The perfect gift May 10, 2009

OMG…OMFG….I can’t believe I haven’t posted since August.  I’ve had so much to bitch about, be thankful for, and confusion to sort out.  I’ve hit a wall with my other blog, it feels so suffocating.  Close family, friends and co-workers read it so I’m so limited in the things I can discuss, feelings I can express, and nonsense I’d like to bitch about. 

I think this blog scared me a little.  Somehow a few people found it and were actually reading it .  My private thoughts that I second guess and beat myself up over were exposed…if only to just a few people. Those thoughts were let loose and someone out there heard them.  That was intimidating to me.  The root of the fear is two fold.  I don’t take criticism well at all.  I’m a very defensive person and have this uncanny ability to justify my own actions in my head enough to appease myself.  The very fact that I recognize this character flaw is encouraging to me.  I’m open to change, want to change but bad habits are hard to break. 

The second thing fueling my fear is that growing up I was always told that my feelings and thoughts were “excuses”.  I’ve mentioned before my well intentioned mother who always expected me to “suck it up”.  Somehow I feel like I don’t have the right to blog about whatever comes to mind.   And if I’m not blogging about my children or family that I’m being selfish.  I mean after all, once you have children don’t you sacrificially give your identity and needs away.  In return you gain so much, learn so much and the love can be overwhelming but the guilt sets in.  The mom guilt.  New clothes for myself, a manicure, a night out with husband????  Hell no, there’s gymnastics class to pay for, trikes, diapers,  a playscape, the list is endless. 

I’ve gotten to a place that I feel like the least I can do for myself is blog about whatever I want.  It is my Mother’s Day gift to myself.  I’ll do anonymously and hide behind this here keyboard but dammit I’ll do it.  I’ve got some doozies coming to.  I promise not to disappoint.

So incredibly f’ed up August 27, 2008

I got word last week that I had a very part time job if I wanted it.  I thought I wanted it, I did want it and I think I want it but now I don’t know.  When I found I was requested by a principal my heart sunk.  We have worked together before, he used to be my teacher in elementary school and he is a complete loose cannon.  Disorganized, forgetful, hot and cold, and constantly changing his mind about shit.  Shit that matters and affects all those around him.  This totally sucks now, gone are my ideas of flying under the radar, doing my job, and upkeeping a reasonable level of anonymity.  He has bombarded me with all his “plans” for me, but I’ve got news for him.  My workday is 3 hours and I don’t plan on working a minute over that.  Thank God for my very strong and intimidating union.  They are worth every penny they suction from my paycheck.

I worked yesterday and today. I don’t work again till next Thursday.  I spent most of the past two days trying not to cry at work.  I hate that I can’t tell my little one’s what is going on.  They just don’t understand and the only world they have known is Mommy home everyday.  I thought this is what I wanted, but now I’m not sure.  The guilt is incredible, way worse than any guilt my mother has ever imposed on me.  This guilt is a whole entity of its own, and it has stolen my sleep at night.  I’m running on about 3 hours of sleep a night since taking this job.  I am so fortunate that my little ones will stay at home with their grandmothers when I’m not there so their daily routine will remain the same but still…I won’t be there for part of their day. 

It is very strange to go back to an environment you are familiar with but yet you are a very different person than you used to be when you were last in that environment.  I feel lost in my own home so to speak.  I insisted that the hours I work be in the afternoon so that at least half the time I am gone, they will be napping.  I am on emotional overload and feel alone.  Husband just can’t know what this is like for me and mother is always the “suck it up” type.  So here I am, trying to sort it all out on a keyboard.  I hope that in the next upcoming days and weeks all the unknowns will be settled and I’ll be feeling more like myself.

My absence July 30, 2008

I have an excuse, actually two.  The first being that I am a mother of 2 eighteen month old toddler boys that are busy discovering the world with a vengance.  The second is that I just haven’t had much to bitch about.  That was my main reason for starting this blog, I had a lot of frustration I wanted to vent but lately nada. 

