Motherhood Uncensored

Payback's a bitch

I still remember the day I got my very first report card in the first grade and my teacher called them out last name first. 

"CHASE, KRISTEN" she yelled. 

"CHASE KRISTEN!!!" some idiot in the back of the room screamed, and thus began a new game at recess. 

I was devastated with my horrible last name for about a week until the kids figured out another game to play and the silly game played at my expense was yesterday's new. 

Turns out Quinlan is getting her own fair share of giggles at the expense of her unique name, as she shared with me the other day as I was opening a box of spoils to add to her pretzel tin collection. 

"LOOK AT THESE AMAZING MUGS!" I screeched, hold the pretzel handle and showcasing the beer can shaped ceramic mugs with her name printed in shiny gold letters, ala 1975. 

Quinlan barely smiled, which was completely uncharacteristic of her. 

"I told the kids in my class that I was named after a pretzel company and some of the boys laughed at me" she sighed, which actually made me laugh out loud.

Not the empathic response I was going for. But seriously, the stuff kids find funny. I mean, pretzels? At least save the giggles for kids named after vaginal creams or something, guys. 

Pretzels are awesome. And tasty! 

So I told her my own sordid tale, which seemed to lighten the mood, and then reminded her that people laugh when they're uncomfortable or can't seem to find the words or actual emotion they want to express. 

"One day, when you're selling those tins for thousands of dollars, you can laugh at how ridiculous they were," I said, rolling the ceramic mugs back up in bubble wrap. 

Then I asked her who it was, exactly, and after she told me, I did what every parent would probably do in the same situation: 

I showed her a photo I have of him wearing a very lovely pair of Tory Burch flats. 

Yeah, who's laughing now, bitches? 

Turning anxiety into awesome. Or where I star in the next episode of Hoarders.

When you walk around with your ankles shackled by anxiety on a regular basis, your mind can get trapped on a merry-go-round of crazy thoughts. But every now and then I can them, like the persistent one in which I convince myself that I'm going to die young, and turn it into a brilliant idea. 

Now the skin mole check, or whatever that unsexy exam where they mark all your freckles and moles on a paper and then scrape a few off with a razor is called, wasn't necessarily brilliant, but it was a smart idea. And phew, all clear. 

And there is the circus money I've started to stash away, which is really smart, or possibly brilliant if they all decide to major in art history or something.

Yes, so I was inspired by a Matt Damon movie. Shut up. 

No, the actual brilliant idea came about when I saw these pretty "Q" hoop earrings on Etsy when Quinlan was a baby. And I thought since she had such a unique letter, that it might be cool to collect jewelry with it and give them all to her when she was older and wanted to change her name because it was so weird.

KIDS. 

This then turned into a collection of initial necklaces and other fun trinkets for all the girls which I stuff on a regular basis into our fireproof box. 

But then THEN the real brilliance happened thanks to the lovely Courtney who posted a link and photo to a tin can on my Facebook Wall, which generally speaking I HATE when people post things on my wall but it was a can with Quinlan on it. 

No, not her face but her name, because apparently a long time ago there was a Quinlan pretzel company in Pennsylvania and so of course I had to buy the really expensive tin can, which led to a search for other such tin cans, which led to an obsession with finding ALL THE QUINLAN TIN CANS THAT EVER EXISTED, as well as old bar trays, and most recently, weird mugs with pretzel handles. 

This is all I could fit in the photo.

At the time, Drew was really into fire trucks, which he promptly grew out of the second I put a unbelievably challenging fire engine decal on his wall and purchased a whole gaggle of old fire truck toys, particularly old Fisher Price ones, all of which sit gathering dust on his shelf. 

Remember those?  

And while Margot was a bit of challenge, I did a little research and found out that her name means "pearl" so, duh, vintage pearl purses!, stashed haphazardly in a box that sits on a shelf in her closet. 

 

"These are my special purses, right Mama?" she says. 

So far, Bridget is racking up quite a collection of octopus jewelry, which, funny coincidence *I* have a pretty extensive and rapidly growing collection of octupus jewelry (ahem). Poor fourth kid. 

