Poop by any other name...

I am a vulgar woman. My language is beyond repugnant. If a truck driver swallowed a longshoreman, then had a conversation with Andrew Dice Clay and you overheard it, that would be a good example of my everyday vernacular. To be fair, I always follow up my lewd commentary with a "Pardon my french." My bawdry blunders occur so often, that my son has actually started telling people to pardon my french, as well. I caught my son swatting at bugs on the playground, yelling "Get lost, ASSHOLE FLIES!" This, of course, encouraged the whole group to start chanting "ASSHOLE FLIES, GET LOST, ASSHOLES!" There are no words to describe just how funny a battalion of angry toddlers, screaming "asshole", can be and yet, I had to be responsible. I felt like a hypocrite. I can't be in the car with or without my kids for 5 minutes without using, among other much more colorful slang, the words "Shit" or "Asshole". There's no question of where he's getting his crass vocabulary. I spoke with one of the other moms immediately following the incident and she said, "It's always funny when it's not your kid." To be honest, my kid is a riot, especially when spitting out a properly placed curse word. Unfortunately, other people don't have the same tolerance for profanity that my husband and I share. Since consistency is key in raising kids,that means every instance must be acknowledged by the same consequence. Here's my thing; I know it's not good for my son to scream expletives at the playground and I understand why, but when did poop, pee, doodle, booger and...wait for it...stinky get added to the "Do Not Utter" list? I hear the word, "Pottymouth" kicked around a lot, spending the majority of my life on the playground. I've got to tell you, poop is fun to say and last time I checked, using it doesn't hurt anyone. I do correct my child when he uses it, though VERY reluctantly. I always believed words were just words. They only carry as much weight as we allow them to, right? Some words are weightier than others and even though I probably have the world's worst "pottymouth", there are some words even I am offended by; you know the racially motivated, big bombs that I can't even say in my head without feeling ashamed. I can assure you poop, pee, doodle, booger, butt and any other words in that vein did not make that cut. So what is the issue with these words? They're disgusting-true, but other than that, who cares? In fact, the more I feed into this whole, poop=punishment mentality, the more Evan seems compelled to say those words. So, how do I let my son continue to use words that don't bother me, but seem to upset the sensibilities of so many others? Words. Words,words, words.

Never has a word caused more problems for my son,
than that whose meaning lies
within the bowels of defecation.

Rich Kid, Poor Kid...or my kid.

I had a playdate at my house a couple of days ago. This, in and of itself, is not really blog-worthy. What, you may ask, merits this as news? Only the obnoxiusly raging anxiety, that almost caused me to cancel at the last second. Almost all of my Melrose/Wakefield playground peers are nannies. I have, literally, only come in contact with a miniscule handful of stay-at-home moms in this area. Sufficed to say, my kid is the "Duckie" Dale in a crowd of Blane McDonoughs and it's really puttin' the spotlight on my ability (or inability) to "keep up with the Joneses". Anyhoo, there's the back story, onto the crippling anxiety. So, I have this playdate that's scheduled at the last minute, with this friend of mine who's a nanny. I've had many playdates at her ward's house and when I say house, I mean manor. I think my apartment could fit into their master bedroom...and that's another part of my anxiety. I'm a renter; a fact that I find to be a rather large obstacle in my kid's current, choosen clique. But again, I digress. There I am, running around like a mad woman in an attempt not just to clean, but to give my 6 room, 3 bedroom apartment the appearance of a palacial estate and for what? My friend, who's been to my apartment and could care less? Then I realize what I'm really agonizing over. I'm nervous that the three and a half year old boy we've gotten to know rather well, is going to take one look around this, "shoebox", his friend lives in and judge us or treat us differently. Imagine the humiliation surrounding that sort of fear. I mean, we do what we can to make sure our children have the best life and the most opportunities possible, open to them, but is it possible that our best will never be good enough? I can honestly understand how some families can go into hock, trying to keep up with people that will never care about what they may or may not have. It's a personal thing. It's a pride thing. Why can't I give to my kids the life that they see all around them? And let me be clear about this, I am in NO way implying that those who have more are MAKING me feel inadequate. I am simply stating and acknowledging that the inadequacy is there for me. Rich or poor, I think every parent I know struggles with this same self-scrutiny. But, when we're in Ev's friend's mansion, playing with his 500 wooden trains and I get asked a million times if he can "just have..." during the ride home, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because there's no way or reason to explain to him, that we just can't afford to give him the same things. I'd like to say that even if I could cater to his every desire, I wouldn't. Truth is, if money was no object, knowing what it feels like to have to continually say "No", I don't think I would chose to say "No". Call it spoiling if you need to, but I'd bet it's a great feeling to be able to say "Yes", whenever the mood strikes. Everytime I'm in this little boy's house or any of their houses for that matter, watching the kids play together like the best of friends I think, "I'm so glad they're too young to understand, what it means to have and have not." There will be a time when this will be very evident. When that time comes, I can only hope my son is strong enough to realize self-worth is free and more valuable than anything I could...or couldn't...purchase for him.

