From a relaxing bubble bath the other night I heard, 'stop jumping on the couch before Mom sees and gets mad!' Now. Let's review a few examples of how this could have been responded to, shall we?
- 'Stop jumping on the couch before someone gets hurt!'
- 'Stop jumping on the couch before something gets broken.'
- 'Stop jumping on the couch because you're not allowed to be jumping on the couch.'
Why 'Mom gets mad'? Why?
Slowly but surely, resolutions are winning in the fight against fears.After being sick with an illness that has been clinging to me since December 10, 2011 (yes, I know the exact date), I finally broke down and went to the doctor despite my crippling fear. I am proud to say that after five weeks, I am finally on an antibiotic and finally on my way to recovery. (Let's hope this antibiotic does not cause me to break out in head to toe disgusting and itchy hives like I have had in the past. A complete other fear. Fingers crossed.)Next up, the gynecologist. I'll get there eventually, but don't hold your breath in the meantime. I know I'm not going to.
Why? Because I just noticed that I misspelled 'creator' on my blog banner. YAY for technology! YAY for being smart! YAY for not taking advantage of either and looking like an idiot!PS: I have decided to keep it that way. I'd like to say I'm doing that to serve as a constant reminder to myself to make sure I PROOFREAD, PROOFREAD AND PROOFREAD AGAIN but really it's just out of laziness.
One of my friends posted something on Facebook about not believing in resolutions but believing in hope. Then he went on to say he hoped for this and that in 2012.
Naturally, because I am a ponderer, I began to think about this statement. There was just something unsettling about it. Maybe it was because I do believe in resolutions and tend to get over-defensive when people I know disagree with my views (I know, I'm working on that,) but then I realized there was something more to it.
Hope is so very passive while resolving is proactive. Saying you hope to be happy and hope to be healthy in the new year is like saying, 'well, it's what I want but if it doesn't happen, oh well, it wasn't meant to be.' But saying, 'I resolve to focus more time doing things for myself and I resolve to eat healthier and exercise more,' is taking control and actively improving your quality of life.
So, with this, of course I have resolutions. Primarily, to finally once and for all take of the remainder of my baby weight, or at least firm up some residual flab. Mama's got a cute, little, polka dot bathing suit she wants to show off in Vegas this May. I also need to get over my fear of doctors and get myself checked out because there is seriously something wrong with me medically that I can't even begin to describe because it's far too humiliating. Additionally, I would like to spend more quality time one on one with each of my children. When you have multiple kids, it's easy to do things all together as a family, but I want each of my children to have equal amounts of special alone time with me.
Oh, and I have made resolutions for each of my kids. Johnny needs to stop being so slow at everything he does. Andy needs to be less sensitive and not cry and much. And Benny needs to be potty-trained and lose the binkie. Amen.
And with that, Happy New Year, friends.
I am a cat person. I am not a dog person. Not in the least bit. But I want an English Bulldog puppy so bad that it makes my heart ache. Every time I see one, I cry a little bit because they're cuteness is so great that it actually hurts.
I have been thinking nonstop about these little buggers and how badly I want to squeeze and squish and kiss and love on one of them that it was inevitable that I would have a dream about one. Like, literally dream about it.
The other night I dreamed that this little sweetie was sitting on my dining room chair, looking up at me with those adorable sad looking puppy eyes and I was squeezing and squishing and kissing and loving on her and she was just gratefully and happily soaking it all in. Then, because even my dream life is messed up, the vet called and told me she had a cancerous brain tumor and she died.
Her name was Rosa Barks.
Rest in peace, little Rosa Barks. You were loved and will be missed more than you will ever know. You were the dog of my dreams, little Rosa Barks.
I am a closet cool person.
I used to be outwardly cool but now I secretly wear my cool on the inside like Clark Kent with his electric blue tights and cape.
In the height of my coolness, I was a quirky eccentric artist type who stepped into luck without realizing what was happening. By utter coincidence and perfect timing, I landed a job running an art gallery and got to hobnob with some fancy-pants people among a local arts community. I was fancy. I was interviewed by magazines and newspapers for my reviews of artists and galleries, sought after for my professional advice, and found that my name was a name that was often dropped when fancy people namedropped other fancy people. I was fancy. Fancy and cool.
Let it be known that all of this occurred in my very early twenties. I peaked at 22, more than a decade ago.
Where did it all go wrong? When did I lose my cool? How did I stop being fancy? I won’t blame it all on having kids, but a great deal of fault lies heavily upon them. I lost my fancy coolness as well as my waistline when I had my kids.
The truth is, being a fancy-pants artist gives the illusion of fancy-pants success, but I was flat busted broke and had bills to pay. So, I packed up, moved home, and traded my paint brushes for a job as a cubicle dweller in corporate America. Bo-ring.
However, without making this decision, I would never have met the love of my life who is also a closet cool. Together, we built a life in the suburbs and took civilian jobs to support our growing family. Now we spend our weekends remodeling bathrooms, driving to baseball games and piano lessons, fulfilling obligatory PTA duties and watching the Food Network. But we do it with secrets. I still wear black nail polish, he still wears Chuck Taylors and we both still hum lyrics to The Cure to ourselves.
We might lead boring lives, but we’re nurturing some cool kids along the way who will hopefully one day lead fancy-pants lives themselves. Our piano playing oldest has been begging for a baby grand piano so he can one day learn to bang his stool on the keys like Ben Folds. Our middle is an actual living, breathing, bona fide superhero. And the baby, well, he’s destined for great things of the Cirque du Soleil variety.
My days of living outwardly cool might be over, but I see great things in the futures of my children and believe the sacrifices have definitely been worth it.
I have cool kids.
Writing is where I find comfort. It always has been and I really don't understand why I try to think otherwise. It's been far too long that I've been away from my dear 'Mommyhood,' and I have tried a plethora of odd sorts to remedy my stress and anxiety but have never quite been able to shirk this unsettled feeling inside of me.
I'm sure it's because I miss writing.
Some people drink, some people smoke, some people do other self-soothing and, more often than not, self-destructive things, but me? I write. It just makes me feel better, plain and simple. Don't get me wrong, I overindulge in just about every vice I can get my hands on, but writing is the only thing that actually eases my soul and makes me feel somewhat accomplished.
I don’t even know if people still blog anymore. I first saw the fate of ‘Mommyhood’ decline with the emergence of MySpace then Facebook. Ah, Facebook. I love me some Facebook. The bug of microblogging interlaced with the ease of photo uploading and the access to hundreds of my closest family and friends killed ‘Mommyhood’ for good. God help us all that I still haven’t deemed myself interesting enough to jump into the pool of Twitter. Seriously, the world just isn’t ready. Not even close.
I miss ‘Mommyhood.’ It opened with the birth of my first child, chronicled the pregnancy and birth of my second and closed for good with the birth of my number three. There is so much that I lost that day when I decided not to renew the site. All of the pictures, stories, memories and random letters were gone in an instant. I still feel a lump grow in my chest thinking about it.
But, ‘do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.’ And so I am here, once again, sharing my story with the world because sometimes 420 characters just isn’t enough.
