Grief Is A Thief

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Grief is a thief. It steals my moments, creeping in when I least expect it, removing joy from experiences because it might be the last time I do this thing and how can I enjoy something if I’m not sure if I’ll ever have this moment again, like it is right now?

I remember the last time I went shopping at the mall with my mom. It was on Mother’s Day two years ago and we got caught in the rain. She giggled so hard at me walking through Dillard’s with wet hair and soaked clothes, and took photos with her (obsolete) cell phone. That was the last time we walked around the mall, and I don’t know if we will ever do it again.

We used to go shopping all the time when I was younger. We both have an eye for decorating, and we love a bargain. I inherited her creativity, the ability to make something out of nothing on a very tight budget. We share a deep love of color and strategically-placed throw pillows. But then I got married, and we moved away.

7 years. I missed 7 years with my mom. Just typing that makes me incredibly sad.

I also know that moving away was good for my marriage. We were able to solidify ourselves as a unit without interference. We were free to make terribly stupid financial decisions with no one around to tell us so, and that independence turns out to be serving us well as we walk through the trenches of parenthood with ailing parents.

Most of my friends don’t know what that’s like — their mothers are still vibrantly making passive aggressive comments, baking quiche, and cruising around town as they always have. They are enthusiastic babysitters, reveling in the “golden age” of their lives. I have young parents, just 58.

They’re fantastic.

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My parents in April. They’re going to be mad that I put a photo of them on the internet.

Having a sick parent when I’m also a parent is lonely and hard and there’s a lot of cursing and a lot of wine and a lot of pretending nothing is wrong and a lot of crying in the middle of the produce section. Mostly there is a lot of Robbie having no idea what to do to make it better, because he can’t fix this one. He can’t make my mom not have cancer. All he can do is hold my hand while I deal with it, and all I can do is thank God I married the aimless drifter with the scruffy face, the one who wanted to someday own a bar — a BAR!

That man is the one who rubs my feet while I cry because he doesn’t know what to say to make it better.

He is my anchor.

Grief is a darkness. It’s a black blanket that coats me, criss-crossing my face and down my abdomen, squeezing out my breath. Sometimes, if I lie down, it is a weight that makes sitting up an impossibility. So I lie there, and I wait; eventually, I can stand up again.

Grief is so damn heavy.

Grief is a liar. It tells me I’m too weak to survive the circumstances that brought it about. Sometimes I believe it.

Grief is a truth-teller. It exposes every raw edge of my character in the middle of the grocery store on a Monday. It grabs me by the throat in the bookstore and sometimes I have to cancel plans or turn back home to repair the eye makeup that I just cried off in the car.

Grief is a prioritizer. It shows you what is actually important, and what isn’t.

Spoiler alert: a lot isn’t important.

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Believe In Your Kid

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I’m bottoming out over here.

Parenting is so hard. People like to talk about the warm and fuzzy stuff and leave out the hard as shit part, probably out of fear of being judged for their honesty.

Well, I don’t mind being honest. Figuring out how to manage other humans who don’t know how to do anything until you teach them is a ridiculously complicated, difficult job. Throw in some external stressors and a genetic tendency towards attention disorders and motherhood goes from “complicated” to “I REALLY DON’T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS WITHOUT DYING BECAUSE I ACTUALLY FEEL LIKE I MIGHT NOT MAKE IT OMG I’M DEAD I DIED.”

Today, I hit a new low in parenting where I found myself alone with my kids — well, actually, they were all inside of the car and I was standing outside of the car trying to pull myself together — in the driveway of my parent’s house. All the other adults were safely inside, probably talking about me and wondering how I was going to discipline my oldest son for the events that had just taken place. My husband was at work, and I was alone, staring up at the sky, desperately trying to come up with something to say to my kid that wouldn’t scar him for life.

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Sometimes it feels like I am screwing everything up. Like … I’m positive of it. Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with my child, and other times I wonder what is wrong with me. I worry about what kind of man he will become, whether or not he will choose to use his talents for good or for evil. He’s got so much potential, but like all children, there’s no way of knowing how he will turn out.