The "Bitch" is back...but she's not unpacking.

As my husband can and will tell you...and anyone within ear shot,with a pulse,I am a miserable bitch. And it's not just this morning, yesterday or last week, it's 24/7. To be more precise, I've been a negative,impatient,uber-bitch for 7 months=210 days=5040 hours. That's so much bitch. I'm happy to report that we are still married, though only in the sense that we don't want to be divorced. I have many valid excuses for the unwelcome return of "despicable me", not the least of which is sleep deprivation. It doesn't make it any easier for my husband or four-year-old to deal with the constant berating, but it makes me feel better to know that I am not completely nasty by nature. Sleeping less than 5 hours a night makes you feel many things beyond mere fatigue. I'm riding on a vicious wave of UN's; UNhealthy, UNmotivated, UNappreciative, UNdone. Mostly, my infansomnia combined with the UN's has made me realize I'm rather lost as of late, in this "suit" of motherhood, if you will. For the naysayers...love the kids, love the man, love the opportunity to nurture...blah,blah,blah. I'm not UNhappy with motherhood, I'm just finding it hard to breathe within it's bonds. Getting to know myself as a mother was an intense struggle and one which has made my maternal instinct become vampiric. I, hesitantly,invited it in and it's slowly sucking every other part of who I am from my soul. Syphon all the kid related topics from my mind and you're left with residual white noise. Like my synaptic transmitters are literally, immobilized by motherhood. I can hear and see myself becoming a very bitter, excessively negative person, who is not easy to be around. I am incapable of having a conversation without it turning ugly and I'm pretty sure I've found the source. Indeed,sleep can account for 1/4, but deep down I'm starving for ambition. I'm thirsty for purpose. I understand,taking care of my family is a great and noble purpose. And when I see my children accomplishing new things, I feel a deep sense of pride in them. My question is, when do I get to accomplish something new and feel that sense of pride in me? More accurately,something that's solely for the betterment and benefit of Marci?
My mom is an amazing lady. She is Stoneham. I can't go 5 feet into my hometown without someone asking, "Are you Sharon's daughter?" I'm always amazed with how many people recognize her and our family even outside of Stoneham. My admiration for my mother and all that she's built in her career, as well as within her family is immense. I always wonder what my children will think of me when they are my age, viewing me from the same place I view my parents now. What will I have to show them? I hope they'll think I did the best job I could as a mother, but what kind of example am I giving them as a woman? I'm taking back me. I know the other half is in there somewhere and my speculation is that she's asleep...like coma sleep. God knows she needs it! Rekindling my drive will probably be as difficult as losing it was, but I intend to scratch through this thick layer of matriarchal malcontent and bleed out the desire to challenge myself. I need to find it, not just for me, but for my children, who deserve more than passive resentment and especially for my husband, who loves me so much, but likes me about as much as I do, right now. Yes, the bitch is back, but I'm hoping to hand her some walking papers, soon!

