motherhood, politics, faith & whatnot

I think I might just be over this whole internet message board thing. This isn’t a call for entreaties to stay (although I wouldn’t turn down any love that came my way, if any. heh. ) I’m not really going to go anywhere anyway — I’m just doing some routine naval-gazing, evaluation of stuff in my life. I guess I’m putting it out here, because I’m sure that other people have felt the same way and would love to hear how others think about these things.

I’ve been on a couple of mommy message boards since my first son was a baby, and I’ve gotten to know some great people. I like hearing what people have to say, but maybe it takes too much effort to keep up my end of things. And if I can’t keep up my end of things, then I don’t blame people for not keeping up with me. But I’m tired of posting stuff and not getting responses. Maybe I’m just out of synch with the vibe or what-have-you. It still makes me a little sad, but maybe it just means it’s time for me to do other things.

Anyway, maybe these things have life cycles, and for each person, maybe it’s different. Mothering is one of the most political things I’ve ever been involved in and I’m tired of it, talking about why I do what I do, or whatever. Can one be friends with someone who parents differently than you do? By choosing to do something one way over another when perhaps your friend chooses a different way, are you putting their decision to do it their way down? I know, I know, only we know what’s best for our own children, right, but that’s not really how we operate is it or not always anyway. If my kid stays alive on a diet of mac and cheese, hot dogs, milk and fruit cups, do you look down on me when you insist that most things going in your child’s mouth be organic? How could you not? Inherent in any choice is a dismissal of the alternative, right? I don’t know. But, I’m doing the frickin’ best that I can. Do I love my child less because maybe I’m not making the best diet choices for him? No. Is he going to be less perfect than your child? No. I am not a perfect parent, but noone is. Here are my true confessions about my mommy abilities: I’m not a patient mommy. I yell too much. I let them watch too much TV. They are both circumcised. I dread being with them sometimes. There.

True confessions, anyone?

OK, so I must rant.

I’m a Christian.

I used to keep that on the down-low because I didn’t want to be linked to those Christians. The fundamentalist ones. The preachy, judgmental, right-wing nut jobs that have elected W to office, twice.

Several years ago, I felt pushed to be more open about my faith. To find words to articulate what I believe, so I started trying to do just that, but still carefully choosing the times and places where I would open up.

I believed and still do that you are more likely to influence someone’s faith by how you live than being preachy. Lead by example, but not a self-righteous, holier than thou example, because we all do things that we’re not proud of, whether we pray to Jes*us or not. I’m not a better person than you because I believe in God’s grace. Thank God, for God’s grace.

But in addition to trying to lead a life focused on God and struggling to follow Jesus’ example and teachings which is really an impossible, unattainable goal, it is necessary to speak out sometimes. To talk about one’s faith. To not always be so willing to see things from everyone else’s point of view and be quiet and respectful of their experiences.

In fact, I’m really tired of trying to tread carefully around people’s negative experiences with organized religion so as not to offend them. Of trying to see their side of things and understand that religion brings a lot of baggage for a lot of people and that the fundamentalist right-wing nut jobs out there spewing hatred and intolerance aren’t really helping matters. I know religion leaves a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouth. I know all this stuff.

I’m sorry about that, I am. But I’m not like that, nor am I in any way really connected to that, so please stop and broaden your world view for a moment. Don’t paint all of us Christians with such a broad brush. “Church people” aren’t inherently bad. I’m a “church person.”

I’m tired of the expectations foisted on me if I say that I’m a Christian If I put it out there, then I feel very conscious of needing to prove to people that no, I’m not one of those Christians. I’m cool (hah) and I drink and I curse and I’m not a very patient person and I yell at my kids a little too much sometimes and I have quite a temper and I’m petty and flawed, just like everyone. And that’s exactly why I need God.

It’s so tiresome making sure to reassure people that you are one of the “good” ones. That I’m not going to make them testify and accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

How about giving me a break? How about stepping in my shoes?

Am I even making sense, I don’t know. I’m just, well, frustrated.

If you take issue with anything I’ve said here, feel free to comment. I want to discuss. I want to hear what you have to say. Frank discussions are difficult, but really helpful things.

Just watching Scott McClellan’s press conference from the White House. Does he really believe the stuff he says? I know he’s just doing his job and admittedly, it’s a pretty hard job. I worked for a boss whose decisions and positions I didn’t agree with some of the time and yet, had to advocate for them in public. *rolling eyes* I hated it. I wonder if that’s how he feels.

But, I mean, where does he get off chiding these ancient, well-respected journalists like Helen-what’s-her-face? It reminds of an adage in the practice of law — argue the law; if the law isn’t good for you, argue the facts; if the facts aren’t good for you, pound the table. i.e. tspeak with righteous indignation. How dare they think that your position is incorrect?! Heh.

