Charles

My husband just said in response to a commercial:

"Things not to do on the first day of a job? Masturbate in the bathroom."

Christmas

Merry Christmas,everyone!

Tonight we go hang at my sister's for the annual gathering of the dysfunctional family unit, wherein we all drink copious amounts of alcohol and eat a lot of really unhealthy food and open presents from each other that was exactly what we asked for because none of us know each other well enough to even attempt to purchase something stemming from an original idea of our own. Most likely at some point my brother will call from Okinawa, where it is like 4 AM, to wish us a Merry Christmas and to make awkward conversation with all six of his siblings, all the while pretending he is not hung over and we are not wasted. I am sure at some point we will end up on the Internet, looking up very funny videos on youtube, because nothing says "celebrate the birth of your Savior" like Charlie the Unicorn and the literal version of Total Eclipse of the Heart or a Snuggie spoof. We may watch A Christmas Story, simply because the father in that movie is loosely based upon our own father, God rest his soul. Then my husband and I make the trek back to our house (40 min drive) to unload all the stuff we got, 9/10's of which is really packaging from the toys. Maybe this year we will be smart and take everything out of the boxes and leave with a Walmart shopping bag instead of requiring a small trailer and strapping the kids to the roof of the Jeep...Then onto the midnight service where we hope and pray that the children do not dissolve into heaping, screaming piles of over-sugared, over-tired, madness.

And I love every second of it. I think if we had a "normal" family who roasted chestnuts over an open fire, I would be bored out of my mind. Unless, of course, one of my brothers forgot to open the chimney flue and black smoke started to pour into the house and the fire department showed...nothing says Merry Christmas from the Lambkins family like black sooty children rolling around in the snow (or rather, muddy slush that it seems we will have this year instead of snow...what is this, year 12 without snow? Riiiiight, climate change is a myth....)

Merry Christmas!

Inconvenience

Death is never convenient.

When my son died, it was smack dab in the middle of the summer semester of school for me. It was my last semester before I started Practicum, where I actually saw clients. I was surprised that they let me, but eternally grateful that they did. It saved my sanity, I do believe.

I would later go on to lose two more babies after Gabe died. One was right in the beginning of my internship, the other was near the anniversary of his birth. Two also very inconvenient times.

I wonder how the hell I have been able to carry on some days. I wonder why the earth has not stopped spinning, why all business in the world does not come to a halt every time that I lose another child.

It is extremely inconvenient for me. I sometimes feel as though it should be for the rest of the world as well, even though they are just as innocent in this as I.

Which is why I do not appreciate being made to feel as though all of this is my fault. Like I chose to have my kid die, just so I could drive particular people away. Like I planned this somehow. Like I am somehow responsible for the actions of other people who decided that death was too inconvenient for them to be supportive, when all I really needed was support and support is a very hard thing for me to ask of someone. Like the thought of my son does not bring me to my knees and all I wanted from people was for them to acknowledge that yes, he did exist.

People who give me ornaments with just two spots for my kids' names...people who unknowingly ask me how many children I have, thereby thrusting me into the middle of a dilemma that every parent who has lost a child has (do I really want to go into this? That dilemma). People who silently think that I am overplaying this because they are uncomfortable with it. All of this...inconvenient.

Just remember...I did not ask for this. If I had my way, I would have a 13 month old son running around.

Work

Don't worry, I am not going to break HIPPA or anything.

Today was the first day that I actually felt like I knew WTF I was doing at work. Like I was truly a therapist and had the potential to make a difference in people's lives. This is a big deal for me as I worked my ASS off for the last few years to get here. To get to the point where I feel at least semi-competent, and that I am not going to send all my clients spiraling down into a black abyss that ultimately ends with their death at their own hands due to my ineptitude.

Of course, being the perfectionist that I am, tomorrow I shall feel completely different. Or maybe I have multiple personalities...or intern's disease...

Snuggies

There is nothing funnier than the freakish creation that is a backwards robe masquerading as a blanket. Unless of course you are wearing it while gettin' yo freak on.

http://thesnuggiesutra.com

Dating

Not me. My husband does not let me date.

He has a friend who is dating. He got involved with this girl who was, quite frankly, the type to make Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction look like the picture of mental health. He was trying to get rid of her, by doing things that men do, such as being nice and logical. Hello? Logical does not work with those who have Borderline Personality Disorder! (Not that that is an official diagnosis or anything, but she sure as hell fit the traits...)

