Outnumbered Two to One

When I saw this week’s Spin Cycle topic - Creative Writing - I got excited. I wanted the opportunity to wow with my literary prowess, to flex my brain biceps amidst the oohs and aahs of an adoring crowd, to write something spectacular. Unfortunately when you’re at the keyboard, faced with the limitless possibilities of a stark white screen, well…it can be a little intimidating. All those promising, inspired ideas, vacate the premises like so much fog.

It also doesn’t help that every time you get a word down, someone somewhere screams “Moooooommmmmyyyyy” at the top of their lungs, or crawls in to your lap to try and poke your eyeballs out, or decides right now they need a Popsicle more than anything on God’s green Earth.

So much for channeling genius.

Instead of coming up with something wholly new and original, I give you this…a poem written several years ago and inspired by some multiples’ mom in the news at the time. It’s all I had that was even remotely related to parenting, although I suppose it still treads a little on the dark side…

Multiples

Eventually she found herself
drowning in babies,
licking formula
from her bony wrists and
shaking cornstarch from
brittle stalks of hair
where dark roots grew
like blackened weeds.

Sometimes she wondered
who would love a woman
with hips seven babies wide,
a woman with rubber nipples
for eyes and a scar
like a fixed grimace
smothered beneath
the cotton of her dress.

At night she dreamed them awake,
tiny toothless mouths,
gaping black ovals in a tangle
of dimpled arms and legs,
loud enough to scare
the quiet from her skin
and hungry enough
to suck their mother
through the neck
of a bottle.

I am easily amused. Just ask my husband.

It’s one of the reasons why we’re together, not only is he hawt, but he makes me laugh on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, I’m not that discerning in what I find humorous. Occasionally when he and I sit down to watch television (which is pretty rare considering our viewing tastes are so diverse, I like trashy reality TV, he likes the Outdoor channel), we usually opt for something light and entertaining that will please both. Something that will offer a good chuckle or two.

A favorite of ours is The Soup, which we DVR and watch together. Sometimes we opt for some SNL or Mad TV. Now, my husband rarely finds humor in anything on either one of these skit shows, he’ll dramatically roll his eyes and shake his head, like it’s beneath him. I, on the other hand, will giggle, guffaw, and snort at the most ridiculous segments. Stuff that borders on the bizarre has been known to push me over the edge. Men screaming like women will always get a laugh out of me, which inevitably triggers a chain reaction in my husband who will always laugh when I’m genuinely laughing. Maybe it’s my flaring nostrils, maybe it’s that gurgling sound emitting from my throat, or the tears streaming down my face, but every time my husband will laugh and look at me like I’m a head case and he’s happy about it.

Things that make me laugh include:

A recent SNL skit that literally had me in stitches was The Lawrence Welk Show, since for some reason I can’t include the clip, I’ve linked to the NBC website. If you haven’t seen it and you have three minutes to spare, go take a look, even now it still cracks me up with it’s weirdness…I apologize in advance to any of you with big foreheads, baby hands, and car chasing propensities.

And for more laughter Spins please visit Sprite’s Keeper for a chuckle or two or twenty.

If you haven’t already, check out my 200th post giveaway. Guaranteed to satisfy the wild thing or zombie hunter in your life.

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?

Once upon a time I used to be a working mom, back when I was in my 20s and we needed the cash and my mother-in-law was disposed to sit for our one, then two girls for free. I had guilt then, of course, over my absence the better part of the day, over my impatience when I finally was home, over calling in to work when my children were sick, or not being able to miss a day even though they were.  There was the dirty laundry that piled up, the field trips I couldn’t attend, having to wake my darlings up before sunrise just to get them to their grandmother’s so I could be to work on time. It made for a crappy feeling I was never able to come to terms with.

When I got pregnant a third time, my mother-in-law, who was getting older and sitting for a total of four kids all together, finally decided to throw in the towel. By then my husband was making better money and we agreed me staying home on a more permanent basis was way cheaper than paying for child care times three. After my son was born I quit my county job and became a SAHM, an acronym I wasn’t familiar with until after I resigned from my full time position.

