To My Favorite

Happy birthday to my favorite person. 

You're the best person I've ever met. I can't believe I'm so lucky that you liked me back. 

I still can't believe anyone is this fun. Or this smart. Or this handsome. Or this thoughtful.

You don't know it, but the world is a better place with you in it.

You certainly make my world brighter. And I'm a better person for having known you.

Here's to the next 50. I'm so excited we get to spend them together.

XXOO,

Your Wife

Fistful of Dookie

Toddler Hipster Says: Shit Happens.

My husband is the one who usually gives our two-year-old daughter a bath. He's clever enough to use the time to practice his guitar. He stands next to the tub with one foot resting on the toilet while he serenades her. I've mentioned that he may be ruining her for any other man.

When I give her a bath, I'm in a big damn hurry. I mean, sure, play play play with the bathtub toys and the bubbles, but as soon as the hair is washed and rinsed — her bath time minutes are numbered. I let her watch the water slowly drain out of the tub until it forms a little cyclone by the drain hole. She puts her finger in it just like I did when I was a kid. I think watching the water drain may be the best part of the bath, myself.

Anyway, bath time is significantly shorter with Mama. Bath time with dad is a leisurely endeavor. Our bathing beauty gets to luxuriate in her bubbles, every one of her bath time friends gets to do multiple laps and many a water ballet. Dad practices through chords and strums his weekly song for his instructor over and over again while my son and I listen from downstairs.

But this time the soothing melody was interrupted by an "Uh oh!"

"Was that an 'Uh oh' you need me?" I called upstairs.

"Yeah. I'm gonna need some help with this," he said rather calmly.

I ran upstairs and immediately noticed we had some brown floaters among the bubbles. And the precious baby girl had a fistful of it.

"Yucky," she said.

I can't say I blame her. Warm water. Soothing music. Anyone would get relaxed. And getting relaxed before you're potty trained is a bit messier than after you're potty trained. I do wonder if her father will play quite so many songs next time? With his germ phobia, I'm surprised he didn't shit his pants.

A Fistful of Little Ice Cream Sandwiches

In honor of Mother's Day and my birthday, I'm pulling a blog post from ye olde Myspace days. I believe my son was around three years old at the time and I was a big fat meanie. Happy Mother's Day to all my friends out there who are mean mamas too (on occasion). 

A Fistful of Little Ice Cream Sandwiches

I trotted through the doors of my apartment and out to the parking lot, where my son's father's truck was waiting. I'd just finished working out and was wondering if I'd have Happy Three-Year-Old or I-Hate-Mama-Three-Year-Old waiting for me in the car seat.

I did a little jig outside the car window to try to ensure a positive reception.

I could see his little mouth forming the "O" of a wail through the tinted glass and knew I was screwed. I opened the door.

"Waaah! I. Don't. Want. Ma. Ma!" Big tears rolled down his cheeks as he stretched his arm out towards his father and away from me.

"The Little Mermaid and little ice cream sandwiches!" I blurted.

"Noooo, I want Da..." He paused. "Little ice cream sandwiches?"

"Yes."

"And The Little Mermaid?"

"All this and more, if only you come with the mama," I gestured towards the apartment door as though ushering him into the Magical Kingdom.

"And you cuddle me on the couch?"

"Hells yeah!" I pumped my fist.

(Okay, I might not have said "Hells yeah!") Of course as I picked him up and carried him out of his father's truck (his father never puts his shoes on him), he again wound himself up and wailed as he reached his arms out towards his father.

"Littlemermaidicecreamsandwiches," I whispered in his ear over and over again like a mantra.

Thirty minutes of The Little Mermaid ("Under the Sea!") and one little ice cream sandwich later, with a smattering of hair-strokings and a toddler back rub with mini-baby-karate chops, it was time for bed.

"Five minutes," he waved me off with a pudgy hand.

"No, now."

"I didn't eat my 'nother little ice cream sandwiches!"

Okay, the kid had a solid point. Clearly there was an unfinished little ice cream sandwich on his plate and that's just plain wrong.

"Okay, you can eat the ice cream sandwich but then bed."

"No, I hafta finish watching my movie THEN I can go to bed," he said.

