Outnumbered Two to One

Yesterday during a routine and uneventful blog-hopping tour, I happened to discover that Robin had tagged me for a photo game on her blog Shrink Rap. Imagine my dismay at finding my link at the end of her post, I mean, did she think I had nothing bigger going on? Had she assumed I wasn’t diligently at work on some thought provoking, eloquent blogging masterpiece?

Okay, I don’t and I wasn’t…but that’s not the point.

Okay, that actually is the point.

Currently my digestive system feels like it’s staging some sort of revolt against the rest of my anatomy. I’m hesitant to diagnose myself with anything other than stupidity. Since eating the leftovers from my birthday dinner Monday night, I’ve been feeling less than stellar. My husband thinks the reheated shellfish was the culprit, I personally prefer to blame him since he was charged with picking up our take-out order, so obviously it was the mishandling that caused my illness. Maybe he was carrying the containers at a weird angle conducive to breeding gut wrenching bacteria.

The point is, I’ve got nothing to blog about and I don’t want to blog about my abdominal pains and heartburn and migraines (although I guess I just did), so I’ll participate in Robin’s little game in the hopes that it will get my mind off my gurgling stomach acid.

The idea was to choose the fifth photo from the fifth folder from my picture files, then discuss. Here’s the photo.

This is my then three year old son and his cousin…Groucho. Obviously the photo has been doctored to protect my niece’s secret identity. She and my son are exactly one year, one month, and one day apart. The photo was taken on or near my sister’s anniversary, while I was watching her girls so she and the husband could celebrate in grown-up fashion.

At the time I was feeling overwhelmingly fatigued. The slightest activity left me winded and I found myself sitting down quite often, the room at a slight tilt, my stomach feeling oddly replete. At night, I succumbed to sleep while the sun was still out, the kids’ screeching feuds a sweet lullaby I couldn’t ignore.

A week later I discovered I was pregnant for a fourth time. It took me another week to uncurl myself from the fetal position, stop whimpering, and enjoy my pregnancy. Actually the pregnancy itself was less than enjoyable, there were maybe three weeks right in the middle of my second trimester when I felt kinda good, but the rest was rather unpleasant, although it yielded some fabulous results. As unexpected as my youngest son was, he undoubtedly completed us. He made our odd numbers even.

As for the five tags, here they are in no particular order:

1. Blue Monkey Butt (Elle)

2. Blue Monkey Butt (Stacy) - wouldn’t want anyone feeling left out.

3. I’m Living Proof That God Has a Sense of Humor (Helene)

4. Glue 4 Families (Davida)

5. Small Town Mommy (Anne)

I personally refuse to harass anyone, so if you happen by and see your name, feel free to join in, otherwise feign ignorance, I won’t take it personally. Also stop by and visit Robin too since she’s hilarious and way groovy.

Yeah, I said groovy. What?

Today my neighbor came by with her brand spanking new baby.

She also let me hold her brand spanking new baby. For a good ten minutes.

I think new babies are like new cars, when someone you know gets one, you’re immediately overcome with the urge to follow suit and snag one of your own regardless of your financial situation. I mean they smell soooo good…both cars and babies.

So here I was holding this tiny, squishy, sweet faced, sleeping baby and it’s like there was a short circuit in my brain. Colic, middle of the night feedings, projectile vomiting, and ear infection memories were all filed in my mental trashcan. All I could do was suck in the smell of new baby (because I can finally breathe through my nostrils thanks my effective antibiotics prescription) and swoon and see this in my head…

This was my youngest mere days after we got him home from the hospital. My neighbor, who’s a great photographer, was nice enough to shoot these for me since our hospital picture taker ditched work early on the day of our departure. This sweet little newborn has turned in to this…

Which, don’t get me wrong, is always hugely entertaining and delicious in its own right, but…well, his feet will never be this small again…

Please, folks, convince me I don’t need a fifth baby. For sure, we can’t afford one. Nor can we fit another kid in our tiny shoebox house. But I need your help to clear the scramble that newborn left in my brain, that hardwired signal he triggered that tells me I need to reproduce yet again.

Tell me how awful new babies are. How unbearable those nine months of pregnancy can be.  How hard it is to give up sleep again. How gross baby barf smells when you unknowingly walk out of the house with it on your shirt.

It will help, trust me.