He was trying to figure out how to get rid of her. Now if this were a sitcom, he could just pretend to be a momma's boy and she would become so disgusted that she would just leave him. Alas, life is not a sitcom. He even went so far as to kick her out of his bed immediately after sex (and not only his bed, but his house. I did point out that maybe the whole you had sex with her thing was perpetuating her delusions that they had a future, but he is a male and did not see the correlation.)

My husband suggested that he suggest anal or a threesome. Apparently neither were not issues. We pondered for a minute, then I came up with the perfect suggestion.

I told him to ask her if he could pee on her. My husband's friend said my husband and I are sick and we are made for each other. I agree.

Program

Today was Alexis's very first ever Christmas program at school (yes, actually Christmas. Very rural district, so no one has complained. I will say that I would fully support it if someone did, though...)

Anywho, for those of you who don't know, my daughter is a bit of a drama queen. And when I say a bit I am meaning that like one would when they are saying that the Pope is a bit Catholic, or the Kardashians are a bit irrelevant to, well, anything. Right before the performance, she fell on the playground and got a bit of a boo-boo. However, at the time I thought it was a bit or a boo-boo like one would refer to a head cold as a bit of a virus (you know...mild enough that it does not need treatment besides some babying, more obviously if you are a married man because the world comes to an end when they are sick, but not serious enough to warrant a visit to the doctor). To her, however, it was the end of the world. Like it was a bit of a boo-boo like a horrid outbreak of genital herpes is a bit of a virus (you know, itching and burning and wrecking your love life.) This totally affected her performance. I seriously got the impression watching her that she was clinically depressed. I have never seen such a pathetic performance in my entire life. And of course, me, being the oh-so stellar parent that I am, I laughed silently on the inside at her totally Emo performance. (I actually told my mother tonight that I wanted to make sure that my children only require a decade of therapy or less. That is all I required, though there is some debate as to the efficacy of that therapy...)

Turns out that her bit of a boo-boo was not quite the head cold, but not up to burning genital herpes either. Perhaps a mild stomach bug that requires only one trip to the bathroom, maybe two? I was still so proud of her though...despite perhaps requiring some uppers, she was very cute tonight.

Scrubs

Why did they change the theme song to the new Scrubs? Everytime I hear it I feel like I am going to go into a seizure or something.

Finances

Ever get that oh-so panicky feeling when you think about money?

I had an episode like that today. Now considering that I am an extraordinarily high strung, anxious individual, this is not a new feeling. I live in a semi-permanent state of being thisclose to an anxiety attack. I really should carry Ativan with me at all times, but I figure that neuroses are a part of my personality (I distinctly remember at the age of 5 worrying that my kindergarden teacher would fail me if I did not master making the lower-case "g", and thus missing a class picture due to obsessively practicing making them.) I am a perfectionist by nature, but I can honestly say that finances are one area that we are currently far from perfect in.

We have a lot of debt. I have student loans, more in credit card debt than I like to think about, let alone admit, a mortgage, two car loans, a personal loan, and medical bills due to the horrid insurance we were forced to have from my husband's work (yet the system is not broken, huh?). I want to be debt free within ten years. This may or may not happen, as it does not seem to be getting any better.

I was thinking about this today and I had one of those "OMG we are going to keep getting in deeper and deeper and we are never going to get out of debt and we are going to lose everything and end up living in a trailer again and eating Spam and drinking Shasta and will never have a fresh vegetable again because WEWON'TBEABLETOFUCKINGAFFORDIT!!!!" Ever have one of those moments? They aren't fun and I am not sure that any pharmaceutical there is now or ever will be will be able to make that feeling go away.

It is funny how thinking about money makes me focus so much on what we are doing wrong (and there is probably a lot, believe me...I seriously think we could make a financial advisor curl up in a corner in the fetal position sucking their thumb singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...") We are doing something right...we have survived the greed of the banks and big businessses and mangaged to come out of this financial crisis OK and without having to rely on any kind of government program. (And I know some very conservative people, some of whom are relatives, who can't say that. And I am referring to the government piece, not the being OK...) We still have our house, nothing has been repossessed, and we are paying our bills. It was weird, though, the first time I had to deliberately NOT pay a bill because we simply did not have the money. I had a friend (ironically also a very conservative person, especially WRT personal responsibility, economics, and her perception of so-called freedoms) say that she thought that was just a rite of passage of being an adult, or something along those lines.

I guess we aren't doing too badly then, huh?

Wine

I went to a Christmas party with my husband tonight. He said, "Well, I think that you can drink tonight. I will drive." I was all over that like Rush Limbaugh on the whole climate change e-mail "scandal". I get to go to a house with people that I will most likely never see again, eat food that I did not have to cook, and not have to worry about what I drink because I am not driving? I just went and died and gone to heaven, I do declare!

