October 18th, 2012

Elliot asked me what sex was, the other day.  I would tell you the story of how it came up, because that story is hilarious, but I don't want to inadvertently embarrass anyone who might or might not be a central character in that story, so I won't.  Suffice it to say that it revolved around a joke someone made, a birthday cake I made BECAUSE of the joke, and my son's naturally inquisitive nature.

'Nuff said.

Anyway, we're tooling along in the car, and having this conversation.

"But, Mommy, what's sex?"
"Sex is..."  I pause.  This question can be fraught.  After all, I don't want him getting the idea that there's anything wrong with sex, but neither do I want him asking his fellow preschoolers to engage in it.  Hmmm...  "Sex is when adults play with each other's jimmies."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"Why do they play with each other's jimmies?"
"Because they want to.  You know how sometimes you play with your penis?"
"Yeah."
"Well, when you're an adult, you might want someone else to do it."
In the rear view mirror I see my son give me a horror filled look.
"No, Mama.  I will NEVER want anyone to do that."
"Okay, buddy.  That's okay, too.  You don't ever HAVE to do it."
"Well I WON'T."

****

"I'm all alone, there's no one here beside me.  My problems have all gone, there's no one to deride me!"

I used to think that song was sad.  I was wrong.  That song is a grateful mother's anthem of joy, when her kids are finally distracted.

****

It's been a while since the last one of these.  Part of that is because I've been really busy.  The holidays are coming, and I always feel compelled to make gifts for people, which generally means that from August onward I'm going a little nuts.  Also, this fall I'm finally doing another show.  That's a whole other story (which I'll tell in a minute) but rehearsals are taking up a lot of my time.

But most of the reason you aren't getting updates from me is that I've been mentally forting up.  I don't have a lot to say, or thoughts I want to share with the great wide world, so I've been keeping them to myself.  Maybe this will pass.  HOPEFULLY this will pass.  In the meantime, if any of you feel out of touch, you can always tell me what YOU are doing.  It is relevant to my interests.

****

I'm doing Sunset Boulevard.  Everyone who knows the show, cue groans now.  Everyone who doesn't know the show, feel free to go ahead and groan anyway.  Sunset Boulevard is one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's hardest musical pieces, coupled with non-sympathetic characters, and a really slow plot.  So why am I doing it?  Well, because it had been five years since my last show.  And that's a long time.  So, there you go.

So, anyway, it's been kinda good, and kinda bad.  I'm meeting lots of new people, at least some of whom are nice, and that's great.  Plus, it's fun performing again.  On the other hand, it's a VERY insular group, and the Director is kind of a dictator.  So I'm doing my best to be a good little minion, hoping to win him over.  I have no idea if it's working.  We'll see.

Anyway, part of doing the show is helping with the set (which is fine by me) and helping with the fundraising, which is making me twitch.  If any of you just happen to want to donate to a theater, please, do feel free, but otherwise don't sweat it.  Sometime later this week I have to go drive around to bunch of local businesses and try to get ads for the back of the program.  Sigh.  It means loading the kids in and out of the car a bunch of times, and trying to make a pitch while simultaneously keeping the kids out of the stuff.

Grrr...

****

Blah.  I'm out of things to talk about and the kids have a pile of eight million books they want me to read.  Maybe next time I'll be in better form?  Cross your fingers.

September 25th

Tiff brought to my attention that for those of you that skim these *ahem* I mean, read them quickly, you might have missed that my second book is out.  So this time I'm putting it at the beginning. 

Hey, y'all, my second book is out. :)

******

Charlotte and Elliot love each other.  Except, you know, when they're awake.  Or breathing.  No, really, it's not that bad.  They love each other dearly.  But they fight almost any time they occupy the same space for more than about 27 seconds.  A catastrophic escalation of hostilities is pretty much guaranteed to occur each and every day.  Neither one of them sees the virtue in a measured or proportional response.  I'm just grateful they don't have nuclear access codes.  If they did, we'd be screwed.

That being said, I knew it was going to be hard on Charlotte when Elliot went to preschool.  I mean, sure, she could actually play with one of the eighteen million train sets in the house without her brother freaking out for two whole hours, but she was going to miss him.

I just wasn't prepared for just how traumatic this event was going to be.

Almost every day, when Elliot goes to preschool, I am blessed with two hours of a tear streaked Charlotte asking for him.

"I want my brudder!"
"Your brother is in school, sweetie."
"Less go get him."
"We can't go get him, he needs to finish.  Would you like to go to the library?"
"No.  I want my Ellyiot."
"Well, we'll go get him in a little bit."
"Less go now."
"We can't go now.  Would you like a snack?"
"NO! I WANT MY ELLYIOT!"

This will pass, right?

****

I'm doing some research for book 3, currently looking into naturally occurring antiseptics, and colloidal silver came up on the list (of course.)  In fact, the quote attached to it is as follows:

"...a powerful antibiotic and many organisms can only live for a few minutes in the presence of silver."

All of a sudden I had this blinding thought chain:  Silver really does kill things.  Werewolves!  Guess myth makers knew more than they thought they did.  Wait, silver is ubiquitous now.  MAYBE WEREWOLVES WERE REAL AND WE KILLED THEM ALL WITH THE PERVASIVE PRESENCE OF SILVER!

Like peanut allergies. 

Come with me on this.  You know you want to.

:D

****

Hah!  I have been rereading my old life in the slow lane emails.  Boy howdy, I didn't know anything, did I?  Of course not.  I still don't know anything, but now I've stopped even pretending.  Also, I read something in which I said I was never going to dress a girl in ruffles, or in pink.

