The beast strikes again.

I am going back to therapy. 

It's been gnawing at me for a while now and I am fully aware that depression has its nasty black claws around my neck again. 

And then I saw this:

Well, I know that I have a history of depression, and in fact am postivie that I am slipping as you read this.  But the question remains: do I have a "negative parenting style? Lets see...Do I say NO more than I say YES? Check. Do I yell at her more than I think is normal? Probably. Am I critical and easily frustrated? Not so much critical, but certainly easily frustrated. So overall, yeah. That might describe me. So I am an asshole sometimes. But my kid is too!

"Preschoolers whose parents are depressed get stressed out more easily than kids with healthy parents, but only if their mothers have a negative parenting style, according to a new study.


The research, set to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, measured the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in kids' saliva after mildly stressful experiences, such as interacting with a stranger. The researchers found that cortisol spikes were more extreme in kids whose parents had a history of depression and also exhibited a critical, easily frustrated parenting style."

I have a shitload of stupid things every day that push me to the edge and I am not always capable of handling them in a way that is even remotely helpful or constructive. And I sleep a lot more than I should be allowed to considering that I have a small child. I cry a lot and I have no motivation to do...well...anything most of the time. And this is WITH medication.   I want to be functional as a mother and I want to start now.  But as I kept reading I found out it may not even matter.

"Earlier studies have found that people with depression often have abnormal cortisol spikes in response to stress, suggesting that problems with the body's stress-regulation system are a risk factor for — or at least a hallmark of — depression. Several studies have found these abnormal reactions in very young babies of depressed mothers, which could mean the system is disrupted either in utero or very early in life.


But it's difficult to tease out the early influences on the body's stress hormone system. Genetics are likely partially to blame, Dougherty and her colleagues wrote. The changes could come about because of biochemical influences in the womb or because of the way depressed moms interact with their babies. Most likely, it's a combination of all of these factors."

This is my normal kid now...as I am apparently destorying her life.

My depression is something that has followed me throughout my life. I was diagnosed first at 14. I went through my twenties in and out of therapy. My postpartum depression is the stuff of legend. And the fact that I still struggle with it makes me want to scream. But to realize that I am totally ruining my kid's life as well (and not just because I am blogging about her and this shit will still be on the interwebs when she is a teenager) is really upsetting.

"Just having a depressed parent didn't make kids more prone to cortisol spikes, but having a depressed mother with a hostile parenting style did. The study was just a one-time snapshot of stress response, so researchers can't say for sure that hostile parenting by depressed parents causes the spikes, just that there is a correlation.

...If parenting style interacts with genetic and other environmental influences to send kids' stress sky-high, early treatment may help, Dougherty said. Helping parents interact positively with their kids might be especially important early in life, the researchers wrote, because the stress regulatory system is still developing."

Yeah, so according to this article, no matter what I do my kid is fucked. Or not. I mean, I always just assumed that having me as a mother would ensure at least a decade of therapy even before I ever considered having children. But perhaps I am still in the window where I can try to prevent her from succumbing to my miserable fate. 

I wouldn't wish this on anyone, let alone my own flesh and blood.  And I am terrified that one day she will turn on me.  One day she'll be my regular kid who is a pain in the ass, and the next moment she'll be the douchy goth child who writes bad poetry and slits her wrists for attention. 

And this is my kid in 5 years after my depression ruins her life.  Obviously.

In truth though, the motivation for therapy isn't strictly because of her.  I am tired of feeling this way all the time.  I am tired of not wanting to do anything.  I am tired of having to battle my negativity to FORCE myself to type up a new blog post.  I am just tired of being tired.

So I made an appointment with a grad student at the University's counseling program.  I dont have insurance so this seems like a decent option financially.  I dread the idea that this girl will be all of 16 and not know anything about life but we'll see.  Wish me luck.
Here's the full article.
Great! So then the damage is already done. FANTASTIC! I knew it. I ruined my kid before she was even out of the oven. No need to put on the frosting and the sprinkles if the cake comes out burnt.

Being kind to myself does not suck.

So I wrote and submitted a piece to Band Back Together (one of my favorite sites to stalk and contribute things to...sometimes anonymously) and they chose this one to post. 

OK. So the BB2G World Tour theme for March is “Be Kind to Yourself.” And there are about a thousand things I can think to do that would be nice to do for myself. I could book a massage or buy some new music or get my hair and nails done. Those things are ways of physically pampering myself, but I don’t know that they’re my definition of “kindness.”


To be kind, I have to stop being an asshole to myself.

I bet you want to know how I intend to do that, huh?  Well, go here.

For any of you who are not in the process of MAKING 2011 YOUR BITCH, I recommend you go see how.

...And Nobody Told Me...

My struggle with postpartum depression strikes again!  This time on the fantastic guest-contributor driven blog, And Nobody Told Me...

Please click, read and then wander around the other posts.  You'll find at least a few of my blog friends there too!

Straight to my post, "....That postpartum depression is a different beast"

Mr. Sunday Night Special

Do you know this man?

My kid does.  OH YES, she does.

This is Tom Bergeron.  You may know him from Dancing with the Stars.  But this is not where we know "The Berge" from. 

Lila is obsessed with Tom Bergeron.  Every Sunday around 4 pm, she gets all ornery and starts demanding we eat dinner right away so that she can have her bath and be ready in time for what she calls, "The Berge".  You see, there was a time not so long ago, when we had the DVR and we could watch old episodes of what Lila calls "America's Homiest Funniest Homiest Videos" whenever it struck her fancy.  Several months ago, however, we gave up the cable TV, so now we only get to watch The Berge and "people getting hurt" (her other name for the show) when it is airs on ABC at 7:00 on Sundays.

I am personally kind of shocked that AFV is still on TV.  I mean, with all the viral videos that are all over the interwebs and all...but that show continues to delight my kid no matter how many kittens she sees swinging from ceiling fans; no matter how many douchbags catch a railing to the balls; no matter how many grandmas miss their chairs and plop down on their Depends.  It just does not get old for her.

On a related note, some of you are by now aware of my crush on Bob Sagat.  I love Bob Sagat because many people see him simply as the fun-loving dad on Full House or the once goofy commentator/host of AFV (in the days BEFORE The Berge).  But if you have ever seen his comedy routine or read the tabloids, you know that he is the filthiest, foul-mouthed, weird, creepy, older guy to ever spend months hanging around the Playboy mansion.  And I LOVE that about him!

