Bitches Be Cray.

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Now, look.

I’m a girl’s girl. I have a lot of close girlfriends that I’m pretty sure I’d die without because I’m the kind of person who has a need to discuss. But on the whole, women are horrible creatures. The hood way to say that, because we all know I’m an expert on urban vocabulary, is bitches be *cray.   

If I were to tell you all the cray that bitches have thrown at me over the past 34 years it would bring us all down, so I’m going to avoid rehashing. Just know that I know cray. Also, for some reason random strangers have always felt like it was acceptable for them to comment on my appearance — both good and bad. I once had a lady walk up behind me at work and declare, “Oooh girl, your booty’s getting BIG!” 

I had another total stranger inform me that I “do not need to be eating all that sugar” as she watched me prepare my coffee. She did a kind of pointed stare at my hips as she said it, so I smiled and poured a few more in. 

When I was in college, I once overheard my boss tell someone “Harmony would be hot if she would just lose some weight.” I’ve had men and women comment on everything from my hair to my breasts in public, because people are rude and crazy and I am probably way too gracious to them. And it’s not just me that has to deal with this, it’s women in general. I know because I’m a girl’s girl, like I said earlier, and we discuss everything.

Today, it happened to my daughter. The cashier at Walmart said “Now look at those big ol’ hips and legs! Whew those are some fat legs!” And I smiled at her and said SHE GOT IT FROM HER MAMA, because she totally did.

Penelope Rose, 10 months old.

It sounds like a benign exchange, and it was. The lady didn’t mean anything by it. Pepper’s a baby! Of course her legs are fat, as they should be. But that moment was pivotal for me because I realized that my daughter is going to face a lifetime of comments directed at her body and her appearance, and this was just the start of it. 

Until today my attitude was kind of like, well, that’s just the way things are. People are crazy and you have no control over it – you can only control your reaction to it. But thinking about my daughter and what it’s going to feel like for her to be dissected piece by piece by people who don’t even matter, people pointing out things that she is already self-conscious about … that absolutely infuriates me. 

I don’t have control over it. I can only control how I teach her to react to it. 

How are you teaching your daughters to react? Because now I’m feeling like instead of training her to be gracious and let it roll off, I should teach her to be one crazy. ass. bitch.
 
* Cray is short for crazy. Sometimes it’s really burdensome to add that extra “z” in there. Cool people, when they speak, sound like they’ve just gotten back from the dentist. If you don’t sound like that, then I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not cool … but I have a feeling I’m not the first to say so.

Marriage Is Hard Work.

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It’s Tuesday, and I just want to get right to it. Marriage is very hard work.

I’m not afraid of a little hard work. I planted a flower bed all by myself recently without gardening gloves because I couldn’t find them. They were packed away in a box somewhere, and I considered what it would do to my hands and decided I was fine with it. I planted my zinnias. So that is my very middle-class American example of how I can roll up my sleeves and really “get after it” as my Alabama-born Daddy would say. This has served me well in my current job of butt wiping and house keeping. I can’t change a tire, but I can plant a flower without gardening gloves. Watch. Out.
Unfortunately, all of my gumption tends to get sucked up, quite literally, in the vacuum. I don’t have a ton of energy left over after doing all the stuff I do in a day, and by the time Robbie gets home I can barely mutter a hello. This bothers me because I love my husband and I would prefer to greet him with a hot meal and a lively, not muttered, hello. 
I dislike the feeling of not putting myself 100% into everything that I care about even though I realize that it is not possible to be awesome at everything all at the same time. I seem to suffer not from a perfectionist problem, but a want-to-do-it-all-and-rock-it problem. I have read self-help books aplenty and I just can’t help the fact that I like to get after almost everything in life. I will never accept that I can’t be an awesome mom and and awesome wife in the same day. 
Maybe I just need to find the perfect combination of stimulants.
Now, I have let plenty of things slide, but not without them keeping me awake at night. I have literally laid in my bed thinking about how dirty the inside of my van is, which is a nice compliment to my husband, who wouldn’t care or notice if there were McDonald’s bags piled a mile high.

Other things that have kept me up at night:
1. The knowledge that I need our green couches and a few rugs professionally cleaned.
2. The knowledge that I have an insane amount of cellulite.
3. The knowledge of the big blue veins on the backs of my knees.
4. Wondering where the gnats are coming from.
5. Wondering if Robbie ignored me because he was tired, or because of the veins on the backs of my knees?
6. Deciding it was definitely the veins, or maybe that I never make him food when he gets home which is why he always eats cold cereal.
7. Worry over Robbie’s health and diet.
8. Worry that I will die alone, with blue legs.
***

I guarantee you, the entire above list will be news to my husband when he reads this — which is a whole other post in itself. Men simply have no idea what we go through.
So, to circle back to what I was saying, my vacuum and my ferret-like children get the majority of my energy during the day. I do not enjoy being too exhausted to make Robbie a sandwich or think of interesting things to say to him when he gets home at 8:30 at night. Then I start down a spiral of feeling like we are doomed. 
(And all the feminists mutter angrily, “Why can’t he make his own damn sandwich?!” Well … he CAN. I would just like to do it.)
There he is.