Do you know how many of Charlotte's clothes have ruffles on them?  I couldn't give you a precisely accurate percentage, but I'm gonna go with "a fair amount."  Also, pink?  Like half her clothes are pink!  What was I thinking?  I dunno.  I'm an idiot.

****

Here is a sound piece of advice for all parents out there:

Whatever you do, don't watch hospital dramas.

You know what?  Those things are full of sick kids.  And no matter how many times your spouse turns to you and says "Our babies will be fine,"  (thanks, babe)  the truth is that if you are unlucky enough to have a sick kid you just have to cross your fingers and HOPE.

Here's another great piece of advice:  Do not dwell on things during your mid day slump.  It will get you no where good.

****

The kids and I are in slow recovery from excessive screen time.  What happened?  Well, it's been a tough summer for me.  Summers in general tend to be crazy, with all the vacationing and traveling and what not.  It ought to be relaxing and fun, but most years, while I find it fun, I don't find it terribly relaxing.  This particular year there were moments of fun, but it turns out that the changes in my life have made me a little... I dunno.  Not depressed, but certainly moody.  Maybe brooding?  I don't think I have words.  Whatever the case, I have not been my typical self, cycling through happy and snarky as my hormones moved me.  Rather I've just been a bit down, and not dealing with things.  Dishes have been low on my priority, as has laundry, sweeping, cleaning the toilet, and in general being a responsible little domestic.  And I haven't been good about keeping the kids away from the TV/computer.  All I wanted to do was sit around and read, or watch TV, and I wasn't feeling hypocritical enough to impose limits on them that I wasn't willing to maintain for myself.

This has changed, however.  Not my mood, my mood is still skirting the dark parts of town, trying not to get mugged by any of my inner demons.  But in the great tradition of my protestant heritage I have decided that maybe sucking it up and getting on with life is the best way to encourage my mood to creep out of the slums, and back into the brightly lit main thoroughfares of my psyche, where the carnival rides are playing their relentlessly cheerful tunes.

And so, as one of many steps I'm taking to get it together, I have cracked down on the screen time.  Charlotte gets to watch TV while Elliot is in pre-school, and Elliot gets to do TV or computer after Charlotte goes to bed at night until his bed time.  That's it.  And holy bejeezum crow, have they been cranky about it.  I totally understand, and am not really upset with either of them, but I long for the day when the limited TV time is normal to them, instead of a fresh injury.  Yesterday Elliot told me he didn't want to go to pre-school, he wanted to stay home and watch TV with Charlotte.

Eye-roll.

I have to say, though, when they're NOT whining about the TV, they seem to be in a much better mood.  So I guess there's hope for the future.

****

This time of year always makes me think of the National Balloon Rally.  For those of you who never lived in Statesville, the National Balloon Rally is held every year at an old airforce base outside Statesville.  North Carolina weather being what it is, sometimes the balloon rally is cold and rainy, and sometimes it's sunny and warm, and sometimes it's bright and chilly.  You never know.  But, unless the weather's really hideous, every sunrise and every sunset for three days hundreds of hot air balloons launch off the air strip out at the base.  In between launches you can wander around the fair, where there are game booths, food booths, and craft booths, not to mention my favorite, the fund raising booths, which were inevitably humiliating (pay $10 to have your friend put in jail.  Pay $10 for three chances to dunk them in a vat of water.  Whatever.)

The Balloon Rally was a staple of my childhood, we ALWAYS went.  And the Wednesday before it began, our elementary school got out of class early, and one of the balloon teams came and launched their balloon from our sports field.  This was both awesome, and more awesome, because hot air balloons are fantastic and I also got to miss almost an hour of school.

The last years we were in Statesville, we actually ran booths at the fair.  We had a food booth, where we sold spring rolls we'd spent the last month making in our kitchen, and we had a craft booth, where we sold tie-dye, as well as condom fashion accessories.

(Yeah, you heard me right.  Someone donated a giant batch of bad condoms to the shelters.  Because what poor people really need are unplanned pregnancies, I guess.  Anyway, we had a ton of condoms we couldn't give out, for obvious reasons.  So my mom made jewelry out of them.  People loved it.)

I'm not sure if my family liked running booths and the fair.  I loved it.  For one thing, I only ever worked very short shifts in the booth.  Most of the time I was free to run around the fair.  I found all the best booths (like the ones where they were giving away free chocolate bars.  The people working the booth were working in hour long shifts, so Tiff and I went back every hour and got more chocolate.) and orchestrated a few coups (like when my friends and I pooled our money to have this guy who made fun of us locked up in the jail cell for half an hour.)  I even saw my band director dunked twice.  It was a good time.

And fall always reminds me. 

Hope everyone is having a lovely yearly transition to the cold times, and enjoying whatever rituals are yours, this time of year.

August 26th

Booooook glorious booooook!  My second book is going to be done soon.  Then I shall see if it was mere freakish chance or if I am capable of repeatedly producing something that other people enjoy.

Keep your fingers crossed, while I'm finishing it up.

****

Someday I hope to write books of a different genre.  I've got two high fantasy plots simmering in the back of my mind, and three non-fictions.  Unsurprisingly, two of these potential non-fiction books are intended to be humerous.  One you've basically all been reading since Elliot was born.  It will be titled: Life in the Slow Lane; One woman's thoughts on the motherhood racket.  Or something like that.

The other will be something along the lines of "Jessica Woodard's guide to being a half-assed homemaker."  Catchy title, right?