I really did not have expectations for this party, because honestly, a lot of people around here are kinda...well...not to be mean, but have you ever listened to Jeff Foxworthy? So we get to this house, and I walk in, and OMG...I think I had a small orgasm walking into this house, it was THAT tastefully decorated. I seriously considered commissioning this lady right on the spot to decorate our future house that we intend to build, some day when, oh, IDK, we actually get out of debt...

All I have to say is, if my husband expected that by letting me drink a whole bottle of wine he would get lucky tonight, he may have overplayed his hand...the wine alone got me excited, but the house pushed me over the edge and I am spent. He may need to do some scouting for future dates.

That...

Parent. I have become that parent. I drove around to four different stores today looking for a freaking Cinderella doll for Alexis. Four. All because I won't buy her a Cinderella barbie. I looked at them in all four stores, but I just could not bring myself to actually purchase such an inaccurate representation of a female figure for my daughter. I know, some of you are out there rolling your eyes and saying, "She is three, for fuck's sake. It is innocent." Well, I distinctly remember thinking that Barbie's body shape was beautiful and what I should strive for as a little girl, not realizing that it is a shape that requires one to carry your liver in a bag, it is so distorted.

Cleaning

Today I went into the kitchen to do the dishes and Alexis followed me, asking "Mommy, can I help you do the dishes?" There were not that many, so I said no. Then she asked as I started to roll my sleeves up, "Can I clean something?" I was trying to think of something (cause you would have to be a total dumbass to shoot down a kid who WANTS to clean) when I turned around to see her rolling her sleeves up as well, just like Mommy.

I shoulda told her she could clean the puddle of Mommy up off the floor...

Cards

A few years ago, I bought on clearance a bunch of boxes of Christmas cards. I was curious to see who would notice that I used the same cards, year in and year out. Only one person noticed, my sister. At least, she was the only person with enough balls to say anything to me LOL. Not sure what that says about the people I associate with, but there you have it.

I am out of them now. Good thing, because the glue on the envelopes is all dried up.

Conversations

Conversation with Elizabeth:
Me: Hey, you wanna help me make cupcake pops this weekend?
E: Yeah, what shapes are we gonna do?
M: Well, we can do trees, and maybe Santas...
E: And stars! Oh, and we can do ornaments!
M: Yeah, but I am trying to think of what we could use for the hooks...
E: Oh, I was thinking we could use real ones and not tell people. It would be funny when they took a bite of it...like, "Hey, Merry Christmas to you..."

Conversation with Alexis:
M: Good night, Alexis (middle name, last name)
A: My name is not Alexis (MN, LN). It is Alexis Princess!

Yelled from the bathtub this evening, a la my Grandma B (she used to do this with taking us out to McDonald's..."Aren't those kids hungry yet?"):
A: Mommy! Did you tell me 5 more minutes yet?
M: No, not yet.
A: Well, do it! Please? (used the manner words...)

Conversation with my sister while looking at Elizabeth's school pics (she had a very faint bruise on her arm):
Alicia: That is quite the nice bruise you have there, Elizabeth.
M: Yeah, well, she did not listen very well that day...
(Elizabeth was in the middle of taking a huge drink and almost sprayed it all over me.)

Conversation with my dad quite a few years ago, but one that perhaps can explain where I get it all from:
M: Wow, when you close your eyes and rub your eyelids, you see all kinds of different colors!
Dad: Eh, you don't need to rub your eyes to do that. All you need is some PCP...

Technology

I forgot my flash drive at work. At least I hope I did, because otherwise that means that I lost it. At any rate, I was unable to do any work this evening. For a workaholic like me, that is bad. Very very bad. In fact, I am kinda panicked at the idea of not having my notes done in advance. This is the kind of anxiety that most people have when they think about dying or their finances.

I got to thinking about how pervasive technology has become in our lives. I had two friends talk today about how they lost hours worth of work on their computers due to no fault of their own. I am unable to work due to missing a certain piece of technology. I also freak out when I am unable to access the Internet for my daily fix of the news. IT people have become the people to absolutely include on your daily ass-kissing lists, almost more so than your own boss. They are the new royalty in our society, I believe. Screw the upper class, our worlds would collapse without your office IT guy or gal.

I then realized the truth that is that scene in the movie Office Space, where they take out the fax machine and beat it with baseball bats. I would love to do that to our office printer. I wonder if the escalation in road rage in recent years has anything to do with the fact that these people are leaving offices with malfunctioning office equipment and that is the only way they can take out their rage.

