Motherhood Uncensored

I'm not obsessed

This past week, my kids ingested frozen custard, boardwalk pizza, and about five hot dogs, or "lips and butts" as my husband likes to call them.

And as far as I can tell, they're perfectly fine.

Granted, those goodies aren't generally part of their regular diet. We buy our fair share of healthy foods, cereals that can't double as candy, and hormone-free meats and dairy, often times organic if we can find it and afford it.

But we're also not obsessed.

Believe me, I get the whole "sugar is the devil's spawn" thing, and I realize processed foods are laced with chemicals that could be used to fuel a car, but for the most part, we all ate them at one time or another.

If you're my husband, you ate them a lot.

But save my minor crying fests and bitch sessions, and his penchant for bad golf shirts, we're two fairly well functioning citizens who pay taxes, take shits, and contribute to society.

We even graduated from college!

My own mother made her own yogurt, bread, and granola, allowed only one hour of Sesame Street a day, and had me in at least five different activities by the time I was seven.

Sugar was completely and utterly off limits. I still remember having to eat my own treats at a birthday party because she wouldn't let me have a piece of cake.

My husband, on the other hand, spent much of his early months in a playpen, had parents that never read to him (surprised?), and ate God only knows what all day long.

And he scored a good 200 points higher on the SATs than me.

Bastard.

And so while he was off living a pretty typical existence, well as typical as can be had with his crazy parents, I was over at my neighbor's house chowing down on processed cheese and hot dogs, sneaking sugar in my closet, and watching game shows at my friends house.

So much for my pristine system, right?

My kids have ice cream and candy. They also eat fruit and veggies. They drink watered down juice, soda on a rare occasion, and sometimes even a sip of my husband's coffee. They also drink water and milk.

We do the best that we can to offer them balance, and believe in almost everything in moderation, based on their age, their behavior, and on certain days, the size of the moon.

I often wonder if it's really about the food. Or the television. Or if it has to do more with the parent's fear. And need to control.

I'm not saying that you should let your kids eat hot dogs for every meal, have a soda iv inserted, or spend all day watching television.

But what I am saying that sometimes we're so worried about doing what's best for them, that we actually end up doing the complete opposite. 

Mean people suck

There's nothing like an innocent early morning jaunt on the boardwalk to teach my kids about the cruel harsh world.

Okay, so it was really a couple of idiots working at a bike rental shop with less teeth than Margot that renewed my lack of faith in humanity.

We'd spent the first part of the morning watching the not-so-romantic "oh my god why are you little rascals awake right now" sunrise and walking through the waves on the beach when I decided to pass a little more time by checking out the rental bikes.

And while we were examining the various contraptions that you can rent for a ridiculous amount of money to ride up and down a long stretch of what might be the largest saturation of hairspray, fake nails, and airbrushing, Drew decided to put his precious plastic Lightning McQueen car down in the middle of the bike thoroughfare. But considering it was still practically o' dark thirty, it wasn't that busy.

Well, until one of the aforementioned idiots needed to return a low-rider 3-wheeled bike.

The guy told Drew to grab his car, but he was too scared to jump out in front of the moving bike. And having Margot stuffed into a BabyHawk carrier, I couldn't reach down and grab it as quickly as I needed to.

So instead of hitting the brakes, or reaching down to pick it up as he drove by, the guy just ran right over the toy.

There was a loud crunch, followed by a duet of screams unlike anything I've ever heard.

However, I was too focused on the idiots laughing it up in the back of the shop, to even try to console my kids.

Yes, they were laughing.

I'm not even sure what I said to them, and the other guy working there who was standing and staring at my kids as they picked up the pieces of the car.

I yelled to the back of the shop as they sat there, obviously hiding, but too small balled to come out and apologize and offer them something in return.

"You should be ashamed of yourselves" I said, grasping for words that didn't start with "F." "You couldn't wait two more seconds so that he could pick it up?" I asked, completely shocked at the blatant disregard for their feelings.

I walked away with the kids to collect myself, and attempt to explain why someone would do what I've spent years trying to teach them.

