she’s got this

How to parent.

Those three little loaded words are what I obsess over, worry about, and critique myself most hours of the day I spend doing said parenting and often continue long after the parenting portion of the day is done. But very rarely do I arrive at an answer because, as we all know, nobody— parent or not— actually knows what the fuck they’re doing. No matter how hard we try to convince everyone otherwise, we’re all blind, simply throwing darts and just hoping to god that something sticks. But on the rare occasion, like this past Saturday morning, when Mo was faced with worry and fear, instead of allowing her anxiety to win by talking herself out of giving the unfamiliar a shot, Marlo chose to be brave and believe in herself.

“I am going to try something new… And I got this.”

So, no, we don’t always know if our parenting will stick. But on that day, our first born hit a bullseye.

the poop chronicles

For years, they shit their pants as they strain and their faces burn bright red. They grunt like cavemen in random isolated corners throughout the house. They hide behind chairs while watching weird YouTube videos on the family iPad, all the while demanding that no one even look in their general vicinity as they handle their backdoor business. Not only does their poop routine rule the roost but, to add insult to injury, someone else wipes their ass afterwards. Multiple times. Every single day.

However, after consuming three giant mugs of nuclear-strength coffee mixed with my old faithful Nestlé Naturals hazelnut creamer after a very long sleepless night spent comforting a congested baby boy, do you think the favor is returned? Do you think they give me even a single minute to handle my own digestive mass exodus in peace so I don’t have to strain, risking the chance of acquiring yet another hemorrhoid which, ironically, I only began suffering from as a result of pushing their tiny newborn bodies out of my own as if I were taking the most cathartic shit of my entire life?

Spoiler: No. Because of course they don’t leave me alone to poop in peace because they’re turds (pun not intended) and, as it would appear, they enjoy watching me sweat.

To make matters worse, the humidity has caused the door frame of our downstairs powder bath to swell which prevents the door from latching which then means that locking the door is also out of the question. Conveniently, this allows my children to stand at the door, uncomfortably staring at my bare ass, conveying to me all of the most important things that surely can not wait another four minutes to be shared. And, before you ask, yes, we do have another bathroom. But, it’s upstairs and, as I’m sure you’ve experienced a time or two before, when you gotta go, sometimes you just gotta go and making it up a full flight of stairs to the other bathroom with the working latch and lockable door handle is simply out of the question.

And so I deal with my kids reaching through the crack in the door like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, only they aren’t trying to murder me. They’re only begging for cheddar bunnies and asking to see my poop when I’m done.

Moral of the story: not all heroes wear capes.

Some heroes, as it turns out, are the moms pooping at warp speed while begging their toddler to wait another thirty flippin’ seconds for the snack said toddler is convinced she’ll starve without eating that very moment even though she just finished her breakfast twelve minutes prior. Sometimes, heroes have hemorrhoids and their super power is the ability to wipe more tiny asses by lunch time than you’ve wiped in a lifetime.

Happy pooping, fellow heroes. Here’s to privacy, Preparation-H, and lockable bathroom doors.

the beautiful brute

We almost didn’t have a third baby.

Mainly because I thought people who had three kids were certifiable lunatics. Parenting is really fucking hard and really fucking heavy. Whether it’s one kid, two kids, three, four, or five— being a parent often seems like nothing more than an evolutionary tactic of survival. Loving someone (or three someones) so intensely that I’d quite literally die to ensure their survival seems a little melodramatic, unhealthy, one-sided in their favor, and potentially disastrous for me as the one willing to take the bullet. I wonder daily why people speak so highly of parenting and yet being my children’ mother is solely responsible for giving me a purpose so much bigger than anything I would’ve or could’ve chosen for myself. It fulfills me and simultaneously sucks the life out of me. It gives me direction and causes me to walk into the kitchen for for the third time today and not remember what the hell I even went in there for.

Once Edie turned one, I assumed that the baby-making chapter of our lives had been permanently shut down for business and Joe made no secret that he was emphatically done impregnating me, no matter how much fun he had doing it. We were tired. We were busy. Our patience was stretched thin as it was with Edie being such a high-maintence baby. More than anything, we were both painfully aware of our luck. Conceiving was easy (too easy for Joe’s preference) and what followed were two uneventful healthy pregnancies and two healthy baby girls. Joe was ready to sleep a full eight hours again. Things were getting easier. Why become one of those lunatics? Plus, I felt complete.

That is, until I didn’t.

One night when Edie was around eighteen months old, I had a vivid, life-like dream about a baby boy. He looked familiar. He looked like Marlo. He looked like Edie, only much chubbier. He looked like…. me?! As I watched him, his presence possessed a certain level of comfortability— like an old friend I’d known my entire life. His name was Knox. As I silently admired this beautiful baby boy, he turned towards me and reached out his arms. Instinctually, I reached back and took him into my arms.

And then I woke up.

I shot up in bed, shocked, and remained still for a few minutes. I was confused and needed to gather my bearings. After a little while passed, I made the decision that the dream was clearly a nocturnal hallucination brought on by extreme exhaustion courtesy of Edie. I planted my feet on the floor, got out of bed, and began my day. I made the girls their breakfast. I drank my mug of coffee with cream. I went through the motions of the day only I couldn’t kick this feeling of what can only be describes as emptiness. I felt hollow, like a vital piece of me was missing and I was unable to kick the visceral longing that accompanied it.

And then it hit me: I wasn’t complete after all. WE weren’t complete. There was a baby boy waiting for us and I’d never been more sure of anything. A few months later, we discovered we were pregnant with a baby boy. We named him Knox.

