The effects of being dropped on your head...by your husband

In approximately the year 2000 I was introduced to my husband. My then boyfriend instructed me which driveway to turn into, and proceeded to introduce me to his best friend Nicholas. I was less than impressed. He was a smoker, and he was arrogant, and he was kind of a dick.

The conversation started something along the lines of, "I'm really strong." To which my reply was, "How strong? I bet you couldn't pick me up. I'm pretty heavy." I am 5'5 and then, weighed 160 pounds. I though that's the heaviest I would ever be...oh how little I knew. Anyways, he proceeded to walk over, grab me and hoist me onto his shoulders, lose his grip on my legs and as I slid down his back and my head connected with the hard ground, I remember thinking: What the Fuck?

The years passed and Nicholas and I weren't each others' favorite person. My high school boyfriend and I broke up and got back together a billion times, as only teenagers do. When I graduated I didn't see Nicholas again for almost a year.

On that day, I was on my way to class at Clark State Community College, at the Brinkman building downtown. He was standing outside (smoking) in a black trench coat and dark glasses. I wasn't even sure it was him at first, and sitting here now I cannot remember which of us spoke first. We ended up ditching class and he drove me around awhile. I showed him my apartment, he took me out to look at one I was thinking of moving to, and we touched briefly on the topic of his old friend...my ex...and my new baby.

I was a single mother at 18 years old. I was reckless and immature, and my "aha moment" was sitting at the Child Support office with my ex (who brought Nicholas and another mutual friend as a support system) and the boy I cheated on him with, while we waited on a paternity test. I haven't felt humiliation and shame stronger than I have ever felt it that day. I doubt I ever will.

So after a day of apartment hunting, catching up and flirting Nicholas and I kept in touch via instant messenger, and email, and phone. One day, while doing homework online at home I got an instant message from who I thought was Nicholas. It was my ex - his best friend - to my surprise. He said Nicholas was in the bathroom, but that he had shown my ex all of our messages and that he (Nicholas) was playing a mean trick on me to get revenge on me for cheating on him (my ex) and that he just didn't think it was right.

At this point I'm not sure why I chose to believe my ex instead of Nicholas, who of course tried to fill me in after he found out what my ex told me. I wish I hadn't because I went through a lot of stuff I probably wouldn't have, had Nicholas and I had our chance then to see where our relationship was going. I broke it off and told Nicholas I didn't want to talk to him again. In the meantime, I continued talking to my ex - we never got back together - but he made me feel like he missed me, and I guess at that point in my life I wanted things to be back the way they were between us in high school. Looking back on that relationship now, I don't think it was ever a healthy one, nor was it meant to be.

Fast-forward to 2004, my twenty-first birthday. My friend Martin, whom I was "talking to" called me to see if he could bring Nick to my party with him that night. I was more than a little surprised that Nick wanted to come, and that I was anxious to see him. That was the night that really started it all.

We met in a parking lot my the mall and they (Martin and Nick) were going to follow me back to my apartment. When I pulled up next to the cream color full-size Bronco, and Nick got out, my heart literally stopped beating. He was so different; he'd lost almost half of his body weight after having gastric bypass, he was dressed in snug jeans and a nice shirt, and he had his classic dark shades on. He looked happy to see me too, and the day progressed.  That night before he took a sick, slightly drunk Martin home, we shared our first kiss. It was bind-blowing, and frankly had he not had to leave, we would have ended up in bed together right then and there.

The rest, as they say, is history. I still have a hard time believing that we ended up together, married for seven years with three children.

Happy, happy, happy....wait a minute.

So the last month or so has been really interesting...if you're someone else. For me, this past month has been one mind-fuck after another. Job #1 was bogus, job #2 was worse. Now here I am, unemployed AGAIN/STILL and not a happy camper. Let's add to the steaming pile by saying that teacher conferences were AWESOME...my oldest is failing everything. Yes, I said everything. Why? I don't know but I can guess.

I have been so incredibly busy between these jobs (worked 60 hours last week) that I haven't been keeping up with his homework and making him do the work. MOTHER OF THE YEAR HERE PEOPLE! I missed my daughter's first field trip ever (preschool field trip, but still) and I didn't see my kids or my husband at all last week. That's not an exaggeration either. Sigh.

I have to leave to pick up my son from scouts now, but more later if I can remember...

Nut house

Okay, so it's been awhile. Sorry. Things lately have been so crazy, I feel like I live in a looney bin most days. Coordinating schedules, trying and failing to find a new job, finally succeeding in finding something and then finding out that I have to take MORE classes and pass MORE exams. I just graduated college - I am burnt waaayyy out on the whole academic thing.

So what am I doing now? Waiting for the lovely state of Ohio to approve and issue my independent state insurance license, and driving to Sharonville (Cinci) almost every day for "training" UNPAID.  This is making me even crazier. I need to make money. All I've done is spend almost $300 for classes, background check, license application, exam, fingerprints; and spend like $650 on a new laptop for work; plus gas. Training is unpaid. This job has the promise of making some real money if things go well. GOD PLEASE LET THIS GO WELL!

My husband put a construction nail through his finger today while building a "fort" in the backyard for the kids, with an air nailer! Squad got called, kids were terrified, husband is in pain. There's finger meat sticking out of the hole. BARF.