Anyway, so for anyone keeping count, here’s my list of people worthy of the “tool” appellation:
1. Tom Cruise
2. Scott McLellan, W’s press secretary

I’m so frickin’ fed up with my kids right now. I was going to rant on the frequented mom’s site, but of course, it’s not loading right now. So you, my one reader, are going to witness my spewing.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. I don’t want to do this anymore. I think I suck at it. Can I quit and go on unemployment?

Did you see that SuperNanny episode where the mom is constantly telling the girls (twin girls) to “go play.” Well, I do that. And have been doing that quite a bit. Am I scarring my child for life? Am I “rejecting” him? I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know what else to do because I’m out of patience. Out. of. patience. Frickin’ kid is asking for stuff all the damn. day.

There’s been a kind of progression. When he would ask for something that I didn’t want him to do or didn’t want to give him right then, I wouldn’t say “no” outright. I’d say, “Well, let’s do that when x, y and z” or something like that.

But then, it would seem like he didn’t understand that I was telling him no when I tried to do it like that, so he’d keep asking.

So, eventually, I started adding the word “no” into my explanation. But he would still keep asking.

Now I see that it doesn’t matter what I say: he’s going to bug the crap out of me anyway, so my responses have become a snippy, emphatic, “NO!” At least, after he’s asked my ten times, that’s what it becomes.

I feel bad being like that, but I don’t know what to do. At least, when I raise my voice, he’ll stop asking.

And he’s whining a lot. I say that it’s the “Caillou-ification” of D. I avoided that show for a long time, but his dad has started letting him watch it lately. Caillou whines a lot. And now D is whining even more. I swear. C*aillou needs an episode about not whining. Seriously.

The only thing we can do lately without me losing my patience is watch TV.

The other one has given up his afternoon nap, goes to sleep at 7:00 p.m., but wakes up at 5:00 a.m. We are not happy. We just need to go to bed earlier, but I enjoy surfing the net in the evenings and J watches TV. The Daily Show is on at 11:00 p.m.

But we need sleep. Things go better with more sleep.

My next door neighbor (the hot UPS guy who is the ex-husband of this womanwho’s a lawyer who prosecuted the Mike Peterson case — prominent author who killed his wife and tried to make it look like she fell down the stairs — and is now running for D.A.) has been having some work done on his house. Today it’s powerwashing, I think. Whatever it is, it’s very loud. And the guys who are doing it are yelling to each other over the running equipment. Poor Andrew is trying sooo hard to go to sleep.

*a little while later*

OK, the powerwashing stopped. Now just some hammering, so Andrew is now snoozing. Yippee!

I must spend a good part of my life hanging out on the all-too-thin border between sane-enough and bat-shit-crazy. Apply the slightest pressure and I fall so easily into bat-shit-crazy land, which is where I’m writing you from at the moment. Some days I just can’t deal with everything. Things are just too hard, beyond the capacity of my limited little mental and emotional processing capabilities. To even begin to describe whatever is bothering me seems pointless. It’s pretty much all the same stuff that everyone else goes through, so I feel silly complaining about it. All the same, there’s got to be a better way to keep from riding the express-train to bat-shit-crazy land. Any ideas?

Suze’s patience was at code level orange, dangerously close to code level red.

Code level orange usually invovles a moderate amount of yelling along with some hard-closing (read: slamming) of cabinets and drawers.

Code level red usually involves more yelling, slamming of doors and what mainly distinguishes it from orange is the throwing of various household objects — remotes, phones, that kind of thing. Not at anyone, mind you, but definitely with the intent to break ‘cause breaking stuff feels so good sometimes.

Yes, as you can see, I have a bit of a temper on occasion. Tempers and two-year-olds and teething babies aren’t always a good combination.

Take Friday morning for instance. We have a play set out back that the previous owners so graciously left us. It’s pretty nice, but the mosquitoes are so bad in our backyard that we can’t really play out there very much through the summer.

Things are starting to cool down finally, so we went out back Friday morning. There’s an upper level that Daniel needs helping getting up to, so I helped him climb up.

Daniel’s not the bravest child when it comes to physical activity, which I think is in part his nature, but I’m also afraid that we’ve fostered this tentativeness a bit. So, when he wants to do something more adventurous, I try to help him out with it.

Well, once he got up there, I had to go check on the baby because I thought I heard him crying. he had been taking a nap. Sure enough. He was awake and crying. I didn’t want to take him out to the play set area because I had begun to notice that the mosquitoes were getting bad.

But Daniel didn’t want to come down. Or rather, he wanted to come down, but he didn’t want me to help him the only way that I could, if that makes sense. I think he wanted me to come up and carry him down the ladder or something. But to be more stable, I wanted to guide him down while standing on the ground.

So, with the baby screaming (I had moved him outside in the exersaucer while I figured out how to get Daniel down), I tried everything to coax Daniel down, but was quickly losing my temper. And didn’t know what to do.

I wish I could have been more patient and gently coaxed him down. But as I mentioned, I was at code level orange. So I finally just climbed up and grabbed him and took him down kicking and screaming.

I was so disappointed that it ended like that because it was supposed to be a fun thing and ended up being all too much drama.