Of course, there's the stories I write here, that they can chuckle at and laugh over, which I might force them to do every year on my birthday, even after I'm gone, while pounding on tin cans, playing with fire trucks, and wearing pearl purses and octopus jewelry. 

Or they can sell everything I bought and go on a fabulous trip somewhere. 

And then at least I can say that all this stupid anxiety was worth it. 

If you're curious: I don't spend tons of hours or money doing this, really. I just search every now and then on Etsy, set a budget that I refuse to go over, then tuck everything away in a safe spot so they can't get into them and toss the $25 vintage fire truck off the 2nd floor deck.

So apparently carbs, sugar, and booze make me an asshole.

After the whole Wellbutrin fail and my first post IUD period right around the corner, (or uh, official one, since yeah, me and pantyliners are like THIS nowadays), I was pretty much willing to try anything to avoid yet another two weeks in asshole town.

And so I decided to cut out carbs, sugar, and booze. 

I realize this sounds completely counterintuitive because really, after some tough times with my oldest daughter sending us back to therapy and Sandy Hook, the natural tendency for most humans is to eat and drink large amounts of unhealthy things. 

Now I'm not following any sort of plan or anything that's named after a person or a city in Florida, I'm just eating a lot of protein and vegetables and steering clear of carbs, sugar and booze, which by all accounts was almost my entire diet. 

The first few days were really hard.

But now it's just become a regular habit, because during what I'm pretty sure was PMS, I didn't yell once. 

That's right. No irritability, or feeling exhausted, or wanting to cry myself into a corner. 

Okay, that's not completely true. I was still weepy and a little anxious. But no yelling or gut screaming or any scaring of my children of any kind. 

Basically, me. Back again. And even in some of my old pants! 

(Of course, with my luck, any weight that I have lost has come straight off my boobs and not really anywhere else). 

It's not like I don't have any emotion. And my kids still annoy me sometimes. But my ability to handle it has gotten increasingly better. 

And by the way, if you're wondering, the first two days of the post-IUD period were, uh, interesting. But I'll be honest, it didn't last very long (which is typical for me anyway). So either I'm an anomaly, or that wasn't my real period. 

But hey, who cares because I'm not an asshole!

And I can eat as much salami as a I want. 

The refrigerator, lunchmeat kind, smart asses. 

The risk of living is dying

A tiny part of me felt reassured after the Aurora theater shooting because a midnight movie showing with my kids was never a situation I'd probably find myself in. 

And that somehow made me feel safer.

It's how anxious people like me cope. No judgment of parents and their choices, just how I get through the tragic events that plague our world and still leave my house every day. 

A Southeast Asian vacation was never on my life list so phew safe from possible tsunami. 

But today is a little more difficult, or really, a lot more, because every day I pack my kids up in the car, and most of the time I'm yelling or they're fighting or some combination of both. I get annoyed when the school door is locked when I drop them off or pick them up early, because having to knock on your own kids' school door seems wildly ridiculous until you realize that it's not at all. 

The bubble I had created to keep us all safe popped today. And as much as I know life is fragile and unpredictable, reminders like this make them so palpable. 

Because I've bought Christmas presents for my kids, stacked high in our dining room in huge boxes yet to be opened like everyone of those parents in Newtown did for their kids.

The stockings are hung by our chimney, waiting to be filled, then dumped with squeals of delight, sounds that the families won't ever hear again.

And every day I drop them off at school with total, absolute security, which is a pretty big deal for someone who has already thought out and prepared for all possible tragedies, like how to get out of a car that's sinking in water or talking to the kids about strangers or for 2012 "The Tricky Person" and so when the one completely mundane regular part of the day that for fuck's sake is definitely safe is suddenly, possibly unsafe, it's mind altering. 

Life shifting. 

There was news that my friend Victoria's nephew was killed at the school. My other friend Catherine's nephew, unrelated to Sandy Hook, can no longer breathe on his own. 

I've been trying to do better and be better, fighting marriage challenges and my own mother challenges and hormones GOD THE HORMONES and wanting so badly to not be short and overwhelmed for every other interaction with my kids.

