A Childhood Full of Whimsy

It was dusk. My kids, barefoot and dirty kneed, were blowing bubbles in the front yard. The bubbles twirled and bobbed in the air; the setting sun reflected rainbows off their smooth surfaces as they floated up higher and higher until they popped. When one would land on the kids' hands, they would hold them up with pride so I could give an impressed whistle. They'd laugh and smash the delicate orbs enthusiastically.Everything about the moment was mystical and beautiful. It was the type of evening that inspires people to be parents. Single people walking their dogs would smile sweetly as they enjoyed getting a glimpse into our night.

It was all perfect, but all I could think about was a troubling idea that had just occurred to me: the bubbles that my kids were enthusiastically releasing into the world were just acting as sweet, little germ fairies. As they blew, the kids would inject them with whatever bugs were festering in their system and set them off into the world to spread their bounty. Darla, with her pink eye, could've blinked the bacteria in her eye onto the surface of the bubble. As the kids laughed, they were giving their blessings to the floating germs. 

I will talk a Norman Rockwell moment and suck all the whimsy out of it to render it unmagical. I will find the danger in any situation. If there's an opportunity for my kids to play on rope swings above a lake, I will block them from the experience. Think of what strange creatures might lurk in the lake, not to mention the drowning potential the lake offers. No thanks. We'll stay right here on our incredibly safe blanket. We'll sit, that is, until we see a bug crawl on it, then I'll make us run away and sit in the car for the rest of the afternoon.

I spend a lot of my time wondering what narrative I’m creating for my kids. Will they think of me as the withholding parent through their adult eyes? Or, thirty years from now, will Darla sit in her therapist’s office and cry into a soggy tissue because I took away her Friday night movie after she refused to pick up the dirty socks she left in the middle of the living room?

“My mom had so much anxiety,” she will say. “She never let me experience life."

Have I done my kids a disservice by not allowing their childhood to contain more whimsical memories like I had when I was a kid? Sure, my childhood had its fair share of horror stories, but some of the stories that came from that same childhood are amazing. My siblings and I went on trips to the grocery store with the express purpose of buying a shopping cart's worth of candy. My dad would let my sister Sarah and I ride in the bed of his truck while he drove around wildly, so we'd fly around dangerously in the back. I would hit my head on the back window and give out the deepest, joyful laugh. We were allowed to climb on top of a boulders at the edge of cliffs and dance wildly on top of them because why not tempt fate? 

The minute I think about letting my kids participate in any of these scenarios, though, I immediately want to lock the doors and hide them in the closet so I can keep a hawk-eye on them at all times. I’m a much more anxiety consumed parent than my dad ever was.  

As I sit on the porch and watch the kids blow bubbles, I try to make myself relax. I reason that I had made it through my childhood alive despite sometimes only having a rope as a seatbelt. If I could make it through that, the least I could do was allow my kids to blow bubbles on the porch. Let them live on the edge a little. And I'll keep the idea that those bubbles were tantamount to germ warfare to myself and just love how hard they laugh when they see one pop.

The Joys of Coming From a Large Family

The biggest perk of being a part of a very large family is that every one of your needs can most likely be served by a sibling. Need help with your ganglion cyst? Just ask Suzi, she's an occupational therapist who happens to specialize in hands therapies. Did someone drain your bank account? Don't worry! Frank, the fraud specialist, will have it all squared away in no time. Need insurance? Ask half of your siblings if they can help. They all work in insurance.  Need a cake? Erin can make one for you in no time.

I'm continuously calling in favors from my older siblings. This last weekend, my sister Kathy came in and saved my house. For years we've been trying to figure out how to get our house not to look like shit. In a matter of hours, she had transformed it and turned into a place we actually want to be in.

We went from this:

To this:

I have endless gratitude for my family! (Although I will most definitely not be following in the footsteps of my mom. Two kids is about all I can handle. Sorry Dara and Jude. You guys are just going to have to get multiple degrees to make your life as fulfilling as mine). 

If I Could Turn Back Time

Sometimes, Radiolab makes me cry big, fat ugly tears. It's typically when they air anything about children or reference the passage of time in relationship to kids. Today, I listened to a podcast in which there was 2 minute recording of a little girl from birth to eighth grade. It started with a screaming newborn and ended with a preteen girl saying "I'm starting to get interested in boys." By the time the recording of the little girl as a three year old came up, I was misting over. The ending had me crying real tears as I drove, using the back of my hand to wipe away the steady stream. I'm looking forward to and dreading the day when their transformation into a little adult is complete. 

I think back to my kids as newborns fondly. It was wonderful to hold them constantly. They wouldn't wriggle out of my arms. They, in fact, only wanted to be in my arms. I could hold them as long as I wanted to. It may have ended up being too much at the time and I wanted them to give me a god damned break, but that's a distant memory that I can't really bring to the surface at this moment. All I remember is how awesome it felt when they did want me to hug them. 

When they began to refuse hugs in exchange for independent roaming, my heart was broken. Never again will they stay in my arms for hours at a time. The distance they have created between themselves and me continues to grow. Now, all I can get is a good five minutes before they're ready to run around, again. Even those five minutes are rare.  

With each stage, though, I realize that I wouldn't want to go back in time. I mean, I sort of do. An afternoon back there would be nice. If I did that, though, I wouldn't get to be with the kids I currently have. The kids I have now are infinitely rewarding (albeit enraging at times, but that quickly becomes water under the bridge the minute the anger subsides). They tell me jokes and attempt to reason with me using bizarre logic. One will ask for a cookie. The kid's arguments for getting the cookie is that it wouldn't be fair if I didn't give her one since two weeks ago I had let the other one look at a cookie. Since the kid currently asking for a cookie didn't experience the reward of beholding a dessert way back when, they deserve to have a cookie today.When they were newborns, save for poorly timed farts, they weren't nearly as hilarious as they are today. 

So, I'm stuck in a bizarre, middle-world of nostalgia and satisfaction and I don't know how to reconcile the two. Instead, I am left to flounder through while crying intermittent tears on my way to school pickups and the grocery story, equal parts wanting to just have time stop and excitement for the future.  

Distaster Preparation

I've always thought I could weather a nuclear winter pretty well. The basis for this belief has a foundation rooted in fiction, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not true. My fifth grade teacher read a book to my class that informed my only perceptions of the apocalypse as a cozy scenario that wouldn't be too terribly difficult. It was about a little girl who survives nuclear fallout because her house is in a deep valley. She lives for years on canned goods and vegetables she plants. She piled blankets on top of herself at night to stay warm. She read books and fantasized about the world just beyond her valley. I didn't have a firm grasp of fiction vs non-fiction at that time, so I believed the story was true. When I heard it, my ten year old self thought, "I could do that for sure and it would probably be fun."

25 years have passed and I still stand by that statement, which actually baffles even myself since I have zero survival skills. I run worst-case-scenario fire drills in my head every night and, nine times out of ten, they end in complete disaster.

Here's one common scenario I rehearse in my head to illustrate this point: A murderer breaks into my house. I hear him come in and I freeze. I try to go back to sleep. Then I realize I should probably get up and protect the kids. I peak my head out of my room and see a man walking down the hallway. I go back into my room and call 9-1-1. But I can't remember how to unlock my phone. Then I remember that you don't need to unlock your phone for emergency calls, but I don't know how to make my phone make an emergency call. I fumble with my phone. I drop my phone. The murderer knows I'm in my room. The murderer comes into my room and murders me. 

If I can't even survive a hypothetical home invasion by a murderer, there's no way I'll make it through a home invasion by radiation. At least in the breaking-and-entering scenario, a phone could likely save the day. In the nuclear waste scenario, I lack the basic supplies needed to make it even a full day without electricity. I have one jug of backup water, I might have a few extra batteries in our storage closet, and I think we have enough canned goods to make one decent meal.