But it was like talking to a couple of screaming monkeys. 

"Waaaaaah my car waaaaaah his car waaaaaah we'll never ever have a car ever again waaaaaah!"

And so I figured, why not use it to my advantage and so I dragged my kids back to the shop, continuing on like I hadn't left, demanding money for the car, and pointing my finger at the woman in charge of the rental agreements.

She asked them what had happened because she hadn't seen it. Whatever.I told her "They ran over his car on purpose."

After I stood there for a few more minutes, my kids still loudly mourning the loss of the car, she barely apologized and handed me money. 

"Why would he do that?" Quinlan kept saying through her tears. 

I really didn't know what to tell her. I was too choked up, part of my heart crushed like the toy car. It's the side of humanity you never really want your kids to see.

"Sometimes people are just mean," I told her. "But that doesn't mean we have to sit around and take it."

Now I just have to figure out how to teach her to let out the air on 50 some odd bike tires.

Girly parts

It seems incredibly unfair that the long unawaited first return of my post partum period always happens to come when we're at the shore. She's three for three on a beach arrival, ensuring that I'm bloated, tired, and stuffed to the gills with frozen custard and salt water taffy while I attempt to squeeze myself into a bathing suit.

And don't even get me started about the tampons. Blech.

Of course, I should be able to predict her return pretty handedly by now, and yet, I still spend half the month thinking I'm pregnant or ovulating or a sinner that's being punished by children and a husband who are suddenly outrageously annoying.

I even had the passing thought that I hit an early menopause. Or maybe it was just a bad piece of pizza.

It doesn't help that Margot is waking up so many freaking times every night that I've got newborn night dread again, made slightly more challenging when all five of us are sleeping in the same room.

You'd think that after enduring three births and breastfed babies, Mother Nature would throw you a fucking bone already.

Or at least one that doesn't hit you square in the gut at 5:45 in the morning.

Own your choice

Whoever said the Mommy Wars were dead and buried must have missed the memo, because damn if there's yet another way for moms marginalize each other.

It's a WAHM versus WOHM smackdown.

Apparently working from home is waaaaaaay easier than working at an office because you can do what you want all day long.

And working at an office is sooooo much nicer because there aren't distractions like children and dogs and clinging coffee cups and UPS delivery people who ring your doorbell at naptime even when you have a big sign that says "PLEASE KNOCK" right on the doorbell.

Seriously?

This certainly doesn't mean you can't complain about your particular work situation.

Feel free to bitch about how hard it is to leave your kids all day with a nanny, or au pair, or grandmother, or *GASP* daycare center and then have to come home and find yourself stretched 400 ways.

Gripe about how you're never able to fully focus because you've got one hand on the computer keys and another feeding your baby or a couple of senior citizens with a hearing aid gabbing about their hormone replacement therapy over coffee in your "office."

It's all hard.

It's hard to have to come home after a long day at work and make dinner and play with your kids and do the whole routine all over again.

And it's pretty damn challenging to actually get an entire project completed in the office which is often times your kitchen and figure out how to manage conference calls with your kids grabbing at your ankles.

And even if you're not "working" in or out of the home, you SAHMS. Well, your job is hard too.

Let's all give ourselves a pity party and then get over it.

Haven't we figured out that the grass is always greener?

On some days, I'd love my quiet corner office back with a lock on the door and an administrative assistant to do my photo copies and send my faxes and screen my calls.

But I chose to leave that job and stay home with kids. Then I chose to write a blog, and then start a business and write a book, and do all the other sometimes awesome sometimes tedious work that I do to contribute to my household income so we can live in a house with big closets where my babies can sleep.

MY CHOICE.

I've spent almost five years telling my husband how much harder my job is than his. Until I realized that my job really isn't harder. Being around the kids and trying to get something done is pretty challenging and tiring and exhausting and frustrating.

But flying planes can be just as difficult.

And what I figured out was that I was just envious. Of the days away. Of the quiet hotel rooms. Of the dinners in Venice hell, even some army base in Kentucky.

