Children at play...baby on board...kids crossing...BEWARE OF CHILDREN!

I often wonder just how crazy I look to my neighbors when I dare to take all four kids outside to "play". Last week, I finally got Madeline riding a two wheeler. I've tried the previous two summers, but I was (WAS!) always pregnant and a pregnant woman running behind and holding up a teetering child on a bike is not effective...and just plain ridiculous. But something clicked the other day, and now she is a two wheelin' bike rider.

And now Leo MUST be a two wheelin' bike rider too. So I ventured out just before nap time with all of them, including a tired and cranky, but stubborn and insistent 4 year old who would half-assed attempt to coast down the hill trying to strike a balance, but no way in hell was he dragging that "dumb bike" back up the hill to try again. But he WAS going to DO IT AGAIN(!) so would I "PLEASE JUST BRING THE DUMB BIKE BACK UP THE HILL!" for him? With that kind of enthusiasm and those good manners, of course i will.

And while I'm carrying his bike, I'll continue to intercept the out of control 22 month old on the battery powered, 5 mile an hour tractor as he is sort of getting the hang of it and screaming at me to BACK OFF so he can do it himself (loosely translated), even as he keeps driving off into the forest and then screaming in frustration until I rescue him. And then I will go peel Madeline off the pavement and break up the fight between her and her bike which she now "HATES!" and she "HATES BIKE RIDING TOO! IT'S HORRIBLE!" and she will "NEVER DO IT AGAIN!" because she is "THE WORST BIKE RIDER EVER!" And as I pour on the "ya gotta get back on the bike, honey. Falling is a part of learning. But you gotta get back on!" inspirational speech, I can hear the FORD F-150 slowly coming down our quiet, dead end, family friendly street. And by the time I turn around, the truck and my toddler on a toy tractor are now playing chicken in the middle of the road. Fortunately, my stone faced, unflinching kid is winning, or at least my neighbor has been kind enough to stop his vehicle, give me a patient wave, wait for me to drop the two bikes I'm towing, dust of my daughter, scan the road for Leo who is sitting in our driveway and being NO HELP AT ALL, and a baby in a stroller (who has been no where near the the road and resting contentedly under a shady tree with a rattle and a smile, but just in case she too lost control of her vehicle...), and drag toddler and tractor to safety.

I realize this entire experience sounds a bit out of control and riddled with anxiety, but it was great fun. And rest assured, anyone who turns down my street while we are in the middle of it could not possibly miss my family and our convoy of vehicles, bicycles and strollers up ahead. In fact, it is quite possible that my kind neighbor began to yield when he surely heard the whining and bike bashing and felt the the earth shaking stubborn, frustrated foot stomping from miles away.

Baby Ginger's face, in the midst of all this cautious chaos, summed it up perfectly...with a silent smirk and laughing eyes "These people are crazy and this woman is in way over her head but I'm so happy to be here."

my cup runneth over

It's not easy to give every ounce of love that a mother's heart can hold to five people every single day. And I don't want to divide it up and dole out shares. I want each of my babies and the love of my life to have it all; to be smothered and drenched in my love and adoration for them. It's one of my greatest daily challenges...to love my family enough.

They annoy the hell out of me most of the time, like, it's actually their favorite pastime.  But... unconditional love, unconditional love, unconditional love.  We'd all be doomed without it.   I'll be the first to confess that, once upon a time, I would have been utterly un-lovable without unconditional love.  I love these wonderful, rotten, precious little monsters more than I can even handle sometimes. And while I am sure they know this, I also know that they can't possibly really know.

I love them so much that I have nightmares and sleepless nights at the thought of all the terrible things that could happen to them.

I love them so much, that twenty minutes after someone has given me a reprieve from them as I have dreamt about all day long, I miss them and worry about them and want them back and I consider never letting them leave the house again for fear of one of those terrible things happening to them.

I love them so much that I want them to have everything in the whole wide world that they want. I love them enough to NOT give them everything they want.