Lila DOES NOT share my enthusiasm for Bob Sagat.  In fact, not too long ago, we watched a 20th (or 15th or 25th I am really not sure what it was) Anniversary show and The Berge was joined by my horndog crush Mr. Sagat.  Immediately, Lila's face soured the minute she spotted him. 

"WHO IS THAT GUY???"  She spit out at me. 

"That's Bob Sagat," I told her.  "He's really funny.  Mommy really likes him.  It is going to be an AWESOME AFV with this guy on!" 

She wasn't even remotely seeing it.  "I DO NOT like Tom Begeron's friend!"

I wondered how my other weird crushes would fare in her opinion.  Would she appreciate Joe Biden's hair style?  Would she accuse Louis CK of being a filthy ginger? It's a good thing I am OVER Stephen Colbert because I am sure she wouldn't appreciate his tone.

So tonight (actually in about ten minutes) just like mostly ever other Sunday evening will be spent with The Berge, along with Lila, Ben and our cat, The Asshole.  If I'm really lucky we will have a few laughs and some nice quiet time eating popcorn and being one big happy not-so-funny family.

Saturday Shitlist

I spent a lot of time tooling around the interwebs this week and thanks to #1, I really found a minimal amount of things to put on the list this week.  Feel free to add your own.  I will even give you a grade for participation!

1. The Cold Virus or the Flu, whatever the hell this shit is.  It LOOKS like a cold- all coughs and sneezes, but it FEELS like the Flu, in that I am so exhausted and miserable that I called in sick to work and haven't left the house since Tuesday. 

2. Harry Hunters.  Jesus H. Christ on a crutch! Have you seen these assholes?  (If not, read this )
Yeah, you're going to find Prince fucking Harry and marry him by stalking him for several weeks before his brother's wedding.  I am sure he'd be thrilled to marry some slutty American chick who has a stash of postcards of him and his brother rubber banded together and shoved in her bra. 

I think Harry said it best:

Good luck ladydouches.

3. The entire world.  Has everyone gone fucking crazy?  Because I thought that crazy was my domain.

Hot off the runway for Summer '11.

4. My local community health center.  For adding an large dollop of stress onto my already thoroughly thinly stretched finances and still not managing to cure me.  It's bad enough that I don't have health insurance and have to sit in the ghetto-ass waiting room but then you can't even get my paperwork right so I'm not billed $400 for a Thyroid test that I only got because you told me it was going to cost "next to nothing"?  AND you can't find the results!  FUCK YOU ASSHOLES!!!

5. Thomas the Tank Engine.  Wait a second!  I LOVE the NORMAL Thomas.  The simplicity of narrating a bunch of model trains around a neat little model city.  And two of my FAVORITE people on earth narrated!  FANTASTIC!  What I'm talking about is this bullshit computer animated, the trains all talk and have different voices bullshit.  Now it's just another lame cartoon.  And nothing even blows up!

And there was this.  Now it's a lame cartoon.

5. Old Navy's new annoying "Layer Player" bullshit commercial.  As I mentioned above, I have been sick in the house for several days and I don't have cable.  So on my 6 or so channels, I have seen this fucking commercial about 4,793 times.  I have broken down the dance moves in my mind.  They are playing it one every channel during every show.  No, really.  I refuse to embed it on my blog, but here's the link if you want to torture yourself with it:  LINKY

6. The Lottery Mega Millions $312 Million Jackpot.  I don't play the lottery because I am the unluckiest person I know.  But Ben did play and I would have been happy if he matched like 2 of the 6 numbers.  He played 10 different quick-picks.  You know how many of the final 6 numbers he had TOTAL on all his plays?  ONE.

The other reason I don't play the "numbers".
(If you don't get this one, you're not a Lostie)

7. Which reminds me, I am STILL FUCKING PISSED about the ending of Lost. 

Post-Partum Depression Sucks!

My post is appearing on My Postpartum Voice as the Postpartum Voice of the Week.  Go check it out and show some love.  This is the first time I am appearing anywhere outside of my own blog and facebook!

In honor of this, I am going to repost my original online journal entries below. 

And she made this for my post (which I LOVE):





My original post-partum journal entries:

I decided not to edit it at all and left all of it as it was originally posted, F-bombs and all.  I wanted it to show not just the emotion of it, but also the ups and downs (mostly downs) and hopes and despair as I felt it.  It seems to cut off randomly, but that was when I started feeling better and never thought to keep it going because someday, someone might need some encourgagement (I'm selfish like that!).   
-Selena 

Sunday, July 29, 2007



3:28 PM - Fucking Hell Child Cometh

It's happened, just as I knew it would. After two and a half weeks of being sweet and cute and wonderful, suddenly the kid has sprouted the figurative horns and turned into Hell Child.

It was so easy in the beginning. They trick you like that you know. She slept a sleep that only the new and unknowing could sleep. She woke up lightly and showed us she was hungry, not by crying - like most inferior children- but by frantically trying to shove her whole hand in her mouth. It was cute. And she would suck down what we gave her and drift into this coma-like state again until several hours had passed, and the time came and we heard her little belly rumble and she would stir and need more sucking time.


We cuddled her endlessly and tried (what were we thinking?) to get her to wake up and hang out with us. We tried the swing and bouncy seat and nothing worked and we would put her back in her little bassinet and watch her eyes roll around and her facial expressions change as the little angel that we had made dreamed.


And then suddenly she woke up crying at 2 in the afternoon. And she cried and we fed her and she calmed down, but didn't sleep. And she fussed, and grunted and fidgeted. And then she cried some more. So we picked her up. We rocked her. And at first that worked. But then she cried some more so we walked her around the house. We played soft music. We played loud music and ran the vacuum. We begged her to stop and we fed her some more. We wrapped her tightly and we changed her diapers obsessively. And she would calm down, and drift off to sleep. So we would set her down, ever so carefully...


And then she started screaming again.


The doctors have us trying different formulas. And that's great if you have like $23 to waste every 2 days and don't mind having a baby whose gas smells worse than her fathers' and who still screams all day until she wears herself out at 11:00 at night.


My mom will be leaving next Sunday. And I worry that Hell Child is just getting started. What will I do when Ben goes to work and leaves me alone with the beast who demands my constant rocking/bouncing/walking/feeding/singing? How will I eat? How will I pee? And how do you let a baby cry, even for a few minutes, who seems so obviously uncomfortable and appears, by all accounts, to be in some kind of invisible pain?