I got up this morning and got my eyes examined, hurried home so that he could go to an appointment, then hurried myself to training. Got off from that, went to pick out glasses, went home to make dinner and make sure husband was ok and went back out to pick up the new glasses in hopes that my head will stop pounding and I'll be able to focus now.

I missed "girl time" with my girlfriends tonight. I needed this time. I hope they missed me, is that selfish?

That's all just stuff that's happened this week!

Earlier this month I had accepted a job at a senior home healthcare provider for a non-medical caregiving position. It was the worst thing I've ever done. It paid $8/hour, and I had to deal with really old penis's and poop. Not my cute little angel's poo - STRANGE ELDERLY ADULT POO! I held the position for less than a week and proceeded to explain to the HR lady in several different ways why the job wasn't for me. I have to go pick up my last/first check soon and do an exit interview. Really people? Sigh.

I have filled out approximately 75 applications since graduation August 16, 2012. I have had two call backs, and one was for the terrible position already mentioned. If this job doesn't work out, and turn out to be something I'm good at and like I am screwed. So let me just advise all my friends and loyal followers to forward all mail to the closest nut house, because that's where I'll be.

Also, this is the only thing of substance I've been able to write since graduation. It's terribly disappointing.

Barbara Kingsolver is a genius. It just so happens I am too.

In my final undergrad class, Women's Memoir with Dr. Pringle, the final book we're assigned is Barbara Kingsolver's High Tide in Tucson. It's broken up into essays as opposed to chapters, which I love.


As I skipped ahead on the syllabus and started this book, as opposed to finishing the dreadfully boring Patricia Hampl book, I have fallen mildly in love (sorry Nick).


In her essay "How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life," she writes:

 ...now that I am a parent myself, I'm sympathetic to the longing for some control over what children read, or watch, or do. Our protectiveness is a deeply loving and deeply misguided effort to keep our kids inside the bounds of what we know is safe and right. Sure, I want to train my child to goodness. But unless I can invoke amnesia to blot out my own past, I have to see it's impossible to keep her inside the world I came up in.

Right- this I understand completely. Although she is a little older than I am, so the world I came up in was already starting to become dangerous for children.


She continues:

Now, with my adolescence behind me and my daughter's still ahead, I am nearly speechless with gratitude for the endurance and goodwill of librarians in an era that discourages reading in almost incomprehensible ways. WE'VE CREATED FOR OURSELVES A CULTURE THAT UNDERVALUES EDUCATION [emphasis mine] (compared with the res of the industrialized world, to say the least), undervalues the breadth of experience (compared with our potential), downright discourages critical thinking (judging from what the majority of us watch and read), and distrusts foreign ideas.

Most alarming, to my mind, is that we the people tolerate censorship in school libraries for the most bizarre and frivolous of reasons. Art books that contain (horrors!) nude human beings, and The Wizard of Oz because it has witches in it. Not always, everywhere, but everywhere, always something. And censorship of certain ideas in some quarters is enough to sway curriculum's at the national level. Sometimes profoundly. 

The parents who believe in Special Creation have every right to tell their children how the world was made all at once, of a piece, in the year 4,004 B.C. Heaven knows, I tell my daughter things about economic justice that are just about as far outside the mainstream of American dogma. But I don't expect her school to forgo teaching Western history or capitalist economics on my account. Likewise, it should be the JOB OF THE SPECIAL CREATIONIST PARENTS TO MAKE THEIR STORY CONVINCING TO THEIR CHILDREN, SET AGAINST THE SCHOOL'S BRIGHT SCENERY OF DINOSAUR FOSSILS AND GENETIC PUZZLE-SOLVING, THE CRYSTAL CLARITY OF DARWINIAN LOGIC, THE WHOLE GLORIOUS SCIENCE OF AN EVOLVING WORLD THAT TELLS ITS OWN CREATION STORY. IT CANNOT BE ANY TEACHER'S DUTY TO TIPTOE AROUND RELIGION, HIDING OBJECTS THAT MIGHT RAISE QUESTIONS AT HOME [emphasis mine, again].

If there is a fatal notion on this earth, it's the notion that wider horizons will be fatal. Difficult, troublesome, scary - yes, all that. But the wounds, for a sturdy child, will not be mortal.

Mind = Blown people. This book was published in 1995.  Seventeen years ago this woman was already feeling the same way I feel now. I wonder what her opinion is now, given how worse things have gotten.


Why should "we" have to suffer because a small group of people think that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, The Giver, Harry Potter (series), and James and the Giant Peach should be unteachable, and unobtainable to our children? The national banned book list is ridiculously long, and there are so many books on it that are as equally ridiculous! I couldn't believe it when I looked it up. 


And what's the deal with our education system? It's ok for the government officials to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year while the education system gets bastardized and shit on every year? Somehow I don't think the founding fathers would be happy. I know I'm not. The problem is that we've passed the era where people protest and hold the government accountable. Everyone today is content to bitch about it all, but unwilling to do anything about it. I don't understand why we, the voters, and the people who are affected by all of this are content with sitting idly by while the jokers in Washington rake it in and laugh-it-up. 