Other than these scant survival essentials, I do have one supply in absolute abundance: blankets and sheets. This is where I shine as a disaster-preparedness queen. In my head, the apocalypse is an opportunity to get real cozy and hole up for awhile as we wait for rescue crews to come. We have good books, some tea (that I assume we will make on my still functioning stove), and a lot of comfortable sleeping spots. Just a few days ago, we got Darla a queen sized bed so we could have an extra bed for guests in a pinch. This has made me feel even more secure in my peparedness. If a neighbor's house is leveled when the bomb lands, they'll have nothing to worry about. They can come stay with us AND sleep very comfortably at night. 

In this fantasy, cozy, end-of-the-world scenario, I'm fully cognizant that there will be some level of "roughing it." When the time comes, I am sure I will rise to the occasion and, probably, even enjoy difficult living. I just have to be forced to do it. Since I've never been forced to do it, I assume this is why I have a very difficult time doing it now. When the time comes, I will surely be able to convert my urine into potable water and figure out which bugs will provide the most protein.

In the meantime, I will continue to turn on my heater if it ever dips below 68 degrees, wear an eye mask and turn on a white noise machine when I sleep, and loudly declare that we have nothing to eat while I stare into a cupboard full of food. 

Best Friend Necklaces Should be Illegal

I don't know who the sadist was who invented the "Best Friend" necklaces, but I would like to rip his "Be Fri" necklace from around his neck, throw it down the garbage disposal, and hunt down his best friend. Once I find him or her, I'll tell that person that he threw out the necklace because he doesn't want to be friends with him or her anymore. Maybe then, he might regret inventing it.

I'm making the assumption that this person is a man because it has to be a part of some fucked up misogynist plot to keep women at odds with one another since they seemed to be marketed and purchased mostly by girls. It always appears that all marketing schemes are dreamt up by white men for demographics they know nothing about. (For the record, I just tried to look up who this person is and this information is conveniently absent from the internet, which further solidifies this conspiracy theory). 

These necklaces became an important part of my life in third grade. This was when Carlie and Karen went to Claire's Boutique over the weekend and bought a set for themselves. They wore their respective pieces to school that Monday. As the third in this friendship, I was left out of the best friend revery. I had gotten the message loud and clear. They were forever friends and I was just their toady. 

I set off on an adventure, leaving behind Karen and Carlie, to find a best friend of my own. I found that person in Grace, a girl who I could spend hours with on the phone discussing Sir Mix ALot's Baby Got Back. We were equally adept at rapping every line, but we were a little confused about the whole "My Ana kinda don't want none unless you got buns hun" part. Who was Ana and why was she opposed to people with flat butts?

This friendship faded as Grace became best friends with Marta. Karen and Carlie broke off their friendship, so Karen asked me if I wanted the other half of her necklace. This musical chairs of necklace intimacy went on until sixth grade. By then, all the girls in the class were suffering from friendship PTSD, which still affects me to this day. I still assume that the world is always on the verge of taking my "st end" necklace to give to my undisclosed arch nemesis. 

For some reason, this ritual of declaring one kid her best friend (to the exclusion of all other friendships) has already begun in Kindergarten. This might be due to kids learning to read at five. I couldn't read at that age, so I had no notion that "best friendship" was a concept limited to two members.

Or, maybe it's because my generation was the generation that gave rise to these necklaces. I may be surrounded by other parents who, absurdly, had super positive experiences with them in elementary school. I think this one has to be the case as I recently witnessed one of the mothers passing out the necklace to her daughter's "best friend" in front of Darla. I gasped as I watched the exchange. I couldn't believe how brazen the mother was. I braced myself for an explosion of emotion that night from Darla, but the necklaces went unnoticed by Darla. 

As far as I can tell, Darla has no idea that she can't be best friends with her entire class. I hope this is a forever opinion. I am aware, however, that the lure of those heart shaped brass necklaces is far too great. When the day comes when Darla asks for one, I might have to figure out how to design one that can be broken off into 20 pieces so she can give one to everyone in her class. Or, maybe I can convince her that I'm her best friend and we can share the necklace. 

My Kids Teeth are Excellent

My panic about going to the dentist sets in on the car ride over. It's not a fear that my kids will get upset or hate it. They love the dentist. The giddy excitement the night before the appointment is akin to that experienced before a trip to an amusement or water park. The one time that Greg took Darla to Knott's Berry Farm after the dentist might have something to do with it. That happened three years ago, but Darla's still chasing that dragon and drops hints about doing that again every time I bring them to the checkup. As long as I'm driving them, there will be no post-dentist joyrides. I'm definitely not a good-time-mom; I'm a total a bummer-time-mom.

The anxiety around the dentist is all mine. I created an idea in my head that all judgement of me as a parent comes down to these appointments. If I'm a good diligent parent, Darla and Jude will have zero cavities and the dentist will give me a standing ovation for their amazing teeth. If I'm an awful, negligent parent, the dentist will loudly shame me in front of the entire room of parents. There's no middle ground when I imagine the visit. 

It helps me none that they hand over a literal report card on my kids' teeth after the checkup. For someone who didn't get her first "A" until senior year of high school, I don't take these grades lightly. I know what it's like to have a GPA of 1.6. (I actually felt pretty neutral about this at the time. I didn't do any homework and spent every class perfecting writing Bikini Kill, Dead Kennedys, or Crass in lieu of paying attention. I earned that GPA). Once I got my first "A," though, I refused to back. Suddenly my standards shifted and an "A-" started looking like an "F." If my kids get anything less than an "Excellent" on their report cards, I've failed them as a parent. 

This visit, I was still reeling from the chaos of Darla's first cavities. (Not just one. There were three!). The dentist had assured me that we did the best we could and that some kids are just genetically predisposed to get them, but I still left that appointment fighting off the shame. I knew where this predisposition came from since I had gotten my first filling when I was six. I had done this to her whether the doctor wanted to admit it or not. This most recent dentist appointment would be our first time back since that dark day in November. I thought the lecture I didn't get from the last appointment would be coming this time. 

Despite how fraught the time before the checkup was, it all went smoothly. There were no public admonishments and I didn't have to sit in the corner with the dunce cap on. If anything, they downplayed their criticisms. When asked if both kids were regularly flossing, I stumbled and said, "almost. We're working on getting better." Their response was mild. "It's so hard to find time to floss. Maybe you can shoot for once a month. Does that work?" If this is the baseline, we're flossing overachievers in my house!

These kinds of responses remind me that I'm not the only parent who has come into the dentist's office prostrate and contrite. They must have had their fair share of parents who have whispered confessions of lapses in their kids' dental hygiene and apologized for the genetic mess they passed on to their kids. Why else would they tiptoe through the interaction? 

By the end of the appointment, I had talked myself off of a cliff and reminded myself that I'm not alone. There must be at least a few parents who sometimes forget to floss their teeth. (Right? Please tell me this is true otherwise I'm going to feel awful for putting this out into the world). I mean, the few times we forgot to floss wasn't all that terrible. They still brought home an "Excellent" report card today. Although, to be honest, we only got a 90%. I'm hoping next round we take home the 100% gold. Only then will I be an amazing parent. 

Please Don't Talk While I'm Driving

Family car trips when I was growing up were very serious matters. Per our dad's orders, we would sit in silence until we reached our destination. My dad wouldn't play music lest he accidentally veer off a cliff while singing like Pavarotti. Talking was, also, off limits because, apparently, my dad's vision suffered when he heard us talk. 

