I didn't think I was going to have to revisit this topic, because I thought I had made myself perfectly clear the first time about how I felt regarding these certain moms. I have even mentioned them subsequently throughout a few other topics along the way, to pay tribute to their stupidity, but I have had a few choice encounters over the last few weeks that have really tweaked my hot button, so I felt the need to say something. Let's learn our lesson this time, shall we, so we can all move on and work on being loving examples of great parents to our little ones, so they can grown up to be all they are meant to be and more.
We'll start with the most heinous story first. I was running a little (ok, a lot) late dropping The Noise off to school a few weeks ago, and when you're late, they won't even let you go to the normal car line, you have to go to the other side of the school. To the office. Boo...Bad girl. I mean we were only like, one minute late, maybe ten, but who's counting. Anyway, the parking on that side is really narrow, and is flanked on one side by diagonal parking spaces which butt up to the passenger side of the cars that are pulled up dropping kids off. Let's just say whoever's idea it was to make this a drop off zone needs to not reproduce, or work with children, ever. So she's was getting out of the car, on the passenger side, she kissed Little, then opened the front passenger door to lean in and kiss me (awwww). As she leaned in, a car in one of the parking spots started to back out. In true idiotic form, and since she was driving a Mercedes, God forbid she looked behind her. She backed into my daughter! Granted, she wasn't going fast enough to actually hurt her, but she bumped her with the back of her car. It was church day, and if The Noise had been any later, she would have been in trouble with the priest (even worse than just being regular late), so I laughed it off with her and sent her on her way. At this point, you would think this mom would have jumped out of her car, come running over to my car, "I'm sorry" flying, and made sure everything was ok. Nope. She just sat there for a minute, looked back at me through her rearview, waved her hand and said "SORRY!" and then drove off. I know she knew she hit my kid, because I saw her face when she bumped her, then she of course had to pull her car forward to un-pin The Noise from between my car and her car. Had she not driven off as quickly as she did, and had I not been in utter shock for the moments that I was, I believe I may have gone to jail, had to find another school for my child, and may have had to move to a new city all in the same day. I had to sit in the parking lot for about 20 minutes after she drove off just to regain my composure before I came unglued. She better be glad I haven't seen her in the car line since, or we would have exchanged some serious words.
I then encountered my arch-nemesis driver yesterday morning, and I have been fuming over it ever since. This time it happened in person. She's the one with the zebra hair and ridiculous makeup who thinks she is so much better than everyone else, and the one who walks up in front of all the other moms to get her kid from the car line. Just to give you a little background, she is a stay at home wife of a very well off husband. I think he's very nice. I've only met him a few times, but he seems quite personable. She, on the other hand, is just a pretentious snob and seems to think there's something about her that's more special than the rest of us average moms who can only afford to buy our kid's clothes at Target and get our hair cut at Supercuts. They have a few kids, but their one daughter is in The Noise's class. She's a snob too. Truly like mother like daughter. It's sad really.
Here's where the situation got ugly. My blood's gonna boil just thinking about it. My daughter goes to Catholic school, duh. And as if the tuition, fees, cost of books, uniforms, field trips, supplies, events, parties, yearbook and other miscellaneous "things" wasn't enough, each family is also required to do service hours each year. A total of 22 hours is required and if you don't complete them, you have to pay $25 per hour for what you don't finish at the end of the year. Yeah. So, I of course, was waiting patiently for Ms. Fancy Pants to hurry up and be done with whatever meaningless task she was there for, so I could speak to the secretary about any outstanding school balances I had, when I happen to overhear (ok, I was totally eavesdropping) the reason why she was there. She was trying to weasel her way out of her service hours!! Not only that, but when they told her she couldn't get out of the hours, she was trying to bribe her way out of having to PAY for them!! So let me get this straight, you think you're too special to do the service work for your kid's school, because why? You don't have a job, so you can't possibly be busy doing something else. I have a baby that I stay home with and I've found a way to complete hours. Then, when they told you that you couldn't weasel your way out of the hours, you wanted to bribe them (by telling them you were going to have a party at your house!! Oh I so wish I could just give you her name and blast her all over the internet, but I'm not that mean) so they wouldn't make you pay for them, even though we all know you have the money to pay it?! I can't believe what I had just witnessed taking place.
