My Blah-Blah-Blog

Last night I watched The Backup Plan. It was cuter than I thought it would be and it had several laugh out loud moments as Jennifer Lopez “suffered” through her pregnancy. In one scene she was unwittingly roped in to coach another woman through a natural home birth: there was much panting, wailing, gnashing of teeth, blood, sweat and tears (not necessarily in that order). I admit I rolled my eyes a little over the absurdity of the scene but not before I recounted my own (fairly) absurd childbirth experience 12 years ago at 3:20 tomorrow morning (May 17).

I pretty much slept through the entire birth of my first child, not by choice and certainly not because I have super hero powers residing in my loins that cause child birth to be a painless-then-pop-it-right-out experience. No, no, not at all. Let me tell you how it all went down.

May 16, 1999. I was about 38 weeks preggers with my daughter. I was working full time and barely had a nursery ready when at around 3 that afternoon – my day off – I got a phone call from my OBGYN’s office. My doctor was out of town on vacation (of course) so the on call doctor gave me a call as a follow up to some sort of test they’d performed earlier in the day. She wanted me to know that I’d have to come to the hospital as soon as possible (RIGHT NOW!) to be induced as my protein levels were out-of-control and too high for the health of the baby.

I freaked out (OMG what do I do first!?) but then became annoyed because 1) I had to work the next day and 2) I wasn’t ready for the baby yet (I still had two weeks!) and 3) I had not eaten all day except for a bowl of cereal in the morning and here it was almost 4 already. I have no idea why I’d put off lunch for so long. After all, ravenous and pregnant are synonymous, right?

I was SO not ready for this kid. But, like any other mom-to-be who suddenly goes into labor, I found myself realizing that the end was indeed in sight and I needed to get my butt in gear and get to the hospital. No time to do anything other than grab an overnight bag for me and the baby and a carseat and off I went to the hospital.

I debated on grabbing some food to go on my way in but I remembered that it’s recommended you don’t eat just before going into labor. Besides, I was scared to death I’d poo on the doctor during labor so I didn’t bother. Surely the kid would be out in a few hours anyway and I could grab a burger.

After getting checked in, I was wheeled in to a nice little room, and was told to wait for the doctor. By now I was really, really hungry. It was almost 6:30 and I begged for some dinner. The nurse said no which made me secretly hope if I got sick and puked, she’d have to clean it up.

Besides, I had friends who told tales of eating the biggest meal ever only to go into labor shortly after. My own mother recounted the burger and strawberry shortcake she had just hours before delivering me after a bumpy ride to the hospital. All those moms/babies seemed to make it just fine after a big feast right before labor. Why couldn’t I at least have some fricken crackers?.

At some point a headache set in, followed closely by the worst case of heartburn ever. It was so bad I swear I could spit fire. I pleaded for some relief and the nurse reluctantly brought me a small dixie cup of what tasted like lemon-lime syrup with battery acid mixed in. That $h*t burned going down! Hungry, heartburn-ridden and head-achey, I realized in my misery that I was definitely not looking forward to having a giant baby head squeezed out of my nether-regions.

Eventually we were told that the doctor didn’t want me to deliver the baby until the next morning anyway, (see how urgent my case was?). I was nervous and starving to death and felt like I really was not about to get to sleep any time soon. The doctor decided to authorize a horse-sized coma inducing hospital-strength sleeping pill. I took it with some water (which unfortunately did not help the fire that roared in my esophagus). It must have been around 12:30 or so. I was looking forward to a nice rest.

She also authorized another medication: a cervical insert thingie that would soften my cervix and would induce labor. I asked her if it was alright to take a sleeping pill and a cervical insert at the same time and she said not to worry. She explained it would take all night to kick in so that I’d have a slow, easy start to labor in the morning after a nice night’s sleep from the sleeping pill. I’d be rested and ready to go!!!

Tucked in, lights turned down, I turned on the TV. A League of Their Own was on. The last thing I remember was Tom Hanks saying “There’s no crying in baseball!” before I drifted off to sleep around 1:00 am…

Only to awake about 45 minutes later to find that holy ^%($ I am not feeling so good in my girl areas and what the hell I peed myself? Is that blood? Zzzzz.

Wait, what is happening? Holy hell I’m in FREAKING zzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’m in FREAKING labor y’all! ZZzzzzz

Have you ever tried to complete a task while dozing off? You know, nodding off at work while typing?

Yeah well it was pretty much like that: I was in full on narcoleptic labor.

I don’t remember much from that night except everyone being incredibly amazed that I went into labor and popped out my firstborn in a record 45 minutes start-to-finish. My then-husband kept drinking cup after cup of coffee to stay awake but was struggling as well (we found out the next day that the hospital was 7th day Adventist and didn’t serve caffeinated drinks).

I vaguely remember seeing that little round baby face with teeny tiny red lips and thinking “she looks like my grandfather” and hoping that maybe she was really a he if she was going to look like a boy.