  Come on people. Get your head out of your asses. Once we lose the education system, there's no coming back.

Minecraft, YouTube and a not-so-sneaky 10yr old

So last night my son tells me he can't sleep in his room because his lightbulb is out. Obviously anyone that's seen me knows I'm not going to change it, even on a chair I'm still too short. Nick is in Key West and so I told Mason he could sleep on the couch upstairs in the living room.

His new thing - because God knows he won't pick up a book to save his life - is watching Minecraft videos on YouTube. For those of us not schooled in video games and other geekery, it's a weird video game where everything looks square and pixelated. 

I sent him to "bed' at 9:30, told him to brush his teeth and we went to sleep. Or so I thought. Around midnight something woke me up, probably Claire because she came tearing out of her room fussing like she does, all freaked out in the middle of me chewing Mason out. He got back onto the computer (his special profile with child protection security) and was still up! When he heard me stomping out to the living room he jumped up and almost fell in his haste to try to scramble back to the couch before I saw him. UGH! 

The joys of parenting. If he's this fun at 10, I can't wait until he's 15. 

Getting down to the nitty-gritty

Well I am literally weeks away from graduating. I just finished my final French class (sad face) and took my final final of my undergrad career. I should be happy but I'm a little sad, and incredibly worried about finding a job.

On another note, while I am only taking one class now and am going to be home more, I really need to concentrate on cleaning and organizing my home. It's a disaster. I wish I could hire a professional organizer to do it for me, but you know how it is.  I have however, just spent the last few hours making stuff that I can freeze and reheat for meals later. I also have been meal planning and making a grocery list. It's like, longer than my arm. Sigh. All I see is $$$$$$. Grr.

The Dead Room

Just finished The Dead Room by Robert Ellis. Very cool, but not for those who are squeamish. There were a few cliches, but overall I was pleased with the book. The ending was predictable, but what book doesn't have a certain level of predictability these days?

I know this is short but I gotta go get dinner ready.

Final Quarter at WSU

Yesterday marked the beginning of the end for me and Wright State. I am finishing my last three classes to complete my bachelor's of English degree. Now, before you ask - NO I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, other than work. That's my plan. To find a good paying job doing something I can stand. I plan to continue writing in my "free time" but let's face it - how much of that am I going to have?

Reading right now The Dead Room by Robert Ellis for a book club and it's pretty good. I don't want to put it down. I just finished Promises to Keep by Jane Green and it was good as well. Next up is Sarah's Key. I'll let you know how they are.

Wanda Sykes

I just finished Her book Yeah, I said it. It was awesome. I seriously laughed through the whole thing. I bookmarked a few particularly funny places that apply to my life specifically.

From the chapter/essay "Guy Tip One"
        "Here's a tip for you guys. When a woman asks you to do something and prefaces it with 'when you get a chance,' or 'when you get around to it,' just stop what you're doing and do the shit right then and there. When we ask, we really don't mean when you get a chance, when you feel like it, or when you get around to it. No, we mean right now. If you do it, you'll save yourself a lot of time and grief and a lot of arguments." (p190)

From "Guy Tip Two"
     "Women will give you a test. Fellas, do you know that we fail you at tests that you don't even know you're taking? Failing miserably. Ok, here's the situation.
     A guy gets home first and there are a few dishes in the sink. He doesn't even bother washing the dishes. He chills reading the paper or maybe sneaks in some porn time or whatever. His girl comes home, sees the dishes, and sees him chilling. She ain't gonna say anything, but it gets downloaded. She's gonna create a little folder. Gonna be a little icon with his face on it. And it's gonna say 'Dishes.' And she puts it right up there on the desktop of her mental computer screen.
     Three more days and that same mess goes on. She comes home, sees him chilling, dishes in the sink...However that fourth day, she comes home, sees him chilling. She's gonna double-click right on his face...Open up the folder. 'Let me think about what this man is trying to tell me. What is he saying? Is he trying to tell me that I'm the little dish washer around here? Huh? Is he telling me that washing dishes, that's beneath him? Because you know what? I work every day too. Maybe I'd like to come home to a clean sink, and go start my evening - you know what? I was not put on earth to wash his dirty dishes I tell you what. I'm not gonna wash another damn dish...I'm gonna see how long he's gonna let these dishes pile up before he'll wash them.' He doesn't even know the test is going on. Three weeks go by. Now she's so pissed she can't even see straight...with women, something that we're pissed about in the kitchen is gonna walk its way right down the hallway into the bedroom. And guys don't know it...He's doing his little poking thing. He's in there behaving like an A student, not knowing he got a big-ass F. He's in there poking and she just snaps on his ass. And now, he's in the bed with cracked ribs...'What's my problem?...Why don't I go sit in the dish rack, see if you notice me then, huh? Get off me.'" (194)

This had me laughing and thinking - how does she know so much? I guess it's not just me then. So there are other women out there that feel like this! Yes!

My husband helps...he does the heavy lifting, and takes care of me when I'm sick. He travels a lot so I'm home with three kids but he makes sure I get break when I need it. He's not all that bad. He just isn't clean. Or timely. He prefers to wait to clean until there's company coming over, then do a mad dash the morning of, or the day before. I can't live that way. The pet hair floating across the floor makes me physically angry. Not being able to find a clean fork makes me angry. Walking into the bathroom and it smells like a port-o-potty makes me angry. I can't help it - that's how I'm wired.