We all tried our best to respect my dad's desire not to kill us in an accident, but sometimes the need to exclaim "my butt itches" or "when will we be there" would be far too great for me when I was a preschooler. When such words escaped my mouth, I would see my dad's baby blues glare at me in the rearview mirror in a way that let me know I was in for it later. A few rounds of these death stares and I was a fully trained McKenna by the time I was five. I road in complete silence from there on out. 

The only form of a communication that could take place was when my dad would ask my siblings and I to check to see if it was safe for him to merge. The burden that was placed on our shoulders was intense and we'd all panic as we shouted that it was ok to move to the next lane. Trusting someone as young as six, my dad would blindly merge without cross-check our work. His system, however misguided, was solid because we never got into an accident and he never had to look over his shoulder while driving.

Silence and relying on children to give driving advice were the only safety measures my dad took. Seat belts were unnecessary, although he did one time tie a rope around mine and my sister's waists because we were going to drive up a treacherous road to the top of a mountain. In hindsight, this might have made the car ride even more dangerous as the rope would surely be the thing that killed us in that scenario. He would, also, only purchase cars that didn't comfortably fit twelve kids and two parents. Instead, he would pile two layers of brothers and sisters in the back seat. We were forced to endure hours of sore knees, numb limbs, and a mild claustrophobic panic, but at least our yellow Cadillac or white Oldsmobile looked amazing on the road. We were doing our part to remove suburban blight from San Diego's landscape. 

Both the worst and best part of being a parent is understanding my own parents a bit better. If there's one thing I can completely empathize with my dad about it is that driving with kids who incessantly ask questions is incredibly dangerous.

I'm already a nervous driver. If I'm the parent who has to pick up take-out from a restaurant that doesn't have a humungous parking lot, I spend fifteen minutes agonizing over how I am going to manage it. When I reach the restaurant, I've already broken out into a sweat as I try to figure out how I will maneuver through the scenario. Asking me to both pay attention to the road and answer "mommy, how old are you" 50 times is absolutely impossible, then. Something about that process makes my heart start to pound and my head swim to the point that I fear I might forget how to drive at all. I'm worried I'll one day have to ask "is the brake on the right or the left?" If I ever do have to, I hope I'm not the only adult in the car because I'm not too sure Jude or Darla will give me the right answer. Unlike my dad, I don't take driving advice from people under ten years old. 

I have tried to enforce the brilliant "no talking" rule of decades' past. This has proven to be completely ineffective. I try to bribe my kids, have them see my side of things, inform them that talking is dangerous, and threaten timeouts. None of this works. 

"Please, please, please, be quiet," I beg. "I don't want to get in an accident."

"But mommy," Jude will yell. "I need to ask you!"

"It better not be you asking me how old I am," I say. 

"It's not," Jude will respond. 

"What is it?" I'll ask, knowing full well I won't like the question.

"Mommy, how old are you?" he'll ask. 

I think the part that's missing for me in this scenario is that I don't cut an intimidating figure quite like my dad did. This makes me feel better about my inability to keep my kids quiet in the car. I don't scare my kids like my dad because I don't have a belt like my dad did, which is what made my siblings and I very well behaved kids. We always knew that the threat of punishment would be severe.

I have created a very different world for my kids. My kids are loud in the car because they know that the threat of even a timeout is most likely an empty one and I will forget it by the time we get to our destination. They are not afraid of me, which is an incredibly comforting feeling. I try to remember this whenever I hear "mommy, what's your name mommy" come from the backseat while I'm white-knuckling the steering wheel as I barely push 65 mph on the freeway. 

The Grift the Keeps on Grifting

If I had to pick the most prominent characteristic of my neurosis, I would have to say it's my second guessing that goes on ad Infinitum. I can look at my kitchen counter and say, "this counter is yellow." Then, you could walk in with a never-ending confidence and obnoxious bravado and say, "this counter isn't yellow. It's purple." I will go ahead and adjust what my concept of purple is and move on with my life. If you say anything with enough confidence, you can have me believe it and my mind will go into overdrive to squash the nagging feeling that you're wrong. This is what makes me a good mark for a grifter, which is why I was the target a few days ago.

I noticed a car tailgating me for a block and was cursing him the entire way. As I came to the stop sign, he pulled up alongside me and said something. I rolled down my window.

"Are you ok," he asked. His wife looked on from the passenger seat.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "Are you ok?"

"You hit my car back there and didn't stop," he said. "I was honking my horn furiously and you didn't notice cause you're in your own world."

"I didn't hit your car," I said, already doing the mental gymnastics to convince myself I had hit his car. I pushed it aside.

"Pull over," he said as he pointed around the corner. "I'll show you."

My instincts told me to keep driving; that I didn't hit his car so it would be ridiculous to pull over. I have strong intuition, but I also have a lot of practice ignoring it, so I pulled over. He pointed to slight damage on his back bumper and then began searching my car for dents. He didn't have to look too hard since there are numerous bits of damage I've acquired from minor run-ins with a poorly placed cinder block next to my parking space.

"This!" he said. "This is the damage."

"That bumper has been damaged for months," I said. "That's not new."

"This is my paint," he said as he rubbed the bumper. He held up his fingers, now covered in dirt. I looked over at his white car and back at the black marks on his finger.

"That's not your paint," I said, pushing aside my instinct to apologize profusely. "Let's walk down the street and you can show me where the accident happened."

"It's fine," the man said. "Just give me your insurance information and we'll move on."

"Show me where the accident happened," I said. I was completely shocked by how resolute I was being.

"It's fine," his wife said. "We'll just call the cops."

"Show me where the accident happened," I repeated.

"We'll just go ahead and call the cops, then," said the wife as they got in the car.

"Ok," I said. 

Then, they closed their doors and drove down the street. I was left confused. Wouldn't they want to call the cops while I was still standing her? Then, what I had known the entire time slowly started coming into focus: I was a victim of a scam and I had stood my ground. 

I was incredibly proud of myself for resisting my urge to give in and hand over my insurance information, but then I saw my purse sitting on the passenger's seat. I realized I had left the windows open and the man alone with my car while I walked down the street insisting they showed me where the accident took place. That's when I had a second epiphany that day as I searched through my purse: those two were terrible grifters. They hadn't even bothered to steal my laptop or any of my credit cards from my purse. 

Like Embarrassed Mother, Like Embarrassed Daughter

My kids have been embarrassing me for years. Usually, this is exacerbated by the fact that every mortifying thing they do also includes the quick proliferation of bacteria into their own or someone else's body. 

The following isn't an uncommon sequence of events, which is typically carried out in public. First, the kid will scratch his butt (I'm only using the male pronoun because Jude's younger and I have a few extra years before he realizes I've made this information public knowledge. Darla is equally guilty of this behavior). Next, the kid will rub his eyes with the hands he scratched his butt with. Then, he picks his nose. Then, he'll stick this hand in a newborn baby's mouth while simultaneously sneezing in her face. Then, he'll walk over to a garbage can and lick it. Then, we'll get on a plane and he will fart the entire way from the west coast to the east coast.

I'm not passively watching it all unfold throughout this entire process. I am actively stopping them every step of the way, but they persist. The desire to stick the debris from their butts into their eyes is far too great. 

For the past six years, I took comfort in knowing that this was a one way street. I was agitated by their actions, but they thought everything I did was flawless. I could say any beastly thing or hug them in public and they were just fine with it. I thought I had until Junior High to relish not being the most embarrassing member of the family. This became a two way street far sooner than I had expected.

By the time Darla reached Kindergarten, she began having opinions about how I behaved in public. She walks to school fifteen paces a head of me. I'm not allowed to speak to her about anything or ask her how her day is going. Worst of all, I can't give her a hug good bye in front of her school. The good bye has to come two blocks earlier in the comfort of our home. 

On my birthday this year, I was feeling bold. I was gonna get that public hug.

"Give me a hug," I said as we approached her class's line. "It's my birthday!"