When the Levi's break or The Boombastic Butt Break-Out!

You can only use the excuse, "I just had a baby," for so long. I'm going to try and milk it until Quinn graduates high school, but I'm guessing no one will buy it. I had two very important, very embarrassing wake-up calls in the past months regarding my butt and its ample girth.
The first followed an epiphany I had one evening, upon glancing at my face in the mirror. I was stuffing a piece of sauce soaked bread into it's hole at the time. It hearkened me back to the days before Evan. The (taco) Salad days, when I drank too much, ate too much and avoided mirrors in order to maintain absolute denial regarding my bloat and how rampant it was becoming. I had sauce on my over sized sweatshirt, on my chin and chipmunk cheeks loaded with carbs and butter. I made a vow to lose 15lbs by April and joined MG's (what used to be Mike's Gym, now franchised.) The following night after Chris got home and the kids were settled, I dusted off the two sizes, too small workout gear and headed out, sucked in and ready to sweat. A note to anyone in my predicament. If your sports bra is two sizes too small, even though the girls feel tucked and tight, they aren't. That being said, I started the night on the treadmill and ended the night, less than 30 minutes later, on the treadmill. The event played out like this. I step on the treadmill, I'm feeling good. I start running and sweating, and I'm still feeling good. I catch two younger gentleman across the way "checking me out", I'm feeling really good. I watch their eyes crinkle and thier brows furrow, first in confusion, then in disgust. I feel a gentle patting against my overly rotund belly, along with a quietly tapping, tribal rhythm. I'm afraid to look down, but need to confirm what I already know. And there, for all to see, is my floppy, engorged, boob, dangling near my navel and "the turkey's done", if you know what I mean. Thankfully it was under my shirt, but again, because my outfit was two sizes to small, every roll, hole and mole was visible; and before you question why I would wear clothes like that out of the house, I will tell you I thought they were tight enough to keep all of my hanging parts in one cohesive unit. Also, it was that or pajamas, because I'm far too cheap to buy new clothes when I have perfectly good, perfectly small ones sitting in my bureau. I was mortified, as you can imagine and did what any perfectly rational, almost middle-aged woman, who "just had a baby" (6 months ago) would do. I quit the gym.
The second wake-up call happened during a play date with my son and my friends, so the embarrassment factor was at a 99.5, as opposed to the previous scenario's 100+ rating. Because I "just had a baby", everything I own pre-pregnancy is the afore mentioned, two sizes too small. With the incident at the gym behind me, yet always present, I went out and bought jeans in the larger size, finally being realistic in the notion of anything fitting me, anytime soon. I was rockin' the muffin top, but I stretched them and did the deep,knee bends and with a long enough tunic, the dough that's covering my mid-section was out of sight and out of mind. At the time of the incident, said jeans were pretty much brand new. They hadn't nearly seen enough action to be retired. I was on the floor with Quinn, reaching across for a toy when the Levi's broke. I felt the gentle breeze and thanked Jesus I had decided to wear underwear and not the thong I had originally picked out. My friends and I quickly put together a list of theories as to why new denim had suddenly surrendered to my ass. I play hard. I'm constantly on the floor with the kids and that puts wear and tear in the seat. I used bleach, which weakens the fibers. In the end, my friend threw her hands in the air and said, "For Christ's sake you just had a baby. What do you expect?"
In the aftermath of what I will refer to as FlabGate, I have done a complete sugar exorcism to my cabinets. As the east coast warms, I will be out on the streets in your neighborhood, running...when the seismic waves occur there will, hopefully, be no mass panicking. I'm going to try to engage Carmen Electra, as she shows me how to lunge, squat and jump my way back into my old clothes. I don't know what to expect, but I know what everyone without vision impairment should expect. My ass in leggings. Avert your eyes accordingly.