So now that I know I'm not alone, maybe he will see this and realize that I'm not just a crazy-ass OCD bitch. Maybe he will actually do the things I ask closer to when I ask instead of three weeks later after I tried to do it but messed it up, or have called his dad to help. Maybe he won't get mad when I'm mad that I just came home and every single sippy cup is dirty, when I left the cabinet full that morning. Or maybe he will understand when I get so pissed off that the light is still out downstairs, above the shower or in the kitchen. Or maybe he will understand when I say "please wipe the counters off when you "clean" the kitchen" I'm saying it because it really grosses me out that every surface in the kitchen and dining room is covered in a layer of sticky slime, crumbs or sugar that he failed to wipe up after making a cup of coffee. Maybe this will make me less of a bitch at home, and make our lives easier. Maybe.

Right now my husband is probably a low B/C student on average in the housework and cleanliness departmet. This weekend he's getting an A because I have the flu and he has done everything but tie me to the bed, to keep me resting. He got me meds, took care of the kids and the grocery store (and he used coupons!) so I'm pretty freaking happy. He proofread my last academic paper so I can edit it and turn it in on time, and he's proofing another one now. He has seriously been amazing, so to my husband I'd like to say; "Thank you honey, I love you." and then I'd like to add "the light is still out downstairs, and your shop vac is still in the play room - going on week #2.

LOL

P.S. Seriously, go read Yeah, I Said It by Wanda Sykes. She gets it.

Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and my crap essay

I love Tina Fey. Until my creative non fiction class this quarter I never would have picked up the book because "non fiction isn't my thing." Well it wasn't, but it is now!

So while in Meijer grocery shopping with the family, my husband decides he must go through the toy aisles. Every time. I busy myself in the book department or the cosmetic department. This day I was in the books, checking out the non fiction selection.

I had seen Bossypants before, but this day is the day I bought it. $11.99 well spent.

I read the book pretty fast, it's very funny and charming. It actually made me want to watch 30 Rock when I have never seen a single episode. So I started it today when I finished the book. So far it's pretty funny. Unfortunately my children woke up from their naps and I had to put it on pause. I love Netflix.

The chapter, or essay I guess I could call it (the book has several very short chapters which could be an essay if she'd published it outside of this book) entitled "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" had me thinking about my first CNF essay that didn't get the best grade of my academic career.

In the chapter Fey discusses what it's like to pose and go through a photo shoot. She outlines the process and proceeds to write about what she looks like "in real life" vs. what photoshop makes her look like. I love this chapter!

"They always get it wrong under the eyes. In an effort to remove dark circles they take out any depth, and your face looks like it was drawn on a paper plate." (Fey 157)

and "...but how do you feel when they erase part of you that is perfectly good? We have now entered the debate over America's most serious and pressing issue: Photoshop." (157)

"Do I think Photoshop is being used excessively? Yes. I saw Madonna's Louis Vuitton ad and honestly, at first glance, I thought it was Gwen Stefani's baby." (157)

"Retouching is here to stay. Technology doesn't move backward. No society has ever de-industrialized. Which is why we'll never turn back from Photoshop - and why the economic collapse of China is going to be the death of us all. Never mind that. Let's keep being up in arms about this Photoshop business!" (161)

"I don't see a future in which we're all anorexic and suicidal. I do see a future in which we all retouch the bejeezus out of our own pictures at home. Family Christmas cards will just be eyes and nostrils in a snowman border.
      At least with Photoshop you don't really have to alter your body. It's better than all these disgusting injectibles and implants...I have thus far refused to get any Botox or plastic surgery. (Although I do wear a clear elastic chin strap that I hook around my ears and pin under my day wig.)" (161)

My first essay began as an essay about fitting in, and peer pressure and what lengths we all go to just to be liked. It ended up kind of a mess, so I guess I don't really begrudge my professor for grading it like the crap it was. But this chapter (and the ones in which Fey talks about being skinny and fat for a period of time) had me thinking about that essay.

I am going to revise it, frankly I want to get an "A" in the class. I don't know if a revision will help but the low score I got is nagging me. I'm thinking it's going to go in one of two ways. One, it will go in this direction about body image and fitting in and what my kids will be faced with in school. Two, it will turn into a piece about my worries about fucking up my kids and what society says I should be doing as a mother - including the mother's group I joined a year ago.

Well that's all the time I am allowed. Amelia is down the hall beating up Mason and Claire is climbing on the dining room table. Oh - and there's a zombie movie on television that I haven't switched off yet.

If you want a laugh - read Bossypants.

The text book fairy forgot my house!

I thought I would be awesome and buy all my texts for this quarter from BN.com and other various places, instead of writing out my wish list for the text book fairy or going to the campus book store which I am positive has a monthly meeting where all the employees get together and watch security footage of the dummies coming in to but their books from them.  I probably saved a nickle but I can't honestly tell you if that's the case. So here we are at the quarter's end and I'm stuck with  approximately 10 books that I want to unload and every site I've checked online will give me no more than $7 for the lot! The Joan Didion book isn't going anywhere at all, and I am pretty sure I'm going to eat the cost of half of these Henry James books I foolishly bought instead of checking out from the library.