I love them enough to want to spend every single second with them, making them laugh and smile and enjoy life. I'm so tired.

I am only one person. Granted, I'm a mother of four, so I'm kind of super-human, but even as a super human, I struggle. But it's ok if I'm not smothering them with my love every single moment of the day, it really is. And truth be told, they can be rotten and sometimes they don't deserve to be smothered in my love.

But when they do...

I really try to seize the moments. I have come to know the pure joy of the simple pleasures in life, thanks to my little monsters...I mean muses...

Last night it was a heart to heart with my beautiful, smart little seven year old. It was the first one that I do believe she genuinely listened to and contributed to and...took to heart. She wants to be good and kind, even when others aren't. She thinks it can be hard sometimes, to be GOOD and KIND (it can), but it's what she wants. She is "REALLY gonna try". I can see her good intentions and kind soul in her eyes.

A few days ago, I went out for an escape, I mean a run. The kids had been especially evil that day and I couldn't wait to ditch them when Darren got home. I also had to stop next door at my mother in laws to feed her animals because she was away. I thought to myself:

"Perfect, I'll swim at her house after I run, ALL BY MYSELF in PEACE and QUIET. Because if I go home to swim, those little psychic, psycho, swarming vultures will surely spot me the moment I get back and insist on swimming with me and invading my alone time. "

Two minutes later, I caved and decided maybe Leo would like to swim with me. Yes, Leo would like that. I went home, jumped in the pool (without telling a soul that I had returned) and right on cue, came my little Leo. He stood at the glass door with his hand on the knob thinking once (not twice) about disturbing me, and came out with a little grin on his face, knowing that I had missed him while I was gone and was ready for him to torment me and love me again. We swam and splashed and jumped and cannon-balled and laughed, just the two of us. Perfect.

I've been taking Lennox on long bike rides with me. I have always loved doing this with my kids. But there is something extra special about whisking away child number 3 and taking him out for a solo adventure. People always think that #3 becomes the forgotten one. I could never let that happen to little Lennox...well, there was that one time...but never again.

He sits in a little baby seat right in front of me, between my arms, so it's like I'm giving him a hug the entire time we're riding. He usually eats a juicy peach while we ride and the sticky peach juice pours down my leg, and he hums Twinkle Twinkle the entire time, only pausing to use his few words, pointing out any truck, tractor, choo-choo, dog and a few others that I can't make out at all although he seems certain of. He loves it, I love it, he loves me, I love him. It's magical.

It's the simple, intimate times; the ones that catch me off guard at exactly the right moment, the ones that remind me how special and awesome each one of them is in their own special and awesome way and how lucky I am to be their overwhelmed, underappreciated mother.  The moments when I can just stare at one of them, frozen in a love trance, and they'll say "I know, I know, you love me." The moments that I will never take for granted, because no matter how many I am blessed with (and I am very blessed), it will never be enough.

My cup runneth over.

Pregnancy Perils

Pregnancy Perils



Disclaimer: I love, love, love my children. I would have ten of them if I did not have to grow them inside of me for nine months. But I do, and it’s hard. And it gets harder every time. So hard, that I spent a week after finding out about #4 wondering if I could possibly survive another nine months of this again, as if I had a choice.

For me, it’s not so much about the physical hijacking of my body, despite the unimaginable discomfort, months of sleepless nights and a new painful ailment every month. My challenge is with my mental health; I struggle to remain recognizable and loveable, or at least tolerable, to my loved ones…and myself. Last night, Darren asked me what I was writing about. I said “pregnancy” and he said “are you writing mean things about me?” Poor guy. He deserves better than pregnant me. Our babies are my very best attempt at a peace offering; Thank you for putting up with me. Please accept this gift as a show of gratitude…and remorse.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I would bash those women who use pregnancy as an excuse to bitch and whine and make everyone around them miserable unless they are constantly catered to. Not me. I was blissful. Ok, that may be a stretch. Someone will surely call me on that, probably my sister-in-law who tells me that she knew I was pregnant due to the amount of sleeping, eating and whining I was doing. I suppose I wasn’t quite myself, but to the best of my knowledge, I could not have been happier. I remember the way it would suddenly strike me that my baby was growing inside of me, and I would smile and feel warm and tingly. I felt honored and blessed. And when someone would ask me how I was feeling I was always “great”. Never mind that I was puking every twenty minutes or so morning, noon and night, or that I was painfully tired but I couldn’t sit or lie down for fear of my body bursting into flames from the heartburn raging through my entire body like wildfire. “Great. I’m great. Thank you for asking.”

