Pet Peeve: Making a Ruff Decision

Truman is getting a new home. He'll be going to live with my mom for an unknown period of time, maybe for the rest of his life. Coming to this decision took over a year, a lot of talking, a lot of trying new things, a lot of bones and phenobarbital (for the dog), a lot of guilt and shame (for me).

Growing up, I identified myself as an animal lover. Our family always included at least one or two non-humans, and I never pictured myself voluntarily living without a pet of some sort. I worked at a veterinarian's office in high school and seriously considered pursuing veterinary school. My 16th birthday present was a black cat named Noir who thought (and still thinks) of himself as a human because his kittenhood was characterized by my constantly keeping him at eye level by either carrying him with me around the house or placing him on counter tops while I worked on homework or household chores. When I went to college and lived in dormitories, I couldn't take him with me, so he stayed with my mom. During this time period, I somehow developed an allergy to cats, and each time I came home for breaks, I was more and more allergic to him. John and his kids are all allergic to cats, too, so there was no way I could bring him with us. I get to visit him regularly, but always leave with hives on my face because I can't help but let him head-butt me in the forehead affectionately as he is wont to do (I taught him to greet me at eye-level, after all).

The first year we were married, we adopted Truman as a puppy. He'd been found at 3-4 weeks old in an abandoned box outside of a Wal-Mart. At the time, the youngest kid in our house was 10 years old and theoretically self-sufficient. We both worked 8-5 jobs and had free time in evenings and on weekends. I took Truman to obedience classes and spent time with working with him daily on his behavior, because even though he'd been neutered as part of the adoption agreement with the rescue organization, he was more mouthy and aggressive than average, and I was concerned about him thinking he was the alpha dog (my niece and nephew were babies and frequently visited, we had neighbor kids in our yard, I knew we'd be having kids eventually, and I didn't want to have an aggressive dog). He was a great dog, we'd always say. He had a very unique look, no health problems, he slept quietly on the floor in our bedroom every night and didn't disturb us, never ate our socks or dug holes in our back yard. Sure, he was high energy, but he was a nice dog, basically low maintenance, and DEFINITELY part of the family. Those people that decided to just irresponsibly and cruelly "get rid" of their pets when they had babies were so unworthy of ever being pet owners. How could they just abandon a member of the family? I would NEVER do anything like that.

After the kids were born and Truman got older, instead of seeing a decrease in his energy level and hyper tendencies, we saw an increase as we had less time to focus on him and he had more desire to make his presence known to us. We began to notice that if left alone for five seconds near the kitchen, he would jump onto our counters and eat whatever he could find there. He would dig through our trash cans and eat wadded up paper towels. He would swallow baby socks whole, then deposit them, bile-soaked, onto our carpet a few hours later. These things were all big disappointments and frustrations, but we went on. He was simply another quirky, high-maintenance member of our on-the-edge family.

Last year, we discovered he was epileptic, and we started the confusing and long process of getting him on the correct dosage of seizure-preventing medication. The meds that are supposed to cause lethargy seem to make him even more prone to eating socks and kleenex, more prone to barking and slamming his 70-pound body against our sliding glass door if we dare to leave him outside for ten minutes, more prone to reminding us, through all of our other life chaos, that he is the one who's not getting what he needs in this family.

We joke about the madness around here, and it probably seems funny and entertaining when I use the word "shriek" to talk about losing my sanity with my very intense child who talks and challenges non-stop; and it probably seems like exaggeration when I refer to John's daughter's extreme lethargy and the lengths we go to every single day to put her on a path different from her depressed, self-loathing mother; and it probably seems like hyperbole that we consider ourselves on the edge of society, with no close in-person friends because of the seemingly endless quirks we all bring into this menagerie. But here's the thing: none of this is really exaggeration. Our dog really is slamming his body into our glass door and would do so 24 hours a day if left to his own devices; John's clients really are calling our home repeatedly at dinner time while we ignore the loud rings and focus on yelling at our kids to sit down and stop having a tantrum about consuming one single LENTIL, or even a processed cheese-covered pasta shell; our 16-year-old really is in her room sleeping anytime she has a choice of what to do with her time despite being in counseling, on meds, and in constant contact with us, her friends, her extended family, all of whom are trying to get her to wake the hell up and embrace her life; our four-year-old really is talking, challenging, and negotiating with us non-stop, and often accents this with harsh instances of a complete loss of emotional and physical control; our three-year-old really has learned from all of these psycho behaviors and we really do spend time trying to undo at least some of that damage which is near impossible since he's still simultaneously exposed to all of the madness; and most of all, I really do feel on the edge of a breakdown half the time, and so does John. For the record, and to ward off any undue worry about anyone's physical safety, we can love our kids, try every day to improve things, and yet still feel this way. I know that such a thing is possible, because that, my friends, is our reality -- not something created for the entertainment of our vast audience (hello, all five of you!).

So. We have a lot to handle, but we manage it.

HOW. EV. ER. Truman. The dog. The slamming of the 70-pound body against the glass door during nap times, meal times, rare-company-in-our-house times? PROBLEMO. The worsening eating of the baby socks after the kids were born? Turned into the eating of anything not large, metal, or connected to the floor. The bile-soaked items turning up on our rug? UM. TWO CURIOUS KIDS UNDER AGE 5 LIVING IN THIS HOUSE. PICKING UP SAID BILE-SOAKED ITEMS. Also, the puppy aggression I mentioned earlier? Never went away. He has snapped at both kids on more than one occasion - and not because they were doing anything aggressive like pulling his tail or using his body as a trampoline - they simply overstepped the vague doggie bounds Truman created and failed to communicate to us lowly humans. I don't know what the final straw was, but on one recent evening as John and I attempted to have a conversation after putting the kids to bed, we were continually interrupted by Truman's aggressive thrashing against the injustice of the back door, and our decision was made. That night, we'd just dealt with a ridiculous amount of strife involving, at one or another point, every single child inhabiting our chaotic residence; the thrashing represented months and years of a creature whose needs we simply could no longer meet.

A few nights after my mom and stepdad volunteered to provide Truman's new home but before we'd made the hand-off, I took him for a run in the neighborhood. On the way back home, I ran into a neighbor with daughter Bryce's age, who asked politely if she could pet the dog. I agreed, and then started chatting with her mom. While I had him on a leash with a choke chain, he got nervous because of the neighbor's dog and ENDED UP BITING THE LITTLE GIRL. Biting. Her.

BITING.

HER.

He didn't break the skin, I guess it was a "warning" bite. To a five-year-old. Who was softly petting his head and cooing at him. This is a dog who currently lives with a four- and three-year-old. I already doubted how safe an aggression-prone dog was in our house, where chaos rules. Now, I have a legitimate fear about leaving him in a situation where something causes him to snap and bite one of the kids.

As much as I love the dog and as guilty as I feel for becoming one of "those" people abandoning my pet, doing one of those things I swore I'd never do, I simply can't put my kids, or the kids around us, at daily risk. I don't know if this was something we caused or brought on because of the absolutely insane nature of our household, but it doesn't really matter what caused it anymore. The problem exists: the dog isn't getting what he needs; as a result, or in addition to that, he is becoming more aggressive, specifically towards children.

The fact that my mom and stepdad are willing to take him means that the kids (who love Truman despite, or maybe because of, his quirks) will be able to see him regularly, and that he'll be around other, MELLOW dogs (I'm hoping their behavior will rub off on him). I'll miss him -- I'll miss the dog I thought I was adopting, just like any of us miss the perfect life we envisioned for ourselves before REAL life shattered that image and made us re-evaluate it all. But I know, for once I am certain, that this is the right thing to do.

Dial "B" for Bigot

Two weeks ago I admitted that we suck as neighbors, and most of you agreed that we do, in fact, suck as neighbors. You were kind about it, though, and also admitted how much you suck at being a neighbor. Thanks. Suckiness loves company.

Yesterday evening on our maybe-the-kids-need-just-a-little-more-physical-activity-to-wear-them-down walk, we took the route that led us past the POLITICAL SCREAMER'S house. Lo and behold: a new sign.



This just pisses me off.

It's confrontational, it's aggressive and besides being idiotic, it's just the wrong way to communicate an idea or belief. I'm all for free speech. You have an opinion? Write a letter to the newspaper or your elected representative. Join a like-minded organization and have an organized rally. Start a blog.