I'd like to take a moment to mentally chastise myself again before I continue...


Ok, now that I've got that out of the way I can continue. I hate the system. That is all.

Mother's Day

The kids got me Cheryl & Co. cookies and Nick got me a dozen red roses! Today has been pretty good. Although Nick is really sick - sinus infection, and my asthma is bothering be pretty bad. The kids are all feeling a bit crappy too, but so far just sniffles and cranky spouts.

I got laundry done, cleaned and organized my craft room and mopped the basement.

It's rainy so I don't have to water the plants.

I'm going to sit down and watch "The Burbs" here in a bit.

The quarter is almost over THANK GOD!

My first meme comic from cheezburger.com thanks to a classmate

Pee on the floor.

Tonight my daughter peed on the floor.

That's right, she waited too long and struggled to get her underwear down in time. But she knew what she did and came running out with a fresh pull-up because it was time for bed and she knew what to do. SO I guess that's a plus. And now my bathroom floor is clean so that's one chore I can check off the list that never ends.

I'm watching to Ice Age for the millionth time, Claire is still refusing to sleep in her own room so her toddler bed is down here. She's rolling around in my bed jostling my carefully organized piles of homework that I've laid out in order of importance.

She just farted on my leg.

Sigh.

She pointed to her butt and said "fawrt" before smiling at me with her binky in her mouth and rolling away. Sig and Manny just caught her attention - they're in the ice cave with Diego and the baby, sliding down the ice chute yelling, she's got her hands in the air yelling "yaaaaayyy!"

I love my job.

Mason just ran into my room to tell me he just killed someone important in some video game that I'll never remember the name of. Oh and "I spilled your candle burner thingy, sorry." I paused while writing this blog. "I guess that means there's wax all over the place now?"

Sigh.

"Well we will just have to wait til it cools and then scrape it off." It's bright red, all over the counter and refrigerator. Double sigh.

Amelia is asleep for the moment, I go back to my writing and the phone rings.
"Hey honey."
"Hi, kids asleep?"
"Nope."
"Can you put me on speaker?"
"Claire say hi!"
She talks to her daddy, kisses the phone and in the process hangs up on him. Stupid iPhone touch screen.

"Hello?"
"Oops, she was kissing you goodnight."
"I figured." Chuckles ensue.

Today my husband got pulled over in whatever state he's in right now - I can't remember - by the FBI and State Highway Patrol. They closed the highway he was on because Joe Biden was en route on the same road. He sat there for a few hours before they let everyone back on the highway.

A month ago he was on the same airplane from Washington D.C. after a layover with Hillary Clinton. I'm not kidding -  I have pictures and he sat next to one of her secret service guys.

Claire just kicked me in the boob. I suppose that her limit has been reached for not having my attention, so I guess I should go before she figures out how to use the remote and orders a porn on pay-per-view.

Nothing major

My daughter Amelia has been fighting a stomach issue (starts with a c, ends with onstipation). UGH. For the entire weekend and week she won't eat, won't play, just lays around. Today she is finally acting normal (yay). I feel so bad for her.

Claire still isn't sleeping in her own room, in her crib yet. She'll sleep on her toddler bed in my room without crying all night. When did this happen and why? Why can't the girls be good sleepers like Mason? AAUgh!

Time for naps! Just got home from Lowes, got some mulch and Pampas grass (pink) and a new shower head. Now it just needs to stop raining long enough to get some yard work done. The garden still isn't built and ready to be planted yet. BOO.

Nice treat

This weekend was a lot of fun. My husband surprised me by using his "points" and booking me a king sized room at the Hilton Garden Inn for Saturday. After French class that's where I went, then I saw The Lucky One with my friend Jess and finished some papers after in my room.

When I finished Jess was still in town so we decided to see The Five-year engagement. They were both really good. She left to go back home to Lebanon and my husband talked me into going back to the theater and seeing 21-jump street. It was hilarious! I laughed so hard I couldn't breath.

I then collapsed into bed. I have never seen so many movies in one day ever. But it was fun. Even sitting there by myself for the late showing on a Saturday night.

I needed this break. I wish I could do this more often. So, thanks hubby I love you! I needed to get away for a night after having the kids by myself all week. They were driving me crazy.

Yesterday my 70-something year-old grandmother hung up on me while in Kohl's, in her excitement to take a picture of a shirt and text it to me. I'm serious. It didn't go through, but she tried. I couldn't help laughing, thinking about how "advanced" we are as a society.

Then I thought about my mom, who just got a computer and refuses to open a Facebook page on account that "you get too many viruses and shit - at least that's what everyone tells me." Uh-huh. Who is this "everyone"? I want to know. My mother is about as technologically retarded as my grandmother should be - but isn't. My mother doesn't even own a decent cell phone. Her digital camera is so big it may as well be the Nikon my photographer carries around, and it goes through batteries like Claire goes through diapers. Really.

Now I understand that she doesn't have a college education, neither does my granny. However I just don't think that's an excuse these days because if I'm honest-today, if you don't know how to turn on your computer and download the application you're trying to fill out for a job then you probably aren't getting hired. I don't know how many phone calls my husband has gotten from them because there is some issue with there computers. He downloads an anti-virus, he cleans up the mess and then my grandmother proceeds to call my equally uneducated uncle who comes over and undoes everything my husband just did. Why bother calling my husband in the first place?