And I remember the new nurse on duty turning up my oxygen and asking me to repeat my name and birth date while firmly patting my hand. Apparently she didn’t realize my narcoleptic behavior was caused by a sleeping pill but thought I was drifting in and out of consciousness from the strain of labor.

Not.

I may have mumbled out my daughters name before completely passing out. I don’t remember pushing or anything. I did get an epidural at some point – I think – but who knows. For all I know they hatched my daughter in the next room.

The next morning (way too damn early) they brought me my little bundle of joy, I was ecstatic to discover she did not look at all like a man, and I called my parents who lived so far away so they could hear their first grandchild cry.

So here we are, 12-years later. I am still sleep-deprived and narcoleptic with occasional headaches and frequent heartburn. I’ve since learned my lesson about not eating lunch.

It may not have been a tale worthy of A Baby Story, more like Birthing Fails instead. But for that little package of joy that I received that day, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Not even a nap.

And would you believe I’d love to have just one more? Sounds like someone needs to turn in their sleeping pills for some stronger meds.

Last night my daughter posted on her little kid blog some ranting raves about her friend and how her friend helped her get a boyfriend. Because we talk often about internet safety, my daughter uses a nickname for her friend: lollipop. I believe my daughter is meatball or cookie or noodle. Anyway, my daughter’s dad read the blog post before I did and called U P S E T to see the words “lollipop” and “boyfriend” in the same paragraph.  Now, honest mistake. I’m far more obsessive about insinuations when it comes to my daughter and we talk often about things that are appropriate or inappropriate. However, in reading and rereading her post, I saw nothing that could be harmful to a young person, even the most crass of us would have to take a minute or two to TRY to turn her post into something inappropriate.  (We’ve since spoken about the post with a calm and intelligent manner and tweaked it a bit).

Unfortunately her dad went into a rant about how she obviously has nobody watching out for her in her life (me) and he’s very, very concerned. She wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong and after a moment he backtracked and made sure to say it wasn’t HER that he had issue with, but the blog post. Then it wasn’t really the blog post, it was ME, her mom, and how he “sends money all the time and this is what he gets.”  After a few more nasty comments about me – the mom – I stepped in and ended the conversation. After all, what mom wants ANYONE to chide her daughter, much less her father? I myself have been frequent subject to his rants which – when we were married – ALWAYS ended with a smoothing over, something akin to “If you hadn’t made me so mad I would not have done that.”  Typical abuse pattern: they blow up at you, they apologize merely by laying the blame on you. I will be damned if I allow him to repeat this verbal and emotional abuse on my daughter.

As soon as I stepped in, however, I was treated to a barrage of foul language and name calling which included threats for calling an attorney, venomous attacks that I was useless and I should “get a job.” Apparently if you do not have a job then you are useless scum of the earth.  He didn’t like that I reminded him that he doesn’t really send child support every month and at some point hung up on  me.

Brilliant move you big fat tool. To overreact in such a way was so juvenile. It was so juvenile – and yet so typical of you – that your words really didn’t bother me.  Of COURSE you called back a few minutes later after I tried to soothe your daughter who was very upset now that you were upset about her blog AND that you had been so mean to me. And of course to nobody’s surprise, you tried to smooth it over and remind her how much you really do love her and would do anything for her. And it was no surprise to her either when you repeatedly blamed “her mother” for the evenings events. Well, I have news for you: your kids are on to you. You are quite consistent with your behavior but see, so am I. I am consistent with NOT blaming you or ever saying anything bad about  you. I am also consistent with telling them that it is unacceptable for parents to put kids in the middle and to speak badly of the other parent.

Good job, you are doing what your kids know you should not be doing. And I don’t even need to tell them.

And because of other things you’ve said (see below), I’ve decided to write you an open letter. I’m not afraid to put this on the internet. I’ve done nothing wrong or illegal, I don’t name you and I’m speaking from my heart. So go ahead, make a copy and save this.

Dear Ex Husband:

Last night you mentioned to our daughter that you have a computer program that is always running to work to record everything I post online. I’m glad you’ve taken up so much interest in what is going on in my daily life, enough that you want to record it and keep it for posterity sake. I’m also glad you are aware of every time the kids get online or log online. That could be considered a little creepy and stalkerish, and I’m really not sure why you think it’s important to know those things OR how you manage to do that. In all honesty I think you are full of it and merely said that to send ME a message that you’re watching me.

But like I said, you’re welcome to read my blog, you’re welcome to follow my Tweets. Maybe you can get more information on what is going on in your kids’ lives since you hardly call them or talk to them. Really. Calling once a week or less isn’t how to build this great relationship with your children that you so often tell them you are trying your damnedest to do.