So when I finally sucked it up and realized that all this, everything that I had created, was my choice, then I just got the fuck over it already and decided to be thankful for what I have.

Yes, I still bitch and complain and moan. I think that's part of being someone other than Mother Theresa.

Some days I'd die to be the mom up the street who gets to drop her kids off and work out of her office all day long. And I know that she'd probably love to have her kids screaming in the next room while she tried to write an article.

But whatever you do, you're still a mother while you're doing it. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

So why don't we just take a step back and admit that sometimes our jobs suck. And sometimes we're a little jealous of the mom next door.

And then get the fuck over ourselves and spend our energy trying to figure out a way to make our own situation better.

Like my friend said, "This fairly reeks of the Who Has the Biggest Penis Game. Ladies, it's time to put them away."

Hear, Hear.

Keep it in the closet

I've been trying for weeks to get Margot out of our bed.

I had the whole "well, I'll probably never have a baby sleeping next to me ever again *sniff*" nostalgia for about a New York minute, and then I wanted our bed and my boob back.

But since the extra-slash-guest room is on the first floor, kicking Margot out of the bed meant doing a complicated shuffle that would land Drew in Quinlan's room.

And the prospect of giving him the ability to freely roam a room which would no doubt steal his nap along with my sanity scared the living shit out of me.

So, the only other option was to put Margot in our closet.

When my husband first suggested it, the idea of putting her in the closet sounded completely absurd. We have a fairly large house and so it seemed sort of wrong that we couldn't find a room for her.

But after a solid week of her sleeping while attached to my boob for the entire night, I decided that to the closet she must go. So I hooked up the rain machine, I dragged the playpen smack dab in the middle of my closet, and sprawled out on my bed while watching television for the first time since before I had her.

Freedom. Sweet sweet freedom.

Except that I quickly remembered that when she cried, I'd actually have to do more than pop open my bra; I'd have to get out of bed, pick her up, and lean standing up against my shelves while she nursed.

Perhaps if I had a closet like Carrie in the Sex and the City movie I could move my glider in there, or hell, even a kitchen chair, but alas, I was stuck rocking her back and forth between my husband's flight suits and his shoe hanger.

The first night I did that four freaking times.

On the plus side, closets are dark - so no aluminum foil windows or weird vinyl window coverings that drive slightly OCD husbands completely insane trying to apply. And with the bathroom between us, as well as a couple of doors that we can close, we're able to let her whine it out on those instances when she doesn't necessarily need to eat. Of course, I've yet to determine which ones those might be exactly.

So ironically, I'm not sure I'm getting any more rest than I was with her in the bed. Well, yet at least.

And instead of doing the co-sleeping "talk of shame," I get to tell everyone that my daughter is sleeping in my closet.

Bad is the new good

I don't wake up in the morning and think about what kind of mother I'm going to be. On most days, like most mothers, I turn on auto pilot and just go about the business of raising my children the best that I know how.

Sometimes, more often than I admit, it's wrapped up tightly in a bow, so sweet that you can taste its goodness in a chubby cheek, a crooked grin, or your face buried in a mop of hair that smells like nothing words can really describe.

On others, it's a bloody massacre that requires all of what you have left to pick up the pieces and fashion them back together into something other than a heaping pile of stinky shit.

Parenting is a dance of give and take, wins and losses, ups and downs, belly flops and beautiful pirouettes.

And no matter how lovely your spins are, on most days, I'd much rather hear the sound of your post partum belly slapping against the water producing a big huge gigantic splash that nearly drowns half the kids at the pool.

So while you might not agree that bad is the new good, it sure as hell makes me laugh, and it reminds me that I'm not the only idiot out there that still doesn't know how to dive.

Go Go Gadget Nipples

It seems that around six months of age or so, the world becomes an oyster and my babies want to see it all.

With my nipple in their mouth.

It's one thing to breathe in what once was a bunch of shadows and blurry figures that is now the beautifully bright world around them.

I fully support their exploratory spirit. Onward children!

