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Remember

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It is past his bedtime. He is snuggled on his tummy, tucked in tight under his baby blanket that just barely covers his tippy toes. I lay next to him on my stomach, facing him so that we are nearly nose to nose. I slowly and gently stroke his hair as I sing “You are my sunshine” quietly. All is still and we slowly come down from the day together, relaxing into the darkness of the evening. Slowly, so slowly I hear a sound start to rise from him. It is a soft keening, building in his throat and before I know what has happened there are giant tears slipping down his cheeks. And the keening rises to a wail of anguish and suddenly he is sobbing and choking out the words,

“I don’t want you to die.”

“I love you so much.”

“Please mommy, please don’t die.”

I press closer to him so that his tears spill onto my face and I rub his back and murmur to him that I am not going to die, that I am going to be with him for a long, long time. And he clings to me and sobs and his hot breath warms my face and my heart aches with all the love I have for him.

And he cries himself dry. And exhausted, he sleeps.

I pray that when I look back at this time of Beckett’s life, I remember. More than just wild and silly and terrible threes, I pray I remember his heart. His giant capacity to love. I want to remember that when Kate is sad he tries to make her laugh. That when I am frustrated he always, with wide blue eyes worried, asks if I’m mad at him. That he wants me to smell his breath after he eats. That he loves dinosaurs.That his favorite color is blue. That he cries if I walk up the stairs too fast for him to keep up. That any time I put on a dress, or make-up, he tells me I am beautiful. That he still asks me if I’m sad that Pops is gone. That he gives the best hugs. That his hair curls when he gets sweaty. That he is the most animated child in his class during chapel, and that he sings with his whole body. That he, in all honesty, wants to live with me forever. That he cried this morning because Kate will move away some day when she “grows up.” That he loves apples so much he eats two or three a day. More if I would let him. I want to remember the way his hair smells after a bath. The sound of his giggle. How much he loves babies. And that the thing he fears most in the dark of night is that I would someday go away and not come back.

Please, God.

Help me remember.

The cat’s pajamas

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HappyNewYear2015VectorGraphicI saw an article yesterday about New Year’s Resolutions, and why you shouldn’t make them. I figured it would talk about the high fail rate of resolutions (I am STILL not a published author, a size 6 or a guitarist) but instead the focus of the article was that we are such wonderful, marvelous people, we shouldn’t worry about how we can be BETTER, we should focus on how good we already are. Be happy! Be positive! Be you!

What a bunch of hooey. THAT feel good mumbo jumbo is what is wrong with our country. Excuse me while I climb up on this here soap box, but if we, as a society, refuse to think about how we can improve and instead just sit around patting our backs and picking our noses, we are doomed. Yes, Yes, you are awesome. It’s okay to think you are awesome. I think you are awesome too. I think you are the cat’s pajamas. But, come on. You could ALWAYS be a little bit better. Like, SILK pajamas better. Meeeeeeow.

And so WHAT if I never actually reach my goals? At least I’m trying. And there is a good chance I’m learning/doing/making something positive in the process. I should be PROUD of my failures. I’m not a published author, but because of my resolutions I’ve spent more time focused on writing. That is a GOOD STEP. That time was not wasted. And nope, I’m not a size 6. But I’ve been more active in the past year than I have been since Ben and I got married (fat and happy and all that you know). And THAT is not time wasted.

So go ahead! Make resolutions! Make wild and crazy ones that you have no chance of achieving! Know that you will PROBABLY FAIL. YAY! So fun! Enjoy your failures!! And then make a few that you can totally do, because as much fun as failing is, winning is fun some times too. YAY WINNING!

So what are your resolutions for 2015? How are you going to make your awesome self even better? My resolutions fall into four main buckets. 1. Writing (Do more. Get better. Get focused. Get a draft finished. Of something. ANYTHING. Get published) 2. Health (Be more active. Be a gym rat, or at least a gym mouse. Quit eating out so much. Make health a priority for the whole family. Cook more. Quit drinking so much damn wine. *See? One certain to fail. But I can dream) 3. Mental Health (Maintain sanity. Learn something new. Take a class. Get a new hobby. Ask for help when its needed. Take “me” time without feeling guilty. Drink more wine. *Oops) 4. Family (Less yelling. More loving. Less screen time. More games. Quit parenting by gut reactions and emotions. Focus on Love and Logic. Be the boss. But a kind and loving boss. Play. A lot)

So that’s it. That’s how I plan on working on myself in 2015. And I won’t do it all. I’ll fail a little. Or maybe a lot.And I can’t wait. 

