1. My baby is a super talking machine. She says everything. It’s slightly creepy to see a kid that little demand “up” and “out” and “taco.” It’s pretty safe to say she never shuts up.
2. All I know is she did not get that from me.
3. We put up Christmas lights yesterday. Usually we’re doing it 5 days before Christmas, in a panic, when it’s raining, because the kids won’t leave us alone about it and the Big Day is approaching. So I was impressed with us.
4. Then one string kept going out in varying locations, resulting in 3 strands of lights in the trash and FOUR trips to the store in search of extension cords, new strands and other devices we thought might fix the situation. Neither Mac nor I ripped down all the lights or broke the reindeer’s head off in desperate exasperation, which makes me even more impressed with us.
5. I play Christmas music pretty much constantly from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. I do this mostly because it irritates my family. Don’t tell them.
6. Speaking of Christmas music, can we all just agree that dog-barking and cat-meowing renditions of Christmas carols are fucking lame? Not cute. Not amusing. Annoying.
7. Not totally unlike the fact that my toddler has an acute fascination with the TOILET. She’s like a wayward cat I tell you. She just digs toilets. Playing in them. Splashing in them. Placing various household items in them. And just to add a little more fun to the scenario, since the 6-year-old has some sort of disorder making it physically impossible for him to FLUSH THE FUCKING TOILET, the toilet water involved is very often not clean. I hate my life.
8. In other news, you can dunk a Blackberry in the toilet multiple times and it will still work. FYI.
9. Oh, and Thanksgiving was awesome. We spent it with my brother and his family. It was our first holiday together since he moved back and it was even better than I had imagined. Lucky, lucky me to have loving, wonderful family within driving distance.
10. Okay. Hallmark moment over. Let’s get back to reality: I don’t care what anybody says, I will not miss the fact that I pretty much never get to go to the bathroom alone. And if they aren’t IN the room with me, they are RIGHT outside the door… “Mama! What are you doing?” Me: “Going to the bathroom.” Them: “Pee or poop?” Me: “Leave me alone.” Peals of laughter. Toddler pounding on door. Banging. Flailing. Toddler wailing until I let her in. Kids straining to see. Me, thinking “There are a lot of things about motherhood I will miss, but I will not miss this.”

Huh. I think I’m going to name this “the toilet post.” Happy almost-December. I love Christmas.

You know what else I love? Train overalls.

Sometimes I think I have a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Is that an oxymoron?

Maybe.

At any rate, I have a few “hang ups.” And sometimes, they concern me.

Like today. Today we had to leave one of those mall play area things because this kid had a ring pop.

Okay that sounded even weirder when I wrote it. Let me explain.

Today, for the first time in my life, I went to a mall on Black Friday. Mostly due to chance. Was driving by on the way home from Thanksgiving at my brother’s house, baby started crying, mall was on the left, we went in.

And I thought to myself “Huh. This is the first time I’m not avoiding a store on Black Friday.”

Then we entered the mall and I remembered why I avoid stores on Black Friday.

But I digress. As usual.

So we’re in this mall and I start walking 4 steps into stores then turning immediately around due to check-out line lengths, knowing that even if I saved fifty bucks on whatever, hell, even if they HANDED me fifty bucks, I wouldn’t stand in those monstrous lines with 25,000 neurotic deal-hungry humans.

But that’s not the OCD part. Despite appearances.

So we’re in this mall and since the actual shopping isn’t panning out, we buy some coffee and decide to let the baby and kids run around one of those enclosed play areas.

Seemed like a fine plan.

And it was.

Until I noticed this girl with a ring pop. She had this ring pop, blue to be exact, and it’s appropriately on her finger. She’s running around sucking on this thing and waving it around, going down the slide and whatever…and…crawling on the ground dragging her ring pop then picking the fuzz off it and licking it again.

I stare at her with my jaw agape. At least I think it was. It was in my head.

I swat Mac and show him. Appalled.

He says something along the lines of “Yeah, and we wonder why people in America aren’t going to college. I mean the ring pop problem alone…”

And I realize he’s going to be no help in this situation.

I yell for the kids and tell them to avoid the ring-pop girl at all costs.

They look at me like I’m fucking insane and go back to playing.

Next to her.