By my second pregnancy, I was still blissful and honored and blessed blah, blah, blah. But I quickly discovered that, ironically, pregnancy and children do not mix. This time around, I did not have the option of sleeping my way through my body’s inability to function sanely and rationally. Instead, I had to keep up with a three year old. I had to be alert and creative and patient and fun, in between all the puking. Have you ever tried puking with a three year old in your face asking you why you’re puking and “could you please stop and get me some juice”? Yeah, blissful.

Pregnancy #3; the novelty has worn off. We found out I was pregnant this time during our family vacation in Disney world. I was already well aware of it as the revolting signs that a baby is inside of me, sucking the life out of me, had now become unmistakable (to reiterate, I love, love, love my children). But I kept it to myself until Darren returned one morning with a pregnancy test (I guess he has his own unmistakable signs). It was an amazing and unforgettable trip, and despite my unbearable exhaustion and perpetual nausea , I spent the week dragging myself through every amusement park at Disney with a smile on my face, because, let’s face it, you can’t walk around being a miserable bitch in the happiest place on earth.



But once I was out of Mickey Mouse’s site and back to reality, I started to become a bit unglued. Now I had two demanding children to fend off, I mean take care of, despite my anguish. I also had a house with walls that were closing in on me at mere thought of an addition to our family, and a mother on her death bed whom I had to accept would never get to meet her latest grandchild and I’ll never even know if she heard me tell her the news that day when she was fighting for her life and they told us she might not make it through the night. It was too much. Certainly enough to break a lesser woman, but I was about to be the mother of three which meant this was no time show fear. And to be honest, I was truly afraid that if acknowledged every emotion that was threatening my well being at that time, it would have been harmful to my unborn child. But this time around, when someone asked how I was feeling, I was “Miserable! I’m over it! Screw you for asking”, more or less.

Considering some of these extenuating circumstances, which I have only just put into perspective as I write this, I feel somewhat justified in confessing that I did, in fact, unleash the beast during pregnancy #3. I remember quite a few episodes that left me wondering who this crazy fat bitch was that was running my life and praying that my loved ones would forgive me or assuring my children that their real mommy would be back soon. Like when we were house hunting and the crazy fat bitch demanded that my very kind, generous and obviously patient boyfriend “get me that house or I’m gonna be really pissed”, or when I started growling almost everything I uttered to my poor kids through clenched teeth just because they had the nerve to touch me or call me mommy. I wasn’t even aware of the teeth clenching thing until one day I heard Darren warn the kids not to make mommy use “the scary voice”.

And now, pregnancy #4. I have a pack of birth control pills in my cabinet that I requested after #3. I decided against starting them when Darren reminded me that they make me a little crazy. Neither of us anticipated we would be dealing with drastically crazy again so soon. And while life in general is far more manageable this time around, with a big, beautiful new home and my mother now at peace, most of the challenges and joys of pregnancy remain constant, and my sanity remains…hanging on by a thread.

