It took a while to figure out, but I’ve finally determined that yes, for sure I have a kid I used to judge other people for having.

I used to look at people with their insane toddler hell-bent on standing in the shopping cart or running through the center of the mall and I’d be like “Well now, look at that little specimen of humanity” and then I’d look down at my own toddler, sitting quietly in her stroller gazing at shit with age-appropriate curiosity (reflecting profound intelligence and insight, obviously) and I’d be all “I’m so glad my excellent parenting has produced such a solid toddler as opposed to that person’s shithead kid.”

The other day, as we walked through the mall, I looked back and saw my husband carrying Georgia sideways and upside down as she flailed.

He asked me: “Do you have her other shoe?”

Yep. That’s me.

I now have the kid who’s plotting her escape at every fucking moment, occasionally finding success and running full speed, gleefully, into the wild blue yonder while I attempt to run behind her, which is a sight, I assure you, you’d rather not experience.

Actually, at this point, I’m so over it I usually just send one of the older kids after her, which makes me an even MORE SHITTY parent as I stand there watching my insane toddler bolt across public areas while calmly telling my 8-year-old “Dude. Go get her.” Then I watch with a mixture of resigned amusement and vague depression as he darts through the crowd and grabs the youngest one’s shirt, or pants, which may or may not result in her hitting the ground laughing hysterically, or bawling and screaming.

One can never be sure.

If you don’t buckle the carseat fast enough, she will launch herself across the car and into the back seat while giggling. She may get back into her carseat, IF you’re going someplace interesting to her (“When you get in the carseat we can go to the park!”).

But then again, she might NOT. There’s a good chance she’ll just run to the opposite end of the car no matter where you go to grab her, like the bad kid in Chevy Chase movies. And then you’ll just be the asshole yelling nondescript threats and wondering what the point of children really is. You know, when it’s all said and done.

Yesterday she squealed “Super Georgie!” and bolted through legs of the people standing in line of a restaurant. But that was kind of my fault, because I brought up the whole “super Georgie” thing to my mom and inspired her.

Silly me.

I have the toddler who won’t stop squirming down the bench seat in the restaurant (to say “hello” to the people at the next table – duh), but when you put her in the high chair she repeatedly pushes off the table to shove herself backwards and occasionally removes half-chewed food from her mouth.

Why? Because toddlers are fucking insane.

Later, when you go shopping, she’ll GRAB EVERY FUCKING THING SHE CAN REACH OFF THE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SHELVES.

And she’ll stand in the shopping cart. Or try, repeatedly. She’ll grab shit out of the back of the cart and throw it.

She’ll scream “I HAVE A PENIS!” as loud as she can, which is mostly just annoying because of the volume, though the content could also be improved.

Or, my other favorite: “Santa is POOPY! You’re POOPY! I’m POOPY!”

That was yesterday, in Michael’s. We keep it classy.

Spilling things, mixing things, throwing things, constantly. Huge, huge messes. Messes you didn’t know were possible. In the refrigerator. “I’ll do it myself!” All the toys from the bedroom in the bathtub. Strange liquid mixtures all over the counter. Stickers. Everywhere. Pen marks on every wooden toy. Climbing. Jumping. Flailing. Lying down in parking lots, randomly.

It never, ever ends.

Maybe this is a result of deficient parenting. But IF this is a result of deficient parenting, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T MY FIRST TWO KIDS ACT LIKE THIS?

Nope. This is just her.

Or maybe it’s that once you have more than two, the little hoodlums outnumber you and the older ones CRACK THE FUCK UP every time the smallest one screams “penis!” or “poop!” or flings herself sideways across dinner tables or throws her shoes and socks off while riding in the cart in Costco.

And you’re like “Stop laughing!” and trying to put your motherly foot down but for real it does nothing because there’s THREE of them. The energy of your voice is like a kitten walking against a tornado. Sorry. That was a little morbid.

The kitten’s fine.

A couple days ago Rocket was lying on the floor and Georgia literally did a cannonball off the couch onto his stomach. It was awful. Not funny. INSANE.

Where does she get this shit?

Maybe I’ve done something wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it’s just her. Maybe it’s a perfect storm of factors resulting in this gorgeous, crazy kid.