A craft for the totally un-crafty: Personalized Mickey and Minnie Magnets

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For anyone who has been following this blog for awhile, you know that crafts are not my thing. As in, the one and only time I did an entire craft from beginning to end, I posted about it. I checked the archives. It was October of 2010. FOUR YEARS AGO PEOPLE. Check it out, “A craft for the totally un-crafty: blackboard pumpkins.” Compelling stuff. Last fall I got all motivated and started a wreath. This is it’s current state:

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Twelve months have passed and I haven’t been able to work up enough give a darn to go to the store, by burlap and FINISH THE DAMN WREATH. You know what is hanging on my front door? NOTHING. That wreath would sure look nice. Maybe next year.

But this month? This is a month to go down in the annals of Edelbrock family history. Because I have started and completed a craft (pausing for dramatic effect and possibly some applause).

Next month our family is going on our first Disney Cruise. And while I am very excited, I made the mistake of joining a Facebook page that thrives on people posting about their personalized T-shirts, gifts, door hangers (called “Fish Extenders” for you fancy, in the know Disney Cruisers), and other things that I basically need a graphic design degree and 40 free hours to create. So we are skipping all that nonsense and taking the “no fuss cruise” approach. Except for door magnets. I can kind of get behind the idea of decorating our stateroom door so that when the kids (or, um, a slightly tipsy Mom or Dad. Don’t judge. It’s vacation.) are trying to find the right door in an aisle of 600 identical doors we don’t end up beating on a strangers door shouting, “LET ME IN. THE KEY IS NOT WORKING!!” So to Etsy I went. Oh Etsy. That magical place of craft items I should be able to do myself, but TIME and ENERGY and BLAH BLAH. After surfing the site for Disney Door Magnets, I came up with two conclusions:

1. Ben would kill me if I spent $30 on a paper magnet that would get a one time use (BUT HONEY, IT’S PERSONALIZED!)

2. I could totally make magnets myself. For a lot cheaper.

So here is my SECOND craft tutorial for the totally un-crafty: personalized Mickey and Minnie Magnets. YOU ARE WELCOME.

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Step One: Get a grandiose idea that suddenly you are Martha Stewart and not, well, YOU. Go to the craft store. Buy a bunch of supplies. For this craft you will need: scissors, thin magnets with adhesive on the back, black foam sheets, bright colored foam sheets and foam letters. Check out. Realize you have spent nearly as much as you would have buying magnets on Etsy. Shrug and shred receipt so the evidence is hidden. You are committed now. Stop by the liquor store on the way home. You will need more wine.

Step Two: Google Mickey Mouse head outline, Minnie bow outline and bow-tie outline. Size the images to whatever size you want your magnets to be and print. Pat yourself on the back for getting so far. Open bottle of wine and pour a glass. Take a break, maybe make a cheese plate. You got this.

Step Three: Cut out your shapes, then trace them onto the foam. This may be self explanatory, but I’ve had two glasses of wine and if you have too, I’m going to make it easy. The MICKEY head shape goes on the black. The BOW TIE or BOW goes on brightly colored foam. You are welcome. Cheers!

Step Four: Start to cut out the foam shapes. Realize the scissors you grabbed from the junk drawer are actually, well, junk. Weigh the pros/cons of just using junky scissors or hauling yourself upstairs to the guest room where your “craft” stuff is (i.e. the unused sewing machine and all the stuff you have purchased… years ago… and just never gotten around to using) and getting out the good scissors. Mull this existential question over with some dark chocolate and the rest of the wine. Decide that a nap is in order.

