Georgia, age 4 (as of August 5), pretty much sees me in two ways:

1. I need to be so close to you I’m literally sitting on your face; and
2. I’m trying to figure out what exactly your purpose is here.

We all know “terrible twos” was an invention by some prick who never had a 3-year-old, and found it amusing to make new parents think 2 is bad when actually, Dante’s 10^th circle of hell is right around the corner.

Age 2 is sipping hot apple cider during a crisp fall evening with big orange leaves crackling at your feet. Age 3 (and 4, evidently) is like getting a bucket of ice water dumped on your head (only not benefiting a nonprofit) and the leaves shoved in your ears by a tiny insane human squealing “I don’t like the orange leaves. I ONLY LIKE THE RED LEAVES!”

And you’re like “but I didn’t make the leaves, sweet angel from heaven.”

And she’s like “I. DON’T. LIKE. THATTTTTTTTT!!”

And screaming and crying and growling and fists and shit and you’re like “This is why nobody likes you.”

But you keep it inside, because you can’t actually say that to a toddler. I mean, out loud. Plus, it’s not true. Everybody in fact likes her a lot since she saves this behavior for you and you alone. And maybe daddy. But mostly you.

And sometimes, when you’re in public.

Like the other day when we went to get Arlo’s birth certificate from the court records place and it had already been decided that Rocket gets to push the button on the elevator (because these are the issues that now concern me, people. This is important stuff here. WE MUST MAKE SURE IT’S FAIR AND EVEN AND RIGHT AND TRUE when it comes to elevator-button-pushing. Fuck my life.) But somehow, even though it was clearly Rocket’s turn (Georgia pushed them on the way up), and sharing and turn-taking have been working parts of our psyches for at least 2 years, suddenly, right now, this shit is INTOLERABLE and the thing to do when Rocket pushes that elusive, gorgeous light-up button is stand in the corner and let out some wails that might shatter the elevator glass, were it not bulletproof.

I ask her “Why are you such a dick?”

No, I don’t. But I really, really want to.

Instead, even though it’s never worked once in the history of motherhood, I attempt reasoning with her (also because this makes me look like a good, conscientiousness mother in front of strangers) “Georgia, you pushed the buttons on the way up. It’s Rocket’s turn now,” but we’ve entered full-toddler-psychosis. It’s no use.

Only thing to do is ignore it. Only way through it is through it. Going on a fucking bear hunt, folks. Somebody save me from these horrid jokes.

I am, after all, in an elevator with a toddler, newborn and 8-year-old. Can’t really sit there and “talk it through” lovingly in a supportive mom voice, exploring complex feelings of displacement (new baby came, very hard on toddlers) and existential toddler angst.

She probably just has to poop.

Or needs a nap (which she abandoned 6 months ago, because clearly if it’s helping her mood we should get rid of it immediately).

Besides, I have no capacity for supportive mom voice at that moment.

So the husband picks her up and puts her over his shoulder and she loses it all the way home.

People look at you wondering why your kid is so terrible, all tantruming-the-fuck-out and you just ignoring her. I feel like that’s excessively unfair because in my experience the only way to get them to stop being assholes is to ignore their asshole tantrums.

Yes, that’s my profound parenting insight.

If you have a better plan, please shove it up your ass.

Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m just bitter.

Well maybe I meant it a little.

But seriously, right? I can’t give in to my daughter’s irrationality and so, a tantrum ensues. The only thing that will stop the tantrum is letting her push the button. But if I do that, she’s earning what she wants from the tantrum, and will thereby do it again. And again. And again.

And the next thing you know, she’ll be the woman at the Target checkout line screaming at the pimply faced teenager for not giving the appropriate discount on her Scrubbing Bubbles cleaner. You know, the one we all look at and think “Why didn’t your mom teach you any damn manners?”

So in the interest of the greater good, sometimes you just gotta let them wail and wish you didn’t have kids, and endure the looks of strangers who have either never raised offspring or are better parents than you. Or think they’re better parents than you. There is no doubt that there are many, many better parents than me.

Except at the county fair. I am better than those parents. Just saying.

Anyway, the other day, Mac was changing the screen on one of the windows in the back of the house, nowhere near Georgia’s room, FYI, and she starts screaming and crying that Mac had “ruined the magic secret door to her bedroom.”

Look, kid, you can’t hold us accountable to your paranoid delusions of weird toddler shit. Err, I mean “imagination.”

A few hours later, we were driving along in our vehicle and Georgia asks “What’s that?”

I answer: “A restaurant.”

