...crickets....

Peace.....the children are sleeping.....THANK GAWD!

Today was one of THOOOSE DAYS! Holy Cannoli! It has been a two degrees warmer than Hell outside, so I have no desire to frolic out there whatsoever. I feel like I can be rated as a "poor" mother right now since all I want to do is stay inside and bake cookies and cakes. (Place hand under button of pants, cradling gut...) Exercise...*huckthooey*...... whassat? (pick, nose...)
I know my kids are beginning to suffer a little cabin fever. We have annual passes to several fun places around the Socal area...but it's still HOT out there...and you have to sweat and stuff just arguing with my almost two year old getting in the car!(She thinks she can buckle herself into her carseat, and screams at you when you try to help her...I swear it's like living with DRUNK GIRL from SNL!)
I keep thinking we should spend these days at the beach. I know some of you were thinking that might be swell. I mean, we're not far, it's cooler there...kids love the beach......Have you ever been to the beach by yourself with 2 small kids. It's like hearding a flock of flamingos with a tricycle...INSANITY! Last time I went, my kids and I went with my parents...3 adults, 2 kids. The math works out, right? OH MY GRACIOUS! We were chasing them the entire day since they seemed to want to throw themselves into the water like lemmings! I'm sure my daughter ingested about half a pound of sand, not to mention the gritty diaper I had to change there! EEEK! My son loved it, but anytime he saw a seagull within 100 ft., he would take off like a jet and chase the thing down!
So, I'm on this mental quest to figure out how I can possibly make going to the beach with them easier! I think I'm gonna try it soon, so if you read some crazy headline in the paper about a mother losing her kids at the beach, you don't have to tell people you knew me.

CATFACE!!!! MEOW!!!

As I get older, I begin to realize how much I don't know about anything. I go back and forth from thinking this is problematic, to thinking that's the way life is. Right now, being stupid is a problem for me. It also doesn't help to realize that nature is absolutely baffling.
It was like this with breast-feeding. You see those madonna-like pictures of mother and child, with the mother lovingly holding her sweet baby to her bosom, and the baby reciprocating that adoring stare...it's so sublime and pure. You think that nature is so beautiful in it's presentation and purpose. But then you actually do the boob-thang, and it's like the most uncomfortable and bizarre thing, and on top of that, PAINFUL process I have ever come across! I even think it's possibly more painful than actual childbirth because the contractions and pushing end in a couple of days, but the nipple pain goes for a month or so STRAIGHT! Ever hitched your tata's up to a live battery charger...YUP! THAT'S THE FEELING RIGHT THERE! Or you can liken it to heating up a skillet of oil to fry eggs, but instead you put your nipples in the pan and fry them instead...YUP! THAT'S THE FEELING RIGHT THERE! But, I digress...

So, my point was to say that nature hurts my head sometimes. In the quest to be a good mother, I planted my first "by-myself" organic garden so that my sweet babies could have the very best and freshest veggies their mom could find...and they would be in our backyard! Sounds great, right? But, alas, I find myself in a heap, whining once again about how nature is so friggin' hard to figure out! I have 3 tomato plants out there...2 beefsteak (keep the gutter comments to yourself) and 1 roma. So, day after day, I watch my baby 'maters grow, and some are growing really big. And I have quite a few, too! My mouth is watering, dreaming of the day I can pick that beautiful 3-pound sucker, slice it up and make a big ol' sandwich with it...oooooooh! I look under one of hose biggun's and there before my eyes is this crazy trail and what looks like burrowing in the bottom of MY 'MATER! AAAH! For days and days I show people my specimen, hoping they can give me the secret password to the perfect organic tomato, yet no one has it! What is wrong with my tomato?! What do I do!?! Do I yank the plants out and start over!? Do I wake up at the crack of dawn and hunt for cutworms and stab 'em through their wormy hearts with a paper clip?! What do I do?!? So after days of research on gardening organic tomatoes, I come across a picture...OMG! It's a tomato butt just like my tomato butt! YAY! What the heck is it? ...read, skim, read...wha? whada? huh? CATFACE?!? My tomatoes have CATFACE! No worms...just a deformity from the original flower due to either extreme temperatures or inconsistent over watering! Well, I guess that's better than worms!
The funny thing to me here is I know I'm getting old, because I've just taken 10 minutes of your life telling you about my tomatoes! What the heck?!? I think you need new friends...I've cleary lost it....

