Sleep

I don't know if the fucking of our clocks that is DST is continuing, if Charlie has tripped too much acid at preschool (see below) or if she is secretly in training for special ops and is practicing sleep deprivation to see how she functions...but Charlie has recently decided that sleeping in her own bed is a path straight to hell.  So this mean she now joins us.  In bed.  Every night.

Not cool.

The fuck?  What are they doing in preschool nowadays?

I am not sure if out of my  9 10 readers (Hi, Mason!) there is anyone who practices attachment parenting.  If you are one, you might want to stop reading.  Or continue reading so you can judge me on my parenting practices.  Really, I'm cool either way.  I am not one of those parents.  Mostly because of the fact that I need my sleep.  And you don't get much when you have a child in bed with you.

As I have learned the past few weeks.

Charlie is practicing her cage fighting she had perfected in the womb in her sleep.  In my bed.  On me.  I go to bed with visions of waking in the morning well rested.  I wake instead with a lovely pattern of bruises up my left side because she has beat the shit out of me in her sleep.  She also tends to make this high pitched whining noise that is surely to summon the hounds of hell to come and steal my soul.  Or for Alexis to come climb into bed with us as well, which has happened a few times.  Poor deprived middle child; she never got to sleep with me.  Of course, she also would yell from her bed for me to come get her out of it until she was well over four....completely different animal there, Alexis is.  Elizabeth also used to like to sleep with me, but she didn't beat on me.  She just wanted to sleep "on your chest, Mommy" and would then jam my chin up to an unnatural angle as she snuggled in.  With her, I spent half the night going from my twin bed to the trundle she slept in under it; lather, rinse, and repeat.

We currently have a California King bed.  One would not think that a 40 lb child could take up so much room in it.  She usually has about 3/4 of the bed.  Then when Alexis comes in, she takes up about another third of the bed.  I'm pretty sure that is over a whole bed, but I'm too sleep deprived to figure it up.

I don't function well in the mornings.  One thing Charles learned quickly about me, aside from the whole laundry thing and my general insanity, was that I need sleep.  I am not blessed, like some of my siblings, with the ability to get by on just 5 hours.  I need a good 8-9 hours, and that is when I am not depressed.  I am pretty sure that I am non-functional enough in the mornings that if I ever had to sign an important contract first thing, I could get out of it if I want to by some kind of insanity plea.

So waking up every morning, feeling as though I have done battle throughout the night?  Yeah, it's made life super fun lately.  So much that the above picture actually kinda makes sense to me.

The logical answer to this?  Leave a pillow and a blanket and she can sleep on the floor, right?  Yeah.  It took me two weeks to think of this.  My initial thought was to try to invent injectable coffee.  Then I realized there was another name for this.  Cocaine.

I think I need to add money for when Mommy was sleep deprived to the kids' therapy funds.

DST

Of all of the myriad of ways that have been developed to torture parents, Daylight Savings Time has to be the worst.

I mean, that is not really a big revelation to anyone who has, works with, or knows someone with children.  Seriously, who thinks of this shit?  Let's go for 6 months on one time schedule, and then suddenly decide to move time back or forth an hour, and then pretend that life is going to go on like normal.  When in reality, you just slapped society with the equivalent of a toddler who has been given a bottle of vodka with coke and heroin mixed into it.

And let's not talk about the effects on the children...

All of that bullshit that the nebulous "they" talk about regarding sleep hygiene, bedtime routines, and basically taking enough Xanax to get through bath time...all of that goes flying out the window twice a year.  We are fucking with children's internal clocks here, people.  There is no other explanation than the fact that someone, somewhere, wants to punish you for having sex and having procreated.

I am actually starting to wonder about the timing of elections and DST.  Again, the nebulous "they" seem to have an agenda for world domination going on here.  Mind control through sleep deprivation, doncha know?

I'd be concerned about my apparent increasing paranoia, but I am too busy mourning the loss of the sun while I eat my dinner and attempt to wrangle confused children into bed at what society says is the appropriate hour, but what their bodies are rebelling against in a more fierce fashion than Simon Cowell rebels against country music and owls.

Which are, coincidentally, nocturnal.  SEE WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE???

Economics

E:  I need money for a field trip.

Me:  What field trip?  When?  Where is the permission slip?  Where are you going?

E:  Jesus.  I just need $20 to listen to some guy talk about cancer.  It's not like I'm going to buy cocaine with it.  I don't even know what the going rate for cocaine is.