But does it really need to happen while still attached to my boob?

I think it's safe to say I rely on my nipples more than I do my brain, and in fact, I'm pretty sure that my nipples could effectively continue to run my household, as well as feed and entertain my children (and my husband too, I guess) in the absence of my mind.

In fact, had it only been my nipples and my husband on the flight home from Philly on Monday with all my children at the butt crack of dawn, I'm pretty sure everyone would have been just peachy. 

One less pair of shoes to take off at security.

They're a teething toy, a hose, a pacifier, a food source, an "easy" button (ahem), and lately, Gumby.

It's hard enough trying to do the quick cover up when she pops off after two minutes or so of nursing because a kid ran by, or the phone rang, or the air blew on her head in the wrong direction.

No, she does not eat that fast. There's a very interesting speck of lint on my shirt that is more captivating than sustaining herself with food.

However, when she's stretching her neck to make sure GOD FORBID she doesn't miss anything with my nipple still firmly planted between her teeth or tongue it just makes me feel like a circus freak.

But instead of feeling all sorry for myself and my poor chewed on Inspector Gadget nipples that sort of resemble an old elastic that's been used a few too many times (sexy, right?), I figure I should put them to good use.

Safety first.

Straight to the bottle

Coordinating a business trip with three kids under four and a husband who is on call for most of the month is like juggling fiery batons. It sounds crazy, but once you get going, you realize that it's not that bad afterall. But clearly it's not something you want to do on a daily basis.

So, my husband took military leave to cover his on-call days, and I flew up to New York with Margot while he got to finally experience the joys of flying alone with two children to Philadelphia so they could be with the in-laws and he could go to his other job as National Guardsman.

All this still meant leaving Margot for almost a full day with Liz's lovely babysitter. And a bottle.

Bottles are not yet Margot's friend, and in fact, I consider them to be more of her arch nemesis. She sees them and starts screaming and biting them, and most people (except me) all but give up. And since she's really not eating any food yet, save a bunch of tissues and granola crumbs off the floor, she pretty much relies solely on the boob.

And that, my friends, is getting a little old. And not just because with every suckle, I'm clearly losing hard-to-come-by breast tissue. Even worse, I can't really go anywhere alone for longer than a few hours.

Lately I've been trying to give her a bottle a day on my own to prepare her, and to help allow me to get some breaks. And while she still fights it, she's taken up to 6 oz at a time from the special boobie bottle. But it's still not pretty and I was still reallllllllly nervous leaving her with a bunch of frozen bags of breastmilk.

Let's face it. Giving a kid frozen peas who is used to picking them right from the vine and popping them into her mouth can be a little precarious of a situation. It's still the same thing, but I just don't think it tastes exactly the same.

I'd never actually flown with frozen breastmilk before, and almost didn't since I left it sitting on our porch. That's what you get for only ever traveling with boobs and not bags of milk. It's pretty hard to forget your boobs.

Thank God for that or I probably would.

But thanks to a load of awesome Twitter advice (thanks girls!), I had it packed to perfection, and the precious cargo that I painstakingly pumped daily made it to a freezer in Brooklyn.

And wouldn't you know, aside from the screaming that ensued when I left, she drank ALL 12 + ounces of milk that I left, napped for two hours, and was soundly asleep for bedtime when I got back. 

I mastered the art of the trusty, boob disfiguring hand pump, and all was well with the world.

Well, except my flaming sinuses and burning red eyeballs thanks to the cute Mom-101 kitties.

But before this, I'd have thought it was nothing short of a miracle.

But sometimes, a little trial by fire, and letting go can do wonders.

And a really great reason to do it doesn't hurt either.

 

Do you recognize these lovely ladies?

Baby pool, bitch

We're extremely fortunate to have a pool in our neighborhood, except that it involves me wearing a bathing suit more often than I'd like, attempting to adequately apply sunscreen to three wiry little children, and having to deal with families who think the pool is their pool even though my family (along with about 50 others) have a key card to get in it.