I think he is attempting to address the issue of making English the official language of the United States. If so, I'm sure he believes that until recently Americans had never provided bilingual ballots, education, publications, and similar services at public expense and that native language accommodations discourage immigrants from learning English. Wrong on all counts.

In fact, the Continental Congress published it's journals and official documents in English, German and in French. And it was also the Continental Congress that rejected the proposal to establish an official language because it was believed to be an improper role of government and a threat to individual liberties.

There is also a history, though, of states enacting restrictive language policies which were nothing more than thinly veiled ways to exclude certain minority groups from employment opportunities.

Our historical response to language diversity has ranged from accomodation to tolerance to discrimination to repression. I suspect that these responses are determined by factors that have little to do with language, but more to do with the majority groups feelings of prosperity, stability and paranoia.

According to the most recent census statistics, 15% of the population in the United States is Hispanic. And growing. Fast. This fact, combined with the aggressive nature of his sign (all caps, bold black letters on stark white poster board, taped to the side of his house facing the busiest street in the neighborhood), leads me to believe my neighbor is afraid, and paranoid, and wants to instill that same fear and paranoia in as many people as he can in the only way he knows how. With stupid signs in his yard.

There are far too many level-headed, tolerant people out there to allow this type of mentality to get very far. If not, then I'll be afraid.

Quinnglish

For the past several months, as Quinn's vocabulary has increased, I've dubbed him The Prepositionally Challenged One, followed always by an endearing chuckle. I never tire of hearing him announce confidently, "because I want milk!" when I ask him, "would you like something to drink?" or "it's for Bryce's" when I ask him, "whose toy is that?" I love his little made-up language. There's a lot more to it than phonetics and incorrect pronunciation, though. There's something subtly instinctual and immediately innocent about the way he speaks; he wants to get his message across and he simply doesn't need the limitations of things like grammatical rules or the anal tendencies of those of us who prefer to hear words pronounced correctly, just because in our nit-picky, controlling ways, we like to, you know, understand those who speak to us.

The other night we were having dinner with my mom in a public location, and while she waited for the margarita to take its effect on me, and because she wants her last grandchild to live past the age of three, she attempted to distract him with some questions she knew he'd proudly answer. She figured it would buy her at least 30 seconds, and that maybe by then he would have lost interest in hand-sculpting Mount Rushmore out of his rice and beans while taunting me loudly in his knowledge that smearing the pasty mixture into my hair would set off a chain reaction that, while ultimately regrettable in its tragic removal of after-dinner Smarties, would momentarily be damned good entertainment. "Quinn!" She said, accessing her mental files as quickly as her brain would allow, "Uh...hey! Who is your mom?!"

He stopped, his still-clean hand poised directly over his soon-to-be projectile. His face softened, and looked at me, then at my mom, then back at me: "He's... he's so pretty!"

Yes, the pronoun was wrong, and according to the rules of conversational English, he didn't actually answer the question, but in his mind, he legitimately did. Silence fell over the table as we all swooned in his cuteness. But it just wasn't enough for my mom, because she is an addict. "Aw, Quinn, that's so sweet!! And who is your dad?" Again, he paused over his near-weapon, looked across the table at John, and uttered the phrase we've all been thinking for the past four and a half years:

"He's a good mother."

The Blind Leading the Blind: Read at your own risk, my friends.

Candace and StepBlog made a great point in the comments of my last post. I wrote all this detail about how horribly things went on the bad night, and then said life got back to something approximating normal the next night, but did I give detail, or provide any of the tips and tricks I referenced in helping us achieve said normalcy? No! I didn't! And that is not helpful. Why am I writing in a public forum if not to offer something helpful every once in while, for the love of God?!

Well, because I'm a selfish, narcissistic jerk, you guys. And also because I feel like such a complete parenting failure so much of the time, it seems a little like a sham for me to be saying, "Do what I do and you'll be successful!" BUT, I also happen to be a big Knowledge is Power person (me and Foucault go way, way back -- long live the panopticon, baby!), so after accepting the below disclaimer*, feel free to use any of these ideas in your household with your intense, challenging, dictator-like children.

Tip # 1: Prepare, prepare, prepare.
Tell the kids, even if you think they already know, what the routine (dinner, playtime, whatever) is going to entail. It might feel like overkill to say, "We're going to sit at the table and use our forks to eat our green beans and noodles, and we're all going to use quiet, peaceful voices when we talk, and we'll take turns so everyone gets a chance to tell their stories," but if you don't say this up front, and then sit down to kids using their fingers as spaghetti shovels, screaming over each other's loudness, telling them the expectation becomes a confrontation right off the bat. Avoid that scenario AT ALL COSTS. It gets ugly after that, and at our house, we never really recover. If you've told them from the start that something is going to be a certain way, when you see their behavior go awry, you have a way to address it, which gets me to my next tip.

Tip # 2: Be Positive. No, really.
One of the quickest ways to attract kids' attention to the fact that they can press your buttons is to say things like, "stop that!" or "don't touch your brother!" At our house, a statement like this is followed by a repeat of the forbidden action, a rise in my blood pressure and aneurysm likelihood, and utter and complete terror is likely to ensue. Using the above example about setting dinner expectations, The Unnamed Experts recommend using "positive language" to get your point across. That is, rather than telling them NOT to do something (usually in an annoyed, if not angry, tone of voice), tell them what they should be doing, what the expectation is. This is where Tip #1 and Tip #2 converge: if you've already talked about expectations, this directive will sound familiar. Beautiful! So, "stop playing with your food!! GROWL!" becomes, "Quinn, we're eating with our forks, remember?" or something sickeningly sweet along those lines. Try it. You'll be surprised how often this actually works. Now, with intense kids like Bryce, who are often out to establish control, things don't stop with Tip #2. Read on.

Tip # 3: Stay Calm. (And then drink.)
Tips # 1 and #2 seem really logical and easy, don't they? "That's no effort at all, and it'll never work on my kid anyway!" Oh yes, dear brethren and sistren (it's a word; I checked), I too have uttered this phrase many a time. (I mean, you've heard about Bryce, right? So you're with me.) But Tip # 3 doesn't really work very well if you haven't implemented Tip # 1 and Tip # 2 FIRST. Because if you haven't, then you've probably already started losing your temper, and therefore if your kid is blatantly doing something s/he knows s/he's not supposed to be doing, and you've told her/him to stop and s/he has continued for the sole purpose of watching you blow your top, staying calm at this point is improbable. If, however, you calmly explained the expectations, and then calmly used your nifty positive language to re-direct the negative behavior, you're much better poised to CALMLY follow through on whatever established consequence exists. The consequence depends on the situation and the family, obviously. In our case, negative behavior like throwing food, yelling, or having a tantrum at the dinner table meets with the consequence of one time out away from the family during which time the child is expected to bring things down a notch. After that, they may return to the table and try again. This time, if the negative behavior returns, they don't get to finish dinner, and -- horror of horrors -- don't eat until breakfast the next morning. "So this is just a time out?" you ask. Well, yes. In our case it is. But more specifically, it's the CALM follow-through to the time out. In fact, maybe it's not a time out for you; maybe it's the removal of a certain privilege. If you've already established a specific consequence for your kid related to a specific behavior, you can stick with it. The main point of Tip # 3 is to stay completely calm, composed, and logical while administering whatever consequential steps need to be taken, EVEN IF THE KID IS ACTING LIKE A RAVING MAD LUNATIC. This is the step I forget most often, and I have resorted too many times to lecturing loudly while I take a kid to time out. Don't make that mistake. In our house, this just creates more strife, and kid ends up winning, because I'm drawn into more negotiations and arguments (then I get more angry and frustrated, then the kid's tension level rises, you see the cycle).

Tip # 4: Where possible, re-evaluate the routine.
John and I realized that the kids were in some ways set up to fail at dinner time, which led to failures at bath time and bed time. They like to watch Dragon Tales on PBS Kids every day at 4:00; John has no problem with this because it's the one show that actually affords him more than five minutes to catch up on minor projects or brief business correspondence. However, as soon as he's ready to start the dinner preparations, the kids are rested, bored, and undirected. The other night, the hypnotically smooth night, we pulled a fast one on them by recording Dragon Tales and letting them watch it when John was ready to start dinner (he kept them engaged in activities until then). The result was quiet, peaceful kids during meal prep, only mildly excitable (and therefore manageable) by the time we were ready to sit down at the table. Ta Daa!

