Another Dirty Little Secret

April 8, 2008 | Reds

I don’t talk about this much because when I talk about it, it makes it real.   But some days I just need to share it, in the hopes the burden will be lightened somewhat.  Here goes:

My twin 6 year old daughters still consistently wake me up at night.  And if they *do* go to bed at a reasonable hour they wake me up at 4am or some ungodly hour with their giggling and chatting.

I’ve recently befriended a new mother of twins (hers are 5 months old) and I offer her hope and encouragement and what assistance I can render.  But when she asks me about sleep (when will I get some??) I can’t bear to look her in the eyes.

One cannot begin to describe the anger that occurs when one’s sleep is interrupted on a consistent basis.  I am grouchy beyond belief.

Thanks for listening.

If It’s a Sin to Eat Milk Duds, then I’m Going Straight to Hell

April 7, 2008 | Be Merry,Because of God,Reds

Let’s say (hypothetically) one quit one’s primary nonprofit gig to spend more time with certain offspring. At the same time, other freelance work dried up and one’s house was going on the market (it is pretty and fancy and was purchased back when Mommy had a full-time job).

If there were a Costco sized box of Milk Duds (emphasis on MILK, not DUDS, for you Brits out there), and it was consumed more rapidly than anything else remotely healthy, would one still be a loveable sort of person, or merely an obsessive eater?

If on the road of life, I were waylaid by a number of children and unemployment, would “Milk Duds” be an appropriate response to the question of “So how are you coping with these changes?”?

The world is a Very Serious Place. And from this angle (small children in tow, high on sugar, earning enough to buy one carrot and two lattes as a blogger), it all seems quite difficult to sort through.

And it could be that the sugar and the serotonin are teaming up to make it all seem silly and ironic, but I could go on like this for quite awhile longer and not mind one bit.

***

I don’t usually do memes, but this one is about books and requested by her (lovely, writing, pretty woman), so I’ll oblige.

Nearest book: Living Sober (it’s all nonfiction around here lately)

Page 123 & 5th Sentence, then Type Sentence 5-8

Here is the Excerpt:

Many of us have been amused at our seeming inability, even after many years of sobriety, to walk away from a half-finished cup of coffee or glass of soda. We sometimes find ourselves gulping the last swallow of a nonalcoholic drink, as if… Perhaps most readers already get the point: It is not always easy for us to put down an unfinished page, chapter, or book we are reading.

I’m not going to tag anyone but go ahead and do this if you like.

Where Has Funny Gone?

April 3, 2008 | Reds

I wrote this post about getting my toddler a lower back tattoo and some folks believed I was telling the truth (including the suggestion that we’d serve virgin margaritas to all the toddlers in attendance at V’s birthday party tomorrow).

I think it’s  a sad commentary on the grim state of parenting in the media when something as outlandish as getting one’s youngest a back tattoo is believable.

5 Pranks that Will Make Your Kids Laugh and Laugh and Laugh

April 1, 2008 | Reds

Kids are natural pranksters.  They pretend to be upset when you wait 5 hours to change their diapers, or feign hunger first thing in the morning. They are masters of comic timing.Time to turn the tables and show them, Mommy and Daddy have a trick or two to show them, even though we’re nearly middle-aged:

Read more….

A Cottage of One’s Own.

March 27, 2008 | Reds

Some of my favorite writers are starting over with new blogs. They have stories to tell and they want to tell them in relative peace and privacy. Writing and speaking and being free are all beautiful things, often complicated by the roles we inhabit, jobs we hold, family we seek to protect.

Seeing people find solace in a safe place is a lovely thing to behold.

***

In 8 days I’ll have 6 months sobriety. We’re not supposed to count our chicks before they hatch, but I get another coin (pretty blue) to add to my growing pile, so it’s especially exciting. One half year of not drinking and following a spiritual program. A program which is becoming less about not drinking and more about fellowship, service, and (incredibly for someone like me — a perennial cat wearing a wool suit) serenity.

In my life, I’ve often felt I was looking for home… a house or place where I could rest and be safe and cozy. While the search for that physical retreat goes on (we’re putting our house on the market, again), I’m starting to feel ok with my little cottage inside. Dopey and simplistic, but powerful nonetheless.

I have a place to call my own, that is mine no matter what external circumstances (those changeable bastards) uncover. And if I’m lucky enough to have a place, a home, that mirrors this, then I’ll be incredibly grateful.

**

Today at Strollerderby – 5 Ways to Make Your Kid Fat Fast

The Secrets of the Bedtime Guardian

March 16, 2008 | Reds

Sometimes in the evenings I look at the clock and wonder how many hours it will be until there is quiet in the house. Will it be 9? 10? 11? Will there be tears and fights and long moments of frustration? Will they get enough rest so that tomorrow will be greeted with the naturally cheery curiosity and enthusiasm my children display when well rested?

My twins have never been particularly good sleepers. And if you’d told me when they were 6 months old that even at 6 years of age, the sleep thing would still be a long arduous process, I probably would have jumped off a bridge. Failing that, I would at least have gotten on some seriously high doses of anti-depressants. Because sleep is my secret magic recipe for happiness and long life. Without it, I’m a wreckage of neuroses and impatience.

Since the practice now is to focus on the current 24 hours more things seem doable. Enter the Bedtime Guardian. My children are particularly anxious at night. They don’t return my wishes for sweet dreams, they bargain, negotiate, and generally refuse to go to sleep anytime before 11pm.

We’ve tried everything: rigorous exercise, regular routines, punishment, rewards, puppets.. nothing has worked.

Except the Bedtime Guardian.