I’m cringing.

I’m imagining that blue sugary spit-covered mess touching my baby’s head.

I glare at her parents. Obviously.

I realize at this point I’m being a nutjob. But there’s no going back at this point. I’m totally hung up on this – staring and obsessing and contemplating the destruction of our society, one ring pop at a time.

I get up and grab the baby, put her on another structure.

Ring-pop girl follows. Sucks the candy then pulls a piece of hair from her mouth, which was, evidently, an unwelcome guest clinging to her delicious Red Dye Number “Cancer” treat.

I can’t take it. Decide we must leave. Right NOW.

And…we leave.

Okay so is that OCD? I mean in hindsight it really wasn’t THAT big of a deal, but something about it just disgusted me and I couldn’t stand watching her flail around with that thing in mid-air, just ready to bop one of my kids in the face so I then had to clean sugary mess off their mostly clean mugs.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

And that, my friends, is just another one of the many reasons I am not a kindergarten teacher.

I hate ring pops.

Can we all just agree ring pops are a freaking bad idea?

Okay, fine, I’ll get behind this thankfulness thing. I’m thankful for all kinds of things.

I do a lot of complaining.

But this is my blog. I can cry if I want to.

The truth is, though, I know I’m pretty much livin’ the dream and my whining is just that. Whining.

And I do it with full knowledge that I’m whining. Somehow, in my head, that makes it better.

Plus, I believe the truth of the moment has a right to be heard, and sometimes I get sick of being a parent and sick of living from one paycheck to the next and sick of the work and sleepless nights and the struggling and blah, blah, blah.

But I always know, somewhere, that what I have in this life is one giant, steaming pile of goodness.

And I don’t mean that sarcastically.

There is nothing worse than the friend who stands in her 3,000 square foot house complaining about the neighbors and how her kids’ private school just won’t do what she wants and her husband is just so busy and her kids are getting D’s and my god. You know the story.

And she really believes she’s got a tough gig. You just want to grab her and shake her – “DUDE. I know fifty people who would switch places with you RIGHT NOW if given the opportunity.”

And when I’m complaining, bitching about my mariachi-addicted neighbors and ironworker husband working out of town and the noise in my house and the stress of school and the seemingly unending chain of shit that needs to be done…

I know there are hundreds of women who would give anything for a husband who did something other than sit on his ass and play video games…

Or own a house in any neighborhood at all, anywhere…

Or have the opportunity to pursue their dream of grad school…

And there’s the woman

Who lost

Her baby and

would lay down every moment of the rest of her life

For just one hour of the chaos

And the pressure

And the expectations

I face and struggle with and

complain about,

every day.

Happy Thanksgiving, people.

Yep, pretty much.

1. On Friday, Ava had her 10^th birthday party.  It was a slumber party. There were SEVEN 4^th and 5^th grade girls in my house, at once. Did you catch that? SEVEN. SEVEN 10 and 11 year old girls.
2. There was a lot of squealing.
3. There was not much slumbering.
4. Setting aside one moment of self-doubt when I thought I may need to call a few of the mothers as back-up, or, perhaps, to pick up their psychotic screaming child, it all went well. In fact, I decided that I kinda dig that age.
5. They’re just so weird. I love it. One moment they are playing “babies,” (literally, playing house with baby dolls), the next second they’re talking about “dating,” which of course they have no understanding of whatsoever. (Evidently, in 4^th grade, dating means “holding hands at lunch.” I asked.)
6. The truth is I loved being around them and I was rather fascinated by the precious, precarious spot they all inhabit – teetering on the cusp of pre-teen years…holding on to the last moments of girlhood – but so consumed with each one. When they’re little kids, they’re TOTALLY LITTLE KIDS. When they’re pre-teens, they are totally pre-teen. They are walking contradictions – walking conflicts. Like all of us, I guess. Only they haven’t yet learned to hide it. They’re just so real.
7. Tomorrow my first child turns 10. Double digits, people. Somehow I am kind of okay with this, but I think that’s solely because I don’t have time to be upset. I’m too deep in chaos and survival mode to feel anything right now. Maybe that’s a defense mechanism. Maybe that’s denial. Maybe this one just isn’t hurting that bad.
8. Of course, there’s always tomorrow.
9. I believe the highlight of the evening was when one girl said, in the heat of an animated discussion on the horrors of healthy cafeteria food, “They serve these weird orange mushy things!!” And another girl looked over, rolled her eyes, and said “Um, they’re called sweet potatoes.” I don’t know why I loved that so much. It was just adorable.
10. Either that or it was the moment one girl said to Ava “Your mom is COOL” and Ava said “Oh no, she isn’t. She thinks it’s funny to tell people she studied music and dance at Julliard while she twirls around singing 80s songs.”
11. Okay, but that is damn funny. Don’t you think?