Well that might not be entirely true.  I would like to vent about the fact that tonight is the first night in four nights that my boys did not go to bed crying and upset.  That would be because this is the first night in four nights that we didn’t have any frickin company over.  Husband’s family is divorced with remarriages and subsequent divorces leaving us with a total of 3 grandmas and 3 grandpas and potentially a new grandma in our not so distant future.  It’s ridiculous really.  Most of them can’t stand to be around eachother leaving us with 2-3 calls a week of grandparents wanting to come visit the boys that cannot be over on the same day.  So instead of having occasional visitors, we have visitors several times a week.  The boys enjoy the company and attention but it is killing Kevin and I at bedtime.  The boys are so wound up by the time they go to bed and our lovely company leaves us with two screaming boys that don’t want the fun to end. 

Holidays are a load of fun too.  Trying to make everyone happy and spend an equal amount of time with everyone is sport in itself.  Its sad really, I never knew just how sad divorce really is.  Even though husband’s parents have been divorced for 22 years it still is a painful and constant pain the ass for him.  FIL’s inexcusable behavior that repeats itself over and over which has caused this huge mess makes me want to beat him over the head with an ore.

Is it okay to tell your employer to f-off? June 19, 2008

Thank god thoughts are silent because if they weren’t I would’ve found myself permanently unemployed.  I decided when I had the boys that I would take an undetermined amount of time off.  It has always been my hopeto be a permanent stay at home mom.  I’m now embarassed to admit that I thought working moms were awful, uncaring and selfish.  I spent my college years working at a childcare center run by the university I attended.  It was top notch, cutting edge, and had the best early childhood educators I have ever had the honor to work with.  Despite all the positive things, I hated my job.  I hated taking care of babies and toddlers who so helplessly clung to me as if I were their mommy and in my heart I knew I couldn’t possibly love them like a mother does.  They would cry when they were dropped off from feeling abandonded and frightful of the constant change of caretakers that happened daily.  I tried my best to help them feel secure and loved, in those moments I promised myself I would NEVER be a working mom.  No matter what. 

And here I am today, struggling with that college girl in a constant battle going on in my head.  I think I want to go back to work part time.  There, I said it.  What I would really like is to just go in on days when I feel like it, wouldn’t that be nice?  I’m in a position to acquire a very flexible position that unbeknowst to my superiors would be a virtually effortless job that would benefit the bank account immensly.  So I have been making some calls, gathering up my allies, and using who I know in high places to try and make this happen.  When I called HR today to see what the status of my employment will be in September I got the ole’ “don’t call us, we’ll call you” bit.  Hence my silent screaming tyraid of f-off explictatives. 

If I do get the position it would only be about 15 hours a week and the boys would be cared for in our home by my mother or MIL.  Husband has 2 days off a month, so of the 8 days a month I would work, they would only be without Mommy or Daddy 6 days a month.  And of course I get June-August off and another month worth of vacation time during the 9 months that I work.  It’s very little time away from the boys but I can’t help but feel like the shittiest mother ever for wanting some time to myself.  Not to mention the world’s biggest, obnoxious hypocrite. 

20 years ago… May 19, 2008

I was 12 years old and we had just moved into a new house on a small lake.  I spent my summer swimming and paddle boating around. My grandfather was still alive and he lived one street over.  I loved spending time with him, playing checkers, riding bikes and getting Taco Bell.   I hated my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. R.  She was nasty and mean and threw erasers at kids who misbehaved.  I went to sixth grade camp and started “going with” Adam while we were there.  He wanted to meet me outside the cabin after dinner for our first kiss.  I left dinner early and hid, I chickened out.  Then I had the nerve to act like he stood me up and broke up with him. 

I did a lot of dumb things with friends.  We spent our unsupervised time making prank phone calls, throwing rocks through the windows of new construction homes in the neighborhood (can’t believe I just admitted that), and pretending to get lost in the woods behind our house.  It was when I was twelve  I decided to change my career path.  I went from wanting to be an astrounaut to deciding a teacher would be a better fit.  I came to that conclusion after joining service squad at school.  They put me in charge of the special education class and I loved it!  I would watch them in their classroom for about 15 minutes every day after lunch.  They were loud and obnoxious but they loved me and I loved them! 

