is when it comes to hitting ~~my butt~~ the target with a snowball. One moment my Husband’s on my side and the next he’s conspiring with my mother to take me out in a furious pelting of white. Good thing my mother throws like a girl and my Husband knew who’d be going to bed with him tonight and took it easy.

Our truck made for great protection from the onslaught and a lucky place to strategize on how best to make your mother run crying into the house.

Eggs. There were eggs. Pretty, multicolored eggs that made my Toddler’s knees shake with anticipation. Touch! Grab! Drop! Squish! All proper techniques for the flawlessly dyed egg of course. The ever-more patient Other Parent was left with Toddler duty for this one. I was seeing far too many flashes of white and lime green to focus on the experience instead of the mess.

I kept the camera pointed at my Biggies as they created, marveled and stayed little. Or at least not so big.

Happy freakin' Easter

2008-03-22T14:37:00.007-04:00

from Mr. Bigglesworth the disgruntled, one-eyed bunny. Although certainly not the fluffy, playful Easter Bunny I was expecting to show up at my house, I had a chance to chat with him and it didn’t take long for him to spill his guts. I think he just really needed to somebody to listen. Long story short, he had one too many cherry martinis at his 17th, twice-removed cousin’s bachelor party and got himself into a pickle of a predicament two years ago (involving an over-protective hen and a drunken game of truth or dare with the wild rabbits – you could tell the whole incident was just eating him up inside and the painful memories were still so fresh). Apparently the only egg-hiding contracts he can now get are at the farthest corners of New England during record-breaking snowfalls. He barely made it up I-95 without skidding into the pine trees. (Lack of depth perception and icy highways should be an avoided combination at all times – but try telling that to a broke rabbit with 47 babies at home to feed.)

Doesn’t he look thrilled to be here?

Mr. Bigglesworth had dreams. Big dreams. He was going to make it to the top someday. He had everything going for him and it wasn’t until that fateful night of careless drinking games did he realize his life was a mere shadow of what it could have been. Nowadays most of the fluffier, well-paid Bunnies talk behind his back and place bets as to when he’ll finally lose his last few marbles and nose-dive off the deep end.

Towards the end of our conversation I had to hold his ears back for him while he bunny-puked and listen to him go on and on about how much he loved me and how I was such a good friend. You know this rabbit is just one chocolate-covered, sugar-rushed toddler shy of a trip to rehab and a life condemned to standing on street corners yelling obscenities at pedestrians.

I'm fragile - go easy.

2008-03-21T08:27:00.005-04:00

I’m about to show you the real me. The braless, un-bathed, un-powdered, un-caffeinated me. Please refrain from running in circles with your hair on fire. As I said – I’m fragile and might cry for hours if you poke fun of the dark circles or hair so greasy it could be wrung out and used for a fish fry.

There. That wasn’t so traumatic now was it? I feel liberated already. This is what a woman, a tired Mama of three, a human waking from sleep looks like. How do you like me now internets?

Sweetney has a challenge for us. Show us your boobs. No wait, that was last week. Show us yourself - your morning self. The beautiful woman you are as you gently swing your delicate feet over the bed in the morning. The graceful, exquisite creature your husband opens his eyes to each morning. The fresh-faced Mama who greets the clamor of her energetic children with smiles and composure.

Hah. Who am I kidding? I’m not even a fully-functioning biped until my second cup of coffee. (My husband will attest to watching me crawl to the coffee maker on occasion.)

So let me see your pretty face.

March - in like a lion

2008-03-20T10:42:00.000-04:00

out like a ~~lamb~~ giant, flesh-eating ogre with a penchant for playing nasty pranks.

It’s not as though I don’t appreciate the replenishing of our water reservoirs and rivers for the coming summer months. It’s not like I’m completely hopeless about spring’s eventual arrival. It’s not even that I don’t enjoy the extra sledding and snowshoeing we can enjoy because the extended stay of the snow banks.

It’s just that it’s the end of March already and I’d like to see signs – any signs – that melting might possibly commence at some point. I’d even welcome mud and brown lawns covered in floating dog poop.

I’m hankering to get back on my bike like it’s made of fudge-dipped chocolate. I’m ready for the fake-tanned legs and cute capri’s. I’m having sweet dreams of blistered palms from over-doing it with the rake.

Easter’s virtually here and there’s not a sign of bunny footprints to be found.

During which I talk about my Toddler.

2008-03-16T21:22:00.000-04:00

Because, really, you didn’t know I had one did you?

Let me preface my impending grievance simply by stating that I Love Him. Beyond human comprehension. (I realize that’s a complete hyperbole because most parents I know love their spawn with a kind of painful love that overtakes their entire body and transforms them into mere shells of their kid-free selves.) But still. I was completely unprepared for the giant sense of worship I felt the moment I held his tiny body to my breast. He latched on and I was no longer me. I was his mother. His presence has glued all the pieces of our blended family together with such an irreversible energy and strength. From his show-tunesque performances of Twinkle Twinkle to his mighty-willed tantrums of pure ferocity, I’m forever his.