Someone else came in the office at that time and was gooing and gahing over Little in his stroller, so I got sidetracked from the trainwreck I had been watching, but I'm pretty sure they still made her pay, because I saw her hand the secretary a check out of the corner of my eye. I felt a sense of relief that she was at least held to one of the same standards as I was, even if she was allowed to snatch her bratty kid from the carline before mine, or cut me off without the courtesy of a wave or a thank you. I'm still pretty sure I saw her give me the once over again as she passed me to walk out of the office, and she didn't even stop to tell me how adorable Little is, which, if you can pass him up without stopping, you must be heartless, but I already knew that.
So, as I surmised in my original post, it seems to me that these moms are really more consumed in themselves and their appearances than in the world of actually being a mom. Is my appearance sometimes a bit (or a lot) disheveled? Yes. Could my house use a maid service? Yes. Am I scattered and late and usually halfway lost or less than prepared for whatever it was I forgot I was supposed to be doing? Absolutely. Do I give 110% of myself to being a mom and a wife? Yes. Maybe that's why I don't have much left over for my dishes, or my makeup or my pedicure. Or maybe that's why I forgot to take a shower yesterday or run that errand I said I was going to run three days ago. I try my very best to do my very best at what I do, but this is my very first time being a full time mom and wife. I've only been doing it for seven months and there's a pretty steep learning curve. The difference between me and all those mini-van driving, kid bumping, too good to contribute my time, secretary bribing, Barbie doll wanna be, Fancy Pants moms is that even though I might not have all my crap together all the time, at least my heart's in the right place.
The gravity of this post may be too much for some to read, and I will tell you in advance it may even be one that offends some too. It's not meant to. But it might.
I was mid post on another topic, a funny one actually, when something terrible happened to The Noise. Her world was shaken by the all too familiar painful stab of heartbreak she has come to expect from "X". And on her birthday to make matters worse. We spent the entire weekend trying to put her back together, and mend her broken heart, but there's only so much you can do when a little girl's Superman turns out to be her Lex Luther time and time again. Only she can be the one to make that distinction, and all you can do is sit back and watch, praying like hell he doesn't hurt her bad enough, but that he hurts her enough for her to finally see what a bad guy he is, all without her thinking that you are the one to blame for all this to begin with, because if you had stayed, everything would have been normal and fine and butterflies and rainbows. It must all ultimately be your fault. Yes, it is.
Divorce is a funny thing for kids to understand. They will never figure it out. It doesn't matter how old they are when their parents split up, so trying to justify in your mind that doing it when they're an infant or waiting till they're grown will somehow be better than doing it when they're smack dab in the middle of being a kid is pointless. It's all the same: confusing. A child will always wonder why their parents are choosing to divorce. They will search for answers until the end of time. And even if you give them an answer, that answer won't be good enough. They'll think there's still some other reason that you're not telling them, so they'll keep looking. Or at least thinking. Why? If you've been married for one year, "why couldn't they keep trying, why did they give up"? If you've been married for 30 years, "why did they waste all this time together if they knew they weren't happy, why didn't they just let each other go a long time ago"? Endless wondering.
Deep down inside, especially when they are young, they will always want you to get back together. It would make their life so much easier and less painful. How would you like to spend the first 18 years of your life being torn back and forth from your family every other week, flip-flopping holidays and birthdays, missing out on vacations, special events and parties because it wasn't "your weekend"? Things would be a lot better for everyone if you would just get back together is what they think. Now, granted, they aren't aware of all the reasons you got divorced to begin with, which I'm sure are dynamite, but all they know is that what is happening now sucks for them. When their hopes of you getting back together dwindle away, even despite their best efforts following all the steps they saw in that box office hit Disney movie depicting the kids who get their divorced parents back together, they are just left angry and bitter, and you become the target of their resentment for the second time around after the initial divorce related anger you just finished getting them through counseling for.