It was in sixth grade that my future high school basketball coaches “recruited” me and some friends and started our 4 year training program.  Imagine that, finding some young girls and spending the next four years developing our skills and hoping we would pay off in high school.  God I loved my coaches.

15 years ago…I was 17 and in loving high school.  I played varsity basketball and was a starter.  My team and coaches were like a second family and I couldn’t imagine life without 3 hours of basketball a day. When I was seventeen I learned one of my beloved coaches was an alcoholic and was human. I still have the goodbye letter he wrote me after he was terminated.   I was part of a group of friends that self proclaimed themselves the “Erotic Eight”.  The three Jennys, Tracey, Carrie, Katie, Kelly and me. We cruised Gratiot, ate dinners at fancy restaurants and frequented the teen dance clubs. We thought we were the shit and damnit looking back I think we were.  I had a ridiculous crush on a guy name Pete.  I was obsessed at looking at the back of his head in Spanish class.  He drove an EXP and bass that could be heard for miles.  He was quiet and shy but what I loved most of all was the gold bling he wore around his neck and the greasy foreigner hair he had.  His best friend lived across the street from me and one day as I was walking home from the bus stop he pulled up next to me and asked me if he could give me a ride.  I replied, “no thanks” in the most standoffish tone I knew how.  What the fuck is all I can say about that.  Can you say idiot? I’m all bark and no bite.  Two months later he had a girlfriend with the same first name and last initial as me.  Irony is a bitch.

When I was seventeen I was looking forward to going to WMU for college and majoring in Special Education.  My three closest friends were going with me and would be my roommates. I was working at Major Magics as a birthday hostess and would let my friends steal the mini wine bottles for upcoming house parties.  When my little cousins came in I would give them free tokens and candy.  I would meet husband at Major Magics in the next year. 

10 years ago…I was 22.  I had just graduated from college and landed a 2nd grade teaching job in an awesome school district.  Oddly enough one of my co-workers was the aforementioned Mrs. R., my old sixth grade teacher.  She was wonderful, I adored her as a person.  She was kind, giving and had a great sense of humor.  I couldn’t believe she was now my mentor and friend. 

I still lived at home and was waiting for younger husband to finish up his degree.  I spent my weekends visiting him at college, going to alternative music concerts and clubbing with friends.  Most of my Saturday nights were at a club that played 80’s retro music.  It was a huge old stone church and the dance floor was on the former altar.  My friends and I would drink and dance all night long in our hoochie clothes.  There was something about that place, some of my fondest memories spent with my girlfriends happened there. 

5 years ago…I was married and had just moved into our home.  We sold our condo and had this house built as the first step in starting our family.  We vacationed 3-4 times a year, layed around alot, and hung out with our friends at the bar on weekends. Our bank account was fat and we were living very comfortably…DINKS as they say.  We were still kids with very few commitments and plenty of free time.  We went to the movies at least once a week, ate dinner out all the time, rode bikes, and were just plain lazy.  Life moved at a much slower pace and we were very happy and content in the place we were at. 

Today… After a knock down drag out fight with IF I now have two gorgeous twin boys.  It is as if every day before they came was the preface to my life book and the day they arrived was when Chapter One began.  This new found love I have that radiates for them has opened my heart and my mind in ways I never thought possible.  Our life is hectic, stressful and moving at a lightspeed pace but we love it.  To wake up everyday to their smiling faces and my husbands warmth next to me is amazing to say the least.  This euphoric high has been ongoing for 16 plus months and I’m hoping that though it might fade that it will never leave.

So much for optimism May 15, 2008

FIL told us a very unsettling story the other day.  A family member’s cousin died from falling 21 stories from a construction site. That sucks to say the least.  I’ve always been afraid of death but now that I have children of my own I am paralyzed by the thought of dying.  Eternity doesn’t seem like enough time to spend with them.  I lie awake at night wondering how I can keep them from going away to college or convince them to live at home forever whilst I continue to give them their bedtime bottles.  I have even given husband specific directions on what to say and do with my lo’s if I die.  I want them to know how much they were loved and adored.  That they changed my world and softened my sharp edges. 