The experts online and in books and at the doctors office tell me that "luckily" it only lasts until about 3 or 4 months. ONLY THREE OR FOUR MONTHS!!!! To which I want to say, "okay...I will drop her off for a few hours each day and you let me know how fucking interminable those "few" months work out to be". What happens when I need to go back to work? How do I leave a screaming monster with someone else?


.....................................


Sunday, August 12, 2007


1:05 PM - getting by...


Lila has had a couple of good days. Thursday afternoon she slept for a few hours straight and didnt have a fit at all...


Friday was a great day and I even took her out for a few hours without incident.


Here's the thing. So the Doctor had us switch from Soy formula to this hypoallergenic crap that smelled awful a few weeks ago because she was getting really grumpy and crying alot.


As the days progressed, the crying got worse and that was when we got her the medicine and it seemed to not be doing much, but the doc told us to hang in there and that it would take a few days. He was concerned about the fact that she was only eating 2 oz of the hypoallergenic formula at a feeding and thought that she would eat better (and sleep better) once her belly felt better.


Thursday, Ben (in a moment of pure parental intuition) wanted to see if she would eat more of the Soy. And she did. She ate 4oz of it. So we were back to the regular soy, and by that afternoon she seemed to feel quite a bit better. And like I said, Friday was great.


Saturday morning Ben gave her a feeding with the hypo-allergenic stuff. She hated it, and only ate a little, and cried afterward. We went back to soy with her next feeding and she was good until later on in the day, when apparently all hell was breaking loose in her gut and she started crying and fussing and being irritable again like she had been before. NOT


AS BAD...She is quite a bit better, but she was PISSED OFF...

WHY AM I GOING INTO ALL THIS?


Because I am trying to keep it straight in my head.


I wake up every morning with anxiety about the day. It gets better as the day progresses and I have no trouble taking care of her once the day starts, but there is this utter dread that hangs over me. I physically feel terrified, even though I know rationally that there is nothing really terrifying happening.


I am trying to not get my hopes up that we found the "cure" to Lila's problems. I am trying to take it one day at a time and remember that even if she is better, she will have bad days. I am also trying to remember what I used to have to tell myself at work when there were 1000 things going on and it seemed like it would never get finished… "This will happen whether I get all upset about it or not…so why get all stressed out?"


I am trying to be all Zen-like and live moment by moment, telling myself "right now the baby is calm…it doesn't matter what she will be like in an hour…I will deal with that then…" and yet when I imagine the rest of the day (any day) I am filled with tension and scared to death.


Ben has been wonderful. Seriously. It kind of pisses me off that he is so natural with her. He doesn't get frazzled and is not bothered by her crying. He actually lets her cry a little because he says he waits to see if she will calm herself down (she usually doesn't). He has given me mini "days off" where he does all her feedings and attends to her so that I can relax, nap and get out of the house. The only catch is that I still do all the night feedings because he goes to work so early.


Once we get her feeling better, we can start trying to get her on a schedule so that maybe she will sleep for a 5 or 6 hour stretch at night. Until then, I just have to try to keep functioning through the fog, running mostly in survival mode trying not to let the fact that I really only get a couple of 2-3 hour naps at night that are supposed to pass for sleep make me crazy.


12:37 AM - the worst mother ever...


Is it wrong that when the baby cries I stop to get the camera and take a picture before I attend to her???

You have to admit...it's funny...






Selena


............................................


Tuesday, August 14, 2007


4:47 PM - Fucking meltdown


I am not okay. I had a meltdown yesterday and called my mom and asked her to come back out here and rescue me.

I am so nervous and cry for no reason. I can't eat and I have gone into the sleep thing. I am a fucking disaster. But I know it. And I am working on it.


I feel totally clueless as to how to deal with an infant. Even when she's not crying or upset I still feel like I have no idea how to handle her. It seems really easy to everyone else.


Shit.


.............................


Wednesday, August 15, 2007


7:04 AM - Another day




Its 7am and the baby is asleep still. I want to sleep too but I am so fucking terrified of being alone with her all day. And I don't know why.


I am perfectly capable of taking care of her. She is getting a lot easier now that the tummy stuff is under control and now that I can put her down for naps and know that she will cry herself to sleep after a few minutes and so I have little breaks.


So why then, am I still so fucking upset. I wake up with knots in my stomach and cry and beg Ben not to go to work. And it's completely irrational because like I said, I know I am capable of handling it. I can't nap when she does because she naps in these short bursts unless someone is holding her, and then she can sleep continuously for ab hour or more. So by the time I get her down and she finally falls asleep, and I lay down, I generally have 20 minutes to half an hour and it takes me that long to fall out. So then she is awake.


Even when Ben is here and he is tending to her I lay there, half awake waiting for her cry. And when she does, even if she is in the other room and it is muffled by the closed door, I get this panicky terror feeling when I hear her. And of course, when I go to her, everything is fine and there is nothing to be afraid of.


I am afraid of wanting to hurt her. Let me make that clear. I don't have thoughts of hurting her. I am afraid that at some point I might have thoughts about hurting her. How fucking twisted is that???


My mom is dropping everything to come back out here to rescue me. And I am even nervous about that. Ben is really pissed that I am so needy, like I should be able to just buck up and handle it. I can't make someone who has never been depressed or plagued with this kind of anxiety understand. But I have a feeling that if you are reading this, you get it and you've been there.


I made an appointment to see a shrink Monday. And the fact that I am doing something is a bit of a comfort for me. Like I am at least not just giving up. Not that I have a choice...


...........................


Thursday, August 16, 2007 11:07 AM - Baby




My mom will be here today and now I am feeling a little less terrified. But this also opens up new things that worry me.


I don't think my mom will be okay with our choice to let Lila cry it out for naps throughout the day. Ben is upset that we can't get a nice family routine down before I go back to work. And even worse is the idea that I have to go back to work.


Part of me looks forward to the interaction and getting away, but the other part doesn't want to leave the baby and even more of me worries that my emotional state will cause me problems (I have been there before, but now I don't have the luxury of just bailing out on a job because I don't feel like going).


I need to tell everyone what I intend to do as far as hours and scheduling and coordinate with the lady that has offered to watch the baby for a few hours a day, and I just feel so hesitant to do anything. I don't think I can make a good decision or even a bad decision. I don't feel like I can even think about what happens in a couple of weeks.