Since I know you are reading this (well, you say you are so I hope you are telling the truth) I’d like to take this opportunity to make a few things clear to you:

Making threats to call your lawyer because you are upset with me is silly. Differing parental styles isn’t a reason to cry to your lawyer. Differing opinions isn’t a good reason to make threats to take children away from their parent. It’s an empty threat, one of many you have made over the past 12+ years. I’m not afraid of you, or your threats, or your caustic, rude, foul, name-calling verbal abuse.

I am not afraid to butt into a telephone conversation when you are speaking to our daughter and saying negative things to her about me, or are using subversive, passive aggressive psychological warfare on her to try to make her upset with me. You shoot yourself in the foot every single time you do this. She knows I do NOT speak ill of you and that parents should not do so. She also knows that you signed a parenting agreement that says you will not do so. She sees – by your own doing – that you are not a man of your word.

She also knows that when you tell her in one breath that you have a million dollars in the bank, and in another you say you don’t have money because times are tight – and back that up by not sending child support on a consistent monthly basis – that you contradict what you say.

The children also know why you were arrested a few Christmases ago. You and your wife told them it was my fault and my doing. That is an unacceptable way to treat the children and so to defend myself and to help them understand that I would never do something to ruin their Christmas by harming them, I showed them the legal record leading to your arrest. Again, by trying to make me out to be the bad guy, you’ve only succeeded to have your plan backfire.

Just so you know, bringing up a horrible and hurtful incident to your daughter, one that holds for her much emotional pain, so that you can try to make her think it is my fault, it doesn’t work out. She knows that people who have hurt her own 100% responsibility for their evil and wicked actions. To remind her of this incident and to bring it up solely for your own selfish purposes is reprehensible to me especially as you are her FATHER.

You made a few comments about hoping that I am able to push you so far out of the kids’ lives that they succeed far beyond your hopes and dreams. This makes no sense and is yet another obvious attempt to plant a seed in the kids’ minds that I am somehow responsible for coming between you and them. Fortunately for them, they are smart and they hear what you are really saying, and the message you’ve sent them is that they will do better in life without you. I don’t think that’s something you want to promote.

Years ago when our daughter was a baby, you’d had a lot of drinks and you came to me and pulled me up close to you and looked straight into my eyes and said “If you ever leave me, I’ll make you feel such pain like you’ve never felt before, and when I’m done with you, no man will want you.”  Well, guess what? You were half right: never have I experienced the pain and agony that YOU put me through. Never have I been with someone else who made threats and took from me every bit that they could. Never have I again been with someone who WITHHELD MEDICAL CARE from me in an emergency situation. Never have I been pushed around and bullied by another man. So you are correct, the bad things in my life were always at your hand. It’s called emotional terrorism, verbal abuse, psychological abuse and physical abuse. No, I had no bruises or broken bones and you never punched me – but it still remains that by definition you are an abuser.

However, I DID leave you and your curse to be unlovable and unworthy hasn’t held true. I’ve met real men, wonderful men, who treated me a million times better at their worst than you ever did at your best.  I’ve never been screamed at, called names, I’ve been treated well and cared for with loving and tender intents. Your children have seen role models that present a positive image, one that does no harm to children through bullying or psychological tactics.

For all you claim to want for your children, you spend a lot of time and energy on what you think I say about you, and what you think you should say about me. But no amount of your worthless words will tell my children any less: that I love them, respect them and truly have their best interest at heart. You remind them that I “took” them and you spew out the word “mother” with such hate and nastiness. They hear this and realize this but your words cannot and will NEVER undo the sacrifices I’ve made for them to make them better people, healthy people. I truly do have their best interest at heart and I will die before I do anything to harm them intentionally, and that includes attempting to paint a picture of you that is less-than-pretty. I’ve stood up for you and made excuses for you – for all the times you never wrote or called on birthdays or holidays, for the times you have said mean things about me.

Even the time your wife WOKE OUR DAUGHTER UP and instructed her to “act like she was crying” while you berated me on the phone for your arrest because YOU CHOSE NOT TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT AND YOU CHOSE NOT TO SHOW UP FOR A COURT HEARING. This is nauseating and wicked behavior.

And your children know it. And this makes you guilty of attempting to alienate your children from me. Read this for a moment: http://www.mrcustodycoach.com/blog/child-custody-tip-parental-alienation or do some research on it.

So a word of advice to you: whatever it is you think you need to do or say to your children, pause before you do. Are you speaking words of life and love and care to them? Are you equipping them for their future? Or are you sowing seeds of bitterness and resentment?  Are you truly a role model of a father to your daughter, and a man to your son? Do you want your children to be as you have been?

We cannot choose our children’s trials and tribulations, and helping our children heal does not mean placing blame on others. What happened to our daughter happens to millions of children around the world. You know that you have another child who had a similar situation and yet you do not blame her mother.

And another reminder: I’m not the only wife who left you. I’m not the only wife with CHILDREN who moved out of state to be closer to family and a better life for her children. Perhaps the common denominator here is not the women you choose to marry, but rather you.