Aunt Flo hasn’t really been around either because I’m still nursing or because of my b.c., but I think there’s some regularity to these level orange/red days. If I can figure it out, then I can make sure to be far away from civilization on those days, or something. Heh.

my 41-year-old sister-in-law is pregnant with the long-awaited female grandchild. (Yes, Jim, best to stop reading now.)

Of course, we are happy for them, but I have to admit to a fair amount of jealousy and a smidgen of cattiness. This is the sister who has been the family f*ck-up and who is labelled by her own family as narcissistic. Over the years, she has absorbed way more than her fair share of attention from their mother. And now, she’ll be presenting her mother with the much longed-for granddaughter. Poor baby Andrew, he’s the fourth grand-son. Nobody’s really coming to see him these days, even though he is the cutest, funniest, sweetest, squishiest, little guy EVER, well, except for Daniel, of course.

*sigh* I know. I know. But what better place to rant than my blog.

I was actually pretty happy for them until I talked to her and offered to send along my maternity clothes. Through the course of our conversation, I got the feeling that she had already counted on that and that we’d send along all our baby gear as well. She was complaining about having to spend money on maternity clothes, hint, hint. If they were on a tight budget, that would be one thing. But they are probably making close to $200k, hardly strapped for cash.

Anyway, I’m tired, so I’ll stop my rant there. I’m sure there will be more to come. I’m not sure why she irritates me so much, but she kind of always has, so this isn’t really that different. Better to get it out of my system here.

I posted this elsewhere, but also wanted to probe the collective wisdom of the blog-community. This could alternately be titled, “Why I don’t go home.”

I need some help from my fellow moms, since nobody else around here is very helpful.

We’ve decided to go to Atlanta this weekend to see my family. My dad had a heart “incident” about two weeks ago which resulted in a balloon angioplasty. He’s fine and in good health (he goes to the gym almost every day), but it was kind of scary and I really want to see him.

So, we will drive down on Friday — it’s about a six hour drive (without a 2.5 year old and an 8.5 month old) and drive back on Sunday.

So, here’s the thing: I can’t decide where we should stay. My parents live about three miles from my brother and his wife and 3 year old daughter.

My parents house is not childproofed and Daniel will get into everything. He’s just like that. My mom says, “Well, maybe he won’t.” OK, yeah, maybe his whole personality will change on the drive down.

However, at my parents house, there are two bedrooms we could use. Daniel would sleep on a mattress on the floor in the same room with Jim, and I could sleep in the other bedroom on a twin with the boo in the crib. Waking up in the morning, it’ll be nice to hang out with Pop-Pop (my dad) — he tends to get up early.

If we stayed with my brother, we’d pretty much all be in one room. Jim and I and the baby would be in a queen bed (what we usually sleep in, sans boo) and Daniel would be on a mattress on the floor.) BUT, they have a three year old, so their house has some amount of childproofing and lots of toys and a big, slobbery lab (daniel loves dogs) and a playset in the back yard.

I think my mom’s feelings are already a little hurt b/c I just suggested that we might stay w/ Gray & Kristy (my bro), but then again, she does nothing to try to childproof anything. I mean, whether my mom’s feelings are hurt or not is one factor, mostly because I’ll feel guilty.

Then again, they are the grandparents and should be able to have their grandkids stay with them, right?

I don’t mean to cause a big stink by going against what my mom wants, but I just don’t know what to do. If our sleeping accommodations at my brother’s were more ideal, I really think we’d go there. But then, I’d really like to spend some quality time with my dad. Not that we wouldn’t be able to if we stayed with my brother.

But, if we are staying with my parents and Daniel’s acting up, it’s not like we’ll have that much qt anyway.

I am afraid that my mom is going to try to get Daniel to do what she wants him to do — sitting through a meal, eating what she wants him to, not sticking his fingers in the bird’s cage when she tells him not to, etc. I try to let that stuff just roll off, but it gets to me.

The bottom line with my mom is that her way is the only way in her house. She doesn’t like the TV on during the day — but we turn it on anyway, but then I can’t help but notice the smirks. And I’m so sick of tiptoeing around her. Everytime we go down there and stay with them, DH ends up decreeing that we’ll never stay with them again.

Ok, Ok. Now you see why I’m driving DH crazy. On the one hand, I want to be the “good” daughter and stay with the grandparents so they can enjoy their grandchildren, but on the other hand,

What would you do? Have you been in similar situations? Do you get along with your mom? How is it staying with your kids at your parents’ house?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Yes, I’m fired up tonight! This stuff has been burbling around my head all weekend, and I finally have a chance to sit down at the computer. . .

the administration keeps saying they were hampered in getting aid in sooner because the roads were flooded and communication lines were down, etc.

You have got to be kidding me?!

You don’t think after 9/11, they had a zillion different logistical problems in the rescue effort? They immediately put every effort forward to figure it all out.

We are the most powerful and richest country in the world, and we were hampered by some flooded roads?!

Do they think we are all idiots?!