Mover Madness: AKA The day my musical tastebuds died...

I celebrated my 34th birthay last week. It has nothing to do with anything I'm about to write, but it puts things in context. I am the eternal "emo" kid. The punk-a-doo who refused to let her child listen to children's music of any kind. The mom who was going to feed her little music monster in the making, a strict diet of The White Stripes, Randy, Elvis Costello and Death Cab for Cutie...or, anything with Ben Gibbard's name attached. It was going so well. Ev was requesting to hear The Clash at breakfast and singing along to Vampire Weekend in the car. That was before Disney Channel overtook Ev's interest and he was introduced to a little band called "The Imagination Movers". For those of you who aren't aware, they are four gentlemen, in matching jumpsuits who sing, bungle through some over-choreographed dance numbers and solve problems by using their...imaginations, riiiiight. I was intent on hating them. I was going to revolt with every fiber in my being, until I found every fiber in my being pat-a-pattin' in time to the G-rated grooves. Their lyrics are only significant to those unaware that lack of dental hygiene, leads to tooth decay. Yet,I'm enjoying the harmless saccharine of thier music in a way that frightens and confuses me. On my drive to work, though I had a choice of The Raconteurs, The Fugees and Elliot Smith, ready to go in the 6 disc, I listened to my son's "In A Big Warehouse" cd and rocked out. I was mortified and yet helpless to stop myself. (The Warehouse, by the way, is where the Imagination Movers solve all their big problems...just in case you were curious.) So, where does my birthday come into this? I've spent the better part of 20 years cultivating my musical personality. The artists and albums in my collection represent hundreds of hours of memorization and scrutiny and each is a marker of signifigance in my personal history. Tonight, that single choice flushed all that wonderful work down the toliet. I'm now a "mover" mom. I'm not fully accepting of it. There's still one brain cell, weilding a guitar like a pickax, trying desperately to remove these dudes from my mind. I remember watching my dad go from playing air guitar with the Beatles, to passionately tapping the steering wheel with his thumbs, to Jimmy Buffet and thinking, "What has happened to the man who helped me find my musical voice." Now I know. And I'm scared. Keep hacking away little brain cell. (On a sidenote: I have tickets to "The Imagination Movers" in concert and I'm pretty sure my excitement is something I should be more closely examining.)

Can't I just be sick...

I have just about every phobia known to man. Nyctophobia, Thanatophobia, AMBULOthanatophobia and don't get me started on my hyperchondriasis. The list of things I'm afraid of is long and ridiculous. And then, there's my phobia that my kids will one day bear the marks of my phobia's. I don't think there's a name for that yet, but I've decided to call it Becauseofmomophobia. I mention these things not because I think of any readers as psychologists, but because my son, daughter and husband are all, simultaneously sick, which is the worst thing that can happen to a hypochondriac with a toxic fear of death. I've been a dervish of symptom checks, palm-guided temperature gauging and sight deduced diagnosis. Mostly, I've been watching everyone around me for signs of death and it's driving my husband insane. He keeps sighing, "Can't I just be sick? I just want you to let me be sick." I can't. I wish I could. Truth be told, he'd probably feel better, sooner if I was physically capable of walking away from him and allowing him to wheeze, puke, shit and sleep without a constant pulse check. My neurosis actually woke him up during a much needed nap. When he asked what I was doing, I said I was taking his temperature, when I was really making sure he was still breathing. Crazy, right? You don't know the half. It's only gotten more severe with the onslaught of my children and their indefensible immune systems. Are they breathing? Are they keeping food down? What does my son mean when he says his "belly hurts"? Why does there have to be a million different possible diagnosis' for one symptom and why does my mind go to the most serious possibility of those possibilities? I constantly think about the awful things that could happen to my children, from abduction, to car accidents, to having them sleepwalk out of the house and into the frigid night...for real, I've thought about that and considered keeping a gate in the hallway just to stop it from happening. Don't you think I KNOW, how sick that sounds? I keep comparing all those horrendous things, to the mild sniffle and bout of diarrhea I'm currently dealing with, in the hopes that it will ease my furious meddling. However, all it's doing is making me think about all those awful things happening to them, WHILE they're sick. My three and a half year old son insisted today, and I quote, "Please stop asking if I'm okay. I'M FINE, MAMA!",after which, he pushed my hand off of his forehead. This infectious week has taught me that my family is resilient even in the face of nasty, slimy, stinky illness and that the only thing killing my patients is my bedside manner. No, they weren't dying of anything, but a strong desire to kill me.