Tip # 5: Start over at Tip #1. Every day.
Recognize that this magical combination loses its potency if left untended. Each transition to a new activity requires the willingness and patience to begin again. Yes, it seems tedious, but much less dysfunctional than the self-flagellation that you'll inevitably bring upon yourself if you end the day in shrieks and slammed doors.

*The information contained herein is presented to you by a half-insane, inconsistent, and impatient shrew. Therefore, no guarantees can be made for its veracity, effectiveness, or timeliness. Godspeed. Also: All kids are different. Your results may vary as a result of that fact alone. (Nothin' I can do about that one, people. I've got two polar opposite kids driving me insane: I'm in the trenches with you -- woops! look out for that grenade, by the way.)

"A Bad Heart"

The other night, when I wrote this post, it was after we'd put the kids to bed early following a horrendous, dysfunctional evening marked by limit-testing, impatience, and tantrums (and the kids had been awful, too -- heh heh -- somehow that humor doesn't work for me here, probably because you already assumed I was talking about myself, didn't you? Dammit.). I e-mailed a few friends in desperation: "What have I done wrong here? How has this happened? They're so WILD, they're constantly FEEDING off of each other, and then I snap and scream at them, negating everything I've been trying to teach them, HELP ME! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?" I got some sound feedback from some very helpful people: don't beat yourself up, it's hard for all of us, anyone who says discipline is easy is LYING THROUGH THEIR LYING LIAR TEETH, you know, the usual phrases we tell ourselves to put into perspective the fact that we're justifying our worth as parents by comparing ourselves to murderers: "I can see why people snap and abuse their kids. THE DIFFERENCE, though, is that we don't really do it." Huh. So that means I deserve a medal, I guess. Because I didn't murder my kids when they ran away screaming at bath time again, I only imagined myself murdering them. Somehow I thought this part of life would be different. Or maybe I didn't put ENOUGH thought into how this part of life would be; I just wasn't prepared and that's why I find myself standing in the hallway, eyes darting, skin flushed, every muscle in my body flexed, sweat pores over-worked, with these simultaneous thoughts running through my head:

• I'm going to rip his head off, I can't believe he just THREW THAT TOY RIGHT AT ME and ran away laughing, LAUGHING, has he no respect?! WHAT A BRAT!
• I can't say I'm going to rip his head off, even in my mind. I could go to jail for something like that anyway. Besides, eventually this kid might be manipulated into investing in a decent nursing home for me. Must...keep...patience.
• GAH! I can't keep my patience! This is ridiculous! Ridiculous, I say! Why can't we get through ONE GOD-FORSAKEN MEAL without having some major meltdown about something? Why does bath time equal "do the opposite of everything our ineffective mother tells us to do" time? WHY, WHY, WHY??
• Okay, so all of this time I've spent reading these helpful books on the right language and tone of voice and mentality to use with kids in order to teach them boundaries without being an intimidating authority figure they'll ultimately shy away from, learning the difference between being an authoritative parent and an authoritarian parent, that was all a waste, wasn't it? Because HELLO! LISTEN TO YOURSELF, YOU'RE SCREAMING AT YOUR KIDS YOU IDIOT!
• See? The screaming did no good anyway. Bryce just ran away laughing hysterically. Quinn followed him. Now, instead of getting ready for a bath, they're both even MORE hyper, and hiding under the bed. WHAT NOW? If I go in after them, they win. If I ignore them and refuse to even GIVE them a bath, is that really a punishment? Wait. Was this Bryce's plan all along?

If I hadn't had a few very helpful people talking me down, though, I would have remained mired in my guilt and horror, playing the painful game of parenting limbo wherein my dysfunctional reactions to the kids' attempts to press my buttons would have pulled me down deeper and deeper into circles of hell as yet unknown. While I hate to find myself in situations where I'm comparing myself to a murderer in an attempt to point out how very normal I am, those sentiments did compel me to do some reading, to take a brief refresher course in the philosophies I claim to espouse when it comes to parenting. I read a few articles which discussed a number of tips and tricks I already knew by heart. I slapped my forehead in shame and disgust at the notion that I'd had a dozen opportunities to turn the previous night's horror around, and instead, had opted to scar my kids for life by teaching them that, hey, I'm mad, you're wrong, and I just earned the right to disrespect this entire household by shrieking and stomping and taking threatening poses even though we all know I pose absolutely no threat to anyone around here (except for maybe the threat of early hearing loss, what with all the desperate shrieking).

The next day, we tried some "new" ideas. They weren't new ideas to us, but we had temporarily forgotten to implement them, so they felt new to the kids. The night went hypnotically smoothly. The kids ate lentil soup(!) and sauteed potatoes(!) with no meltdowns. Bath time and bedtime were, primarily, pleasant and peaceful wind-downs to the day. I kissed Bryce good night and said, "I saw you trying really hard today to be peaceful and remember your manners. I really appreciate it." He said, "Yeah. You were trying, too." This seems like a sadly, profoundly beautiful statement coming from a four-year-old anyway, but when you hear what he said to me the night before, it's even more heart-shattering. After our horrible night of conflict and chaos and failure, he'd asked for a kiss and hug, and I'd grudgingly complied, for the sole purpose of getting myself out of his room and pretending the evening had never occurred. As I'd pushed myself off of his bed after impatiently pecking his cheek, he'd said, "Mom. I can't feel your kiss."

Tonight, Night #2 in our renewed focus on Mission: Responsible-Patient-Consistent-Authoritative Parents, was a little more challenging than last night's peaceful revelation. There was no parental yelling or dysfunction, so we remain on track. However, Bryce hit the wall after dinner and was trying very hard to take our Mission off course. There was yelling, there was throwing, there was defiance. I held firm, did not scream at him, and while I may have bloodied the inside of my mouth by violently biting my gums in an effort to keep my patience, I prevailed. During one of his brief breaks from the attempt at causing household chaos, I said curiously, "Bryce, why do you think you lose control like that?" He stepped out of the bath and looked around, thinking. "Well, sometimes my heart is just bad, and it makes me lose control. My heart feels very tight, like this, and it makes me act that way" and he wrapped his arms around his chest so closely that his fingers almost met in the middle of his back. "Like this. Very, very tight."

I don't know what I was expecting him to say, but I guess I figured it would be something along the lines of "because you're mean" or "because you don't let me eat enough candy" or "because I'm not the center of the universe and it really makes me angry." Sometimes my heart is bad and it feels tight which causes me to lose control did not make the list of predicted answers from the four-year-old. The kid KNOWS he's intense. He knows he acts insane and that it wreaks havoc on the rest of the house. And yet, he can't always stop himself. Sounds very familiar.

Dental Perspective

Today I went to the dentist for a cleaning. As is my nature, when the polite hygienist asked me "how it was going" with my braces, I didn't...uh...hold back: "I hate them." She looked surprised, concerned even: "Oh! Are you having problems with them?" My gaze was steady. "No. No problems. I just hate them, the way they feel, the extra work they require, and then there's that pesky aspect of them making me look like I'm 12 years old when I'm in the process of establishing myself at a new job and meeting people who assume I'm the Doogie Howser of the business world, and then snicker about it to all of their co-workers who look like actual adults. So, I'm not entirely happy about the whole braces THANG."

"OH. I, um... see." Then, glad to have a legitimate reason to tell me to stop talking, she gestured to the chair and prepared to use one of her scary torture devices to scrape and poke around the softest, most sensitive tissue in my mouth, which happened to be surrounded by lots of metal blockades and wires, making her job much, much more difficult. And therefore causing it to take much, much longer. She didn't hold my braces bitterness against me, though, and chose to continue our thrilling conversation while she scraped and scraped, probably while her hand was cramping from the effort: "Well, you know, your teeth are looking great! You keep them so clean! You'll be so glad you got the braces!" Do they say this to everyone? Do they tell everyone that they're impressed with their dental hygiene while hypocritically spending AN HOUR scraping build-up off of those very same "clean" teeth?? Every time I go, they tell me how impressed they are with my amazingly clean teeth and healthy gums. Before I had braces, they were blown away that I could actually manage to floss around the train wreck that was my bottom middle teeth; now that the braces have (for the most part) straightened those monstrosities, they are proud of the fact that I take the time to THREAD THE FLOSS THROUGH THE WIRES EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. (You know, I'm kind of impressed by this, too, now that I think about it.)