That’s what makes parenting the hardest, I think. The not knowing. If I knew what was going to happen in the end, like what kind of adult he’s going to turn into, maybe I wouldn’t care so much about screen time and carbonated beverages. Maybe I would be able to let more shit go. But because there’s always a nagging question in my mind of whether or not I’m truly giving my children my best, I do care. I try and it’s hard and I struggle and I fail a lot and it’s literally the most humbling experience of my life.

So today when I hit bottom, feeling empty like there was absolutely nothing left, a thought entered my mind.

Believe in your kid.

My mother would tell me that was God. Maybe it was, but that sounds crazy, so let’s say it wasn’t. I don’t know where it came from, but it was clear as day.

Believe in your kid.

“I can do that,” I literally said out loud, like a crazy person.

I mustered up some courage and made the decision to believe; to believe he is good, believe he is trainable, believe he has love and good things in him, and most of all, believe that I am the best mother to guide him. Believing in my kid means that I have to also believe in myself.

So, I do.

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Fan Club

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One afternoon last year, my eldest child bounded off the school bus, burst into the house, and announced that he was in a club.

“I was invited in today,” he said.

“Oh really?” I said. “That’s exciting! Who else is in it?”

“A bunch of girls who like me.”

“That’s what is known as a FAN CLUB,” I told him.

The reason why it’s okay for me to laugh at the expense of my children and share these stories with the entire internet is because I spend about 75% of my time as a mother feeling like I’m right on the verge of coming unhinged. Not because I don’t love motherhood — I do — but my 5-year-old put his hand through a window the other day and my 3-year-old really, really likes to eat hand soap.

I used to blog almost daily about the shenanigans of my kids, but suddenly I found myself in way over my head. It was all simply too much to type. I found this jumbled-up mess in my drafts folder, a snippet of a random day from a few months ago:

Pepper is in a tantrum phase and all three of them got muddy so I brought her inside (much to her dismay) to give her a bath and while she was in the tub the neighbor’s grandson came over to play and I found Maverick trying to destroy our carport ceiling with a fence slat — a fence slat!!! — and the neighbor just had a stroke and his caretaker was rolling him up our driveway and Maverick is so fucking loud — why is he so loud?! — and Asher came running inside, muddy, because he wanted to change shirts.

While that was happening, I heard splashing. But I really didn’t have the strength to investigate. But then I worried she was drowning. I go look. She’s fine, but there’s a roll of toilet paper in the toilet and all of the shampoo had been squeezed out.

It’s just an endless rant, really. However, there has been a slow shift over the course of this year: with so much going wrong in the world, it’s become easier for me to find the joy in motherhood. Maybe it’s because I have perspective that I didn’t have before, or maybe it’s because I’m medicated. There’s really no way to know for sure, and frankly it doesn’t matter.

Our kindergartner has been saying “Freakin’ Einstein” for months and I just recently realized he is talking about FRANKENSTEIN. I kept wondering why he kept tacking “freakin'” in front of Einstein — what was that about? — until finally, I heard him say “Freakin’ Einstein has bolts in his neck.”

OH. Yes. Frankenstein does have bolts in his neck. It all makes so much sense now.

See? Joy.

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Other sources of joy: finding things like this.

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How To Help Louisiana Flood Victims

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Right now I feel like I feel when I haven’t seen one of my best friends in a very long time, when we finally sit down for coffee, there is so much to say that I’m not sure where to start.

So, I’ll just start.

We had a terrible flood here, the kind they call a “500-year flood,” meaning that it basically has never and was never expected to happen. Our home was spared, but our city and surrounding areas are devastated.

One thing I don’t mind telling people about myself is that I’m a person of action, and with schools out of session until God knows when, I felt like I HAD to do something to help. Thousands and thousands of children literally don’t have backpacks for school. They don’t have shoes. They don’t have anything. It’s one of those situations where you can’t fully understand unless you see it; photos do not come close to doing any of it justice.