This has been the source of many heated conversations in my household. I apologize after my grandmother wastes my husband's time, but then she's on the phone again wondering why the blue screen of death is locked on her monitor.

Sigh.

I guess all I'm really saying is either learn how to use computers or don't. But don't expect me to come over and do your resume for you, and fill out your job applications, etc... I have my own stuff to take care of. And grandma please stop insulting my husband by asking for his help and then basically telling him he's an idiot and your don't trust him by calling Uncle Mike to "really fix" the problem. My husband can take apart and build you a new computer in the time it takes you people to figure out what that error message is even saying. Don't call him if you don't appreciate him.

Especially since our computer needs fixed now.

There's a "bloody man" scaring my baby

Yesterday my daughter Amelia walked into the living room to inform her meemaw that Claire is afraid of her room because "there's a bloody man in there." WTF? She then called my husband, who then called me to share this delightful nugget our three year old has just spewed out.


This made my heart beat a little faster I'll admit. I don't believe in ghosts or hauntings or any of that crap, but for a second I was dumbfounded. How could my three year old come up with this on her own? He brother was at school so he couldn't have said it for her to repeat. This would certainly explain why Claire hasn't been sleeping in there for the last two weeks.


So now what do I do? I thought about putting Claire's crib back in Amelia's bedroom (they used to share until last December when we bought the house and they got separate rooms), and putting all the toys and dressers into Claire's room, making it a big walk-in closet/toy chest. But in order to do that the crib has to come completely apart to fit through the doorways, and let's be honest-what a huge pain in the ass, and wasted effort if that doesn't work and she's just decided sleep isn't her thing. So we tried putting Amelia in Claire's room on her (Amelia's) old toddler bed that we're transitioning Claire into one nap at a time, but that didn't work either. She still stood up in her crib, screaming like she was being pinched, crying and yelling "no bed!"


Sigh.


So we put Amelia back in her room and I took Claire downstairs with me, where she fell asleep in twenty minutes. My husband carried her back to bed, where she slept until midnight. We were back to square one.


Is there a bloody man in her room? I don't know, but she's at the age where separation anxiety can be a real bitch, and the age where being afraid of the dark can kick in, as well as nightmares. Basically we have no clue. She will go in her room to play for short periods of time, but freaks out during the day for nap time so it isn't the dark of night causing this.


Does anyone know how to perform an exorcism?

Monster's haunt my bedroom

Fun fact: when you become a parent, you stop sleeping.

Fun fact: This is not temporary, as people say it is. You will be forced awake through the little monster's infancy, through their toddler years and then just when you think you're safe and can start sleeping - the monster is a teenager and you're up NOT sleeping because you're worrying or pissed off.

Fun fact: I am in the stage of NOT sleeping because my youngest monster is almost two and has reached the point of separation anxiety/fear of the dark/possible nightmares. She hasn't slept through the night in going on two weeks nor has she had a nap for longer than an hour, and that's only if she's being held.

Fun fact: I am a cranky bitch. Three hours of sleep is not sufficient enough for me to be able to deal with other people's bullshit.

Fun fact: The world keeps spinning, time keeps ticking and my responsibilities don't get put on hold just because my monsters won't leave me alone for an hour to nap.

Fun Fact: I was never afraid of monsters growing up.

Fun fact: I am now.

Two Little Girls Dressed like Nuns and An Eleven Year-old Baby-Daddy

This is my first creative non-fiction essay.

As I was standing in one of the makeup aisles at Meijer (I was supposed to be there for groceries) I listened to an overly loud and dramatic conversation I could hear from where I was standing as clearly as if I were a part of it. Much to Abby’s horror Brandon hadn’t asked her to prom yet, and she was frantically trying to appear not frantic in her attempt to get asked by anyone at this point, even Zack the weird guy in her Algebra 2 class.

I smirked – I couldn’t control it – and refocused on the task at hand, which was finding a mascara that would make my lashes look like a girl’s in my creative non-fiction writing class because I was sure my husband would finally notice, if only I had those lashes! I was currently staring at a picture of Gwen Stefani and ten types of “volumous, lash-boosting power,” as opposed to filling my cart with the groceries we desperately needed (old mother’s cupboard had taken on a new meaning for us).

I got bored pretty quickly and grabbed the shiny gold container because it was pretty and caught my eye, and headed to the other side of the store to fulfill my “womanly” obligations. Aisle after aisle I walked, filling my cart with items from my list, when I walked down the cookie/cracker/soup aisle and saw the Chef Boyardee products. Now, I have no fear any of the amazing mothers in my mom’s group will ever find out that I’m a fraud (unless you tell them) because Chef Boyardee saved my children from certain starvation this week, and they would be shocked to find that someone has infiltrated their group who doesn’t go out back and hand-pick the ingredients from their organic gardens for every meal. They will never read this and find out because let’s face it – I am not Alicia Silverstone mouth-feeding my baby, or a “breast feeding mom”, or a “cloth swaddler” or a “backpack baby-wearing mom” and am in no fashion liberal or chic enough to warrant their attention. Having considered all that I picked up four various whole- wheat Chef Boyardee products and added it to the other processed poisons in the cart, and made my way to the – gasp – pasteurized cow milk!