No matter how old they are, or how young they are, if they live at home or not, they will always look at themselves as a possible suspect in the motive for this demise. "If I am a product of this union, and this union was such a disaster not worth saving, something about me must also be a disaster and could be partially responsible for this mess". A thousand "it's not your fault"s will make you feel better, but the writing's on the wall. How can you look at your child's mother or father with such hatred, but then look at your child and tell them there's nothing about them that would be cause for concern relating to the demise of this marriage? For example, The Noise looks just like "X". I mean, they are identical twins. She acts like him sometimes too, especially when she wants to piss me off. Is it my daughter's fault that her dad and I are divorced? No. Do I sometimes have to take a breather and walk into the other room when she's acting up, because she is that much like him that it is too real for me to deal with in an appropriate manner? Yes. That's just me being honest. She will always have to deal with that. Being treated just a little different than Little and any other kids because I know I can't reprimand her the same way as I do them. She just reminds me of "X" too much sometimes. These children will always know there is in fact something about them, by nature of the fact that they are products of what broke, that is broken themselves.
Children who come from divorced parents will always have hearts torn in two. They will always have split allegiances. They feel it's not ok to love mommy and daddy because mommy and daddy don't love each other. They just don't understand, because mommy doesn't foster a healthy love for daddy and daddy doesn't foster a healthy love for mommy in their respective homes. More than likely the other parent is berated, belittled and talked about like a piece of garbage. The child is made to feel like loving their other parent is wrong and shameful. Even if not on that severe a level, true love of the other parent is never allowed in one parent's house. Their heart remains torn because it just can't be whole in either place. That would mean that it would be ok for it to love both parents at the same time, with the love for each swirling around inside together, but that is impossible under the conditions in which it's been placed. They will always have an empty space in their heart, on the side where the other parent's love goes when they're away from them, because there's nothing else in there to fill it up. In many cases, by the time they're teenagers or young adults, their hearts are so full of holes and empty spaces, they are willing to fill them with anything to make the pain go away.
And where do the step parents fit in? When your real parents are divorced and you have step parents, who are you supposed to really love? Is it ok to love your steps? Are you allowed to call them mom and dad? Is it acceptable to give them hugs and kisses and let them tuck you in at night just like you would your real parents? When do you let your guard down? Do you ever? Children with step parents have the hardest time trying to understand where they fit into this new dynamic. Not only are they dealing with all of the above, but now they have a new person in the mix that is pulling at mommy and/or daddy. They are scared this person is taking their parent away. They may lash out or shut down. They won't know how to act around this person or their new extended family. Things are going to be really weird, probably for a really long time. It could take years to build a bond with a step parent, and it could take only a moment to tear it apart. One little thing could cause that bond to come crashing down. The child will be in a constant state of waiting for the other shoe to drop with this step parent, so they will be much more likely to suffer the backlash of emotions than the parent themselves. The step parent will be pitted against the parent and the child will play mind games to try and see where everyone's allegiances lie within their homes. They will test limits and boundaries and patience. Being a step parent will be the hardest role to play in a child of divorced parents' life.
These children look through eyes the rest of the world doesn't understand. When they grow up with parents who've already disappointed them and stolen their trust, which I hate to be so blunt but to a child that's what divorce is, there isn't a far way to fall from there. I remember being a child, after my own parents had divorced, and looking at every adult with such disdain and distrust. I no longer had respect for any of them, including the ones I had never met. Once they've had their childlike sense of trustworthiness taken away, they're now of the mindset that all adults need to earn their trust and respect, instead of the idea that it is freely given until proven otherwise. They see the world now through the eyes of a child who's been hurt, which is not like the eyes of an adult who's been hurt. An adult who's been hurt can feel the pain, but has the experience of life and the knowledge of what they've learned along the way to carry them through. They have understanding and foresight. They have reasoning and logic. For an adult, even though they've been betrayed, they are able to reason that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that things will get better. Someday. For a child who's been hurt so deeply, especially by a loved one such as a parent, without the knowledge, experience and reasoning skills of an adult, the sense of loss and complete despair is overwhelming and unbearable. A child who has no hope of a positive ending or an optimistic future, because they don't have the reasoning skills to take them through that thought process, looks at the world through eyes that only see the color grey. Their mind stays clouded and they see people as only out for themselves. Their self esteem takes a nose dive because the view of their reflection is so distorted. They either withdraw inside themselves or become overly gregarious to distract from their lack of confidence in their own abilities. Sadly, we will never be able to fully see what their world looks like, because we are adults.