My friend Audrey and I have pooled our resources (You can read more about about that here!) and are concentrating our efforts on getting kids the uniforms and school supplies they need to get back in the classroom and back in a routine. This flood has affected over 42,000 students. Children thrive on routine, and these kids have been through hell. They need some normalcy.

When children are in school, parents can focus on rebuilding, getting necessary paperwork, and doing work that is not necessarily safe for children. If children are in school, parents whose homes were not flooded can focus their efforts on helping those who did flood without the worry of childcare. In addition, people are scrambling to find childcare because the camps and childcare available are at capacity — and I can’t really speak for other parents, but I am having a hard time holding it together in front of my kids. I can’t even wrap my mind around what it would feel like to lose everything and have to keep it together 24/7.

People kept asking us what they could do to help Louisiana, so Audrey and I came up with a strategy. We decided that the first thing that needed to happen was to get these kids back in school, so we (really, she) created Amazon wish lists for heavily-impacted schools. All you have to do is click the link, pick a few things, and Amazon delivers them directly to the school.

It’s only been a few days, and the things that are happening are absolutely amazing. And because there’s no way to explain it fully, I’m just going to SHOW YOU.

Boxes started arriving.

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Image source: Audrey Hayworth

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Image source: Audrey Hayworth

Teachers and staff, some of whom lost their homes, showed up to work when they didn’t have to, to hand out uniforms and school supplies to students who needed them.

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Image source: Audrey Hayworth

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Image source: Audrey Hayworth

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Image source: Audrey Hayworth

The level of gratitude we feel is what keeps us moving forward. Louisiana needs help. WE NEED HELP.

If you would like to donate, here are the links to three different schools in the area that need supplies. I will update this blog post as additional school wish lists are created and sent to me.

Audubon Elementary
http://amzn.to/2dd0rCe

Park Forest Middle School:
http://amzn.to/2cuyTLW

St. Martin Parish School:
http://amzn.to/2bHbzde

St. Amant Middle School:
http://amzn.to/2bAH2xu

Sherwood Middle Academic Magnet School:
http://amzn.to/2bGqUtF

Woodlawn Elementary:
http://amzn.to/2boFx3Q

Thank you for your support, and please share this information with everyone you know!

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I Don’t Want To Go Back In Time

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I cannot tell you how deep I had to dig to keep my emotions in check this summer and how deeply I will fall into a cocktail (or five) when school starts again.

But today, I snapped out of survival mode and realized that I made it. I MADE IT!

My oldest starts 3rd grade tomorrow. “I don’t need you to drive me to school on the first day,” he said. “I can take the bus.” He looked at me and grinned and all the sudden I could see what he’s going to look like when I send him off the college, and I felt momentarily sad.

His little brother is starting Kindergarten at the same elementary school this year, and my long time dream of putting both boys on the school bus and waving goodbye will finally be realized. Can I be honest? I’m not sad, or weepy, or wistful for when they were smaller. I’m proud. I’m elated, actually. I’m happy to have made it to this point in one piece, and I don’t want to go back in time. I want to revel in this.

No one wears diapers anymore.

Everyone talks in coherent sentences.

I’ve taught 3 human beings how to use the toilet and how to stay with me in the store; things can only continue to improve from here.

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Summer, 2016

I see photos of myself from 8 years ago when I first became a mom and I feel a little sorry for that version of me. I don’t want to go back in time and be her again. I don’t want to hold my babies or rock them or see them in their infancy or wish for time to go backwards. I MADE IT, which means I have overcome obstacles, which means I have hope to continue overcoming obstacles, which requires me to continue moving forward.

This summer, I got soaked with water by the boys, who thought it would be funny to spray me after I asked them repeatedly to turn off the water. My kids kept me so busy that I never got around to changing clothes, until hours later, I realized that they were dry again.

This summer, we were lazy. I let them have unlimited screen time and we all ate junk food and laid around the house like total couch potatoes. It was amazing. Now I understand why people make this a full-time thing.