But whatever it is, I’d like to offer an enormous, heartfelt “FUCK YOU” to the old me, to the mom who walks by and sees me kind of sucking ass with this child, trying my hardest to rein her in when all the forces of life are against me.

And I’d like to explain to that mom, the one standing there with her perfect toddler or two, that if she has enough kids, her day may come too, when suddenly SHE’S the one in Michael’s picking shit up in the aisles with a toddler squealing at a stranger perusing the aisles: “Those are OUR BUTTONS! Don’t take OUR BUTTONS!”

And I’d like to explain something else, that the kid you see throwing herself out of the cart is also the one who runs into my room each morning and yells (after removing her clothes): “Do you want to cuggle (cuddle?). I ALWAYS love to cuggle!”

And she’s the one who had a big boy monster truck birthday party. She’s the one who hears a song in Old Navy and says “I gotta dance!” Then gets down and dances in front of the mirror. She’s the one who sat on an old man’s lap for a few minutes and gave me one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

She’s the one who seems to fill just about every square inch of the lives of those who know her with a joy that’s hard to explain. You can kind of see it in her eyes. In her sly smile, in the way she walks. A certain determination to live, to be what and who she is, as “irritating” as it may seem to the rest of the world. And to me.

I’m very serious when it comes to manners, and I am decidedly not one of those parents who’s all “Oh look at my kid acting like a shithead! Isn’t it cute?”

It’s not cute.  I don’t think it’s cute. You don’t think it’s cute. NOBODY THINKS THIS SHIT’S CUTE.

I don’t let her get away with poor manners and insanity. It’s just that she ALWAYS TRYING NEW METHODS OF CRAZY, which means my life with her is often a serious of averting disaster and attempting to correct the last disaster. Sometimes my mothering of this child is reduced to just trying to get through whatever task is at hand: a trip to the grocery store, dinner, the car ride.

If you don’t understand what I’m saying, just have a couple more kids.

If you’re lucky, you may get one like this…the best worst kid in the world.

And you’ll learn the only cure for horrible judgmental douchebaggery is to become one of the assholes you used to judge.

So thanks for that, Georgie, I owe you one.

I wrote a post about the struggles of motherhood, those moments when the work becomes too much and we’ve got nothing left and we just want to quit the whole damn gig. Those moments when we’re really, really not “grateful.”

And in response, a woman wrote this (more or less): “A year ago around this time my 2-year-old died unexpectedly in her sleep. I’d give anything to experience the things you complain about, to get irritated at the noises and antics of my child. Why don’t you think about what it would feel like to lose those children you’re ranting about.”

Just for fun, click over and read the other comments left on that post.

You back? Cool.

39 mothers (and a stay-at-home-dad) commiserating about the harshness of this job of parenthood. 40 people who found a place to say the shit everybody’s thinking (well, lots of us at least) but nobody will admit because, well, I don’t know. We’re not supposed to, I guess.

I read her comment in the car and wanted to vomit. I was simultaneously filled with rage and sadness and piercing guilt. Even shame.

I didn’t publish the comment. I’m not exactly sure why. I thought she might be a troll (I mean what the hell was she doing on a parenting website while mourning the death of her child?), but I don’t think that was really it. It’s unlike me to censor somebody. In fact, that’s the only comment (besides troll name-calling (e.g. “You’re a slobbering vagina.”)) that I’ve deleted.

I really didn’t want to subject the 40 other commenters to her guilt-inducing wrath. It was like she had this flaming sword and could SLAUGHTER any parent in the world for the slightest hint of ungratefulness, in a few words. And holy shit, did it work.

I think that was a wrong choice. Nobody needs me to protect them. I should have published it. I won’t make that mistake again.

In hindsight, I imagine I deleted it because it struck some chord with me that I couldn’t handle.

I’ve thought about it a lot since then and I’ve realized I really, really hate that shit: You can’t complain about your job because people are unemployed.

You can’t bitch about pregnancy symptoms because some women can’t have children.

You can’t loathe motherhood occasionally because parents have lost children.

And come on, friend, stop talking about your pneumonia. People are dying of cancer.

You lost your dad? I lost BOTH parents (I didn’t actually, thank god). You’re 20 pounds overweight? I’m 40. You’re poor. I’m more poor. Unemployed for 3 months? It’s been 6 for me. And on and on.