He is in a similar predicament of tiredness from shouldering the burden of providing for his family. When it comes down to it we are just two exhausted people who love each other but we are just too tired to think of anything to say or do to demonstrate it, so we sit on the couch and space out in tandem and I drink like there is no tomorrow because of the shell-shock I feel when my day is done.

Robbie is exempt from the shell-shock except on days when he is home. At the beginning of dinner last Sunday night, before the blessing had even been said, Asher fell head first out of his chair and busted his nose … which we didn’t realize until blood was running down his face and threatened to drip onto his plate of quinoa and fish. I kind of half-heartedly wiped at it with my napkin and said, “So … this is happening,” as I silently counted the hours until I could pour myself a glass of wine.

Having a serious talk.

While the rational side of me understands that this is just how it is right now, and not for the rest of my life, the irrational side gets really upset at my husband for not bringing home flowers or showering me with the adoration I rightly deserve, or PERKING UP AND BEING FUN SO I WILL PERK UP AND BE FUN. Nevermind that I don’t shower him with adoration like I should, or bring him gifts or be fun all the time or even ask him intelligent questions. I am just as guilty of putting him on the back burner, it’s just less acceptable to me because I am the Queen. I’m sure you understand.

All parents of young children go through this season of utter exhaustion, where everything is an ordeal that leaves you too tired to conversate with the adult sitting next to you by the end of the day. Or you find yourself in a situation that would normally be enjoyable, like a festival, but you can’t enjoy it, really, because you’re too busy keeping track of all of your children. Then you run into someone you know and you can’t hold a normal conversation because the stress of getting everyone dressed to attend said festival melted your brain.
Everything in your life gets blurred over and fuzzy from lack of rest and mental focus. Robbie and I would have to think hard to remember the last time we went on a date. We can’t remember to call the insurance company. We can’t remember what day it is or what we were talking about before we were interrupted. We can’t remember any damn thing. Sometimes I wonder if we will even remember this period of our lives. 
I’m leaning towards no.

So this is why people say that kids are hard on a marriage, because they are. Just when you think you’re working as hard as you possibly can to keep all of these different people happy and healthy and alive, along with keeping food in the house and the bathrooms clean, you turn around and realize that you look like a hot mess and you have totally forgotten about your husband, but it’s okay because he’s forgotten about you too. But then you get mad at him about it, because that is what Queens do.
Marriage. Is. Work.
But, just like everything else we toil over, it is worth what we pour into it. I have read that and heard it a thousand times over, but when I’m actually experiencing it … it’s not easy to push through. But so far, we keep pushing through and arriving victoriously on the other side of whatever mountain stood in our way. And even though we are TIRED, and he doesn’t take care of himself, and I worry too much, and I’m hormonally imbalanced, at the end of the day we perfectly imperfectly love the hell out of each other. I don’t know why we work so well, but I am so glad that we do.
I love that man. Sometimes that love is enough, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes, what marriage is made of isn’t just love, it’s dirt and sweat and forgiveness. Thank God I married someone who understands that, even though he is terrible at verbalizing it.
Also, as it turns out, we’ve been herding cats since the beginning of our relationship. We are experts at this. Here’s proof from our first foray into herding.

Circa 2005, our cat Phoebe after a bath.

Battling Rude.

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Boys are gross.

Lately we have really been struggling with manners. I have done a good job of drilling into Maverick’s head that we don’t: leave pee on the bathroom floor, leave the toilet seat up, burp or fart without saying “excuse me,” or spit in the house, to name a few. But he will be six at the end of the summer. It’s been a long road, friends.

But … Asher. Oh, Asher. He will be three at the end of the summer and is just now discovering all the ways he can be obnoxious and rude. He’s changing from a baby into a boy, and all of the sudden burping on purpose is absolutely hilarious. It all came to a head last night when he burped so many times in succession at the table that he threw up before I could excuse him. Threw up, at the table, during dinner. Wow.