In nine short days, my beautiful brute will turn one. And you know what? After we met the baby boy who completed our family, I can say with certainty that I wasn’t all-together wrong. We are fucking crazy. But when the insanity that is parenthood provides an undeserved, unconditional, otherwise unmatched kind of love and you find that you are quite literally living a dream come true, lunacy can also be kind of amazing.

normal

"Just a normal day. A normal day? It’s a Jewel! In time of war, in peril of death, people have dug their hands and faces into the earth and remembered this. In time of sickness and pain, people have buried their faces in pillows and wept for this. In times of loneliness and separation, people have stretched themselves taut and waited for this. In time of hunger, homelessness, want, people have raised boney hands to the skies and stayed alive for this.

Normal day — let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may — for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth or bury my face in the pillow,  or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want more then all the world to return to you, normal day."

-Let Me Hold You While I May, Mary Jean Irion

the proust questionnaire | again

This is me. Eleven thousand four hundred and eighty nine days old. Not young.

Old. 

It feels more than slightly indulgent to answer a list of questions conscerning of nothing other than myself. Not to mention, to do so under the assumption that anyone gives a shit makes me feel like an asshole. But. (There is always a but isn't there?) The truth is, I don't write this blog for any reason other than as a creative outlet for myself and, in ten...fifteen.... twenty years, there is a slight chance that I may want to be able to look back on who I was while approaching thirty-two and to see how far, if at all, I've come. 

SO, fuck it. The Proust Questionnaire, answered by me. 

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1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? I take issue with the term 'happiness' for many reasons but since you asked, I'll play along and argue that my ideal version of happiness could only take place on the white sandy beaches of Tulum, Mexico. I'd have a michelada in my hand (WITH clamato juice.... always with clamato juice), a plate of perfectly fried fish tacos on handmade blue corn tortillas nearby. My husband would be lounging beside me on our queen-sized lounge bed and our kids would be playing (quietly) together in the shallow surf. It would smell like salt water and  sunscreen. I'd be high on vitamin D and drunk on love. 

2. What is your greatest fear? Raising assholes.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Impatience. 

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Apathy.

5. Which living person do you most admire? Oprah.

6. What is your greatest extravagance? Skincare (cheaper than Botox though AMIRIGHT?!). And shoes (because they successfully distract from the disheveled state of everything else I'm working with). 

7. What is your current state of mind? Overwhelmed because KIDS. 

8. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Contentment. If only because it can lead to complacency and then eventually-- possibly-- apathy.

9. On what occasion do you lie? When I don't want to share the last (insert whatever chocolate treat I'm hiding in my fridge here) with my kids. 

10. What do you most dislike about your appearance? My belly button now no longer resembles anything remotely close to an actual belly-button due to the three pregnancies and two laparoscopic organ removals (gallbladder and appendectomy) it's been through.

11. Which living person do you most despise? Donald Trump and all of the pussies in congress who are beholden to the NRA.

12. What is the quality you most like in a man? Humility and emotional intelligence.

13. What is the quality you most like in a woman? Self-deprecation and empathy.

14. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "For fuck's sake, what now?!"

15. What or who is the greatest love of your life? Marlo, Edie, and Knox and the man who helped me create them.

16. When and where were you happiest? When no offspring of mine is yelling at me and not demanding a snack of any sorts.

17. Which talent would you most like to have? To paint and/or play the piano.

18. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I'd worry less about the bigger picture so that I could focus more on being present with my kids. Also, I'd give anything for motherhood to come more easily to me. 

19. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Well, I grew, birthed, and fed three small humans with my own single body and I find that to be pretty fucking spectacular. I just-so-happened to pull the third and final of said human crew out of my womb and vagina with my own set of two hands which was the most transformative experienced thus far in my life. It served as evidence that I possessed a physical and emotional and mental power I was previously unaware I was even capable of. 

20. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? Myself. And do it all over again without changing a thing. 

21. Where would you most like to live? Anywhere Trump is not President of the United States of America, gay marriage and marijuana is legal, female reproductive rights aren't yet another form of systematic patriarchal grand fuckery, racism is dead, and the lives of children matter more than the ability for a civilian to own a semi-automatic weapon. I think this place only exists in my dreams so I'll settle for Paris.

22. What is your most treasured possession? I have three. 1) An exquisite custom wooden cutting board that my uncle made for me when we bought our current home; 2) An original photo of my grandmother as a baby that I got framed and hangs in our living room; And 3) 

23. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Not liking who you see in the mirror. 

24. What is your favorite occupation? Psychologist or writer. 

25. What is your most marked characteristic? Physically speaking, my arms and/or lips depending on who you ask. As far as my most marked personality trait, I'd argue that it's a three-way-tie between my ability to always find a silver lining, my empathy and compassion, and my unapologetic vulnerability.

26. What do you most value in your friends? self-deprecation, sense of humor, and the ability to call me out on my shit in the most loving way possible.

27. Who are your favorite writers? Augustan Burroughs, Joan Didion, Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris.

28. Who is your hero of fiction? Louise from Thelma & Louise

29. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Betty Friedan, "A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she 'adjust' to prejudice and discrimination..."

30. Who are your heroes in real life? Refugees.

31. What are your favorite names? Marlo McLean, Edie Cooper, and Knox Richard.

32. What is it that you most dislike? Manipulation, bullying, patriarchal assholes.

33. What is your greatest regret? Not going to grad school immediately after undergrad.

34. How would you like to die? At peace with the people who matter to me and with a legacy.

35. What is your motto? "The only way out is through" and "If this isn't nice, what is?!"