Who invited Orlando?

Well, I'm beating the odds people. Today, the hubby and I celebrate 10 years of marriage. Yup, I've been married for a decade...Damn I'm old.
Before I go any further, I just want to apologize for not being motivated to write the last few days. I've not been feeling my best...I'm sure it's a product of being a woman who is now careening towards 40 and menopause. Uh...is that my ovary stuck to my shoe?
Where was I...oh yeah! I've been married to the love of my life for 10 years, and I love him more today than the day I married him. Marriage is not for the weak-at-heart. Real love takes work, and so I feel so proud we have come this far. 10 years of him leaving soda cans all over the place, leaving his shoes by the door so I can sprain my ankles on them, waking me in the middle of the night with these random conversations about crazy techy caca from work. 3652 days (2 leap years) of hollering at him to light a match in the loo before he sits! A decade of repeating myself, repeating myself, repeating myself... I love him. He was made for me. And he is stellar at listening to my ridiculous stuff, and watching me absolutely go insane...over pretty much nothing. That's love, friends. Love is the ability to see that stuff you adore in a person who carries a bunch of other stuff that drives you mad. And it helps if they can double-click your mouse...(wink-wink, nudge-nudge)!
So, we celebrated the evening by having a nice, looong, slooow, childless dinner at the Parkway Grill in Pasadena! (YUM) It's a notable restaurant...great food, great service. And 2 tables down, Orlando Bloom was celebrating a birthday with Aunt Marilyn and family, or something of the like. I was just sore that I didn't get any of that chocolate/chocolate mousse cake they were having!!!
Honey, thank you, for choosing me, loving me, lifting me, laughing with/at me, and telling me every single day since June 23, 1996 that you do, indeed, love and cherish me. You are my life-long love.
And for the rest of yas, lift your diet coke cans with me as we toast Love. Here's to good friends...tonight is kinda special! (*clunk*) Cheers!

Father's Day SUCKS!...if you're married to me!

Happy Father's day to all the dads in the universe (except the deadbeats of course...don't know what made me say that grumpy sounding statement after something that was meant to be pleasant, but that's just a sample of what kind of duality is in my head sometimes!!!). Today I wanted to give my husband something special...time to relax, no pressure to do or be or say or fix anything....just a lazy carefree day. Instead the sorry bloke ended up giving me something. I've been sick since I dunno-when, at this point...tired, achy, tummy-cramps, weak, grumpy...don't know exactly what I have, but it's toying with my back-end...if you know what I mean. I tried to make my hubby special food, and give him lots of chill time, but instead, HE actually let ME take a nap, did some laundry, grilled dinner, and watched the kids a good portion of the day! I'm a horrible person to marry! Look at me! Have I no shame?!?

I think I owe him a "New and Improved Father's Day", with more laziness, more beer, and less grumpy 30-something women.

Short, but so entirely sweet...

Not much to say today, just something simple to bring myself, and maybe you, back to a place where complication is just not necessary.
Today I was cuddling with my kids on the sofa. We had just finished breakfast, and the hubby had just left for work. My son was staring DEEPLY into my eyes, smushing my cheeks in his hands. As innocent as ever, he says, "Mom, I'm inside your eyes!" No doubt he noticed his reflection. "Do you know why I'm in your eyes, Mom?" he asked. "Why are you in my eyes, Babe?" "Because, you love me, Mommy!"
Take the time and hold someone's face in your hands today and tell them they are in your eyes. Let's keep life from being so complicated.

