My Summer Dream

This is where I want to be for the next two months, a folding chair permanently placed on my deck. Add beer and a bathing suit. Summer is the time of year when I lose all desire to be productive. For some people, they are excited to clear out and deep clean their baseboards. I really don't see the point, since I don't want to be inside long enough to know if I even have baseboards. I want to read, go hiking, go to the zoo, eat Otter pops and make use of my front porch. Perhaps I have never grown out of the idea that summer is a time to kick back and have no responsibilities.

When school ends, my kids spend lazy afternoons lying on the deck, sprinklers cooling their sunburned backs with no concern of how we will pay for groceries or who will deal with the stack of bills piling up next to the sink. They fill up squirt guns and get lost in blanket forts. I want that life. Sadly, when I had that life, I was wishing for the life I have now. I wanted to be a grown up and able to buy anything I wanted. Able to drive to my friend's house for the entire day and never do chores. It's the beauty of being young, you don't realize that once you are old enough to live that dream, you become too old and jaded to do it. I buy what we need so the bank account doesn't go into the red before payday. My friends have jobs and kids and responsibilities which makes jumping in my car at 10:00 am on a Wednesday and heading to their place a silly endeavor. No one would be home and I need to do laundry. Those fucking chores. The ones my parents promised that one day I would have to do in greater quantity. Not me, I thought. My room will be a shit hole and I don't care how bad the tub gets when I grow up, I am never cleaning it. It changes really quick when you are making a mortgage payment and realize that that kind of behavior could land you on an episode of Hoarders.

But what about this summer livin' gig? I'm dying for some of that. I want to read long, beautiful novels and never put on a bra. I want eat watermelon with my hands and ride my bike until it's too dark to see my own front door. I want to enjoy the way the heat  makes me sleepy and take a nap in the shade atop my pink striped beach towel. I don't want to worry about payroll, deadlines, becoming someone important, making dinner, mowing the lawn or putting gas in the car. I want a fifteen hour day spent in complete summer bliss, burning the shit out of my shoulders, my only concern being the amount of days until I have to put on a backpack again and learn something.

Getting A Real Job

When I was younger, I would dream about being an actress, a marine biologist and a vet, but never a mom. That wasn't a real job. My mom was the pinnacle of stay at home parents, but I couldn't appreciate all that she did because she made it look so easy. It never looked like work. She was happy to hang our clothes out on the line and help us with homework. We had homemade meals every evening and clean clothes waiting in our drawers every morning. I knew it wasn't a fairy who cleaned the house but I didn't think that could be considered work. My friends' moms went to the nursing home and the county courthouse for 8 hours a day. Their mom's weren't home after school which seemed pretty cool to a 12 year old who wanted to raid the fridge and watch MTV all afternoon. My mom was waiting for us after school with fresh cookies and a smile. It seems great but sometimes irritated my preteen senses. I couldn't  make bad choices with her hanging around the house all day. I had yet to understand that she had signed up for the toughest gig around by not having a 'real' job.

 The vet and marine biologist gigs didn't pan out for me and I gained a new found interest in having babies. I was home with my kids for the first years of their lives and worked part time jobs off and on to mingle with people who spoke in whole sentences and consumed more than breast milk. When I was at work, I felt validated by a paycheck and other adults who appreciated my efforts. At home, I worked harder to bathe, diaper, feed and entertain my kids without the perks or the paycheck. The benefits were happy kids and an enjoyable home life, but the hours were long and there were moments when I felt insignificant. I was just a mom. My friends had careers, college educations and retirement funds. They were living up their 20's at bars, wine tastings and indie movie premiers. I couldn't stay awake for an entire movie and I drank boxed wine. Bars were either soap or what I wanted to be behind so I could sleep for 8 hours straight. This mom thing was starting to feel like a 'real' job and I owed my own mom a big apology and an even bigger thank you.