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It’s been years since I’ve written poetry. I used to. Pretty often, in fact. But somewhere, somehow the inspiration left me. Inspiration, motivation, it’s all the same isn’t it? If I’m willing to skip a shower for some one on one time with my DVR, is it reasonable to assume I’d be capable of formulating powerful metaphors?

That would be a big fat negative.

When this week’s Spin Cycle assignment was dispatched, I was actually kind of excited. I figured I’d stretch those creative muscles once again and wow you all with my talents. As the week progressed though, it was pretty apparent I was procrastinating (and that my writing muscles had turned to writing cellulite). I was banking on that great intangible “inspiration” to walk right up to me and punch me in the jaw with a great idea. Unfortunately in a house full of four bickering monkeys, that fickle friend “inspiration” wouldn’t even grace me with a post card. She’s off visiting somewhere they have hor d’oerves, soft music, and glasses of red wine.

So here I am on a Friday, smack up on a deadline, wondering what the heck I’m going to write about, and how the heck I’m going to make it look like a poem. I’ve never been much for rhymes, I was more of a brooding free form kind of gal, but of late, darkness is usurped by exhaustion. Rather than brood, I snore. It works for me.

But what about the poem…

I want to write about motherhood and love’s ethereal glow
(insert shrieking child here)
About the difficulties and challenges and how little we actually know
(insert loud children’s programming here)
I want to tell you with eloquence about the light in my children’s eyes
(insert loud bang that might be a child walking in to a table edge here)
I want to tell you truthfully about the insecurities I despise
(insert crying, shrieking child with a bruise here)
I want to form a poem that will summon a tear or two
(insert child kicking their tiny bare feet at the laptop computer here)
I want to paint a picture of the hard work we mothers do
(insert child crying because you asked them a little too forcefully to stop kicking the computer here)
I want to say how some days things just don’t follow a plan
(insert small crying child throwing a paper plate full of pancake pieces at their mother here)
And I want to say it all in as few words as I can
(insert mother picking syruppy breakfast foods out of her hair here)
In the end all I can do is show this picture I have made
(insert sleepy child burying his face in his mother chest here)
And tell you with perfect honesty that there’s nothing I would trade
(insert napping toddler here)

Isn’t he sweet when he’s asleep?

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is one of my favorite kids’ books.  Lately as my tiny toddler has morphed into a terrible two-dler, I’m drawing more and more resemblances between the book’s mischievous main character and my own darling offspring, not just because they share a name either.

The Max in the book threatens to devour his mother within the first couple of pages after getting called on his trouble-making. I’m pretty sure my son, if given the opportunity, would have me for lunch, metaphorically or otherwise.

The boy in the book travels to a distant mythical land to become king of all wild things. My little boy is the boss of everybody lately, becoming the tiny tyrant of his own kingdom, complete with sibling subjects who are at the mercy of his every whim.

The book Max finally returns to his room because he wants to be where someone loves him best of all. My Max…lets just say he doesn’t stand for public shows of affection for anyone but him. He wants to hold a monopoly on hugs and kisses and comforting pats on the back.

I wonder if Sendak’s little boy pitched storming tantrums at the drop of a hat.

So far today, my tender little guy has had screaming fits of rage over:

1. Putting on his shoes.
2. Taking off his shoes.
3. Removing accompanying socks.
4. Leaving the house.
5. Coming home.
6. Riding in the shopping cart.
7. Getting out of the shopping cart.
8. Walking on his own.
9. Getting carried.
10. His corn being too hot.
11. His corn being finished.
12. Pooping.
13. Coloring.
14. Taking a nap.
15. Watching a movie.

And the day is only half over. There’s only so much screaming one person can handle before she (or he) retreats to their own dark quiet place. If there are wild things there, so be it. I think I can handle them.

I’m just not feeling it.

Maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the shrinking numbers in our bank account, but this whole Christmas thing has me feeling like a deer in headlights. The holiday season is speeding recklessly toward me and all I can do is blink, frozen as the driver sings drunken carols and chucks empty bottles of nog out the window.

If you ask me, Thanksgiving is just a gateway holiday. Blowing the door wide open to the dangers of Christmas - tinsel, pine trees, stockings and scotch tape.

Oh the pressure.

I don’t want to shop, I don’t want to decorate. What I do want to do is eat scads of leftovers and curl up in the fetal position.

Not an option with kids. Kids want Christmas music, they want to author Christmas lists and watch Christmas movies. They want a tree and happiness and joy and fun, so for them I will stir my inner elf with a red hot poker and wait for her to do a little jig, maybe find the motivation to do some online shopping while the kidlings are asleep. And sometime next week, we’re getting a Christmas tree.