I realize there are always going to be kids (like mine) that snatch toys, splash water, and sneak snacks. And for the most part, the group of parents I generally hang with take on the role of "the neighborhood's parent" and enforce rules that I would generally require of my children anyway - apologize for snatching toys and return them, splash water only on fully clothed party poopers, and sneak enough snacks to share with me.

But really, we all politely redirect each others' kids when necessary and go about our business of drinking beers out of plastic cups and doing our best not to have to actually get in the still freezing cold pool.

Except when it comes to tomfoolery in the baby pool.

Granted, while I haven't yet had to pull the "Baby Pool Bitch" out at this pool, I'm perfectly fine sending the big kids out of the baby pool and back into the big pool without any ounce of sugar coating.

Apparently when your kid gets big, he doesn't require parenting, so you can sit back and read your rag mags while your elementary aged kids do cannonballs in a barely 2 foot high baby pool. Or, like this past weekend, decide to bring your gihugic blow-up lounger in there with a bunch of toddlers roaming around.

One of the neighbors asked him quite nicely to please go back to the big pool and he completely and quite rudely ignored her.

And so, I gently placed my V-8 Splash and Vodka in a recycled Dunkin Donuts plastic cup down (classy!), brought in the "back-up" by going around so he could see me, and asked him to please take his blow up toy, that literally took up half of the baby pool, into the large pool.

Maybe he smelled the full serving of veggies and fruit on my breath, but he picked up his neon lounger pretty damn fast and headed to the pool.

At which point, a woman came up to me and asked me what the problem was, in a not so friendly sort of way.

I told her that the toy and really, the kid, was too big to be in the baby pool, where it could easily cover up one of the babies.

Now, I didn't recognize her, not just because my vision was a little blurry (phew all those veggies), but because I'm not sure if she was a neighbor or a visiting friend. She told me that she didn't see a problem with the lounger being in the baby pool and that the baby pool was for children who didn't know how to swim.

Really, I think she was trying to tell me it was for big kids in blow up loungers who should be able to do what they want.

Fine. Your kid wants to float on a lounger in teeny tiny pool of shallow water?

Go let him do it IN HIS OWN BATH TUB.

So next time, I'm going to let the lifeguard on duty handle it.

Like a dead pig in the road

On the way to school today, I was cruising along, listening to the kids sing and cough through "Brush Your Teeth" for the 4th time when I had to hit the breaks and swerve around a huge dead wild pig in the road.

Seriously. Where do I live?

I usually tend to look away from gigantic roadkill, but a big huge ass black pig was a little hard to ignore. And ever since I saw him resting peacefully in the middle of that road, I can't seem to get him off my mind.

With this whole parenting of three while alone a fair amount thing, I never fully feel like I get up to speed. I'm riding high for a few days, maybe even a week, with my organized bedtime routine and preplanned meals and thrice-weekly running program and my skinny ass and a nice new babysitter but then

BAM. I run into a big huge gigantic dead pig in the road.

And I have to slam on the breaks and go around him and then I can't stop thinking about the pig and how terrible he looked and how sad and awful and how all his piggy friends will be missing him and woe is me it's all about me and how tired I am and why won't my baby sleep and take a bottle so I can be freeeeeeeeeee for more than 2 hours at a time and my kids won't stop fighting and coughing and everything is a fucking massive argument JUST LET ME WIPE YOUR ASS BEFORE YOU GET SHIT ON THE COUCH.

I suppose there's something to be said about driving on a long boring road. But after awhile, I guess you'd fall asleep and long for a little action - a couple of twists, a rickety bridge, even some roadkill to stare at.

But those smooth drives, where things are good, tears are few, and smiles are plenty, are simply magic. Granted they never seem to last longer than a few minutes, but even so, I try to remember to bask in boring.

Right now, this very day, I'm forcing myself to drive around the damn "pig" and I'm trying to remember that while there will inevitably be another one in the road, that doesn't mean I need to let him completely ruin my day or worry myself about when he'll pop up next.

Because when it comes down to it, he's just a pig after all.

(No offense, Mr. Pig. RIP).