Step Five: That nap was a good idea. Pat yourself on the back, get your good scissors and get to work cutting. Cut out all your shapes. Get really excited when you realize the foam you are using has adhesive on the back because you forgot to get glue and if this craft wasn’t finished soon it was going to end up with the wreath in the “good idea, lack of execution” pile in your closet. Stick bows and bow ties on the Mickey heads. Text your husband a picture to tell him you are kind of a big deal. Don’t expect a reply. You won’t get one so imagine him rolling his eyes, because this is likely what is happening when he reads your text.

Step Six: Dump the bucket of foam letters on your work surface. Dig through and try to find the letters for everyone’s names. Realize this is tedious and you need more wine. Thank goodness you thought ahead and picked more up. Plan to very carefully place all letters on your magnets. Realize that you don’t have the patience for this and just start slapping them on. Get slightly annoyed the names don’t look straight and then decide to pretend you did this on purpose. It’s art. It’s artsy. If anyone complains about their names, decide you will knee them in the groin.

Step Seven: Step back, look at your work and feel like a badass. Drink some more wine to celebrate. Text your Mom because you know she will respond. If you have a good mom (I do) she will tell you they are cute. You will then text them to your husband because now you are actually finished and HE HAS TO RESPOND. He won’t. Later he will claim he was in a meeting. But you know he was probably thinking about how his name wasn’t spaced correctly.

Step Eight: Kick back and feel accomplished. Then realize you haven’t stuck the magnets on the back, so they technically aren’t magnets and you technically aren’t done. Curse a few times. Pick good ones. Like the F-bomb. Use that one. Then get up and stick magnets on the back. It will literally take you two minutes. You will feel sheepish for overreacting, but it did feel kind of good to curse like a sailor.

Step Nine: Decide to write a blog post about your craft. Because if a tree falls in the woods, someone needs to read about it.

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Grief

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I remember the first time I felt real grief. It was when my Nana died, and I was in high school. Since then, I’ve felt varying levels of loss, sadness and pain, but never again have I had to deal with the kind of grief that physically removes the air from your lungs and bends you to your knees.

Until last week. When I got the news that my Dad had a tumor in his esophagus. That the doctors were concerned enough to take a biopsy. That we would know something in a week. I hung up the phone and bent over and felt the heaviness of all the “what ifs” wash over me as I imagined saying goodbye, having my KIDS say goodbye, to someone so big and so important to us all. And for a week, I grieved over what could be. I alternated between hopeful and hopeless. I wore big sunglasses so my kids couldn’t see the silent tears that would slide down my face while I drove them to school. I canceled social engagements so I wouldn’t have to keep up a brave face.

Sometimes I would get caught up in my children, in our lives, and I would forget. For a moment, I would forget my grief. But then, a word, a song, a thought, would trigger it and my stomach would tighten, my heart would seize and I would hurt. Physically hurt from it all. And, I would feel guilty. Because when something so big is looming over you, it feels like it should take over life, like there can’t be room for anything else. But life does continue, and so I waded through, feeling removed from it all while I waited for the answers to all the “what ifs.”

And then we got our answer. It IS cancer. It HAS spread. There are spots on his liver. They said “small” spots, but all I heard was, SPREAD. My parents reacted positively. They rejoiced that it hadn’t permeated his body. I felt small, and mean, and ungrateful because I couldn’t rejoice. I could only rail against the universe that this was happening to such a GOOD MAN.

And so we move forward. We ATTACK. Dad meets with doctors. They create a treatment plan. They treat. We see how Dad responds. They treat more. We pray.

We pray.

I don’t even really know how to put into words how I feel. I think at this point I feel numb. I feel tired. WEARY. I think that is the word. I feel weary and I’ve only been dealing with this grief for a little over a week. How long will this take? How long will I feel scared, and uncertain and worried and WEARY?

I’m not ready to say goodbye to my Dad. And I know for a fact he isn’t ready to say goodbye to our family. That is the silver lining. That no matter what the tests say, or the doctors say, or the Internet or the statistics say, my Dad is a force of nature. He is single minded. Focused. Dedicated. Determined. Positive. I have to believe that if anyone was going to beat this thing, it will be my father. I have to believe it because the alternative is unacceptable.

Love you daddy.