Bedtime Guardian is when an adult person (a parent or grandparent) sits quietly in the chair now installed in the twins room and stays until they sleep. This usually also involves helping with those last pressing questions of the day, the tucking in again and again, the finding of missing beloved stuffed cats (they each have 10 — Butterball, Ginger, Ted who is a frog, Silver, Ginge, baby cat, etc. etc. etc. ).

The biggest job of the Bedtime Guardian is just to Be There. Sit, breath, keep everyone safe.

It keeps them calm and secure enough so that they can drift off to sleep (usually within 60-90 minutes). The non-Bedtime Guardian parent watches out for the youngest one who is pretty good about going to bed, but who occasionally needs another bottle, another hug and kiss, or to climb the Mama Ladder one more time (another long story).

BG works. It’s not my favorite way to spend those rare and precious free hours of an evening, but it’s only for today and I can do it for today.

***

What does your family eat for dinner? Take my poll over at Strollerderby.

The Veil of Secrecy

March 12, 2008 | Be Married,Be Merry,Reds

Mamma Loves recently discussed the taboo of writing about marriage. Many people (rightly) shy away from talking about anything but the good things about marriage for fear of recrimination, causing needless pain to others, or good old fashioned privacy concerns.

But whatELVIS, some things need to be discussed, people! And there are ways of writing through the questions and doubts without betraying one’s spouse.

Those of us feeling like lost lambs in the wilderness need the help and camaraderie of those of you who seem like you know what you’re doing.

I think the stakes get higher when married becomes married with children (obviously) and I don’t know about you, but I get a HUGE stomach ache every time I hear of another marriage failing, another child or children embarking on the two house tango… It’s easy to assume or worry that other people’s choices are thoughtlessly undertaken.

And ever since becoming a mother, I have zero boundaries about other children. If a child 1/2 mile away falls and skins his knee, or falls off his bike or rides her bike without a helmet, my gut is stabbed clean through. And I’ll tell you, now that I’m wide awake the pain is acute.

In any event, raising children and being in love seem like two quite distinct activities. Two things that I’ve never personally experienced concomitantly… In my world and heart, you are either cleaning the floor, or having multiple orgasms… never/ rarely both (metaphorically speaking of course).

Maybe arranged marriages are smarter after all?

***

Incidentally, I now have 5 months sober. Thank you to everyone for your loving support. It is definitely finally getting easier.

Between Light & Dark

February 26, 2008 | Ask Me Something,Be Married,Reds,awake

Part of the twelve step program I’m practicing includes a “fearless and thorough” moral inventory of one’s life. If you’re past the age of 20 and have a pulse, this can be a daunting prospect, though the details of the inventory aren’t as important of the practice of it.

Its essence is the consideration of one’s own responsibility in every single relationship or significant event in one’s life. Reflection not as terrified clothes-rending remorse, but as a sober and serious accounting of one’s past actions and their impacts on the lives of those around you.

The next step is to talk these things through with another human being, anxiety over which is far worse than the actual experience. In any event, this list of things to be sorry about, become aware of, leaves me feeling in a funny limbo between light and dark.

Dreams of flying and of meeting up with ex-husbands and boyfriends happen nearly every night and I awaken at times wondering where I am, which part of my life I’ve surfaced into… Sometimes the dream person and I are laughing over our hard times (in retrospect only are they amusing), sometimes they’re yelling my faults out to me so that I wake up curled in a ball of misery.

And so it goes.

In the end I wonder who it is I’ve been dating and marrying all these years. A darker part of myself? Someone to punish and excoriate after loving lightly for awhile? If it’s true that wherever you go there you are, then I mate and date over and over again with the same person, the same man.

Someone who loves me in part, scorns me in part, but someone who can never know and never understand, because I won’t let him in.  I simply don’t know how.

Patience. WTF?

January 23, 2008 | Reds

So what is this strange thing you wise ones call patience? How do some people seem to have a natural grace and quietude, while others of us thrash around like bees trapped in jars? Patience. WTF? Does it taste like chicken? Is it better salty or sweet? Thus far in my life, I’ve been action Jacqueline… If something isn’t working, POOF, onto something else. Children notwithstanding, of course. New job, new house, new clothes, new exercise program.

Well, it is quite clear where this approach has gotten me. To be fair, this isn’t such a bad place. I’m forced into a healthy (like Castor Oil) holding pattern, as I review, reflect and digest my life choices thus far. Step Four in the Twelve Steps is “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

Can you imagine?

I couldn’t. Not until now anyway.

So patience. It’s new. It’s different. It’s the last ever-loving thing I’ve ever wanted to try….

# 104

What Happened Next…

December 23, 2007 | Be Merry,Reds,awake

So it’s been 75 days since my last drink and nearly 4 months since I began this odyssey — to sober up, wake up to my life, start a daily spiritual practice something like worshiping a higher power, something like trying to be a more loving person.

As slowly the cravings, mental and physical subside, replaced by new rituals and people and habits, hope increases. Hope that there is more that I can give, more to experience, and a greater sense of gratitude folded into the dailyness of things.

I used to think that a cracked up wit, saucy attitude, and brain full of literature were the tools I’d need to combat the challenges of motherhood and life over age 25. Turns out it’s all so much more prosaic than that. Soft heart, courage, determination, and humility seem far more important to the task these days.

All is not perfect happiness by any stretch, but broken down into 24 hours segments, I can say I haven’t felt this hopeful and resourceful for years and years.

V & I on a quiet snowy afternoon — just one of life’s joys I would have missed before…

Meanwhile, more at Imperfect Parent.