In my personal situation, The Noise will never think that "X" is at fault in any way. With all that he has done, and I could write an entire novel on just that alone, she will never think that it was by any intentional fault of his own. To her, he can do no wrong. When she comes home crying every single time he drops her off, and she tells me all of the awful things that have happened, and I try to help her understand that he needs to take responsibility for his actions. Somewhere along the way in the conversation, she's given a well rehearsed reason for his despicable behavior and I have become the villain in the story for even attempting to discredit his heinous and ridiculous excuses. I manage to always become the bad guy. I live in a constant state of "mommy, he didn't mean to...so you shouldn't...and why are you so mean". I do my best to keep my composure and maintain my internal peace, but all I really want to do is scream. The momma bear instinct in me wants to do so many things that the rational human woman won't let me do. I only hope that one day she'll be able to fully see who her Superman is, who her Lex Luther is and who's been standing right next to her this whole time.
Honesty: n.
1) the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness. 2) truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness. 3) freedom from deceit or fraud.
I wasn't born with this foundation. In fact, I believe I was born the exact opposite. I lied my way through most of my childhood. Or at least I thought I did, but found out later that I was such a bad liar no one ever actually believed the crap I was making up. Some of my fondest childhood memories, actually some of the ones I've held onto for use on my children, are of me trying to lie my way out of something and getting caught, miserably crying and admitting my fault, only to then suffer a much worse fate than I would have had I only told the truth. I just never learned. As an adult, I never really understood the value of honesty until it was completely stripped away from everything I knew. When you encounter someone who is so totally the opposite of honest, you finally realize the full scope of the word and all it actually encompasses. One single moment defined my view on honesty forever. I vowed that day to forge ahead and live the rest of my life, however long I was given on this planet, with honesty and integrity at my core. I feel those two go hand in hand, but today, we're just focused on honesty.
Who cares about honesty, right? Why does it matter if I don't tell the truth? If I had never had that defining moment, wouldn't I have gotten along just fine in life like everyone else who didn't have the pleasure of encountering such scum-baggery to open their eyes? Absolutely, I would have. I would have been just fine not returning the extra change the cashier accidentally gave me when I went to get groceries, or not telling Hubs that I was talking to an ex-boyfriend on Facebook. I would have been able to sleep just fine at night knowing I hadn't put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, or that I hadn't paid for the sandwich I told the cafeteria cashier I would go back and pay for today. If I hadn't had that epiphany of a moment, I would be walking around with an everlasting chip on my shoulder, sure that the world owes me something, therefore it's perfectly acceptable for me to lie my way through the tragedy of it all, in order to somehow rectify that chip.
Being an honest person and living a life of honesty is hard work. There's no gold star or trophy at the end, and there's no crowd cheering you on, like the crowd who'll cheer you on when you're trying to think of the perfect lie to tell your mom when you want to stay out past curfew. Waking up each day and making the decision to fill your day with everything opposing what is false takes almost every ounce of effort in your soul. It takes confidence, courage and self respect. Not many people will say, "hey great job for not giving in and taking the easy way out today", and because of that, living a life of honesty goes against the majority. It means you get laughed at. Your friends will wonder why in the world you would ever choose to miss out on the party of the century, because you're not 21 yet, and you'd need a fake ID. It's hard work to tell your spouse everything, especially if it's something you've never told anyone else, or it's something that you're ashamed of. And being honest with yourself may be the biggest challenge of them all. No one likes to look themselves in the mirror and admit who they really are. We are our own worst enemies, and when we are honest with ourselves there's no turning back.
The realization of the true meaning of honesty is the moment when that chip on your shoulder falls off, and you see that the world owes you nothing. You are just as much a part of the world as you are a part of everyone else in it. You owe everyone else just as much as they owe you. You hand the change back to the cashier because you already know that later that day, when her manager comes to reconcile her drawer and notices the shortage, she'll be let go since this is her third offense. See, she's got a learning disability that's gone undetected for all these years, lost in the public school system, and she gets so flustered and confused when there's a long line at the register and someone is trying to use too many coupons. Maybe, since you don't have that chip on your shoulder now, you notice her struggle and hand her a card for the local mentoring program you're a part of when you hand her that change back.