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In an emergency

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This week I was lucky enough to attend a small CPR course at a friend’s house. While you may ASSUME I am extremely calm and collected during an emergency (I know, I give off that super calm and cool vibe, right? Ahem) my husband can attest that I am, in fact, NOT calm in an emergency. Just ask him (or my neighbors) about the time I “cut off my finger.” And since it had been more than four years since my infant CPR course, I thought a little refresher couldn’t hurt.

It was so amazing.

I’ll be honest. As a parent, I experience a lot of fear. Fear of cars, fear of pools, fear of fire ants and snakes and hot dogs and corners of tables and dogs and grapes and playground equipment, and on. And on. And on. Life with kids is one big fear fest, because the number one job we have, above all else, is to help them survive childhood. But the little buggers seem pretty determined to throw all caution to the wind and live like there is no tomorrow. CAN’T THEY SEE MY GRAY HAIRS?? They are giving me gray hair. Make them stop.

But I digress. The point is that a lot of the situations I fear grow bigger (and scarier) due to a feeling of total helplessness. For example, I know the general idea of how to do the heimlich. But the idea I’d ever have to use it scared me. For obvious reasons, but also because I wasn’t exactly sure, HOW to do it. Where do my hands go? How hard do I push (or pull?) What happens if they don’t stop choking?

This course gave me a feeling of power and knowledge. I still hope to never use anything I learned, but man, what a great blessing to have been given the opportunity. I strongly urge anyone (parent or no) to either take a course, or at least hop on YouTube and watch a few videos to spruce up your knowledge of CPR and choking rescue tactics. Hell, while you are there, watch the video of the cat on the Roomba too. It’s delightful.

In the meantime, here are a few quick visuals on how to do CPR on an adult or child (not infant). The techniques are basically the same, but a few things to note:

1. Always check for signs of breathing, make sure the area is secure and yell for help. If someone is nearby, have them call 911 and grab an AED if it is available. Don’t be afraid of the AED!! It has clear, verbal instructions once you start to use it, and greatly increasesthe changes of a positive outcome. If no one is around to help you, start life-saving CPR FIRST before calling 911. Immediate action also greatly increases the chances of a positive outcome.

2. Compressions on an adult need to move the chest approx. 2 inches. On a child it is 1.5 inches. The amount of force differs, so you may only need one hand to compress a child and two for an adult. The images from our session don’t show the use of just one hand, but be aware that you will need less pressure for a child.

3. On an adult you begin with 100 chest compressions followed by two breaths, the begin a pattern of 30 compressions and two breaths, until help arrives. With children, you skip the 100 chest compressions and begin the pattern of 30 compressions and two breaths until help arrives. If no one is available to call 911, once you have done 5 sets of 30 compressions and 2 breaths, you may break quickly to call 911 and then resume CPR.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my VERY SIMPLIFIED, CPR for dummies visual overview. *Please note: I’m not a medical professional, or hell, even CERTIFIED in CPR. There are a lot more great details that you need to know and again I urge you to take a course yourself. However, knowledge is power, blah-dy-blah-blah, and I took all these great pictures, and I didn’t DO THAT FOR NOTHIN’ so here you go.

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Corruption by cartoon

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Happy Throwback Thursday friends! Todays #tbt is from exactly two years ago, August 23, 2011. I have to say, re-reading this post makes me realize how much Kate has grown and changed in just two short years, which makes me both happy and sad. While she is growing into a true force of nature that I am so proud of, she seems less like my baby and more like a little girl every day. But here is a quick window into sweet two-year-old Kate.

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We had a friend who told us once that his main goal in life was to keep his daughter off the pole (as in the stripper pole, for all you innocents out there). I think he was joking, but in my mind, that seems to be an admirable goal, though not my MAIN goal.

Honestly, I find it is pretty easy to joke about what you do and don’t want to see your kids get mixed up in when their biggest choices revolve around wearing Elmo or Tinkerbell pajamas. But as I see all my friends posting photos of their kids heading off to school for the first time this week, I’m reminded about how quickly they truly do grow up.

And it scares the bejesus out of me.

Seriously. I sometimes find I’m barely equipped to mentally stay ahead of my two-year-old. And I think I’m going to be able to keep a TEENAGER in line some day?! Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahahaha. Yeah, I’m not too confident either. Because no matter how solid the foundation we provide or the safety measures we put in place (or the chastity belt we purchase), our kids are going to have outside influences that affect them no matter what.