My son asked me the other night at dinner when I was going to get a real job. I have recently left a company and can now make my own hours. I work while my kids are at school and write while they are asleep. I've become a pro at making it look easy. So easy that my kids don't think I have a job. I guess it takes becoming a parent to understand that the job your parents did raising you far surpasses what they did for an occupation. And sometimes it is one in the same.

Brotherly Love

I'm back!!! Thanks to all of you peeps who came by for a visit from my post on mythirtyspot, I was out of town and without decent Internet so my regular posts took a vacation, too. Here is a link to my article if you missed it and don't forget to enter the giveaway and read some of the other great content on her page.
http://www.mythirtyspot.com/2013/05/why-some-relationships-need-to-end.html

Growing up, my mom would always tell us that one day we would be glad we had siblings. I didn't believe a word of that nonsense. My brother annoyed me and my sister was a shadow I constantly wanted to hide from. We fought and cried and thought it would never end. That's the thing about my mom, she always knows what she's talking about, even when I don't want to hear it.

When my brother was born, I was three years old and I had been promised a baby brother by my dad, so thankfully that worked out for every one. As you can see, he was adorable. We got along just fine before he could talk, which took awhile because I made it my personal quest to talk for him. "Chad needs that." Being the head strong person I am, it pissed me off when our mom wanted him to talk for himself. Clearly, I had it handled. I have been the proverbial bossy big sister ever since.

My brother is one of the smartest people I know and he never belonged in public school, he was too smart for that shit. When he got a new bike for Christmas, he would proceed to take it apart piece by piece and rebuild it just so he knew how it worked. The school kept telling my mom he needed resource classes and when he ended up there, he never fit in because he was 'too well behaved'. His brain was never built for book work and thank god for that. I know too many dip shits who can list off all the great American authors, foreign film directors and the periodical table, and they are the same people who burn up their engine because they never get an oil change. I tend to appreciate real over pretentious, every day of the week.

Growing up, we fought like crazy. Our cousin recently reminded me of one summer afternoon where he witnessed me beat my brother with part of our canister vacuum. I don't remember that particular incident, but it's not of the realm of possibilities. I used to lick the palm of my hand, pull his shirt up and slap his back as hard as humanly possible. He liked to mouth off and I liked to beat the crap out of him. Indian burns, fingernails embedded in his arm and dragging him by his shirt as he tried to flee the scene. To any of you with kids who wonder if they will ever love each other after the shenanigans they pull growing up, I promise they will.

The only time I was farther than 30 miles away from my brother, was when I moved to Vegas for a year. He was 16 at the time and we didn't have a lot in common. I came home to a baby brother who towered over me at 6'5 and made more money in a year than our parents did. I have taken for granted that he would always be close enough to meet for lunch or listen to the weird banging sound my car is making. Every holiday is a house full of laughter and every Sunday we all catch up over brunch. My brother has hilarious derby car stories and he is great at harassing us about car repairs we owe him for. He wouldn't take our money if his life depended on it. He stays late at work to help a buddy fix his brakes and drops his weekend plans to help our dad move. If you wonder what humble looks like, this is it. A man who gives of his time willingly, works hard, loves his family and thinks that it's nothing special. I'm overly protective and I don't have to justify it. It doesn't matter. I'm the oldest and he's my baby brother and no one understands how great he is except me. The end.

This week my brother will be making some big changes in his life and moving across the country to be with his fiance. Sunday brunch won't be the same, my car will have unending rattles and a piece of my heart will be thousands of miles away. I am so happy for him and so sad for me. All those years that I couldn't wait to get rid of my annoying little brother and now I don't know what I'll do without one of the most important people in my life. Mom was right, I am sure glad I have siblings.

Cookie Cutter Nothing

I find joy in the most ridiculous things. Taking pictures of cookie cutters for a post I haven't even written, makes me giddy. Last week, I carefully arranged sticky notes and took more than one photo of them, as well. My mind is a cluster fuck of ideas that could only be labeled artistic by a mental patient. It's a running theme in my life.