She asks “Why? Why mama why? Whywhywhy?”

I roll down my window and scream into the night “I can’t live in these conditions!”

But nobody hears my cries.

Leaving the house the other day, she says “I want to bring that stroller!”

But we don’t need that stroller, so I tell her.

So she furrows her brow and wails and screams, because that makes sense.

I tell her “I’ll give you $100 if you stop making that noise,” but she has no appreciation for money.

God help you if you don’t give her the red cup.

Or ask her to leave, anywhere, ever, in a hurry.

Do not, I repeat DO NOT, change your plans in the middle of the day if those plans involved parks, friends or grandmothers.

Right, because plans never change in families of 4 kids and a mother who puts things in her calendar then forgets to look at the calendar.

And if she squeezes the newborn’s face and makes him cry, don’t say anything, because SHE WASN’T HURTING HIM.

And I’m not jumping on the couch, she says, in an up-and-down motion.

“I DO WHAT I WANT!!!!”

Oh, George. You’re driving me fucking batshit.

Next week you start preschool.

I’ll miss you terribly.

Sort of.

Yes, terribly.

And not.

Yep, this is it. Motherhood. Age 4.

Thumbs up.

*********

You know how you “meet” somebody via the interwebz and you know you could be friends? Yeah, that’s what’s happened with Amii and me. At least on my part.

She founded and runs “Up on the Hill,” a seriously awesome store that carries all the things I want to buy my annoying toddlers and babies. No, I mean it. That’s true and real.

Read her words and figure out why I fucking love her and what she’s done: “My husband used to work in the beer and wine industry, and was actually quite well know for his palate when it comes to beer, but was laid off 3 weeks before my due date with baby #2. Despite the stress we had a successful HBAC, and a little bit of savings. After 2 months of unsuccessfully trying to find a new job, we decided to open a business ourselves. 

We opened Up On the Hill in October of 2012 and never really looked back. Having a passion for cloth diapers and baby-wearing I jumped into this with no real business background, just 15 years in food service. It’s been quite the learning experience.

We are located in Historic Shepherdstown, WV and also carry children’s clothing and natural toys. We strive to carry items you won’t find in big box stores, and are huge supporters of local and small businesses. I have a 4 year old son, River,  and 1 year old daughter, Luna.”

 MY PEOPLE.

So click this link and buy some shit. We have an “affiliate” arrangement going, so I actually get a little something too when you buy. So help two mamas out. Fuck Walmart. Thank you.

Much love.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know I get lost sometimes.

And then again. And again.

But I don’t want to write about that. I’m tired of writing about that.

I’ve written it all before.

I don’t want to write about anything, really. And that’s not new. I’m sick of myself. Do you ever get sick of yourself? Your story? Your “insights,” the shit you keep giving the world, even your humor or other things people like about you?

Does it ever begin to feel false and wrong or just simply totally uninteresting? Like it’s all a gimmick? A bunch of bullshit?

Or maybe that’s not even it. Maybe that has even too much definition, too much clarity. Maybe you’re just floating up in the air at random like a balloon 400 feet in the air and wind and clouds.

That’s where I am.

I think.

How the hell am I supposed to know?

I haven’t written anything here for a few weeks.

Can’t.

I’m struggling. When I’m struggling a little, I write a little.

When I’m struggling a lot, I write nothing.

(And worry all day about the fact that I’m writing nothing (because I’m never going to write again, obviously.))

I get ideas, but they don’t seem right. I start things but I don’t finish them, because it all feels like a lie.

It all feels so wrong I eventually determine I’m just fucked.

But maybe I’m not fucked. Maybe this is just new motherhood, again, when I’m rearranged and my life family home brain is recreated. Destroyed, and reborn, though I kick and scream and worry I won’t get found again. Maybe I’ll stay lost this time. Maybe I was never found at all, but rather just found some groove that felt comfy and cozy and allowed me to delude myself into thinking I had some control, like my life was moving in a direction that made sense, that I’m a grown-up.

I’m not trying to be deep.

I’m fucking

confused.

I want to be “authentic” but I can’t find “authentic.”  What the fuck is authentic?

I want to be “real” but “real” is a series of days that knock me flat. How do you write about that?

I can’t get anything done. I NEED A MOTHERFUCKING ROOM OF MY OWN.

I get, you, Virginia.

Actually, at this point, I’d settle for a corner of the bed.

