Category Archives: adult-only

Published in the adult-only category

I hate my inability to carry everything

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I wish I could set systems in place and just execute on them forever. I read that when it comes to activism personalities there are three basic types: the dreamers who can come up with an idea, systematizing people who can set up a whole path to execution, and maintainers who can sit on top of someone else’s system and keep it running forever.

I’m somewhere between a dreamer and a systematizer. I am shit for maintenance.

For a year or so we’ve been doing a point system for chores. Why? I could explain the goals around dependability and tracking and self-awareness but fuck it. The kids never got better about tracking their own shit. It was just one more job for me. And if I have to make you do every step of your job I am not going to also stand over you and force you to have “autonomy in tracking” because if I am standing over you it isn’t autonomous. It’s more fucking work for me.

So yeah. I bailed on points. I told the kids that if they are going to act like impulsive little kids who refuse to be responsible then I can’t go through the charade of them having responsibility right now. If they want to be immature then we need to go back to me micromanaging control for a few months so that I can say “No” to everything all the time when you are pissing me off and being rude.

Instead of saying, “Have you done all of your chores? Have you written down your points? I will now wander around the house and check your work and go over to the point sheet and tap my toes as you actually write down the stuff you claim you already did.” Notice how many steps of work there are in that exchange for me?

Fuck it. I don’t care right now.

When they ask me for screen time for a few weeks my response will be, “You were not polite this morning. No.”

If I have to ask you more than once to do your chores the answer to whatever it is you want is going to be no. I can’t keep rewarding you for half ass work. It is resulting in me having to chase you harder and harder for each scrap of productive work. Fuck this.

I’m too tired and I’m feeling too mean. I can’t give you what you would want in the system we have been trying for. I’m tapped out. I need a break from doing that much tracking for you.

I have tracked their chores and allowance for years. I have extensive records. Because I feel like what I am doing “doesn’t count” if I can’t go back and produce paperwork documenting what I have been doing with my time and energy.

I am so tired of begging for people to do what they have agreed to do. I understand that the kids do a lot of “forced agreement” which is to say they don’t really want any household chores and they agree to a certain number because of coercion. But fine. If I have to be a dictator I’m just going to go all the way on that for a few months. So that hopefully next time I ask my children if they want to be more responsible in trade for more autonomy… they will appreciate it more.

I hope.

Oh god. Parenting is so hard.

It’s not that the number of chores the kids do is going to change. We just won’t be tracking them in the same way. Because it was too dang much work for me.

What will we do next? I don’t even know.

The math mistake I made is bugging me all day long. I’m going to hand wave the math a bit and see if I can get closer. ~4,000 miles (because there will be day trips on the way). I get ~20 mpg. So that means about 100 gallons of gas. (4000/20= 100) If I say $3/gallon (even though that is high, just to make the math easier) that’s only like $300 for gas. Not more like $10,000. Sometimes… I make silly errors.

Oh my god Krissy.

In good news: my baby is a rolly polly tub of lard. When she lays on her side the fat and skin pool on the surface she is laying on because there is so much of it that it doesn’t stay tight on her body. I love this stage. I also love the way she squeaks. She’s trying so hard to communicate already. I also love that this baby will take naps not on me. Thank you sweetie. I do have stuff to do.

Two bookshelves are gone. Three others are listed on the internet. I’m making progress on getting rid of stuff and packing. It’s visible. We can’t do any structural work until I get all the shit out of the way. I am shocked by how much stuff we have and I’m thrilled by the fact that I purge regularly so this isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be.

We are reading the Ramona books and watching Anne with an “E”. The level of conversations we are having are so cool. I’m thrilled by how MC in particular is articulating a lot of interesting layers of analysis. “So and so did x because of y. But I think z was part of it too. I think I would do a because of b and c.” I am being talked to full stream right now (MC woke up early) so I can’t give an example.

Oh man. Spectacles. Not testicles. Oh man. That’s a hilarious mishearing on MC’s part. (In Ramona she draws spectacles on her owl. Not testicles. hahahahahaha)

“Nobody likes a copycat” we are going to be processing this from the book for quite a while now.