When I was a kid, I never felt like I fit in with my peers. I have never had a sense of style, a clear grasp on the male species or a nuclear family. While everyone else was watching Star Wars and playing on this new contraption called Nintendo, I was playing baby dolls and mastering the art of the board game. As I got older, I continued to dress in thrift store clothes and could never put a definitive label on my musical taste. It was an absurd mix of Neil Diamond and Rage Against The Machine. In short, I've never been cookie cutter anything. I longingly watched 'normal' kids start dating and make a skirt/boot combo look runway worthy and I wondered "If I had that outfit, would it change my life?" or "After my nose job, can I look forward to the opposite sex noticing I am alive?" My hope was that one day I would fit into some mold that made me appealing to someone in any way possible. I was weird and unwillingly to see it as a positive.

After high school, I left my small town life behind for the bright lights of the city and a desire to be a new me. I still couldn't dress myself and my obsession with gay men kept me in the dark about how homely I really was. While I had great friendships with women, I was super awkward on the dating scene. Take for example the time I was on break from class, sitting outside on my giant cell phone and talking with a young man I was spending time with. I never had a firm grasp on what our relationship was, but I got to end the conversation and proclaimed my love for him. Dead silence. I quickly hung up my brick phone and accepted the fact that I was a fucking weirdo who would never have a normal relationship. I have always done things in the wrong order, with the wrong people while donning an eclectic mishmash of clothing.

When I met my husband, I attempted to freak him out by pretending to be a super slut. It didn't work. His fashion sense was worse than mine and he saw something in me that I had yet to see in myself. He thought I was pretty and wanted to have full conversations with me. And he was straight. It didn't make sense. In true fashion, I was engaged to him within a month and struggling with how I, off all people, could be a wife. What kind of girl was I? I farted, burped, ate full meals and smoked on the patio while my fiance studied for exams. Any man in his right mind knew I wasn't marriage material. I anticipated the day he would finally realize what a mess I was and make a beeline for the Witness Protection Program. He never did.

Nothing has changed. I am a mother. A mother who lets her kids eat sugar packets at restaurants and pick out their own clothes. I am a runner. A runner who smokes and will never pound the pavement for longer than 30 minutes. I am a wife. A wife who doesn't make the bed and has no problem farting before/during or after intercourse. I am a friend. A friend who adores you and will never remember your birthday. I am a music lover. A music lover who rocks out to Flor Rida alone in my kitchen and then proceeds to scream the lyrics of Nine Inch Nails while picking up my kids from school. It makes no logical sense. It used to bother me that I didn't fit some cookie cutter profile, but the older I get the less I care. I will admit to wishing I could wear bright lipstick and put an outfit together, but some things just aren't meant to be.

Starting Over

                       I appear to be happily on an episode of Locked Up Abroad.

This picture has nothing to do with what I am writing about because that would be way too predictable. It's me in a jail cell at Alcatraz. I love vacation photos and I hope you have been enjoying them as well. If you haven't, then I will stop posting them. Ha!!! No I won't....I do what I want.

Today is kid day. I don't even remember what we started calling it when I sold out and named each day's blog, but who the fuck cares now. Here we are. Without slopping through the murky history of my childhood and parental situation, let's agree that I have a bio dad, a step dad, a mom and a few step moms. I grew up with my mom and step dad and had very little contact with my sperm donor. I always called him my sperm donor growing up because it felt a little less formal. I felt like I needed an evening gown and English accent to say "biological father". Neither of which I ever possessed. My lifestyle growing up was completely different from the lifestyle my sperm donor was living. My mom stayed home, my dad was a cop and we lived in a lower middle class neighborhood where everyone drove shitty, used cars. We camped a lot and rarely ate out at restaurants. My sperm donor, on the other hand, was living what looked like from the outside, the good life. He always drove nice cars, had expensive houses and the few times I saw him, was throwing cash around like it was Monopoly money. He knew very little about my life and I couldn't understand his.