While I was lying there with my mouth open, allowing Polite Hygienist to wield sharp objects around my pink, healthy, vulnerably exposed gums, I was thinking God I wish I could talk right now so I could tell her, YES, YES, I KNOW I'll be happy I got the braces ONCE THEY'RE OFF! It's RIGHT NOW that I hate them, don't you understand!? RIGHT NOW!!! But because Polite Hygienist was busy scraping, scraping, scraping away on my INCREDIBLY CLEAN TEETH OHMYGOD THESE ARE SO CLEAN YOU'RE JUST AMAZING!, I couldn't say that. I was forced to listen to the dentist talking in the room next to me. Here is what I heard:

Dentist: I looked at your x-rays, and I don't see how we can save these top four. And the bottom ones don't look much better.

Frail Old Patient: Yeah, I know.

Dentist: I looked at the x-rays you had done in 2001, then in 2003, and compared them to today's. The deterioration is very rapid.

Frail Old Patient: Oh.

Dentist: I'm going to come on your right side so you can hear me better. Do you hear better out of your right side?

Frail Old Patient: Yes. Thank you.

Dentist: Sometimes as we age, it becomes harder for us to care for our teeth well. We don't have the dexterity we need to brush and floss, and the build-up causes rapid decay.

Frail Old Patient: ......

Dentist: We'll have to take the teeth out.

Frail Old Patient: Is there any option besides dentures?

Dentist: There are implants, but I'd like to get the teeth out, make some dentures for you, have them ready the day your teeth are removed, and let you try them for a month or two.

Frail Old Patient: Oh. Okay...

Dentist: There is a surgeon in this building, I've sent my wife and my mother to him -- he'll take good care of you, and then I will be there to make sure your dentures fit before you even leave.

At about this point, Polite Hygienist finished scraping and polishing my teeth, and I had an opportunity to talk. "You know," I said, "the braces don't bother me as much as they used to. "

I'm saying "UNCLE," now, okay?

I remember when I was pregnant with Bryce, how I would see kids in public and think, "my kid will not be allowed to act that way." And I remember John, already seasoned parent, telling me, "you'll see." And I remember blowing him off, with, "Oh yeah? You wanna test me? YOU'LL see."

Six years ago, while pregnant with my first child, I was so sure that with all of the focused effort and energy I was going to put into parenting my kids, they simply were not going to be kids who'd loudly demand to eat bites off of my plate in a public location, or who'd dash away from me the minute we stepped foot outside whatever restaurant we'd just innocently patronized, causing me to run after them frantically, cursing their names, their chosen, precious names all the way. Or who would, for instance, do everything I'd ever told them NOT to do...no, no, no, that would NEVER be acceptable from my kids, and therefore it would never happen.

All I have to say right now is, DAMN YOU, UNIVERSE. You are a sadist! You KNOW I've worked myself into a frenzy over these kids, teaching them with purposeful lessons about boundaries, expectations, social interaction, familial apprecation. You know that despite the numerous stress-inducing experiences I've lived through over the past six years, my focus has remained my kids, and making sure they have everything they need, including the appropriate amount of "rules" necessary for creatures new to this world to be successful. But none of that matters, does it, Universe? Oh, no. I dared to say, "my kids won't act that way" and now you've got to throw it violently into my face, don't you? DON'T YOU?! Does it make you feel like a really BIG universe to squash us little peons like the ants you already know we are? Are you enjoying your little voodoo doll session with me? Now let's have him negotiate with her again, yeah! Yeah!! Now have the little one throw a toy -- oh wait, this is genius -- have it knock over something on table! Okay, make the big one do that maniacal laugh he's so good at!! YES!! See how her face is turning red and her jaw is clenched?! THAT WAS PERFECT!

You win, damn it. YOU WIN. I give up. What do I need to do? Sacrifice something? You've already got my ego and my sanity; what more do you want?

The Tertiary Period

Lately, I just don't know how much controlled, decisive action I can take to change or improve the various issues in my life. I have the illusion of control we all cling to, sure. I "choose" to go to work every day; I "choose" to do a good job there; I "choose" not to spank my kids despite the instinctual desire actually to rip their heads off when they defiantly throw something down the stairs for the fourth time after saying "okay, mom!" when I teeth-grittingly explain the basic household expectations again and again. But I guess I also "choose" to yell at them for things like trying to get me to laugh by testing the limit one last time and throwing just a single dirty sock down only the top two stairs before bath time, or to grab their arms as they dare to pull away from me in a public place when I kneel down to explain "the rules" to them yet again. And while I do those things, I don't really feel like I'm choosing. But I don't feel forced, either; it just feels like an out-of-body, third party experience, and when it's over and I feel like I'm back in my own skin, and I see Bryce wiping away his tears of anger and embarrassment for having been scolded so harshly in what felt to him like a completely unnecessary conversation in the first place (given that he was perfectly aware of the rules already, he was just choosing to ignore them because it was very important that he re-experience for the third, fourth, and fifth time the awe of pretending to be almost crushed by a mammoth in the acclaimed natural history museum we just drove two hours to visit), I am left wondering how much choice I actually have in all of this, and whether I will spend the rest of my life feeling like a frustrated, disappointed observer of my own "choices" just as I tell the kids I feel about some of theirs.

Which is more humiliating: the kid that won't come out from under the Mammoth's foot, or the one who's obsessed with the Mammoth's genitals?

Here they are digging for the fossils of my sanity. Note the disappointed looks on their faces, betraying the awful truth that Mom's Sanity never actually existed, and so they prepare to leave their paleontologist ways behind for the much more oxymoronic but simple explanation of Insane Design.

Apatasaurus: So huge, even the kids were stunned into respectful, deferent silence. Thank you, Apatasaurus. THANK. YOU.

These are the best poses we got when we said, "okay, guys, stand still for TWO SECONDS and smile at dad."

But then sometimes my kids make choices or observations that I might never have seen as possibilities, and they surprise me (and by "surprise," I mean humiliate in merely a different way than before, but it's all semantics). And I'm reminded in those times that our choices are always our own, always infinite. Bryce proved this to me again yesterday by getting over his public scolding and then waiting patiently for his chance to return to the Mammoth. When we took him back there, he did this (he's ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille):

Pearls of Wisdom for Father's Day

When Kara at Cape Buffalo asked me to participate in the Father's Day Bloggect I thought sure, why not? I had a father, I am a father so how hard could it be?

I was originally going to honor my Dad who passed away 9 years ago and write about how much I miss him. Then I changed my mind and thought I would write about what being a father means to me. I finally decided to just pass along a few pearls of wisdom I've accumulated over the years about what I think it takes to be a good father. This is as much for me as it is for you.

1. Don't leave them alone for even a minute.

2. Love them for who they are, not who you want them to be.

3. Instill a strong work ethic at an early age.

4. Teach them life skills.

5. Enjoy the spontaneous moments.




6. At the end of an especially hard day, peek in and look at them while they sleep. The remnants of the anarchy are washed away with a 3 minute view.


7. And finally, remember that the rash won't go away on it's own. Sorry, no photo for this one.

To all the dads out there in blogland, Happy Father's Day.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood......

We suck as neighbors. We think we are good neighbors, but we aren't. We suck.

Last week I was driving down the street and in the front yard of the house just two doors down was a stork sign proclaiming "It's a BOY!" A boy? Was she pregnant? Has it been that long since I did a stop and chat? Wait, I've never done a stop and chat. I don't even know their names! I suck. I called Kristen to give her the good news. "Who?" she asked. We suck.

Oh sure, I wave at familiar cars as they drive up or down the street, and say hi when they walk past our house, but that's about it.

There is one neighbor across the street that I am chummy with. In fact it's another stay at home dad with two boys each exactly 6 months younger than my two. It would seem that this would be a perfect match for playdates and leisurely front yard conversations while the kids romped. But I hesitate to wear out the opportunity. Every time we stop by for a visit, my two completely dominate his two, to the point of embarrassment, and it winds up being a stressor for me as I try to keep things from escalating.

I can count the neighbors on our street I know by name on one hand. Again I say, we suck.

But then, as Kristen and I were on a walk around the block the other evening, we came across this. In his front yard.

And this. In his front yard.


