I was very tired this week and have a sudden and new appreciation for Virginia Woolf. Eighty years later, evidently women still need “500 pounds and a room of one’s own.” (translation: I am having a very hard time finding uninterrupted moments to write with all these loud needy short people running around. I have six un-finished blog posts. I have twelve drafts rolling around in my head. And this is all I’ve completed in 4 days. Good thing I committed to writing a ‘what I learned’ list each Sunday, otherwise we may have had a zero completion rate (shocking, sad, tragic I know).
Anyway, here’s the deep-reflections-on-Sundays list.
- There’s a weird one-upping phenomenon among mothers that I’ll never understand but will always find frustrating and pointless and unsettling. Depending on the context, it can center around who’s kid does what the soonest, which mother is the most granola/green/crunchy, who’s the most ‘educated,’ who’s the most open-minded, who’s got the most offspring, who’s husband is the most supportive, who has the most shocking birth story.
- When I find myself inadvertently involved in one of these one-upping competitions, I generally resort to silence and obscure mumblings, which is new for me, and indicative of a rare but powerful feeling of total defeat. I get confused and overwhelmed, mainly because my mothering approach has no direction and I’m intimidated by women who have it all figured out and “know” and since I’m a bad liar I’d better just say nothing because what the hell am I going to say? “um, yeah, I used to be a drunk and now I’m not so pretty much anything I do now is better than what I did then.” That’s a hell of a measuring stick. Seriously my mothering approach is a series of contradictions and follies and “oh shit that didn’t work, better back up” moments. I’m stoked that my kids aren’t raging lunatics, lighting shit on fire and beating puppies.
- Speaking of lunatics, my nine-year old has lost her mind. My aunts told me it’s probably the very early onset of prepubescent hormones.
- Prepubescent hormones can kiss my ass. Prepubescent hormones will one day turn into pubescent hormones, which will force my daughter to deal with her biology, which evidently still thinks women only live to the age of 25 and therefore must begin reproducing around twelve. And those hormones will force me into the full and immediate realization that my little girl is really really not a little girl no matter what I tell myself and very soon she’ll face life. All by herself. All grown up. And I’ll miss her forever. That little frizzy head.
- I love the smell of Pine Sol in the morning. (Why yes, that was an Apocalypse Now allusion). Actually I love it all the time. I shall never use hippie cleaning products because they don’t smell like Pine Sol. And if I’m going to mop the floor, I should be allowed the pay-off of whiffing Pine Sol for the next few days. It’s only fair.
- Do not hold your baby up in the air and swing her around after nursing and feeding her. She will projectile vomit across your right shoulder. Especially refrain from doing this in restaurants, because then she will projectile vomit across your shoulder while everybody is watching you show off your beautiful baby and you will be very embarrassed.
- My baby really is beautiful and I have a sneaking suspicion she is actually the cutest and best and most impressive baby on the planet. (Buahahahaha – one-upping!).
- Tee-ball games are so entertaining they should demand a cover charge.
- My beloved 80-year old grandmother read my blog and determined that she liked “some of it.” I believe what she meant was “you scare me.”
- I have already been faced with a personal censorship question. Namely, should I? I gave this a decent amount of thought and have decided, as Ava used to say “the answer says ‘no.’”
- It may be a good idea however to add a disclaimer to the top of the webpage: “This blog is irreverent and deliberately uncensored. As such it is generally offensive and wholly incorrect politically – something like Martha Stewart on psychedelics or June Cleaver with a really bad attitude. If such a thing interests you, read on.”
- heaven in a dug-out
- at least with this one we’re safe from hormones for a few more years
- my little girls