Not sure about heaven, I would love to believe wholeheartdly but it seems to defy logic.  Sure would make things easier to believe.  I’m a firm believer, however, that “everything does not always happen for a reason” so it looks like Iike I’m shit out of luck when it comes to finding some comfort in death.  Oh where oh where did that good Catholic girl go that trusted and never questioned?  I think she departed right around the time she found out that the priest that married her was sexually abusing young boys and women didn’t always have the children they wanted when they wanted them. 

Ah well, a little bitter disapointment traded in for some self realization isn’t too bad of a trade off.

“How did it go so fast, she said as she was looking back and then we’ll understand we held golddust in our hands”  Tori Amos

I may be evil May 9, 2008

I feel guilty.  I did something knowingly evil today.  I ran up the fabric store with the boys, I was on a tight time schedule and frankly I just didn’t want to be bothered.  As I pulled into the parking lot I saw MIL’s car.  She has a personalized plate so I knew it was her for sure.  I immediately picked up my phone to call her and ask her where she was.  Then I wondered what in the hell I was thinking.  She would totally go gaga in the store, slow me down and inevitably want to take the boys out of their stroller.  Once they are out, they are out.  There is no putting them back in.

So I dropped the phone and decided to take my chances.  I did my shopping and avoided the area I thought she might be in.  The whole time I felt like I had to pee even though I didn’t.  It was the feeling I used to get when I played hide and seek as a child.  I never did see her but I immediately called my husband and ratted myself out.  I felt bad, still do, but if I had to do it over again….yep you guessed it.

I feel like a dumbass May 2, 2008

A few weeks back I went to see my dr. because I was having chest pains that were happening on and off.  Some days I would have none and other days I might have a few episodes of pain.  The dr. listened to my symptoms and asked me if I thought it was stress related.  I quickly dismissed the notion, I do get stressed from time to time but I never feel the same sort of stress as I did when I was riding the infertility train.  Now that was stress. 

So the dr. sent me with orders to have a stress test, echocardiogram and just about every box was checked on the bloodwork paper.  I completed those tests and was pretty certain he would find some reason for the mysterious chest pains.  I had my follow-up this morning and was told everything was absolutely normal.  Hmmm, not that I wanted to be sick but I really didn’t want to buy into the stress induced chest pain theory either.  Enter in the prescription for an antidepressant.

WTF.  I didn’t see this coming.  I am not a minimalist by any sense of the term but I’m anything but a pill popper.  I HATE pills.  I can’t even swallow pills!  It’s no joke.  I have to chew all my pills like a little kid.  My throat closes up and I choke on them if I try to swallow them whole.  I even chew my BC pill and that as small as a grain of sand. I had a nose job and didn’t even take the pain meds because I didn’t want the hassle of chewing them up.  Can you imagine how painful a freakin nose job is after the numbing meds wear off?  Swallowing pills aside, I don’t need antidepressants….do I?  I don’t know, now I’m more confused than ever.  I don’t think I’m depressed, how can I depressed with so much joy and love in my heart for my bubbies?

I do feel isolated and like I am out of touch from being cooped up in the house all the time but I don’t know if I’m ready for Paxil.  Never in a million years could you convince me I might one day be taking an antidepressant. Not that I am a scientologist or anything but I thought I was mentally organized.  So I reluctantly took the script and hid it.  I don’t have any intentions of filling it but I can’t bring myself to throw it away either.  I have to hide it because I’m afraid if family or friends were to see it they might think less of me or better yet might be afraid of my possible fragile mental status.  Good God, I didn’t need this thrown into the mix today.

The women in my life May 1, 2008

The women in my life play a large part in my emotional status and regretably seem to be the biggest source of stress in my life.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not SO bad but it ain’t so great either.  There is room for improvement by all parties.