Me:  Well, you are asking for money for a trip that I know nothing about.  Yes, I am gonna question you.  And $20 won't buy you coke.  Maybe crack.

E:  Is there a difference?

Me:  Well, crack is cheaper coke.  Like the Great Value brand of cocaine.

E:  Hey...you buy Great Value stuff all the time...

Me:  If I bought cocaine it would likely be crack.  That's just good economics there.

Eeebbollaaa

I have had numerous firsts that have surprised me in my adult life.  I  have nearly been sideswiped by an angry shopper over Thanksgiving dinnerware.  I have had my hopes and dreams dashed by a can of tomato soup.

I also just recently had another first, one that I never imagined that I would have in my lifetime.

I got screened for Ebola at the local hospital.

It was intense, let me tell you.  I was not even allowed to walk into the ER without first answering a series of questions.  I was questioned on my past travels.  I was questioned about what flights I have taken and when.  I was questioned if I ever had any association with known Ebola sufferers.  I then got a special "No Ebola club" sticker.  I can't even get my fucking picture taken for the "No Cavity Club" at the dentist...

All I have to say is, they are lucky I was walking into the ER for work.  Cause otherwise I would have totally fucked with them and answered yes to all of the questions just to see what would have happened.  I personally envision some kind of set up like you see in ET, with all the tents and the people in the white suits and the shriveled, sickly alien and a young, cute, and innocent Drew Barrymore.

I wonder if the CDC would get mad if I asked them if I could phone home...?

I would make a really lousy Ebola patient I think.  I would be so bored, so I would be way tempted to do shit like lift the white suit up and touch their scrubs underneath just so I could have someone in isolation with me.  We could pass time by making origami out of the masks we are forced to wear and by playing catch with balloons made from the gloves.  It's all gonna get incinerated anyways, so we may as well use the supplies in the room, amiright?

(This is where, if I had more than 9 people who read my blog, I would get flamed for making fun of a serious disease such as Ebola.  People are suffering, don't you know?  It's a government conspiracy!  My first response is...you have to laugh or you will cry.  My second response?

Credit goes to weknowmemes.com)

If I am going to hell, which I surely am...it is not going to be for poking fun at a disease.  I know at least that much.

Boxes

In my basement, amongst all of the other shit that ends up down there due to not having a garage and having a house that is set up in a more awkward fashion than a teenage boy trying to cop his first feel, there are three Rubbermaid containers.  One is almost completely full; one is partially full, and one does not have very much in it.

These are the boxes in which I put a variety of things from each of the girls.  Report cards.  Mother's Day cards.  Art from the art show.  Newspaper clippings in which they are featured.  Significant school projects.

I have stuff from Elizabeth when she was in daycare.  Class pictures from Alexis's preschool years.  The first time Charlie wrote her name all by  herself.

Let's face it here...I am not going to scrapbook these memories.  I tried it once and then immediately drank a bottle of wine.  I would much rather crochet the day away or create hair bows my children will never wear than scrapbook.  I also really suck at keeping baby books.  Do they even really do those anymore?  Charlie's might have like the first page filled out.  That is like some sort of cruel motherhood torturing device...let's give you a cute book that you have to write down shit your baby does because you will TOTALLY have time for that.  Fuck. That.  At least the wine consumption you can do while holding the child.  Ever try to write something with a child on your lap?  Or try to scrapbook?  Too many sharp objects and too much glue to do with a kid around.  At least with making the clips, if they touch the hot glue gun they'll learn.  And if they don't...well, you have bigger fish to fry my friend.

I am really trying to avoid thinking about the box that is almost full.  Elizabeth will be leaving soon.  And not just to go visit her father.  Like, leaving and being legally responsible for herself and having to manage her money and cook her own meals and take care of herself if she gets sick leaving.  Like having to manage her time and make her own curfew leaving.

She is an amazing kid.  Despite my best efforts to totally fuck her up, she is just amazing.  Her little sisters look up to her with so much awe (and totally call her out when she is being a turd).  That box that is full...that is a short lifetime of memories there.  Of growth, and learning, and accomplishments.

Some day  her sisters' will have full boxes too.  And I will know that it is time to let them go.  And I just have to hope that they remember touching that hot glue gun, and all of the other lessons that come along with that short lifetime.  Eighteen years does not seem long enough to prepare them for a lifetime.  And yet, somehow we do.