On my front porch there is a child's wading pool.  Once upon a time it was filled with sparkling clear water.  Then my daughter (along with her best friend) decided that really, water is nothing unless it is bounded by shining sand, creating a place where earth meets ocean, and sky burns with bright blue fire above.

Of course, their manual dexterity is poor, so instead of creating a mini-beach they just dumped half the sand box in the pool.

Then they started adding other things. 

A Ritz cracker box, which, due to lamination, was curiously willing to float for almost two days before it began sinking.  It's now fully submerged, and I'm half convinced that only the external pressure exerted by the water is keeping the box from dissolving into minute particles and drifitng down to join the sand.

A half drowned doll.  This baby is both loved and cherished, so I can only assume that Charlotte remains unaware of the negative impact floating face down in a pool of water for two days may have on the human body.

There's a spoon and a sieve and a couple of cups, not to mention at this point there are almost certainly any number of dead bugs floating in my poor child's wading pool.

And do you know what I have done about this?

Nothing.

A while ago Waxor poured a little bleach in there, to make sure the bacteria didn't get out of control.  Other than that, I let the kids play.  I mean, I've tried dumping the sand out.  They just put it back.  And I could retrieve the doll but they're only going to submerge her again.  The Ritz Cracker box is already a goner, so I'll throw it away when they're done playing with it.  And I don't care about the bugs.

Maybe the secret to being a half-assed homemaker is infinite practicality mixed with just a dash of slovenly disregard for hygiene?

I dunno.

****

Lemme run a scenario by you.

When Waxor is ill, he stays home from work.  He ignores me, and ignores the kids, and either spends his day in bed or (if he feels well enough) sitting in front of his computer.  This sounds exactly like what you're supposed to do when you're sick, right?

When _I_ am sick, Waxor goes to work.  I am left at home with the children.  Just like I am EVERY OTHER DAY OF MY LIFE.  I do not go to bed.  I do not spend the day on the couch reading, or watching TV, or on the computer.  Because the children are still children, and they still want or even NEED something from me roughly every two minutes.  So when I am sick I just live my life, only in misery because I feel like crap.

Now, does that sound fair to you?

Does it?

****

Today I feel bad.  Remember "You Can't Do That on Television"?  Remember the slime bucket?  I pretty much have the entire contents of that slime bucket, endlessly pouring out of my face.

The children have responded to this by putting very concerned looks on their faces, and couching their demands in sweet and loving ways.

"Mommy, can I have a pancake?"
"Okay."  I haul myself to the kitchen, where I discover that my husband, who is destined to burn in the fiery pits of Tartarus, has eaten the last of the pancake batter.
"I'm sorry buddy, Daddy ate the last of the pancake batter.  Pick something else."
"But Momma," comes his sweetly reasonable voice, "you can MAKE more pancake batter."
I have, at this point, limped back over to a chair and seated myself.
"No, Buddy, not today."
"Why not?"
"I feel bad."
"Well, Momma, maybe you could just stir slowly."
"No, buddy."
"But, Momma, I really, really, really want a pancake."
I turn to my son with misery plain on my face. "Elliot, please, just pick something else to eat."
He sits quietly for a moment.
"Momma, I think you need some medicine."
"You're probably right, dude."
"And then you can make me a pancake."

****

Charlotte has become the most adorable thing on the planet.  Now, you shouldn't take this to mean that my son is any less cute than she is.  Not at all.  But he has been a walking, talking, source of adorablation for quite some time now.  Charlotte has just now come into her most cutest phase, and it is flabberghasting me.

She sings.  This was only to be expected.  She is, after all, my daughter.  But it has been many, MANY moons since I got the same kind of reaction from my vocal antics that Charlotte receives on a regular basis.  We were in the grocery store the other day, and passing by the Lucky Charms.  My eagle eyed child spotted the star on the box, and immediately launched into one of her favorite ditties.

"Twinkle, TWINKLE, LIL star!
Howayewunner wha'choo ARE!
Up a buh da wurl so HIGH!"
Pause
"Hi! Hi Mommy!" 
"Hi Chaz.  What were you singing?"
"LIKE A DI-MUN IN DA SKY!"
It should be noted, that what she lacks in lyrical accuracy, she more than makes up for in volume.  and my fellow shoppers, far from being annoyed at the noise, seem to go out of their way to tell me how very cute she is.  One woman actually melted into a little puddle in the produce aisle the other day.  My daughter slayed her with her rendition of "I love you, you love me."

Waxor's favorite is the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I think he likes the dance that goes with it.  My personal favorite is Baa, baa, black sheep, because the master, the dame, and the little boy down the lane all get their own personal verses.

Also, the black sheep is apparently in possession of "Wuhl."

In addition to singing, she is enamored of her brother.  Every morning she rises before him, and every morning when he comes downstairs he is greeted the same way.

"ELL-YOT! Das my brudder, das my BRUDDER!  I lub you, Ell-yot!"

No wonder he has a god complex.


Right, so, I'm gonna send this, and then send another, because I KNOW some of y'all just skim these things.

June 6th, 2012

So, in my last LITSL I put in a blurb about my frustration with the war on drugs, and a number of you responded with basically the same thing.  Becca may have said it best when she said the following:

"I don't think it's really ABOUT restricting personal choice for those that insist on keeping this drug war going.  I think it's about making money.  Loads of money.  More money than you or I could possibly fathom.  The kind of money that makes it okay to kill thousands of people every year and allow armed gangs to decapitate 45 people at a go and bury them in a shallow grave.  As an article I recently read said, it's about savage capitalism: "The best example of capitalism working completely free of regulation, with no laws and no compassion is the globalized and armed drugs business."  As with most things that are evil, it's about making money for people who already have too much, and that's what they're trying to protect.  Keeping drugs illegal keeps them expensive, means they have to be protected and fought with guns, which is another profitable business."

