Pissed....Venting....Sorry...Thank You

PISSED OFF.... Yea, I know I was all gratitude last week, but I need to vent.  Everything and everyone is pissing me off.  I then feel guilty, which pisses me off even more.  I need to be free.  Stop the ride I wanna get off!  Leave me the fuck alone!  Seriously, if I have to get up from a seated position that I had only enjoyed for 4 nanoseconds -one more time- I am gonna lose my shit!  If I have to repeat myself, repeat myself, repeat myself, one more time, it ain’t gonna be pretty!  If I have to hound you like a dog, for one more thing, there will be hell to pay.  

Prep of a Typical Meal

First Born:

“What are we having?”

“When will it be ready?”

“I don’t want/like______?”

“Can I have a snack?”

“BUT I AM STARRRRRRVING!”

“You NEVER believe me when I tell you I am starving!”

“I’m bored!”

Little One:

“Can I help you cook, Mommy?”  

“Mommy, First Borny is starrrrrrrving!”  

“Mommy can I go upstairs like First Born do’s?”

“Mommy, when we gonna eat?”

Typical Meal

Both Children:

“Can I have some more milk/syrup/juice/pork chop/cheese/yogurt/sauce/meatballs/sausage?”

“I need to go poopies and I need help.”

“MAAAAAAOOOMMMM!  I HATE this kind of chicken!”

“I dropped my fork, can I have another one?”

“Do we have any bread?”

“Can I have some more?”

“MOOOMMMMMMM, I spilled my milk all over my pants, can you help me?”

After I clean up the mess that I never even got to sit down and enjoy, it is homework time.  There are many nights The Hub is just getting home around this time or later.  Recently he has been home but unable to help because of his bad back.

Typical homework ritual

Me:

“Where is your ruler?”

“Where is your pencil?”

“Where is your homework book?”

“Where is your log sheet?”

“Slow down.”

“Sit down.”

“Sit Up.”

“Slow down, this is not a race.”

“Did you read the directions?”

“Pay attention!”

“Use your eraser when you mess up.”

“There is no way anyone can read that!”

“FOCUS”

“If you just slow down, you do really good..... SLOW DOWN, damnit!”

First Born:

“I’m SO stupid, I just can’t do it!”

“This homework is gonna take foorrrr evverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

“I HATE reading out loud.”

“MOOMMMM, you are not doing the math right.  That is NOT the way we learned it.”

“I am terrible at writing/reading/math.”

“I am trying.... But I caaaaaaaannnnnn’t!’

Bed time

Me (in the vein of the classic Bill Cosby):

“Go upstairs, get undressed, get in the shower, turn on the water, use soap, wash your hair with shampoo, rinse off, turn off the water, dry off, put your pajamas on, brush your teeth and get in bed.”

As you know it never goes as I instruct.  I inevitably have to go upstairs 30mins later and tell the First Born to get OUT of the shower.  At the age of 9 he is already a marathon shower-er.  If allowed, he would be in there for an hour.  Then I have to make sure that he puts underwear on, which he is opposed to.  Why?  I am convinced it is pure laziness.  Then we start with this ->

First Born:

“I can NEVER fall asleep!”

“I am NOT EVEN Tired!”

“I hate being in here all by myself!”

“Why does Little One get to sleep in your bed?”

“I saw a commercial today that scared me and I can’t stop thinking about it!”

“I miss Meesha.” (our -now deceased- cat)

“What are we doing tomorrow?”

“Why am I not in AdP?” (advanced placement)

“When are we going to Nana and PopPops again?”

“I miss Nana, I wish I was sleeping there tonight.”

Then there is Little One who is now running around naked. To dress him is a practice in contortion, patience, humiliation.  It goes something like this ->

Me: 

“STAND UP!”

“No, turn around”

“Stand up!”

"TURN AROUND!"

“The other foot, the other foot, the other foot!”

“The other arm, the other arm.”

“TURN AROUND!”

“STAND UP!”

“Put both feet on the floor!”

“Get your head up off of the floor!”

“Stand up!”

“Alright just lay down, then..... On your BACK!”

“No, roll OVER!”

“GODDAMNIT CHILD!”

“No, Mommy is not happy! I am laughing because you are driving me nuts!”

“Yes, your are right, some kids can not have nuts.”

“Yes, you can eat nuts.”

“Yes, I like nuts.”

“Almonds, walnuts and peanuts.”