Better

I'm feeling marginally better now.

I was able to get shit done today.  The weather is gorgeous so I took to the outdoors to paint.  I painted the front porch.  The back steps.  The picnic table.  Most of the trim around the windows (until I ran out of paint.  Plus my ladder wasn't tall enough.  And despite Charlie's mad spider monkey skills, there is no easy way to reach the top of the second story windows without a tall enough ladder.   Cause I ain't about to be hanging out of a window with a bed sheet tied around my waist and a bed frame or some such craziness.  Though I will admit that the thought crossed my mind...Charles did come home to find me on the roof of the entryway to the basement so really not too far of a stretch...)  I then came inside and started to paint the living room.  I chose the wall with the big window on it, mostly so I can get my curtains hanging back up because by God, I want to be able to parade around naked in my living room without being the peep show for the whole neighborhood.  At least the free peep show.  Perhaps if there was a $5 cover charge...

.

 Ignore all of the crap on the couch.  Normally it would be hanging up, but I had to take the hooks down to paint.  Eh, who am I kidding?  That couch will still look like that even after I hang the hooks back up because it apparently takes way too much effort to hook a book bag on a hook...

I did miss going to see a friend who was in the state, but that was because my van is an asshole and decided to need new brakes.  Not like they were metal on metal or anything.  Next thing you know the fucker is going to demand gasoline because it is SO NEEDY like my children who demand things like food and immunizations and absolutely refuse to get gainfully employed.  Slackers.

Basically, I got my to-do list done today (that is now on my iPhone vs my desktop; gotta love technology).  Very different from last weekend when I was dying.

Granted, my fingers are as swollen and stiff as can be.  I am sure I will be sore as hell tomorrow from all of the squatting and bending over and reaching from the painting.  My house is currently in shambles from moving shit around so I can paint coupled with my children's complete inability to put anything away, ever.

But I got shit done.  And I was able to spend time with the two little girls, at least (Elizabeth of course wants nothing to do with me as I am the devil.)  We spent a fair amount of time outside.  Alexis played on the trampoline and helped me paint while Charlie napped.  Charlie then woke up and did whatever secret op stuff the government has her doing currently, then came out to play with Alexis. (She can't tell me or she'd have to kill me.  And I'm pretty sure she carries a shank strapped to her ankle so I'm not pushing the issue.)  They actually got along for once so I am assuming the mission went well...(so I definitely decided to make a blog post tonight so I'd have record of this.)  It was a good day.

This is how it goes with me.  I am at the mercy of what my body decides to do.  If it is going to be nice, then great!  Shit gets done.  If it decides to be an asshole...then I'm dying.  I would swear I was bipolar if I knew that I didn't get the wonderful benefits of being manic like not needing much sleep.  Perhaps my body is bipolar.  Can one diagnose one's body with a mental illness but not oneself?   And if that is the case, can I then involuntarily commit my body to a really nice mental institution?  Preferably one with a gourmet chef and a private whirlpool....

Body

I currently hate my body.

Not in the "OMG I am so fat and society hates me!" (though I am not going to deny there is some of that going on as well...)  It is more in the whole Sjogren's Disease is taking over my body kind of way.

Charlie was recently so nice as to share a stomach bug with me.  Sweet, huh?  It was a 24 hour deal for her.  And for my mother-in-law, with whom she also shared.  It took me twice as long to recover.  Hell, I am still not fully recovered but I am pretending that I am because if I don't I will just break down and cry.  Again.

I hate my body.

I hate complaining about my body.  But by God, I almost never do so I am going to do so now before I lose my fucking mind.

I hate that the medications that I take to keep my immune system from attacking my body are the same ones that lower my immune system so that I can't fight off illnesses as effectively.

I hate the judgement that I get from my boss every time that I call off because I am fucking sick.  Again.  Getting points, and possibly written up.  Again.

I hate that I now have to, at the ripe old age of 33, get FMLA papers filled out for a health condition.