Which brings up an interesting discussion.  See, I don't think she's wrong, at all.   But I also don't think your average middle American is running around going "let's keep up this war on drugs, because that keeps the prices high!"  I think the average middle American is buying into the propaganda that drugs are bad and need to be illegal, yada yada yada, which is how law makers justify to their constituents that they have failed to legalize them.

So, here's the interesting part:  how much are we just ants in a hive, do you think?  I mean, how really powerless are we?  If we all stood up tomorrow and asked for drugs to be legalized, could we get it done?  Or are the people making the money really and truly in control?

I want to know what you think.  Feel free to expound mightily.  I'm not really sure how I feel.  Sometimes I think we're ants.  And sometimes I think we're not.

****

Right, so...

Some of you, although surely not all of you, may have noticed that I took a fairly long hiatus from life in the slow lane this spring.  I sent my last email about two weeks ago, and before that I hadn't sent one since mid January. 

That's because things have been afoot, here in my life, and I have not been at liberty to discuss them.  And, with only one thing on my mind, I found I didn't have the urge to babble about stuff that wasn't really interesting to me at the moment.

Recently I've been made at liberty, so now I'm going to share what I've been sitting on for the past several months.

Waxor, it turns out, it transgendered.  He (and I use that pronoun purposefully, since he's not ready to take the plunge and switch) is growing his hair out, wearing women's clothes, and talking about taking hormones.  It's not an overnight thing; it's a process.  But it took me several months to get a grip on it and how I felt about it, thus my hiatus.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here.  I'm sure a number of you couldn't care less, since you pretty much only read these emails for the hilarious accounts of the trials of motherhood.  Others of you may be vastly uncomfortable with the idea of knowing more, and that's okay, too.  I'm not planning on forcing TMI on anyone who doesn't want it.  But if any of you want to know more, or want to ask me questions, please do.  I have a whole lot of friends around here who are awesome, but who are also mostly focused on supporting Waxor through whatever transition he goes through.  Those of you who live farther away get the dubious honor of being invited by me to share my own, rather different experience.

****

Well, I really think two heavy topics is more than enough for any one email, don't you?  I think I'll just send this off now. 

May 24, 2012

This is how my relationship with my husband goes:

This morning, in response to an online question, I looked at him and said "I plan on being with you for the rest of my life."  To which he responded.  "I plan on being with you for the rest of your life.  Which is why I'm going to shoot you someday."

"Awww,"  say I, "you would miss me, if you shot me."

"No I wouldn't," he replies, "I'm a very good shot."

And, in a very bizarre way, conversations like this are why I love him.

***

My daughter just walked up to me, while I was working through a tricky scene in the next book. 

"Shea-yah, Mammy."

"Share what, little girl?"  Say I, not really paying attention.

"Shea-yah peints."

"Share paints?" The abstraction abruptly focuses.  "Share PAINTS!?!"

"Yeawp.  Shea-yah peints shfingers."  She says, waving her tiny, paint covered fingers in my face.

"Oh, Charlotte."

"Ohhhhw Mammy.  Fai-yul."

"That's right, baby.  Mommy fail."


***

"Momma?"

"Yes, Elliot?"

"Would you please, please, PLEASE, please, please, please, please, please..."  deep breath... "please, please PLEASE, puh-leeeeeeeze...."

"Please?"

"Yes."

"Please what?"

"Oh.  Ummmm...."

Silence.

"Get me some milk?"

"Yes, Elliot."


****

A Morning in the Life of Jessica:

Sometime around sunrise Charlotte decides the day has begun.  Now, she's a little passive aggressive (she gets that from her Daddy) so instead of just getting up she spends about half and hour flopping around, sometimes in her bed, but mostly on my face.

"Charlotte."  This is the word I mean to say, but it probably comes out as something closer resembling a groan.  "Get off me."

"MAMA!"  The says, utterly delighted.  "Where did you come from?  I thought this was an extremely lumpy pillow I was attempting to squish completely flat with my soggy, diapered butt."  Okay, she really only only says that first word, but she MEANS the rest of it.

"Charlotte, Mama is asleep.  Go jump on Daddy."

My daughter lets out a delighted giggle, conveying without words how adorably cute she finds it that I would attempt this sort of distraction.  Then she reaches out and gently strokes my face.  "Mama."

"Mama is tired.  Go give Daddy a big hug."

"No, Mama.  Mama big hug."

"Okay, give Mama a big hug."  What follows can probably best be described as a wrestling move.  Anyone ever heard of a tombstone piledriver? This is what my daughter does to me, followed by squealing delightedly "Biiiiiiiig Hug!"

"Glahahahahaaghbrpah."

Tiny, demonic giggles fill our bedroom.  They are not soft, in fact, one might go so far as to call them piercing, and yet Waxor sleeps on, undisturbed beside me.  At times like these, an unreasoning rage begins to fill my heart.

"Waxor."

No response.

"Waxor."

He twitches.  I know he's heard me.  He's just playing possum. 

I am going to kill him.

"Waxor."

"Mgph?"

"Get up."

"Unh."

No movement from the other side of the bed.  Charlotte, meanwhile, has discovered that if she lies with her head on my belly button she can try to insert her very small, very sharply nailed toes directly up my nose.  I probably don't need to mention that her aim is poor.

