Tonsil-EEK-tomy

In case you weren't already aware, I am getting my tonsils out next Tuesday. Yep, tonsillectomy. And, I am 33.

Pause for you to tell your computer screen (representing me) the most horrific story about adults getting tonsils removed ever. Include all painful and gory details. Don't leave out a second of your friend of a friend's grandmother's day nurse who had them out at age 27 and the pain was so wretched that she went to the East side to buy crack to take her mind off it, ended up addicted and unable to swallow at the same time and is now a homeless, drug addict, throat broken hooker. And the blood... don't forget the swallowing blood part. You know, when your cousin's dentist's handyman had it done at age 41 and he bled so much that he eventually got such a taste for it that now he lives as a vampire? Good one.

Seriously, I appreciate two things about the human need to chime in about their tonsil experiences.... 1. Tips on how to manage the pain from people who have been there. 2. Survival stories that include, "and she had it done on Friday and was at church just fine as can be on Sunday." Anything else.... really?!?!? Why is it we feel the need to do that? If you've never had surgery before to compare this reaction, mention pregnancy to a woman with kids and you will undoubtedly get the full on gory details of the births.

Seriously, start a little experiment today. Ask a currently pregnant woman what women with kids do as soon as you mention that you're pregnant? I do it too, so I am not throwing stones. They will dish out the most horrible details known to mankind. "Oh, you're pregnant? Congratulations! Let me tell you about how I pooped myself on the delivery table and then they ripped me from here.... to... here," (which is always a distance of no less than nine inches). Heart transplants would leave less of a scar.

The problem these days is that none of us (or I should say the few of us that have this habit) have been in battle. Back in the day, there were tribal wars and revolutionary wars and fights for land with bitter cattle ranchers (I've seen Young Guns... I know what's up). So battle scars were real. They were everywhere. Now, we don't have those lives, but I think we still feel compelled to show our scars and be the battle heroes when we can. For me, it's having two kids. Yeah, I did that. (Puff out chest and stand up straighter). After next Tuesday, I will have survived a tonsillectomy, too. So, when either activity comes up in convo, then I get to dust off my invisible Purple Heart and talk about how I conquered sitting on a toilet after a C-section. "I almost gave up, but the need to pee spurred me on. And, with my bladder depending on me to be strong, I took that toilet.... and I won the battle." Bring it on, tonsils... Bring. It. On.

That's A-Parenthood

Your kids are in bed, and you hear a scream you dread, that's a-parenthood!

You hear your son cry and you go lay by his side, that's a-parenthood.

Then you feel wet and you can bet that it's his vomit, that's a-parenthood.

You clean your son, don't get to you until you're done, that's a-parenthood.

When you sleep on the floor, because your son needs your bed more, that's a-parenthood.

Watching Phineas and Ferb at midnight without a fight, that's a-parenthood.

Then at dawn, stifling a yawn while you set up breathing machines, that's a-parenthood!

Spending the day tired as hell, but your son's breathing well... that's a-PARENTHOOD!!!

Why Am I So Happy?

The other day, someone asked me why I was so happy. The question took me aback. First, isn't it funny that someone would think that I am "so happy?" Second, isn't it a bad sign that someone would think my being happy is so rare, it is worth asking about? Last, isn't it funny that I couldn't think of an answer? I couldn't point to something and say that I am happy because of anything. I didn't just get married or have a baby or win the lottery (the only one of the three options proven to lead to happiness every time).... I think I have just reached a point in my life where (at the risk of being trite) life is good.

Don't get me wrong. This is not an invasion of the body snatchers moment. I am still bitter, cynical, rude and sometimes mean. I can still come up with a litany of things to bitch about. After all, I need to buy Will new pants, but I have to wait til Mark gets paid again because we have no money. Jack is a snot machine and I am sick to death of everyone in this house being sick as death. I wore my favorite jeans last week and when I just pulled them out of the dryer, there was a huge hole in the ass begging the question... am I just sad that my jeans died, or humiliated that my ass was on display all last Thursday? And seriously, if I have to wash bedwetted sheets one more time this week, my head may explode, AND ITS ONLY TUESDAY!!! See.... same girl. But instead of being so bogged down in all that wah wah stuff... I am doing ok. Better than ok.