“They grow on trees, well, except for peanuts, but they are not really nuts they are legumes.”

“Legumes are like beans.”

“I know, peanuts, do not look like beans or taste like beans. Now please, let’s go brush teeth”

“This IS YOUR toothpaste!” 

“Open, Open, Open wider!”  

“Wait, wipe your mouth off!”

Then after everyone is in bed, which includes me, at 8:00pm, I sit in the bed on my computer next to Little One and field more questions.

Little One:

“Mommy, can I read books like First Borny do’s?

“Mommy, when was I in your belly?”

“Mommy, when was Benny in your belly?”

“Mommy, when was Daddy in your belly?”

“Who’s belly was Daddy in?”

“Was I ever in Daddy’s belly?”

“Mommy, when we gonna buy another baby?  I real little one... a girl baby?”

“Why can’t we get another baby?”

“Can you have another baby in your belly, a girl baby?”

“Can we get a baby cat?  Can Rubi have baby dogs?”

“Can I have some fresh water?”

“Mommy, where is monkey!!??  MOMMY I NEED MONKEY!”

“Thank you Mommy.”

“Mommy, what are you typing?”

“Can I type with you?”

At this point I shut him down with a, “There is no more talking, now, go to sleep.” and then I ignore any more questions.  I  start thinking about wanting another child and the fact that I can’t have anymore.  I start to think about adoption again.  I think about having an infant and being over 40, then I think about adopting an older baby, since the infant phase is so difficult for me. I think about how much debt we have and how I want to start working again. If we had another baby I would not be able to nurse this one and formula alone would send us over the edge of our OWN fiscal cliff.  

Then First Born walks into our room and asks if he can turn on the bathroom light in the hallway.  I tell him yes as I kiss his forehead, wondering how and when he got so big.  He will be taller than me soon.  Little One is now asleep snuggled up under my arm, with monkey snuggled under his arm.  The Hubs is in the guest room on the floor, because he threw his back out while tying his shoes.  (that is another story for another day)  

Everyone is asleep.  I need to sleep, but this is the ONLY time, where I am ALONE.  This is the only time I can sit and do what I want.  What do I want to do?  ANYTHING WITHOUT INTERRUPTION!  It is this time of day that I am usually not so pissed off.  I can look at things a little more rationally which leads to my criticism of everything I did wrong all day.  I analyze and try to reprogram so that tomorrow I am not so short with First Born and give him some more one on one attention.  Tomorrow I can let Little One help make lunch, so he feels more involved and important.  

I remember all the things I was thankful for last week and start to cry, since I am being such a bitch now.  I write all this down and you beautiful people take the time out of your busy day to READ it.  I instantly feel better.  Thank YOU!  I hope you can laugh at me as I just re-read this and laughed at myself.  Thank you. 

My Thanksgiving Resolution

Giving Thanks.  two things that are difficult to do when you are out of practice. So here is a list of random and not-so-random, things I am thankful for.  I plan on focusing on these things more and the stupid shit, less.  That is my plan, but please check back so I can use this blog to continue to vent about the stupid shit, so I don’t have to focus on it. OK?  Thanks.

I am thankful for, (in no particular order!) my kids, my husband, my dog, my parents, my best friends, my girlfriends, my brother, my sister-in-law, my neighbors, my community, a home, yoga, zumba, laughter, sticky little hands that still want to hold mine, long talks, giggling kids, frisky husband, dancing, writing, people who read my writing, little arms that squeeze my neck, helping with easy homework, listening to a 3rd grader’s day, good food, meals together, meals out, meals alone, doggy kisses, funny faces, messy playroom, clean bathroom, fireplace, playing games, watching First Born play baseball, watching First Born play guitar, watching Little One be goofy, watching Little One and First Born play together, watching my kids with my parents, leaving my kids with my parents, watching my kids with their friends, my kids friends, going into my kids’ schools, my kids teachers, my teachers, reading, great books, my grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, my ability to still talk to my 2 remaining grandmothers, my husband’s job, my husband, my husband, my husband, happiness, joy, belonging, when my boys play with my hair, when I hear “mommy,” little ones with bed head, little piggy toes, the smell of freshly bathed and lotion’d kids, (Johnson’s Lavender, smells like heaven), being able to comfort fears of monsters or lightening or thunder, snuggles, when The Hub plays with my hair, The Hub’s laugh, the way I feel when I accomplish something, love, the ability to laugh at myself, the ability to laugh at others, the ability to allow others to laugh at me, when my girlfriends “get me,” inside jokes, lessons learned, fresh air, great music, flowers, the ocean, the sky, remembering, forgetting, Love. 