"Waxor, get up and take Charlotte downstairs."

"I am getting up."  Ah!  Words. We're making progress.

"Move faster."

"Geez, just give me a second to wake up."

I lie, quietly seething, as he stretches leisurely and observes with some amusement that our daughter is now trying to scrabble beneath my body, shrieking "No!  No Daddy!  Tummin vivf you, tummin vivf you!"

Waxor takes this as a signal.  Charlotte clearly doesn't want to go anywhere with him.  He lies down and closes his eyes.

"Death, Mikel.  Angry, winged, death."

"Why do you always over react?"

What follows can best be described as an exercise is half-assed measures.  Charlotte doesn't want to go downstairs, so she's not making any effort.  Waxor doesn't really want to get up and take her, so he lies there and says things like "Come on Charlotte, let's go" without making any actual attempt to get her to move.  And I keep trying to go back to sleep, all while still having a child planted on my head.  From my position, face down in my pillow, I speak calmly and rationally.

"I hate you.  I hate you so much.  I would kill you in your sleep, but then I would still have to get up in the morning."

He laughs.  At me.  Because he thinks I'm joking.

I am not joking. 

But it doesn't matter, because once he laughs he's ready to get out of bed.

"Come on, Charlotte, let's go down stairs."  Scooping her up they head down to the living room, with Charlotte calling back over his shoulder;

"Be my mommiiiiiiiiiiiie!"

I sigh and stretch out.  Time for a nap, in my gloriously empty bed.  I shall wake refreshed, cheerful, and ready to face the day.

"Mommy!  Mommy!  I need you!  MOMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!"

Oh good.  Elliot's awake.

It doesn't take long before I give up and go downstairs.  Coffee, I think.  Coffee will make everything better.  Coffee will make me feel less like some sort of lumbering behemoth of rage and more like a normal, everyday mother. 

I casually brush aside the tiny voice in my brain that reminds me that, as far as I'm concerning, a normal, everyday mother is pretty much exactly the same thing as a lumbering behemoth of rage.  At least until about 9 or 10 in the morning.

Anyway, on to coffee, and glory!  Or at least good cheer.  Or, at the very, very least, the self restraint to pretend like I have good cheer.

"Mommy!  I wanna help you make coffee!"

"Me, tiuuuuuuu!  Me tiiuuuuu!  Hep makin da tofffeeeeee!"

"Alright, guys, hold on just a second.  Let me get the water going."

"I wanna help!  I wanna help!"

"Me tiuu!  Me tiuuu!"

"I said okay!  I just need to put the water on to boil, and then you can help."

"I WANNA HELP!  I WANNA HELP!"

"ME TIUUUUUUU!  ME HEPPIN DA TOFEEE!"

"SILENCE!"

Shocked faces greet me, not just from my children, but also from my spouse. 

"Elliot, do you want to help me with the coffee?"

"Yes."

"Charlotte, do YOU want to help me with the coffee?"

"Yesfh."

"Then will you PLEASE both knock it off and let me boil the water, so you can help me with the coffee?"

"Yesfh."

"Thank you, Charlotte.  Elliot?"

Something vaguely resembling the cry of a wounded basselope arises from my son.

"Elliot, what's the problem?"

"You scaaaaaarrrred meeeeeeee."

"How did I scare you?"

"When you were loud."

Let me be clear for a moment.  This is a child who never speaks when a yell would do.  Unless you really need to know what he said.  Then he whispers.

I apologize to my terrified offspring.  Mostly this involves giving him a hug.

"Me need a hug, tiu, Mama."

"And why do you need a hug, little girl?"

"You stearded me."

Oh great.

The water is finally on.  Tiny fingers take turns pressing the button on the coffee grinder.  Eventually my beans, which do no resemble grounds so much as pulverized dust, get loaded into the aeropress. 

"Now da top."

"No, Charlotte, it's not time for the top yet."

"I wanna do the top!  I wanna do the top!"

"Elliot, it's not time for the..."

"No!  NO!  My top, MY TOP!  I DO DA TOP NOW!"

"HEY!"

Again, my children give me the look of bewilderment.

"No one is doing the top yet.  It's not time."

"Uh, Mommy?"

"Yes, Elliot?"

"When it's time, can I do the top?"

"No!  NO!  MY TOP! MY TOP!"

Sigh.

"What do you guys want for breakfast?"

"Uh... Ice Cream."

"Well, you can't have ice cream."

"Me tiu.  Me want da ife cream."

"You can't have ice cream, either, Charlotte.  Ice cream is not a breakfast food."

"Can I have oatmeal?"

"Sure."

"Me tiu!  Me have da oatmeal."

"Okay, oatmeal for everyone."

"I wanna help!"

"How about you go get a bowl?"

"And a spoon?"

"Indeed, a spoon would be helpful."

"Okay!"

"Me tiu!  Me get a spune!"

I prepare the oatmeal.  Meanwhile my coffee sits, abandoned but not forgotten, on the counter.  Some times it's about making a choice between two evils, ya'know?

"Okay, guys, oatmeal is ready.  Bring me your bowls."

"Uh, Mommy?"

"Yes, Elliot?"

"Did you put the cinnamon in?"

"Yup.  Bring me your bowl."

"Uh, Mommy?"

"Yes?"

"Did you put the sugar in?"

"Yes, I put the sugar in.  Now, bring me your bowl."

"Uh, Mommy?"

"Elliot, I put everything in.  I promise.  Now, do you want this oatmeal?"

"Yes."

"Then bring me your bowl."