            Shuffling my way to aisle twelve I had to swerve around an old lady in a motorized wheel chair, and play chicken with a woman to get to the cereal which is even worse than trying to pick mascara. My eyes glazed over as Count Chocula, Tony the tiger and the Cheerios bee, each seemed to be calling my name, when I am suddenly acutely aware of the woman sashaying behind me with “juicy” written across the ass of her pink pants. I think at that moment my mouth actually fell open because this woman was like a living Barbie doll. Her blond hair was pulled up into a sleek ponytail without those little flyaway hairs normal women get, she had makeup on at nine am on a Saturday, and her outfit was skintight. The cart she was pushing was full of all-natural, healthy food and the baby in the car seat was asleep and perfectly adorable. She was then joined by two other women that were also perfectly coifed and ridiculously cute and I immediately hated them and wanted to be their friend at the same time. One caught me staring and flipped her hair before turning around and the Barbie trio sauntered away toward the organic granola.

After I finished and made my way to the checkout I pulled out my coupons and sorted them. I heard a few low voices behind me and turned around to see the trio watching me. They had paused at the magazine selection at the end of my check-out line. They got quiet and Barbie grabbed the nearest People, looked at my stack of coupons, took in my flawed-skin and wrinkled over-sized tee and they walked away.

In kindergarten and first grade my circle of friends changed so drastically that nobody was the same from one year to the next. I remember playing at Stephanie’s house one afternoon, and only one afternoon. She was always really nice to everyone, and her mother was the same. I never went back over to her house, and we were never really friends after that, though nothing had really happened to cause that. She became the not-really-nerdy-but-still-the-smartest girl in our grade and I believe she was top of the class. Of course at Southeastern high school – Go Trojans! – that meant being the top of a class of around sixty, and that’s being generous, not that I want to make her accomplishment sound unworthy of a pat on the back and a hearty “you go girl!”

Let me fast-forward to my sophomore year of high school when I decided to move in with my father and his girlfriend (now wife). I had literally gone to kindergarten with all of these same kids with the exception of a few. I was leaving them all for a new group of people at Northwestern high school where my dad’s girlfriend’s family attended, so I had a shot of knowing at least one person on my first day of the second semester of my awful sophomore year.  

My junior and senior years were much better. I went to a vocational school and was in the medical assisting program, I had a lot of friends scattered throughout other various programs, none of which I’m friends with today if that tells you how deep these friendships really were. I suspect it was because I had a car, but let’s change the subject so I can stop thinking about that so my paranoia about being the “place-holder” friend doesn’t come rearing its ugly head.  You know what I’m talking about – the person you call when all your other friends are busy or unavailable. Anyway, I tried really hard to be nice to everyone but at some point I just decided it wasn’t my “thing” and became the bitchy girl who was smarter than everyone else and knew it. I gave the answers when I knew them, excelled in all of my classes, and flaunted around like I owned the place. I acted like I didn’t care what the two stick figure girls who aspired to be models in the class were chortling about, and I damn sure didn’t care about what the two teen moms thought because frankly, they must not have brains to begin with if they let themselves get knocked up while they were in high school, right? By the end of my senior year, it was three girls with either a baby or baby-to-be bump peeking out from under our scrubs; yes I said “our” – because I was four months pregnant when I graduated in May 2001.

I remember sitting in government class with the two other teen moms. I had only told a few people that I was pregnant, but they were sitting right beside me coloring cute little pages with bears and baby carriages for their future baby books, while they were waiting on everyone else to finish the latest exam over the counties in Ohio.

“Could I have one of your pages?” Kristie looked at me.

“I guess, but they’re for a baby scrapbook.”

“I know… I’m pregnant.” They looked at each other across the table and Kristie slid a few pages toward me and shared her crayons. It was as close as I got to bonding with these girls. We chatted about baby names and OB/GYN appointments, but we were never close.

Trying to be accepted as a pregnant teen in high school wasn’t really that bad for me since I graduated before I got really big, and the friends I had remained so until graduation. Trying to fit into college as an eighteen year old single mother, who had gained almost 100 pounds during her pregnancy and had a difficult time squeezing into those awful tiny desks they still torture us with in my university (yes, I’m talking about you, Wright State! For the love of the god’s please go to Target and buy some cheap plastic folding tables and chairs for $39 and get those teeny desks out of Fawcett Hall), now that is a challenge that I had no choice but to accept. I didn’t really have a ton of friends for the first few years of my son’s life, and the ones I had were mainly co-workers or guys, and I know why they were trying to be friends with me. Guys I hate to break it to you – not every young single mother is looking to get laid even if you are incredibly hot and offer to have your little sister babysit for an hour.

Okay, so here I am today; a young-ish married mother of three desperately trying to graduate before the university changes from quarters to semesters, writing this essay hoping you as my peers will like it and maybe get a chuckle or two out of it. So you see? Even as adults the acceptance of …well everyone, often defines us and how we see ourselves; I mean if we’re not accepted then that tells us there’s something wrong with us. We must smell funny or look funny, perhaps we have a funny mole we aren’t aware of that we can’t see but everyone else can. Regardless of how hard you try, it’s impossible not to care what those around you think. By the way, you have something green between your teeth.

