Category: BC (beloved child the elder)

piece o' my heart

Posted on June 5, 2008 by wrekehavoc

welcome to crazy-busy central, where, at the rate we’re all going, someone’s going to shoot out an eye. jools is graduating from preschool next week; BC is hugging trees at school (as uncle larry put it, though they’re actually simply identifying them. but you know uncle larry, AKA the man who is to the right of attila the hun, will never shy away from an opportunity to put a political slant on a situation, joker that he always is…); and i’ve had a date this morning with a cardiologist.

see, i just don’t have enough specialists in my life at the moment, so i thought i’d go for the gold. i’ve been having pains in my heart and weakness that radiates down my left arm and into the left side of my neck and head. i feel like a crazy person, but BS strongly suggested that i’m not and that i need to take care of myself (as did my parents), so i broke down and ended up at a cardiologist, someone who seems quite approachable. my blood pressure is fine, and so was my EKG, but next week, i have to have a treadmill stress test and an echocardiogram. i figured next week would be good in case they need a vein, as tomorrow is another date with my IVIG!

(i wonder if keith richards experiences this many medical interventions?)

i have to laugh at the concept of a treadmill being my stress inducer. ha! i seek out the elliptical stepper to relieve my stress. here’s my idea of a real stress test:

1) up intermittently all night with one child who is barfing.

2) wake (ha! ha!) in the morning knowing that something is due. a report? paperwork? oh. now i remember. a presentation in front of bigwigs. a presentation i dutifully and diligently completed but was going to put finishing touches on last night after the kids went to bed; only, too bad for me. a kid got sick.

3) the realization that your spouse and you will now play the game whose job is more important today!? let the shouting begin!

4) “winning” that competition, off to work you go, exhausted, with other child in tow. drop other child off at school. park car; take a bus and two metros to work.

5) give important presentation, realizing that important piece you didn’t get to was actually more than just windowdressing. oops.

6) call from other child’s school. child is barfing. please come pick up child. spouse cannot pick up child, as other child is currently reenacting the magic of krakatoa in full bloom.

7) take two metros and a bus to get to car. get to school. get to child. child blows chunks on your Jones New York suit. (hold in those tears. it’s not your turn.)

8) after your dry clean only apparel is destroyed when child helpfully wipes a wet paper towel over the spew, get kid into car. do happy dance when you locate a plastic target bag in the back. place target bag in front of child.

9) get home to find that spouse, too, is kissing the porcelain god. spouse sees you, mutters something of the whereabouts of barfy child #1, then runs upstairs to the bedroom and closes door. buh-bye. won’t be seeing him again until saturday.

10) there you are: sleepy, queasy, in heels and a formerly good suit, with two kids looking up at you for help. it’s 3:00 p.m. go.

now you can attach electrodes to me and see how well my heart fares. not that this has ever happened to me… well, not necessarily in this order. i suspect there are other, better scenarios out there. i can even recall the night when i had a child and a husband barfing and a child not breathing. i held a bucket under one and a nebulizer on the other. oh, if only i had the wherewithall to take pictures of this joyful wee-hours-of-the-morning family experience. but in the end, i had to leave the barfers to themselves and drive the non-breather to the hospital at 4 a.m. — behind a weaving, probably drunk driver. really. good. times.

in short: i don’t need no stinkin’ treadmill.

(doctors? you can thank me later for this test design.)

with a little luck

Posted on May 23, 2008 by wrekehavoc

every morning, i drive BC to school a little before nine. we hear my favorite DJ, weasel, who was a mainstay at the old, much lamented and missed 99.1 WHFS and who now hangs mornings at The Globe. most mornings, he asks a trivia question, and i never call even though i know the answer. and BC says: aw mom, why didn’t you try?

this morning is the first SOL (standards of learning, though some fool definitely made for one unfortunate acronym) for BC, and she’s nervous. she ate a good breakfast, and we packed some solid snacks for her. but she was still nervous. as the good mom i am, i always deal with my feelings by making a joke out of them.

so we’re driving to school, and i’m telling her: BC, honey, whether or not you pass the SOLs does not determine whether you pass the third grade. you would have to go and do something crazy, like burn down the school at this point to not pass third grade. and that would be a stupid, stupid thing to do.