Perhaps instead of blaming us you should stop and consider this: had you been a better man, a more truthful and honest man, a man willing to sacrifice and a man willing to accept the blame when he does not and will not provide for his family, then this would not have happened. If we had not HAD to leave you for our own sanity, for my own safety, then this would not have happened.

Stop placing your children in the middle of this situation. This is harmful to them. You took a parenting class, no? You read the court document you signed when we reached an agreement for custody, no? Do you not understand that YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE who is deliberately hurting your own children?

Stop it. Stop, stop, stop it. Be a better man and be a better father. I know it’s in there somewhere. For once sacrifice your own needs for the needs of your children. They need you. They don’t need to hear you cut down their mother while you try to make yourself look or feel better. It’s not working. You only succeed in making yourself look the fool.

I’m not perfect. I’m going to air some dirty laundry here and I’m going to start with telling you about … surprise! My laundry. I like to do laundry and I do it (what feels like) every day. With me and two kids we’re always having mountains of laundry pile up around the house. We have common places where  piles start: on the bathroom floor. It starts with discarded jammies before hopping in the shower and it grows from there. Then there’s the hallway: this is where clothes that are tripped over in the bedroom get tossed to so that they are “out of the way.” In reality they are still in the way: MY way, and between the kids and the dog traipsing through they get dragged into my room and start yet another pile in my doorway: the was-on-the-floor-but-got-moved-to-the-hall-and-are-now-in-my-room.

This pile eventually grows so large that it merges with the pile in my bathroom as it oozes out the door. This pile gets kicked about so we can close the bathroom door and then my bedroom floor is littered with clothes that don’t even belong to me. Speaking of which, it is very weird to find someone else’s kids’ clothes in your laundry and you have no idea how they got there.

I finally decide that if I don’t get the laundry done someone, most likely a small child, is going to disappear, so I make the kids help me carry down all these piles and piles of clothes downstairs to get sorted into color piles for washing. Now our downstairs hallway is impassable because of the piles and mountains now residing there. These neat piles don’t last for too long as the kids and the dog and even me walk through them or jump over them. This pile now oozes into the living room and random socks and undies can be found kicked under the coffee table. Gross.

I finally get all of this wonderful laundry washed, dried, folded and sorted by owner. Sometimes the kids help if they’re around but if it is late at night or they are at school, I’m usually doing the laundry by myself. I don’t mind too much because it is sort of a therapeutic and mindless way to be productive while unwinding.

The piles are set on the couch or table or – if I’m feeling extra energetic – on the respective owner’s bed. They sit in a nice pile until one of a few things happen: they get put away, they get shoved onto the floor, the dog lays on them and pushes them off or they get crammed into a closet.

Nope, not my real laundry. I use a dryer.

Yeah, I reeaallly hate that. The clothes that end up on the floor migrate (on their own mind you) back to the newly started dirty laundry pile. I think they call out to each other to join them or something. Other clothes still on the floor get kicked along to under the bed and are never heard from again. More become covered in dog fur and fuzz and dirt and become so wrinkled they have to be rewashed again before they can be worn. That or they can be saved for a Halloween costume, wolfman or wookie.

What I don’t like about laundry is when it is time to put away clothes. I obsess when clothes are mixed together in drawers: pants HAVE to be with pants, shorter ones on the left and longer on the right, darker colors on the bottom and lighter on top. Don’t mix socks in with underwear and don’t mix short sleeves with long sleeves. Of course we don’t have enough room in any of our three dressers for all of our clothes – and Mister Man doesn’t even have a dresser – poor kiddo uses bins for his clothes. So to put all the clothes away where they belong becomes a bigger chore than I’d like to do at the moment so I usually set them on top of my dresser with well-meaning intent to put them away “later.”  However, before “later” arrives, I need that one shirt in this pile so I dig it out and so on and so forth until my clean pile has been depleted into a dirty pile and the cycle starts all over again.

This, my friends, is just the monster that is laundry. It doesn’t include the monster of dishes or children’s toys or bathroom trash that ends up missing the trash can and hides in a corner behind the toilet.

So why does this go on?

I’ve learned not to care, that’s why. The time and energy and effort I put into making sure everything is just so is wasted because laundry is, and ever will be, a never-ending chore.  I’ve realized that my happiness isn’t based anymore on whether or not my favorite shirt is in a drawer (in the right drawer!) but mostly whether it’s clean and I can find it. Sure, my day would be less stressful if I didn’t have to look at any of these piles and think “I really need to get to that” or if both my kids had clean clothes put away instead of school-morning rummages through piles of “are these clean or dirty I can’t tell so I have to smell them” clothes to find their school uniforms.

With all of the mess and disorganization in my house one thing remains clear to me: I’m not a hoarder (yet) and there are no cat pancakes (catcakes) anywhere. We don’t have rats or rodents, only an occasional ant, spider or wood roach. There are no moldy pizza boxes under anyone’s bed or mystery smells with an elusive hidden source. I’ve found that I can sleep better at night without chiding myself about what I didn’t do today because I have decided that I don’t care about what I didn’t do anymore – it’s not worth it.