I had my first experience with outside influences today and it gave me a flash of the future. And, DUUUUDE.

It started out innocently enough. Kate is currently in love with all things Disney princess. We play dolls. We play pretend. We watch movies. Yesterday, we put on makeup, dressed up in our best ball gowns and had a ball, complete with music and dancing (I was the handsome prince. Naturally).

Today, while playing pretend, Kate reached her hand down to me and said, “Do you trust me?” A million points if you can name that movie (points for what you ask? Haha, NOTHING! But I bet you feel like a winner if you knew the answer…) It is from Aladdin, and it happens twice in the movie. It is always said as Aladdin reaches down to help Jasmine onto his magic carpet. It is lovely, and romantic and sweet.

And, I thought it was pretty cute that Kate was re-creating a moment in one of the movies. So I reach up, told her I trusted her and she stepped over my lap onto the “carpet” — and then cocked her head to the side, opened her mouth wide and leaned down to give me a smooch.

Did you get that? MY TWO-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER TRIED TO OPEN MOUTH KISS ME.

I tried to explain that we don’t open mouth kiss people (ever. Until you are married, or at least able to insist he buy you a drink first) but I’m not sure if the message sunk in. Because that is how they kiss in the CARTOONS my daughter watches (insert head slap). I’m not kidding, check it out next time you are watching. There is no chaste pucker and peck kisses in Disney movies. These are princes and princesses IN LOVE. Which means OPEN MOUTH KISSING (and probably some under the shirt-over the bra action, but everyone gets married so fast in these things they don’t really have time to get to second base in the story line). I was all worried about the violence in some of these cartoons (Lion King anyone?) but now I see there were tons of other influences at work that I just didn’t pay attention to. So many things that seemed so innocent to me as a thirty year old woman, seem kind of seedy when your toddler (who doesn’t know any better) tries to replicate it. Seriously, if she asks for a crop top like Jasmine, I’m sending her to a convent for pre-K.

I figure that just as long as an open-mouth kiss doesn’t lead to the pole, we will be fine. But I will admit, the incident started to make me think about what it will be like 14 years from now, when I have to ground my daughter for sneaking out to neck with her senior boyfriend because she, like, “LOVES HIM MOM,” and she just doesn’t understand why I’m “RUINING HER LIFE” and she “HATES ME” (ouch).

Yeah. Did I mention the future scares the bejesus out of me? I’m going to go snuggle my toddler now and thank God I have THIS time with her. When all I have to worry about is some trampy princesses and dodging some slobbery kisses.

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Conversations of a mad woman

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A sane person should never have these conversations. And I’ve had them all. GO FIGURE.

“Don’t wipe your boogers on your car seat. Well, I can’t REACH a tissue, I’m driving. Okay, fine then, wipe them on the car seat. Just don’t eat them.”

“Do not let the dog lick your food before you eat it. I don’t care that you are sharing, don’t share. Yes, you SHOULD share with your friends. But do not share with the dog. Yes, unless he is starving, then you can share. No. Jackson is not starving right now.”

“I don’t know what lady bugs eat, but I’m fairly certain peanut butter isn’t it. I’m also fairly certain that petting her like that is going to kill her.”

“Sure you can clean all the bathroom floors, what a fun game. Here is a wipe. Yes. Yes that IS gross. Here are some plastic gloves to wear. Now get to cleaning.”

“I am NOT calling you names. Hellion is a term of endearment.”

“Everything that is covered by your swimsuit is private. Do you know what that means? Good, so what are your private areas? Yes, and yes. And no. That is your armpit, it’s not private. Okay, fine, sure, it’s private. Don’t let anyone touch your armpit.”

“If you sit still, I will give you a cookie. No, you know what, if you sit still for just five more minutes, I will give you 10 million dollars. Fine. I’ll keep the dollars, here is your cookie. Sucker.”

“Be a giant! Come on, be a giant and eat your trees. Yummy. See? Mommy is a giant, YUM! Ew, yuck, yeah, don’t eat those. Let me put some butter and seasoning on those trees, plain broccoli is super gross.”