BC grinned. mama, that’s the craziest idea i ever heard!

exactly. then we heard weasel about to announce the question of the day. i generally do not dial and drive, but i figured, aw, what the hell. i’ll dial and pull over. it will make the kid laugh.

the question: sheryl crow sings my favorite mistake and now claims it is about some philandering ex-boyfriend of hers. we know who it is really about, though, right? call me and tell me who it is and you’ll get a pair of tickets to her show.

duh. if anyone was paying attention a few months ago to my clapton/harrison binge, they’ll know that if i wondered whether it was true before, i know it’s true now. while clapton never out-and-out admits it, based on his past track record and doing the math, it is not hard to figure out. weasel mentioned that he could not understand how the two of them tour together after breaking up.

anyway, to make madame smile, i called. and… i WON. yes, jaxx, yes BS, yes everyone out there who thinks i’m the luckiest girl alive, i won two tickets to next week’s show. unfortunately, it is a wednesday night, the last night of religious school and a night before another SOL. can’t get a sitter. can’t take the girl.

(anyone wanna go with me? i have no earthly idea how to get to the venue, of course. so you’d be driving 😉

but the grin on BC’s face as she walked out of the car was priceless. and that is exactly how i wanted to send the chick off to school. mama’s a doofus, but her aim is true.

ah, the things we do for love.

speaking of love, here are the former alleged lovebirds.

i know why the caged bird sings, weasel: it’s good business to tour with a legend.

writing

Posted on May 20, 2008 by wrekehavoc

as a writer, i am always sucked in tempted thrilled to find opportunities to challenge myself online, especially between the hours of 10 pm and 4 am (barring those nights when people under the age of 10 decide not to sleep due to illness or just plain cos.) for example, there was a time i wrote abstracts because describing articles in 100 words was more fun than delousing my daughter’s hair. (sadly, that opportunity — the abstract writing website — has gone belly-up, at least for now. the lice, mercifully, are still in louse heaven, living on a giant head.)

but now, i’ve discovered smith magazine, a place where you can be challenged to write about anything… in just six words. considering just how verbose i can be (note entire blog output since 2002) about a whole lot of nothing, well, this screamed try me!

so i did.

recently, i tried my hand at the MOMoirs section. you may have guessed that i have a little experience in the MOM department, having been one for nearly 10 years. and of course, i possess all the answers on being a MOM. for example:

Q: mommy, why can’t i see whether jools will eat this [fill in the blank with anything disgusting, inedible, or poisonous]? wouldn’t it be fun?

A: because mommy doesn’t want to make you personally pump jools’ stomach. you don’t know how to do it, as you have not watched that episode of Trauma: Life in the ER yet.

so when i noticed there was actually a contest on this, well, of course i was going to give it a go.

lucky me. i am a winner.

i had to summon all my powers to think of how i could describe this crazy roller-coaster ride called parenthood in six words. all the joy. all the heartache. all the leftovers. it was not easy to convey that in six measly, economic words. but, it suddenly came to me, as if summoned by a dream:

Can I pee in private, please?

anyway, i would love it if you folks would try your hand at this fun exercise in the comments section. i shouldn’t be the one having all the fun.

fragile

Posted on May 15, 2008August 1, 2013 by wrekehavoc

the thing about modern medicine is that we, modern citizens in the modern world, assume it cures and completes everything. you take a pill; a malady ceases. you inhale a puffer of medicine; you breathe again. it’s simple and it seems to work most of the time.

yet BC continues to struggle with her coughs. the child is on symbacort, nasonex, amoxicillin (20 days, thanks very much), prevacid, and zantac. (she’s also supposed to be on zyrtec, but it doesn’t seem to do anything for her, so we’ve taken that one out of the lineup.) the cough has improved a bit, but her stomach aches, in spite of the yogurt i attempt to put down her gullet to counteract the antibiotic destruction of good bacteria. she isn’t sleeping well. and she’s a bit miserable at night. in fact, last night, she wailed: i wish i wasn’t on all this medicine. i was happier when i was coughing all the time!

there are those times when you wonder whether you’re doing the right thing.

it doesn’t help that i’m only finally coming out of a tough IVIG experience. understand, i ADORE/ LOVE/ WORSHIP the nurses who take great care of me. but accidents happen. i go through three bottles of Gammagard, and i sit for about 4-5 hours because it needs to drip slowly or else i get ill. unfortunately for me, the second bottle dripped so quickly, it finished it in record time. the clue, of course, was that for me, finishing two bottles in two hours is unheard-of. i stood up to let the nurse know i was ready for bottle #3.