So maybe we don't suck.

The One You've All Been Waiting For

Okay. I've avoided talk of in-laws for a while. "I don't need to be hateful about them," I told myself. "They can't defend themselves in this forum and it's not fair, it's one-sided." I focused on factual elements if anything at all related to them happened to come up or be relevant to something I wrote. After I did that, I noticed a sharp decrease in the number of frustrating events involving these people. I thought, "wow, I must have been bringing it on myself, looking for something to complain about." And I was happy to think that much of my concern and complaining had more to do with my own pickiness than any objectively problematic behavior they may have displayed. I was also happy that if they ever happened to stumble across this website, there wouldn't be anything at the top of the page that would expose a level of frustration and disgust towards their mentality and behavior that I hadn't expressed directly to them.

And then.

They showed me.

How wrong.

I was.

Remember all that stuff back in the fall about John's daughter and her insane and obsessed misogynist therapist, who I named Psychounselor? Remember how that raving lunatic blamed my stepdaughter's extreme lack of internal motivation and self-care on me and my apparently undiscovered supermodel-like figure and unprecedented life success? And remember how she accused me of placing unrealistic expectations on said stepdaughter to reach the heights of success in every endeavor, like I apparently did (according to her assessment of me after speaking with me for one single hour)? And how in reality the only expectations I've ever placed on my stepdaughter have been joint expectations with her biological parent, John, and those expectations involve things like bathing herself regularly and getting out of bed every day at some point, with maybe a "stretch goal" of, say, finding an interest in something, somewhere, in the world, at some point?

What I didn't write about at the time was that we spoke with John's mom in detail about that surreal experience, and told her all about finding a new counselor who is actually sane, and who John's daughter has a much healthier relationship with (i.e., she doesn't leave sessions more sulky and depressed than when she went in, but actually comes out with energy and tells us things she "wants to work on"...huh! A counselor who counsels!). I am only mentioning this to point out that John's mom was and is well aware of the history with the statements and accusations made by Psychounselor.

Even with some improvements in behavior and communication resulting from a diagnosis that spurred medication and the new (good) counselor, we are still seeing a huge lack of motivation (I won't go into the messy story that confirmed the abnormal de-motivation level, but suffice it to say, to use Arwen's term - created, I can only assume, when she heard the details of the story I'm now leaving out - "complacency in hurling" was involved, and it's not pretty). John called his mom yesterday to discuss it with her, to get her thoughts, to seek her motherly wisdom (he was desperate, people). And do you know what her thoughts were? 1.) John's daughter clearly needs to spend more time with her aunt, my sister-in-law (a successful, attractive female role model). 2.) It must be so hard for John's daughter to grow up in a household with Kristen, because how can she ever live up to that?

OH.

OH YES SHE DID.

As John's eyes bulged out of his head and he stopped himself from screaming obscenities into the phone at his aging mother, he asked how his daughter being around her successful, attractive aunt was different from her being around me (you know, because I'm this obvious tribute to success and beauty - WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE, WHAT THE HELL???). Not surprisingly, she didn't have an answer for him. But *I* do. As I told him last night, it's not so much the "successful" part of me, or the "attractive" part of me that is apparently a problem for his daughter. It's more the "Kristen" part of me. I wasn't the chosen in-law, and I never have been. If they can find a problem with me or anything I touch, they will. There are problems in our household; therefore they must stem from ME.

Nevermind the fact that they know nothing about the work I've done with parent coaches, counselors, and John to find the best approach to dealing with and communicating with this troubled young adult without making her problems worse. Or the HOURS UPON HOURS I've spent working with her on everything from how to approach a teacher for help to how to write a paper to how to hold on to your identity in high school and fight off the identity destroyers, to which she is even MORE susceptible than most kids because of her multiple emotional problems. Nevermind all that. Personally if I were John's daughter and I knew people were insinuating something like this, I would be insulted that so much credit and blame for MY LIFE was being placed on someone besides myself. Because no matter what she lost by being born to a mother who chose not to be part of her life, she has had more and better opportunities than most kids in this or any other country. Whatever issues she has to work through, whatever lessons she has to learn the hard way, her choices are her choices, not mine. Even if I were a nagging evil stepmother, beating her for daring to come home with a B on her report card and shredding the lone item of clothing she dared to leave on her bedroom floor while busy scrubbing every window in the house, that statement would be true. SHE has to answer to herSELF for her actions, not to me. And that is true whether I'm a chain-smoking, whiskey-slugging, drug-dealing, physically abusive loser or a supermodel-attorney-doctor-housewife who always smiles and never gets frustrated.

I'm having lots and lots of fun coming up with ways to address the situation with John's mom, and maybe if I weren't so busy figuring out how to ruin my stepdaughter's life and place unrealistic expectations on her, I would have already called the woman. But unfortunately I don't have that kind of time! After all, there's a clinically depressed, emotionally damaged 16-year-old at my house JUST WAITING for me to come home and tell her all the things that are wrong with her, and right with me. Because you know, that's what I do. I'm just a big, evil bitch of a stepmother and THAT is the bottom line.

The Crying Game

Quinn has this new method of expressing dissatisfaction with whatever The Current Problem is, and that method is, well, extremely effective. A little over the top, yes. A little extreme, yes. VERY annoying to be around, yes. But effective, nonetheless. As soon as the oxygen surrounding his body becomes tainted with even the slightest possibility that someone is about to make him do something he finds abhorrent, like put his shoes on or share the 14 cars he's hoarding in his stuffed, pudgy hands, he doesn't yell or throw things or scream no. His olfactory super powers take over and he can actually SNIFF OUT the impending doom. The corners of his eyes turn red and puffy, his chin quivers, the flood gates behind his sad, sad eyes open and he starts to genuinely cry, while "telling on" whoever is causing this new injustice. It can be something as simple as Bryce not agreeing with him ABOUT SOMETHING FACTUALLY WRONG, like whether or not the hall light is on when it is clearly turned off.

Quinn: The light is on, Bryce.
Bryce: Uh, no it isn't, Quinn. I think you mean it's off.
Quinn: [red eyes, quivering chin, wailing in misery and hurt feelings] He said it's off!! He said it's ooooooooffffffffffffffffffffff!! Waaaaaaaaaa!

An argument in which I could normally stop myself from intervening thus becomes something I have to step into, even if only to tell Quinn to get a grip and stop acting like such a three-year-old already. But the thing is, even though I don't necessarily give Quinn what he "wants" when he pulls this trick out of his hat (12-18 TIMES A DAY), he does receive direct attention, which is probably his original intent anyway. The attention may end up negative, or it may end up causing whatever injustice he's crying about to become even MORE "unfair," but whatever the original situation was that caused him so much grief almost inevitably changes when he turns on the tears.

I know it's risky, given the fact that I just pointed out that many times this behavior does not result in a positive outcome for Quinn, but I've been considering trying this at work. This is the....oh hell, I've lost count, so I'll pick a nice round number and say tenth job I've had where I've been invited to share ideas and suggestions for improvements, and I fall for that nonsense and then actually MAKE suggestions for improvements, and subsequently become labeled as a trouble-maker. I've tried all the adult, mature methods of dealing with this little problem - changing my suggestion-making tactics, approaching people in different forums, putting suggestions in writing, and then not doing that, waiting longer periods of time before making suggestions to see if someone else will make them first, making them subliminally or dropping hints gradually... I could go on and on. Ultimately, I become the trouble-maker, the one who's never pleased, the one who rocks the boat. Given my recent statement that I am now officially refusing to sit in silence just to fit in or get by, I obviously can't just give up and stop trying. Besides, where would all my angst come from if I did that? So, I'm thinking, why not try the crying bit? I mean, the response from my employer and co-workers can't be much worse than what I've been dealing with all along anyway. Inaction? Check. Labeling me as a trouble-maker? Check. Cutting the tension with a knife anytime I walk into a meeting? Check. And maybe the crying would shock people into agreement, you know? Like, "Gee, if Kristen is so passionate about this, maybe she has a point after all! Let's discuss her idea, rather than shooting it down, that's a novel idea anyway!"

I can see it now, and it's a beautiful thing.