I didn't cry yesterday at all. But my nerves are still a mess. I wish I could get a hold of myself and just "suck it up" which is what Ben recommends I do...


Easier said than done.


....................................


Friday, August 17, 2007


8:19 AM - Mom to the rescue




My mother flew back out here yesterday for me. I feel stupid because she thinks I need help with the baby but the truth is that I just want her here. I can handle the baby. I think...


I am a mess myself. I am really nervous. I am angry and upset all day. I feel unhappy with everything in a very non-specific way. Like I am not interested in the new role or new path that I am taking. I don't want to have to revolve my life around anyone else. Let alone a little blob that screams at me for reasons that I can't make out.


And yet in some ways I am thrilled. I have meaning and responsibility and purpose that I didnt have before. And that's fucking terrifying. It's overwhelming. This is a job with no "out." I can't just give it up. This is my life now and forever. I will never be just me again. I am me with this part of me out there that I also will need to tend to, because I did such a good job of tending just to myself and all...


I was miserable alone. I was miserable and clueless and directionless. And now I have this thing that is a defining aspect of my life and I am hesitant to follow it. I don't want to. I want to send it back and be back to just being me. I want to be just me. I want to be alone and just me.


I am sad that I feel that way. I am sad that on some level I want to reject her because she is so fucking worthy of my full love and attention. I am sad that I want to run away and pretend this never happened. I am sad that it is real.




A part of me understands that I am allowed to feel like this and that it is just an adjustment that I am making. A part of me knows that in a few months life will be "normal" and she will be the center. But getting to that point is scary for me. I want to be able to stand up and take on the mom role and be supermom without any question because Lila deserves that.




I just don't really think I can.




.................................


Saturday, August 18, 2007 8:22 AM - Something good happened...


Yesterday was a good day. I am still waking up nervous and sick, and I am still having these crying jags for no reason. I am still saying I don't want to be a mother. But yesterday afternoon something happened.


The baby found her thumbs. This sounds stupid, but she has a hard time going to sleep unless she is sucking. Apparently, sucking is very soothing to a baby. And at one point I put her in her little swing and she popped out the pacifier and got all upset and before I had the chance to get back to her she had stuck her hand in her mouth and realized that if she stuck out her thumb she could suck on that. It only lasted a few minutes and she started waving her hands around like a maniac again, but it was exciting when about 20 minutes later she did it again.


That's not all. She is gaining control of her head. When I hold her up to burp her, she refuses to put her head down. And she is learning not to be so floppy with it. It's cheesy but I felt so proud of her because they learn coordination from the top down (i.e. Head control, then they sit up, then they stand up). She isn't even 6 weeks and she is becoming human.


Finally, last evening, I was finished feeding her and we were just sitting in front of the window. I had her on my lap facing outward and was playing with her little legs, making her dance to the music I was making up humming to her. She turned her head up toward me, and took a minute to look at my face, then smiled this huge smile. She stared for a few seconds, and started making noises like she was happy and trying to talk to me. She smiled some more. And she wasn't pooping or anything (thats how I got the pic I am using as my default). She just recognized me.


That was the coolest fucking thing that has ever happened in my whole life...


Selena


.............................


6:38 PM - A shrink and a crying kid


Right now Lila is screaming at Ben. I am okay though because I took a Xanax.


I had my appointment today with a Dr. for my post-partum crazies. I was apprehensive because of the whole drama of making the appointment. Basically, I called every shrink on my insurance and he was the only one accepting new patients, but he answered his own phone and then told me the secretary would call me right back. Then he called me back a few minutes later to tell me she would be calling me in a few minutes. I was confused as to why he seemed so desperate for my business, but he was the only doctor taking new patients so I went with it.


His office is a dumpy little place in an 80's style office building in Tempe. When I walked in there was no receptionist and as a new patient I was told to arrive early to complete my paperwork. The office had terrible blue industrial carpets and some severely faded bad art depicting sailboats on the wall. After sitting in the waiting room for 10 minutes across from a rather large hispanic woman who was breathing heavily and reading People magazine, the doctor himself came out. He called her name and told me the receptionist will be right with me.


A few minutes later a tall 40 something blonde biker-esque woman comes through the door, presumably from her lunch break and hands me a stack of papers to fill out. I do so dutifully, as I am desperate for some relief and really just need someone with a license to write a prescription. I don't care that this office makes me feel like I am having a nightmare or that the smell of the coffee burning in the coffee maker in the corner is making me sick. I will never understand why there are 6 different forms that ask for the same information about insurance only in different formats, but I fill them all out.


When the doc calls me in, I am appalled by his office. Between the peeling paint, the thick layer of dust and the stacks of papers, I can barely focus, but he instructs me to sit in this rather uncomfortable and tiny chair and when I sit in it I sink to about a foot from the floor. The chair is a pattern that you see in cheap furniture stores, all velour and forest green and maroon and plum with shapes on it. I feel like some kind of dwarf and feel like this is a psychological tactic to make me docile but who knows. I suppose he sees real crazies there and not just sad moms who hate their babies.


The thing is that as we got talking I really liked him. He's a genuinely nice guy. He was very interested in things other than just what he could prescribe me and in fact said that he refused to over-medicate me and wanted to error on the side of caution and not up my dosage too high right away. He told me about his sister, the Roman Catholic nun and I told him about my demon child. He joked about exorcisms in the area (if you dont watch the news you won't get that one) and I assured him that even though my kid was likely the spawn of satan I would not hurt her. He reminded me of Robin Williams's character in Good Will Hunting. Harmless, a little vulnerable maybe, but smart.


He offered me bubble gum. And he blew a bubble himself. Why I found this comforting I do not know, but he made me feel like in a few weeks I would be fine. He sent me out with a prescription and orders to call him in 2 weeks with my progress in case he did indeed need to raise my dosage of happy pills.


He told me to get some sleep and prescribed something for me to take. He insisted I ask for help and take it so that I could rest a little.


Why I feel so at ease now probably has more to do with the drugs than any actual improvement in my situation. Like I said, the kid is pretty pissed off still, and is still crying, despite the fact that I have been typing for 10 minutes now. But I don't care. I will let Ben deal with her. I know she'll be fine. Maybe I'll even be fine.


............................




Tuesday, August 21, 2007 11:44 AM - Another day...Another day


I feel so shitty that I don't like my kid. And that isnt even entirely true. She is adorable and cute and wonderful and she smiles at me and makes faces and tries to coo at me. And I love her for it.