and it all started when i sat down. my body felt fluttery and weak. my head started to ache. my stomach felt nauseous. (note that i do not barf. i am only nauseous when i am seriously ill or when i’m pregnant. i knew it wasn’t the latter.) in short, i was having a reaction to the IVIG.

see, i’m allergic to IVIG. i need it every four weeks, so i get it, but not without premedication. when i had it for the first time in the hospital two years ago, the nurse ignored my brother-the-doctor’s suggestion that she premedicate me with benadryl prior to giving me IVIG since i have such a history of allergies to so many things. it’s not written on your chart, she muttered without interest. let’s give it a try without.

within 20 minutes, my entire body was shaking violently. it was after midnight (why do they always try things in the dead of night when no one is around?), and i struggled to actually push the help button. when the nurse finally arrived, she looked at me deadpan as i was shaking uncontrollably and having what i can only guess what some sort of a seizure and said, gee, i guess you do need some benadryl.

(there are times when i wonder whether i would have been prosecuted for kicking her once my body settled down.)

once the benadryl was added to my IV, it was as if i achieved nirvana in 30 seconds. peace reigneth. probably the first time in my life i understood why some people inject themselves with drugs. there’s no wait. instant karma.

[kids: i am not endorsing injecting yourselves with anything. do not try that at home or anywhere else.]

i always have a reaction to IVIG. at first, even premedicated, i ran a temperature, had terrible chills, and was exhausted. i’ve moved on to the place where i usually just come home and go to bed and wake up fine. but for some reason, the headache i developed from the latest reaction, along with the exhaustion, followed me for days. i can’t imagine it was the IVIG the entire time; i suspect it triggered something that just went from there.

but we never went camping. i had an awful mother’s day. and i didn’t really start feeling well until yesterday.

i guess i better remember that neither my kid nor i is invincible.

the inner light

Posted on May 13, 2008 by wrekehavoc

there’s a strange yoga/martial arts session taking place in my house as i type. BC is teaching jools to stand with his hands together (though when i looked at him and said namaste, master BC told master jools not to say that.)

BC, fed up with jools’ (typical for a nearly-five year old boy’s) behavior, has decided to create a reward system. (never mind any of the disciplinary systems i’ve set up over the past two or three years.) SHE gets to decide whether he’s behaving. SHE gets to make the rules of this little world, including warnings and stickers. for my part, apparently, i get to contribute $1 to a fund for a reward for the dude if he does what he’s told. by HER.

oh dear.

i understand her frustration. raising a boy is infinitely different from raising a girl. where BC was an amazing listener and a child who behaved in a seemingly perfect way from a very young age, jools is an active little dude who doesn’t have a ton of patience for sitting and listening to anyone for a long period of time. he’s quick to whack her, punch to her judy, and make things physical fast.

but he’s also infinitely easier in other ways. the boy laughs when he gets shots, unlike the girl who needs to be physically restrained when anything needs to pierce her skin. the boy is incredibly merry and light hearted, unlike my tween girl, who is perched, cautiously looking over into the hormonal abyss.

she can’t grasp that he’s different from her. and i bet she’ll be a mystery to him as soon as he becomes more aware of her. but i’ve got both of their numbers. still, i let them explore each other’s personalities, their inner light. in between the never-ending fights, they have these crazy moments where they start to meet each other as people. its delightful as long as it lasts.

so i’ll let girlfriend set up this new “disciplinary” system, peaceable as she wants to make it. he seems willing at first blush, to submit, if only because he loves the time he has his sister’s undivided attention. forgive me if i’m a skeptic. it’s not like i haven’t tried this before. but as long as no yogis are harmed in the process, i’m cool.

they’ve laid out my exercise mat and she is instructing him to do some move that involves a soccer ball but which looks like some funky calisthenics. it won’t last. after all, he’s looking longingly at his bright green Star Wars light saber.

this is a stretch, but i’m guessing that darth vader probably doesn’t have a mantra.

remedy

Posted on May 8, 2008 by wrekehavoc

our house is stress central.

one child had to get two immunizations yesterday. a child who has a limited pain threshold. i won’t mention names, but it’s a girl child. a girl child who was star of the week one minute but then not necessarily star of the pediatrician’s office the next. her hand started hurting her, along with the shot sites. tylenol was not helping. my brother-the-doctor indicated that perhaps a nerve was hit, but not a biggie. still, not a pretty afternoon.