Only six and she already takes hundreds of selfies a day. 

She looked at me, scrunched up her nose, shook her head, wagged her finger at me, and ran towards her line. I crouched down low and chased after her (obviously, I was trying to be cute) to give her a hug. Then, I tripped over her foot, knocked her to the ground, and flew over her and onto the floor. 

"I'm so sorry," I said. My heart was falling out of my chest as I pulled her up off the floor. She was fighting back tears. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She wiped her eye and walked towards her line without looking at me. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I repeated as I backed out of the schoolyard. It was the worst birthday present I could've ever gotten. 

Presently, Darla and I are embarrassing each other equally. She still scratches her butt in public and I still try to tell her I love her when I say good bye. As far as I can tell, however, the two way street starts slowly morphing back into a one way street over time. Unfortunately, it will never be in my favor, again. I'll continue to get more mortifying while Darla becomes increasingly cool. I think, as far as I can remember from my experience with my mom, the transition is completed by Freshman year of high school. That's when I will forever be banished to the land of the annoying. In the meantime, I may as well relish the last few years of feeling superior while I watch the nose picking. 

I Don't Want to Travel the Road Less Travelled

The mother of one of Darla's friends approached me last week to set up a playdate for our daughters. I was immediately intimidated. She's an effortlessly chic woman in such a way that makes me feel like one of the Three Stooges by comparison.

"This weekend isn't good," she said. "We'll be out of town."

"Oh, us too," I say proudly, but very casually as if to make it seem I was as jet set as she. "Are you going to be around this summer? We can work out more playdates then."

"No, well be in France with my family," she said with a frown.

"Oh how fun," I say with an embarrassing level of enthusiasm saved for High School Spirit Squads. I was blowing it with this mom already. She'll figure out I'm a total doofus within no time. "We'll be traveling a bit, too."

I didn't mention that both excursions were trips to San Diego to see my family. I suddenly felt ashamed for having such bravado about my travel plans. It didn't sound quite as amazing as a summer vacation to France. San Diego is only a couple of hours from my home and should be easy trips to make. Despite this, I find them to be just as stressful as traveling to another continent since I have a very hard time stepping out of my routine.

This isn't something specific to me being a parent; I was definitely on the verge of panic attacks when I thought of traveling before I had kids. I would rage for days before and agonize over departure times. I onetime flew so far off the handle that Greg, right in the middle of a fight over packing and getting on the road, decided he needed to meditate. He sat on the brown leather armchair in my room and closed his eyes. In that moment, I wanted to destroy him. In hindsight, I assume he did that because he had only recently moved to California and he thought that's what everyone did in the middle of a fight. Needless to say, that car ride to San Diego was brutal for all parties involved.

It has just gotten worse with age. With debilitating anxiety in tow, I still make the effort to travel, though. It usually ends in emotional disaster for me while the kids have a blast, oblivious to my panic attacks.

This is why my anxiety starts to pickup a week before and I spend every day mentally packing and regretting my decision to leave the comfort of my home. I need my bed. I need my pillows. I need my dresser full of clothes I hate (as opposed to a suitcase of clothes I hate). I need to know every nook and cranny of the place I'm staying, otherwise I feel upset and out of sorts. I, also, need the kids to be in their own rooms, with their blackout curtains, and their white noise machine overpowering any sounds that might penetrate their room. Most important, I need to know I won't be woken up at 5:00am, which is what always happens when I'm traveling with the kids.

Much to the dismay of my adventurous family, I keep my excursions outside of Los Angeles to a minimum. I won't tell Darla's friend's mom that, though. I would like her to think that I'm not as basic as being afraid to travel would suggest. Maybe I can lead her to believe that we'll be backpacking through Spain this summer.  

There's a Fine Line Between Waitress and Mom

An actual closing shift in my younger days. Photo courtesy of the best server I've ever met, Alyce Kalmar

Working in the restaurant industry, you quickly find out that the closing shifts are both the best and the worst. They're amazing because you get to sleep in late, are on the most lucrative shift, and service usually goes quickly because you're busy. They're the worst because, at the end of service, after you've already done so much work, you're faced with a seemingly endless list of closing duties that have to be completed before you can leave. You try to think of different ways to tackle it so it's done faster, but it always ends up being an hours worth of work no matter which way you approach it. If you half ass it, you're going to get hell the next day from the manager. So you trudge on and roll setups (you know, the forks and knives that go inside the napkins. Those don't set themselves up!) all while you weep.

Being a parent is much like working the closing shift at a very demanding restaurant. Not just that, every night is the closing shift where the last customer shows up a minute before closing, takes a luxurious amount of time to eat, and doesn't tip. To make matters worse, once you work the closing shift as a parent, you have to do a quick turnaround and work the opening shift the next day. Forever.

The task list looks something like this:

1. Feed the Kids- This one is brutal because nine times out ten, your kid patrons hate everything you serve and will often leave the worst Yelp reviews. For some reason, though, they keep coming back night after night. 

2, Bond with Your Kids- This is much like the part of the restaurant closing shift where everyone has poured themselves a beer or a glass of wine and casually wipes down the tables while they talk and laugh. As a parent, you play basketball or paint with your kids and all is well.

3. Bathe Your Kids- This is much like washing the piles of leftover dishes accumulatedfrom the last customers who took forever to leave, so the dishwasher has already left for the night. As a parent, you're still enjoying your kids, but there's the feeling that there's so much left to do, so it's time to get things moving along a little faster.

4. Brush Your Kids' Teeth- This is much like having to sweep and mop the floors (after pulling out the grimy, foul smelling mats from the kitchen). As a parent, the kids are dragging their feet to the bathroom, getting sidetracked, and spitting toothpaste absolutely everywhere.

5. Read to Your Kids- The nights coming to a close and you're counting your tips. You're feeling like it's all worth it as you stack up $20 after $20. As a parent, the kids are resting their heads on your shoulders while you read them their library books. Everything is calm and it's rewarding.

6. Get Your Kids to Stay in Bed- You've counted your tips and breathed your sigh of relief. You're about to shut off the lights and lockup when you notice the mountain of silverware that needs to be rolled. You yell in frustration and sit down and start rolling. As a parent, the kids are in their beds and you're about to walk out of their room, get a slice of cake, and sit down on the couch to scroll mindlessly through social media. That's when the countless requests come up. You may have asked them twenty times if they needed to pee before bed (each time they answered "no"), but all of a sudden they urgently need to go to the bathroom. Then they need water. Then a "high five." Then they need to be tucked in, again. Then they need you to take a certain doll out of their room because it's scaring them. Then, the siblings need to get in a fight with one another because the older one is belting out show tunes from her spot on the top bunk. Then they need to say "you're no longer my friend because you won't find the firetruck." Then you need to tell them "that's fine, we don't need to be friends. I'm not going to tear apart your room looking for that tiny truck no matter how long you yell for it." Then you have to tear the room apart looking for that firetruck because you can't take the yelling anymore. 

An hour later, you're on the couch with that piece of cake that doesn't taste as good as you thought it would and you're too tired to even scroll through Facebook. 

And much like working as a waitress, you wake up in the middle of the night in a panic that you forgot to lock the door. The only perk is that when the door is in your own home, you only have to walk a few steps to check. As a waitress, though, you gotta sweat the whole night, waiting for that call from the manager the next morning to tell you that the place had been torn apart and there was no sign of forced entry. 

Princess Dresses and Baseball Jerseys

When Darla was two, she received her first princess dress/nightgown as a gift from her former daycare provider. It was pink and had cap sleeves. A brocade with Cinderella, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty adorned the front. I could tell her heart melted the minute she pulled it out of the box. She never knew that such beauty could exist in the world. She put it on and twirled and tripped around the house. 