There is so much.  We have such an abundance.  It is easy to take for granted.  It is easy to focus on the negative.  When I am able to stop and just be, I can focus on the important and the meaningful aspects of my abundant and joy filled life.  I want to do that more.  It is my Thanksgiving resolution!  Stop, appreciate and concentrate on all the positive.  The rest doesn’t matter.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Momma O

VOTE! No Excuses!

VOTE!

USE YOUR VOICE!

Look, I know the system is not perfect.  And I know that with the electoral college it seems as though voting does not make a difference, but it does.  The system may need to be tweaked, but it is OURS, and we have to take it and USE it!  No matter your political leanings, just VOTE!  

While letting people know where their polling place is located, someone said to me, "I am not voting." When I asked why they said, "Why bother?"  Here is why you should "bother."  

These people DIED for the right to vote:

May 7, 1955 · Belzoni, Mississippi

Rev. George Lee, one of the first black people registered to vote in Humphreys County, used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote. White officials offered Lee protection on the condition he end his voter registration efforts, but Lee refused and was murdered. 

August 13, 1955 · Brookhaven, Mississippi

Lamar Smith was shot dead on the courthouse lawn by a white man in broad daylight while dozens of people watched. The killer was never indicted because no one would admit they saw a white man shoot a black man. Smith had organized blacks to vote in a recent election.

September 25, 1961 · Liberty, Mississippi

Herbert Lee, who worked with civil rights leader Bob Moses to help register black voters, was killed by a state legislator who claimed self-defense and was never arrested. Louis Allen, a black man who witnessed the murder, was later also killed.

February 26, 1965 · Marion, Alabama

Jimmie Lee Jackson was beaten and shot by state troopers as he tried to protect his grandfather and mother from a trooper attack on civil rights marchers. His death led to the Selma-Montgomery march and the eventual passage of the Voting Rights Act.

August 20, 1965 · Hayneville, Alabama

Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal Seminary student in Boston, had come to Alabama to help with black voter registration in Lowndes County. He was arrested at a demonstration, jailed in Hayneville and then suddenly released. Moments after his release, he was shot to death by a deputy sheriff.

January 10, 1966 · Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, a wealthy businessman, offered to pay poll taxes for those who couldn’t afford the fee required to vote. The night after a radio station broadcasted Dahmer’s offer, his home was firebombed. Dahmer died later from severe burns.

These women were persecuted for the right to vote:

Women fought for 100 years to be granted the same right to vote as their husbands, fathers and sons.

The women were were jailed for picketing the White House. 

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison

guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic’.

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail.

Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with terrible vermin.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. Woodrow Wilson and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. The doctor refused.  Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a

sixty-day sentence.)

(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York)

(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl[ace] [Washington, D.C.]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))

(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, ‘Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.’)   

http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/womenvote.asp

NO excuses.... Use your voice.  Go out and vote.

I GOT HIT ON!

It was a dark and stormy night.  I sauntered down the isles in search of sustenance.  Turning slowly, I saw him, young virile man with dark hair, deep set eyes and a dark complexion.  He looked up and I met his gaze.  Blushing I turned away, yet he walked toward me. In a deep voice he said “I am looking for something to dip this in. What would you suggest?” He flashed his dimples and my heart raced. His smile was intoxicating. I wanted to say so many things.  My hair cascaded over my brow as I looked down...... 

OK, this is not really how it went but when I replay it in my head that is what happened.  

Here is the real story.  It was a long day home with the family.  We were all off due to Hurricane Sandy.  We weathered out the storm at my parent’s house and had returned home after the storm.  That evening I realized that we did not have any bread and I needed something for my Little One to wear to school the next day that would make him look like a farmer.  His class was having a fall celebration and they were to dress as farmers.  I also needed candy for Halloween which was also the next day.  I am not the most organized of people, but throw in 2 days of chaos due to an unprecedented hurricane and my procrastination becomes a bother.  