As usual, I had just gotten back into my skinny jeans when I found out I was pregnant again. As usual I am forced to choose between not eating and dealing with the puking and migraine consequences, or eating and instantly feeling like my insides are a raging inferno. As usual, I am in a love/hate relationship with my children; I love, love, love them, but I hate the fact that 95% of their sentences begin with “mommy, I want…” “mommy I need…”, “mommy, where is my…” “MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!” As usual, I am wrought with guilt over not being able to “play” to the best of my ability or lie down with my daughter at night because laying down is not an option until around 11 p.m. when the heartburn has fizzled out. As usual, my brother and father are left speechless over the news of another child (anything beyond two is just inconceivable to them). As usual, I have baby mush brain which leaves me struggling with everything from a simple game of Candyland, to the basic “why does Cookie Monster eat his cookies like that?” type questions who’s answers once seemed so obvious to me. As usual, I find myself simultaneously snapping at my children and wanting to kick the crazy fat bitch’s ass for talking to my kids that way and putting that fearful look on their innocent little faces. And despite believing that I had held off on the crazy clenched teeth growling for much longer than usual until the other day when I snapped and then turned to Darren and proudly stated that that was the first time I had unleashed it, he was quick to point out, “No. No. You’ve been doing it for weeks.” And these days, if you ask me how I’m feeling, I can usually muster a “pretty good”.

It appears that writing this has been therapeutic as I awoke this morning with a renewed sense of calm after writing late into the night. While helping my daughter get ready for school today, Darren asked, “wait, where is all the yelling and arguing this morning?” I told her that I was sorry for being so grumpy when I’m pregnant and reminded her that it would help us both if she could be a bit more cooperative. She suggested that it would be even more helpful if I would say things like “Madeline, you don’t have to clean your room the whole time I’m pregnant.” Ah, the six year old art of negotiation.

Pregnancy is hard. Four pregnancies in seven years are downright agonizing. Those nine months are so seemingly eternal that the idea of the unbearably excruciating pangs of childbirth is eagerly anticipated. I genuinely enjoy labor because as soon as that first contraction comes on and I feel the familiar anguish of my body being ripped apart, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. About 8 hours and several secret thoughts of removing my (or Darren’s) reproductive organs with my own bare hands later, I will be holding my precious child in my arms and anticipating eating anything I want with no threat of heartburn. I will also have almost entirely forgotten what was so bad about it all in the first place. I’ll be a mom, again. And every time I meet one of my children, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Who wouldn’t want that four times over?

My Daughter...The Bully (sigh).

I've been hesitant to write this story, and I'd like to say that's it's fiction or purely hypothetical. But alas, it is not. However, the tears have been shed and consequences and apologies have been accepted. But first, I must document it in my written world of lessons (hopefully) learned.

To begin, I must assert my disgust for bullies. I think they are the pathetic assholes, to put it mildly. If you spend your youth picking on the shortcomings of others you clearly don't have what it takes to overcome whatever it is that has you feeling so bad about yourself that you so desperately need to steer the negative attention toward someone else. You will surely end up the fat, bald, drunken low life loser that no one feels sorry for because you deserve it. Anyway...

My daughter got off the bus smiling, making no mention of the terrible news she knew I would be receiving from her teacher. "How was your day?" "Good." Nothing. She really should have warned me and spared herself the public humiliation she would soon endure.

There I was, sitting at her softball game watching her play, so innocent. I had recently been bragging about what a good girl she had been lately; cooperative, pleasant, helpful. I was glowingly proud. And then...her friends mother came over to me:

"Did Madeline tell you that the girls got in trouble at school today? My daughter said they were picking on another girl, calling her fat and telling her she should go on a diet. Ms. Welcome will be sending us an email about it."

I was crushed. I felt like a parental failure. My proud glow had now turned into a flaming rage. This did not sound like my daughter. We have had the bully discussion many, MANY times. "If you have nothing nice to say, SAY NOTHING. Bullies suck and you are a nice girl. I know you would never be a bully, I'm just saying... And when you get picked on by a bully, shake it off, because they are just picking on you because they know you're awesome and they are not."

And then I was PISSED! The little girl they were picking on was on the same team, as was the other little bully. I had seen all three girls hug and play just before the game started, so clearly the poor girl had forgiven the two bullies. NOT ME! I was just getting started plotting my revenge on her behalf.