Well my time alone is up. See you later, internet.

Waking up pissy as fuck.

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I am tired of repeating myself with my children. I went on a walk alone this morning because the idea of trying to herd the squirrels in my house was too much. I was going to explode. So I went by myself. I ran into a bunch of my retired buddies. I expressed my frustration with repeating myself. They both laughed their asses off at me and told me it’s totally normal.

Fine. It’s normal. It’s also normal for me to be fucking irritated.

Am I being “fair” in my frustration? Uhm… how many times a day do I have to repeat the same chore list that was established years ago in order to be “fair”? I’m going to fucking explode soon. I don’t know what that will mean. Mostly it is meaning that I am sneaking fucking ice cream at bed time because it is eat some ice cream, shatter my teeth from clenching (my dentist is so irritated with me), or scream at my kids.

I’m eating the fucking ice cream.

I’m so tired and sad. They expect so much cheerfulness and joy and work from me. On no sleep. While I’m begging them to do their share of the work from when I wake up till when I pass out.

I don’t have it to give right now. I feel like shit.

It’s still the fourth trimester and I’m completely exhausted because I have been doing more like a normal work schedule on top of nursing all night and day. Noah and the kids all promised me that they would help me have an easy fourth trimester. Instead we got to week 8 and everyone got done and now I’m kind of expected to be back to normal and I’m flipping out.

I’m tired. I’m angry. I hurt. And now I am going to take advantage of the only baby-free hour I am going to have today to go work on the yard. Because no one else is going to do it but everyone wants the money from selling the house.

I’m sad.

No such thing as balance

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This phase is hard. I’m worn down and exhausted. It will improve over time but I need to be patient. I need sleep. I could use about 8 hours straight of no one touching me or talking to me. I am not going to get it any month soon here.

Hey! Two month visit at the doctor! Youngest Child is 23″ and 11 lbs 10 oz. She is looking like she will level off and not be as tall as the two older children; they will both be pleased. She’s still on the tall side (70%-ish) but not as much as her siblings.

Most of that weight is in the bowling ball skull that makes my arms hurt.

I love her so much. She is more quiet and serious. She is squawking and moaning and chirruping and fussing more now. I’m thrilled to have vocalizations other than screaming. I encourage them as much as I can.

She can be occasionally patient with the car but it doesn’t work every day/every car trip.

I got rid of another thrift run. I am getting to the point where some of the stuff I need to pass on is bigger and slightly more awkward. Time to post some pictures on Craigslist. In the next week or so I can probably get rid of two dressers and three book shelves because I’ve already packed and culled a layer. Sifting stuff down into smaller piles.

At some point we probably will need it to be true that all the clothes for all the people in our family fit in the long low dresser. That will be about how much volume we can handle carrying in suitcases so I might shift the clothes again in a few months. Not yet though. No need to disrupt the kids in the next month or three. I can move stuff around them.

When we have summer vacation this year there is going to be a flood of art projects because we have so many cool materials we need to use up. I’m looking forward to this experience. I haven’t gotten to try all the mediums yet.

It’s kind of funny how slowly sifting through my clothes makes me think really hard about what I wear and why. What am I willing to move? What kind of first impression do I want to give?

That’s been a huge thought lately. Our clothing is going to give an impression about us. Our level of grooming (or not) will say a lot about us. I am not good at managing these kinds of impressions. I remember many conversations where my friends have told me that either I can dress up and manage peoples expectations by meeting them or I can have people punish me for not meeting the basic expectations. My choice. I can’t get out of being judged.

When the kids and I were on the road trip across the US I fairly deliberately picked stuff that wasn’t nice but wasn’t covered in holes. That’s my concession to vanity. But the US is a schlub dressing sort of country unless you go to LA, SF, NY, Dallas, or Boston. Other places expect more and that’s going to be hard. Noah has enjoyed his programmer uniform of crappy tshirt and pants that he wears for two weeks without washing.