This I was not thrilled about. Our once stylish daughter who would wear amazing, neutral clothing was now begging to pull on the dress every chance she got. It would drag across the ground and she would continuously trip over it. I begged her to take it off. She always refused. My visions of her as a tiny feminist faded in the distance the more she wore that dress. 

Conversely, when Jude was two, he always wanted to wear Darla's princess dresses. I applauded this and let him flounce around in a Rapunzel dress as much as he wanted. It was so long it would drag across the ground and he would continuously trip over it. I thought it was the most adorable thing I had ever seen. I felt much better about having a son who liked dresses than a daughter who did. I thought I was going to raise a gender non-conforming boy and the future looked great.

Then, one day, Jude was gifted a basketball jersey. He had the same look of love on his face that Darla had when she got that princess dress. He put it on and immediately began jumping, pretending to shoot baskets. He punched and kicked and danced around the room. He wore the jersey to school every day until it became too stained. I then threw it out (but not before I replaced it with a new one because that wouldn't have been a good scene.

I was upset; I was raising a "typical" girl and a "typical" boy. My daughter loved everything pink and make-up related. My son loved basketball and punching the air. I felt like I had failed as a parent because they were acting just like how the toy aisle dictates. 

As they've grown older, they've gotten more involved in the trappings of their assigned genders. The only thing that has changed is that I've let go of my anxiety around it. Both are doing exactly what they want to do and I won't stand in the way of it. Sometimes their choices adhere to a gender stereotype, sometimes it doesn't. Darla still loves sequins and glitter, but she can throw down with the best of the boys. She is funny, loud, and bold. She's recently started getting into some really existential shit, too. (Not that I, in anyway, think philosophy is specifically masculine. I just really enjoy this new development). "What makes me me?" she'll ask as she sits in the backseat of the car. She, also, informed me that she wants to have a baby when she's older so she can give it to two men to raise. She's just Darla!

Jude makes us listen to Kurtis Blow's Basketball every night as he shoots hoops, but he'll still put on the Rapunzel dress for the dance party. Jude is still rough and tumble and is counting down the days until he can take a wrestling class (he can sign himself up when he's 18). He'll take a break from the mayhem to tidy up a bit and sweep the whole house. He, also, really wants to hang out with babies and horses all the time. He's just Jude!

As a new parent, I wanted them each to defy societal norms and be unique creatures. I failed to see that I was being superficial to think that their clothing was what made them unique. Growing with them as a mom reminded me of what I somehow forgot: that feminism isn't how we dress, it's about how we treat each other. As far as my job as their parent goes, it's not my job to make sure they wear the right clothes. It's to make sure that they treat everyone with respect and always examine their actions to determine if what they're doing is promoting equality. And, more important than anything else, it’s to make sure that everything they do should be in service of smashing the patriarchy. 

Do You Hate Me?

For decades, every interaction I have with another human is just another opportunity for me to feel weighed down by guilt, anxiety, and self-loathing. I walk away from every conversation, pull out my mental highlighter, and work my way down all the points discussed. I mark off every time I may have offended, freaked out, or worried the other person. Within minutes, my mind's stenographer's notes are riddled in yellow; they're basically urine soaked with regret. 

Chances are high I was on AOL, chatting with my friends, and asking them if they hated me. 

"Did I say that "yes" too enthusiastically?" I wonder. "Was that the wrong time to mention that my family calls our skin tone "moons over my hammy" due to our purple/pink skin shade? Now, are they only going to see purple veins when they look at me?

For awhile, I was able to mitigate my intense social anxiety by surrounding myself with people who were more forgiving of my idiosyncracies and, almost always, shared the same traits as me. (I'm not going to say that we're all equally weird because calling oneself "weird" seems too self-congratulatory and, if I am anything, I tend more towards self-flatulation.). My friends and I could speak to each other without fear of social repercussions because we were basically the same person whose linear thinking was full of second guessing and doubt. 

Becoming a parent has shattered that protective, public bubble and exposed me to interactions with people far outside of my comfort zone. I'm now in a pool of people who come from much more normal, sane backgrounds and probably won't understand what it's like to grow up in a house where reenactments of the crucifixion was as normal as a game of Scrabble in other households. (We never played Scrabble. It was too "thinky"). They are the people who have very clean kitchens with organized spice racks and craft boxes with paints that didn't expire three years ago. 

As a result, I assume everyone dislikes me, which is a feeling I am all too familiar with. (I spent most of my high school career asking everyone if they hated me. In fact, that's exclusively what I said. I rarely ever said anything other than that. I have no idea why I even had friends as a teenager). On the walk to Darla's school, if a parent doesn't smile or say "Hi," I immediately wonder what I have done wrong. I get so nervous on these walks that I flub up my words and often say "Good Morning" when I am picking up Darla in the afternoon. This mistake echoes in my head well into the evening. 

There are a handful of parents, in particular, who seem to harbor animus towards me. These are the ones who only seem to scowl when I cross their paths. At first, I thought this was all in my head. I know better, now. I have seen each parent who has frowned at me immediately give an enthusiastic "hello" to the person a few feet behind me. 

I have had no interaction with any of these parents and am baffled why they could already not like me. (Give me a chance to creep you out, at least!) Maybe it's because my damaged hair is on point every day or my dress with the hem that's completely ripped with the strings that trail behind me on the sidewalk is causing them to feel envious. I guess I could understand that.

In reality, I think I have resting asshole face, which is probably brought on by my complete avoidance of all eye contact for fear that I am going to make myself look like a real piece of shit if I open my mouth. Recently, at a grocery store, I shopped alongside a mom of one of the kids in Darla's class without looking at her once. I want to think that we both avoided each other, but it seems more likely that she would've gladly said hello if I didn't avert my eyes and become engrossed in the expiration date of the chicken in my cart every time she walked passed.

Sometimes, I can bring myself to look at the other parents and those eye-contact relationships have a solid foundation. With these scowling parents, however, there's less of a chance this will happen now that we've established animosity. Given that I am an extrovert with social anxiety, the likelihood I will bridge that gap is slim. On the other hand, the chances of me beating up myself over it is incredibly high. I will just continue to imagine the conversations I would have with them, though, if I could just stop being so awkward. At least I can edit out all the embarrassing things i would say in those interactions. Maybe when Darla's ready to graduate from middle school I can muster up the courage to wave to them. 

Peeing Competition Champion

The heat was on and the moment of truth had arrived. Everything we'd been working on for years led up to this moment. The starter was poised with his pistol pointed in the air. I looked at my sisters, who sat next to me. I knew one of us was going to take home the gold day. I had a feeling it was going to be me since I had so much practice.

"On your marks, get set, go," yelled the man as he shot his gun. 

The race had begun and we all started peeing since this was a peeing competition. Only the best could win this game. 

And then I woke up wearing a nightgown soaked through with pee and wet sheets that clung to my legs. I had done it, again. I had peed the bed for the 8,000th night in a row. This time it was the allure of winning a peeing competition that had done me in. I was six, almost seven, and I was anxiously awaiting the day that I would stop wetting the bed. 

The peeing wasn't solely confined to my bed. It happened at school, too. I watched as the pee pooled around the floor of my desk and hyperventilated. I wondered if I could someone pass the blame to Marcus, who sat in front of me and had already endured the shame of peeing in class. He could be the lightning rod for embarrassment and I could live another day without having to transfer schools. I decided to just stay quiet and spent the rest of the day sloshing around in pee soaked shoes and rancid smelling underwear. The polyester uniform skirt wasn't doing me any favors and I had a wide rash around my thighs by the end of the day. 

I got the call today from Darla's school that she had, in the tradition of her mom, peed and needed a change of clothes. I ran out of the house, panicking the whole way to her school.