This summer, I didn’t work out. I didn’t weigh myself. I put on the same, falling-apart, ill-fitting bathing suit day after day and got in the pool with my kids. I’m 10 pounds heavier than I was last summer, and caring a lot less about how fat my thighs look.

This summer, I really enjoyed my kids. I did. But now, I’m ready for them to go to school, because I need to shake off the experience of having people with me 24/7 for three straight months, and that can only be done by using expletives and bargain shopping alone. By myself. Without anyone hiding in the clothes racks.

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Where To Go From Here

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Last night, I sat in a beautiful church in downtown Baton Rouge and listened to local officials, activists, and citizens start a conversation about what is happening in our community.

Stay with me.

I have no idea how many local readers I have, so more than likely you’re not from Baton Rouge, so you probably don’t care what’s happening here. And I get it. I wouldn’t, either, except that I am a mother … and because I am a mother, I know that I — we — have the power to change things.

Sometimes, parenthood can feel like it’s consuming my spirit and slowly choking off what makes me, me. Sometimes everything feels fruitless, pointless, and repetitious. I find myself ranting to my friends via text, WHAT IS THE POINT OF WASHING TOWELS WHEN EVERYONE USES 8 OF THEM EVERY TIME THEY SHOWER?! OMG, I AM GOING TO DIE WASHING TOWELS, MARK MY WORDS.

The thing is, though, that the difficulty of motherhood is tempered by the inherent power to make the world better. The act of bringing new life into this world, shaping human beings into citizens, and teaching them what is important — this is our greatest gift and responsibility.

Last night I watched a boy who couldn’t have been older than 12 approach the microphone to stand in front of a panel of important people, including Martin Luther King III — yes, the son of the Martin Luther King, Jr. —  in the front of the room. Everyone was silent, wondering what this kid was going to say.

“First, I just want to ask the Lord to forgive us.”

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THAT is how he began his question.

THAT did something to my heart, seeing that boy, who is not so different from my own sons, standing bravely in front of a bunch of important adults to voice a legitimate concern. I wonder who his mother is, and I hope she is proud of herself, because she’s doing an amazing job.

I saw the widow of one of the fallen officers walk by with her 10-month-old son. I saw people who would normally never cross paths, talking to each other.

I ran smack into Colonel Edmonson, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, and I was so struck by the look in his eyes that I couldn’t speak. He looked like he was in actual, physical pain. He looked like he needed a hug, but I was too afraid to give him one.

This is yet another example of how fear stops us from moving forward.

Last night it was said that we need an honest dialogue, and I couldn’t agree more. I have always wished that more people would just be honest. Hurts need to be recognized. Truths need to be said. People need to feel heard in order to bridge gaps, but more than that, we all need hope. Without hope, nothing can be accomplished, and I can honestly say that after what I saw and heard last night, I am full of hope.

As we were leaving, I heard a young girl’s voice coming up behind me yelling “MOMS!! HEY, MOMS!” I turned around, and she was literally running up the church aisle.

“Are you a mom?” she gasped, out of breath.

“I sure am.”

She introduced herself to me as one of the leaders of an active youth group in the city, and said they are looking to partner with local moms because they know that mothers have a unique power to change our community in a big way.

“Mothers DO have a lot of power,” I said, as I handed her my card.

Mamas are a force to be reckoned with. Get ready.

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I Was That Mom

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Yesterday, a terrible thing happened.

Let me preface this by saying that I am struggling to adjust to summer break. Struggling. Like … it’s good? But also horrible? Can something be good and horrible all at once? Because I’m pretty sure that is exactly what parenthood is.

Making the transition from having all three kids in school for 6+ hours per day (and working during those hours), to having them home all the time and trying to get my work done in addition to mothering in a loving fashion, is not going great. As I have already established in multiple blog posts from previous years, summer is effing relentless.

Pepper

Pepper is obsessed with two things: outlets and babies. Here she is showing her baby doll the outlet in her bedroom. #multitasking

Thankfully, this year is somewhat easier than previous years simply because my children are getting older and more independent. Pepper will be 3 next week, so I think we’re finally on the upswing after a very dark time in the Valley of Motherhood.