I hate that I go into work when I shouldn't, that I push myself beyond what I should, and pay the price later, because that judgement does not just come from her but from others around me and people think I am whining when I describe the throbbing joint pain.  The unrelenting fatigue.  The stomach that occasionally will decide to throw a fit and rebel against everything that I eat, even in the absence of micro-organisms that cause this.  The not being able to eat much gluten because it makes it that much worse.  And do you know how many things have gluten in them?   The irritated, dry eyes that never really feel like the sand comes out of them.  The dry mouth that makes the three hours I am at the jail for work, where I am not allowed to have anything to drink to relieve it, sometimes a unique hell of its own (aside from the whole, hey I am locked in the jail at the mercy of the officers to let me out thing.) The dry skin, and, ahem, other areas.  The tingling and numbness and coldness that comes with Reynaud's, that is secondary to the Sjogren's.  The fear of getting a blood clot, again, related to a condition secondary to Sjogren's.  The very real fear that no matter how well I take care of my teeth, that some day I might lose them.  The very real fear that the next time I go back to the rheumatologist, this is going to be the time she tells me I have Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Or Lupus.  Or some other kind of autoimmune disease, because let's just see how many I can acquire because I apparently have nothing more to do than to add to my list of diagnoses and medications...

The very real fear that some day I might die like my father did,  drowning in the fluids from the lungs.  I joke about my cat-like fear of water; it is quite ironic that this could realistically be the way I died some day.

I hate the fact that to complicate all of this, I am now having some problems with my reproductive system and am losing, at certain times of the month, the equivalent of two+ pints of blood over the course of a week (and yes, I am able to quantify this.  Diva Cup)  Totally helpful for the fatigue.  Oh, and the calling off sick thing because I have had to leave work because I was bleeding so much that the front and back of my pants were soaked through.

TMI?  Probably.  But I am describing that to describe the hell that it has been to be me lately.  I don't want my children to remember me as being sick. Or my employer.  Or anyone. I don't want to be sick.  I did not ask for my body to turn on itself.  For my uterus to decide to turn the crimson tide into the crimson tsunami.  For my life to be run by physical limitations that only I can feel.

I want to go back to the time where I could abuse my body and know it would spring back.  Where I had unlimited, boundless energy.  Hell, I want to go back two months ago when things were somewhat under control.

I can wish in one hand and shit in another.  Wonder what will fill first?

Fundraising

It's getting to be that dreaded time of year.  The catalogs start coming home.  Brightly colored, glossy pages filled with crap that you are paying 100 times what it cost to make so your school can get 40 cents from the sale.  Order forms that come in triplicate and dripping with guilt and shame if you do not sell.  Calling in favors from coworkers, relatives, and neighbors to "support the schools" when in reality their money would be better spent buying a lottery ticket.

Fundraising.

That dirty little 11 letter word.

It is a necessary evil, I know.  Schools are underfunded.  Teachers are spending their own money on classroom supplies.  "Extras" like art, music, and gym are being cut because teachers have to teach to the tests given and their raises, which will go towards supplies for the classrooms that are underfunded anyways, do not make up for having to deal with my little *ahem* angels all day long.

Fuck.  If I could get a three month vacation from my children, you better believe I would be all over that.  Totally don't blame them at all.  Of course, I am the opposite of an educator, so maybe there are people who feel differently.  And I am also a pretty crappy parent, so there may be other parents who feel differently as well.

(Who am I kidding.  I might make it a week.)

Anyways.

Supporting our schools.  Yes.  Why does it always have to be with shit made in China?  With wrapping paper that you will be lucky to be able to wrap a ring box?  With a 6 oz box of chocolates that you spent the equivalent of a 12 pack of really good beer on?

There is an idea.  Alcohol.  Evenings away from children.  Adult conversation.  I would support the hell out of my school, and any other in the area, if we could provide that as a fundraiser.  Grown up things.  A chance to remember that I am a person outside of a parent of school aged children.

Or chocolate.  Give me a box of candy bars and I could sell the crap out of them.  We need to market to the vices to benefit our children, dammit.  Haven't the schools learned anything from Vegas?  Life lessons, bitchez.

Quickly

Last weekend, Charles and I took the little girls on a bike ride.  It was the first time that we were able to do this with Charlie, as she has really progressed nicely with riding her bike without riding it into a telephone pole (i.e., she is able to look up while pedaling).  Elizabeth was working, like she has pretty much all summer because her employer has a pretty flagrant disregard for things like child labor laws, so it was just the four of us.

We were riding through the streets of our town, and Alexis asked to decide which way we turned.  I had an intense flashback to riding the bike with Elizabeth, before Alexis was born, and even after with her in the trailer.  I remember the thrill, the freedom, that a child experiences with riding a bike.  I remember the sheer innocence of getting pleasure out of such a simple activity written all over her face the way it was Alexis's and Charlie's.  Those twilight rides, taken in that sweet time between the end of summer and the beginning of fall, are some of my favorite memories, with all of my girls.