one spouse had to work. he had to work a lot. he had to work a lot again. he called at 4:45 pm to share that we needed to go downtown to pick up one other child at school. school ends at 6 p.m. this is the height of DC rush hour, coming AND going. am i happy yet?

no. not hardly.

downtown we drove in a rush, the unhappy and now-in-pain immunized person and i. we made it in record time. my parking pass was confiscated, as i need a new 2008 one. it is now may. but nice security people let me park anyway, as the worst security threat we pose is one girl reenacting the exorcist. (i’ll let you wonder which one. the answer is not as simple as it might seem.)

we make it to one hellboy’s school. a hellboy who apparently as of late has made a career of knocking around some of the toddlers in the morning. (just cause.) someone is acting out. someone who might be a pissed-off palooka. but knocking babies around like inflatable punching bags is unacceptable behavior around here.

fortunately, today was not a punching-other-children sort of day. it was merely a spending-time-holding-hands-with-my-main-girlfriend sort of day. yes. the boy is in love. and he’s in love with a girl named condoleezza.

not this one (though i suspect she may be named for her. but i don’t know for certain.) ah. only in DC.

but he listened. and he behaved.

am i happy yet?

not quite. but a little better.

we three rush home, rushing in a rush hour way. which means not exactly speeding down constitution avenue. it doesn’t help that the woman driving in front of me is driving like hunter s. thompson is her co-pilot. wouldn’t it be funny if we got home and daddy’s car was in the driveway? BC joked.

don’t push me, little girl.

of course, BS wasn’t home when we got home. and i had not even cooked dinner. when it’s after 6 and dinner isn’t even started, and people are climbing the walls in search of something edible, it is time to visit mr. freezer to see what magic he holds. lucky for me, there was a wegmans veggie lasagna languishing, ever since i bought it and BS said: ew. no one is going to eat THAT. tough times call for tough measures. (and i say that in this house, if you’re not home, you don’t get to pick dinner.) that sucker was going in the microwave.

miraculously, the kids loved it. we’re talking BC, aka miss picky-picky of the western world, asked for seconds. the only criticism i got about it was that there were carrots in it, according to jools. (i don’t have the heart to tell them that there was also spinach and mushrooms. jools loves them, but BC hates both of those.)

am i happy yet? getting closer.

i get kids bathed; i read some chapters of some inscrutable Bionicle book we found at the elementary school fair last weekend. i medicate a certain older child with the zillion different things she requires thanks to her magical lungs… and immunizations. in case i have forgotten, she is IN PAIN. she CAN’T MOVE HER ARMS.

do all moms have days like this?

i start hellboy into bed. it’s 8:00. BS comes home.

DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, so much for that mission accomplished. at this point, BS is speaking in monosyllabic grunts. he has had a long day. he has had a long, not-so-good day. he has had a long, not-so-good, and apparently hungry day. did you eat yet? i believe he grunted in the negative. enjoy the lasagna!

i get the boy into bed. i get the girl into bed. she’s in pain, so i get her something from the freezer to help at least one of her arms. in vain, of course.

BS says goodnight to the girl. BS says goodnight to the boy. after a few minutes of decomposing, as we call it in this house, BS announces he’s going to bed.

fabulous.

meanwhile, there’s one little girl who can’t sleep. in the morning, she’ll let me know that she was UP. ALL. NIGHT. but i waited, and i waited until she fell asleep before i went up to bed. so i know she was at least asleep for 30 seconds of the night.

on the bright side, little man went to sleep like a champ.

lately, i am so exhausted. i feel completely wrung out. tomorrow, i go for some more IVIG, and hopefully that will help me keep from getting sick. see, when i get wrung out, i get sick. no one around here gets that. moms are supposed to just keep going and going and going. but i have to just stop sometimes. if i don’t stop some times, i will stop. for good.

fortunately, this morning, i awoke and thought about a little boy in this house who likes to sing a certain song. how BS found out about this group, i don’t know. but jools is completely hooked on the hook of this song, called Nth Degree.

i found it on youtube. and everyone gathered around. even BS.

and suddenly, there was the remedy. it was just a few minutes, but we actually were all smiling. we were all happy.

even me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vhMhm9euT8&hl=en

and that dang bird is still trying to get into our house.

baby i'm a star

Posted on May 7, 2008 by wrekehavoc

this week, miss thang is the classroom star of the week.

the kids listened with rapt attention about how girlfriend has been in the washington post (twice!), likes to play softball, has an annoying little brother (who, contrary to what one child thought, is not wearing a skirt in the picture on the board), has pet a snake at busch gardens (in tampa, not williamsburg), has walked the plank on a pirate ship off grand cayman (where’s the plank? the boys wanted to know), has a bunny named ba-ba (because that’s how she pronounced it back then, even though he’s really Pat The Bunny), has a poem that took second prize at the county fair, and knows that there’s a place called hell. in grand cayman.