After my soul searching quest, my walk down memory lane and my interesting comparison of myself to a house, I realized many things about who I am and who I am not. Most certainly I can tell you, I am proudest of the honest life I live. I can look myself in the mirror any day of the week and tell myself who I am. I don't have any trophies or gold stars, I get laughed at sometimes and I definitely feel vulnerable on my off days, but I feel a thousand pounds lighter since I got rid of that chip on my shoulder. My challenge, for the two cents it's worth, is for you to get rid of yours. I challenge you to go to sleep tonight, and wake up tomorrow with a new conviction toward living a life of reckless honesty. Honesty that is unstoppable, unwavering, and steadfast. You'll be amazed at what will happen when you let go completely of who you thought you were, who you were trying to be for someone else, or who you knew you shouldn't have been in the first place. Be the you that is stripped down to the frame, after all the nonsense is thrown in the trash with the ugly jeans, and before all the walls were put up. Just be you.
Motherhood - Oh yeah, this is another future multi-parter I'm sure:
If you have kids, you may read this and think, "that Adrian, she's right on the money" OR "Adrian's kids are crazy chimpanzees that should be locked up immediately, and we are never asking her to babysit"! If you don't have children, you may read this and wonder why on earth anyone ever decides to have children in the first place, and how they are all even still alive. You will however, finally understand why animals in the wild sometimes eat their young.
I have compiled a little top ten list of the craziest things I have experienced so far about being a mom. I call them "The Joys of Motherhood" because, well, if I called them "The Things About Motherhood That Made Me Want to Eat My Young", you probably wouldn't have wanted to read my blog...you would have turned me into the authorities.
10) Your kids only get stranger as they get older.
When The Noise was little, she was so cute and cuddly. I thought she was the sweetest baby around. As she started to grow up though, I started to notice her doing the strangest things. She sticks her finger in her nose when she gets nervous, she sings at the dinner table in an awful high pitched squeal, she refuses to match her pajama pants with her tops in the most ridiculous way, she plays with her toes while she eats, and the other day I caught her blowing her nose...with no tissue. Some days I look at her and I wonder if she really is my child. I have no idea how she got to be so strange. I tell her she better quit it or no boy will ever want to marry her, and I sure won't support her old, single behind in my house past 25 at the oldest! She better get that butt to etiquette class on the double!
9) "Why" turns into "why not" in the blink of an eye.
When they are small, kids ask "why" about everything. Why is the sky blue, the grass green, the air clear? Why do grown ups have to work? Why can't you just go get money from the bank when you say you don't have anymore (because Johnny, that's called robbery)? Why are puppies furry and fish aren't? You know...about everything, they want to know "why"? Once they start to get a little older though, it turns into "why not"? Now it's a challenge. An annoying challenge. Me: "Go clean your room". The Noise: "When I'm done can I eat some ice cream"? (it's 5:30pm on the clock at this exact moment) Me: "No". The Noise: "Why not"?!!! Me: "It's almost time for dinner". The Noise: *long sigh............."FINE". Little brat.
8) One day you wake up and they smell.
Some people like the smell of babies. Little smells ok. If he gets a bath. He doesn't smell as bad as The Noise though. She used to smell pretty good too when she was little. Probably up until she was about seven. Then one day, I woke up and casually smelled her as she walked by, and she reeked!! I mean, I really did throw up a little in my mouth! It was awful! I guess body odor is kinda like a rite of passage. Once they get it, you know they're not a little kid anymore. Then you should invest in a gas mask. And some Teen Spirit.
7) Those things your parents said to you sucked until you just said them to your kids.
The day "because I said so!" comes out of your mouth, you hang your head in shame, look at yourself in the mirror, kiss your identity goodbye, and say hello to your own mother. I finally gave up and now embrace all the wacko things my mom used to say, like "I'm going to record myself telling you to pick up your room and play it for you every day so I don't have to keep wasting my breath" (yeah, cause I'm really gonna follow through on that one), or "if you do that one more time I'm going to come over there and beat you" (just as soon as I'm finished with this load of laundry, the paper I'm working on, my status update on Facebook, the dinner that's on the stove, and getting your brother to stop crying). My all time favorite though is the simple, but all inclusive "because I'm the adult and you're the child" clause. It's really all encompassing, and works for everything. I use that one quite frequently.