I ran to Walmart for cheap candy, bread and a toddler’s farmer hat and boots. The store was empty as it was 7pm and so many people had stocked up before the storm that no one needed anything.  The Halloween costumes were few and far between, but I went to the toy section and found the perfect dress up cowboy hat and boots.  We had a flannel and jeans at home.  Next was the candy isle.  HA! what a joke, the only things left were the small bags of m&ms, KitKats, Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, or as I like to call them “pure heaven for your mouth.”  So I reluctantly stocked up on the small bags then ran and got the bread. Done in record time.  

I ran back home put the stuff away and when I opened the fridge I realized that we had about 4 oz of milk in the one gallon milk container that was in there.  I opened my mouth and my father’s voice came out saying “Who does this???!!!”  This was something my father said on a daily basis when I was growing up.  When he would attempt to empty the ice trays into the bin and the trays would be half full, when he would walk into the bathroom and the floor was soaked because we didn’t dry ourselves BEFORE getting out of the shower, when the cap to the toothpaste was left off...I could go on, but you get the idea.  

I look at the couch and see The Hub, First Born, Little One and the dog all sitting there mesmerized at the History Channel’s “The Men Who Built America.”  At the commercial the Hub looks up.  

Exasperated, I say “I have to go to the Giant. We have no milk.”

The Hub: “Weren’t you just out? You are going out again...right now?”  

Me: “Yes, I want cereal, so I am running out the Giant now.  Can you please get those two in bed, they both have school tomorrow and since we have been at my moms for 2 days and they need a good nights sleep.”

The Hub: “Ok, hey did you know that Rockerfeller may have CAUSED the Johnstown flood? He also was responsible for bankrupting the Railroad industry! AND he and Carnegie hated each other!”  

Me: “Hub, FOCUS!  You can watch this at any time, we have Hulu and a DVR.  Please get the kids ready for bed, I will be right back. Is this show appropriate for kids?”

The Hub: “It’s HISTORY!  History is always appropriate!”

At this I leave.  Back in the car, back to the store.  A different one this time.  

The Giant is my go-to store.  I know this place like the back of my hand and can navigate the isles with ease.  I realize that I should also get some more lunch meat and some night time pull ups for the Little One.  He keeps the pull ups dry every night, but the minute I put underwear on him at night, he pees the bed.  It must be a security thing.  Then I decide that after the milk I should get OJ since we are running low and the kids will most likely be sick soon. 

I dart through the isles and as I am making my way out I was in the dairy isle and I see a handsome young man looking perplexed.  I walked by him and he walked toward me holding out some pita bread, asked me what I would use as a dip for that kind of bread. 

I told him, “I like cheese.  Anything dipped in cheese always tastes good but if your are  going to melt the cheese on the stove, pour a little milk or cream in while stirring it so it doesn’t get all clumpy. OH you may want to try a Jalepeno pepper jack to spice it up.”

He was smiling at me and said, “that is great advise, I like the way you think. What else would you suggest?”  

I said, “Well, if you want to go a little healthier, you could get some extra virgin olive oil and put some rosemary, basil, a little garlic and some pepper in it.  That is always good, healthier and much easier.  But don’t go getting that dry seasoning, get the fresh rosemary and basil.  It makes all the difference in the world.”  

He seemed impressed saying “Wow, I like you. You really know your food, that sounds delicious.”  

At this point I got very self conscious.  He was CUTE and seemed very young, maybe in his 20s!  He was listening intently to everything I was saying.  Looking me in the eye, smiling!  He actually looked like my husband, with his dark complexion, a goatee and deep dark eyes.  MY husband... who was at home with my boys.  I suddenly felt guilty.  

Then I realized the scenario.  I looked at myself. Here I was, un-showered, hair pulled back in a bandana, no makeup, wearing 2 day old jeans, my Chuck Taylor’s, and a t-shirt that had at least one coffee stain right down the front.  I was a 40 year old mom of 2 who was giving food advise to a young college kid.  I probably reminded him of his mom.  At this realization, I smiled at this young man and started to laugh.  He looked confused.  

I just said, “Well, babe, I gotta get going.  Good luck with your dip! Have a great night!”  He thanked me again and flashed those dimples.  

I shook my head walking out of the store.  The initial feeling of being hit on made me feel like, 'I still got it!'   It felt good, and I do 'still got it' to an extent. Although maybe not in this scenario.  

So I tell myself that he was hitting on me and if I stood there and talked to him a little longer he would have invited me to his dorm room to try out his bread and dip!  That may not be reality, but it is what I am telling myself..... and everyone else!