Speaking of the 80s, check out this picture of Ava opening her presents, complete with blue eye shadow, which they put on themselves, pretending they were going “clubbing.” Ha.Ha.Ha. Clubbing.

She was so happy. It was awesome.

You know what I should be doing? School work.

But, I’m not.

You know why?

Because I need to write the most important post I’ll probably ever write in my whole life.

Check it out.

In 3 years, when Georgia is just four, probably going to preschool and really not needing me quite so much, and I consequently have a relapse of the terminal disease known among medical journals as “I Really Really Really Think I Need a New Baby,” please remind me of the following few moments. No really, please.

Before we get into this, let me just say that when the time comes, you must be strong in the face of this insidious disease. I will tell you I really really need a newborn, and we can totally afford it and if I don’t have it my life will seem incomplete and I’ll regret it forever.

I will suddenly, defying all reason, only remember the most glorious moments spent with my children as infants. I will tell you I loved the toddler stage. If I hold your baby, I may get a little teary-eyed in joyful nostalgia. I will stare at pregnant women with a splash of longing in my eyes, forgetting completely that I FUCKING HATE BEING PREGNANT. Babies will appear radiant to me in their loveliness, like handfuls of sunlight woven together with silken threads of moonlight. I just threw up a little in my mouth.

So despite all this, you must look me in the eye and tell me these things. Please. I’m relying on you. You are my only hope of not having another damn kid.

Remind me of…

1. Trying to take a shower. Remind me of the fact that I have to hold the sliding shower door shut with one hand the entire time I’m showering lest the toddler enter with me, drenching herself. Remind me of the screams and wails of despair echoing in the bathroom as she bemoans her rejected state, and I try to shower with one hand.
2. Changing the diaper of a 15-month old. Remind me of the squirming. Of the hand that shoots down like lightening to grab the poop. Just outta nowhere…BOOM!!! Shit everywhere. Remind me of that.
3. The batshit crazy hour each night. Remind me of that hour each day when the toddler is too tired to do ANYTHING – even just stand there motionless – but not tired enough to sleep. Remind me of holding her on my hip while I try to do everything else for the other two kids. Cook. Eat. Laundry. Etc. Remind me of the inability to set her down for even three freaking seconds because…because why? Because who the fuck knows why. Because toddlers are lunatics. Remind me of that.
4. The toddler path of destruction. Remind me of the way she spends pretty much every waking moment destroying things – over-turning, pulling down, shoving off, shoving in, dumping, hitting. Nonstop destruction. Nonstop work for me. Not for neatness, but for life. To keep her from injuring herself. Remind me of that.
5. And finally, the perfectly timed, toddlers-must-be-in-tune-with-the-inner-workings-of-the-universe wake up moment. You know what I’m talking about, right? That moment when you are drifting off to sleep, finally. That giant cloud of relief spread out beneath you, begging you to fall, completely, into vast lovely sleep. And you’re drifting, settling down into sweet relaxation, ah bliss. And just as you’re about to fall into that bliss…you hear it. The grumble. The whine. The wahhhhhhhh. And you realize she ain’t going back to sleep and once again, you aren’t getting a decent night’s sleep and you will spend tomorrow in hazy exhaustion.  Again. You roll out of bed. Stumbling. Cursing the whole deal.

Swearing you’re never going to have another fucking baby.

Friends, remind me of that.

You see?

The most important post I’ll ever write.

Do you people think I’m kidding? Because I’m not.

Don’t fail me here guys.

Maybe we should start a support group for this. We could get together for meetings every week and invite people with toddlers. Then just watch. And REMEMBER.

Anybody interested?