Meeting Leader: The first item on the agenda is which format we should choose. Any thoughts?
Kristen: Well, I thought we could stick with the standard we established two months ago since the year is half over and we said we wanted to be consistent to avoid confusion.
Meeting Leader: Well, that's not going to work for us because we like to accomodate the entire company even though that is physically impossible and we're setting ourselves up for failure by doing just that. The job-threatening irony of it all appeals to us, so the answer is NO. Anyone else?
Kristen: [red puffy eyes, chin quivering, tears flowing, looking around at the rest of the meeting attendants] She said, 'accomodate entire company'! She said, 'setting ourselves up for failure is fun!' She said 'No.' SHE SAID NNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Meeting attendants: [clutching papers to their chests, eyes lowered, faces pale with nervousness and embarrassment, fingers poised over phone, ready to dial 9-1-1] Uh, Meeting Leader? We, um, have reached a concensus that, well...uh [gulp] -- is she okay? -- we're willing to discuss that suggestion. We think.

At the very least, it might provide some good entertainment for me. Or for you, when I write about it.

Deja Jupiter Jump

I think whatever air is pumped into those god-forsaken Jupiter Jumps is laced with some drug causing hyperactivity, profuse sweating, and manic-depressive disorder. I took the kids to yet another hot, crowded event this morning (this time for a fundraiser) and wouldn't you know, the minute we got there, the most prominent item in the vicinity was another one of those death traps that I hate, and that my kids love, and that I usually end up forced to galump through in all my oversized adult-ness because they, in giddy rebellion, REFUSE. TO. COME. OUT. What made today's Jupiter Jump extravaganza even more appealing to the kids was that it wasn't just any old big square-based air-filled box with a few nets thrown around the side. Oh, no, boy. It was a replica of a NASA space shuttle, complete with the following:

• "windows" for parents to watch through which started about an inch above my spinning, frantic head
• a tiny crawl space big enough for one child at a time, or four suffocating children all pushing with their last breath to be the first one through to the
• double slide on the exit of the space shuttle jumping area, which was blocked from view by said slide

All of these "fun" attributes of the Greatest Jupiter Jump Ever Made resulted in my realization that if my kids were ever kidnapped, all they would have to do is find the nearest Jupiter Jump and convince their captor to let them jump for five minutes. Within no time at all, said captor would flee the site and pull his/her hair out of his/her head in clumps, and when asked where his/her children were, he/she would scream, "WHAT KIDS? That big air machine swallowed them whole" and Bryce and Quinn would be free to run home to me. At which point I would say, "You're alive! But, how did you ever escape from that Jupiter Jump?"

In any case, once my kids squeezed their way through the tiny entrance and bounced in and out of my view as I craned my neck and also jumped in my sad, pathetic, uncoordinated way, they both separately disappeared, so I ran around to the "exit slides" side of the monstrosity and waited for their heads to appear at the summit of the slides. I waited. And waited. I walked back around to the too-tall windows to crane my neck some more. Hmm, no sight of them. I walked back around to the exit slides. This went on and on. Finally I noticed Bryce standing on the opposite side of the structure, on his way back in to jump. I panicked: had Quinn, Distracto Boy, gotten past me without me seeing him, too? How far had he run? Which furry animal character was he chasing around the event without my knowledge? Who WERE those furry animal characters, anyway?

Right as I was accepting the fact that once again, I was going to have to humiliate myself and ruin the other kids' fun by squeezing through that child entrance flap and slashing the Jupiter Jump to pieces until Quinn's lumpy, giggling self emerged ("What? You were looking for me?"), he managed to find his way through the apparently maze-like interior connection between the jump area and the exit slides. He was beaming, I'm guessing with pride, but also with that flushed, dehydrated look he gets after 10 minutes in the heat. "Let's head home, guys." I said, like the stupid idiot I am. Note to stupid, stupid self: Do not attempt to make your sons do something you know they will refuse while they are still inside such a structure. They will disappear into the darkness of the maze still accessible to them, yet unaccessible to you, with a triumphant, "NO!" Self, how many times do you have to go through this before you will learn? Come on, self.

Luckily, Quinn is still kind of into food and drink as he has not yet perfected the art of living without it the way Bryce has, so all I had to do was wait out his stomach and promise Bryce a new balloon. Yeah...no kidnapper could ever solve that conundrum.

Well, I can tell you THIS!

I grew up around more adults than kids my own age. My dad spent the majority of my childhood in some phase of graduate school, which meant that I was exposed to all sorts of intellectual debates about liberalism, philosophers, religious movements, ideologies, and ethics -- debates that took place in all of the stereotypical places you'd imagine graduate school intellectual debates to take place: dimly lit coffee houses, famous local delis, tame dinner parties, and picnics on campus parks involving some undisclosed but not outrageous number of alcoholic beverages. Growing up, I thought such conversations were normal, everyday occurrences -- that all parents were philosophers and writers, or at the very least, friends with philosophers and writers. When I wasn't learning phrases like "Contemporary Perspectives on the History of Religion" and "Sociological Perspectives of Secularization," I was surrounded by college students 24 hours a day, because during my dad's Ph.D. program, my parents were Resident Heads in a dormitory at the same university.

By the time I entered elementary school and found friends my age, I never really related to them like a "normal" kid. I think I was so used to being around adults that I actually felt more comfortable talking to the teachers than the other students. I had a few close friends whose parents were also involved with the university, who understood my preference for talking over playing on the playground, and so I remained somewhat oblivious to my misfit status until we moved away from the university environment right at the time I entered junior high. It was then that it became crystal clear to me that my peers had no appreciation for my adult-like sarcasm, vocabulary, and "responsible" approach to life. In high school, I waited tables at a restaurant and one day during a lull, I stood talking to some co-workers. We looked out the window and noticed a blackening sky. Somebody said, "look at those clouds!" and without thinking first, I said, "yeah, they look really ominous." Silence. Awkward looks. Someone giggled nervously and said, "Kristen, you use too big of words," after which the awkwardness turned to sheer hilarity and everyone laughed and laughed: that quirky Kristen!

I use too big of words. How I managed to laugh off this horribly constructed sentence as if it were perfectly acceptable, the way everyone standing around seemed to think it was (WAY more acceptable than the HUGE three-syllable word "ominous"-- THREE SYLLABLES! Whoah, Nelly.), I will never know. In my mind, "You use too big of words" was like the mushroom Alice ate that caused her to grow so huge that she suddenly had the capability to crush the "off with her head" queen like an ant: while I externally took the high road and laughed at myself, my internal fantasy of verbally defending myself grew disproportionally into attacking what I saw as her ignorance, then to crushing what I saw as the close-minded, peer pressure mentality that had encouraged my silence among people my own age during my later childhood. I was young enough to stay silent, but old enough to realize that the collective, elective ignorance of many of my peers would eventually silence me permanently if I didn't surround myself with different ones. In college, I did just that, and it was refreshing not to feel forced to use "smaller" words when I spoke and to spend my days in a place surrounded by fellow "misfits."

Since then, though, I feel like I'm back in that restaurant wanting to crush close-minded ignorance like an ant again. Maybe it's this geographical region, maybe it's the types of jobs I end up taking, maybe it's because I don't have time or money to invest in things like graduate school or even something as simple as a book club. I usually don't have time to put much thought into it because at work I spend my days reminding myself just to fit in, just to get by, just to continue to help provide a comfortable living on the Fringe. The friends I have tend to contact me mostly out of convenience, and so even though they don't necessarily ridicule my vocabulary, they bring their own energy-sucking close-mindedness to the table in the form of narcissism and self-centeredness, and try as I might, I can't continue to see those friendships as anything but reminders that once again, I have effectively invited soul-crushing, ignorance-accepting silence into my life.

When I originally started typing this post, I had intended to write about the funny new phrasing Bryce uses anytime he wants to tell us something. Maybe we're sitting at the dinner table praying to the Texture Gods for mercy on our exhausted souls in the form of Bryce actually eating something bigger than a crumb, like maybe an entire half of a black bean or an eighth of a canned peach. Maybe we're running around in the morning, me in the bedroom getting ready for work, John in the kitchen feeding the dog or making the kids' breakfast. We're never expecting a conversation, we're never prepared for an interaction despite knowing that one of our kids is physically incapable of being awake and within a 10-mile radius WITHOUT interacting with one of us. In any case, he has been coming up to us out of the blue to tell us about some or other inconsequential thing (that he still likes chocolate milk and would prefer it for every meal, that the sky is blue today, that he was thinking of what it would be like if Truman weren't a dog but were actually made out of wood, etc.) with the following opening phrase, the origin of which John and I have tried and failed to learn, and so now assume based on the Broadway show director flourish with which it is always stated that Bryce created it in his own mind: "Well, I can tell you this!"