Although, this pile of nicely folded clothes is so yummy...

My logic may be flawed for some of you and in some situations it won’t work, say feeding your kids or going to the grocery store or something that DOES cause mystery smells or catcakes. It’s a relief to embrace who I am and what I CAN do and know that the world won’t end because we are all really too lazy to put away our laundry, and the neighbor lady won’t really think too badly of me if I have laundry piles on my couch (although we don’t answer the door when the laundry pile is in the hallway. It’s too much of a liability if small children or animals wander in the doorway).

Sure, the kids should help out more. Yes, I should take two seconds to put away my clothes. If I can get over OCD to have clean laundry piles not put away, you’d think I could get over OCD of having mismatched clothing items in drawers. If you don’t like your food to touch then you know what I’m feeling.

A friend of mine asks me “How do you want to live your life” all the time as he often thinks the same. We have differing views: for me, considering my background, I need little to be truly happy. I’m safe, my children are safe, and we’re not starving. We have our own little piece of the world and although everything around us is topsy-turvy and upside-down and still a great big unknown, we’re happy. Yes, I have days I don’t want to answer the door because there are dishes in the sink or I’m wearing pants with paint stains on them and my hair looks like I brushed it with an egg beater. Yeah, there are toothpaste spots on the mirror and last week’s leftovers in the fridge (they don’t smell (yet)) and my trash really needs to go out.

But ask me if I’d rather spend an hour cleaning a mess that can really (honestly truly no kidding) wait until tomorrow (for real tomorrow, not “tomorrow”  as in next week) or sit with my kids who are growing older every SECOND of the day and this is an hour I can’t get back. Go ahead, ask me.  I’ll pick my kids every time. They are 11 almost 12 and 8 almost 9. In a few very short years they won’t want to snuggle up on the couch, they’ll want to be with their friends off driving around eating cheeseburgers and spending their allowance on MORE clothes for me to wash. My son won’t always sit on my lap, he’s going to be too old for that very soon.

Us moms need a life outside of a mom’s life. If I really did NEED a perfect Martha Betty Stewart Crocker house then I suppose I could get up at the crack of dawn and work straight through til my sweet children are tucked into their military-made beds with sheets so crisp you could cut someone with them (since I would have ironed and starched them no doubt). And of course I’d collapse into my bed with my hair in pins and cold cream on my face and be content to know my children – whose  names I’ve forgotten because all I do is clean – are sleeping soundly.

I’ll pass. I’ll take the laundry piles and the sticky light switches and the drink-box straw wrapper stuck to the bottom of my shoe for one more family movie night, one more round of video games together, one more round of reading books together.

I’ll get to the laundry tomorrow.

It is no secret that things have been tough around here the past few months. Okay, the past year. The end of March will mark my one-year anniversary of my being laid off at work. I’ve been looking for jobs almost every day – scouring the internet as best as I can to find opportunities. Friends pass along what information they have but even the best bets end up with no call-back, no interview and no follow-up. I was frustrated at first and taking it personally until I found out that at 4 different jobs I’d applied to, there were anywhere between 100-200  other applicants! Whew!

We’re making it though, we’ve no shortage of food and the electricity hasn’t been shut off (although it’s been a close call at times!). We still aren’t getting child support regularly (and by regularly I mean monthly – it seems to trickle in every other month at best which is frustrating but que sera).

My daughter was blessed by her school to be able to go on a class trip to DC which we didn’t think would be possible. She worked hard though, going to all of the fundraisers to help raise money knowing she couldn’t go. It was such a show of grace for her to walk through that. I was so proud of her and I knew karma/providence/life/ would be kind to/bless her and it would come back around. It did and she was able to go which was a huge lesson for her.

When my kiddo was 5, she wanted to learn how to play the piano. She never was able to have real lessons, but my brother gave her a nice little keyboard for Christmas one year. She played around with it but it never progressed to much other than little kid key tapping. It only has about 18 white keys so it didn’t have much of a range.

A few weeks ago, however, our neighbor told us that she has a friend who gives piano lessons. She shared our story with her and she offered to give Sadie free lessons! It was so sweet and such a blessing so we met her a few weeks ago. She’s a lovely older lady who makes me think she traveled the world and played in Hollywood nightclubs back in the day.

After two lessons, she mentioned my daughter needs to practice on a keyboard. And not an 18-key keyboard either. Uh oh! There’s no way we can afford a piano so we hit Craigslist and Freecycle to see what might be available on the net. Not much luck there either – we were looking at no less than $300 for a used, older keyboard with 88-keys and even then one without speakers or a stand or working plugs etc. I didn’t even bother to look for used pianos – Lord only knows how much THAT would cost!