Bowls are ladeled.  Half and half is judiciously applied.  Both children are seated, eating away, and finally, FINALLY, I am going to get my coffee.  I stir in sugar and go to fetch my half and half.  From the fridge I hear the dulcet tones of my son.  There is oatmeal on his pants.  He is shrieking like a someone is flaying him, because of a fleck of oatmeal on his person.

"CLEAN IT! CLEAN IT!  I NEED TO BE CLEANED OFF!!!!!"

"Elliot,"  I say lovingly, rationally, not at all resentfully.  "If you would sit closer to your bowl, rather than attempting to fling oatmeal across vast tracks of empty space and somehow have it magically land in your mouth, you would be less likely to drop it on your pants."

He looks a me a moment.  Stunned by my logic.

"CLEAN IT!!!!!!!!"


****

I am so tired of the war on drugs.  Drugs are an inanimate object.  You can't WAR on them. 

But War on Drugs sounds so much better than War on 22 Million Americans Who Want the Right to Decide For Themselves What to Put in Their Bodies.

Let's face it, this is an issue about personal choice that has gotten waaaaaaaay out of control.  And I don't even get why.  There's a drinking age because we fundamentally think that people under a certain age have a high likelihood of making bad personal choices, and we're trying to keep them from giving themselves alcohol poisoning before they're old enough to make the decision to destroy their liver in a rational, adult manner.  Once they reach that magic age, however, they can drink all day as long as they've got the funds for it.

Why are drugs so different?  Laws, at their basis, exist to provide structure and support for society at large.  What is the real difference, for society at large, I mean, not the individual, between a person who has a drink every night and the person who smokes a joint every night?  I honestly can't think of one. 

Sometimes people bring up the addictive quality of drugs.  After all, we regulate morphine to keep addictions down.  But alcohol is addictive, it's just addictive to a much smaller percentage of the population.  There are illegal drugs that are less addictive than alcohol.  Why?

Drugs can certainly be dangerous.  I know that.  But so is sky diving.  Which is why an experienced diver teaches you how and takes you on tandem jumps until you're ready to try it on your own.  But we don't tell people that they can't jump out of a perfectly good plane, just cause it's not safe.

Because we're all about free will.

Right?

RIGHT?!

So, it's been a really long time since I sent one of these.  I've been busy.  I feel like I have a whole lot more to say, but in the interest of not dropping off the face of the planet completely, I shall just send this now.

January 19, 2012

This past Sunday was UUCH's annual Martin Luther King, Jr Breakfast, which they hold jointly with Calvary Baptist.  I was there early (as the choir was singing) and Waxor came and brought the kids for the actual event.  During one portion three young men got up to speak about MLK, and Elliot, who was sitting on my lap, held the following whispered conversation with me.

"Mommy, what are they talking about?"

"They're talking about Martin Luther King, Jr."

"Why're they talking about Madrinufer King?"

"Because we're celebrating his birthday."

"But he isn't here yet!"

"That's true, baby.  We're just celebrating his birthday because he was a good man.  He won't be here.  He isn't alive anymore."

"Why?"

"Because some people were scared of what he said, so they shot him."

"What did he say?"

"He said we should all be nice to each other, no matter what we look like."

Long pause from the boy

"Do you think we should be nice to each other, no matter what we look like?"

"Yes.  But, Mommy, why were they scared?  Why did they shot him?"

"Why did they shoot him?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know baby."

"I don't know, either."

***

Bless me, friends, for I have sinned.  Today I failed as a mother.  The good thing about being a mother is that you always have a chance to keep trying, to make up your failures.  The bad thing is that each new chance to try is another chance to fail miserably.

Goddess, save me from myself.

What did I do? You may ask yourself.  Nothing so terrible, at least, not on the face of it.  See, I was going out to run a few errands.  I'm sick, and I'm night weaning Charlotte, and both those things together mean I'm not fully on top of my usual game.  I didn't get coffee at home this morning, so I decided to stop by Dunkin Donuts and get some.  And while I was there I thought it would be a nice treat to get the kids some munchkins.

Big mistake.

See, normally the kids get up around 7 with Waxor, and eat a little something.  But with the night weaning, and the night wakings that has incurred, they aren't doing that anymore.  We all get up together, between 8 and 8:30.  Which would be great, except sometimes I forget they haven't had any protein, and just go ahead and give them donuts, thus pretty much ruining my entire frikken day.

It started, I guess, with Elliot.  But it's not like I can really blame him.  I put the gun right in his hand.  See, I got munchkins, and I went ahead and got a whole pack, figuring that would be plenty for Elliot, Charlotte, the few I'd eat, and leave some leftover for Zanne and Jocelyn, who were running errands with us.

But that meant I had a big box of donut holes in the front seat. 

And my son, who is NOT DUMB, knew it.

"Mommy, can I have another?"

"You've already had five, Elliot, and five is how many I told you that you could have."

"But, Mommy, can I have another?"

"No, Elliot."

At this point, Charlotte speaks up.

"Morah, Mama, morah duh-nuh."

Alas, the tangled webs we weave when attempting to be fair.  You see, Charlotte had only had TWO munchkins.  So, like a FOOL, I say to here 

"Here, Charlotte."

Chaos.  Dismay.  Horror.  Utter indignation.

"Elliot, you have had FIVE.  Charlotte has had TWO.  Which is more, two or five?"

"Five" comes the sullen response.

"So Charlotte gets to have a few more, because you both get to have the same number."

For anyone who was paying attention, you'll realize that Charlotte had three more to go, and, as you may have guessed, EACH TIME she got a new one there was yelling from the boy.