"No, I'm letting you eat the ice cream sandwich out of the kindness of my heart, for which you should say, 'Thank you, Mama,' and then you will go to bed a lucky little boy to have had that little ice cream sandwich." I narrowed my eyes at him.

Suddenly I could hear the theme song to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

"I wanna watch The Little Mermaid!" he took the little ice cream sandwich out of his mouth and slid his hands towards his holster.

"No," I said out of the side of my mouth and rested both of my hands on my hips, my thumbs stroking the handles of my guns.

"Yes!" he cried.

Then the room exploded with gun fire.

If you're not familiar with that sound, ladies and gentlemen, that is the sound of Mama being DONE. I can outdraw a three-year-old any day of the week, my friends.

"How about you go to bed now, with no little ice cream sandwich?" I snapped up the remaining ice cream sandwich and marched it to the freezer.

"But Mama!"

"March," I said. "I'm done with this."

"Ma!" he cried. Now the tears were rolling and he looked paralyzed, shocked and completely ambushed by my gorilla-mama tactics.

He wailed as he took off his pants. He wailed as we turned on the hall light. He wailed as I helped him off with his shirt. And then finally:

"I'm sorry, Mama!" His face was overwrought. He truly looked like a little man who was horrified by his own actions and stricken with grief at the price he would have to pay.

"I'm sorry too. I bet that little ice cream sandwich would have tasted soooooooooo good!" I said and rubbed my belly.

Okay, I'm totally kidding about that last line. I would never say that. What I said was this:

"I know you're sorry, baby. Maybe next time you'll say 'Yes, Mama,' instead of trying to negotiate your own bedtime." I pulled his shirt off and grabbed a pajama top.

"I n-n-n-need a hug!" he said and draped his leaden arms around my shoulders, sobbing. I hugged him and rubbed his back.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too, Mama." Pause. "Can I have a little ice cream sandwich now?"

"No."

"I said 'I'm sorry!'"

"Yeah, but you should have listened to Mama in the first place."

"I'll be nice now, I promise."

"You are nice, I know that. Maybe next time you'll do what I ask and not try to tell me what to do. You know Mama doesn't like it when she has to ask you to do something two or three times."

"I know," he said and sighed.

"So what are you going to do next time Mama asks you to do something?"

"Say 'Yes, Mama.'"

"Smart boy."

"Yeah. I am," he nodded, looking happier again, despite the red-eyes and the wet cheeks. He knew he would live to see another day.

See how easy it is? Listen to Mama and get ice cream sandwiches before bed. No wonder his dad's his favorite. His mama's such a bitch.

*Blows smoke from pistols, returns them to holsters*

Everything I Learned About Love, I Learned In Moonstruck. And Rehab.

In a pivotal moment in one of my all-time favorite movies, Moonstruck, Ronny Cammareri tells the woman he loves:

Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice -- it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!

Love doesn't make things nice. Love does ruin everything. It complicates everything. The fairy tales only tell us about falling in love, not about staying in love. The staying part is the work. If you're brave, if you take risks, if you're willing to make a complete ass of yourself — make yourself plain and naked with all your faults and weaknesses laid bare for this other person to see — then maybe just maybe you'll last a bit.

But who wants to do any of that?

Why on earth would you make yourself vulnerable to someone with sharp talons and a flesh-tearing beak? We're all capable of tearing each other to bits. Don't give me that, "He would never or she would never" baloney because all really is fair in love and war. One thing for sure is that when your ego is threatened, you're gonna dance. You're gonna float like a butterfly and sting like a mother-effin' bee.

You won't care if it's a girl. You'll punch her in the face.

You won't care if it's Prince Charming. You'll go for his nut sack.

Well, figuratively, at least.

My therapist once told me that conflict brings people closer together. I thought he was completely high off his Freudian pipe. Okay, he didn't have a pipe, but he looked as though he should. I've spent my life running from conflict. I dodge and weave. I duck and cover. I slip out the back, yo.

I remember when my mom went to rehab when I was 12, the counselors assembled us all in a room and asked each one of the kids to role play with one of the alcoholic parents. (This would forever ruin any sort of role play for me.) We each took a turn acting out what we would say to our alcoholic parent if we could say anything.

"What would you say, Mandy? What would you say if you could say anything?"

Standing in the center of a roomful of adult addicts and their children sitting on plastic chairs, I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head.