So yesterday I decided to call around and find a place who rented pianos. I called one store and the gentleman explained that you can rent a piano for up to six months in a try-before-you-buy program, but at the end of six months you return the piano or purchase it with 100% of your rental fees going toward the final purchase price. Giving up a piano after 6 months didn’t work, and I definitely can’t purchase a couple-of-thousands of dollars worth piano any time soon!

The man on the phone asked if I was interested and I explained that I wasn’t working right now so it would be out of our budget but thank you for your time. He asked what our particular situation was and I told him I had been laid off and that my daughter had been given free lessons.

Well! My goodness! It’s as if it was meant to be – he told me that a friend of his had moved out of town and had left her piano with him to be given to a student who wanted to play but could not afford a piano. He hadn’t met anyone yet but said that if we wanted it, we could HAVE it.

Yes. HAVE IT. We could HAVE A PIANO. We’ll only need to come up with money to deliver it and then have it tuned, but then he said maybe he and his son could deliver it for us to save some money. Then a friend of mine said her hubby could help with a truck to get it to the house too. Now I just need to come up with some manpower to help get it loaded/unloaded and down two stairs/up two stairs and into a narrow hallway.

We’re so excited we can’t wait! My daughter has also been invited by her music teacher to go to a local recital event this weekend. She’s been playing on a borrowed keyboard for the past hour and although it’s a little bit off tempo or she hits the wrong note here and there, I love the sound of music in my house, music that MY girl is making and loving and enjoying!

It reminds me of when I played the violin and clarinet back in school. We all love music so much, so I really hope this is something she can stick to and find herself challenged by and successful in for years to come.

So if you are in a rut right now, or feel like nothing good is coming your way – or never comes your way – hang in there. Good things truly come to those who stick it out with patience AND with grace.

Well there you go. There’s my beef for today. Non-parents, did I do the wrong thing? Should I have not answered the door? Should I have planned ahead and woke my daughter up and said, “If your tooth falls out or if you break an arm or something happens in the next few hours, please don’t bother me” so that the whole mess could have been avoided?

I know I’m being awful sarcastic here, but I just don’t get what happened.

If you really do not like or care for children that much, then do not place yourself in a situation with kids. Ever. At all.

I’ve had single non-parent friends who – while on a phone call some minor emergency comes up that includes bleeding or puking – respond to my profuse embarrassed apologies by saying “I know you have kids. This is more important right now and you need to take care of them. When you can, call me back.”

Wow. What a relief THAT is to hear. How respectful of me as a parent to have grace and honesty and understanding. To be selfless in their own needs and kind to my kids.

Like I NEED someone’s permission to talk to my kid in my own home.

My children are part of me, part of my life, part of my every waking (and sleeping) moment. If you cannot grasp that, well, I don’t know what to say.

I’ve never asked much of anyone with regard to my kids. I don’t walk around telling everyone how perfect my two are, that they’re the cutest in the world, the smartest, the funniest. I’m quick to recognize my kids’ faults and try to help them through it. I’ve never dated anyone and expected them to act like a potential future dad, (although I’ve been blessed to have some amazing dudes play with and care about my kids just because). I’ve never expected anything really, and quite honestly, I feel like being a single parent is a scarlet letter and every.single.guy will see kids/divorce as baggage and warning signs.

Quite unfair really.

I don’t expect or demand anyone change. I just expect respect and understanding for this situation. I expect my kids to be recognized as half-baked humans who aren’t done yet, and to be treated with respect as to who they are and what they are. And if my kids act up, it’s MY job to come down on them and fix it.

Yes? No?

Without sounding boastful, my kids really are good kids, so I suppose I’ll keep them around. Neither of them went through the terrible two’s, although they had a few rough patches at 3. And while we’ve had our issues, we use communication to get through our problems and we’ve made it through some really trying times that have impacted us and could have really made a dent in our personal character.

I treat my children with the respect that any human being, young or old, big or small, deserves. I want them to enjoy their life. On the flip side, enjoying life isn’t just about being treated with respect, it’s getting grounded when you need to be grounded, it’s reprimand, it’s discipline, it’s structure.

So here’s what all the fuss is about:

My kids know when I’m on the phone, some rules are automatically in place. Turn the TV down, keep your voices down, and don’t interrupt unless you have a legitimate emergency.

Hopefully I tell them I’m on the phone. But if they don’t know because they didn’t see me pick up the phone, and come running in from outside “Mom! Mom! Guess what I found!” well then it is up to ME to tell my phone person, “Just a minute please” and inform my child I’m on the phone and will come see shortly. And if that can’t happen, then I can point at the phone and give them the “just a minute” finger and hope they get it.

I don’t think that’s rude. I don’t think it makes my kid rude.  I don’t think ANYONE should be offended, regardless of the tone or seriousness of our conversation, if I have to let someone know I’m on the phone.