I used to wonder if I needed Prozac. Seriously, I even wrote about it here back in 2009. The little things were the size of ants... if I was starring in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and ants were 100 times my size. I couldn't cope. I wondered if I had a chemical imbalance or something, but now, I think I had three very specific things. I think I had children. Seriously. I had three in a short period of time. I gave birth to Will... a year later Tabbi moved in.... and a year later I birthed Jack. That means I had three kids in two years, and one of them popped out a mouthy 8 year old. It was hard. And maybe we as women aren't supposed to admit that... but it was hard. On top of that, we've had a job loss, before that we had to learn how to exist on one income.... and I just couldn't cope. I was mad and frustrated and beyond those two.... I was tired. All. The. Time. Baby having is a rough business. I realize now that I never needed Prozac. I needed sleep.... and maybe a nanny.

My kids (and more importantly I) have settled into a lovely routine now. I love all three of them, but man is my life good now that they all go to school. Tabbi has settled into our lives in a beautiful way, and while I may still get frustrated and want to rip my hair out (or hers) on occasion, I can finally say after a 4 year struggle that we have hit our stride. Will is in full day Kindergarten and while I find myself missing him still during the day, I love the little guy he is becoming. Last night during dinner he went into detail about his science journal at school, and I was bursting with pride. And Jack.... my sweet formerly Satanic little angel is in preschool two mornings a week. He is speaking better, behaving better.... and he is just as cuddly as can be when he comes home. We have schedules and routines (insert joke from my friend Homa here, as she thinks my schedules are hilarious), and they have given me the greatest gifts.... peace. Comfort. Enjoyment of my kids and this job titled Motherhood.

Don't get me wrong.... Tonight Mark has a home owners association meeting and I promised the kids that we'd go to the YMCA carnival without him. I have a hair cut at 5 and both Tabbi and Will have to get their homework done before dinner and the carnival... plus, Jack's entire head is filled with snot. So, motherhood still isn't easy. My guess is my mom would say the same thing and her kids are 35 and 33. But, the hard just seems a little easier these days, and I guess that's why I am happy.

If You Get What You Put In...

So its been a really long time since I've blogged. I was going to say that I blacked myself out in protest of SOPA and PIPA, but in reality, I think soup is good and I don't really know Pippa, but I have nothing against her. I like Kate better, though. And, I really am anti piracy. I don't get the big hats and the scraggly beards, and all that "arrrrr matey" business. What are they, Australian? No one says "mate" up over. (Get it, instead of down under). But, I have a conundrum, so I thought I would take to the interwebs.

I find that the divine Ms. T is a bit lost these days. She has quit all of the things she used to do, with our blessing, but she has yet to find something new. She quit violin because she didn't actually enjoy playing. We decided to let her, as daily practice and paid lessons are not worth the daily battle and expense for something she won't put any effort toward. Volleyball... same thing. Girl Scouts.... ditto. But now, there's nothing. We tried to find some volunteer activities, but there are few for an almost 13 year old, and her goal of participating in drama is harder to come by than I had thought. So, she is drifting aimlessly through her 12 year old universe. But, she's not the only one, so I am not too worried. I know that as she grows older, opportunities will arise and she will be able to find activities. Here's my fear... I am not sure she'll enjoy any of them.

She is participating on our new church's youth group, and I have seen the same thing I've seen from anything new she ever starts. Very little. If you get out what you put in, and you put nothing into everything.... what is she ever going to get out? There is very little participation, so she comes home with a blah opinion of it. The next week she is even less interested in going. But, if she isn't going to contribute to anything.... she won't ever get past the new kid hump. I see in the youth group the same thing I saw in orchestra, volleyball and girl scouts.... a kid who is there, but not there. Friendly to others if they meet the long criteria of how they dress, look, act, etc... but not going out on a limb if you don't make the first, second and third move. Worse than depressed... apathetic.

