Tag: Momofboys

Single mom life with twin boys: Overnight Illness
mom of boys

Single mom life with twin boys: Overnight Illness

lesbehonest20172 Comments

Most parents I know are over this Winter and it’s many illnesses. I am one of them. We’ve had the flu- actual flu- and a couple bouts of stomach bugs. It never runs concurrently. Always consecutively. So as the single parent with one after the other illnesses…unfun.

I realized I reached my max when I woke up to a chunk of my bathroom cut out. I thought, “What the hell happened?” then the fuzzy memory of 1 AM entered my hazy and tired and brain.

We had been on play dates on Friday. We got home late and my sons are extra dramatic on Fridays because it’s the end of the week and they are tired. I was feeling pretty pumped about the playdates because one of them I actually got to drop the boys off and leave! It’s a family I’ve gotten to know well, and we’ve hung out a bunch, and I magically had two hours free on a Friday evening. I drove home with visions of happy hour and fun…in reality I played with my dog, cleaned my kitchen, and caught the first half of a new murder doc on Peacock. Yes. That’s where I’m at age 38 when I snatch two hours free.

I wrangled the boys to bed and stayed up too late finishing the murder documentary. We were scheduled for a playdate the following day which they were very excited about. This was also day seven since son number 1 got the stomach bug. I was so naive. So innocent. Thinking I was in the clear with son number 2.

I woke to son number 2 screaming and running down the hallway to my room. At 1 AM. Once I realized no one was dying and his stomach hurt I walked him into my bathroom and we sat on the floor because he was now insisting he was not going to puke. But I was still waking up and very confused by the screaming and not puking stomach ache.

He’s also crying and tells me his long sad story. He woke up and also woke up his brother, and “I asked him to go get you Mama, and he wouldn’t! He said No! He told me to go back to sleep because if I’m sick we can’t go on the playdate.” As he finished that sentence he puked. A lot. On the bathroom rug. In between heaves he was hitching his breath, crying, saying, “But I want to go on the playdate,”

I’m not the best without sleep. I’m not the best when I’m woken up from sleep. So I was still back on the screams that woke me up, why did he have to scream like that? My heart was still racing and my adrenaline was pumping. I rubbed his back and waited for the puking to stop. I also was thinking about our new carpet in my room and the hallway. I didn’t want to risk puke on the new carpet. This all makes me sound like a horrible mom because I was definitely more focused on the screaming and the carpet then on my puking son.

When he stopped he stood up, and asked to take a shower. Good, yes, into my shower he went. There was a lot of puke. I could not fathom dealing with it. I also did not want him leaving my bathroom and puking on the carpet. My bathroom is freakishly large- like as big as their bedroom- so I went and got his sleeping bag and pillow, and the meat scissors from downstairs and a garbage bag.

In these moments there was no future thinking. There was only survival and the quickest way to get him back to sleep and ultimately me back to sleep.

When I walked into their room to get the sleeping bag his brother rolled over and muttered, “Did he puke?” “Yes” “Well I can still go on the playdate!” then he rolled back over and fell asleep.

I used the meat scissors to cut the area rug in the bathroom. I cut the puked on area off. Put it in the trash bag. Lysol wiped and sprayed the entire area. Laid out the sleeping bag on the rug with a puke bowl, and now clean boy crawled in and fell asleep instantly. He actually told me he was happy he could sleep there so he would be close to the toilet. Not that he ever puked into the toilet. But he had good intentions.

He and I were both exhausted the next morning. And both boys were fixated the canceled playdate. All. Day. Until I rescheduled for next week and we have now been counting down to our make-up playdate. Cross your fingers. Everyone stay healthy.

The rug looks like some one took a bite out of it. I pondered my frame of mind as I was reflecting on my 1 AM decision to cut the puke part out of the rug. I tried to make sense of this decision. I think it made a lot of sense around 1 AM when I wanted to get back into bed, did not want to spend two hours cleaning a rug, and definitely did not want to touch the stinky puke. Then I remembered about him asking his brother for help and his brother refusing!

I went and confronted the brother. So he asked you for help and you said no? That was not nice. Please do not do that again. He shrugged, “But the playdate.”

This. Is. 7.

The Rug

“I Used to Have Fun…” A Mom’s nostalgia.
lesbian mom · mom of boys

“I Used to Have Fun…” A Mom’s nostalgia.

lesbehonest2017Leave a comment

There’s this scene in Mamma Mia where Meryl Streep looks wistfully at the sky in her overalls as she wanders around doing repairs and paying bills and says nostalgically, “I used to have fun…”. The context being her 20 year old daughter is there with her friends and they are having fun.

When I first saw Mamma Mia I was 23 and…I was having fun. Honestly I started having fun when I was fourteen. I partied hard in high school. I actually partied less in college than high school…not to say that I didn’t party though. Then my 20’s, well the first half of them, was freaking phenomenal.

I know this sounds bad coming from a mental health professional- but in this post I’m just a woman. And I don’t regret one freaking hangover or bar fight or spontaneous dance on a stage with two gay boys who totally choreographed with me in my hat…because I had a good freaking time.

Then my 30’s came along and boom. Kids. Dad died. Divorce. Kids. Work. Kids. Work. It became super un-fun. Okay well still fun, in very different ways.

My 20’s were filled with pee your pants laughter. And not because I had a weak bladder due to carrying twins. But because the shit I got into was that hilarious. Especially when we filmed it. Which we did. Often.

I still don’t regret any of it. I don’t regret falling on my butt in an icy parking lot in front of about 100 people on my birthday after drinking prosecco with some of my best friends at the time and then sliding on my stomach over to my friends car because I was too scared to try walking again. I don’t regret filming me and another nurse in the bathroom at a staff Christmas party doing…well things…and then going out to show literally every one at the party…I don’t regret the many times I went skinny dipping-everywhere I could-, and the dancing. All the dancing. OH and even that time I fell down the stairs, didn’t drop my drink, and then yelled “Lesbian sex is awesome” in the middle of the gay bar.