I’ll start with the Queen Bee, my mother.  Let me start off by saying I love my mother and in many ways I am a carbon copy of her.  I resent the fact that I have seemed to have inherited her most undesirable personality traits.  My mother always seems to have a hidden agenda.  She is manipulative and probably one of the most close minded people I know.  She cuts me no slack and she never gives anyone the benefit of the doubt.  She uses affection as a bargaining  tool and now that I have children of my own I realize just how cruel that is.  I must give her credit where credit is due.  About a month ago I laid it all on the table to her, it was ugly but I was desperate.  The relationship was slowly eroding and I felt like I had nothing to lose.  To my surprise she has begun to make an effort to repair things and it seems sincere.  I know I’m a better mother when my relationship with my own mother is a loving one.  I’ve been trying to tell her for over a week that I appreciate and acknowledge the fact that she is trying but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.  Sometimes my stubbornness is f’in paralyzing.  Its a vicious circle, I don’t tell her because I’m stubborn, I’m stubborn because she’s stubborn, I get resentful that she never taught forgiveness so I don’t tell her. Time for change.

Next on the docket, my sister. My only sibling.  My sister is five years older than I am.  She is wonderful.  She gets me and she lovingly looks past the rough edges of my difficult personality.  We weren’t always close, the age gap was an issue growing up but once I entered into college and she got married it all changed for the better.  She is the first person I call when the boys are sick, when I can’t take another moment of screaming babes, and when I find a great deal shopping or a new recipe.  She understands, she empathizes and she expects nothing in return.  Let the record state she is not a source of stress in my life.

Last but not least the MIL.  MIL is all over the place.  She is everything I am not and vice versa.  She worships my children and my husband (we do have that in common)  which leaves a very small corner of the chair for me to sit on.  She can be overbearing and pushy at times but her intentions are mostly good.  She is kind hearted, thoughtful, and generous.  She longs for a close relationship with me but I’m afraid to get too close.  Most of it has to do with my relationship with my mother.  My mother is jealous of MIL.  If I were to carry on with MIL then I would in some way be betraying my own mother and weakening what is already weak.  It’s not rational but it is what it is.  MIL offers parenting advice often which makes me cringe.  She  says things in passing that she never gives a second thought to but it often times plays on repeat in my head over and over.   It’s a typical “she thinks I’m not good enough for her son” syndrome.  One thing that has been on repeat for two years is her reaction to telling her our pregnancy news.  When we told her it was twins she said “I hope your not going to have a litter of babies like those women in the news, HAHAHAHA”.  No, MIL.  Glad we got that cleared up.  As if I didn’t already feel freakish enough for not being able to bear babies on my own, now I’m worrying the family about birthing litters.  Like I said, no second thought to thoughts she verbalizes.

Just skimming the surface here, hope it didn’t sound too whiny or righteous.  My own faults are for posts to come.  I don’t discriminate when it comes to criticism.

Particle by particle she slowly changes April 29, 2008

Another blog, just what I need.  Only without all the fluff.  My other blog chronicles the life of my twin boys, just a day to day report on their milestones and the funny things they do as they try to figure the world out.  It is read by family and friends so many times there are things I would like to vent about but alas cannot.  This place however will be no holds bar on my emotions and journey through motherhood. 

A little about me…I’m 32.  I used to have a career, wear lipstick everyday, earn a living, and converse with like minded people.  Not so much anymore.  I have chosen to ride the bench for a couple of years while my boys are little.  I have given all the above up and some days feel like I have given my sanity along with it.  Never, I stress never would I have ever guessed being a SAHM could be so emotionally draining.  I would love to say that I love every second of it but that would be the forementioned fluff I was referring to.  At the moment I feel like it is suffocating me.

Please don’t for one moment measure the amount of love I have for my precious little ones by the angst I describe SAH.  I live and happily breathe my boys.  They are the center of my world and make me insanely happy.  I’m just trying to figure out the balance of life after leaving my former one behind and starting a new one as a mother and nurturer. 

My journey to bring this joy into my life starts with a wonderfully supportive and loving husband.  He and I have been sharing our lives together since we were teens.  We had financial and personal goals we wanted to achieve together before starting our family.  When it was finally time there was trouble.  We walked the lonely road of infertility for 2 years.  It was just long enough to accumulate enough bitterness to last a lifetime, lose my faith in a higher being, and leave a bruise on my soul that will never fully heal.  Overnight it seemed like we went from feeling like the most desperate and unlucky people we knew to lottery winners of the biggest jackpot ever.  TWIN BOYS!  Thank god (or whomever is pulling the strings) we never have to walk this road again.  Instant family.