"Tell us what you would do, Mandy."

"I would go climb a tree," I said when it was clear they wouldn't bug off. So they had me walk off in the corner and sit in my metaphorical tree. It felt like punishment.

I guess my therapist's point was that if you spend your life sitting in an imaginary tree avoiding conflict, you're never going to get close to anyone. Life is messy here on the ground. You trip. People screw with you. You're clumsy with your words and your actions. You hurt the people you love.

You make a complete donkey of yourself.

You say things you didn't mean.

You interpret their actions through the filter of the past. You don't see anyone for who they really are, but more for what they can do for you or how they make you feel. But that's not love.

Love is messy.

It tears you up.

You've got to get in there and confront it. You've got to cry and let your nose get all snotty. You've got to tell each other when you're hurt and you've got to keep telling each other until you both get it. You keep talking until somebody figures out that you both just want to be loved.

So say something nice. Say you love me still and I'll do the same for you. Wipe my nose and I'll wipe yours even though it's gross. Hug me, even though I'm this ruinous twelve-year-old girl inside who can only fold her arms and walk away. Hang in there because it's 25 years later and I'm finally learning to turn back around, re-enter the circle and speak my mind.





This is another old post from the unpublished vault. I wrote it when I was still dating my now husband. I'm still learning how to speak my mind. We're both still learning that we both just want to be loved. Yep, we're pretty lucky to have found each other.

Piece of Cake.

My husband and I have children spanning the ages from one to twenty-two. The twenty-two year olds are his, he also has a nineteen year old. The one year old is ours in common and I have a seven-year-old. The funny thing about having five kids spanning the ages from one to twenty-two is that their stages sometimes overlap.

I mean, I couldn't help but think as I watched the twenty-two year old walk across the stage this weekend to receive his college diploma, that he's on the cusp of independence. He's about take his first tentative steps into adulthood. I'm sure his father would like to follow behind and hold out his arms to catch his son if he falls. Not unlike the way he wants to protect his one-year-old daughter as she navigates walking (and god help us) running.

I see the same overlap between my one-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. This weekend she was fussy and a little feverish. I also noticed that she was drooling, which is not something she's done up until now. It was clear she was teething, as her top two teeth have just come in and now she's got almost all four bottom teeth in too.

In the same weekend, my seven-year-old son lost his two front teeth. Currently he is missing two on top, and two on the bottom. He has developed an utterly charming lisp in the process. So strange to have one child pushing those baby teeth in for the first time with the other is pushing them out.

I asked my husband what he would say if he had a friend who was about to be a father again after the older children had already grown. I know for some people the idea is something akin to horrifying. My own husband got quite a bit of ribbing for it at work.

"I would tell him it's a piece of cake!" he said.

At first I thought he was joking, but he made it clear he meant it. I have to laugh at anyone who can come out of the first year with a baby and say, "It's a piece of cake." But I stop laughing when I realize he's not kidding. I find it overwhelmingly touching.

I see my husband with his arm slung around his graduating son's shoulders and I see him walking his one-year-old daughter down the sidewalk. In both endeavors he has the same look, the same proud smile. He loves them, that much is clear.

Lord knows the 2 a.m. wake up calls from a newborn were not a piece of cake. And raising a child from birth to college graduation is by no means a piece of cake. I think of 22 years of worrying about your children's safety, worrying about their progress, worrying about their feelings, worrying worrying worrying. But when you boil it down to its most basic parts, I think what you are left with is the love you feel for them.

Loving them, that part really is a piece of cake.



I wrote this post almost a year ago and never posted it. On second glance, I like it. Hope you like it too.

Meeting New People Is Not My Superpower.

So I've been wanting to try a new exercise class. I either work out by myself or with a personal trainer. I'm fine in a one-on-one situation. I know what I'm expected to do. I know where to go. I know how I will be treated. I can function this way with a bare minimum of neuroses at play.

A group glass triggers all sorts of red flags. First of all, a new class means new logistics, new location, new routines. What if I go to the wrong place? What if I'm early? What if I'm late? And a group class is filled with new people. In the form of a ... group. In my head, they become a group of fitness Superheroes. They will all hate me on sight. They will be forged in iron and they will leave me in a fat puddle in the middle of the gym while they scoff at what a Flabby McWeakerson I am. I will never be fit enough to work out with the Greek gods that are the fitness SuperFriends.