I am not looking forward to trying to get my children to take better care of their hair. Ugh. Both of the big kids got haircuts yesterday. Eldest Child’s hair is not as short as I hoped it would be. Given how she resists the basics of hygiene I now understand my mom encouraging me to keep my hair under 2″ long. Middle Child had their hair cleaned up and neatened and it looks much better without the weird flakey layers. They like ponytails and braids. Neither of which do well with layers.

I’m trying to think about a bunch of things at once. Packing. Home schooling is getting more fun. We are starting religion since the school is silly and told me that we have done enough. Fine. Since we finished 4th grade a month early… we will just move on. How we will get across the country.

Stuff like, given the miles involved and price of gas… it would cost around $10k to drive to the East Coast. Because it’s over 3,000 miles and over $3/gallon. Ok, there are places that are cheaper than that but not everywhere. A train ride for our family of five will cost around $2600 and the kids can get up and walk around and play. And it will take us about 4 days instead of a month with breaks for Noah to work.

Heck, Noah can work on the train.

And it’s $2600 if I get the fancy berths that convert to beds! It’s way cheaper for chairs! Not to mention that the fancy bed-berths also pay for your meals when you are on board. Meals for four people for three and some days, so call it 10 meals. 10 meals, 3 nights of sleeping (I think), and transportation across the country. That makes it seem like a less crummy price. When I could drive and pay way more than that. Flying would be faster but the train would be really neat. It would let us see some of the middle of the country we missed last time. It would be a fun way to transitioning to not using cars any more.

I keep thinking things like what will we do about diapers? Kind people keep sending us infant toys. The baby now has a fully Ikea cube of infant toys. Of course she can’t grasp anything yet and all she cares about is boobie. But hey, once she can grasp she has plenty to yank on.

I need to send a letter to Noah’s family and tell them about our plans. They are still sending huge boxes of stuff that I will need to store for a few years before it’s useful. Sigh. If only I had a more pragmatic attitude about just selling the stuff they send.

I figured out iCloud. I don’t love the idea of the Apple cult getting all my stuff. I want my stuff to not need physical storage so that I am not lugging around back up devices. I’m going to put all the stuff I currently have on external hard drives on the cloud and then I can figure out what to do with old terabyte storage units. Wheeee.

It’s fascinating thinking about how I want to pack our family. What about kitchen stuff? Is there anything for cooking that we really should bring with us because doing without is crappy? Towels and linens? And oh goodness those diapers.I love my cloth diapers. You don’t understand.

Ok, time to stop typing.

A discourse on nagging

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I asked my family today if they mind my nagging because I feel quite bad about it. My feelings of “badness” stem almost entirely from my belief that society in general dislikes nagging, especially from women. A nagging woman is a scold. Historically speaking being a scold is very bad indeed.

My family generally indicated that they don’t love it but they get why I do it and they accept it as part of life. Noah specifically detailed how he never ever labels my behavior nagging on purpose because he knows I am ashamed of it and if he comments on in it in any neutral fashion I will attempt to suppress the behavior. Which will lead to me not communicating where and what my needs and desires are and at some point things will get so off course I will explode and be a right bitch. He’d much rather I nag him. (He can express all of this without ever calling me a bitch; that’s 100% me.)

He likes being married to me and he plays me like a video game.

We all agree that to some degree our nagging is positive/important because we are all very invested in supporting one another living to a ripe old age and that’s why we pester about eating well and exercising. We all really want the others to continue and that means we are twerps about “Hey you aren’t doing this thing you should do.” Everyone in this house has at some time or another said, “You really sound like you haven’t taken your medication today.” Do I love hearing it? I do not. So mostly I take my fucking medication so they won’t fucking ask me.

We are a house full of people with atypical brains. All of us struggle with regulation and routine. Some of are us are diagnosed as autistic and/or as having ADHD but I have my suspicions about people who haven’t been diagnosed yet. We certainly all manifest struggles in similar areas.

Medication was not offered to me as an option when I was young. I had to learn how to cope with my brain. I learned how to make a schedule that will get all the things done. But we have to help each other stay on the schedule.