I don’t regret the five years of attending the “herbal conference” in New Hampshire where we brought tents, danced around a fire, ran through the woods and the lake and “studied herbs”. We were told repeatedly we could not dance or swim naked. That place was wild.

Right now my life has less raucous fun. And it has less people in it who I had that fun with. Which sucks. But se la vie right? People move. Friendships change.

There is fun and laughter now but different fun and laughter than in my 20’s and I am damn glad I had my 20’s to make me into the somewhat serious 38 year old whose eyes twinkle with restrained laughter when my 20’s clients tell me about their hijinks. Because internally I’m like…I got you beat.

And that pee in your pants fall on your butt dance on the stage 20 something is still in me. Waiting to re-emerge when I’m through this serious Mama phase.

When I first saw Mamma Mia I remember identifying more with 20 year old Amanda Seyfried. Falling in love. My future ahead of me. But now at 38, I saw Meryl Streep say that line and I was like damn. I feel that. When did I become the parent in all these movies of my youth? Age 30 and 11 months. That’s when.

I spend my days treating the mentally ill and supervising employees. I spend my afternoons, evenings, and weekends parenting two seven year old boys. Not a lot of time for raucous fun. I spend it dealing with school about whichever boy is not listening this week or acting up on the bus or presenting at the assembly. I chauffeur to karate and basketball. I became this Mom Boss lady and while I love the confidence and not give a fuck attitude that my 30’s brought I can’t help but every so often stopping in the midst of a moment with the boys and thinking wistfully to the Summer fling when I was 22 that led to an embarrassing I don’t remember you moment when he moved in with a friend…or the Halloween parties, or, well everything wrapped up in that moment “I used to have fun….” because yeah Meryl. I feel that. Hard.

There was also a stripper.

And sharp-ied mustaches.

I think the dancing on stage with the gay boys was the best though. I think they were actually getting paid to be there and I sorta hopped up with them and we all gelled so the club people let me stay. It. Was. Amazing.

Halloween NYU. Epic.

Single Mom vs. Christmas Tree: year 3.
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Single Mom vs. Christmas Tree: year 3.

lesbehonest20173 Comments

Everything I thought I knew about parenting when there were two adults in the house went out the door with my ex back in 2020. Because single parenting is a new ballgame.

We got our Christmas tree this weekend. And it was a debacle because I wanted pre-cut and went to a place, it was cut your own, before I knew what was happening a guy was shoving a saw in my hand and the boys were running up a hill. It’s not a little hill. It’s a half mile completely up hill. Since doing this on my own I have always gotten a pre-cut tree so I’m trekking up the hill already nervous that this is going to go poorly.

We make it up the hill. We find the tree. I’m on the ground in kind of a nice outfit because I was expecting a pre-cut tree, and with my hair down. I have a lot of hair. Curly. Trees. Sap. It was a thing. So I’m sawing the tree. My son keeps trying to grab the saw to “help” and I’m like please stop because I’m going to cut off your finger by accident.

When I hear a male voice from above, “You need a hand?”

I emerge from the ground/tree. There is a very nice man and five children of various ages and a small wife all smiling down at me and my kids. He and his teenage son get the tree down within about ten seconds like freaking champs. And the family is circled around us and I’m thinking they are going to start singing a song from a the Sound of Music or something. They look picturesque and sort of whole in a way that a single mom covered in sap, crazy hair, may have been swearing at the tree, and her two twin boys…well don’t. If my sons and I would break into song it would be a song from Jungle Cruise. Because, man, we are just trying to survive.

We get the tree. Thanks to the very kind Von Trapp-esque family. The tree farm people seem to emerge out of the trees as we are dragging the tree out and take it from the boys and I and throw it on a tractor that brings it down the hill. They strap it to our car. I mean overall it was great service and all inclusive.

The hardest part was when we got home. Because then it’s just me. I set up the stand, and the boys helped me hose it off, and I drag it inside, and am wrestling with it to get it in the stand and upright. This of course is after I got if off the car.

So there I am, wrestling a tree. It was a lot fatter than it looked in the field. And I still had on my nice clothes. And I am in the damn thing. And I’m trying to drop it on center of the stand, then lean down and screw the screw things and then it kind slouches over when I think I’ve got it.

It happened then. One of my sons was standing on the other side of the fat tree. I thought he was watching his brother play a Switch game but he was apparently monitoring me quite intently. I made a noise- somewhere between a sigh/sob/groan of frustration.

It’s in those moments that- well you ever get those flashes of the most intense thoughts and emotions that sort of leak in? Like when I first got divorced I was angry, grieving, resentful all the time low level. I’m not anymore. But in those moments it comes through- a flash of all that hurt and pain and anger at having to do these moments alone. It’s quite visceral and unless you’ve experienced it rather difficult to describe.

But it’s important to name it. To write it. Because if there is one single parent out there who reads this and feels that and this normalizes it for you, then it’s for the best. We, as a society, do not talk about divorce and the repercussions of it and single parenting two and three years in because we are all just supposed to adapt and smile and post on social media pretending every moment is liquid gold.

But it’s not. Because when my son heard that sound I made he came around and looked at me concerned, “Are you okay Mama?” “Yeah baby, I am okay, some things are just really hard to do with one person, and this is one of them.” He looked more concerned even though I was trying to take deep breaths and smile and act okay. “Mommy should be here.” He said quietly. And I knew in that moment he was remembering the Von Trapps at the Christmas tree farm, and yearning for that for himself. And for me.

I had to be at my sisters within about twenty minutes, and they went with my ex that night.

I got the tree up. It’s still standing and mostly straight. But this is divorced single Mama life. Moments of utter punch in the gut raw parenthood while I’m standing there alone putting up the tree. Then I just carry that. Alone.