“Go play. Mommy just needs a few minutes of privacy. Don’t bang on the door with a toy Beckett. Kate, I can hear you telling him to bang on the door. Stop it. Guys, seriously. Just a minute. Go away. GUYS! THE NEXT SET OF FINGERS THAT REACH UNDER THAT DOOR ARE GOING TO BE CHOPPED OFF SO HELP ME GOD.”

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Awesome sauce

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Things at the EdelSpot are generally pretty awesome.

I realize that if you just glance through my posts, you may see a disgruntled woman complaining about life, her children, her life with her children. That couldn’t be further from the truth and if I don’t say it, I am doing you all a disservice.

I love my life. I love everything about it. From the messiness, to the lack of sleep, to the days I want to tear out my hair or run away to Argentina, I love it all. Because it is perfect in it’s lack of perfection, and it is MINE.

I once met up with an old friend that I hadn’t spent much time with since my children were born. She reads (or used to read) The EdelSpot. And at some point in our conversation, she made an offhand comment about how I don’t even like my own daughter.

Pause for righteous indignation.

Actually, pause for an internal brain explosion. HOW COULD YOU THINK I DON’T LIKE MY OWN DAUGHTER? Clearly, we are not close friends any more.

But the truth is, she had a point. I probably spend most of my time sharing about the latest shit storm or parenting fail over here. But that is because NOT EVERYONE NEEDS A RAINBOW. Seriously, when you are having a hard day, and you feel overwhelmed and you haven’t showered in a few days and you have to yell at  your daughter that if she wipes another booger on the furniture SHE IS GOING TO TIME OUT UNTIL SHE IS 20, the last thing you want to do is see how FUCKING AWESOME another mom is doing. Because then the shame spiral kicks in and  you are forced to pour cereal into a bowl for the kids and turn on some Dora so you can go lie in the bottom of the shower in the fetal position and cry because WHHHHYYYYY????? WHYYYY is it SO EASY FOR THEM AND NOT ME?!?!?!?!

Or maybe that is just how I handle a hard day.

The point is, I actually LOVE my daughter beyond all words. I love my son. I am madly in love with my husband and we have been given riches beyond my wildest hopes and dreams. Are we perfect? Nope, not a single damn one of us. But we have our good days and our bad days. Our good moments and our bad moments. And we support and love each other through this life.

One of the things people say to me is “Thank you,” for being real about the challenges of being a parent. But I’ve realized that maybe I give a really one-sided version of the story. With B’s birthday this week, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on how lucky we are. And I decided I need to sprinkle more of the good in with the bad. Even if the good is a little less entertaining, at least it is 100% real.

So get ready. It’s time The EdelSpot blows a little sunshine and roses up your behinds my friends.

Because life is good.

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Potty Mouth

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Happy Throwback Thursday friends! Todays #tbt comes to us from October 11, 2011. To set the stage, B was just two months old and I was, um, er, coping. Sort of. Enjoy!

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It came to my attention a few weeks ago that when I am sleep deprived, I have the humor and vocabulary of an adolescent boy.

It all started when I was reading a new book to Kate. It is about a princess who outsmarts a dragon, and at the dragon’s door she uses the knocker to announce her arrival. And for some unfathomable reason, when I got to the word “knocker” I laughed my ass off. Which then sent me into a shame spiral because, I mean, SERIOUSLY?

I can only think it had something to do with how tired I was (and am). Also, since I’m still nursing, the word knockers seems pretty accurate for how heavy and awkward and just plain unsexy my boobs feel. KNOCKERS aren’t something you dress up in lace and shimmy at your husband. KNOCKERS are stout things that you stuff in thick cotton bras and hide in a t-shirt that has baby drool and last night’s dinner smeared across it.

I have knockers. And I found that to be freaking hilarious (because lets be honest, if you don’t laugh, you might just have to cry about something like that).