My brain is a scary place to live, I know.

I finally emailed the instructor and told him I was going to come to class. I thought if he expected me I would feel pressured to show up. But no. I skipped on Monday because my husband gave me an out when he said he had to leave early for work.

Wednesday morning I had no such excuse. I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. I put on my gym clothes and contemplated getting back into bed in my gym clothes. I went downstairs and put on my shoes in the dark. I decided I would walk on the treadmill and see if I hated life any less. If I was still miserable and suicidal over joining a group fitness class, I would just stay on the treadmill.

Forever.

Once there, I decided to stay on the treadmill. Sure I was feeling better about life after ten minutes of cardio, but I wasn't feeling any better about how much I was going to suck at CrossFit. Maybe I would try it on Friday?

Or never.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the instructor enter the cardio room. I decided to zero in on the treadmill monitor and stare myself into invisibility. "Do not see me," I said, just like Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I even said it with an accent.

Then I saw someone moving toward me but I stared all the harder at the monitor. I could will myself into invisibility, just like I could will myself into Narnia when I was a kid being teased by the neighborhood thugs.

Oh yeah. That didn't work either. Damn.

"So are you coming?" the instructor asked me. He was standing on the next treadmill.

"Oh. Uh. Hi. Um. Well, I, er..." I pulled the earphones out of my ears and did my best to get out of it.

"Come on," he said and waved me over as he walked towards the gym.

"Yeah, uh, I, er, was thinking, maybe it will be too hard for me," I walked behind him, not wanting to be rude. "Maybe I should try it another time? When I'm more fit. I just don't know..."

He walked into the gym and I followed him like an obedient puppy. He introduced me to a group of people who smiled and welcomed me instantaneously.

"You're finally going to work out with the group?" one lady asked. She must have seen me working out with a personal trainer in the gym at some point.

The group seemed happy to have me. No one mentioned that 5'10" losers weren't allowed. I was overjoyed and motivated by both the class, and by the kindness of my fellow human beings.

Acceptance surprises me every time.

Also, I can barely walk today.

Holy.

Hell.

Somebody get me a wheelchair.

We'll Be Here, Listening to You Breathe

There's a striking age difference among the children in my family. We've got babies as young as my daughter who is one, and babies as old as in their twenties. But what strikes me is no matter how big or small, all of their parents continue worrying about them.

Just last night I put my own sturdy one-year-old in her bed and heard her throwing various stuffed animals out of her crib. The Soothe-and-Glow Seahorse is particularly heavy. It doesn't sound all that different from what I imagine a 20 lb. one-year-old body sounds like as it hits the floor. Then there's the kicking of the side of the crib to activate the Ocean Wonders Deep Blue Sea Soother that's strapped to the side of her crib. She kicks it to activate it.

My point is, there's a whole lot of ruckus going on in there and I think that smart little conniver is banking on freaking me out so I come to check on her to make sure she's alive. But because a pediatrician in my parenting group told me to leave that baby alone for 12 hours and I don't want her to wind up living a life of crime, I leave her in bed.

But I do stand outside her door with my ear pressed to it. And listen. I wait to hear the sounds of her breathing, or rustling around, or making whatever baby murmurs she might make. I also watch my sister talk on the phone to her 19-year-old baby (who doesn't like us calling her a baby) and the way my sister presses her head to the phone reminds me of myself. It reminds me of the intent way my brother and husband email, text and call their college-aged children – waiting and listening – to hear that their babies are okay.

But with the grown babies, they're not as easy to protect. It's not as easy as gathering them up off of the floor and covering them in kisses. It's not as simple as putting the plastic covers on the electrical outlets. You can't follow them around the house and prevent every fall.

More importantly, you have to let them fall. So they can learn how to pick themselves back up.

But I imagine my sister, my brother and my husband don't really see the grown adults their children have become. They still see these little babies in footed jammies, crying because they've bumped their heads. I'm sure they long to gather them up and make everything okay.

It makes me realize as I worry about my little baby sleeping in her crib, that it won't get easier. It gets harder. You get further and further away from the door, waiting longer and longer to know that they're okay.



I wrote this over a year ago and I guess I didn't think it was good enough to post. Now I like it. Hope you do too.