6) You were infinitely cooler up until the moment you gave birth.
A funny thing happened after you had kids. All of the sudden you went from being the really cool friend, who everyone invited over on the weekends, or who's house everyone hung out at, to being the one who had to be in bed by 8:30 because your sciatica was flaring up again and you knew you'd be up in a few hours with someone who had to barf for sure. My kids don't think I'm cool either. Any ounce of coolness I thought I had was left in the delivery room 10 years ago. The Noise doesn't like the clothes I pick out for her or the TV I think we should watch. When I try to tell a joke, that is clearly funny, she rolls her eyes and reminds me how not funny I am. This has all just started too, so I know it's only going to get worse, to the point of me wanting to lock her in her room until she is old enough to be uncool herself. I have to admit though, when I look at myself sometimes, walking through Target with my mismatched leggings and t-shirt combo, uncombed ponytail, glasses, and giant over-stuffed diaper bag/purse full of random things, I tend to agree that I have lost a few cool points in recent years.
5) Kid's movies are funny the first time, maybe the fifth time, but not the 4,927 time.
I once took a drive to Connecticut. It took me 26 hours straight, one way. Guess what I listened to the entire way there playing in the portable DVD player? Finding Nemo. Guess what I listened to the entire way home? Shrek. Those two movies are etched in my brain in a way that I can never remove. Kid's movies are made to be appealing to adults so that we'll want to spend our hard earned $50 taking our kids to go see them in the theater. There is humor in them that we find mildly funny. They're witty and easy to watch...the first time. Then they start to grate on your nerves, and after you get to time number twenty on that Saturday afternoon when it's raining outside, you can barely keep yourself from breaking not only the movie, but the movie player and the matching action figures while you're at it. Why must my child ask me to watch Barbie and the Magic of the Rainbow for the umpteenth time today? Doesn't she know mommy has a headache and may just go postal on every Barbie in the whole house, and she'll then find every one of her Barbie's headless when she wakes in the morning?
4) Why does your hearing not work child? Do you wake up every morning and forget everything you knew yesterday? What the hell is wrong with you?
I swear that every day in my house is like a repeat of the day before it. Just now, as I was typing this very line, I was yelling at The Noise to turn her light off in her room. I have to tell her to turn her light off in her room every day, and yet when I just told her, it was as if that was the very first time I had ever asked her and she was appalled that I had just asked her to do such a mundane and useless task. If I say something, like "can you please unload the dishwasher", there's no response until I yell it three more times, which is then followed by "I didn't hear you". Rest assured though, if I say, "do you want to go to the mall?" in the very same (if not quieter) tone, she not only hears me, but is up, dressed and at the door before I can finish the question. Sometimes I just wonder where her brain goes at night. I've given her a printed list of the things I need her to do in the morning, yet somehow, she still manages to forget, thereby causing me to have a coronary by 7:25am every Monday through Friday before it's time to walk out the door for school because she's still shoe-less and smelly! How hard is it? Eat breakfast, get dressed, pack your lunch, brush your teeth, put on your shoes, do your dishes, put on your DEODORANT!!! Where's that tape recorder?
3) The whole world is a stage, and everyone is always watching.
When you're a parent, all of the sudden, everyone is interested in what you're doing when you're wherever you are with your kids. And strangely enough, your kids just love to be at their most heathenish when you're in public. Maybe they have it hardwired in their brains to know that you're slightly less likely to beat them in public than you are at home. The Noise was always notorious for public displays of ungodly behavior when she was little. I fear my son may be headed down that path as well, but he's in for a rude awakening, cause mommy's already played that game once! Now she is into just being a genuine ass in public. She just likes to argue a point to death, with no point other than to argue it in front of everyone with me, hoping I'll go nuts, so she can prove to everyone how nuts I am. Or at least that's what I think her motive is. Her other center stage obsession is to just be obnoxious to the point of making me literally want to murder her to spare myself the embarrassment of her behavior. I get to the point where I have told her to stop so many times that all that is left is "the look", and once I give that, if she doesn't cut it out, it's on. Gloves are off, begin the beat down.