“Authentic” is that I’m so exhausted I can’t think of simple words and I wake up feeling like a bolder is flattening my forehead and my eyelids weigh approximately 12,000 pounds each and I’ve got 3 kids and a newborn in the house all day and night and it’s summer and every time I “finish” the laundry every hamper is full again.

But that’s not it.

My tired is a relentless tired, one that smashes me every single day, and keeps happening because Arlo goes to sleep at 11pm or so but I NEED SOME FUCKING SPACE so I hang out by myself in bed and read or play on my phone for an hour or so which puts me asleep at 12am or 12:30 and he wakes at 3 or 4 and then Georgia wakes at 6am and it starts all over again. I have a tired that makes me want to sit down and cry sometimes, or throw a temper tantrum, which I do occasionally, then I feel guilty for acting worse than the children I’m trying to raise. Sometimes I realize it’s 3pm and I have eaten only 4 bites of Cheerios, but not on purpose.

But there’s more.

I have ONE article due each Tuesday and it takes everything I’ve got, people. ALL OF IT. All the creativity. All the energy. All the mental faculty. Is that pathetic? Probably. But it’s real. There’s no time for creativity, for art, for spirit.
I’m an insane overly sensitive irritable zombie milky ass human.

Nah, not that.

I’m a mom hanging out with 4 kids, happy as hell to be home with them, loving her house and dog and backyard hens, grateful for the article-writing gig (virtually my only income right now). And in the evening when I give my baby boy a bath he coos and smiles at me and it’s just him and me and sometimes I hold him naked against my chest and I almost cry I love him so much and I’m so grateful for him and his milk sweet breath.

And we’ve been going to the library every week, which is a new thing, discovered because it’s hot as fuck and we’re broke and it’s free and cool. Ava thinks she wants to grow up to be a librarian. Last year it was a NASA engineer. I find that wonderful.

I told Rocket Arlo is getting his shots soon, so every day he asks “Is it today?” Finally I asked him why he keeps asking and he said “I just think I should be there.”

Those were the words, but the look on his face said “I don’t want my brother to hurt without me.”

And I thought about the way Mac always said he wished he had a brother and now there are brothers in our home and it’s gorgeous.

That’s true, too.

Georgia turned 4 and I enrolled her in a little nursery school around the corner. We got a cedar play structure as a gift from my inlaws and Georgia taught herself to swing. This morning I looked out there and she was naked, swinging in the sunlight. The light hit her gold hair and body and I just stood there watching because it was beautiful.

We have 4 hens. The kids named them all “Tina” so they can yell “Tina you fat lard come and get your dinner!” The labrador has made friends with Tina. Yes, that’s correct. The 90-pound dog kicks it with the chickens.

Rocket is begging to go back to regular school because he wants to be with the rest and he always wants the opposite of what he has, but did I mention he learned to read FOUR WEEKS after leaving school? Four weeks, people. Four weeks of homeschool and he went from knowing maybe ¾ of his letters to reading at a kindergarten level. By 8 weeks he was at a 1^st grade level. And now, sometimes, he reads some 2^nd-grade-level books. The pressure and anxiety of that classroom were literally destroying his ability to learn. It’s so hard for him.  He worked so hard to read. My God he worked so hard. I knew public school was slaughtering him. I knew it, so I responded, and he thrived. Sometimes I don’t blow it. What.

But he wants to go back to school, and we live in a better (read: wealthier) district so we’re giving it a shot, again.

I’m terrified though. And it’s probably a mistake. But as my friend said, “If he’s going to make it in public school, it will be this one.” So here we go.

Yes, here we go.

Please don’t tell me I’m depressed, or need help, or whatever the fuck. Maybe I’m a little depressed, but depression is an abyss, and I’m not in an abyss. I can see out, and I know it won’t last. This is different. This is right. This is life knocking you around, making you uncomfortable.

I’m just lost, so every story I try to give or say or write sounds not quite right, because if you’re lost you can’t wrap life up into some package, to be delivered and opened and consumed. You can’t turn it into something contained and palatable and friendly. It’s only messy and rugged and spilling wide open, everywhere, until it finds new edges, and contains itself a bit, and you open your eyes wider to a world you thought was much smaller, before.

And you’re glad you didn’t settle for the old, comfortable version. All worn out and tired.

Now the baby is crying. He was asleep.

I had a few minutes. Those few minutes are gone.  More will come.

Georgia is singing to him, trying to soothe him: “It’s okay, I love you, you love me, all the bad animals are gone….”

Kids are insane.

This shit is nuts.

I’m a fucking maniac.

Nope. Not that.

Here I am.

Alright.

brothers, found.