Mailing Everyone on MySpace a LiTtLe BrOwN HaNdBoOk

You know....this MySpace thing that's happening is kinda funny. I mean, the human being is now mutating into a species that is so good at lying to himself, that he actually believes some of the crap he says in these self-written pages. For example, the concept of having 5,762 "friends"...hilarious, especially for people that barely leave their computer screens to wipe properly or take a shower. (oh, please, I've seen you...it's true...)They have no friends at school or work, but they have GAZILLIONS of friends on MySpace.
Then, the proper-English-Nazi comes flying out of me! Lordy, Lordy. Number 1, the spelling....oh...I almost have no words, but good gracious...when they are misspelling their own descriptors...i.e. "I'm a hiper leo that loves animels, and dancing, and hanging out with my freinds! Thay are So CoOl!" OR "If U R as hot as I am, you mite get to be one of my friends!" Mite? I think the word she's looking for is "crabs". Number 2. This lack of capitals or over-use of capitals makes me nutty...what the heck with that, coupled with no punctuation! I'm sorry for sounding like a big fat girdle hoisting granny, but reading some of this crap is like trying a decode a note written by a first-grader...and I know that from experience.
I had a composition teacher in high school named Mr. Nyberg, God rest his tired old soul. The man was 6 ft. 5 in., and easily 400 pounds, and scared the poo-pie out of me! He was an absolute tyrant about the English language.... we would dissect gerund phrases and dangling participles all day and when your 15 and think you don't need that stuff...well, let's just say I spent a good amount of time rolling my eyes. He treated the Little Brown Handbook (A commonly used grammar book that's probably hit its 800th edition by now) like the Bible. We were also expected to write a 40-page paper, which included 4 chapters, footnotes, 10 sources and 2 interviews. Do high school teachers even do that anymore?!? Now I'm forever grateful to Master Nyberg for placing an amazing amount of aptitude and appreciation in me...and a craving to write what I think...but communicate it in a way that doesn't make me look like a low-brained mouth-breather.
My husband just pointed out that I am a big lamer for having run-on sentences......I shall now step away from my grammar soapbox.
Anyway, thank you letting me mentally vomit in your lap, friends. Until another day...

Random clicks and hums with a side of throat clearing

You know, it's not the big things that make being a stay-at-home-mom so difficult. I can live through days of caring for children with stomach flu while having the stomach flu myself. Or dealt with a major diarrhea explosion in a nasty VD infested gas station bathroom on the interstate in the middle of nowhere with 1 diaper left that's missing a tab. I've nursed while potty-training, been humiliated when my preschooler accidentaly knocked a tiny toddler off the top of a slide at the playground, survived never-ending plane trips with a screaming 18-month old who won't stop kicking the seat in front of her. I've earned my little kid badges, people. I've seen many crisis situations, heard A LOT of screaming, and have seen the ER plenty'o'times.
But do you know what drives me to the brink and makes me want to find the nearest bridge to take a flying leap from?

MOUTH NOISE! That's right! MOUTH NOISE!

As of late, everytime my family sits down to eat the adoring made-with-love meal I have lovingly prepared, my son involuntarily fills the atmosphere with unconscious lip-popping, or tongue clicking, or humming ( both the inhale and exhale varieties....so that it's NON-STOP!!!). And if I'm lucky, we'll have an extremely hazy smoggy day and his sinuses and throat are aggrivated. So, inbetween the "hmm hmmm hmmmmmmm,uhmm, hummmm, *slurp*, *click, *glook*.....hmmm, hmmm, hmmhmhmhmhh,haoummmm, *phsct*, *shhhhhocktp*" I get an endearing glottal spasm, with mouth full of food, of course.
It's making. me. CRAZY!
And the funny thing is...he has no idea he's even doing it. It's kinda like taking a person by the back of the head, and smashing his face into the wall over and over, and having no inclination that you might, in fact, be hurting someone. My son has no clue that he is slowly performing the most perfectly suited form of Chinese Water torture techniques on me, poor ol' mama.

I'm sure I'll be writing to you from a padded room at the Casa de Locos after breakfast tomorrow.

The Magina Dialogues

So....I have my 2 kids....Kole turns 5 in August, Ellie turns 2 late July. Both of my kids are at the "exploratory age", if you get my drift. My son has been inquisitive about the difference between boys and girls since Ellie was born because she's completely missing something that he obviosly has. He makes the connection that he is like Daddy, who is, in fact, a man, which is the big version of a boy. Mommy is a woman, the big version of a girl. Ellie is a girl, and he is a boy. Easy right? Well, not so much. You see, way back when he would watch me change Ellie's diaper, he would notice the difference. I try to be honest and upfront about things, as developmentally appropriate as I can be...so I lovingly and honestly said. "Well, my little lovebug, boys have a penis, and girls have a vagina...we are different in that way. That's the way God made us." Sweet, right?

So, now, we've hit a speed bump...I'm at a loss, you see. I sit at the crossroads of not enough information, and too much information...TMI!!!!

Kole now makes the statement, "Boys have make pee out of their penis, girls make pee out of their maginas!" Oh, Lord....well...you see...if you have taken a basic biology class in high school or college, you know this is not at all correct. Us chicks have a whole other department for the pee production, somewhat unrelated to the "magina". So...the last few weeks, I sit and wonder what I should say.