"This is going to be one of those days," I thought. "One of those days that leaves an indelible mark and forever changes the trajectory of her life."

I expected to walk into the office and find a devastated Darla ready to spew, "why did it take you so long?" at me. Instead, there was no Darla in the office. She was on the playground having a blast in her pee drenched underwear and shorts. When they brought her to me, she was beaming; so excited to be getting a brief interlude from normal, daily activities. This was an adventure. 

Her entire attitude was that this was a side note and wasn't it so cool she got to go home to take a shower. Meanwhile, I'm recalibrating my entire belief system on childhood since, apparently, it isn't as fraught as I think it is. I never knew that public urination could be taken so lightly, which really opens up a lot of doors for me. As someone with a small bladder, this is an incredibly liberating bit of intel. 

Letters to My Childhood Self

You could lure me into the back of a white van with tinted windows by promising that at the end of the ride (which may or may not be terror filled and overflowing with torture) you'd be leading a writing workshop where we'd journal letters to our childhood selves. My eyes would well up as I contemplated the torrents of pity I'd rain down on the five year old me as I hoisted myself into the metal prison on wheels. There were going to many tears shed over that piece as I wrote in a whisper, "you're doing a good job and you're loved." 

This is what Darla and Jude will look like as I write my painful letter to myself. They'll be oblivious of my inner anguish. 

That's to say that I am hopelessly stuck in my childhood and completely incapable of embracing the life that sits in front of me. I want to comb through my childhood with a lice comb and pick apart all the ways in which I was wronged, which makes me very resentful of my current state of being responsible for two, small lives. (Three if you count the dog that pees all over everything if he isn't wearing a diaper and growls at every kid on a scooter while I walk Darla to school in the morning). I'm the poor baby, God damnit. I don't have time to deal with their big emotions in little bodies. I have to focus on ME. 

The situation isn't helped since I'm the youngest in a family of twelve and was allowed to stay an infant for far longer than anyone else did. I may still be referred to as Baby Liz (finally, it's no longer to my face, so that's positive). I was coddled well into adulthood, treated as if I was my oldest siblings' child, and barred from any responsibility. Even today, it seems that my ability to hold down a steady job is met with such gleeful enthusiasm that it makes me often question whether I deserve the modicum of success I experience. I wonder if I'm secretly terrible at everything I do, but my family has shielded me from the reality that I'm a dimwit with little to offer the world. I assume that everything I have achieved in life has been either through pity or some sort of bribe from my family. I'm the only one not in on this joke. 

My family was so busy watching the sun shine out of my ass and holding me with kids gloves, that I never had any training before the moment the doctor laid a screaming, naked Darla on my chest. All I did to prepare myself for parenthood was watch Teen Mom and cry. I felt like I was watching my life unfold on the screen through the lives of those knocked up teenagers. We were caught off guard and unaware of how to even change a diaper. Their excuse, however, was that they were still children. Mine was that I still acted like one.

I didn't even have a single babysitting gig on my resume. Well, that's not totally true. I did watch my niece Mila one time, which shouldn't count because all I did was put her in her crib and listen to her babble. When her parents came home, she immediately screamed and pointed an accusatory finger at me, which made me wonder if I had inadvertantly done something terribly wrong to her. My sister Joanne assured me that was Mila's MO, which I believed was just an additional part of the lifelong charade my family had been performing in which I was presented to be a fully functioning member of society with no serious problems. I'm sure Mila didn't accuse anyone else of monstrosities.

Prior to holding Darla, I had been the center of my own universe and my family was just there to cheerlead me on. Now, the focus was taken sharply off me and put onto this tiny baby with jaundice. It felt alien. It felt like they were putting far too much trust in me. Didn't they know that the only reason I graduated college was because my family had convinced the college to pump up my ego by giving me A's, otherwise I would be too devastated to even go on? I didn't know how I was going to be able to take care of a baby. 

Day after day, I did it. I always felt, however, that I was missing that bit of DNA that makes you celebrate every waking moment of your child's life. I see these Instagram feeds where the mothers are laughing and tossing their kids in the air or they complain about a "mess" that is actually just a pile of pristine pastel stuffed animals in the center of their spotless living room. I don't see anyone with a living room covered in spilled foundation and a white, plastic garbage bag overflowing with recycling that she's been meaning to take out for the past month. Those pictures aren't appealing or pretty, but they're the reality of my life as a mom. 

So, I have come to the conclusion that, as the youngest sibling, I was always setup to be a terrible parent. How am I supposed to effortlessly adjust and put my child at the center of my world when all I've known is that I need to be held with extreme care? It happened, whether I wanted it to or not, but I have to wonder if I might have let go of my kid-free life more easily if I were given more tools. 

As you can see, this piece devolved into a well-orchestrated pity party for myself so I am still not 100% evolved as a mom. I can't even stay focused on the topic of being a mom!  I'm going to go climb into this white van and get to writing that letter of apology to my childhood self I've been really wanting to get to while my kids bang on my bedroom door, desperate to get my attention. I'll tell them to be quiet, knowing that I'm just giving them fodder for their own self-indulgent letters to their childhood selves when they're older. 

Tell Me a Story

There's nothing more heartbreaking than your child taking an active interest in your childhood. It shows that she looks up to you and admires you. And then you remember that the admiration will stop abruptly on her tenth birthday. This then leads to heaps of guilt as you wonder why you're not appreciating this moment enough or why you're not basking in the warmth of pure, sweet love. The timeout you gave her an hour prior seems mean spirited and cruel. 

Darla, at six, has recently been asking me to tell her stories from when I was her age.  This is actually a huge relief as our relationship transitions away from the vapid, space-filler questions she used to ask, such as "how old are you?" I find this way of communicating much easier. This question, on the other hand, has also led me to feel very disappointed in myself as a mother.

First, her interest is so pure and easy to satisfy that I feel terrible hiring sitters and doing anything in my power to get away from her and her brother for a break.

Second  for someone whose greatest passion is talking about her childhood, I find telling Darla stories about my childhood to be surprisingly difficult. As I scan the landscape of my mind, I see nothing but a wasteland of hard-knock lessons that I don't think Darla is ready to hear. Do I tell her about how my dad thought I drew a picture of a penis when it was actually a chef when I was six? Or is she ready to hear about how I got slapped by a skinhead on the same night I lost my virginity? For some reason, my favorite stories to tell seem a tad too mature for a six year old. 

Third, my greatest challenge when faced with the obstacle of oral storytelling is overcoming my debilitating self-doubt. As I speak, I start to hear myself speak and then my mind wanders to the very real possibility that what I'm saying is either incredibly offensive or makes it very clear that I'm a fraud. This thought process makes telling stories off the cuff challenging and nearly impossible, even when it's an audience of one sex year old child. 

This is why I stand in our kitchen, holding a bag of frozen broccoli, and stare off into space. As I made dinner, an activity that fills me with so much anxiety that I find it difficult to hold up a conversation, Darla asked me to talk about my childhood. She sat at the white kitchen tables, swinging her legs and eating a pre-dinner snack that I gave her because I didn't have the energy to argue.

As I dumped the frozen broccoli into the pot of boiling water, I mentally filtered through all my favorite stories and rejected each one because each one contained content that wasn't appropriate for a six year old. 

I persevere, however, and find myself telling Darla that simplest, boring story that popped into my head. 

"Well," I said, taking a deep breath to give myself a moment to collect my thoughts. "One time, when I was six, your grandma brought my brothers and sisters to the mall to buy us clothes. My mom left the kid's section where the toys were to find clothes for your Aunt Bridget, who got to shop in the big kid section. She told your Aunt Erin to watch me, but she only watched me for about five minutes before she decided she wanted to go somewhere else. She told me to go with her, but I refused because I found a stuffed bear that I was really excited about. After a few minutes, I realized that I was actually alone in the store and got really scared. I walked about to the cashier who let me sit behind the counter while she paged my mom. I played with the hangers until my mom got there."