A few days later I experienced another “I’m a ten year-old boy” vocabulary melt-down. This one came about thanks to a “I’m new to being the mom of a boy” moment. When something new, er, popped up, I decided to turn to my trusty friend, Google, for answers. I sat down with my computer and typed in “Why do baby boys…”

I couldn’t finish the question. My brain was so tired, it had shorted. My entire vocabulary had just up and vanished. I just stared at the screen for a short while and then the only, and I mean ONLY word I could think of to describe what I was trying to research was this:

“Why do baby boys get BONERS”

(head slap)

WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME? I may be irreverent, and silly and sometimes crude, but ladies (and any gentlemen who actually kept reading past the section about my hooters) if my brain were firing on all cylinders I would NEVER be stupid enough to do a Google search about BONERS. Let alone baby boners. I’m nearly positive that I’ve now been flagged on some FBI database, but what shocked me was that GOOGLE KNEW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Without blinking an eye, Google provided me with results from various parenting forums about the medical reasons a baby gets an ERECTION (OHHHHH riiiiiiight. Erection. THAT is the word I was trying to think of.)

But more shocking to me than Google’s understanding of the terminology is the fact that of all the words in the world to describe what I was searching for, I chose to use the word boner. Which, I have to be honest, I think I’ve used, like, um, NEVER IN MY LIFE. Its just not in my vernacular. Honestly. But when existing on only a few hours sleep, apparently its the only word to surface through the haze.

I’m so proud.

And THAT, my friends, is why you might not be seeing me in public for awhile. My knockers and I have to get some rest before I’m allowed in polite company again.

It is enough

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You know what really hacks me off?

Well-intentioned people who write meaningful articles/posts about parenting that are supposed to inspire you, but really just make you feel like you still aren’t doing it right. Like, you just need to TRY HARDER. So maybe, just maybe, if I do EXACTLY what the parent in this post did, I MIGHT be able to NOT SUCK. It will be, like, SUPER easy to be the best parent on the planet, if I just follow these FIVE SIMPLE STEPS. WINNING!

SCREW THAT. I am trying my ASS off with this parenting thing, and sometimes, it feels like a big fat pile of steaming failure. AND THEN! Then someone posts or reposts something about how you shouldn’t check your email when your kid is on the swing set because you are teaching them they are unimportant, or maybe you shouldn’t tell your kid to hurry, because you are RUINING their little lives with the request for some hustle. Or maybe you just read a post about how you need to nurture your children and not force them to grow up so quickly, but then there is that OTHER post that condemns the way you help your kids climb the monkey bars, because, COME ON! Kids are CAPABLE and if you help them you are actually STIFLING THEIR GROWTH AND (again) RUINING THEIR LIVES.

Listen.

I just got home. Where was I? Let’s call it HELL. Because, when it is more than an hour past your youngest child’s nap time, and both kids are hyped up on sugar and you are in a busy mall because you thought taking them to a movie would be a fun outing, it could be the closest thing to Hell that is on this Earth. So lets say you are trying to get both to the car without a) losing one, b) losing your mind, c) accidentally stealing something from the Disney store that is located STRATEGICALLY next to the elevator by the food court by the HOLY GOD THE CAROUSEL, WE MUST RIDE THE CAROUSEL, yet Beckett, he is melting, he is MELTING INTO A GIANT TODDLER-SIZED PUDDLE of GET ME THE FUCK TO SLEEP. But a preschooler doesn’t give a wit that her brother is now burrowing into the tile floor of the food court and that I can’t chase her down because he is officially limp noodle on the floor, incapable of standing on his FEEEEEEET, because he is TIIIIIIIIREEEEEEEDDDDDDD.

You know what? I get that there is probably a great and delicate way to handle this situation. Someone, somewhere has probably even written a post about how to gracefully wrangle your hellion children at a mall. But you know what? I DIDN’T handle it gracefully. I handled it with some harsh words, some threats, some tears, some pleading, some forcefully dumping into a stroller, some hissed words under my breath and maybe a stare that would have frozen my husband in his tracks. THAT is how I handled it. And all those bloggers and writers with all those good intentions and ideas and ways to be a GOOD PARENT can bite me.

Because parenting is HARD. It isn’t always graceful, and it isn’t always well done. Sometimes, it is done very, very poorly. But I am TRYING.

As parents, I think we should all stick together. And continue to just TRY.

It is the best we can do. And whatever anyone says, or however inferior they make you feel, trust me. Our best… it IS enough.

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Photo by Flight Path Photography