I looked out at my little short stop and seriously considered storming onto the field to begin torturing her, but my mother-in-law was there with me and I didn't want to mortify her by beating her grandchild in public. I waited until the inning was over and pulled her aside to ask her what happened, praying that there had been some kind of misunderstanding and that she was not one of the assholes in this situation. She was. She confessed, sadly. I was dumbfounded. I just stared at her for a minute trying to imagine my sweet little girl being such a little bitch. "I am...UNBELIEVABLY...DISSAPOINTED...in you" I stuttered. I walked away and left her crying her eyes out.

By now, her beloved Poppy (step-grandfather) was also there. So here I was with a devastated seven year old and an audience of two of her grandparents, other parents, two softball teams and their coaches, and the other bully's mother, all of whom were looking at me wondering what I had just silently done to my poor, poor child to cause her to be so upset that she had to sit out the whole next inning while she pulled herself together. I heard her coach tell her to "pretend the ball is your mother" during her next at bat, and even the little girl that she had picked on looked at me like I was mean and crazy when Madeline gave her a hug and apologized again. I was now, very thankful that I resisted the urge to storm onto the field, rip her off by her ponytail and beat her with her own softball mitt. I was actually more satisfied that it took nothing more than my obvious and genuine disappointment in her to bring her to tears, lots of tears.

The lecture was long. It went on for days actually, as I was haunted by the thought of MY daughter, the BULLY, and had to make certain we were CLEAR on how this was ABSOLUTELY NEVER EVER TO HAPPEN AGAIN! Some highlights:

"No one likes a bully. Bullies have friends only because their "friends" are afraid of being bullied. And eventually, when everyone gets older and wiser, those friends are no longer afraid of the bully and suddenly realize that they actually don't even like the bully. Now the bully has no friends. Let me tell you how the universe works. The kid that gets picked on for being ugly, will one day be beautiful. The kid that gets picked on for being a nerd, will one day be rich and successful. The kid that gets picked on for being fat will one day be thin. And the brat that picks on all these kids, will be one day be the fat, dumb ugly loser with no friends."

She was sorry. Genuinely sorry. She has assured me that it will never happen again, and I am quite certain it won't. Her teacher had also assured me that she had never seen Madeline behave this way before, and she too, believed she was very sorry.

I suppose that every parent will stumble upon the bully issue. I was always just so worried about my kid being bullied and having to fight the urge to walk into school one day and beat the hell out of the asshole bullying my kid, that I was not prepared for my kid being that asshole.

I believe Madeline has grown from this experience (and not just out of fear of what I may do to her next time). She has learned something about the power of words; that they can really sting, and the value of her parents opinion of her. She may have preferred a beating over the heartbreaking look of disappointment in her mother's eyes.

It's over now. We have agreed to move on and never speak of this again. And I am back to feeling like an awesome Mom (for the moment).

Lennox: "You're not leaving me behind!"

Lennox still isn't walking at 18 months. I'm quite certain that he can walk, he would just rather not. He'll stand up and walk with someone holding onto just a little pinkie finger, but he will not let go. I think he might be worried that if he takes that final step and lets go to take his first step, he's going to be left behind;


"If no one has to carry me everywhere we go, how can I be sure they'll remember to take me with them. Am I really ready to fend for myself?"


Quite frankly, I don't blame him. I can understand his concern and I appreciate his strategy. But...it's getting old, and now he's just mocking me. Every time I think he's going to take that first step and my heart starts pounding in anticipation, he just plops down on his chubby little butt and speed crawls away, thinking he's funny and clever.


Today, I decided to suck it up and give it my very best super corny, exhaustively spastic, i-pray-no-one-is-watching-me, display of encouragement, with that nauseatingly cheerful, high pitched voice that annoys even me as I speak it. I pried my pinkie from his super grip and stood in front of him, putting on my best super annoying performance. He stood tall, all on his own and watched me with a great big smile which he was kind enough to disguise as "laughing with me" and not "at me." He let me go on for quite a while as he stood there, wobbly legged, appearing to at least consider taking a step and divulging his secret in appreciation of my efforts. And just as I was about to jump out of my skin with excitement...plop...giggle, giggle.