I was completely ashamed of the story with its complete lack of anything inspiring or interesting. It was simply a retelling of facts. The story was heavily edited and so simple that the telling was over in a matter of seconds. I disappoint myself and begin to question my abilities as a story teller. 

I looked over at Darla, expecting her to throw herself on the floor and have a full blown tantrum because my story was so awful. I was surprised to see that a small, satisfied smile had spread across her face as she popped a veggie stick in her mouth. 

"Tell me another one," she says with a laugh. 

"Oh man," I said, breathing a bit more freely now as I realize that she's not that difficult to please. "Let me think..."

And, again, I'm stuck. I stare at the ceiling wondering if she'd like to hear about the time I got caught shoplifting CD's for my friend and was grounded for a month. 

An Ugly Bottom

I became an Aunt for the first time when I was four years old.  After my nephew was born, my mom drove my sister Sarah and I the six hours to my oldest sister's house in our wood paneled station wagon.  At the one hour mark, Sarah and I saw the Coco's billboard on the west side of the 5 freeway and we knew we were at the halfway point.  The second half of the trip always seemed so much longer than the first. 

The look of a child who has yet to discover the horror of her newborn nephew's "belly button."

On the drive up, I didn't have a single question about where my nephew came from. His presence was a given.  I figured it probably wasn't any of my business anyway.  I watched out the window as we passed neatly lined fields, Vacation village, and the ocean as we steadily pushed our way north through California. 

I felt warmth and excitement as we got off Kathy's exit and I tapped my foot nervously on the seat in front of mine.  My black patent leather shoes making a gentle click click click against the fabric.  I wondered whether Kathy would be excited to see me or would she only care about the new baby. My heart fluttered anxiously at the thought that she might not have enough room for me.

We pulled up to the curb next to the long driveway down which Kathy's house sat.  As I tore out of the car, I shouted, "Kathy, Kathy, we're here!" I ran into her white stucco house and hopped up the stairs that led to the living room. Kathy was pacing softly up and down her living room. Her face lit up when she saw me.

"Oh, hello" she said in a gentle sing song whisper. Her hair was blown out and held securely in place with an entire can of hair spray.  Her bangs a perfect wave over her small brow.  On her shoulder, leaning over a small, blue blanket, lay my new, sleeping nephew.  She brought her fingers to her lips. 

"He's so cute!" I whispered and tiptoed over to her.  Kathy beamed down at me with as much warmth and energy as she ever had.  At that moment, Ryan's face scrunched up. A gentle squeal emitted from his throat and he let out a small fart right at my face level.  I looked up at Kathy, mortified. Her mouth was a perfect "o" and her eyebrows shot up.  We both laughed.  

"Well, that's quite a howdy do, wouldn't you say," said Kathy as she adjusted Ryan, who was now awake, on her shoulder.  "Want to help me change this guys diaper?" 

Equal parts disgusted and intrigued, I said, "I think so" and followed her down to the nursery.  She lay Ryan on the changing table and asked me to grab him a diaper. I skipped over to the drawer and pulled out a tiny diaper with Winnie the Pooh dancing around it.  When I came back to hand her it, she had his diaper off.

I stopped. I didn't know what I was looking at. Between his small, kicking legs lay a small object that I had never seen before.  I looked up at Kathy with worry.  Was the baby sick? I wondered. Why is she acting like this is normal about this?  One thing was certain, this baby was actually not as cute as I initially thought he was. 

I mumbled, "I have to go to the bathroom" and ran out of the room. A lump was forming in my throat and I was ready to cry.  I stood in the hallway, unable to decide whether I wanted to sit in the bathroom or hide under Kathy's bed until it was time to go home.  Before I could decide, Kathy came out holding the grotesque child gently in her arms. His limbs flailed jerkily and he let out deep squeaks. 

Kathy smiled at me until she saw my look of horror.  "What happened? What's wrong?"

I tried to smile, but my eyes felt tight. "He has an ugly bottom" I choked out.

Kathy's face went from worried, to confused, to amused in a matter of seconds. She held back a laugh and said, "oh lizzy. He's just a boy. That's how is bottom is supposed to look."

Normal or not, I decided right then and there that I did not think boys had very nice bottoms.  And that is the earliest memory I have of any sort of sex education. It was pretty much the only one I received until I read the natural birthing book Kathy had in her house when she was pregnant with my second nephew, Kevin. It was equally as horrific as Ryan's newborn bottom.  

With Darla, I'm trying to make sex education a little less horrifying, which is why I was a bit more candid when she asked me where babies come from. I was in the mood to be a progressive parent that day. It was nearing Jude's bedtime and they both were showered and in clean pajamas.  He was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt and basketball shorts. Darla, was, as per usual, in her underwear. They danced with heavy feet across the dirty rug in the center of their room. I cringed with each stomp, imagining the bits of ceiling falling on our downstairs neighbors head and onto his ramen noodles he had made for dinner.

"shhhhhhh," I said.  "Don't be rude. The downstairs guy isn't going to like this."

This had no effect on either of them as they tested out pirhouttes and basic spins. Darla's typical stream of consciousness song came out in a steady flow.

"If I were a lady, I'd dance until my feet stopped dancing. And when I fall, I will get up. Because I'm a queen. Who has a baby growing in my stomach. And I bring the baby home from the hospital. And we sing!"

She stopped to take a sip of water.  She looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Mommy, when will I have boobs?" she asked.

I took a deep breath, resisting my urge to tell her "someday." I didn't want her to feel I wasn't open to discussing. Instead, I said, "We'll read a good book about it after Jude goes to bed."

She accepted my answer and went back to leaping across the room and destroying our downstairs neighbors ceiling.

Later, I brought down the book and sat down on our fluffy brown couch in the living room. I sunk down into it and closed my eyes.  Ready for a moment of nothingness.  I heard her raspy voice in the distance as she talked to herself about the toy she was going to bring to read about boobs.  When she sat down on the couch next to me, fidgeting and rolling around, I opened my eyes. I fortified myself to dive into a factual explanation of human anatomy, pushing aside all the anxiety I felt.  If I wanted my daughter to be confident of herself, I have to make her confident of her entire self.

The books starts off tame. Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas.  I stay present as I read.  I even edit out the heteronormative bits about a man and a woman falling in love. I leave out the "they get married" party, because I'd be quite the hypocrite if I say that's a necessary prelude to parenthood. I took out everything that could be limiting. I was feeling incredibly cocksure; I was proud of myself for being such a good parent.  Darla wasn't going to be ashamed of her body. She was going to think all the stuff it could do was pretty cool.

Then I got to the part about "sperm meeting egg" and I started to sweat.  I wasn't too sure about this as I slowly waded into the murky waters of inappropriate content for a five year old.  The authors must know what they're doing, so I brushed aside doubt and kept going. The graphic of the little sperm, however, was too much for both of us to take.

"Eww," Darla said, as she pointed at the squiggly white worm smiling at the big circle.

"Yeah, ewwww," I said because it is pretty gross if you think about it.

We both laughed as I headed forward, really hoping that she doesn't ask too many questions about how the squiggly worm got there in the first place.  I read the last part quickly and was proud of myself for making it to the end. As I finished, I smiled at her. 

"Isn't that so interesting?  Your body is very cool!"

She sat silently and looked down at her underwear. Then back at the book. Then back at her underwear. She was thinking deeply.

"So, the baby comes out of my vagina?" she asked.  

"That's correct," I said slowly, knowing exactly where her mind was going.

"So, it comes out of there," she said as she pointed at her underwear.