Yesterday afternoon, we got home from playing at the park. The boys jumped out of the van, heard some kids next door playing, and asked if they could go over to play. I granted them permission and took Pepper inside. Her clothes were filthy — covered in layers of peanut butter and dirt — so I stripped her down to a diaper.

I ran to the bathroom with her trailing behind me, always my little shadow. And then, my mom called. She’s not feeling well and I can barely hear her on the phone. I was straining to understand what she was saying — did she just say she needed to go to the hospital?! — and naturally, my toddler got really loud at exactly that moment. As her shouting drowned out my mother, my stress level started to rise.

I went to my bedroom and closed the door. My daughter cried from the hall, and when she stopped, I was thankful. When I emerged only a few minutes later, the house was quiet. A panicky feeling started to rise in my chest, and then it felt like my heart stopped.

Just.

Stopped.

Beating.

Our back door was standing wide open.

Screaming her name, I ran outside. She was gone. Or hiding. Or missing.

I heard a woman’s voice — our across the street neighbor — yelling at me that she just saw a little girl cut through the fences in the backyard.

“She went that way, sweetheart! I was standing here watching her!”

I was barefoot and it did not matter. I ran. I ran until I found her. I couldn’t feel my feet. I couldn’t feel my body. All I could hear was my own voice screaming her name, and my heartbeat deafening my ears. That is what blind panic feels like.

My 2-year-old was wandering one street over from ours, wearing nothing but her diaper. She was holding a toy pet carrier with a little stuffed dog inside. I will never forget the way her face looked when she saw the horror on mine.

“NEVER AGAIN,” I said to her.

“Not with my dog?” she said.

“NEVER, EVER. Do not ever leave this house without a grown up,” I said, as I wiped away my tears.

I’m sharing this story to demonstrate how quickly children can disappear. How many times have I heard stories of toddlers wandering the streets and thought to myself, WHERE WAS THE MOTHER?

That mother is me. I was right there. It happened anyway.

I’m a damn good mom. I am capable. I am aware. I am not negligent. But children are fast. And sometimes quiet. And things happen. So today I’m hugging my babies tight, grateful for their safety, knowing that sometimes other mamas aren’t so lucky.

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How Things Change

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I remember a very long time ago when we had a baby and I was worried that Robbie was going to say inappropriate words in front of it. I was also concerned about food additives and a whole host of other things that I no longer have the time or energy to care about, like whether or not it was okay for my child to breathe in the fumes from Clorox Wipes and what was actually in baby formula.

Fast-forward to 5:00 this morning when our third child climbed into our bed, alerting me by repeated bludgeoning to the head and face, and I flung my arm over to hit my sleeping husband.

“Pepper’s in our bed,” I mumbled, as her knee dug into my gut.

Nothing.

“PEPPER’S IN HERE,” I repeated. Now she was pulling on the sheets, attempting to smother me to death with her battered sheep lovey.

Nothing.

He wouldn’t take his CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask off, which is pretty much a passive aggressive way of saying fuck you, I’m not dealing with it. I’m basically blind and deaf at night; I have terrible eyesight without my contacts or glasses, and I’ve been wearing earplugs for over a decade, so I’m familiar with passive aggressive ways to pretend to not know something is going on. I am well versed in it. Also, I have sleep issues, and that makes me difficult to deal with.

Okay, fine. It makes me a raging bitch.

Once someone shakes me from deep, precious slumber, it can take me literally an hour to fall back asleep, and even once I do finally konk out again, the quality always sucks from that point forward.

What was that? Did you just ask why?

Because I lie there and my mind starts racing thinking of all the things I need to remember to do in three hours when my alarm goes off, and then I start wondering what I forgot to put on my mental to-do list, becoming angry at myself for not setting the coffeemaker to turn on by itself at 6 a.m. because I AM NOT GOING TO FEEL LIKE MAKING IT AFTER MISSING THIS MUCH SLEEP, and the anxieties just spiral off from there like tiny insomniac tornadoes.