At first, John and I would look at each other in confusion, wondering where he came up with the phrase, then giggling over the contrast between his young, small appearance and his adult-like conversational voice. But now, I feel like I understand where he's coming from. Sometimes a person just has to make it clear that they're about to make an important point, be it about chocolate syrup, wooden dogs, or a decision to better one's life - you know?

Well, I can tell you this: I'm done with the silence of ignorant conformity. And I have no clue what that means in any practical sense yet, so there's no need to torture yourself by asking things like, "what the hell does that cryptic comment mean, Kristen?" because I will not have an answer... right now, I just know I'm done.

Banner Days

Last night I was chatting with my brother, and I asked if he'd seen our new banner. When his only reply was "yeah," I knew something was up. When he said, "can I be honest?" my heart broke into a million tiny shards and fell into my stomach. I took a big swig of wine and made a comment that would inflict guilt upon him but also force him to expound on what was so effing terrible about the new banner that John and I had created at the drop of a hat the other night ("sure, be honest, it'll be icing on the cake today!"). My brother and I are are those siblings that at first glance seem like polar opposites, but upon closer inspection actually think and act in extremely similar ways. This very fact, combined with my sellout, working-for-the-man lifestyle probably makes Jonathan want to vomit or drown himself. Or drown himself in his own vomit. But he knows it's true. I was the goody-goody nerd sibling; Jonathan was the popular, rebellious trend-setter. Therefore, in my mind, I benefit from this similarity, while it only brings him way, way down to a level of pop culture and suburbanism through which he never intended to wade. So, while I could not care less about the impression I leave on many and most other people, Jonathan's opinion is always of interest to me. "Well, the fire and the font reminded me of some sort of church youth group revival: Set your heart on fire. WITH JESUS!"

God, I love that guy. He is exactly right. Those of you who have attended said revivals will know immediately what we're talking about. John grew up in the Catholic church and was not privy to such experiences, so when I finished cleaning up the wine that shot out of my nose when I read Jonathan's comment and told John about it, he didn't see it. I, however, can not get it out of my mind. Every time I see that Home - Flame - on the Fringe up there, I chuckle and say several times, with passion, "set your heart on fire, with JESUS!"

He makes sacrilege FUN! I predict that one day he's going to write a book, and I intend to make it my life's mission to introduce his warped, jaded humor to the world. We need more lighthearted sacrilege, I always say. More importantly, I needed a genuine laugh, and thinking about that inconsequential banner through Jonathan's lens gave me just that.

Well, it's official: Quinn doesn't hate me anymore. The past two mornings, I have woken to his panicked, sharp breaths over the monitor after loud thunder and bright lightening has shaken and flashed over the walls in his room. The first morning it happened, I braced myself for the inevitable call for John. But no. What I heard was, GaspGaspGasp. Pause. More thunder. "Mooommmy? Mommy!" I've never been so thrilled to walk up a flight of stairs at 5:00 in the morning from a dead sleep. I laid down with him on the couch in his room hoping he'd go back to sleep, but not minding so much the pudgy fingers running across my face and the fuzzy head buried in my neck every time he heard another roar of thunder outside. It's totally wrong for me to revel in my child's fear, but that fear of the storm brought with it an unspoken expectation that I could protect him from the scariest thing his mind could imagine when given the raw sensory ingredients provided by the thunder and lightening: burrowing into me gave him pause and enough security that he didn't need to cry out for anyone else. I'll take that. I won't get to keep it for long, so I'll take it.

A cup of joe never killed anyone

Kristen (a non coffee drinker) thinks I (a coffee drinker) drink too much coffee. While I think it is impossible to drink too much coffee, I can see why she would think so as evidenced by this photo of my desk.


There are five empty coffee cups (well, one was a glass because I couldn't find a clean coffe cup at the time) and one empty diet coke can (a guy has to have a cold beverage every now and then, right?) cluttering my desk top. Too much coffee? I think not. I still see some unclaimed real estate down there.

It's really a crying shame they weren't serving margaritas.

Today was the first company picnic my company has hosted since its near-demise four years ago. It was a gesture to employees to say, "See? We told you everything was fine now. SO FINE, in fact, that we're going to entice you all to come to the zoo and let your kids shriek at you when you tell them two hours of being in the Jupiter Jump is borderline excessive and that you refuse to be found an unfit parent due to THEIR crazy decision to become dehydrated! Come one, come all."

I didn't know if I was even going to bother going. First of all, we have a membership to the zoo and take the kids every couple of months (yes, that's a lot in my book) anyway. Second of all, I'm typically not a fan of large gatherings, especially ones involving heat, sun, and two heat- and sun-sensitive kids aged four years and under. Third of all, John had a wedding all day today, which meant if I DID take the kids, it would be by myself, and the thought of being one single human at the zoo with my two hyper hypos and all of the accompanying necessities (like the diaper bag for potential potty training mishaps, snacks and drinks for my apparently starving urchins, and let's not forget the clunky, heavy double stroller that gets stuck in tight places, for instance, THE ENTRANCE GATE AT THE ZOO) basically caused me to go numb with fear and loathing.

But then I thought, "what else am I going to do with them all day anyway? Take them grocery shopping?" And when that crossed my mind and I had visions of my last trip to the store with both of them (highlights: Quinn discovering static electricity and walking behind me poking me in the left butt cheek every five seconds, then becoming so angry when I shocked his hand while trying to save him from being flattened by a person shopping childless on a mission with a cart who didn't appreciate that people who shop with kids are incapable of accomplishing anything quickly, pulling his hand away from me with disdain and yelling, "STOP TOUCHING ME! STOP TOUCHING ME!" all the way to the register, while Bryce moped beside me whining, "I can't walk anymore; my legs are just so tired that I can't even walk. MOM! You're not listening to me. I need. To sit. In the cart! I'M TIRED!") I went numb with fear and loathing again and decided the company picnic at the zoo didn't sound so bad after all.

So we went, and met my sister-in-law (who works for the same company--I know, it's fodder for a whole other post -- or maybe even a series! -- and I've been holding out on you) and her kids there, but by the time they met us, Bryce and Quinn had already been looking at the animals and playing in the zoo park for half an hour. And here on the Fringe, half an hour is, well...a lot can change in that time. Like the fact that Quinn's head becomes drenched with sweat and his face becomes flushed and he becomes very irritable and whiny about everything (EVERYTHING):

Kristen: Let's go find the Jupiter Jump, guys, everyone's here!
Quinn: NOOOOOOIDON'TWANNAFINDTHEJUPITERJUMPIWANTWATER!
Kristen: Okay, let's get you some water, bud. You look really really hot.
Quinn: NOOOOIDON'TWANTWATERWANNAFINDTHEJUPITERJUMP!
Kristen: Here's your water. Are you hungry, too?
Quinn: NOOOONOTHUNGRYWANNASEETHERHINOS!
Kristen: There they are! And there's the Jupiter Jump!
Quinn: NOOOOOIWANTWATER!
Kristen: Dude. You have water. Right in your hands!
Quinn: NOOOOODON'TWANTWATERWANNAFINDTHEJUPITERJUMP!

The thing is, once Quinn is in one of those huge blow-up contraptions that only invite kids to jump and climb with so little control that they ultimately bash their heads together or, say, fall out of the non-existent "entrance door" (made out of cloth flaps--yeah, that'll keep 'em safely contained), he struggles to keep up with the rest of the kids. The poor guy is so clumsy and anytime he falls down, he just lays there. If an older cousin tries to help him him, he gets giggly and limp until the cousin gives up, his/her good samaritan act over for the day because who wants to waste their time on a drunk, clumsy rag doll? There were three large blow-up death traps at the picnic, and all the kids were going for the monster slide. Quinn kept his socks on and couldn't seem to figure out that the HANDLES ON THE SIDE were meant for holding on to as he worked his way up to the top of the slide, so he was like this flailing, dense cartoon character, taking two slippery steps up, falling down, looking confused, then starting over. In the meantime, all the other kids had climbed up and slid down at least six times. He finally figured it out, but then got a little over-zealous and in all of his sliding and jumping, got too close to that oh-so-protective flap I mentioned earlier and PLOP! fell out. Onto his head. TWICE. Both times, I was standing right next to the door hole, but had looked away from him for TWO SECONDS to attempt politeness while my sister-in-law talked to me (and by "talked to me" I mean gossipped about her co-workers' freaky family lives right before she realized they were standing right behind her and their kids were in the same contraption ours were).