Should I become Professora Penelope Pee Pee Pants and tell him all about the anatomical placement of the urethra? (that would probably create another mispronounced word and he would be declaring that he is peeing out of his "aretha" in the school bathroom! Sorry Ms. Franklin!!!) OR do what I am currently doing and gloss right over it with a quietly defeated, "yes, dear..."

Well, it came up again, and many of you heard what had happened, but this is how the fit hit the shan:
SO we’re at Trader Joes because we have to buy pizza dough. Kole was having a cooking playdate after school and his neighbor friend was coming over to make pizza with him. We’re at the checkout counter and the dialogue is as follows:

Clerk: Hey there, how are you?

Mary: Very good, thanks...

Kole from behind: Hey, Mom....

(meanwhile, Ellie is motioning at the cheese crunchies being scanned...)

Clerk: Did you find everything okay?

Kole from below: Hey, Mommy....

Mary: Yes, just fine, thanks... (turns to Kole) Did you need something, Babe?

(Ellie begins YELLING for the cheese crunchies)

Kole (on his toes with face poking over the counter watching items being scanned): Mom...

Mary: Yeah?

Kole: Did you pee out of your magina back there? (motioning to his behind)

Mary (nervously stammering): uh...we can talk about that at home, honey. We don’t talk about that outside of our home.

(Mary hands Ellie a small doll)

Kole (loudly and emphatically): But I have a penis and you have a magina with pee on it!

(Ellie throws doll across checkstand, and Mary considers running out of the store with the small bit of dignity she has left)

Mary: Kole, let’s ask this nice man for stickers, ok?

Kole to checker: May I have some stickers, please?

Clerk: Here’s bunch...and a little extra for your poor mom...(grinning, holding back large amounts of screaming laughter...)

Kole: Mom, you have those stickers for your magina....

Mary takes a sticker and gently applies it to her sons mouth and hands the remaining stickers to Ellie hoping she’ll eat one and inadvertently stick her mouth to itself, and shuffles out of the store thanking the clerk very graciously as she leaves)

Clerk: Have fun with that!

Mary: yeah.....good times....

I am here! What is this place?

okay...so...I begin...this blogging thing that people do.

I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, because weird stuff happens to me, people. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking, "yes, Mar....it happens to all of us....stuff happens..."

NO, NO, NO!!!! WEIRD stuff happens to me...like this morning, if I may....talk about myself on my blog....

I woke up to this kid crying...some little toddler....little strawberry blond baby girl...cute, but screaming her bloody head off!!! I walked in and she was reaching for me yelling, "Mama! MaMMMA!" Nobody else showed up, so I took her out of her crib, when I hear another little voice, "Hey, Mom..I'm going to the bathroom...I'll be right back..."

Who's this little kid? A little brown hair boy? ...and thank gravy he didn't smell like the small one that was currently in my arms...he was actually taking matters into his own hands and "eliminating" independently.

After about 5 minutes..the man walks out. Strange, he came out of the same room I was in, but I didn't notice him there before....He was certainly in no mood to be spoken to...in fact, I'm pretty sure his eyes were still closed and he was having a hard time unsealing them. He grunted some thing to the boy about it being a "good morning", and blindly walked next to the coffee machine to begin what seemed like this ritualistic bean grinding ceremony.

As the morning went on, I figured that this is where I've been placed for the meantime. I 'm used to more mental tasks...using much more sophisticated language...words like "circumvent", or "zone of proximal development", or "criterion-referenced"....you know.
But here, I repeatedly say things such as, but not limited to "we don't spit food on the floor", "don't touch that, it's icky", or "your hand doesn't belong there", and my all-time favorite, "yes, Mommy is a girl, you are a boy...let's talk about that stuff at home".

SO, I guess I wonder most of all how I got here. It's a nice place...I mean if I continue the mad cycle of wiping behinds, making food (not at the same time, mind you), washing everything from undergarments to body parts, all while singing nonsensical songs about senile old men who nik-nak-paddywhack everything from your thumb to your spine, and people on crowded noisy buses with no suspension, then I get sweet smiles from the small natives, kisses, lots of cuddles and laughs. But it's pretty bizarre how a normal situation can spiral into just another moment from hell in a few nanoseconds.