I moved from my lifetime home of Bettendorf, Iowa to Kansas City when I was one month shy of 14. I was terrified of making friends and being somewhere new. In Iowa, first days of school were never scary, because it was the same kids shuffled around to different classrooms. But, that day... I would be alone for the first time since I was 3. The day we moved I got a fortune cookie that said, "You're only as happy as you'll let yourself be" and while I still had more butterflies in my stomach than in the Amazonian rain forest... I went with it. I wasn't happy to have moved... but I tried. So, I guess my question is.... what happens when you won't let yourself be happy?

Other Duties As Assigned

I worked in Human Resources, what feels like a lifetime ago, and I used to always laugh at the job descriptions that I wrote for literally every single job in our company. The last responsibility was always, "other duties as assigned," basically saying that your job is defined by these other 8 bullet points... but if we ask you to do something, your job is to do that, too. It's a "cover your ass" way of telling your staff that there ain't nothin' outside of your duties, so be ready to work.

I always laughed, because my "other duties" always seemed way out there and very frequent. I would be assigned anything from planning Christmas parties to helping my Director write a slide slow presentation at 10p on a Friday night to forging letters from our Commissioner to put in the annual report. My other duties sometimes seemed to outweigh and outnumber my real duties. But now that I am a stay home mom... I have found that my "other duties as assigned" category has gotten way out of hand.

Apparently one other duty is puke clean up. If one of our four legged family members loses their lunch, it is my duty to clean it up. I didn't know that. I figured whoever found it first should be the one to remedy the sitch asap. But, I learned this morning that if someone other than me stumbles upon the lovely gift (aka literally steps into it at 6:01am), they are to wake me.... begrudgingly clean up the large chunks when it becomes clear that I am not waking up for puke clean up.... and leave the ugly orange stain for me to take care of later.

My "other duties" also seem to include breakfast. Now I realize that I blogged about turning over a new leaf and providing a home cooked, healthy breakfast for Mark and Tabbi in the morning, but sometimes, that new leaf gets tired and it wants to sleep in. On Thursdays, when I drop Will off at school and don't have to get in the shower til 7:30.... my new leaf thinks that Mark and Tabbi can get their own food. And sometimes, on Mondays when I don't have the groceries for something fresh, my leaf decides that it should just sleep an extra 30 minutes because Mark and Tabbi can nuke their own food.... but, no. That leaf is wrong. I get huffy sighs and sarcasm if I don't provide the food. I thought I was being nice.... but apparently it's my job.

Other duties can also deal with bobby pins. I didn't know I was the bobby pin supervisor, but I must be, despite the fact that my hair is so short I can't use them. But, Tabbi had a fun up do on Saturday, and apparently asking our hair stylist to do something fun with her hair means that I have to then clean up the 47 pins when they come out and are spread all over the house by child and beast.

My other duties could go on forever, but I can't... because it is almost 7:50a and my real duties need to be done.

I have become a bad person

I used to stand on very high moral ground. When I was in college, I was the president of our Amnesty International group for a time and a strict believer in the sanctity of life.... all lives. I fought against the death penalty and argued it still while working at the Department of Correction, walking in front of my state's death row, claiming that the murderers and rapists on the other side of that brick wall deserved to live. I stood on my soap box and looked down from on high and I preached and believed that murder, even when it is a bad person, was wrong. Then I had kids.... and I can't seem to get my soap box up on that high ground like I used to.

I read the headlines today, and I can't get there. I read about Penn State and that monster who attacked so many children... and I can't get there. I read about the staff that did nothing and think about the children harmed AFTER someone could have stopped it... and I can't get there at all. I think about those mothers who have to look at their babies (no matter what age these boys are now) and know what that man did to them... took from them... and I can't get anywhere close.

I read about a father who tied up his child and then beat him to death, today and the saddest thing is, you can read a similar story every few weeks. People whose children were neglected, beaten, abused.... and I can't defend my old position any more.