It’ll need decorating.

Can you hear me sighing?

I’ll take plenty of pictures, I’ll fake some enthusiasm, eventually the spirit will catch on like a bad head cold, right?

Yeah, I’ll work on that.

Perhaps you bloggy readers can offer some tips for slaying my inner Grinch and getting in to the holiday spirit? Bring it.

For almost four years he’s been a dinosaur junkie. He could barely form sentences and he was already expressing his awe for the mighty T-Rex.

Of course, my husband and I being the good parents that we are, fed his obsession with the requisite enthusiasm, filling his closet beyond capacity with dinosaur toys, dinosaur puzzles, dinosaur books, dinosaur DVDs and dinosaur clothing. And while he was learning to identify all these prehistoric monstrosities by name, well…so were we. We know more than we ever care to about the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.  That’s why when we heard the North American tour of Walking with Dinosaurs Live was coming to an arena near us, we had to mortgage the house to get the family some tickets to last night’s show. Here’s a little taste of the main attraction, Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The dinosaurs were incredible, I’ll give them that. They were mammoth and their movements exceptionally lifelike. It would have been difficult not to be impressed. My son watched the whole thing with wide eyes, perched right on the edge of his seat. Even my toddler didn’t utter a single peep once the dinos started to march out, other than to point and say “dinosaur” in his baby speak.

I loved watching the kids’ expressions, but for me the show was so-so. I thought it was a little dull, there were some tense moments but really it was just a dinosaur robotics pageant. They came out, they roared, they did their little choreographed battles, they roared, the end. My older children were hoping for some kind of dino animatronic evisceration, but that wasn’t in the cards. And those arena seats, dear God, I don’t know how I managed to fold myself in to them and balance a two year old on my lap. By the time the performance was over and we had to stand up to leave, I swear I could hear my knees creaking, it actually took me a while to straighten them out.

Still, it was totally worth it to see the look on this kid’s face at the end of the night.

Yeah. Dinosaurs totally rule.

Today I walked around with a hole in my sock. The whole day with a hole about the size of a quarter on the bottom of my heel.

The thing is I knew it was there all along. This hole. But I wore the sock anyway. Because I was in a hurry. Because I figured nobody was going to ask me to remove my sneaker to take a gander at the bottom of my foot.

It goes beyond that. I knew that hole was there way before today. I noticed it the last time I wore that pair of socks. Still I washed them and folded them and put them in my drawer so I could wear them again. The holey socks.

It’s symptomatic of a larger set of problems. Namely:

1. I don’t throw enough useless stuff away.
2. I don’t care enough about my physical appearance.
3. I don’t going shopping often enough for ladies’ footwear.

Overall, the fact that I can only focus on the torn fabric of my ankle sock should tell you I’ve had a somewhat trying day. I don’t think I had a single conversation that didn’t involve me raising my voice. That’s including the one I had with the survey taker over the phone. Not that I was yelling at her, but I did get interrupted about seven times by a screaming toddler and a five year old who needed a snack repeatedly. Add to that a dinner that took an hour longer to cook than I expected and morose teen whose only topic of conversation was her complete disdain for every human being on the planet. And well, it’s a recipe for a full fledged creative burnout. A sunny-side-up-brain-in-a-frying-pan kind of day.

So. Yeah, I’ll blog about my socks.

Please tell me I’m not the only one with sloppy footwear at the end of a long Monday.

They’re not that far removed, teens and toddlers I mean. They’re both about testing limits, pushing the envelope, exacting their will. When their efforts are met with unyielding barriers, they respond in kind. Toddlers throw tantrums because their understanding of language is limited, they express their anger and frustration physically - throwing things, flailing, screaming incoherently. Teens throw a somewhat evolved tantrum involving eye-rolls, muffled shrieks, and slammed doors. Their somewhat broader vocabulary suddenly limited to “oh my God” and “whatever” and my favorite “I don’t care.”

It’s enough to drive a person to drink. Not me per se, but maybe another person.

If you want to torture someone, interrupt their sleep periodically with the piped in sonata of a screaming two year old or have them try to solve a quadriatic equation with a small child hanging on to their pant leg shrieking “mommy, mommy, mommy”.

Or you could go the other route. Send them to the grocery store with a surly teen, who alternately talks your ear off about their love of cheese then broods while casting you loathing glares.

It’s never a dull time, I’ll tell you that much.