But the mundane day to day of holding her and feeding her and changing her and attempting to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her when she cried suddenly for absolutely no discernable reason is exhausting. I feel like a failure at this mother thing. And I am doubly disappointed because for the first few weeks it seemed so natural and I felt so into it. I was in the moment and I was her mommy and I jumped when she fussed and wanted nothing more than to make her happy.


Now I look at her and think "please sleep all day so that I don't have to deal with you."


What the hell kind of person am I? Have I failed at the most natural thing a girl is supposed to do? What if I never really feel like she is mine? Like she is some visitor that has overstayed her welcome and I want her to go home already? She has no where to go. And when I think about this, I wonder, "would I even miss her?" Is that what I need to feel something for her? To be away? Or would I enjoy my freedom so much that I could abandon her forever? I never imagined I would be feeling this way.


Maybe I should have myself committed. Its sad when you think that the mental hospital is appealing as a vacation spot because it somehow absolves you of the responsibility for feeling and being present in your own life. No one would blame me for taking off if that is where I landed. I would be considered "sick" and people would rush in to help me and to tell me how no one would be mad at someone with cancer for needing a hospital stay, even if there was this completely dependent little being at home who needs me endlessly.


I just pray that this gloom lets up a little bit, and soon. I pray that she never has to know that I feel this way about her. I pray that someday I stop feeling like she has taken me away from myself and turned me into this "other thing" that remembers the old me and mourns for her. I hope that someday I stop resenting her for being so needy. She's just a baby. She's just a baby.


I am the grown up here. I have to pretend I am okay for her sake, right? Or does it even matter? She won't remember me like this. And maybe by the time she knows what is going on I will have mastered the art of wanting to be her mom. Or at least I will fool myself into believing that its what I want. Even as I type it, I feel that somewhere in there, I actually do want that. And that I could be good at it, if only I didn't feel so fucking unreal.

A Little Squeeze?

My kid is the Goddamned Ketchup Nazi. 

She insists on ketchup with every meal.  Eggs with Ketchup for breakfast. Grilled cheese with ketchup for lunch.  Pasta with ketchup for dinner.  And although I cringe to think about the sheer amount of high-fructose corn syrup she ingests every day, I am happy that there is something that makes her eat carrot sticks or non-nuggetized chicken.  Plus, I hear that in school cafetierias they actually consider ketchup a vegetable. 

But this new phase is really getting on my nerves.

Lila refuses to share her ketchup with the rest of the family.  We rarely eat foods at home that ACTUALLY require ketchup so in that way, I guess we're lucky. 

But we go out to eat a lot.  I realize I should be ashamed of how often we eat out but I just wrote a piece for Band Back Together about accepting that I am not perfect and not eating at home is one of those things that I just don't give a shit about, broke or not.  I WILL eat out twice a week.  It's my guilty pleasure. 

So as I have mentioned in a previous post (see here) we go to Friendly's a lot.  The last time we were there, I ordered a burger (which I never do because I am terrified of raw ground beef) but I was premenstrual and needed some iron so I ordered one.  When the server brought our meals, Lila snatched the ketchup and happily squeezed several small dots around her plate of Friendly Frank and mac and cheese.  I waited until she snapped the top back on and set it down so that I could ask her politely to "please pass the ketchup."

The look on her face was one of utter disgust, as if I had just asked her to pass the kitten entrails.  She just stared at me.

"Um...Lila...can I have the ketchup, please?  Now?"

She leaned forward as if she was considering my motives.  Did she think I was going to molest the ketchup or something?  Did she think I was going to use it for evil?  Then she slowly picked up the ketchup bottle and set it on the seat next to her.


This is what I saw in my head.

"Lila.  GIVE ME THE KETCHUP.  SERIOUSLY.  KETCHUP NOW OR NO ICE CREAM!"

Of course, through all this, her father is just sitting there next to her blissfully (purposely) ignoring the ridiculous power struggle that was taking place right in front of him.  When Ben reached over and helped himself to the bottle of ketchup, completely oblivious to the fact that I was asking for it just seconds ago, Lila snatched it out of his hand and clutched it to her chest, having rescued her "Precious" from the grip of doom.

"Seriously, Lila?  Really?  You can't just share the ketchup?  That's fine.  The next time I am having something that I really like, I will refuse to share it too.  Hey, guess who isn't sharing my french fries?  Guess who isn't getting my Reese's Peanut Butter Cup off my sundae?  Guess who is never, ever, EVER getting a sip of my soda again?"

She just clung to her ketchup bottle.  Ben, in the meantime, had simply gotten up and gotten another bottle of ketchup from the next table.  He never gets the underlying POINT of making her do things she doesn't like to do.  He tends to believe that these stupid power struggles are best left unfought.  I (obviously) tend to get sucked right into them and turn into a kid myself saying stupid things that just make her think it's funny to upset me.

After we were all finished with dinner and had put in our order for ice cream (because it is seriously just MEAN to not allow a kid to have ice cream at Friendly's no matter how unable to behave they may be), Lila put the ketchup back on the table and said, "You can use it on your ice cream if you want.  Can I still have your candy?"

"Mother Fucker!" I thought.

Just call me MOMMY

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article in which the author (whose name I don’t want to put out this soon because you will be distracted by it for the rest of the post – OH OK…) TAFFY Brodesser-Akner, says that the group of women who blog about being mothers should not be called “Mommy Bloggers” because it is somehow degrading and discounts their writing by calling them “just mommies”. She believes that using the term “Mommy” makes us relate to each other like children and the fact that we’re not acting like dignified adults in the different ways to raise our children (aka the Mommy Wars) is because we openly use the word “Mommy” to describe ourselves.

(read the original post here)


On first glance, I was totally on board with this. I used to see myself as a feminist. That is, until I had my kid. Because there truly IS no such thing as equal parenting, no matter how much the father tries to help. Mommy is something magical and feminine and no matter how much we may wish it and will it to not be true, and no matter how wonderful a father is, mommy is a very unique relation that cannot be replicated by daddy. But back to my point…

I read this and found that much of it is probably meant to be inflammatory and there I was, suckered into this emotional manipulation .

“I am mystified: Why is anyone other than my 3-year old (and his 8-month old brother eventually, but not yet) calling me Mommy? Why are we grown women calling each other Mommy? Is being a mother such a silly avocation that we have to baby it up, stringing it with the hormones and gushy feelings of what our children call us? Does it strike anyone that calling a woman who has had a child Mommy is demeaning and infantilizing? Does it strike anyone that calling philosophical disagreements Mommy Wars is no different than screaming “GIRL FIGHT!” as two strippers go at it in a mud pit?”