To compound my guilt, I also unintentionally put Zanne in the same situation, because Joceyln, who is ALSO not dumb, wanted to help herself liberally to the munchkin box as well, so once she had her alloted number there was slight unhappiness from that corner.

Is that all?  No, no it is not.

See, then we went to Joann's, and for one of the first times ever I let the kids run around out of the cart.

Do you know what Joann's stocks?  About a billion and one things that small people want to grab and throw on the floor.

It also, apparently, stocks older women who start chatting with you and will NOT be quiet and go AWAY, even when you are clearly losing track of your children while simultaneously getting NOTHING done.  And here is where I made my second mistake of the day.  In my desire not to offend a complete and total stranger, I stopped being fair to my kids.  After all, _I_ fed them the damned donuts.  _I_ made the decision to go to the infinitely fascinating craft store.  And _I_ let them run around outside the cart.  So why did I attempt to reply politely to the crazy old lady who was giving me child rearing advice, instead of attempting to deal politely with my insane, sugar riddled children?  i don't know.  But I used up all my patience on the old lady, and then had none left.

Which made it even more ridiculous that I went ahead and made mistake number three; attempting to go to yet another store instead of just going home.

I tried.  I really did.  I put them both in the cart while in AC Moore, and I told them I would drive it like a race car if they would hold on.  I made vroom noises.  I tried to interest them in the beads in the jewelry aisle.  But it was too much, and I should have started being entertaining (instead of grouchy) long before if I really wanted any chance of keeping things happy.  So all I got was a cart full of children trying to alternately sit on each other and push each other over the side.

We left.  On the way out the door Elliot noticed the lollypops, and started asking for one.  Relatively politely, I will admit, but I still told him no.  That he'd had enough donuts and he wasn't getting any more sugar until he ate some protein.  

OMMFG.

While walking to the car he cried, telling me he wanted a lollypop.  While buckling in he wailed, proclaiming his need for a lollypop, and his lack of interest in protein of any kind.  While driving home he shrieked, attempting to burst my eardrums with his pent up lollypop longing.

Finally he announced that he would eat some salami, first, for protein.

You know what we don't have any of in the house at the moment?

Did you guess Salami?  You did?  You get a prize.

So, while I tried to get Charlotte inside, and get her coat off, Elliot stood outside on the stairs and wept.  While I I took my own coat off and opened the packages we'd gotten in the mail, he yelled.  And while I double checked the internet order and discovered, yes, they HAD sent us the wrong item, he began screaming bloody murder at the top of his inhumanly strong little lungs.

Which is when I went out, snatched him up, and threw him in time out.

This story goes on.  It gets worse.  There's the part where I finally got both of them to agree to eat hot dogs, and when I got them hot dogs Charlotte threw hers on the floor.  There's the part where Elliot insisted I had to apologize to them both for being angry, and refused to take a bite of his food until I did so (which led me to hotly declare that that was fine, he could just STARVE.)  There's the part where I utterly lost control of myself, shrieked right back at Elliot, included Charlotte in the tirade, and then locked myself in the bathroom while wordlessly wailing my misery, leaving the children to join me in a macabre harmony from outside the bathroom door.

It's been a bad day.

***

My cousin MJ sent me an article about motherhood.  All mothers (or future mothers, or fathers, for that matter, let's not be gender biased) should read it, as it's pretty good.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/dont-carpe-diem_b_1206346.html

***

Alright.  I realize this email is baby heavy.  I realize that it's also been less than chipper.  What can I say, some times, it's just like that.  I shall leave you with my new parody song, and begin afresh, trying to have a happier email next time.

AHem...

On the first night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

An hour and a half awake.

On the second night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the third night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the fourth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Four flailing limbs

Three wrench covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the fifth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the sixth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Six mournful glances

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the seventh night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Seven pitched fits

Six mournful glances

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the eighth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Eight shrieking screams

Seven pitched fits

Six mournful glances

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the ninth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Nine drowsy nods

Eight shrieking screams

Seven pitched fits

Six mournful glances

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the tenth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Ten minutes peace

Nine drowsy nods

Eight shrieking screams

Seven pitched fits

Six mournful glances

FIVE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Four flailing limbs

Three wrenched covers

Two crying jags

And an hour and a half awake.

On the eleventh night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Eleven times the anguish 

No minutes peace

No drowsy nods

A billion shrieking screams

Eternal pitched fits

Nothing but mournful glances

ALL THE DISDAINED PACIFIERS!

Every flailing limbs

Lots of wrenched covers

Non-stop crying jags

And a whole damn night awake.

On the twelfth night of weaning my daughter gave to me...

Twelve hours sleep.

Shhhhhhh...

And on that note... bye, y'all!

January 13, 2012

Yesterday I ate nothing but pie.  I had pumpkin for breakfast, apple for lunch, and pecan for dinner.

Do I feel guilty about this?  No I do not.  Because my entire freaking family has had the stomach flu.

Pie hardly seems like sufficient compensation.

Good pie, though.

Happy New Year, peoples!  Despite the inauspicious start I'm feeling good about this coming year.  Elliot will be starting preschool, Charlotte already practically sleeps through the night, and Waxor and I are both taking more time for ourselves, branching out in new ways, and just in general enjoying life more.  We've got friends getting married, which makes for good parties; adventures planned, which makes for good stories; and our house is maintaining its value in the market, which is totally boring but provides a nice comfortable feeling of not being totally screwed.