My kids see me. They see cracks in my invincible Mama armor because I am human and how can I not have moments where I let my feelings slip through?

Other then hugging my kids and telling them I love them there are not “happy endings” to these moments. I had to finish the tree and then move on with our day. But that was a hard one and I was not okay after that. I don’t want my ex here. The divorce was very necessary for many reasons. And I am better as an individual and as a parent without her. I am allowed to feel alone though and lonely. And I would have appreciated another person over five feet in the room helping me with the tree.

And my son saw this whole family and then saw me break a little bit.

And this is why parenting changed when I started doing it alone. This is why it became harder and I feel even more blind navigating it.

Since becoming a single parent I’ve done some research and what I found were alarming statistics including 63% of suicides are individuals from single parent households. The stress, the shame, and the loneliness of single parenting is real and of course it impacts the children in the homes. Study after study showed an increase in anxiety, depression, and substance abuse as well as poverty and welfare among single Moms. There are of course many postulations on these statistics but seeing as how I live it I want to throw my own in there.

We have to start talking about these moments. We have to bring them into the light and out of this horrible shaming mindset. Being a single parent and having vulnerability and having sad moments with our kids is okay, normal, and should be expected. Because it’s hard and there are no normalizing factors within our communities for single parents.

It was less than ten seconds. That interaction with my son while I was holding a sappy Christmas tree. I’ve had other moments like this. They are intimate and visceral and raw and they make me feel like the worst human and also the strongest and most resilient and most alone.

I have resources though. I have great friends & family who see me and support me and I engage in my own therapy and I have built and continue to build financial security for myself and my sons. I also am a strong person and I’m too damn stubborn to give up on anything but especially not on my sons and myself. But there are many parents out there who don’t have the resources and maybe are not as strong. This is for you. You are not alone. These painful moments happen to us all and you are allowed to feel that pain in the moment and you’re allowed to let your kids see you feel it too. Give yourself some grace and accept help from people who offer it. You are not alone.

988- Lifeline/Suicide hotline

http://www.thetrevorproject.org

Trans lifeline- 877-565-8860

The Scent of Grief
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The Scent of Grief

lesbehonest20172 Comments

Some things still catch me off guard. It’s been over two years since my Dad died. But Father’s Day this year snuck up on me and I got the email from daycare at the end of their day. “We will be talking about Dad’s this week!” it said cheerfully.

I shot an email off to the director knowing I was already too late as they had circle time already that day. They were on their way home to me with my ex. “The boys do not have Father figures. Please do not try and force them to find a male figure during this week’s discussions about Father’s Day. My sister has a wife, the boy’s have two mom’s, my dad died in 2019, and there are no extended male family members they have any ongoing relationship with especially in light of COVID. We literally haven’t seen any one for over a year in our extended family who are male. Do not try and find a substitute father figure for them. Just acknowledge they have two Mom’s who love them and Aunt and Auntie, Gramma, and cousin who love them very much.”

That night at bedtime one of them cried and they talked about how they miss Poppy (my Dad) and I asked if they were upset because they talked about Father’s Day at school. They were. I reminded them of all the people who love them. I reminded them that some people do not have Dad’s and that’s okay. Meanwhile I was trying not to be irrationally angry and Mama Bear wild tempered at their preschool teacher for trying to place a male figure into their lives when they do not have one.

They told me they didn’t have to do the Father’s Day craft. I said why don’t they do it for Mommy or Mama? They didn’t want to. I didn’t push it.

I realize this is going to be a yearly event unless Father’s Day happens to fall late enough that they are not in school by that time in June.

Single Mom guilt can be bad. In that moment hugging my sons as they bemoaned their Dadless lives I felt lower than dirt. Not only do they not have a Dad, but they do not even have intact parents. Their two mom’s couldn’t cut it. I realized I was disproportionately angry at preschool (it’s called displacement or projection in mental health) because I was really angry at myself for 1. forgetting about Father’s Day and not having a discussion beforehand with their teacher 2. for being smack dab in the middle of a divorce with their other Mom and 3. for literally having no male family members for them and for missing my own Dad so hard.

Dude. It was a rough week. I had a client who said she had trouble setting limits with her kid because of single mom guilt. I reflected that I am a single mom. I definitely feel guilt. A lot. But I still make the boys clean up their toys, put their clothes in the laundry, and most recently clean all the bathrooms with me because they climbed over the back of the couch for the hundredth time after me telling them not to for the ninety-ninth time. We laughed that Mom and I. She totally understood what I was saying and she felt seen. I validated that single mom guilt is a real thing. Because lord it is.

The Spring is the anniversary of my Dad’s death, Easter, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, and my Mom’s birthday and then the 4th of July all in quick succession. It feels wrong still. All these holidays without my Dad. He was disorganized and often didn’t plan my Mom’s birthday until the last second. But he managed to pull through usually. Not with the same attention to detail when my Mom plans birthday parties, but he got the job done. The last two of her birthdays with him alive were not fun as he was in the throws of Dementia and we all were watching and waiting as he declined.

What I wouldn’t give to give my sons the experience of my Dad. But I can’t. Instead I have to tread carefully around Father’s Day because I am grieving and my sons are questioning why they do not have any one to celebrate. It’s a hard thing. And it’s freaking yearly. Couldn’t be biennial or triennial. Nope yearly. In the past I’ve tried to celebrate their other Mom on Father’s Day and we called it second mother’s Day. But honestly this year we were in the midst of mediation sessions that haven’t all been super amicable and I just wasn’t feeling like I wanted to do anything. Sundays are her days with the boys so they were with her anyway.

My sister invited me over to her house with her family and my Mom and her in-laws who are just lovely and who I actually like very much. But I stayed home. I painted my fence. I thought my Dad would nod in approval to that. I had to stain it this year. It’s a lot of fence and deck. I made some heavy progress that day. I blasted my music and painted up and down the fence and rolled it on the deck. My Dad wanted above all else for us to be happy. I’d say I’m seeking happiness and that I am at least on the other side of unhappiness.