“Wow!” I thought. “This is a really good point. She’s totally right!” I flashed to the whole school-girl fashion trend that happened briefly in the early 2000’s and how I HATED it just because it was, at its essence, a bunch of dumb women being slutty and indulging male dominance fantasies and in a twist of unreality, calling it feminism. “Shit.” I automatically felt my nostrils flair. “The MAN wants to call us Mommy because it means we’re dumb and subservient and full of sunshine and love! It’s another fucking trick for the MAN to keep me down!”

But I kept reading.

“Women began to identify with the name Mommy and started not to mind when businesses would market to them as such: The Mommy Hook is a clip that hangs off my stroller and holds on to shopping bag. The Mommy Necklace is a necklace your child can’t choke on. Mommy Make-Up promises I can “look divine in half the time.”

We are being marketed to as this squishy thing—the Mommy—which confirms our needs but calls us names while doing it. Because when a woman calls herself a Mommy, she is, in some ways, identifying with her captors.”

“YEAH!” I thought! “The only thing I hate more than the MAN keeping me down is advertisers keeping me down! Fuck those dudes on Mad Men! Don Draper isn’t going to trap me in his fancy web!”

Wait, did they have robots in the 1960's?


But then I got to this and my entire take on this article changed:

“Now, I won’t demean the Mommy blogger. I will, however, say that when you call yourself a Mommy, you are signaling to the world that you might not take your writing so seriously and maybe we shouldn’t either.”

Not for nothing, but if I wanted to be a serious writer, I wouldn’t be doing a blog called BecauseMotherhoodSucks. I want my writing to be easily related to and pretty self-deprecating and not a little bit humorous and not take itself seriously. Most of the mothers I see out there blogging are not trying to win a Pulitzer. We’re just laughing it off and trying to connect with other mothers like us.



Doesn't want to be called 'Mommy'

 Just as I was thinking, “This bitch is taking this whole thing WAAAY too seriously,” I read this:

“Maybe you think I’m taking this too seriously. But consider this: When we allow our children to name us, a name they use before they can speak, and then we go by that name in the world, are we doing them any favors? When our children see that we are first and foremost a mother, and a mother in their terms, I believe they suffer.

And they do. Who is this woman who identifies with being called Mommy by strangers? Who is the woman who has abandoned every other thing she is, has been, or ever will be in favor of being known only as her kids’ mother? (And how’s her marriage doing?) Worst yet, who of these women doesn’t know that her children will grow up, move on, call her something more dignified…and then where will she be? What shall we call her then?”

My first thought was, “My kid cannot grow up and move on soon enough" (but that’s another blog), but my very second thought was “Once a woman is a mother, she is always a mother. She is ALWAYS MOMMY to her child…”  To me, being “Mommy” to someone other than my kid is not TRULY an option. It's not like anyone is actually confusing "Selena" the person with whoever they choose to call "Mommy".  I am pretty secure in the fact that writing a blog about motherhood and callling myself "Mommy" to my kid or on my blog is not a big deal...kind of like a straight guy who likes to wear pink. 



He's laughing because he ruined her life.

Does Taffy really think that I am not thrilled about motherhood simply BECAUSE I am a “Mommy Blogger” and this is making me into nothing more than a dumb mother? Have I lost my identity BECAUSE I identify with the “Mommy”? Is Lila a brat BECAUSE I am “Mommy” first and foremost? Maybe I am not who I think I am? Maybe sound like someone who’s smoked too much pot? Who’s looking in my window?

PLENTY of moms lose who they are when the baby shows up.  That's part of why the Mommy Blogger thing is so popular.  We see ourselves in this place that is logically kind of absurd, and yet it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“I have a horrible suspicion that different mothers with different views would hate each other less, that there would be no Mommy War, if there were no Mommy, if we all agreed that we are adults. Because agreeing to disagree is an adult thing, and it is the point at which civility is born. How can you have an adult conversation when you’re talking like a baby?”

OH, FUCK YOU TAFFY! Some mothers are just assholes. Just like not all kids are cute and some are actually homely little shits, some mothers are just fucking douchy. That mother who thinks you are a terrible mother because you aren’t into homeschooling your kid and making them eat organic tofu when they shoot out of the womb isn’t worth trying to convince otherwise. She will look stupid to me, and I will look neglectful to her. The mother who works two jobs who believes that she has no choice isn’t GOING to be convinced by the 24/7 housewife that letting her kids go without dinner as long as she gets to spend more time with them is the way to make them happier, more well-adjusted children. Sometimes we just don’t get to do all the things we want to do as mothers.



Only gives her kid name-brand termites.



So much of it comes from assholes like Taffy who sit on her side of the “Mommy” fence, I assume is built out of a couple of wonderful parents and plenty of support and help and a super strong self-identity and will likely never have to write a bullshit “Mommy blog” to vent her frustrations because she is completely satisfied with the life choices that led her to be able to write for such “dignified” venues as the Wall Street Journal. Not all of us feel that way.

 

My side of the Mommy Fence needs some work.

Some of us DID sideline our dreams of writing and chased other dreams instead. So now we blog. Some of us didn’t know we liked sharing ourselves with an audience until we started blogging about our kids. So now we blog. Some of us really enjoy just throwing shit out there, not to get paid for it as a professional to be taken totally seriously, but instead to write about our frustrations and pride in being the Mommy. So now we fucking BLOG!!!

I disagree with the idea that calling us “Mommy Bloggers” or “Mommy” ANYTHING is a bad thing. There IS something silly and childish about it. But you know what else it is? It’s temporary. We all KNOW that the time when our kids call us “Mommy” is so limited and transient. It will be over before we know it and we want to suck it up and hold on to that closeness and cuddling and the ability to satisfy most of what this little person needs in life right now. Because before we know it, we’ll just be “mom” and we’ll be embarrassing and ruining their lives with our curfews and rules.

So fuck you Taffy. Me and my Mommy Blogger friends don’t need the irony of someone named “Taffy” telling us how what we are called shapes how people see us.



From now on, just call me "Mommie Dearest Blogger"



Sunday Shitlist

I meant to post this yesterday, what with Sunday being some kind of special day for the Catholics or whatever, but I am posting it now so instead of Saturday Shitlist (which I hope to make a weekly thing) I am going to have a Sunday Shitlist of all the thing that have made it onto my list this week.