Last night I had such a situation. I was on the phone having what felt like one of the most important and serious conversations of my life. It had the potential to blow up easily since emotions were high and vulnerability was evident on both sides. Behind closed doors and late into the evening, I figured the conversation was safe from interruption. I had waited on purpose for it to be a little later so that I could have such an ideal interruption-free time.

Knock knock.

Okay, so someone is knocking at my bedroom door. Whichever child it was didn’t know I was on the phone, and they were respectful of my privacy by knocking on the door.

What exactly should a parent do? Ignore the knock? Or open the door to see if there’s an emergency?

I chose the latter. I informed my conversation mate that someone was knocking to please hold on just a moment while I check to see if everything is a-ok.

Well there was my poor daughter, blood dribbling down her chin, her mouth filling with blood and saliva, her eyes wide open in the dark, and a tooth – what looked like an adult tooth – in her hand.

“Could I please call you back in a sec? My kid is bleedin!”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew my non-kid friendly phone mate would not be happy, and sure enough their response was an irritated reply that let me know I had offended them, made them feel unimportant and not-a-priority.

I flipped on the light, yanked my kid’s mouth open, realized she’d just lost a baby molar and it was just bleeding more than normal, told her to rinse gently and she’d be okay. I managed to call my phone mate back within a minute, knowing everything was good,

…but that wasn’t good enough for them. It caused our whole conversation to go downhill from there. They were really mad that I got off the phone – that apparently it wasn’t THAT big of a deal to begin with since I was able to call back so soon anyway.

And honestly, it hurt me more than anything. Not because my non-kid friendly phone mate was annoyed at the situation, but that they didn’t care about my feelings for my child. That they decided to use this as a perfect example of my kids interrupting “all the time.”

Do people not realize that children don’t have their shit together and make mistakes? That even the best, brightest, most polite child can do something that will rub someone else the wrong way?

I’ve done everything to shield my phone mate from any potential irritation from kids. Including, to my own shame, tossing them to bed early or allowing extra video game time so that we could have more time to chat or hang out. I  pushed the limits with my kids for my own benefit and selfishness.

And, as children always will do, they reacted to it by wanting MORE of my time.

Do you remember being a kid? Do you remember feeling like an eternity was passing by waiting for your mom to get off the phone? For your dad to come home? For the car trip to end? Do you remember getting older and feeling like people didn’t treat you fairly or give you a chance to prove you could be responsible? I did. I tried my best but I remember feeling really let-down when I wanted to prove I’d learned from lessons taught but nobody would give me a chance. I remember hearing family members talk down to me in condescending tones just because I was younger. I’m talking early teen young – old enough to be taken more seriously than I was, but not having a “I know it all” attitude. Not yet anyway.

So being a mom myself, I try to remember how I felt when my parents, peers or adults in my life made me feel small, stupid or insignificant. I HATED asking if I could get something, do something, and the reply was “I’ll think about it” or “maybe, we’ll see.”  What does that mean!? I had to sit and wait it out, minutes, hours, days… it would have been nice to have more information or a flat-out no.

All these things I try to remember with my own kids. I try to give them appropriate information when necessary, so they GET why I say no when I do, or yes when I do, so that if the situation presents itself again, they can already have an idea of this or that is appropriate or possible. It’s helped TONS when going to the store and I *know* my kids want to get something in the checkout lane. I am proud to say my children have never, ever pitched a fit at the grocery store. Sure, they’ve been cranky at the end of a long shopping trip, fussy, hungry and tired, but never something out of my control. I’ve never allowed it to happen, and I’ve staved off such fits by setting standards for them and creating a situation to minimize such risks. For example, don’t take your toddler to the store at nap time or snack time. Duh.

Still wondering where I’m going with this? Read on my dear friend.

I wanted to get to a specific point in this post, but I had to sort of set you up with where I’m coming from first. So just bear with me here.

I have to admit it – while I’m the mom of two kids, I’m really not a kid person. Surprised? It seems that a lot of women have that built-in mommy-ability to be sweet, soft-spoken, patient and nurturing with children, their own or someone else’s. It’s a trait I see often at the kids’ school: teachers who have that gift to work with and handle children like magic. But for some of us, kids are like untrained dogs who push when you pull and run off leaving you feeling helpless, powerless, and ready to pull out your hair.

The thought of babysitting someone else’s kids usually makes me cringe, especially if they aren’t well-behaved kids. I had an experience once of having a gal come over to play with us and she decided to squeeze glue all over someone’s bedsheets and pillow, and to hack to pieces a $200 Lego Star Wars spaceship. I called her mom to pick her up asap.

Having just that one experience (oh, I’ve seen more, trust me) it’s really no surprise to me when I hear people (USUALLY younger, single boys males) say how kids are little *expletives* and that they’d never want to have kids or be around kids or date someone with kids.  You see the screeching, snotty two-year old pulling on his parents or hitting a sibling at a restaurant, you see a 13-year old girl flip off her grandmother, well you get the point. It’s no secret that there are some spoiled, poorly raised kids in the world.