I give strangers great, big hugs and am forcibly removed from the playground.

It's been a while, but I've been topless, coated in vomit and tired for almost three months now...try not to get jealous. The majority of this time was spent on the playground, hoping to tire out my toddler, who I now refer to as, "Don't Evan". I've been thinking of changing his name legally, as he no longer responds to just, "Evan". I have spent a lot of time studying the social customs of the four and under crowd. Their interactions, when truly pondered, are freaking odd. If I behaved toward my peers, strangers or not, in the same manner my son and his friends behave, I would be forcibly removed from the playground. Yet, there they are, acting outside of what I consider to be social norms and I don't bat an eyelash.

1. Hits and Hugs for everyone: Kids will put their hands on anyone and everyone they chose. Though I do discipline him for the hitting part, I tend to laugh off the hugging part. "Oh there goes my son, the hugging bandito!" I chuckle. I stop him from violently assaulting other kids, but when he molests total strangers, I coo it off, as if it's perfectly normal for him to walk up to people he doesn't know and wrap his arms around them. I keep trying to picture myself approaching another woman near the sandbox and embracing her before ever speaking a word. Creepy, right? No cooing. There are some people I've wanted to punch at the playground, but I'm pretty sure that would get me forcibly led to a police station.

2. That looks good. I think I'll have some: As far as a toddler is concerned the world is their refrigerator. It makes no difference if it's left on the table, sitting in dirt, or being clutched by another toddler. They also think every juice cup is their juice cup. Ugh. I, myself, have provided snacks for half of the playground at certain points and not by choice. There's this one kid who has a permanent,"Are you going to finish that" look on his chunky cheeks whenever snacks are doled out. For some reason, I see nothing wrong with allowing this to happen. One kid took a bite out of my apple, while I was in the process of eating it...I'm not fricking kidding...and it didn't bother me. Can you imagine another adult sticking their face in the feedbag without warning? Nibbling a cracker that's still in your fingers, or picking up your iced coffee and taking a huge gulp? Disgusting on so many levels and yet, when kids do it I shrug it off and continue as if nothing has happened.

3.LOOK AT MY BELLY BUTTON!: Why is it so cute when my son lifts his shirt up in public? Why do I not see this as public nudity and insist he cover himself? Would it be as cute if I were to pull my shirt up and stand in front of a random park goer, staring wildly? Would it be any less awkward if I had big, blue eyes? No, no it wouldn't. And, I'm in jail again. When my kids does it, it's adorable. When I do it, it's indecent exposure. Go figure. Underwear also falls into this category. I actually told Ev to show his friends his new underwear. If my mother ever came up to me while I was sitting with my group of gals and forced me to show them my panties, I'd be mortified. I guess this is more of a mothering anomaly than a toddler one. That should be another topic on another day.


I could go on all day, but I'm starting to fade out. It's almost 11, that makes it a banner night for me. Toddlers are little weirdos. I sometimes wonder if I tell myself, "This is normal, they all do this," just so I won't have to get up and modify his weirdo, toddler tendencies. But then I look out at the sea of little weirdos. Their shirts hoisted to their chins with one hand, stealing snacks with their other; sharing a hug, followed by a chug from a strange glass, that's been sitting on the wall half of the afternoon and I think about how normal this will all seem when I'm confronted with his weirdo, teenage tendancies.