I try and practice gratefulness. I am grateful for my sons, and I hope one day they can be Dad’s to their own children. I am grateful for the time I had with my Dad pre-Dementia. I am grateful for the stroke he had during Dementia because for some bizarre reason that was one of the last truly lucid conversations I had with him was in the emergency department as he was recovering from the stroke. It was like having my old Dad back. It was bizarre and wonderful and heart wrenching and I ate up every second of it. He laughed. Actually laughed. And cracked jokes and was his old self.

I am grateful for my marriage because without it I would not have become who I am. I am grateful for divorce because without it I would not be able to be who I am. I am grateful for my cats because those rascals keep me company when the boys are gone on Sundays. They keep me sane with their insanity. I am grateful for my mom, my sister, my sister-in-law, and my niece who have been a constant presence in my life and supported me unflinchingly through this divorce and who love my sons as much as I do.

I am grateful for the intense and sometimes debilitating grief I feel for my Dad because it is a reflection of the love I felt for my Dad the truly unconditional love he felt for me. I wish he were here. I wish I could talk to him about my divorce and mediation and hear him tell me he would support me no matter what and ask me what I need and tell me to just keep moving forward because that’s what we have to do. And he’d make some comment about how at least I’m not Catholic because when he got divorced the fucking priest told him to get the feck out of the church. (He was still a little bitter about that). He’d tell me he met my Mom after he got divorced from his first wife, and look at how lucky he was to have my Mom and me and my sister. He’d tell me he’d never have had me in his life if he hadn’t gotten divorced.

I know he’d say these things because I knew my Dad. So well. We had all those conversations. He always told me he was grateful for divorce because it gave him me and my sister. He told me he felt lost after his divorce felt like he was a failure and that he missed his kids from his first marriage so much. He told me he loved my sister and I and he was always so incredibly proud of us both. He told me he didn’t know how I came from him because he admired me.

It’s been raining the last few days and so I did a 550 piece puzzle. I don’t think I’ve done a puzzle since before the boys were born. I listened to an audiobook and actually had time to do it because the boys occupied themselves with toys, games, and tv. They would intermittently pop in and “help” me with the puzzle and also make me take breaks to play Memory with them.

The audiobook I listened to had a line about grief. It hit me.

“Smells are the worst. Smells can put you right back into the belly of grief. When you love too hard you can lose the will to live without them. Nothing feels right and everything cuts.” I remember giving my Dad hugs and digging my face into his left chest. If he was wearing his army uniform there would be a pocket there and maybe some pins or his name pin. It always had a starchy smell to it mixed with his deodorant. If I hugged him on a holiday he’d smell of cologne and still have a pocket on his left chest that I would rub my face into. If I close my eyes I can almost feel his shirt, smell his scent, and feel like I am with him.

Dear reader if you take nothing else from this post: remember that grief is a reflection of your love for someone. True grief is a reflection of true love. Do not run from it, do not hide from it, let it in, little by little so it can be felt in pieces and can help you remember how deeply you loved. For what is a life without love? My Dad would say it is a life that is empty. My Dad would say “You have to do it Muffin, because you might just get lucky like I did.”

Pandemic Journal Entry #2- But Where Did All the Yeast Go??
#COVID-19 · politics

Pandemic Journal Entry #2- But Where Did All the Yeast Go??

lesbehonest2017Leave a comment

In an ironic and rather cruel twist of fate I found a use for all the fabric I’ve saved for ten years. Most of which I used to make my own scrub tops back in my emergency department days. I started making fabric masks.

Apparently the United States of America supposedly, one of the most advanced countries in the world, doesn’t have enough masks and PPE (personal protective equipment) for a pandemic. We also outsourced all our manufacturing to China (They also were hit with the pandemic worse and first) so…yeah. Essentially the hospitals here are fucked.

The CDC and JACHO and DPH…all the most dreaded initials in healthcare…have now declared that wearing a bandana is “okay”. Let me put this in perspective. About three weeks ago these were the SAME initialed departments that were ding-ing hospitals nationwide for nurses keeping their water bottles “at the nurse’s station”.

I hope everyone wearing a bandana at work today eats a damn pizza at the nurse’s station.

The jury is out if cloth masks do anything. There are studies showing they don’t.

But of course because I’m smart and a nurse and have had to wear these masks for twelve hours on end I am a step ahead of the average “sewist” (someone who sews a lot? I dunno my Aunt used the term and it sounded official). I started sewing. Something I actually haven’t done much of since the boys were born.

I still got it though. After a first crappy mask. I got the hang of it. I make them three layers- cotton, thick fabric, cotton- with an opening at the top to slide in either a surgical mask or a HEPA filter. I’m using framing wire to make the nasal bridge part malleable and more snug.

I’ve also learned where to make a cinch (yes that’s a sewing term that I actually knew) in order to make it more snug to the nose and jaw. I also practice talking and breathing while wearing it. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to open my phone with face ID only to realize I have a damn mask on. They are comfortable. They are breathable and they are better than a bandana. I told my wife I should patent this shit.

But I won’t. I also saw some lady charging for them! Screw that noise. Any nurse I know can have as many as you want.

But while I’m making them I’m just thinking Fuck you CDC. Fuck you #45. No nurse on the front line should have to wear a fabric mask. Why don’t we have enough N95’s? Why are you risking the lives of the only people in the world who can save every one else?

Critical care nurses are not common. We have years of training and experience and most of us leave the game because on a good day it’s taxing. During a pandemic…yeah we don’t want to be near it.

But I would go near it if you had PPE. But you don’t. So you can’t pay me enough.

Yesterday the boys and I went for a 1.5 mile hike together. Only the state parks are open right now. No playgrounds. And there are talks of closing the parks. Please GOD NO! We literally would have no where to go with them. Maybe not literally. We have a yard. Try explaining to a 4 year old why we couldn’t go to a restaurant though. It was rough. He does not believe me when I tell him they are all closed.