But if they are GOOD kids, kids who do well and try hard with the occasional hiccup because they have yet to refine their own social graces and manners, or they forget, or they run out of patience after 15 minutes of waiting for something and ask again “are we there yet” or “is it done yet” – well, is that really enough to make you hate a child? To cringe to be around them?

Kids in general don’t bother me. As a matter of fact, I find quite a bit of humor while just hanging around kids. They really do say the darndest things. They’re little people, not yet full of all the information they need to be adults like the rest of us. The only time a kid really bothers me is: if they’re incredibly rude; they won’t listen to ANYONE; they pick their nose and eat it in front of me; they are mean to or hurt my kid (or someone else’s). Even then, I’m not mad at the child. I’m annoyed at their parents for not teaching them and enforcing rules of acceptable behavior. The mother who says quietly “Now Johnny, don’t hit mommy. Now Johnny, stop biting the baby. Johnny we don’t throw knives at kittens” without giving discipline for repeated offenses, well, she deserves to be knocked upside the head. “Now Johnny” doesn’t cut it for some kids.

You probably want me to get to the point already. Ok ok, I’m getting there… read on to my next post.

PET PEEVE: I really hate it when I’m talking on the phone with another parent and their child starts talking to the parent. It’s not the child’s talking to the parent that bothers me at all. It’s the parent stopping in mid-sentence when talking to me, chatting with the child for 30-60 seconds and then saying to them “I can’t talk right now, I’m on the phone.” Wait, what? You just talked to your kid – which told them you can talk while on the phone. So telling them that now you can’t probably doesn’t make much sense to them and they will continue to talk to you when you are on the phone on other occasions.  On the other hand, it would not bother me if the parent said to me “excuse me for just a moment”, told the child that they were on the phone to come back later, and got back to me.

The mention of NASCAR has always brought images to my mind of overweight wearing jeans and cut-off flannel shirts over white wife-beater shirts, and bleached-blonde chicks in cut-off shorts and cut-off shirts. And they are all wearing beer-hats. And drinking beer with a wad of chewing tobacco between their lower lip and gums while discussing what to eat for dinner at “mom’n ‘em’s” tonight.

However, Mr. Man is a big fanboy of cars – especially the shiny fast ones. Hey, he owns a hot red Lotus, what can I say? He definitely isn’t the beer-swigging red-neck I associate with NASCAR, so when he mentioned he was watching a race and invited me to watch it on his big screen, I thought maybe it would be something akin to the Formula One race in Monaco.  Nope. It was NASCAR.

I gave it a fair shot though, and soon found myself rooting for the adorable Joey Logano, 19-year old racer from North Carolina. I was thrilled that at such a young age, he found himself living out his dream and competing with the likes of the Petty and Busch families.

But back to Target.

Watching a NASCAR race became a bit of a routine for us and we’d get together, turn the volume up loud so we could hear the revving of the engines, and we’d hope for a good crash – one in which nobody was hurt of course.

Eventually I got my kids in on the action and, much to my surprise, my 10-year old daughter was an instant fan. She picked Jimmy Johnson to be the winner in the race we were watching and sure enough: Johnson won. He won every race she watched as a matter-of-fact. (Next season I may have her watch again while we place bets online for her winning pics.)(If you want insider information contact me and we’ll work out a little $$ deal.)

But disaster struck and some sort of drama started up between the driver of the Target car, Juan Pablo Montoya. Now, I didn’t follow it closely enough to know, but according to Miss NASCAR herself, Montoya ran several drivers off the road including my precious Joey and her precious Jimmy.

So we’re driving to school this morning, talking about what to do in the summertime when vacation hits. We thought it would be fun to see a NASCAR race. Our conversation took a quick turn and went something like this:

Mom (that’s me): Oh, hey, I need to stop and get you a tri-fold board for your science fair project. I tried Wal-Mart but they didn’t have it, so I’ll try another store today.

Miss NASCAR (10-year old daugther): Oh thank you mommy! You can find one anywhere. Try Office Depot or Office Max (apparently she has insider information on office supplies, too). Oh, just DO NOT SHOP AT TARGET! NO! NOT AT ALL!

Mom: No Target? Why? I like Target! What is wrong with Target?

Miss NASCAR: (hissing dramatically) Montoya!

I pondered telling her the evils of Wal-Mart that lots of people use as their reasoning to boycott the store, but we shop there often for some things we just know are much cheaper. Surely those reasons are way more legit than someone bumping the back of your car while going 200+ MPH on a tight-cornered racetrack.

Miss NASCAR: (hissing again with much more dramatic flair, even better than Shatner’s performance in Star Trek when shouting “KAHN!!”: MONTOYAAAAAAH!

Mom: I’ll skip Target, but just for today. That’ll show them.

She seemed satisfied and started chatting about some boy in her class that she has a crush on. Funny girl.