Stay-at-home-mom. It’s worked out for us, mostly. I can’t imagine caring for my now four children and attempting to commute to a corporate office five days a week. There are so many unpredictable variables I’m confronted with on a regular basis, things that tend to interfere with an actual paying job. Then there’s all that chauffeuring that goes along with the parenting, the cleaning, the feeding…good Lord the never ending feedings!

The plus is I’m around for everything. I don’t miss milestones anymore, I’m here to comfort them through every sadness, every ailment, every bump and scrape and fall. I’m here 24/7.

The downside is, living on one income occasionally bites. More often than not it sucks. Royally. So while I am providing my children with a certain measure of emotional stability, my presence doesn’t do very much for our checkbook. And when the kids are done basking in the ethereal glow of my infinite love, occasionally they need stuff. Material stuff you can only buy at a store with cash dollars.

Their needs are covered, don’t get me wrong. Food, shelter, clothing. The basics. But in kid lingo the word “need” takes on a whole new meaning. My oldest needs her own room. My tween needs a new rolling backpack. My five year old needs to go to Universal Studios. My two-dler needs…well, for now at least, he’s cheap to satisfy.

So the guilt seeps in again. Because I could, in theory, get a job. Earn some money. Contribute to our net worth and maybe occasionally afford us the luxury of a vacation. But it wouldn’t be without its sacrifices, would it? When the kids are older it might be an inevitability, I might have to spruce up that resume and get out in to the working world, but for now, my job is laid out for me. Guilt or not. I just wish it paid a little better.

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Do you have a guilty conscience? Tell it to Sprite’s Keeper , or stop by The Spin Cycle for more guilt ridden posts.

Seems a little odd to ring in the new year the second of January, but we at the Bear house scoff at tradition, especially considering the difficulty we had putting 2008 out on its crummy keister. That ill-tempered house guest simply would not vacate the premises, luckily we had inevitability on our side, phooey on you old man last year, and 09 was at last granted access.

Currently I’m only an hour out of my pajamas. I’ve spent the day cleaning and folding laundry and feeling at odds with the calendar and the clock. It’s one of the unwanted side-effects of winter breaks, or any recess from school for that matter. Routine goes out the window, along with the better part of my sanity because without our rigorous schedule it seems the days simply lose their identity. Saturday, Monday, Friday, they all meld in to a single indecipherable string of day and night and accidental meals. With no where to go, no timetable to adhere to, we’re all pretty much doomed to loaf and constantly inquire of each other what day it is or what hour has passed.

Technically I know it’s 2009. On paper we’ve just gotten a year closer to ending the decade, scary in and of itself. Yet, here in the house, while the holiday break finally draws to a close, it’s not a new year until Monday January fifth, when the kids (barring any re-infections) at last go back to school. And while the mornings will pose their own set of difficulties it will be nice to have 75% of my children out of the house…and me out of my pajamas before dinner time.

So as far as resolutions go, they’ve got zero chance of accomplishment before Monday. I’ve never gone so far as to commit these ambitions to writing, seems too much like setting myself up for ridicule, particularly if the goals are overly specific - meaning deadlines, diagrams, pie charts - but then again I’ve never had a blog to broadcast them on.

Suffice to say, I want some things to be different, I want others to stay the same, I want less of some things and more of others. I want to change the things I can control, I want to accept the screwed up things beyond my power, and of course I want to keep my sense of humor at all times. Because laughing is therapy and it keeps the sanity in tight reign.

Because 09 will be the year I giggle and grin and guffaw and hopefully find the inspiration to write that breakout novel that will fund an addition for our tiny house brimming with children.

I can dream, can’t I?

Wishing you all lots of laughs in 2009. Happy New Year, in case I forgot to mention it…

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For some real resolutions visit the Spin Cycle , brought to you courtesy of Sprite’s Keeper .