2) The answer to "will it ever get better?" is "NO, it only gets different".
I had someone who has a daughter younger than mine, with a very similar personality to mine, ask me that the other day. "Will it ever get better"? I hate to break the news, but I just have to be honest. It's like holding out hope for crazy Uncle Larry to quit talking to that wall like it's gonna talk back. It's just not in the cards. Crazy kids don't get uncrazy, they just get different crazy. My daughter has always been over the top. She drives me batty. Most days she makes me want to hide in the corner and sing to myself. But I have come to accept the fact that she will always be some different and evolving breed of weird, and I love her through it. I bought a spray bottle and I fill it with ice water, so that now when she just gets to be too much, I spray her with it to bring her back to reality. It's seemed to really be working out well for us.
1) I need God's 1-800 number because there appears to be something wrong with my product, it's OFF button is broken.
Dear God, I'd like a full refund, plus the cost of shipping, due to the fact that I have owned this product for almost 10 years now and its OFF button has never properly worked. I've tried all home remedies, including: spraying it with cold water, shaking it vigorously, bouncing it on the sidewalk, flushing it down the toilet, and rolling it down a hill, but to no avail. It never shuts up. Believe me when I tell you that my daughter never stops talking, singing, humming, clicking, snorting, smacking, popping, chomping, or mumbling...but mostly talking...EVER. Even in her sleep. She is a constant ball of noise (this is why her name is The Noise). I am exhausted every day, just from being her mom. When people ask me what I do all day with her, and I don't have much "real stuff" to say in reply, they wonder how I can be so tired. I think sometimes my brain falls out of my ears and I have to scoop it back up and smoosh it back in, maybe that's why I'm so tired.
So for all you moms out there with kids you think you would have eaten had you been a wild animal, kudos to you for not! Yay!! And for all you non parents out there that don't think I'm a total nut job for not writing an entire blog about how absolutely in love with my darling saintly children I am, kudos to you for that too! Yay!! Don't get me wrong, I do adore my kids. As a mom, it's my inherent duty to love them more than anything else, protect them with my life, and sacrifice anything and everything for their complete and total well being, but that doesn't mean I can't think they're complete bird brains along the way.
When I was a little girl, my dad used to tell me about David and Goliath. He was the little boy who saved his people by defeating the giant when he hit him in the forehead with a rock slung perfectly from his slingshot. I loved that story because I was always the little kid. I wasn't scrawny, but I was always "vertically challenged" my dad would say. I wanted a slingshot like David's. I wanted to save the world with my mad slinging skills. It didn't matter that I had terrible eyesight, couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a watermelon if I tried, and couldn't throw farther than three feet in front of wherever I was standing. I had always dreamed of one day being the little girl who did big things, just because no one thought I could.
I look around and see so many Davids in my every day life. I wish I could show them how capable they are of knocking their Goliath to the ground if they would just get the courage to do so. The other day, at my daughter's school (the one with all the moms who think they are just so much better than I am because they drive fancy cars and don't have to work because their husbands make enough money for them to buy whatever they want, whenever they want) I witnessed a mom walk through the line of other moms who were waiting patiently to pick up their children, grab her daughter, and exit the line. No one said a word to her, and not one teacher or faculty member stood up for all the moms who had been standing in the heat for 20 minutes waiting for their kids, while this..."you can imagine what I WANT to call her"...just waltzed up ahead of everyone and got her little snobby ass brat kid (who, by the way is also a total Goliath herself, especially to my daughter) because God forbid she stand in the heat and melt her face full of $800 Neiman Marcus makeup or fade her zebra striped dye job (that looks ridiculous by the way). They don't say anything because this family donates a lot of money to the school. So that entitles her to do whatever she wants and step all over the hard working families that do the best they can and just pay tuition and fees, and pay for uniforms, and books, and field trips, and parties, and every other unforeseen, over the top expense involved in sending your kid to private school? I was waiting in the car line, witnessing all of this take place, and believe me when I tell you, if I would have had a rock (or even a slightly round object) and a rubber band, she would have gone down...down to China town! I would have so fulfilled my David and Goliath fantasy that day.