In no particular order:

1. Kids' haircut places. Can someone (a-hem...BEN) explain to me why we keep taking her to this place? First off, we waited for OVER AN HOUR when there was literally two kids ahead of us and there were at least 4 employees randomly milling about the place. They have these terrifying mascots that are hair implements come to life (an animated blow dryer? Really?) and show these characters in cartoons that Lila doesn't even watch because they're so lame. Oh, and lest I forget that it also cost me $22 with a tip and they didn't even wash or blow dry her hair. Why didn't we just go to Supercuts?

2.  Twitter. Everyone is on Twitter.  Everyone needs to be on Twitter.  So then why is the only interesting thing I have come across on Twitter in the last week when I was actually TRYING to get into Twitter coming from OMGFacts?  Seriously.  I am over Twitter.  Even Charlie Sheen isn't interesting on Twitter anymore.
3. The Cold Virus. I am extremely lucky that my kid doesn't get sick all that often. But when she does, she is the most miserable asshole on the planet. She refuses to sleep (or even sit still) and whines because she doesn't feel like playing and I can't do anything but sit on front of her and beg her to stop whining because the sound of it the inside of my head (and my womb) shrivel up.

4. The Irish. YES! We all get it. You're Irish. Well, no. You're not. You're ancestors were Irish. You're a dumb drunk! With a gigantic Irish-American population, Syracuse NY does not celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. Syracuse celebrates Saint Patrick's WEEK. And the official Thursday tide of green beer was washed from the sidewalks JUST IN TIME for the stupid NCAA tournament to start. I apologize to all of you who love the Irish and college basketball, but I fucking hate drunks. Particularly when they are blowing off fireworks outside the bar around the corner from my house or are running out into the street yelling and puking.

5. "Anonymous" comments. Please don't tell me that all my frustration "just sounds like bad parenting". It is. I am a terrible parent sometimes and I blog about it because I care. HOWEVER, because I am SURE you either have no children, or are one of those part-time dads (Oh, I KNOW YOU'RE MALE) who left before the real fun started, I think you are blind to the reality of being the "Mommy". Because kids save ALL THE BULLSHIT for the Mommy, no matter how fucking awesome she is.

6. Depression. I don't want to get into it, but Depression deserves to be on the shitlist for a variety of reasons.

7. Snack foods that are obviously laced with Angel Dust. Why the hell else would my kid turn into a raging maniac after polishing off a pack (containing, like, 4) Alvin and the Chipmunks "fruit snacks". You should just call them "meth snacks" because I am convinced that's what they are.

8. Boobs. No one told me that when I got fat enough for my boobs to grow that I would need to sleep with a pillow propped under them if I was a side sleeper. And do you guys know what happens when you wake up and you've been laying on your side for hours with no pillow? Pain. Like having barbels hanging from your armpits, draped across your body.  And the stifness in your breastbone like it has been folded in half.  Oh, this also happens with belly fat. Its fucking ridiculous and since I don't believe in diets I guess I need to figure something out.

9.  THIS WHOLE THING:   



Oh, Barry.  What happened to what we had?




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Just Trust Me

Three year olds do NOT like changes in their routines.  Actually, they don't generally feel so happy about things that ARE routine either, but that's another post.

Every day after work, I pick Lila up and we drive home the same way.  We take the back way, BEHIND the diner, over the train tracks, past the furniture store, over the bridge with the trains parked underneath, and onto the highway.  From there we drive past the lake and through downtown until we get to our exit and during that time, I usually have to answer a thousand questions about my day, the trains, traffic, the mall, birds, skyscrapers and anything else that Lila happens to think of as her mind wanders through our regular route.

But today is special.  It is November and Thanksgiving is next week so I know something that she doesn't.  So just as we pass the mall, I get into the right lane and she notices the off-ramp approaching.  I look in the rear-view mirror and see panic in her eyes.

"WHY ARE YOU GOING THIS WAY?" she says, doing her best impression of me when I want her to stop whatever annoying thing she's doing.

"We're taking a detour, sweetie.  I have something I want you to see."  I smile into the mirror as I take the curve a little too fast and come to a stop at the red light under the overpass.

"I don't LIKE detours!  I WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT TO GO HOME!  I WANT TO GO HOOOOOME!!!!"

The light turns green and we take the left turn that will bring it into sight.  "Lila, sweetie.  Can't you just trust me? You are going to LOVE what I am showing you.  If you just stop screaming and acting like a maniac and look up ahead, you will see it in about 30 seconds."

She continues to scream and throw as much of a fit as is possible while tightly strapped into the car seat with her billowy purple winter coat puffing out around the straps.  I see it coming into view, but she refuses to look and keeps yelling at me.

Another red light.

"Lila.  Liii-la. LI-LA!"  She looks at me through the grimacing and pouty face.  I point.  "LOOK."

She isn't really sure what she's looking at yet.  She sees SOMETHING up there...different colors and brighter lights and this is enough to get her to stop the tantrum.

Light turns green.

As we approach, she begins to make it out and I look back again and she's making a little "o" with her mouth now.  "THEY PUT UP THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!  AND THERE'S THE TREE!  AND THEY ARE GETTING READY FOR ICE SKATING!  AND THERE'S DECORATIONS ON THE STREET LIGHTS!"  Now she is smiling.  Not just smiling, but beaming!  "When will they light up the Christmas tree?" She asks, eyes full of anticipation.

"Next weekend," I tell her as I put on my right signal and pull over next to the square.  "Wanna go?"

"YEAH" she says, half laughing and half trying to be cool.

"What do you think?" I ask.  "Wasn't that detour worth taking?  I mean, we can just get back on the highway and not take detours anymore if you want."

"NOOOO."  She says.  "I think we should take this detour all the time!"

"Great," I think.  "So now the normal, quick, easy way home will be the tantrum-inducing detour now."  I realize that dinner is going to be  little later every night.  At least for the next month or so.  But it's worth the look of wonder in her eyes right now.

Find more photos at http://www.davidmetraux.com/centralny.html

This was based on a prompt feom the Red Dress Club about taking a detour.

 

Water Trauma and Other Signs of Insantiy.

There is a new fantastic way I have found to completely traumatize my kid.  I found it by accident, since I NEVER would have seen it as something that would create such an overblown and emotional reaction and I really try not to do it but she is traumatized by it at least a few times every day. 