(her teacher promised to direct all parent inquiries about BC’s use of a bad word to me.)

she also showed a picture of herself at club med in florida. and, of course, we showed the video of her dancing with X. the resident beatles fan in the class came up to me afterwards. that’s hard rock! he annouced authoritatively.

and of course, i am a music snob to the end, even with a nine year old. no, sweetie, it’s punk. hard rock leans more toward metal.

he looked at me slightly puzzled. i know what he was thinking: uh, yeah BC’s mom. whatever.

anyway, madam did a great job answering questions and taking comments. of course, every day, she’s a star around here. along with hellboy, of course.

not a bad life, eh?

chocolate cake

Posted on May 2, 2008 by wrekehavoc

mamabird has inspired me to share a cake picture, just as she did earlier this week.

there’s a cake baking contest at BC’s school, part of the elementary school fair cakewalk program. the kids play a sort of musical chairs, and the winner of each round gets to pick a cake from the voluminous bunch of cakes. there’s also an award for best cake in each grade.

BC and i were looking through our latest Family Fun magazine and were inspired by a little food craft. we decided to make it into a cake.

presenting: our sushi cake!

pity someone probably won’t appreciate it. but it sure was fun to make!

and today, we’ll be making another cake, as the class with the most cakes contributed wins an ice cream party.

can you say: sugar, sugar, SUGAR!

my girl

Posted on April 30, 2008 by wrekehavoc

of course, resolution is necessary after a post like that, is it not?

i picked someone up from school today. who? oh, i dunno. some blustery nine year old girl. and before i could open my mouth, the apologies spilled out, along with a little bouquet of buttercups she had collected and taped together. for me.

mom, i’m so very, very sorry. i cried as i tried to walk the second mile because you weren’t there. i was the only one who didn’t finish three miles.

of course, the human is not easily separated from the mother. the human was furious at being treated like crap. the mother was feeling terrible because she made her girl cry, and she never, ever likes to do that. but she is the mother, not the friend. and she has to buck up at times, as it is her job to teach.

i took a deep breath. and i put my arm around her.

i’m sorry you were upset. i was upset, too. you really hurt my feelings when you dismissed me.

those big eyes, the same ones her dad has, glanced upward at me, slowly and sadly. mama, you misunderstood. i thought you wouldn’t want to do the stretches, so i was telling you to go away over to the other side so you wouldn’t have to do stretches.

another deep breath. pull the other one, little girl. i need to stretch just as much as anyone else, honey. you know, BC, i hate running. i came here because you asked me. and then, when you told me to stand on the other side, i was very angry. i don’t need to do these things; i do them because you ask me to. if you don’t want me there, don’t ask me. i have plenty of other things to do.

girlfriend is not a teary-deary like her mom. it was her turn to take a breath. i know, i know. i’m really, really sorry.

okay honey. i was about to tear up. that’s my job. i love you, even when i’m upset with you or mad at you. you’re my girl, and i love you no matter what.

we smiled at each other. and we proceeded on with the rest of our afternoon. we were together, and we were happy. i was happy. i needed to be happy, and sometimes, the way into unhappiness for me is also my way out: my children.

sometimes, i like to milk an apology for all it’s worth by adding something random for which my child ought to be thankful. is it a jewish mother thing? no. a me thing? probably. i’m so evil.

so tonight was no different. i pulled up youtube, as madame was in a dancing mood and we love to dance around here.

i pulled up some pink floyd. a n c i e n t pink floyd. the floyd BS doesn’t like, thanks to the inclusion of one syd barrett, a guy i adore not just because he would probably be secret boyfriend material for me (if he were: 1) about 40 years younger; 2) not mentally fried; and 3) not dead) because he truly is one crazy diamond. and i started in.

now see, if you didn’t already have a cousin named emily, you might have been named emily, all because of this song.