Somebody can always, always one-up your problems. And you know what? They’re fucking right. It’s true. It’s 100% true that I should be grateful for the fact that I can conceive children. I should be grateful for the fact that none of them have been ripped from my yearning hands. And I should be grateful I’m alive, and my parents and family are alive (mostly), and nobody is facing a terminal illness (that we know of).

And guess what. I AM GRATEFUL. But I’m not grateful all the time. I’m not some freaking guru.

I am also beat sometimes, by them and me and my life, just as it stands, as glorious and beautiful as it is. Sometimes I fall into a depression. Sometimes I’m full of self-pity and agony and pain and I’m not even sure why it’s there. It’s real. It’s life.

And THAT is why the problem one-upping thing is so fucking irritating and a complete waste of time: Because it doesn’t WORK.

It is 100% ineffective in actually reducing pain.

When I am depressed, or terrified, or tired of being broke, no amount of mental chanting “But some people have it worse” reduces my pain for more than a minute or two. Ultimately, no mental construct – no new idea – will pull me through my darkness.

If you think about it, the pain one-upping could just go on forever. There is always somebody “worse off” than you…what about those women locked in the Castro house? What about people who lose their whole families in car accidents? What about people trapped in abusive marriages living in countries that don’t give a shit? Should we talk about Ethiopia? Starvation? Sex slavery? Come on. We could do this all day. There is always, always a “worse” situation.

So ultimately, where do we land? If we take this one-upping as far as I goes, we end up at “No pain means anything. No pain deserves treatment. No pain matters.” And that, my friends, is completely ridiculous.

Why? Because this pain is real. It does matter. It’s happening, isn’t it?

THIS is where I am in my journey. What good is pretending I’m not in pain just because I should be more enlightened or insightful or deep or appreciative? I should be a better person, capable of focusing on my blessings. I should be blah blah freaking blah.

I should, BUT I’M NOT.

Maybe my pain is ridiculous. Maybe you’ve been down to levels of agony that make my problems seem utterly ridiculous.

And yep, when I hear people bitching about which tile to pick out in their Newport Beach mansion as if that’s the biggest, hardest decision they’ve ever made, I judge the shit out of them. I wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Privileged assholes. Never suffered a day in their lives.

And I imagine that is precisely what that woman saw when she read my blog: Privileged asshole. Look at her, bitching about those gorgeous children. She thinks she’s suffering. She’s never suffered a day in her life.

And compared to her, she’s right.

I have not known that pain. I cannot even comprehend an ounce of the pain that is her pain.

But my pain is still real, and unfortunately, imagining greater pain does not alter the course of my own. The only thing that alters the course of my own is life. Experience. I must live through my pain as you live through yours, wherever we are on the spectrum of depth and insight and development.

I must move through the course of my life, learning as I go what matters, what doesn’t, and each person’s journey is their own, to be endured, enjoyed, lived and learned from.

There’s a line in this song by Langhorne Slim, one of my favorite singers in the world, and it goes like this: “I’ve had it better than some and I know that I shouldn’t complain/though my grandfather told me once that all pain hurts the same.”

I have a hard time believing the pain I feel from my nondescript depression that’s come and gone my whole life, my vague dissatisfaction with life, is the same as the pain of losing a child. In fact, I know it cannot be. And frankly I find it self-righteous and ridiculous to claim it’s the same.

But he’s right: Pain is relative. And it all hurts. And the pain you feel from your suffering can be as profound as my own, even though your life might not cause ME pain. We cannot one-up each other’s suffering. There’s no healing in that.

And yet, there’s a strange thing that happens when you put yourself in the presence of somebody in greater pain than you. Theirs becomes yours, and yours seems small.

Sometimes I speak in rehab centers for drunks and addicts who were found homeless on the streets. When I spend an hour with those women, I get in my car and I have no fucking problems.

And when I spend time with friends who are really, really struggling, like fighting cancer or losing a baby or missing a husband who just died, and I try to be of service to them somehow, I get out of myself, and my pain is diminished, forgotten for a while. I let go of myself and find peace in the disassociation. I would say those moments keep me alive, bump me back on track.

It’s a fucking gorgeous thing. But it isn’t an IDEA. It’s an experience. I am experiencing a shift in my perspective arising from a moment with somebody else – a collision with reality that knocks me  out of my delusion.