I cleaned him up and kicked his little ass out of the kitchen. Maverick soon followed, because he couldn’t stop laughing. Since Asher didn’t really eat any dinner, I was awakened by him at 1:00 a.m, 3:00 a.m., and 6:00 a.m. and each time he was smiling because I think he knows that is charming. “Snack, Mommy? Snack?” Each time I shook my head and muttered that the sun wasn’t up yet, and back into bed he went. I have an impressive bruise on my left arm from where I ran directly into a doorjamb during one of these encounters, because I AM EXHAUSTED. 

At the 6:00 waking, I directed him to his Daddy and climbed back into bed. Normally I am clattering around in the kitchen by 7:00 at the latest, but not today. Eventually, Robbie brought me coffee and seemed concerned that I was still in bed. I pulled the covers over my head and wished them all away. But then I heard the baby and realized someone had to rescue her, because the menfolk were probably in the kitchen drinking Aunt Jemima syrup straight from the bottle. So I got up.

Wild indians.


I sometimes wonder if I am too hard on them. Do I expect too much by setting a high standard of behavior and manners? After some reflection, I really don’t think that I do. Just because they are boys does not mean that they are exempt from politeness, even at home. The first experience they will have with the ladies is going to be me and their sister, and this lady does not like to be around gross. 

One day, maybe one of them will marry a nice girl who also does not like to be around gross, and maybe she will thank me. If not, I’ll just thank myself when I see my son(s) leaving the room to pass gas so the people around them don’t have to smell it.

Uphill battles are the most satisfying ones to win. And I will win, because if there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s smelling a fart that comes from an able-bodied person who’s laughing.

I Have A Sickness.

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So, this happened.

I really thought the days of worrying about this were behind me, since Robbie got snipped last Spring. But, you know, sometimes weird things happen. Did you know that 1 out of 2,000 vasectomies fail? 

This weekend we went to a beautiful wedding at the home of a lovely couple who have … wait for it … 10 children. Now, if you told me this and I had not actually met them, I would think to myself that clearly there is some mental instability at work here. I literally cannot wrap my head around the concept of 10 children. 

Mind. Blown.

But this family absolutely enthralled me. Their home was beautifully surrounded by huge oak trees like this one, which we sat right next to during the ceremony.


The house itself was warm and inviting and I very much wanted to sit down and just soak it all in. The children were well-behaved and normal, the parents were cool and seemed relaxed — again, mind blown. The mother was gorgeous. And thin. Of course.

After the wedding I found myself whispering to Robbie that it’s a good thing we can’t have anymore kids, because that entire experience made me want to have MORE OF THEM.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

We do not need more kids.

Anyway, I later realized that something was majorly amiss with me and my uterus. Then I made the mistake of Googling and went down a rabbit hole of wondering if we might be one of those 1 out of 2,000 people, which eventually led to the above-documented trip to Target.

I am not pregnant.

But if I’m being honest, this is the first time that the reality has hit that we are done. And while I do feel this is a responsible, smart choice on our part … it still saddens me. Just a little. What would it be like to have four kids? Or more? In a different lifetime, back when large families were common or even necessary, maybe I could have been that mother. 

Robbie was right a very long time ago when we made our agreement to have a third child. He said, “I will agree to a third with the condition that it’s our last, because I know if one of us doesn’t get fixed you’re going to want a fourth and we just CAN’T do that.” He was right that I’d want another one, and right that having a fourth child would be irresponsible. Thank goodness for my sweet husband, who is smart and knows me well.

I seem to be afflicted with a sickness that makes me want to make more children, even though it doesn’t make sense and I am totally tapped out with the three that I have. I also loathe pregnancy. So, while I do acknowledge that this is all for the best, I am still saddened by the fact that we will never have another tiny Hobbs baby in this house.

Somewhere right now, Robbie Hobbs is breathing a deep sigh of relief.

All Accounted For.

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When I was little I remember my parents making a big deal over having a good attitude. 

It was really annoying at the time, because the last thing I wanted to hear was a chirpy “It’s all about your attitude!” as I was dragged on yet another trip to the most boring place on earth: The Home Depot. 

“NO,” I wanted to yell at them. “It’s not MY ATTITUDE, it’s that this place SUCKS!”  

Now that I am a grown up with grown up problems like owing taxes to the Federal Government, I get it. Everyone has problems; what divides the happy people from the unhappy people is their attitude. That’s a valuable lesson that I need to thank my parents for the next time that I see them. 

It’s not like their lives have been a cake walk — they have been through a lot, most of which I was oblivious to as a child. There were times when they had, I think, absolutely nothing; and there were times when they were very successful. I didn’t notice it because their attitudes remained the same regardless, just as happy with nothing as they were with everything. Probably because “everything” to them did not mean money, it meant people, and since we were all present and accounted for … well, we have always had everything.