Fast forward twenty-five years and we are reconnecting. He came back into my life a sober man who willingly apologized and seems ready to move forward. I've realized an interesting dichotomy to our relationship, not only do we get to know each other as we are today but he doesn't have a clue as to what my upbringing was like. While we were having dinner recently, I was talking about my mom and how talented she is. I was sharing with my half-sister that my mom had sewn most of our clothes growing up. He looked perplexed and asked "Why did she make your clothes?". Part of me wanted to be a dick and tell him that it was because he never paid child support. I chuckled to myself and told him that we never had a lot of money and that it was the cheapest way for us to have new clothes. I wish I had a photo of his expression, it was complete shock. I don't know what he thought my life was like growing up but I gathered that it wasn't at all like he imagined.

It's a strange place to be in, getting to know someone who gave you 50% of their DNA. How could they not know every last detail about you? My husband is one of the most involved fathers I know and I can't imagine him being out of the loop in his own children's lives. He wouldn't stand for it. It doesn't piss me off anymore that my bio wasn't there for my childhood, it makes me sad for him. The smallest and most beautiful details of my life are a mystery to him. My first bike ride, getting my tonsils out, learning how to drive a stick shift and getting my first apartment. I can't imagine the pain of loving someone and not really knowing them at all. It's a life lesson that is best learned through someone else, so you don't have to live in the sorrow of it yourself.

Teen Pregnancy & Other Ways I Offend People

It's Hump Day and your chance to get a itty bitty sex lesson from someone with no degree, few partners and a complete lack of censorship.
I want to start off by giving you a link to an interesting article I read today out of NYC regarding a new campaign that the New York  Health and Human Services recently launched. Whether or not you agree with how they are going about dealing with teen pregnancy prevention, it is hard to deny the statistics about how teen pregnancy can affect the parents and children. Check it out at http://www.amsterdamnews.com/health_care/nyc-ad-campaign-to-prevent-teen-pregnancy/article_c07b3098-8bf4-11e2-b727-0019bb2963f4.html
As you may have read in previous posts, as a kid I had an avid interest in all things sex. I also had an interest in masturbation and by interest I mean I loved touching myself. Now, we can go back and forth for hours about whether or not it's appropriate to talk to your kids about touching themselves for pleasure but let me just remind you, they will do it anyway. It's a lot like sex....you can hide behind not talking about for only so long before your kids will have urges and either have a great sexual experience because you talked to them about it or feel like a sexual failure for the rest of their lives because you didn't.
It's commonly thought that boys have more of a tendency to diddle their noodle than girls do but I can attest to the fact that girls are diddling too, we just hide it better. I was introduced to masturbation at a young age and by age 8 I was a pro at hiding under the covers and doing what felt good. I didn't know what it was called at the time and I also didn't feel bad about it because my parents had never told me that my body or any of its parts were gross and appalling. When I began attending the LDS church with my friend at age 11, I learned from 'the scriptures' what a dirty little girl I really was. The Word of Wisdom was very clear about masturbation and I started questioning my long held beliefs about my body. You know, that it was normal and great and nothing to be ashamed of. Silly me. The real slap in the face came during one of my yearly interviews with the bishop. I had to go in and prove my Mormon worthiness through a barrage of questions. At one point this middle aged man asked me if I was spiritually clean. I said yes and he proceeded to ask me if I masturbated. My heart sank and I sat in that dingy little office wondering why the fuck some old man needed to know whether or not I touched my vagina. I lied. I then walked out to the parking lot where my mom was waiting and told her everything. As per usual, she gave me great advice and loving support. I never went back to church. Quick side note: Don't fucking tell me that I shouldn't let one person represent a whole religion because that is exactly what a bishop should do, be a representative of his religion.
In my opinion, not talking to your kids about all aspects of sex is exactly where so many people go wrong. Teaching your children that their body is gross and dirty sets them up for a lifetime full of self doubt and quite possibly the inability to enjoy sex in a loving relationship. It also keeps them in the dark about how to pleasure themselves in or out of a committed relationship. Masturbation and open dialogue with my mom kept me from getting pregnant in high school, contracting STD's or getting into sexual situations that I couldn't handle. I didn't feel like masturbation was bad nor did I have a desire for sexual intercourse at 15 years old. I liked boys and I was definitely sexually experimental in other ways, but I knew that sexual intercourse, for me, was something to be shared with a person I was in a committed relationship with. While my first time was not as pleasurable as the hundreds of times since, it was with someone who respected and loved me for many years after. I am pretty sure he still does. At 21, I was probably the oldest virgin in my graduating class and I doubt I would have been voted as the last person in the yearbook to get laid. But I was. It's safe to say that masturbation saved my life. I think I'll get a shirt printed with that as the inspirational quote. And wear it to church.