This week’s Spin Cycle over at Sprite’s Keeper invites participants to dig through their bloggy archives for their favorite “undiscovered” blog post - a hilarity inducing work of genius that never saw the light of day. I was weeding through my first posts and realizing none of them really fit the bill, that and the fact that I do a lot of complaining about my feral children and their noise capacities. Surprising, no?

I chose the following blog post because it offers a little insight to my neurosis, and because when I wrote it I think I had a total of three readers. So why shouldn’t the other seven of you enjoy the same reading pleasures? This originally ran in early August. I’d only been blogging for two months and this particular post garnered a grand total of 17 hits. Please keep the snickering to a minimum.

Anyway, I give you…

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For an Added Bonus Paranoia

Our neighborhood has recently seen a rise in thefts. My mother-in-law, who lives on the other side of our block, had someone sneak into her yard last week to rummage through her storage shed in the late night hours. This makes me a little nervous, especially when my dear husband is on shift and I’m alone with the kidlings.

Usually when I’m out for the day and I know I’ll be back after dark, I’ll leave some lights on before I lock up the house. The dogs are home, so for the most part, I know they’ll keep the home front safe and secure. Unfortunately, the fact that my hormones are staging some sort of revolt, makes me a little scatterbrained this particular phase of the lunar cycle. Which means I forgot to lock the deadbolt this afternoon when I left for my mother’s house.

I only became aware of this fact when I tried to unlock the door this evening after our return, but since I couldn’t remember forgetting, I immediately envisioned a different scenario. One in which some sadistic, mentally unstable, one-eyed, cat burglar entered my house, befriended my dogs, then proceeded to lie in wait for us in the semi-darkened house, possibly eating my last oatmeal pie and leaving only a single lock engaged on purpose just to mess with my head.

Ridiculous? Maybe. But that didn’t stop me from turning on every light in every room with my diaper bag held aloft in case I had to bash the one-eyed cookie thief in the face while the dogs brought up the rear.

It’s all in a days work for a tired, hormonally unbalanced matriarch. The fortress was secured. My oatmeal pie inventory was complete. And the cat burglar was spared a humiliating defeat. All was right with the world.

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Really, how much damage was I going to do with a diaper bag? That cat burglar would have totally kicked my ass.

I have a confession to make.

I love my TV.

I know it’s wrong. I know it in my heart of hearts. My TV is nothing but a horrible hate filled box overflowing with mind numbing programming and strategic advertising.

Unfortunately sometimes I need some brain anesthesia, a good healthy dose of not thinking. After a long day of mitigating sibling wars, obsessing over finances, and perpetually feeding my small army, there is nothing more relaxing than sinking in to my pillow top with the remote control in a death grip, and watching a couple of hours of mindless television.

It’s like comfort food only calorie free. Zero trans fats, I’m almost certain.

I know there is no redeeming value to shows like Rock of Love Charm School, or Scream Queens, or America’s Next Top Model, just like I know a half a package of Oreos is not brimming in nutritional value.  Vitamin content is soooo NOT the point of a cookie. I’m not looking to Tyra Banks and her bony model wannabes for depth, that would be sad.

I want to laugh at them, I want to dislike them on a very fundamental level, I want to ooh and aah as they strike a ridiculous pose then babble incoherently in a confessional type setting. It’s a good time.

It’s a temporary vacation from substance, from provocative thought and introspection. I get enough of that, seriously. I read, I think, I am. For a little while, though, I want to watch, vegetate, and not be a thing. I don’t do massages, I don’t do yoga, and I don’t imbibe.

So what’s a little bimbo watching in the grand scheme of things?

For my husband, it’s car shows, or gun shows, or do-it-yourself shows.

For me, it’s trashy reality television. It’s the equivalent of a mental Twinkie. You’re not sure what the hell it’s made of, but it fills a certain void with its sweet poison.

Now, if I could just get through a single episode of anything without interruptions.

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For more spins on the topic of relaxation visit Sprite’s Keeper: The Spin Cycle . It’s tastier than a Twinkie and good for you too.