I will not lie to you: Life has been wearing me out. 

But now it just has to be different. 

For too long, I've been surviving, pushing through each minute and hour to get to the end of the day for what? So I can plop my tired ass down on the couch and stare at the large television over my mantle where my kids' pretty stockings hang. And breathe. 

Each day is a complete blur. 

But see, I don't want to just breathe. 

Tonight I celebrated Drew's "Graduation" from needing tokens for staying in his bad with his favorite meal and cupcakes. Then we all skipped around the room with the music blasting, their tiny hands in mine, our shrieks and laughter so loud and deep that we were gasping for each bit of precious air. 

I want that more of this. These moments.

For me, for my kids, and for all the parents, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, and children who wish they had one more chance to laugh so hard they were struggling for air. 

It's the least we all can do to honor them. 

I went to a Christmas Party and all I got was a midget blow-up doll

Last week I spent 3 glorious days in Disney World, which sounds completely counterintuitive to everything in my body because roller coasters, large turkey legs, and weirdos dressed up like Winnie the Pooh are not my idea of awesome, but I was alone with Margot and had a special press fast pass that meant no lines ever. 

About every other minute she'd grab my hand and say "Just you and me, Mom" and then I'd melt and buy her another Barbie-looking Disney princess doll to the point where we came home with a whole harem. 

Upon my return I was greeted with my mother-in-law, who had agreed to come down because my husband had to work, and we figured since she was here, we'd take advantage of her services (which I hear included candy, cinnamon buns and "3 hours of video game playing in a row SHE DIDN'T EVEN CARE, MOM!) and hit his Christmas party as well, which would mean I'd have to race home, grab some clothes, jewelry, and make-up, and drive 2-hours south to the party.

Now let me be clear: I really don't like Christmas parties, especially ones that involve the military, because usually it's a bunch of drunk white guys calling the female serves "hon" and "oh hey Mrs. MYHUSBANDSLASTNAMEMAKESMYBLOODBOIL," guffawing over sex toys and lube at the white elephant gift exchange.

And surprise, that's exactly what happened, except we got to stay in a hotel afterwards and sleep-in completely uninterrupted until 8:30am. 

{Note: A part of me dies inside every time I say "sleep-in until 8:30am"}

So, I figured that I could survive Quinlan bawling her eyes out to me about how her grandmother is just like her father (ack), and my mother-in-law saying something like "stop your nastiness" to my son as I tried to desperately pack up a few things. 

I gave her an iPod Touch to text me, I told my son to put his imaginary earmuffs on, and I shot out the door. 

Quinlan's first text, aw! 

And I was on track to make it there in time until I realized that I had driven about an hour in the wrong direction, which is awesome when you're relying on Apple Maps and the way you went doesn't actually have any sort of short cut remedy other than turning around and going back the way you came. 

But hey, at least I had pretty new shirts from Nordstrom that OH SHIT MOTHERFUCKER had all the security tags left in. Surely not all three shirts I bought could have the tags left in because that would be OH SHIT MOTHERFUCKER. 

Dude. All of them. EVERY single shirt had the security tag (the non-screamer tags I later learned). 

I rocked the jewelry though, yo.

So yes, yes, I went to the party with a security tag tucked into my skirt, peeking out the side like a gigantic goiter, but considering I'd just be sitting and tossing back vodka tonics while I flipped off the Secret Santa host for telling my husband to send his wife up to get a gift, who really cares about the giant security tag hanging off your shirt? 

And really, no one was looking at me because the chick at my table reapplying mascara without a mirror while we all ate our chicken cutlets and pudding was way more entertaining.

We topped off the evening at a bar where you can still smoke and a guy wearing a sweater vest with Christmas lights.

So not joking about the dude.

But hey, we slept until 8:30am with no children anywhere near our person. And I won a midget blow-up doll, which my husband was none to pleased about. 

3 love openings of pleasure, y'all 

"At least we can now drive semi-legally in the HOV lane!" I told him. 

What's that saying? Always look on the bright side of the blow-up doll?