That is, of course, only on the personal level.  On the political scene, both at home and world wide, I am petrified.  Politicians do nothing but lie to us, and everyone seems okay with that.  Not to mention we're losing civil liberties right and left, and Ron Paul, leader of the crazies, is the only presidential candidate actually talking about it.  What is wrong with this picture?  I'm gonna go with "pretty much everything."

And internationally... holy bejeezum crow.  Honduras is now the murder capital of the world; Iran is going to be bombed by someone (unfortunately probably us); China is at war with its own villages; Haiti is still trying to crawl up out of the earthquake two years later, but everyone's forgotten them; loggers are burning children to death in the Amazon; and Nigeria's in an uproar.  There's more, I could go on, but you get the point.  The world is uneasy.  And I am uneasy about it.

So what am I doing about it?  Not a lot, as it turns out.  But I have a plan.  Want to hear it?  Doesn't matter, I'm'a tell you anyway.

At first I wanted to run for congress, but, truthfully, that's a huge job, and I'm not ready for it yet, the kids are still too young.  So, new plan... School Board.  I know, not exciting.  Won't help Nigeria.  But it's a thing I care about.  I think school funding needs to be addressed in a serious way, which likely needs to happen on the state level.  So, I'm going to try to get elected to the school board for the next two years, so that I can learn more and hopefully make some positive changes locally.  Then, when Charlotte is old enough for pre-school, I'm going to run for the MA General Court.

This, I feel, is worthwhile.

Still won't help Nigeria, though.

***

A long time ago, when ladies wore corsets and men went off by themselves to drink after dinner, married women were cool.  I don't mean frigid or reserved, I mean they were the "it" girls, the ones to be seen with, the froods who totally knew where their towel was.  This was, of course, because unmarried women had to guard their reputations, which was no fun for anyone, and married women were safe from pretty much any scandal, as long as they kept their copious cavorting on the down low.  So they drank and flirted and ran amok, and a good time was had by all.  Except for the unmarried girls, who had to wear pastels and stand by the wall while the married ladies wore bright colors and danced with everyone.

Also except for poor people, or married ladies with awful husbands, but we're not talking about reality, we're talking about my own personal musings which center on one particular topic, so please, stop distracting me.

Married women were cool.

WHAT HAPPENED??!!!??!!

I don't know and I don't care.  I'm calling for a cultural revolution.  Down with our worship of fresh faced infants barely out of diapers!  I am a fascinating societal icon, damnit!  

This is my bandwagon.  I invite you all to board.

***

Let's start with Charlotte, shall we?  The tiny little demon is freaking adorable and frighteningly similar to myself, personality wise.  This means that you will all love her, and I will go into hiding when she hits the pre-teen years.  Some Charlotte-isms:

"Daddddiiiiiieeeeeee!"

"Where's Daddy going, Chaz?"

"Sawl Mines."

"That's right.  He's headed to the salt mines."

"Baih, Daddie, sawl mines!"

"Can you say goodnight, Charlotte?"

"Baih Niagh!"

"Now can we go to sleep?"

"Ahhhhhhh.... nawp."

"Chaz, do you want something to eat?"

"Hawt DAWG"

"You want a hot dog?"

"Yahp."

"Okay.  Do you want it hot?"

"Yahp.  Halp."

"Okay, you can push the button."

"Buh-uhn.  Halp.  HAWT DAWG!!!!!!!"

These are just a few of the conversations that pepper my average day.  At times I wish to just turn on a camcorder and run it all day long, because I know this will be fleeting, but when I do finally whip out my phone to try to record something for posterity, it never seems to come out as cute as she is, right there in person.  And I know that, as time goes on, my memory of it will fade.  That's because I look at Elliot now, and I know that I no longer see him clearly as a two year old, or even a three year old.  All I can see him as is my four year old dude.

Elliot's birthday was sad for me.  Not all day long, just a little, at the end.  He's so big now - not even remotely a toddler anymore.  Now he's a little boy, and before I know it he'll be a big boy.  Then he'll be a teenager, and we all know that won't go well.

Currently, though, he's so smart.  Charlotte's the one who's constantly doing new things, so I think sometimes Elliot's brain gets overlooked, because we fail to realize how cool it is that he knows so much.  Of course, he still thinks babies come from seeds and grown in a uterine garden, but I think that's more because I failed to explain properly.  Maybe I should give it another go.

A conversation with Elliot:

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Elliot?"

"Mommy?"

"What, Elliot?"

"Uh, Mommy?"

"Elliot.  I am listening.  Spit it out."

"I love you."

"I love you, too, buddy."

"Can I have some chocolate?"

"Nope."

"But, Mommy, I love you."

"And I love you, my little con artist."

***

Do you have on/off switches in your life?  The kind of thing where you can either ignore something, or care passionately about it, but you can't just be well informed and unaffected?  This seems to be cropping up a lot for me.  I guess the best example is the news.  I am having a really hard time actually keeping track of what's going on in the world without wanting to run off and DO something about it.

Speaking of doing something:  Anyone who lives near DC, anyone who can get to DC by Tuesday, anyone who doesn't have an 18 month old that they REALLY don't want to take out in the January rain being called for Tuesday in DC; go to Occupy Congress.  The only position you have to agree with is the one that says that laws should be made with the people's rights in mind, not the corporations profits.  Seriously, aren't we all behind that?

*** 

I was going to make this much longer, but it's been a while since my last email and since I wrote that last segment I should probably send it out before the 17th.  :)

Love you all!  Anyone who actually writes me back gets brownie points.  I might even literally bake you brownies and send them to you.  You never know.