Two years and a Baby Ginger later...

"She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts." ~George Eliot

I wish. It's been two years since the worse day of my life and not only am I still wrestling with the grief, but it still has me in a pretty tight choke hold.

How can it still hurt so much? How can it still feel like it was this morning at 5:56 a.m. that she took her last breath? Life without her is...different, and I can't seem to adjust to it. I'm not angry and I harbor no resentment towards those who could not save her, nor he who chose to take her away. But it still feels so very wrong.

Baby Ginger is my saving grace today. She is all smiles, more so than usual, and offers great reassurance that her namesake is still here, smiling on us. I get the subtle hints. I went to bed last night, thinking back to that horrible, long torturous night two years ago when we sat by my mother's side watching her chest move up and down, knowing each breath could be her last. And when I woke up four or five times throughout the night to check on my sleeping baby and watching her chest move up and down, I could hear my mother telling me to focus on my hope-filled future Ginger, rather that dwelling on the nightmares of that frail, fading Ginger. And as I hold baby Ginger in my arms (I can't seem to let her go today) and I watch her smile as she drifts off to a peaceful sleep, I feel a gentle reminder that her namesake is also at peace.

The pain of my mother's death feels dark and endless. Baby Ginger brings a very bright hope for a future filled with peace and healing. It's not just her name that she is carrying on, it's her quiet beauty, her curious expressions, her love filled eyes, her hopes, her journey. My mother's work here was not done. She wanted, more than anything, to watch her grandchildren grow. Baby Ginger is here to see to that. Why else would her perfect little name have chosen her. She is a fresh start with an unfinished agenda.

Hide and Seek...

Or in this case, hide and watch Mommy have a nervous breakdown.

It is a gut wrenching feeling when you don't know where your child is. Even if it's only for 10 seconds; When you have looked everywhere you know to look, and they're not there. Those first ten seconds will be the worst ten seconds of your life, filled with horrible visions of all of the worst possible scenarios; kidnapped, ran down the street into the main highway, eaten by a bear, fell in an abandoned well...and so on.

When I left him, Leo was in his brother's crib "reading him books" before nap time.
I had only been on the phone for a few minutes, but in that time, Leo decided to play a little hide and seek with mommy. Not only did he not tell me that we were going to play, but ironically, this would be the first time in the history of our hide and seek games that he didn't tell me exactly where he was going to hide just before he hid there.

When I went back to tuck him in for his nap (which, by the way, was the rebellious reason for his panic attack inducing trickery), he was no where to be found. I called for him, he didn't answer me (also a first in our hide and seek history). I tried to bribe him out, he didn't take the bait. I used my very best angry, threatening voice, he stayed hidden in fear.

Now I had to expand my search to outside. I spent about .2 seconds contemplating whether or not I wanted to be the crazy, lunatic mother running frantically through her quite neighborhood screaming for her missing four year old. And while I was spastically doing so, I floundered between hoping none of my neighbors were home to witness this and surely think to themselves "this poor woman can't keep track of all those kids", or wishing that they were all home and about to come out and form a search party to help me.

I did three laps through the house and neighborhood and each time I came inside I tried to sound more frightening and serious to convince him that I was NOT AMUSED! By the fourth time back inside, I found his precious little pain in the ass standing in the middle of the living room giggling and boasting about his clever hiding spot (which I'm still not sure of, to be honest). I couldn't speak. I picked him up, hugged him, and locked him in his room where he screamed and cried for ten minutes and then slept for two hours.

Two hours later, he came out and we had a long talk about how ABSOLUTELY NOT OKAY IT IS TO SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOUR MOTHER LIKE THAT (basically), AND THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FUNNY!

I explained to him that I was so terrified that I almost called the police.

Leo (with fear in his eyes): But if you call the police and they find me they will put me in jail!

Me: That's right! Remember that next time you think you're so funny.