BC pricked up her ears and listened to the weird psychedelia. EWWWWW! she squealed. did she hate it? were the roaming piano lines, the groovy organ runs, the sudden percussive loudness too much for her? was i going to squeeze out another you’re the best mom in the world; thank you for not naming me after a crazy, drugged-out syd barrett song?

nope. girlfriend proceeded to do a floaty, 1960s swim move. and she beamed her thousand watt smile my way.

that’s my girl.

about last night

Posted on April 30, 2008 by wrekehavoc

about last night: i wrote an absolutely out-and-out scathing post, a post about how angry i am. it was so screamingly angry that i deleted it.

days upon days upon days of little sleep are adding up to one major wiped-out woman on the verge of something. i couldn’t even sleep last night, even though the kids were in bed. i am just so wound up. so many people in this house are not sleeping for one reason or another. and when you’re the mom, you end up being the catcher of all this sleep deprivation, by default. even the best dads might sleep through things, but moms never do, unless they have been drugged or killed.

so there i was on the computer, and i was bombarded with messages about mother’s day: buy mom flowers. send mom a card. get mom jewelry. take mom out for a nice meal. now, i have no quarrel with getting my mother or my mother in law some token of appreciation for the day, and i certainly appreciate the cards and sometimes unidentifiable objets d’arte that my children make for me.

but there are times like today, yesterday, the day before, all last week… times when i just feel like everyone is sucking the lifeblood out of me. i work for my family. i work for the house. i work for the fucking WORLD. 24/7, whether it’s doing the dishes, or dealing with illness, or handling my exploding home, or helping my kids navigate through some crisis or another. i don’t get paid for it. i don’t get thanked for it. i sometimes don’t even think people realize what i do. but it’s all down to me. i am in charge of directing my family’s life.

and no one works for me.

in short, i don’t want mother’s day. i don’t need jewelry. i don’t need to go to the International Fucking House Of Putrid Food. and i don’t want any flowers.

what i want is mother’s life.

i don’t want to be appreciated on one day. i want to be appreciated every single day. i want people to notice that i never get a day off, much less a weekend. and i’m glad to do it, even though it wasn’t necessarily my first career choice. i am grateful i get to do it, too, all right? but i wonder sometimes whether it was the right choice for me.

the other day, we were talking about clothing, and BC said oh mama, you don’t need to ever wear suits. you are just not the suit kind. this child has no recollection of a time when i worked outside the home and wore something beyond sweats or jeans. this child thinks i live and breathe for her. and, through the choices i have made, helped along by my health predicament, i guess i do. or have done.and of course, i will continue to do so.

but i often wonder what sort of example i am setting for her. yes, dear: study hard, get a masters degree, and you, too, can become the floor upon which your family walks.

and of course, if i complain, i am ungrateful. ungrateful that there is a roof over my head, food on my table, and IVIG in my veins. what a shallow bitch, one might say. do you know that Susie or Sally have it SO. MUCH. WORSE. THAN. YOU. (yes. i know. thanks.)

but is self-preservation an unworthy goal?

i have just come from BC’s school. their big 5k training run is this morning; and while BS is running with BC on race day, BC asked me if i would run with her this morning. parents are not required this morning, but she wanted me to run with her. let me point out for the record: i hate running. but, i got suited up, rushed my kishkes around, and drove her there at 7:50 in the ayem. we get there — there must be about 50 girls there plus some parents. and there’s a huge circle being formed. girlfriend runs over to one of her friends as they make the circle. i walk over to stand beside her. no, mom, she says. you stand over there, and she points to siberia on the other side of this tremendous circle. no other moms or dads are being banished. they are all standing next to their respective daughters.something inside me just snapped.

nope, i replied. i’ll see you later then. good bye! and i walked away. and i left.

so yes, add that to the collection of why i am a bad mother.i’m not going to be treated like shit by any nine year old. i am not going to be treated like shit by any 40-something year olds, either. in short, i am no longer taking shit from anyone out there, related or not.

i am tired, tired and extremely angry. and appreciating me one day in may, a day where i will have woken up all cranky and cold because i will have slept overnight in a cabin devoid of electricity and indoor plumbing, courtesy of my little Girl Scout, will probably be too little too late. i appreciate every single person around me; at least, i appreciate the ones i’m related to — and certainly quite a few to whom i am not.
appreciate me now.