We officially have no childcare this week because our baby-sitter’s told us they are abiding by the governor’s order to stay home which is totally valid and I’m not knocking at all. My wife and I had a pow-wow and made the decision that my wife will stay home from work (her store is still open as it is considered essential) so I can still see patients.

I’m worried all the time about everything.

Today was yeast. I bake bread or pizza dough every weekend. I used my last two packets of yeast today. Apparently every one decided that we will not have access to bread?! So there is no yeast anywhere. Not online not in stores. My wife went to over 8 stores before she found some. I know all y’all are not out there making homemade bread. Because every time I make it literally no one has ever even seen homemade bread before.

So where the hell is all the yeast going?! I don’t know. With the toilet paper I guess.

Anyway I made my cinnamon swirl bread today. My wife is stopping work this week so we will be down an income. I volunteered to provide telepsych services for the state of NY due to COVID-19. I also got an e-mail stating any one on a biologic should be excluded from direct patient care…I am on a biologic for my asthma (yes it’s that bad)  so that made me feel validated in doing remote work only. I don’t want to die. I probably would if I got this virus.

We are heading into the week where we will really feel the pandemic. Our numbers are growing. We are at the part of an exponential curve that is climbing with no end in sight to the top. It’s the scariest part to the curve. I tell people with panic symptoms that panic attacks always peak. There is always a time that is the worst after which they start to come back down. This isn’t a panic attack though. These are human lives.

Hang in there America. Shit’s about to get real.

 

 

******Also in case any future person is wondering politically what is going on during this pandemic…Our President sounds like an ass. So nothing new. The senate Republicans are idiots, got exposed, tested positive, and now they need the Democrats to agree with them for votes because too many are absent and they don’t have a 60 vote majority anymore. Can we get a new Supreme Court Justice NOW! In case you didn’t understand- The Republicans are acting and sounding like idiots and as a result are testing positive for COVID-19. The D’s are doing their thing. Squabbling and bitching that the R’s suck and not really getting anything accomplished.

 

How I Mom Like My Dad…Reflections as the Boys Turn Four!
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How I Mom Like My Dad…Reflections as the Boys Turn Four!

lesbehonest2017Leave a comment

The boys turn four tomorrow. We brought cupcakes to tumbling this weekend. Had my family and a few friends over on Sunday and cupcakes to daycare today. Forty-eight cupcakes. Two birthday cakes (one with Spiderman on it that I made I felt like a pinterest Mom!).

I’ve learned a few things about how I Mom. I’d like to think I’m okay at it. I mean they are alive and happy and generally potty trained. They ask to snuggle with me all the time and they seem to enjoy my company even though I put them in timeout when they break the rules.

I basically Mom how I live. For example, I’ll make it to hot yoga class before they lock the door. But I’ll roll in dropping my towel that I just pulled out of the dryer and as I billow it out over my mat inevitably a pair of my underwear falls out. Not the plain black ones. The lacey thong that I wear once a month or less that I only wear when I literally have no underwear left.

It’s happened. Twice.

Considering I don’t wear the lacey thong more than four times a year. I’m mildly cursed.

Same thing with how I Mom. I’ll get to daycare on time before the Halloween parade starts. I may forget their sheets/blankets and they never have extra clothes there that fit. Which means today Declan had an accident and came home in his bathing suit bottoms. Because it was the only change of clothes he had there.

I’ll remember the check to pay for them to be there. But I’ll fill it out in the parking lot.

I iron their pants and shorts and our cloth napkins. And sometimes my sheets. But I am up until midnight every year on Christmas Eve and their birthday and Easter. They don’t have Easter baskets. I forget. Yes I forget major holidays that fall on the same day every year. Maybe not the actual holiday. I just don’t realize how quickly it comes. Then it’s the 24th and I’m like holy MF I am screwed.

I’ve actually had dreams of shopping on Christmas Eve. Maybe nightmares.

But they know if I say I’m going to do something we do it. When I say we are going to bake cupcakes it happens. When I say they will get to go to the store the next day it happens. Follow through is important in parenting. Both positive and negative. They know if I say they will go to bed early if the nonsense doesn’t end now…they stop the nonsense.

As I threw my towel out tonight at yoga and the freaking underwear flew out, and I fell leaping to grab it before the full class of people looked and saw- half of them did. I thought, wow, I’m a Mom. I’m responsible for two other humans and there’s my thong on the yoga mat.

It’s how I roll.

My Mom is very organized. She would never have been up wrapping presents the night before Christmas. She still has our Easter baskets from our childhood. Actually I think maybe mine’s in my basement.

She decorates for every season. I was looking through birthday pics from last year and saw our pumpkin candelabra from the mantle that we got last year and yelled at my wife asking where the hell it was this year and why she didn’t grab it when I asked her to grab our one Halloween decoration that I remembered.

She looked at me like I was nuts with no recollection of ever grabbing the witch/cat candle thing. She did. I swear it. Because it’s on the mantle. And I didn’t grab it and I know we did put it away last year.

Anyway. I’m that kind of Mom. My Mom often says she doesn’t know where I came from. With my last minute planning yet OCD ironing. I appreciate my Mom. A lot. She went and dealt with a birthday gift return/exchange when I realized I bought boots a month ago two sizes big- but they grew three sizes in a month. So I needed two sizes bigger than I got.

Anyway. She dealt with all of that. When I have a specific task my mom is good for the follow through. I appreciate that about her because I know that is not at all part of who I am.

I would have kept the wrong sized boots in the car for about three months with the intention of returning them, then met a mom of twins (because I swear to God they drop in front of me ALL the time- not kidding! It’s like I have a magnet for twin moms) who was in need of boots for her kids and would have just given them to her. Leaving my sons still bootless and me without a birthday present for them.