Sister-in-law: So then she whipped her boob out and started nursing her toddler at the dinner table in front of all of her husband's business associates, it was SO. FUNNY. to see the looks on their faces!

Me: Uh huh. Uh huh. So then what did her husband sa---

Quinn: Roll. Tumble. Swish. KA-BLAM! AAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!!!!

Me: What the-- for the love of God, kid, AGAIN??!! Come here, buddy. Let me help yo--

Quinn: NOOOOODON'TWANTHELPWANNAGOINTHEJUPITERJUMP!

Sister-in-law: Crap, I just realized those were his kids I was talking about!

Me: Quinn, let's get your shoes on and head home, you're really tired, that's why you keep falling.

Quinn: NOOOOOOOOOONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I will scream and shriek until I get my way, you easily-manipulated fool!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Gee, and to think I almost didn't go. I would have missed all this.

Disappointment

I'm watching the National Spelling Bee right now, and the predicted favorite just mis-spelled the word "heiligenschein," a word that he tortured himself over, you could see him screaming at himself in his mind as he asked the moderator repeatedly, "Is there an alternate pronunciation? Could you tell me the language of origin? What's the definition again? Is there an alternate definition?" until he was finally forced to guess and he spelled the word "hyligenschein." When he finished spelling the word, he repeated it in the same breath of the final "n" with hopeful, eager eyes, eyes that suggested he was pretty sure his wild guess had been right, eyes that filled with tears almost instantaneously when the "wrong ding" sounded, eyes on a young, new face that felt a little shocked, a little betrayed by himself and all those people that told him he would win.

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I'm not the kind of person who had specific plans for her adult life. I didn't have a life-long dream to become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a teacher, or a painter. I couldn't picture anything when I tried to imagine myself as an adult because so much of my young life was spent processing situations that kids really shouldn't have to process. Adulthood started for me about ten years sooner than it was supposed to, so by the time I reached chronological adulthood, I had already been a functional adult for so long that I realized I'd missed my opportunity to dream up a great future for myself. This doesn't mean I haven't had goals or that I haven't discovered interests or haven't come up with new ways to look ahead; it just means that it might take me longer to define, plan, and implement those goals than I might have preferred. And it means when I come to roadblocks, I might feel more frustration than I would have because I know how difficult it is to start all over.

I started a new job in late January, back at the company from which I was laid off in the aftermath of the Enron scandal and 9/11. There were certain tangible reasons I wanted to return to this company, and I knew, I WILLED, from the time I was laid off that eventually I would return. It took three years, but I did it. And from a practicality standpoint, I've met yet another goal--good for me. But as with every accomplishment I make, after the back-breaking exertion I put forth to reach the next pinnacle or overcome the next challenge, I'm looking around and saying, "So what?" I remember why I ever wanted to work there (even before the layoff, before I had a reason to prove I could go back, that the layoff wasn't a reflection on ME, because no corporation is going to tell me I'm not capable of getting by in their clique-y, political, really-not-that-challenging-despite-what-they-think club), but now all those reasons don't make any sense to me. All those reasons are what I'm saying "so what?" to, about which I'm exhaustedly holding up to the light and saying, "Crap. Now I have to start over with this whole 'life goal' thing."

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I have a good friend who recently began having an affair, and she regularly comes to me for advice and then tells me how helpful I've been, how correct I am, how I always see things so clearly and articulate them so well for her, how the counselors she's been to were total crap compared to the help I give her. But the thing is, she started coming to me for advice before the affair began, and apparently my sage advice was absolutely pointless, because she went ahead with the affair anyway. And now that my predictions have come true, and things have started to go sour (HELLO!!!) with the co-cheater, she wants more advice, and specifically asked me for a self-esteem boost. None of my "advice" has changed since the beginning of these talks: Decide what you want - your marriage or the new option - and take the appropriate, humane steps (if it's your marriage, get away from the new option NOW before it's too late; if it's the new option, end the charade in the marriage and let your spouse know your intentions to leave). There is no stage of limbo that can possibly turn out to be a good situation for all parties. Out of...what? Fear? Denial? I don't know... she chose to stay in limbo, and things went beyond her control. She says she never thought she would be in this predicament. She thought her marriage would last forever. She never wanted to live with the guilt of something like this. She couldn't tell her husband because they'd agreed if adultery was involved, the marriage would immediately end; she didn't want the marriage to end because she didn't want to lose her kids. She felt stuck, lost, confused, and angry. And me? I feel all of those things for her, but mostly I feel disappointment that she couldn't see past the circumstances and recognize what her actions were going to cause for her long-term emotional state. I feel disappointment that she approached me for help and advice, and despite my earnest attempts to show her what I thought was the objective truth, she didn't see it. As terrible as it sounds, I feel the same disappointment in her as she feels in herself. I don't tell her that with my words; I focus on the fact that she still has decisions to make and she needs to weigh those decisions more carefully now, but the disappointment feels like a heavy, muffling, stifling presence between us.

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The past several months have brought me face to face with an ugly reality about another close friendship of mine. Actually, this was more than a close friendship; if I had someone I'd identify as a "best friend" as an adult, this would have been her. In high school, I always only had a few really close friends, and a lot of "acquaintances" that accepted me into their circles and knew me fairly well at school, but we wouldn't have considered calling each other or getting together at any other time. This was an unfortunate personality trait of mine, because ALL (as in every single one) of those "close friends" through junior high and high school, the friends that I spent all my time with outside of school, the ones all of my time and affection and energy went into, ended up stabbing me in the back and leaving me for dead on the side of High School Friendship Drive at least once. By graduation, I had done a bang-up job of becoming The Responsible One who worked 40 hours a week, made straight A's, and was well-liked by peers at school, all of whom assumed I was hanging out with different people after school and on weekends, because I wasn't with any of them. I was with my college applications and my bills and my protective outer shell and my STAY THE HELL AWAY I'M SICK OF GETTING HURT emotional arsenal. At my first real job after college, when I met a friend who claimed (or maybe I just assumed she claimed, maybe it was wishful thinking) to have similar feelings and who initially seemed willing to put the same amount of effort into a friendship as I was, I thought that maybe all friendships didn't have to be one-sided after all, that maybe my experiences were just terrible high school flaws and that now, now I could feel true friendship again, or for the first time. When she moved away less than a year later, although I was sad to see her go, it didn't make me question whether or not we would remain close friends; there would be visits, phone calls, and e-mails. We talked regularly through both of our pregnancies, sent each other birthday and holiday presents, and even sent gifts to each other's kids. As the years have dragged on, her correspondence has become less and less frequent, her acknowledgment of my birthdays ended a couple of years ago, and this year we lost the acknowledgment of the kids' birthdays. The final blow to me has been slow and gradual, not a hard K.O. like what I remember from junior high and high school; first she stopped returning calls promptly, then at all; next, her e-mails became few and far between, and when I told her she could check this blog for occasional updates, I knew she wouldn't (and she hasn't); finally I e-mailed her and told her to respond with a one-liner so I would know she received the e-mail, because it had been months since I'd gotten any response at all, despite the fact that my messages to her contained all sorts of information about major changes and goings-on in my life, things that friends typically care about (at least I think friends are supposed to care; right? I'm not even sure anymore). She responded, and I was innocently hopeful, then, as I read, markedly disappointed, then just very sad. "Blah blah, I'm busy and stressed because of my job and my child, I might have deleted your e-mails, oops, blah blah. Oh by the way, how is your job, didn't you get a new one or something? Well, gotta go." I'm paraphrasing, but not totally in exaggeration. She might as well have put a "*yawn*" at the end of her message, and effectively that's what she did by simply not responding to my reply where I answered her painfully obvious courtesy questions.

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I know it's life and all. I know people are stupid and selfish and that everyone's a child. And I don't even know that all these subjects really should be talked about in the same post; all I know is that they all make me feel like that spelling bee kid: hopeful and eager, then shocked, sad, disappointed, and a little angry at everyone, even myself.