"That's correct," I said, again. What had I done?

She immediately howled, fat tears pooling in her eyes.  Her face red and contorted. "I don't want to have a baby!!!"

I was too tired to keep going, so I just said "It's not so bad. You can take medicine not to make it hurt." When I said this, half the mother's in Los Angeles must've gotten inexplicable nausea as that was one less child indoctrinated into the natural birth movement.

She seemed vaguely satisfied with that and I got her to go to bed. I felt proud of myself for acknowledging that she had a body. 

The next morning, as she watched TV, we heard hew howling. 

"Jude, stop it," she yelled and I came in to see her naked brother standing innocently in front of her.

Fully clothed and getting along. 

My patience from the night before was shot. I didn't have time to help them negotiate the situation.

"Darla, stop complaining," I said. "Your brother is being nice."

"Don't be rude," her dad chimed in.

Darla started crying hysterically. 

"But he was rubbing his penis on my foot," she cried.

Greg and I looked at each other. Oh shit. We switched gears quickly.

"Jude, that's inappropriate," I said as I whisked him off to his room to put on underwear. Whatever headway I'd made the night before, I definitely undid it all when we reprimanded her for complaining about her brother's penis on her foot. I made a vow to be better the next day. And so goes the daily guilt cycle in my house. 

Soon to be a Mother of Two

I don’t know what came over me.  One day, I looked at Darla walking around and talking and thought, “holy crap, I think I want to have another one.”   I brought it up to Greg and he wasn’t sold on the idea for a few more months. 

We both knew, once we found out I was pregnant with Darla, that we were going to have another kid.  In fact, within minutes of Darla being born I thought, “Oh crap, I’m going to have to do the whole pregnancy and delivery crap all over again someday.”  I had been dreading getting pregnant ever since.

Overtime, however, the morning sickness, extreme fatigue, the baby limbs jutting out of my stomach, the heartburn and the peeing 20 to 25 times a day became a distant memory.  I looked back on myself from 2010 and thought I was just being a baby.  It wasn’t that bad.

Once I got pregnant this time, I quickly realized that it really was as bad as I had remembered.  I was sick for 19 weeks, had a few weeks where I felt ok and then the extreme fatigue and discomfort kicked in.  I’m not a very grateful pregnant woman.  I’m angry and I complain a lot.  I don’t enjoy being pregnant and see it as the cross I must bare in order to get the baby.  

Which brings me to today; 38.5 weeks pregnant.  I’m shortly going to introduce a baby boy, currently named Butter courtesy of Darla, into the world.  And I’m terrified beyond words.  I know it’s going to be hard.  I know it’s going to rock my world and that it’s going to be like climbing a mountain with a toddler clinging to my leg and a newborn strapped to my chest.  I know I’m going to be even more exhausted than I am now. 

I, also, know, that life’s going to get even more awesome because I’m going to get to meet Baby Butter and watch he and Darla grow up together.  These past months are a small price to pay for that amount of amazing. 

Like Cussing Mother, Like Cussing Daughter

According to my sister Bridget, the first time I cussed was when I was four.  Eight siblings had just crawled out of the backseat of our dad’s station wagon.  I was about to follow suit when Bridget closed the door in my face, forgetting that I was still in the car.  Realizing her mistake, she turned around to open it.  Before she could, she read my little lips as I yelled, “oh shit.”  I was angry and surprised and I had no other choice but to curse my way through the situation.  I don’t think I’ve stopped swearing since.

Darla is an even earlier bloomer than I was.  It was a proud moment in my life when I realized that my 18-month-old daughter was a swearer.  This special occasion happened for me when I gave Darla a juice box filled with coconut water.  She took a long, satisfied pull from it, slammed it down on the table and said, “Oh S” (but it’s not just “s”) with a big grin on her face.  Greg and I looked at each other and put our heads on the table.  The most troubling part about this wasn’t the fact that she said it, but that she had reached a level of sophisticated cussing that she completely bypassed the frustrated or angry profanity and went straight for the joyful use. 

This is a wake up call for me.  Although I’ve been very conscious not to let vulgarity rein, I’ve let a few (or maybe a little more than a few…) muttered profanities pass my lips in her presence.  Sometimes, it came as a result of running late for an appointment and seeing that Darla had decided to take my bag and dump it all over the floor.  Other times, it was when I’d been so excited by something cool Darla has done (like dancing like a “Maniac”) that I exclaim, “that’s f’ing amazing.”  I’m 100% to blame for this and I apologize in advance to all of the parent’s Darla and I come in contact with.  Darla has been known to teach other kids such wonderful things as “no, no, no, no, no” or screaming at the top of her lungs.   Here’s just one more thing to add to your list of “things my child learned from Darla that I now have to unteach it.”

I’m at a loss of how to deprogram Darla, but I have been trying my hand at redirecting her language.  Here are some examples:  When Darla says the s-word I pretend she has said “cheese.”  With her garbled tones, it’s an easy mistake to make.  I’m hoping after enough rounds of this, she will get confused and think she’s actually saying cheese.  Also, I believe I’ve heard Darla say the b-word, but I just translate that to “peach.”  When the day comes when Darla says the f-word, I imagine I will have to think she’s saying “fork” and pass her the utensil. 

I’m hoping this plan works.  I try not to let my mind linger on the fact that she may just end up saying the s-word every time she wants a slice of cheese.  

A Bad Case of Motherhood

Infants and toddlers with their new, little immune systems get sick every other week.  Everyone knows that.  A mom, an adult with a supposedly seasoned and robust immune system, is supposed to be the rock on which her sick children lean.  I, unfortunately, am not of such sturdy stock as I imagine all others to be. 

Sometime around Darla's first birthday in March, I lost it because every time she was sick, I was sick.  By May, it had been two months of a non-stop viral party.  I couldn't believe that I just had a weak immune system.  I decided there was something terribly wrong with my health.  I looked over the past few months.  Consistent sinus infections, hand, foot and mouth disease, extreme exhaustion and fevers.  The only thing I could glean from this information was that I was anemic, again.  I tried taking vitamins, drinking more water and eating better.  I still felt like my head was stuft with cotton and that my eyes were hung-over droopy.

After putting it off for months, I went to the doctor.  I was ashamed to admit I felt malaise, achy and at my wits end.  I thought that there was no way she would under stand the pain I was enduring. 

She walked into the office, asked if I had any concerns and I dove right in.

"I have a 14 month, whose actually in the waiting room with her dad.  I've been sick non-stop, I'm going brain-dead because I'm so tired and I wake up every morning dreading my to do list.  I count the minutes until I can go back to sleep from the second I wake up."

I thought she was going to criticize me for being an unenthusiastic, apathetic parent who can't properly raise a child.  I hoped she would diagnose my anemia before she got to that part.

Instead, after she heard my monologue listing my ailments, she gave a look as if to say, "there's more, right?"

I added, "I used to have anemia, so I think its come back."

She shook her head, "I think that you're experiencing what it's like to be a mother.  This all sounds very normal."

I wanted to argue with her.  Tell her that she didn't know what she was talking about and that being a mom can't be this hard.  To have argued that point would have meant ignoring the big elephant in the room (aka her 8 month old pot belly of her second pregnancy). 

To placate me, she agreed to run some tests, which I didn't end up taking until two months later.

When I finally went in for the blood tests, I anxiously awaited the day that the results would come in.  I was excited to find out that I had a minor problem, which could be cured by a few pills.  The phone call I received regarding the results was beyond disappointing.  My levels were all normal.  There would be no miracle pills for me.

Despite this lack of a diagnosis, I trudge on.  The exhaustion has slightly diminished. I went a whole month without getting sick.  I only count down the minutes until lunch and then, from there, I count down the minutes until bed.  Things are improving!