So, back to the child that was poking me in the face: once I realized that I was going to have to put her back in her bed, I yelled, “FUCK, FINE, I’LL DO IT.” So much for worrying about my husband’s mouth in front of our kids.

And that is how much things change between the first and third-born child.

Bedtime

I can’t be mad at this cutie pie.

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Impacted Poop: The Anthem of Motherhood

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This is a post about kindness. We need more of it. And you want to know what we need less of? Stupid motherfuckers.

I took my middle child to an urgent care clinic today for impacted poop. That’s right: poop.

Now, I have been a mom for 8 years and feel like I have a pretty good handle on what is urgent care-worthy. I tried everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) to help him get it out, but after 2 hours of misery I rushed him to a doctor. It is Saturday and my husband is at work, so I ran my other two kids to my parent’s house and went to the closest urgent care that was open.

I paid $100 –they made me, before we could be seen — and we waited. And we waited. And he was crying and sweating. And it was terrible. Finally, they brought us back. I was so relieved. The nurses were two kind, older women. I felt like maybe it was going to be okay, until the doctor came in. He proceeded to look me up and down and after tossing a cursory glance at my son and said, “We don’t deal with that here. There’s really nothing we can do.”

That was before he began flirting with me.

“So … are you from around here?”

“Yes. What do you mean, there’s nothing you can do?”

“Where did you go to high school?”

“Not here. Why can’t you try to manually remove the poop?”

(More mindless chatter until I interrupted him to ask again why he was refusing to even look at my son’s situation.)

“Well, constipation is common in children his age, and he just needs some magnesium citrate. But he could also see a pediatric G.I.”

“The reason why I’m here is because there is literally poop lodged in his anus that I have not been able to get out. I tried. It needs to be removed. He can’t even walk.”

The doctor proceeded to look down my four-year-old’s throat and say, “Your mommy is pretty.”

THAT IS WHAT HE DID.

FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER.

Let me tell you something, idiots of the modern world: moms don’t want to be flirted with when their child is writhing in pain. We also do not enjoy being talked down to like we are nothing but walking, talking vaginas. If I wanted to pay $100 to be objectified, I would have gone to another part of town.

Because I didn’t know what else to do to cope with my rage, I posted a rant about what was happening on my Modern Mommy Madness Facebook page, and a wonderful woman named Jennifer contacted me. She married into a family I’ve known my whole life, but until today I’d never had the privilege of talking to her beyond a brief hello. And now I think we might be best friends.

Jennifer is a mom and a nurse at a local E.R. and she told me if I brought my son to her, she would do whatever was necessary to help him. I almost started crying right then and there. I know it’s only poop, but when your kid is in pain and you are out of ideas and someone tosses you a lifeline, it’s a game-changer. I needed a lifeline. We immediately went to the hospital where she works.

Asher

Medical professionals who are actually good at their job and don’t spend their time hitting on women instead of treating patients are amazing creatures and I love them. I love them like I love the teachers who so painstakingly teach my children how to write their names. Just as I don’t have the skill set to teach my children how to read or write without screaming into a pillow, it turns out that I also don’t know how to properly extract impacted shit from an anus that does not belong to me.

Truth be told, I didn’t think I would make it through the experience of holding my son’s legs as Jennifer carefully and professionally pulled poop out of my child. The doctor came in to shake my hand and all I could think (or say) was, “HOW DO YOU PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY?!”

The hospital bill is astronomical. For shit. An astronomical bill because of literal shit.

However, the point of me writing this is not to bitch about money or medical bills. It’s to say that when you see an opportunity to help another woman and you do it, you can SAVE HER. Literally and figuratively, save her.

I hope I can pay it forward and throw someone else a lifeline. I think that we women often shrug things off and think we can’t make a difference in this world, really. Well, I’m here to tell you that  WE CAN.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some wine to drink.

Wine

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