I just can’t figure out why it matters so much, but I even catch myself trying really hard to help my son Mason fit in at his school. I buy stylish clothes as much as he hates to wear them (luckily he wears a uniform to school), I make him take a shower and clip his nails, because when he does it himself he either cuts them into points so he can kill zombies or he cuts them so short he whines for the next three days about how bad his finger hurts.

The last time this happened, we were arguing about why he was wearing camo pants with a Shrek shirt and rain boots to go outside and play in the ninety-degree summer heat.

“Go change, you look ridiculous.”

“Mom I want to play zombie hunter! I have to wear camo or the zombies will see me.”

“Mason I promise you that the zombies won’t run after you, they will run away because of how horrible that outfit is.”

Insert eye rolling, heavy sighing and pouting for three hours after I made him change into shorts. I gave a little – they were camo shorts. But I threw those God-awful boots out!

 I remind him every day to be nice to everyone to which he rolls his eyes and says he knows. I reassure him when he gets into the car after school that yes Victoria actually does like him, she just doesn’t want him to know it because she wrote “love, Victoria” on everyone’s valentine but his, which was signed “Victoria.”

I also worry incessantly if my daughter Amelia is going to cope well in preschool this fall. What if she freaks out at being without me and then nobody wants to play with her? What if she has a potty accident at school? It’s never ending. The only one I don’t worry about is Claire my youngest. She’s full of piss and vinegar and I know she’s destined to be the popular girl that everyone loves…I hope. Maybe I’m just projecting my own insecurities onto my children, who at this age like everyone and are just happy to have someone to play with.

A few days ago, as we were driving home and I had already begun to write this essay Mason and I were talking about his friends at school. I had to laugh because that day he and some boy decided they weren’t friends, but yesterday he told me about their game of tag together during recess. It reminded me of my friendships with Stephanie and other girls throughout middle and high school. I guess it’s normal at his age to change friends like underwear or dirty socks.

Speaking of underwear, I was sitting at Tumbleweed yesterday having lunch with my family, and I glance at my son who is staring off to my left. I look over my shoulder and don’t notice anything right away, but when I look back at him he’s laughing to himself until he realizes that I’m watching him.

“What?”

“What’s so funny?”

“What are you talking about mom?” Uh-huh.

 “Tell me what you were staring at.”

“Uh, Joy look over your left shoulder at the girl in the orange top.” My husband is also snickering now. I look and this girl who looked to be sixteen or so has her purple sparkly thong exposed to us all. Gross.

Now when I was younger I admit that I thought I was hot shit when I wore butt-floss, but look how that turned out; I have a ten year old. Why is a “whale tail” sexy? Or is she trying to be slutty? If I was that girl’s mother I would hunt down every pair of that underwear like I was Buffy the damn Vampire Slayer and destroy them. Then she would be grounded. Until she went to college.

I see these girls everywhere I go. Shorts so short you can practically see the hair down there, providing they have it, shirts two sizes too small and a padded bra underneath, and dresses or skirts that also leave nothing to the imagination. I can’t imagine it’s comfortable to walk around with a crotch-wedgy all the time, and where are these girl’s parents? If dressing like you’re a “working girl” is what it takes to be popular now, let me formally apologize to Amelia and Claire because you will never ever, ever, ever, ever, dress like that so apparently you will not be one of the popular girls.

Now that my daughters won’t be candidates for the popular cliques when they get older, I guess I need to concentrate on my son. He’s at the age where he is just starting to check girls out. When we went to Kalahari in Sandusky at the beginning of March 2012 he actually said “there are so many bikini’s here!” before running off between a matching set of green bikini-clad girls toward the water slides. Ugh. Should I start buying condoms now and stocking up on the whole sex-talk material thing? I feel like I need to do something to prevent him from getting to that point, but with all the sex in movies and among the kids in schools now I doubt there’s anything I can do short of yanking him out of school and locking him away in his room. But honestly, I don’t have the patience to homeschool him.

So where am I now? I have two little girls destined to be unpopular and dressed like nuns and a son that is destined to father a child at the age of eleven. How did I get here? The pressures of fitting in drove me to the point of doing crazy things like spending a hundred dollars on Tommy Hilfiger jeans and Nikes (each, not together), and practically starving myself to the point of passing out at the skating rink after a skating marathon, requiring an ambulance to retrieve my unconscious body with a blood sugar so low it required two intravenous doses of glucose-which burns like a mother, and a several hour stay in the emergency room during which the doctor accused me of taking drugs. I hate to think about what my kids will go through to fit in at that age, when peer pressures and the noose of “status” dangles over their heads. Luckily for me I’m married now and don’t have to try as hard to make everyone like me. Unless you look like Barbie, or Zooey Deschanel because let’s face it – nobody is as cute as she is, even my husband has a crush.

As for my children, I just hope that they got the “good genes” and stay tall thin and beautiful, and that my son’s hair stays red because who can refuse a cute red haired little boy with freckles across his nose? Not Victoria, that’s for sure.