I met a twin mom. She did my pedicure. I brought her our stroller used maybe twice. Because my wife left ours in a parking lot right on the cusp of us not needing one…yeah long story. Anyway almost new stroller and pac-n-play delivered to her the next day. It just feels right sometimes to pay it forward.

I know how much being a twin Mom drains you. Physically, emotionally and especially financially. It would have been nice to sell the stroller for a hundred dollars or something. But it was nicer to have her hug me with two kids in her belly and thank me and tell me how she raved about me to her husband.

Some day someone will pay forward a free babysitter for a night to me. Just throwing out there to the universe.

So I’m not perfect. I forget some stuff and obsess about other stuff that other people feel is not important to obsess about. I walk around naked sometimes and the boys are getting to an age where they tell me to get dressed. I do. Get dressed I mean. But I’ve also put them in time out holding up my towel because they hit each other while I was in the shower. It happens.

I procrastinate. I make a fool of myself. But mostly I love those boys.

I may look like my Mom. But I’m my Dad all the way. When I forget stuff. When I lose my temper. When I bake with them. Even when I’m ironing. I picture him standing at the ironing board. Talking to me. Sometimes yelling at me. Likely deserved. And I feel okay about it. Because I loved my Dad so much. I miss him. And if I parent like him. I’m good with that.

I miss him on my son’s birthday. Because he should be here with us. He should see his grandkids turn four. And I know he is from somewhere else. But I wish he was here. When I’m ironing of all things…I feel like he is.

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Tumbling Class With Twins.
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Tumbling Class With Twins.

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I am lucky to be related to some one who owns a dance studio. We enrolled the boys in tumbling.

They actually sat and watched my niece’s entire recital last May. When I asked them if they would want to do the tumbling class, like “those kids on the mats on the stage,” they started doing somersaults and were an enthusiastic yes.

I watched them smiling go into the studio with their instructor and I sat on a bench in between two women I went to high school with. I say high school. But in a small town (graduating class of 150) with very little movement in and out…we knew each other probably from the age of 5-ish.

They were actually two girls on softball, basket-ball, and soccer teams with me and each other at various times throughout our entire childhood. I wouldn’t say we were close friends, but we were close in a way that people who grow up in a small town playing sports with each were. We saw each other sweat, cry, and bleed over the years of playing sports together.

Their parents coached me at times and at other times my parents coached them. We gave each other rides and we knew each others strengths, and weaknesses. It’s hard to describe the bond of a small town. It’s like this connection that we all wish we didn’t have yet can’t possibly imagine living without. Or maybe that’s just me?!

Anyway. There we sat. It was surreal. We were all watching our kids on monitors. My sons and one of their sons were in tumbling together, and on another screen was the other one’s daughter in ballet class. We were relaxed in the way that people who know each other from the age of 5 can be.

“When did we become the Mom’s?” I asked as I sipped my coffee from my travel mug. We all leaned back against the wall staring straight ahead at the screens.

“And at dance class?!” one of them said in bewilderment and mild disgust.

“With boys no less,” I added laughing.

We were all female athletes. Now I danced for eleven years. So I didn’t think it was weird being at dance class. Well maybe…considering I have two sons.

But the girls I was with, and then in walked my sister, also a female jock, concurred. None of them could have imagined the pink sequined girls they bore. We all laughed and then sat back again and with a few questions and answers we were caught up on the last twenty years.

I sat there between those two thinking this is the most surreal moment. Watching our kids in dance class. Twenty years after we had played all the sports together with our moms and dads on the sidelines.

I generally have mixed feelings about living within twenty-five minutes of the very small town I grew up in. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. That moment though. Was cool. I’m glad I could share my bewilderment at the how the hell did we get here with people who get it because not only did they experience it themselves, but we experienced it together.

The older I get the more I realize how precious it is to have people in my life who knew me before kids. Before mental health nursing, before nursing in general. People who knew my Dad. People who knew me as a kid. Not just because I was younger but because it’s a part of my narrative that is important. Now more than ever after the loss of my dad.

It’s important that I know people who know I have a wife. Who know my sister has a wife. Who’ve known my sister was gay since high school. Who don’t care. Who have still maintained relationships with my sister and I regardless of the gender of our spouses.

These people are important to me. So when I said good-bye and one of them said, “See you next week!” with a smile…I smiled back. It felt like huh oh yeah, I’ll see you every week now, just like before when we were on teams together. It felt normal. It felt like the last twenty years hadn’t even happened and we should bring a soccer ball and kick it around outside while the kids are in tumbling.

I might do that. Keep an eye out for that blog post. They would probably kick my ass.

Small town suburbia has pro’s and con’s. Pro: people know you. Con: people really know you. As I get older I appreciate the pro’s more than the con’s. I appreciate the connection with people. I appreciate that they knew my dad before dementia took him. I appreciate that they knew me before I became wife/Mama.

I appreciate that they don’t judge me because we all know all each other’s stuff from growing up together. We all just know.

 

 

 

**** The pic is the boys with one of our cats, Maddy. Maddy loves the boys. She is 17 and she lets them torture her daily while she purrs.

 

 

A Night Without Puppy.
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A Night Without Puppy.

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This has been an emotional couple weeks. I had a bracelet made for my sister, and a pendant necklace made for me from two of my dad’s military items- dog tag bracelet and pin turned into pendant.

I cried at the jewelry store. I mean not full on sobbing, but tears coming out of my eyes for sure. The lady was nice. But I’m sure also horrified. I’m planning a new tattoo and also has some part of my Dad to it. It’s a full moon so work has been crazy. Yes. That’s an actual thing. I can also always tell when Mercury is in retrograde.

Throw in searing temperatures with an asthma flare-up and I’ve about reached my max. Then Declan forgot his Puppy. He actually calls him Cry-Puppy. Not sure why.

I heard him cry, run to my room, and then tell me through sobs that Mommy (my wife) forgot Cry-Puppy at “New school” because we also started a new daycare this month…hence why Cry-puppy was at daycare. I was letting him bring it because it was a new place.