Every time Lila washes her hands, she ends up coming out of the bathroom having suffered what sort of resembles a total nervous breakdown.  If we don't dry her hands enough, she will cry and shed actual real tears because she says her sleeves are wet.  Apparently she also has super human ability to detect moisture because I almost never feel anything remotely wet and don't really understand why this is so upsetting to her suddenly.

This is a kid who would pull a chair up to the kitchen sink at her grandma's house and come away looking like she was thrown in a pool.  She never wiped her own hands and used to think it was hilarious to run up to me with her wet hands and get her hand prints on me. 

Tonight before dinner, her father went in to "help her" wash her hands (because suddenly she is afraid to do it herself) and she got a DROP of water on her shirt.  She cried and cried and cried and cried.  She cried like someone ran over her puppy, it was so pathetic.  She cried some more, and when I asked her to show me where the water got, she couldn't.  Because her tears had gotten her shirt ALL wet.  Needless to say, we had to change that shirt.

Is this something kids go through or is this just another obvious sign that my kid is going to be insane?

Really? Seriously?

So I was looking through some of my old pics of little baby Lila on my computer and came across my favorite stupid warning EVER.  This was Lila's first ever kiddie pool...I will let the pics speak for themselves.




This is the pool and a not quite one year old baby in it to show scale.
You will note the warning on the front.

 
 





















NO DIVING???  Thanks so much.  I was tempted but now I will resist.

 







I added this one just because it's so fucking cute!



Scream Queen

"Mommy has a headache.  Mommy is REALLY REALLY TIRED and has a headache because I had the WORST day at work.  Let's get your coat on and go home."

Lila just ignored me.  My mother tried.  "Lila, you can come back and play with your (annoying) toy tomorrow.  I will leave it here and it will be here when you come here in the morning."  Nothing.

"Lila.  It is TIME TO GO!" 

That was when the screaming started.  Lila is a gifted screamer.  She started practicing about a week out of the womb and has truly perfected the art of the ear-busting, brain-sterilizing, skull eradicating scream.  Seriously.  When Charlie Sheen said that whole thing about mind-melting, exploded bodies or whatever, I thought of my kid screaming. 

Under normal circumstances, her scream will give a normal, healthy person an aneurysm.  But when you already HAVE a headache it turns it into the most painful, awful blinding kind of headache and you just want to die. 

Lila continued the screaming into the car.  She did it for the entirety of the 15 minute ride home.  I was pretty sure at one point that I blacked out because I have no idea how I got to the exit ramp, but there I was, alive and gripping the steering wheel for dear life at the red light. 

Lila screamed as we pulled into the driveway and then proceeded to continue screaming and then started flailing around as I began to undo her seat belt thingy.  I threatened to leave her in the car and totally saw myself coming out in the morning to a nice sleeping happy kid, but I knew that my neighbors would TOTALLY call Child Protective Services because they would have heard the screaming and thought that my kid's skin was being peeled off by that guy in Silence of the Lambs. 

So I un-buckled her and yanked her out of the car and as she walked into the house she began to calm down.  As she plodded up the steps behind me, she was breathing heavy and whining that she was tired.  And when we walked in the door, she saw her Daddy.  Her eyes lit up.  She put a big smile on her face and ran to him and yelled, "DAAADDDDYYYY!!! I AM SOOOOO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!!!"

"Thanks so much for that." I said to no one in particular.

Not JUST being lazy...but

I am going to let my friend Amanda tell you how she has fucked up her children because I love her.  And because I want to share my forum with other people who agree that Motherhood is one guilt-inducing fuck up after another.  Enjoy:

I've messed up my kids. No, really. Hugely and badly. I think. But I do know that since you can't control your own genes, you should definitely be careful about what kinds of other genes you bequeath them. My 3 children have inherited the worst genes from both sides.

I dropped out of community college at 19 because I had this awesome boyfriend who was a really stand up guy and I wanted to spend all of my time with him. And because I lived on my own (with 2 roommates), nobody could tell me what to do - you know, because I was mature and strong and untouchable. Except somehow, before long at allactually, that laid back guy flip sided as a gross lazy cheat of a manchild. I split, moved back home, re-met a guy I'd known since middle school and married him. I moved from my conservative, Mormon family's home in California's central valley to Berkeley, where my brainiac husband had entered his PhD. program, which brings us up to date.

I'm a first born, strong willed, creative, (usually optimistic), introverted, lefter than liberal, bipolar, aquarian frustrated artist. My husband is an only child, brilliant, hardcore nerd, valedictorian, overachiever, master scholar doctor, published author, mechanical engineer, thinker. 

So then our two children that we had biologically together are smug, self aware, perfectionist assholes. They get every part of it right, and they do it perfectly. They are both extremely in tune with themselves (others, not so much) and independent thinkers = They are self centered narcissists and will not be told what to do. And then there's my firstborn, the daughter my husband legally adopted. She is very in tune with herself and is very personable and easy to get along with = A charming and beautiful teenage daughter who is one of the Popular Girls. I add that last bit because seriously that's a punishment for me.

Neither of these two types of kids are easy to parent. While I do realize that my younger two kids' personality traits are really pretty desirable and will serve them well in life as they get older, it's hard to give that a rat's ass when you have a flash of brief empathy for the mom you just heard about on the news. And while I actually really enjoy my eldest daughter's company (she's pretty hilarious and fun to hang out with), I worry endlessly and desperately about her lack of drive or initiative in her grades/future. At nearly 16 years old, she has literally zero idea of what she'd like to do "when she grows up", and it also has not dawned on her that her current 1.5 grade point average will not facilitate this training anyway. Her biological dad was kind of (to put it nicely) 'dim' intellectually. And not everyone really wants or needs to go to 12 years of college and grad school to become a mechanical engineer. So it's not like we're expecting her to be a doctor or anything (god that sounds pitiful). Honestly all I want is for her to be happy with her path. If she's driven to be a photographer or a nanny (holy crap I'd kill myself first) or a bus driver, that's cool. Whatever. But she doesn't seem to have a clue.

Nobody tells you this stuff. Having kids all over the spectrum (pun intended) age wise (5, 9, and 15), I assure you we're having An Event or five hundred on any given day. But I guess they really are some pretty awesome short people. When I realize that I really don't want them to change, I guess it's going okay. Pretty well actually.


But don't quote me.

If you want to see some of what Amanda really does (she is not a blogger but a beautiful crafter) go here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tackledandshackled