But day in and day out, as the daily annoyances and difficulties of my life arise, as I find myself impatient and yelling at the small human specimens who irritate the living shit out of me but would take my life if I lost them, when I lay my head down at night broken and done and without resources, the vague idea that some people have it worse does precisely jack shit to alleviate my pain or make me more patient and loving and kind.

Does that make me an asshole? Probably. But I’d rather be an asshole facing my asshole nature than an asshole pretending to be enlightened.

Part of my journey is facing exactly how self-centered I am, how self-absorbed and shallow I can be – how unreliable my perceptions often are. And, perhaps most importantly, how 99% of the time, my problems lie IN MY HEAD rather than in reality. Reality is that I have a damn good fucking life. My head says “Let’s be sad. Let’s be depressed. All things suck.”

But I can’t change a broken mind with a broken mind. I can’t fix a problem WITH the problem. (That’s not mine. I learned that from sober alcoholics.) I’ve got to move my feet in a different direction. I’ve got to continue living my life, trusting that teachers will always come, teachers who won’t TELL me how I SHOULD be feeling, shame me into something I’m clearly not capable of doing, but SHOW ME through their actions, through the very essence of their selves, through their motherfucking LIVES – who they are what they see  and how they’ve suffered, and overcome. Until I remember, see the truth of my own life, and maybe realize that through my own suffering and what I’ve overcome, I can help others do the same.

Until my problems become nothing, and my pain diminishes, and I’m grateful again.

So I’m not exactly sure how to tell you this, but, um, I’m pregnant.

Yep. You heard that correctly, and no, I’m not joking. And yes, we’re broke and living with my mother and between jobs and unsure where we’ll be in a few months.

WHAT?

Yeah, I know.

If any of you are thinking “But you can hardly handle the three you’ve got.”

Let me just say: “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT DUDE!”

But logic has no place in the uterine equation, and when there’s a dude who’s SUPER INEXPLICABLY interested in another baby (at one point he was even like “But you promised me four kids the night we met!” and I was like “BUT I WAS ON ECSTASY MOTHERFUCKER!”) and your friends keep reproducing and there’s baby thighs and chin fat and you’ll be 35 in March and you’re like “but maybe just ONE MORE?” but then all hell breaks loose in your life and you’re all “never mind let’s wait” but then the IUD is already out so you get this app on your iPhone to determine when you’re ovulating and shit but oops, yeah. Baby.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

FYI, iPhone apps are horrible birth control. Tell your teens.

But this should explain my lack of writing and extreme exhaustion. I totally wanted to tell you all sooner, but you’re supposed to wait and shit. And I did wait. I’m 10 weeks now and I’ve known since 5 weeks.

I wanted to announce this to you all in some super cute, Pinterest-y way, but, actually no. I didn’t.

But that got me thinking about pregnancy announcements, which apparently exist, and then I was all “What would mine say if they told the truth?”

So obviously I made a few.

As always, please enjoy the clip art.

And let me just say: There will be bitching about this pregnancy. There will be sentimental slop. There will be a baby by mid-June of 2014 (or my heart hopes).

I’m glad we’re doing this together. It should be fucking interesting.

I’m already crafting a post: “Top 5 stupidest things I’ve read on my Babycenter due date forum.” (Yes, since I didn’t have you people, I ventured over to hell to see what was up and WOW. Now I just go over there for material.)

Please feel free to pin any of these for future ideas.

with so much love,

Janelle

P.S. So I’m planning another homebirth but since the midwives don’t give you a “confirmation ultrasound” I totally made an appointment with the local women’s health people and lied to the OB/GYN to avoid The Homebirth Lecture to get my ultrasound. I just couldn’t believe it was real. I just wasn’t feeling “connected.”  I wanted to SEE something.

And when I saw the tiny rushing furiously powerful little heart I thought “Oh, yeah, there you are. I knew I loved you.”

And I got excited, and that’s the truth.

Also all of the above. That’s true too. Some things never change, I guess.

P.S.2 REALLY should have made sure I wasn’t going to have another baby BEFORE writing those baby sprinkle/gender reveal party posts because OHMYGOD my friends. Are losing it.

I’m 95% sure I may have both. But they will be ironic. As god as my witness, THEY WILL BE IRONIC.

And you’re all invited.