Honestly I think I’m more anxious about the new daycare than the boys who seem to have adapted beautifully.

Anyway. He’s sobbing. It was bedtime. We couldn’t get Cry-Puppy that night. I started thinking about how we could fix this and now my wife and Jackson were both sitting on the floor with us watching Declan cry. I thought a couple things. We are a real family. It’s weird.

It hits me sometimes when we are all sitting together and all clearly feeling Declan’s hurt. Jackson was somber, my wife had tears in her eyes, and there are these moments we have connections like this that I realize we are growing and connecting as the boys get older.

I remember Russell. Russell was one of my top two stuffed animals growing up. He also somehow survived college, multiple moves, and I told Declan that he could have something really special instead of Cry-Puppy tonight, and I pulled Russell out of my dresser drawer.

Declan could see Russell was old and loved and worn. So he knew I wasn’t lying when I said I’d had him since I was his age. He called Russell a “she” and I didn’t correct him (even though obviously Russell is a boy bunny) and he called “her” “Bunny” not Russell. I also let that go.

He then held up Bunny and said, “Mama, she doesn’t have a tale!” I told Declan I loved her so much when I was little that her tale sorta wore down. At which Jackson ran horrified to his room and checked all his bunnies to make sure they still had tales, and then he showed me all of them as if to say, “I love my bunnies and they still have their tales…” rather accusingly.

Declan cuddled with Russell and slept soundly through the night. The next morning we found Cry-Puppy at “New school” and all was right with the world.

Tonight Declan brought Russell back to me and said, “Mama you have to sleep with Bunny tonight. Bunny back in your bed now.”

So here I am laying in bed next to my stuffed animal that slept next to me through many years of my childhood and there’s this full circle feeling happening.

These moments that we move through as a family strengthen my love for my sons in ways that I can’t really put into words. They make this morning when Declan found scissors and cut a big chunk out of his hair…slightly more bearable.

Put it All Down and Choose Your Kid
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Put it All Down and Choose Your Kid

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I pulled out my laptop tonight when I finally sat down because I wanted to get some work done and then write. I thought the boys would be at the kitchen table eating. There was a movie playing. I relished this moment of sitting by myself opening my laptop to do what I wanted to do when I noticed a presence on the ottoman.

Jackson was leaning into my legs and trying to make space for himself. The last thing I wanted was to give my space and time up. But I folded my laptop shut and asked, “Do you want to sit with me baby?” And as soon as the laptop was off my lap a little blonde boy had taken its place.

He snuggled into my chest and sat/sprawled on me for the next forty-five minutes until it was time for bed.

He chatted with me the whole time. He laid his head on my chest and let me run my fingers over and over through his hair.

Had I ignored the little presence at my feet and stuck my head in my work I would have missed that.

I hear every day at my job from kids whose parents work all the time or who are on their screens all the time. Kids notice. They remember. I’ve had twenty year olds tell me they had no quality time with their parents and that’s the reason they don’t go home for Summer breaks now because what’s the point?

I had already spent the entire morning and afternoon with my sons. And the whole weekend. I was feeling spent. I had escaped for four hours of work today only and still had more to do for my practice.

But there will always be work to do. There will always be one more reason to check my phone, my e-mail, my messages. But there won’t always be a little boy nudging my legs to make room for him because he desperately wants to spend the next forty-five minutes on my lap.

We went to Pride this weekend in the small city near our town. There was a transgender teenager standing next to us for drag queen story time, she was standing with her mom. The drag queen read the book “Red” about a crayon that identified as red but was in a blue wrapper. The teenager standing next to us started crying and said, “I’m crying because of a stupid crayon,” and their mom hugged them and we all knew it wasn’t about the crayon.

I want to be that Mom. I want to be the one that can be there hugging my child during times of fear and adversity. I can’t do that if I’m choosing my phone or my laptop or my work over them. I can only do that if I put it all down and choose my son.

Choose your kid. You will never regret it.

Twelve Hours With Twins (while running a mental health practice)
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Twelve Hours With Twins (while running a mental health practice)

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My wife worked 7AM-7PM today. So I was on boy duty all day. They are three and a half.

Sometimes my wife says things like, “I wish I had Mondays off every week,” like it’s a freaking vacation. I work four days a week, five days (Saturday Mornings) every other week in order to have Monday’s “off”. I stay home with the boys, do administrative work for my practice, often call about ten to fifteen clients back per day, and bring the boys to whatever appointments they are due for.

Today was like every other Monday filled with drama and emergencies I could just not foresee.

Declan woke up cranky and wanting to cuddle. He then laid on the couch and fell asleep, which has actually never happened before ever. So I knew he was sick. Waited for the puke to come (but also texted with a nurse friend because I thought he might have some acute illness that only happens to kids I saw in the emergency department but haunt me as a Mom so she reassured me he didn’t have a weird random illness that would kill him. Just the stomach bug that hadn’t hit fully yet).

Meanwhile his brother Jackson was not sick and was not understanding that his brother was sick. They constantly talk to each. I mean constantly. I didn’t realize how constantly until Declan was asleep and not responding.

I was returning phone calls and cleaning up the kitchen and could hear him, “chatter chatter chatter…DECLAN…chatter chatter chatter DECLAN…..” and each time Jackson would pause then remember Declan was sleeping, then walk toward him to shake him and wake him up, at which point I would either yell or hand gesture wildly and silently while I was on the phone with a client or prospective client booking appointments.

Jackson is an evil genius. He knew when I was on the phone I would not yell at him to leave his brother alone. So he waited until I was on the phone to do his worst to try and get Declan to wake up, which would result in me vaulting myself across the couch blocking him from Declan making my most stern facial expression and waving my arms while talking calmly, “Sure, yes, I specialize in seeing transgender individuals…yes I know your therapist she’s wonderful, so glad she referred you to me…” etc.