I just wish he would fall into his pillow without the constant objections and wailing protests. I can’t figure out whether it’s the time change (damn you spring forward fall back!) or the foreboding transition from two years old to three years old. It almost feels like the tip of the proverbial iceberg is slowly surfacing from the icy waters of the Terrible Two’s, threatening to drag me into a dingy unequipped with oars. It feels suspiciously similar to the evolution from little kid to tween that I’m currently experiencing twice over. And yet I’m somehow skeptical that training bras and an occasional pimple will even compare to what this small, short-tempered human has in store for me.

I wish he would actually eat the food I place on his plate just like his biggies do. I wish he wouldn’t threaten provisional moratoriums on the act of eating unless I accommodate his palate with peanut butter sandwiches and mandarin oranges. I wish he wouldn’t leave me justifying his limited food repertoire by saying things like “Well at least he won’t get scurvy.”

Self-reliance. Independence. Autonomy. All qualities my Toddler suddenly strives for. All qualities that will someday make an incredibly emotive young man out of him. All qualities that make raising him through the daily, ordinary tasks somewhat harrowing for his mother. And it’s not like I don’t get on well with small people either; I can trick, tease and play them into doing most things that need to get done. But he tests my maternal capacities with abiding determination. He lifts his delicious brown eyes to mine and furrows his brow with the task at hand. He contemplates his options and expects all aspects to be within his control. And I suppose I can’t blame him because I spend most of my day doing the same thing. But I’m trying to raise him damnit! Just be a good little boy and stop forcing me into creative comas! I’m running out of material.

A most nutritious nom

2008-03-07T21:34:00.005-05:00

It’s been unexpectedly enjoyable adding two fur babies to our family. The moment I was able to get past the whole ‘rodent’ aspect of guinea pigs, I found them absolutely wonderful to have around. They squeak on command, slightly potty-train themselves, give wet kisses when they’re hankering for a plate of veggies, and don’t bark. The not barking thing was one of my non-negotiable provisos when considering another pet. We had a little doggie once and on any given day his name was Frodo Baggins, Frody-Dody, Frodo the Flying Falcor, Frodely-Dodely-Doo, and Frodo-Shut-Up! Frodo was a most unique blend of lhasa-apso and poodle, otherwise known as lhasa-poo. He barked at the door. Barked at the birds. Barked at the wind. Barked at the furnace. Barked when we laughed. Barked when he farted.

It was during my third trimester of ~~blissful gestation~~ bloated torment that I came to the decision that either a) I would eventually strangle the dog with one of my super-sexy, knee-high, diabetic-friendly, circulation-promoting maternity socks. Or b) I would drive deep into the woods and leave him there for the witch from Hansel and Gretel to find and eat.

So I gave him to my sister.

Now we have two guinea pigs named Melissa and Charlotte and we don’t have a dog named Frodo.

Are they not adorable?!

Melissa’s got a perma-frown due to a silly wee tuft of forehead hair that won’t lay flat. Charlotte’s so chubby we mistakenly thought she was pregnant when we first brought her home. Turns out she’s just a greedy little piggie who doesn’t care about a girlish figure.

My Girl usually stuffs a pig into her sweater while doing long division and I often find my Boy engrossed in his dragon books while a pig sleeps in his hair. And naturally we all keep a constant vigil on the Toddler – who thinks stuffing a pig into his fire truck and howling WEEEOOO-WEEEOOO while zooming it around the house is a really great idea.

Me? I like to cradle a piggie in my arms and rock her as she nibbles at my hair and rumbles. It helps curb the ‘I think I want another baby’ feeling that often accompanies ovulation. Sigh.

Sunbathing:

2008-03-07T13:44:00.002-05:00

sun·bathe / Pronunciation[suhn-beyth]
–verb (used without object), -bathed, -bath·ing. To bathe in the sun.

Sunbathing in New England: to bask in the glory of temperatures soaring above 32°F. One can sunbathe in New England while wearing as little as one layer of clothing. One may even sunbathe from the comfort of their livingroom as the glare of the sun reflects against the four-foot tall snowbanks. When one is sunbathing in New England, they may not need sunblock because their pants, hat, gloves, boots, and jacket will completely thwart harmful sun rays.

See example:

It's what sets us apart from the rest of the country.

A boy and his ball

2008-03-05T13:46:00.002-05:00

aren't easily torn apart. For throwing, catching and snuggling with, a ball is your friend.

Yeah, because THAT would've been scary.

2008-03-04T21:29:00.002-05:00

I don't wish him ill, but the mere thought of Mike Huckabee winning the republican nomination makes all the cells in my body spontaneously combust and turn to grape jelly.

It's not as if there was any real question that it wouldn't be McCain. But PHEW. I'm just relieved to say buh-bye to the evangelical nutjobs.

Religion + Government = Bad.

Excellence in parenting

2008-02-27T17:46:00.003-05:00

If I’m going to feed them perfectly balanced meals that consist of this:

What right do I have to complain that their fingers end up looking like this? (I tried taking pictures of their smeared faces but I couldn’t get them to stop shoveling peanut butter/chocolate sauce into their mouths long enough to say cheese.)