It struck me how it seems like just a few summers ago that we were doing this with Elizabeth.  It does not seem possible that she is 16, going on 17 in a few short months.  I am keenly aware that soon she will not be living with us; that she will be moving on in life to start her own.

It really highlights the struggle that I have with having a family with such a drastic age difference.  It was part of why I was OK with Charlie being our last.  That 13 year age difference is a lot.  Elizabeth no longer enjoys the bike rides with her parents.  Hell, she avoids her parents as much as she can, except when she needs something signed or money.  And that is OK.  That is the way it is supposed to be.  Parenthood is working yourself out of a job, or at least a full time job.  You never really retire from parenthood, just semi-retire.  And when people tell you to enjoy it, you simultaneously roll your eyes because, quite frankly, we all retain a little bit of adolescent attitude and don't want to listen to our elders.  And because you know.  The baby comes home from the hospital, and all of a sudden they don't fit into their newborn clothes.  Overnight.  (Or in the case of the gargantuan babies I birth, the 0-3 months clothes...)  It does go so quickly, yet you are suffering from no sleep and the house never being clean enough and never having time to yourself and never pooping alone and planning dates around nap times and soccer games and sex what the hell is that...?  And hearing that is not what you want because you have so much guilt anyways that you aren't enjoying it enough.

I want to hold on to those memories, though, even as I have to let go.  I want to remember that little girl who called Charles Spike.  The girl who used to fight naps like they would kill her.  The preteen with the braces, who then moved onto the requisite heavy black eyeliner that almost every girl does at least once in her life.  The woman who stood before me in her prom dress and made me cry. (Four times.  This will happen four times because she will be going to prom all four years in high school...)   I want to remember all of this as I see the absolutely amazing woman that my daughter is becoming.  I am sure she does not feel amazing.  16 sucks.  It is a swirling shitstorm of emotions and insecurity and a stunning combination of naivete and wisdom, all wrapped into a body that is likely to be the best you have ever had in your life.

Every parent says they are proud of their child.  And every parent is.  I strongly feel that it is a testament to who Elizabeth is as a person that she is not completely fucked up, given the crazy that is her mother.  It will be a testament to Alexis, and to Charlie, that they managed to survive in spite of my best efforts to emotionally scar them.  I consider less than ten years of therapy apiece to be a success story.

So far, they are all at least smart enough to hide the bodies.  It's the small things, really.

Adult

I sometimes feel like I spend the vast majority of my free time grocery shopping.  I don't necessarily enjoy this activity but I do it because not feeding your children is usually frowned upon.  It is one of those incessant, unrewarding activities that no one tells you about when you are a child.  I mean, seriously, if they did tell you about all the shit you have to deal with as an adult, no one would grow up.  And then who would change the diapers and watch really crappy reality TV and manufacture alcohol?  It's really better that we are kept in the dark.

I sometimes, though, feel as though I skidded around the corner of adolescence into the hallway of adulthood, with lipstick on my teeth, staggering in my heels with my skirt tucked up into my panties.  All of the stuff that goes along with being a grown up is sometimes overwhelming.  Paying bills, providing necessities and hopefully desires for your family, feeding, cooking cleaning laundryoilchangestaxesmortgagesplanningforretirement....it all sometimes melds into a big ball of overwhelming-ness and stress and anxiety and I wanna curl up in the fetal position-ness.

If I ever invent time travel, I am going to invest heavily in the benzodiazapine business.  I get their appeal, really I do.

I also get why grown ups seemed so stressed when I was a kid.  I get why that kind of information is hidden from children.  If I, with my alleged adult capabilities and sensibilities, find all of the responsibility to be paralyzing, I could only imagine what a child would think.

I don't know that it will ever get better.  Mostly because I am pretty crazy and tend to beat myself up and I never feel that I am good enough or doing enough.  Does any adult not have their issues, though?  Maybe childhood isn't all it's cracked up to be.  Maybe the real good time is adulthood, where you have access to self soothing and vacations and rational thought.

Or maybe the real fun is when you are elderly and can say whatever the fuck you want and blame it on dementia and drink as much alcohol and eat as much chocolate as you can because "we don't know how much longer we will have her with us."    In fact, that sounds so super good to me that I can't wait until I'm like 80.

I'm totally going for the benzos then.  Just because I can.