Cool Parents And Other Myths

When I gave birth to my kids I dreamed of being the cool mom. I had a cool mom growing up so I felt like she had given me the invisible bible on playing it smooth for eighteen years. I quickly realized how long it took to raise an actual human being and that I wasn't the laid back, sweet person my mother was. Raising kids was going to be a bit more lively and lot less patient at my house.
I also ended giving birth to my twin aka MINI-ME which makes parenting a challenge, its like marrying yourself. No one thinks that's a good idea. My daughter is the smartest, most artistic human being on the planet. She is also like her mama and has a sass mouth, wants to fit in with the crowd, and gets upset directly after proclaiming this to be the best day ever created. I don't know how that shit is passed on but Miss Girly Pants has been rockin' her bad self for 10 years and there is no possible way I could claim she wasn't mine.
I haven't quizzed my kids about who the coolest mom is, but we have our good days and our bad days. It could really go either way. The good days include me getting up in time to pack lunches, wash underwear and make a great joke in front of their friends. Bad days include me screaming in the car to "put your freakin' seat belt on before I lose it", having to hold my son's door shut during a massive meltdown, and being the mom who says no about the sleepover in front of the friend. Being the good guy is a full time job and not always possible. I had no fucking clue what I was getting into when my belly grew the size of a watermelon.
As I get older, I feel less inclined to care if I am cool or not. I am sure any woman who has made it through her 20's can attest to feeling a little less like the crowd and a little more like herself. Well, myself is loud and obnoxious. She is also proud of her kids and would rather get them to school happy then wear proper attire to drive there. It's also a great excuse to drive around town in pj's. I have come to feel more comfortable saying no and happier when I get to say yes. I have also realized the joy in being an embarrassment.
While I did have the cool  mom, I also had the embarrassing dad. Anyone who knew me as a kid can attest to this. He used to get out of the tub in the middle of the afternoon and scream "Superman!!!". This would be followed up by a naked man, my dad,  with a towel wrapped around his neck running through the front room, floor to ceiling windows open to the world. He was a maniac. His favorite thing was to pull his trucker hat down really far on his head and make a weird fucking face, like a wrinkled Elmer Fudd. He would pull this stunt while picking us up from school or at a family dinner out. As a kid, I couldn't stand the thought of being embarrassed in front of anyone. I wanted perfect strangers to be clear that I was not a part of this nonsense. Now, I am this nonsense.
I took a page out of my pops playbook last month. My brilliant baby girl was being awarded a medal for one of her projects. It was a big deal. By the time she was up, most of the room had emptied from the families who had taken their awards and bailed. I didn't want any person left in that lunchroom to miss out on my favorite girl getting her well deserved prize. So when her name was called I screamed and hooted and hollered at the top of my lungs. I had never felt so free, so happy, so much like a parent in my life. She rolled her eyes and begged me to stop and that's when I knew....I was the cool mom.