And yes, my countertops are this neat and organized at all times. After brushing our teeth we always return our toothbrush to its proper place. And we never leave school books, hair ties and cell phones lying around.

So as you can clearly see from this post about nutrition and organization, I am the perfect mother.

My pets...

2008-02-25T14:32:00.003-05:00

moar funny pictures

Deez r mai sillee leetle petz. I luv dem becuz dey r kyoot and fuzzee. Even do dey peez on mai cowch and skweekz 2 much.

I give up.

I don't talk lol. Even though I desperately want to more than anything in this world.

Some days

2008-02-22T10:42:00.003-05:00

my precociously exasperating Toddler drives me to the brink of madness and back again. Some days I tightly grasp the edges of my sanity, watching the minutes tick agonizingly by as bed time creeps ever closer. Some days I feel as though I can no longer maneuver the parenting plane without a constant co-pilot. Thankfully, ‘some’ days are far out-numbered by ‘most’ days.

Most days my delectable bundle of energy and curiosity loves his pencils and songs about the Number Five.

Some days I find my usually lighthearted Boy brooding with his head buried in books filled with tales of dragons and brave knights. Some days he’ll cop a ‘tude over the Xbox and no amount of stupid mother tricks cracks his smile.

But most days he compromises. I allow him control over his hair while he completes his work and unloads the dishwasher with minimal groaning. Most days the dirty laundry basket is emptied without my asking. Most days I’m able to find his unbearable tickle spot and steal a kiss.

Some days I want to stuff this child into a box, wrap it with duct tape and send it priority mail to Connecticut. Some days I scream into my pillow from the overwhelming frustration and denial of knowing she’s EXACTLY LIKE ME.

But most days I kiss her plum-flavored cheeks and marvel at the young lady she’s blossoming into. Most days I want to bottle her just as she is and keep her in my pocket. I’m besieged with panic just thinking about her stepping out onto her own. Most days she grabs the globe and finds the most obscure island in the most remote body of water in an effort to stump me. Most days she does stump me – in all senses of the word.

And then some days I just sit around while guinea pigs climb all over me

Love is

2008-02-21T21:51:00.003-05:00

not eating my children after, against my better judgment, allowing them some free-range, tactile, Montessori-type play with styrofoam peanuts – while foolishly remaining under the impression that the mayhem would somehow be contained to the inside of the cardboard box. Love is having the foresight to grab my camera as opposed to grabbing my hair and shrieking.

Love is graciously taking the broom from your mother’s white-knuckled hands, sweeping up the mess you made, and not blaming it on the two year old.

Straddling

2008-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

He’s a dazzling up-and-comer with a fresh set of fists for fighting his way into the white house. His magnetic charm makes ignoring him virtually impossible. Her Clinton Era experience lends a comforting air of familiarity that I don’t find with most seasoned politicians. I can’t discount her diplomatic abilities and I can’t suppress my excitement about his refreshing charisma. New face? Old face? Barack O’Boyfriend? Girl Power? (although what I wouldn't give to have the Big Dog back in da house......and exhale)

No matter the outcome of Tuesday, I’ll be happy with the nominee. My heels are dug in and I’m ready to start my crusade for whoever it may be.

Optimistically anxious.

I'm inside my house

2008-01-25T16:14:00.000-05:00

obviously, because why would I be outside my house when it's (only) -35°? I can think of zero reasons why.

So I'm inside my house with a slew of my darling Husband's insanely charming family. There are oodles of toddlers (who are slowly coming to terms with the whole sharing concept), tons of tweens (who spray themselves with too much Bod and refuse to pry their faces away from the xbox), and a handful of sisters and brothers to help me keep said kids in line.

I'm not exactly sure how many extra people inhabit my house presently; I lost count at 37.

But there's lots and lots of alcohol.

Nom Nom Nom Nom

2008-01-22T18:40:00.001-05:00

And then my head exploded.

2008-01-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

Because if you knew me, you’d know that these crisis-type situations usually catch me off guard and this is why my husband needs to not be gone. I? Handle the bloody lips, the banged heads, the pinched fingers. All those immediate and not-so-catastrophic child emergencies that require the Mama. But true emergencies? Like my eleven year old Boy accidentally dropping an entire guinea pig cage WITH HER IN IT down a flight of stairs? Freak.Me.Out.

Oh my god is it DEAD??

Oh my god child please stop sobbing so!

Oh my stars and planets and spatial anomalies WOULD YOU JUST LOOK AT ALL THE POO ON MY STAIRS??

Hi. I’m Melissa Nibbles. I just plummeted down seven stairs and here I live to tell about it. I’m fine actually, thanks for asking. As it turns out, guinea pigs bounce. Didn’t know that did you? May I perhaps nibble on a strand of your delicious-looking hair and squeak softly in your ear?

Why yes, yes I am incredibly cute, soft and cuddly. And yes, I also happen to be the replacement pet for the red-headed agama lizard that went to the Great Desert In The Sky, or so to speak, a few days ago. Let’s just say we all hope Mama doesn’t mistakenly reach into the freezer for some scrumptious chicken breasts and inadvertently grab the frozen reptile awaiting his spring burial. Because that would totally scar her children.