There are David sized companies too. You know the ones. They do all they can to get out there in the business world, and bring their product or service to their customers, but they just get stomped on by the Goliaths all around them. I think of Starbucks here, just because they're an easy target. Sorry Starbucks, I love your Cinnamon Dulce lattes, your Passion tea and your Caramel Brulee at Christmas time, but I have to throw you under the bus here. I mean, come on, $5 for a half-caf, mocha-choca latte, machiato frappa-tina, extra hot, upside down? While that does sound totally delicious, that doesn't leave much of a market for the little guys does it? Who can compete? Who even knows what in the heck that even is?! If I wanted to open up a coffee shop and say, "I can make you what Starbucks can, but it will be a dollar cheaper", you'd totally come...but I'd have no clue how to make you what Starbucks makes. They've stomped all over my dreams of being a burro. Or burrista. Or whatever. All I can offer you is a coffee. Black, or white, or in between a little. I could make up fancy names for my sizes...would you like a teeny weeny, a piddley middley, or a large Marge? Other than that, I've got no edge, no cool trendy ideas that haven't already been swooped up by the all too mighty, mega-giant Goliath that is Starbucks. There is no David alive that can take down that beast...or is there?
Now I'll tell you kids a little bedtime story of my own. One that is based on true events, and even inspired this very blog. Get tucked in, get your jammies on, make sure you go potty and brush your teeth. No, go brush them again because your breath still stinks, so you obviously didn't do it right the first time. Ok, remember how I said I've always wanted to be a David of my own? Well I tried: Once upon a time, four friends decided to go to a concert. They took a road trip to a city far, far away in their chariots of blue (NOT purple) and black. Along the way they stopped for a quick stately meal, to energize their bodies for the long journey and the excitement of the evening ahead. The chariots departed from the fine establishment and carried on toward their destination. Upon arriving, one of the friends had to make a stop at the gentlemen's room, so the others waited patiently. They then made their way to their desired spot amongst the crowd, awaiting the arrival of the band they had driven all that way to see. As the time passed, they shared stories with each other and the many people they met around them. Over an hour passed while they waited before there was any indication that the time was finally nearing. As the lights went down, and the cheering began, the four friends reached for their cameras, and began to feel the excitement. Finally! They were having a great time. They had waited in that spot for a reason. None of them were of an exceptionally tall stature, and this spot was perfectly situated to give them the best view of the stage and the band. Now, you would think that after all this time, being that the show was nearing the end, when all the "good songs" were coming on, that everyone would just stay put. Well not this Goliath. All of the sudden, this large man, and his two large women friends came barreling into our four friends. This man was easily 7 feet tall. He was almost 400 lbs and was pure muscle. He had scary gray eyes behind thick glasses that made them larger than they were in real life. He had a scowl on his face that would have scared any child behind their mother's apron, and he gritted his teeth together as he pushed by. His two girlfriends were tall, and blonde. They were certainly the high maintenance, well dressed, manicured and obnoxious girls that the two girls among our four friends were not. Our two girls were brunettes, down to earth, intelligent, witty and far more into things in the real world than into themselves. Well, after this giant and his bimbos shoved into our friends, and stood right in front of them, one of the girls, who was the smallest of our friends at only 5 feet tall, politely asked the ogre if he was planning on standing right in front of all of them, after they had been standing there for over two hours. He cursed at her and said "yes", and then turned around. This enraged the little girl, who decided that this was her David moment. She shoved her way into the crowd, and pressed into the giant and his bimbos. She pushed, with the help of the other girl in the friend squad, a small opening for them to stand in so they could see once again. From this moment, a small battle of elbows and nasty words flew back and forth between the littlest friend and the biggest bimbo, but it wasn't until she started dancing like a pole dancer (at a concert that was clearly NOT a pole dancing type concert to begin with, at a venue that was NOT a place to shove people out of the way to begin with), and the giant elbowed the little friend in the nose that things got really ugly. The littlest friend squared up against Goliath, and will be known now as David. Goliath squared up against her in return. Many words were exchanged (they aren't PG). The other two friends that were the husband and boyfriend of the girls stepped in for some much needed valiantry. More words were exchanged (still not PG). David lunged. Goliath backed down. No sling shot was needed.