I have become a totally different person since I had kids. I don't fight for all humans to have rights anymore. Instead, I see my kids.... everywhere. I see my boys in those victims in Pennsylvania... I see my sons as the one in that closet tied up. I see them... and I know that I can't defend saving certain lives anymore.

There was a father on the news awhile back, and his son was murdered in the 70s by an evil man. The child was tortured for days and later killed, and the killer chronicled each sadistic and evil act in a journal that the father heard read aloud during the trial. Each suffering moment outlined in graphic detail. The news story reported that the killer was due to be released soon, and the father is being watched because he has declared openly that he plans to kill the man who killed his son. 30 years have passed.... and the father swears that the killer will not walk the streets long. I know in my head that this father is wrong and that killing this man will not bring his child back or give himself the peace that he is searching for.... but after having my own kids and turning into this new person, I can say this... That father's reaction is the one that I now can understand. I could put my soap box on his ground.

The Sing Songer

So, I don't allow myself to be photographed, videotaped or recorded thanks to confirmed reviews of past appearances where I bear a striking resemblance to Corky from Life Goes On (evidence dates back to Good Morning America crowd appearance.... not pretty). Actually, as I get older and far more frightening, I look more like Chaz Bono. And my voice sounds like a Muppet gone wrong. So, I don't record myself. Today, however, I am kinda sad about that because today's blog post really ought to be a vlog. I am never going to do my annoyance justice in type... but the desire to not be mistaken for Chaz wins... so a-writing I will go.

Last Thursday, I took Jack to Chik Fil A for lunch. We'd had a hard week... Will was sick (which may end up being a later blog post), and I felt like Jack became the invisible kid for awhile. So, Will finally made it back to school and I decided it was time to do a little bonding with old Whatshisname. But, much to my dismay... in the Chik Fil A play place we encountered the most feared creature of all time... The Sing Songer.

Moms, I know you know her. She's the one who sits OUTSIDE the play place reading her iPad listening to her iPod sitting in her iPants doing iParenting. Which means, she will look up once in a blue moon and confirm that her child is in the play place, and then she'll go back to iAnything other than watching her kid. If said glance shows that something has run amok in the play place, she will sashay her iWay in and as her 8 year old son is straddling a toddler punching him in the face like Ralphie to Scut Farkus (although this time an unwarranted beating) and she will say in her sing songiest Disney princess voice, "Honey, you're beating someone up again." And her kid will shrug and stand up, wipe the blood smears off his face and say in an equally fake song from the Disney movie from hell, "Sorry, Mooooom."

In this case, the kid was a diaper wearing little mini boy. But man, despite his size he took a swing at every kid that walked by. Older kids came sliding down the tube slide bawling over the punch the little brat man gave them. One little boy burst into tears as the hell beast (I mean toddler) punched him square in the nose and demanded his hat. (It was a really cool Transformers hat, so I had to give the little killer that one). The older hatted boy thought for a minute, until I jumped in from the mommy bench and said, "Hey... you don't hit, and you don't give that kid your hat." The brat man just ignored me and went on his way. Moments later The Sing Songer noticing the distress wafted in and said, "Hooooney, keep handsies to your selfie." I said in Lynn/Muppet voice, "he's hitting everyone." And she said, singing to me, "Oooooh, he is in such a phase." And, out she drifted as if I had imagined her there.

Maybe TechnoMom would have a lower likelihood of mothering the next Jeffrey Dahmer if she didn't sing to her child and instead used a little bit of what I like to call "Old School Mom" voice. It's the voice that was used back when people didn't worry about psychiatrist bills and CPS knocking on their door. It's the voice that put the smack down so hard actual smacks were never needed. Maybe then her little 2 foot tall torture machine would have actually stopped hitting. It will help him to not be hated in the play place by parents and children alike, and one of these days the older, bigger kid isn't going to be scared to fight back and her little munchkin will go down singing a different tune. One of these days, the dude he hits may be Jack.... and your future mini mangler ain't got nuthin' on mine. And while I use that Old School Mom voice to get Jack in line.... if your dude hits him.... I may just sing song my "no," too.