Then the guys came to open the pool. I was shocked. First; because they were on time, second; because the owner was with them and he actually knew what the hell he was doing. We needed some repairs done and the last two pool companies I dealt with were  awful in many ways.

So Jackson is now diverted by the pool opening and yelling at the guys opening the pool to look at his watch through the screen door. Declan is still sleeping. Jackson continues to yell to him to come see the pool.

I go outside with pool guy in order to assess the filter with him and as he explains the damages Jackson walks outside. Then a sleepy eyed half dressed Declan follows. Leaving the screen door wide open at which point one of my cats runs outside. I’m yelling at the boys to go inside, which they don’t, I’m scooping up my cat who is addicted to grass so she’s furiously eating blades of grass before I grab her, I toss her inside, shut the screen door, come back down to pool guy where the boys are. Declan starts heaving.

Finally. The puke came. I grabbed him, carried him three feet away from the pool filter and the fence so no one would walk through the ensuing puke. Then he puked. The pool guy was not phased, and said he has a two year old at home, and then proceeded to explain the filter issues with me while I’m holding Declan who was still puking and Jackson stood watching.

I walked Declan back inside carrying him deadweight in my arms. He’s forty pounds.

We walk inside and the power goes out.

Pool guy had been flipping some switches so we checked the breaker and such and it was out. I checked online and there was an outage in our area. Estimated time to fix it two hours.

No storm. No wind. Just an outage directly after my toddler puked specifically because we have a well pump, a dirty pool, and no way to wash the puke off his shirt.

So I stripped him. He screamed. He wanted the damn bear shirt he was wearing.

I set up the kindle which had 18% battery and left him watching The Fox and the Hound while I went outside to finish the filter discussion.

At some point the damn cat got out again.

It was 80 degrees here today.

I was hot. I was sweaty. I couldn’t access my freezer or ice or water for two hours. I still took calls from clients and scheduled two more intakes. Thank God for Hot Spots. On phones. Not actual literal hot spots. Because I was miserably hot.

Remember I have an employee now? In the midst of Declan puking, the pool guy, the power going out, she was texting me with technical and clinical questions about her clients today including but not limited to issues with wifi, our credit card processing machine, and clients.

As I was looking at the dwindling batteries on the kindle, my work phone, my iPhone, and my laptop the power magically came back on.

Declan was now drinking water and the next few hours went okay. Well except the screaming match when I laid him down for naps because he still wanted the damn bear shirt. He just can’t let things go. It always escalates with him because there’s no steering him away from it and he doesn’t let it go until I lose my shit.

He also insisted on sleeping in my bed because he was “sick”. Which I agree he was.

So they napped. I spent an hour on the phone with therapists collaborating about patients.

After naps we played outside in this awesome sprinkler pad. It was an hour of fun.

Then it started. They wanted to swim in the pool. They didn’t understand it was still green, still clearing, not ready. They both freaked out when we had to come inside and that led to another twenty minute show down between us all. Which culminated with Jackson taking one of these stakes we have for a game of giant croquet, and staring me in the face as he slowly pushed the pointy end through the screen door and made a hole. In our screen door. Kind of a big hole.

Perfect. I may have lost my mind a little.

After timeout for Jackson for making a hole in the door we made muffins with them in their underwear. Because epic showdown three of the day was Declan wanting his unicorn pajamas and they were not dry yet. The two hour power outage slowed down my laundry progress.

Crisis call from a client in the midst of the unicorn pajama showdown.

“Yes I can definitely meet with you this week,”

Mute the phone. “For the fifth time YOUR PONIES ARE IN THE DRYER! THEY ARE NOT READY YET!”

“Yes and bring your family, yes totally fine if we do a family session,”

Mute the phone “I WANT MY PONIES MAMA! I WANT MY PINK PONIES MAMA!”

…and so on and so forth. At some point I waxed a spot on my upper thighs that was bothering me. And yes I’m not supposed to open the wax anymore. But I did. And I didn’t grab a strip. So I was running through the house for the strip with the hot wax already on a large area of my upper thigh and the boys saw me run by and said, “Mama what happened?!” Then they witnessed me waxing the large area on my upper thigh because the strips were in the kitchen and I said, “Mothefudgenuggetfudgersfucking fuck I swore,” as I tried not to swear in front of them.

They basically ignored me and went back to watching the dinosaur show I had on for them.

Fast forward to bed time. The whining and the meltdowns were escalating after the muffins and I put them into bed early. Epic meltdowns. Why? Declan wanted his pink goggles. God knows where he put them. I looked. I truly looked. I could not find them anywhere. Jackson didn’t want to go to bed just in general and kept counting to 3 to mock me. “1…2….3!”

I found the stupid goggles thirty minutes later and brought them into Declan. They were in the bottom of a full laundry basket of clean laundry?!

Every night before bed I say a yoga thing with them, and for roughly ten seconds they pulled it together for that, “Sky above, earth below, peace within. Namaste.” Then I bow my head with my thumb knuckles at my third eye (Center of forehead).

Then Declan whined and said, “No want MamasDay Mama!”

At the end of these days I don’t know how to feel. I feel raw, edgy, irritable, then angry that I feel that way. I try to remember the positives about today. The sprinkler was fun. The pool opening happened and went really well, I mean minus Declan vomiting during the opening…the power went out, but it came back on. Thank God. And I got to spend the day with my boys. For better or worse.

Moral of the story. Definitely not a vacation or a “day off”. More like a day at home in hell with occasional moments of happiness and peace interspersed with hours of hell. But for some reason our human brain remembers more of the happiness and less of the hell. Survival tactic I think.

p.s. the saga continued with Declan pooping after bedtime, my wife helping him, he peed on the unicorn pj’s and had another meltdown because she made him change into new bottoms. “But Mama said yes!” I could hear screamed down the hallway as I hid cowering in my bedroom.

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Declan asleep about forty minutes before puking