I hereby propose that we need to write into the new health care bill a provision for people to be able to take malfunctioning office equipment into a safe area and beat the hell out of it with bats, nunchuks, crowbars, whatever. I think that this definitely falls under the guise of "preventative care".

Teeth

Celebrities with extremely bright white teeth irritate me. It looks fake. Since when did America become all about the false, unattainable level of beauty? I know what the feminist in me would say...

Santa

Alexis got to see Santa twice today. The first time was at Wal-Mart, as we were headed up the aisle between the housewares and the office supplies. Apparently they were doing free pics with Santa that day, and we caught him as he was coming back from lunch. At least I am assuming it was lunch and not a piss break, because Santa's picture-takin' place was set up thisclose to the bathrooms at the back of the store. Alexis went to Santa and sat on his lap and proceeded to tell him that she wanted grapes for Christmas.

The second time was at this old grain elevator that my sister-in-law's mother-in-law owns. (Catch the relationship there? LOL) Since I generally try to avoid any and all contact with my in-laws (mother- and father-in-law because they annoy me and hate me, my sisters-in-law because they are two of the most selfish people I have ever met and I have absolutely no respect for them) Charles took the girls there to see Santa. This got me to thinking about Santa.

Where else but in America do we let our children sit on a verified, confirmed, but not convicted breaker and enterer's lap and let them whisper their secret desires into his ear? Am I the only twisted person who secretly chuckles inside when I hear Santa ask, "Have you been good?" (All I can think of after I hear that is "Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa" from Bad Santa.) Isn't anyone else disturbed by where exactly the elve's heads are in proportion to certain parts of Santa's body?

Don't get me wrong...my girls are told about Santa, one of the socially sanctioned lies of our great society, right up there with you must be thin to be beautiful and that you are irregular if you have a cycle of more than 28 days with ovulation at day 14 and that therapists can somehow read your mind. But did anyone THINK before they created this character? Or was that person secretly snickering inside as people feel hook line and sinker for the fat old man who likes to give children presents. If you had that in every day society, people would automatically assume that he was a pedophile. However, since it is Christmas and Santa is "magic", we make exceptions. Just goes to show me that people are not as black and white as they like to try to be.

Funny

Tonight Charles walked up to Elizabeth and burped in her face. Me, I rolled my eyes and told him that was incredibly wrong and he needed to apologize. Elizabeth, she started to laugh and then said, "I laughed so hard I just farted."

I left the room after that.

Frightening

Those Old Navy commercials with the mannequins scare the hell out of me. They seriously give me the heebie-jeebies. Elizabeth is in total agreement with me, further proving that my child is the smartest thing to ever walk the planet.

Grief

One of the other therapists in the office lost a client unexpectedly this week. This was a young child, mind you, not an adult. She was talking about how the mother of this child is "doing so well". I was shocked for a minute because I kept thinking, "Hello, you are a therapist!!!" until she said that she told the mother that she was not fooling her.

I fool people every single day, though. Maybe in a couple of months that mother will be able to fool people. Maybe she will be able to act as though a large piece of her is not missing. Maybe she will be able to function daily and not feel this incredible guilt that she is in fact functioning while her daughter is dead and buried way before her time.

It is very likely indeed that that mother will be able to do this. I do. But what I really wanted to tell that therapist, and what most people don't seem to understand, is that that mother is going to think about her child, in some way, shape, or form, for the rest of her life. Some memories will make her smile, some laugh, and some cry. But not one day will go by that she does not think of her child. I wanted to tell that therapist that that mother will seem to do just fine for a while, and then out of a blue something...a song, another child, a certain kind of day...will bring her to her knees again and that she will feel that loss as acutely as she did the day it happened. That a lack of tears does not mean that this mother is doing well and "getting on with her life"...it means that the tears are on the inside. That that mother is now, forever and always, put in the position of having to protect other people, people who do not know how to deal with someone who has been in this position. That mother will forever have to make apologies for a child who died too young, and that the rest of the world will eventually like to forget existed because it makes them uncomfortable.

There is no healing from that kind of thing. There is a constant part of me that is keening inside, yearning for my child that I never really knew. There are days that it hurts so badly that I cannot catch my breath. There are days that I physically ache for what was taken from me. There are days that I wish I could forget, and then hate myself for feeling that way. Because no matter how badly it hurt, no matter how hard it is, I will never ever regret the 20 weeks I had my son, that I carried him in my womb.