This week I am working on teaching the baby how to feed herself and it’s going poorly, as expected. Princesses apparently do not feed themselves bits of sandwich. Pepper is extending me a great deal of patience as I grapple with this fact. 

Two days ago I was placing bite-size pieces in her fist and she shot me looks of boredom as she dropped them on the floor before I finally gave up and started feeding them to her. One minute Asher and I were laughing as we watched her eat and it was all fine, and the next minute she was choking. Like panic-stricken, not breathing, choking.

I have had children choke before, but not choke like they actually could not breathe until I dislodged whatever was stuck. It seemed to take forever to remove her high chair tray and unbuckle her so I could throw her over my shoulder and beat the sandwich out of her windpipe. All I can say about it was I hope it never happens again.

As life continues to roll past and over me and ridiculous things continue to happen, all I can think is that we are blessed. And I know that attitude really is the key to my happiness, because if I didn’t have the ability to see the good around me like my parents FORCED ME TO DO as a kid, I would not be coping well as an adult. I hope I can pass this important lesson on to my own kids. 

I fear I may fail at this because I spend so much of my time yelling at them for various offenses. It continues to blow my mind how a two-year-old can be so incredibly picky about what he will eat at the dinner table, yet random raisins, bits of popcorn, candy, or french fries found outside in the dirt are just fine. I’ve lost count of how many times I have gasped and screamed “DON’T EAT THAT!!!”

Life is hard, man. But we are all accounted for in this house, so we have absolutely everything.

A stranger took this photo.

 

On Being Goofy.

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Our desktop computer is located in the “man cave” which is not easily accessible to the rest of the house, so I can only write after the kids are in bed. This irritates me because I do my best thinking between the hours of 7-10 a.m. and my worst thinking between the hours of 7-10 p.m. My life is backwards.

Robbie — that’s my husband, and quite frankly I can’t refer to him as “Husband” anymore because it requires too much thought — said that I shouldn’t write so much about what goes on here because people will be afraid to be my friend or watch our children. I told him that is for the best. Let this blog be the sifter for the weak.

After we moved, Asher got sick. And then he got really sick, like poop running down his legs as I tried to keep up with it, as the baby screamed in hunger from her high chair, as Maverick had to make his own sandwich and feed his little sister her dinner, because all I could do was deal with the poop, sick. That went on for seemingly my whole life. 

Sometime before he got completely better, Pepper suddenly learned to crawl and then several days later she started talking. One day she was saying “ba-ba-ba” and the next thing we knew she was saying “Mama,” “Daddy,” “Hello,” “Bye-bye,” “Maverick,” “Brother (or it might be Asher, we really can’t tell. It sounds like Bubba),” and “Night-night.” She also started waving, and didn’t like it when I left the room so now she follows me, in her slow, deliberate crawl.

It was all so charming. I mean, really.

But the charm and cuteness unfortunately coincided with hours and hours of unhappy screaming from her crib when she would normally would be sleeping. This is otherwise known as a sleep regression. 

It is hell.

After many, many evenings of dealing with two rowdy boys plus a screaming baby who got upset every time I put her in her crib, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I guess by now I could have tried to rock her to sleep, but that isn’t sustainable for me. My kids all have to be okay with a kiss goodnight and a tuck into bed. After that, they’re on their own. Anyone who requires rocking or patting or singing or ANYTHING to sleep is not going to make it here. 

Maybe that makes me a hard-hearted person, but I have limits of what I can handle when I’m parenting solo 98% of the evenings. Rocking a baby who is almost asleep when one brother head butts the other brother and busts his mouth open, and then having to start the rocking process over again after patching up the bleeding brother because the baby requires rocking to sleep, is SO FAR BEYOND MY LIMITS.

So I went to Target and I bought this elephant that sings and tonight she only cried for 30 minutes instead of her usual 90.

A friend of mine from high school emailed me this week and said babies are goofy and they make their mothers goofy. He’s so right. I am goofy. I’m also:

1. Tired as hell
2. A terrible driver
3. Unkempt
4. Emotionally tumultous
5. A nervous wreck
6. Dietarily disappointing
7. Possibly an alcoholic

So really, goofy is one of my better traits. 

Santa. On Acid.

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This is me, barely hanging onto sanity. I am clinging to two potted plants. Red flag.
 

Photo credit: Maverick, age 5

Part of what makes me special, or maybe especially crazy, is that you can’t tell by looking at me that I’m losing it. 
Take our across-the-street neighbor, for example. He looks a lot like Santa Claus. On acid. It didn’t take long for me to deduce that he was crazy, but I bet he thinks we are perfectly normal people. So … who is crazier?
Chew on that for awhile. I’ll get back to you.