That’s a lot of where nagging comes in. How do we help each other stay on task? It’s hard. It takes a lot of willpower. It was tactfully suggested to me that I try letting the kids be the train conductors sometimes. Now that I have set the children up with ridiculously scheduled days from now until the end of the next school year (online calendars are so much faster than writing all that shit by hand) we will see about handing around conducting responsibility. Stage managing. Project managing.

It’s all the same shit. How do you have a list of requirements and make sure they are all met? Figure it the fuck out. You try. You fail. You try something else. You fail again. You try something else. It kind of works but not very well. You try combining the last thing with part of thing one and hey that’s a little better.

And the thing is, with the home schooling thing… we have to create all of the structure for ourselves. None of it comes externally imposed.

We are not taught history or science or maths or physical education or religion or home economics or drawing or financial responsibility or… anything by an outside source unless we go ask pretty please, like with tae kwon do or gymnastics or swimming or chess. And we haven’t outsourced a lot. We tried for a writing class. The teacher quit in the middle of the term because students weren’t cooperating how she wanted. Well awesome. That means that *I* have to schedule a lot of time where I sit around and teach my children absolutely everything I think they need to know as adults.

I am not raising children. I am raising future adults. What will they be like? I don’t know for sure. But those little turkeys will be able to make and follow a schedule even though it is not natural for any of us.

Children need structure. Well, some people believe this. My children are more polite and easier to live with when my expectations are clearly communicated and I do so best through structure.

Thus I nag like a motherfucker. I’m so god damn annoying. But you know what? The more I nag the less I scream.

Noah’s not wrong. He has lived with me for a minute or two.

But Sarah isn’t wrong when she points out that once I get the schedule set… there’s no reason I need to squat over it like a poisonous toad ensuring I am the taskmaster. Sharing is caring.

When we go on the road my body load is going to explode. I worry about teaching the kids to take turns micro managing each other. That shit is complicated. I need to not parentify the children.

Where is the happy medium.

Let’s fuck this up six ways from Sunday and see what we learn.

Anyone pregnant?

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I am such a homebody right now that I am less aware of other peoples news than usual. Do I know anyone who is pregnant? Do you have another friend who is pregnant who lives vaguely near me? We are starting to outgrow baby clothes and given how expensive these suckers are for how short a time they are worn…

Do any of your friends need stuff? I might do freecycle for that.

+/- with a baby

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+ My wonderful family helped me with half an hour of yard work yesterday and that made visible progress towards my goals.

+ Even though the baby is tiny and larval and so needy it is hurting me I love her so much that I am mostly maintaining good cheer through her demands.

+ I am better at asking for help with the baby than I have ever been. When I am feeling frazzled I ask Noah or one of the big kids to help me and everyone jumps at the chance. I am feeling productive and like my body gets to rest from the physical strain of carrying a bowling ball around 24/7.

+ Noah’s cooking lately has been awesome.

+ The Educational Specialist told us she has been lying to us and telling us we need to turn in more than we need to because most clients don’t turn in how much she asks for. We are basically done with the school year in terms of quantity of produced materials and we have five weeks to go. This feels weird. I will keep having the kids move forward, we will just be moving into 3rd/5th grade a few weeks early. We finished all of the current stuff already except for two more science experiments. And we have five weeks.

+ Noah and I discussed a timeline yesterday for making the website/clearing out the house enough to have staged pictures taken for the website. We are shooting for October. I will schedule a fancy-ass photographer to come in and do the family portraits/fun house pictures and it’ll be worth the money.

+ We got the dirt moved that I needed moved and now I can get plants for the beds this week. I am doing starts this year because holy toast I don’t have the time/energy for seeds. But I want the yard to look spectacular for staged photos trying to get someone to buy it. Those beds need lush growth in them.

+ The van is full for a trip to Goodwill and Half Price Books today. I’m aiming for a trip a week for a while.

+ I can already get rid of two book cases with what I have packed/gotten rid of. I haven’t yet. But I will soon.

+ Ze bebé is getting huge. Her 3-6 month sleepers are getting tight and I’m about to start putting her in 9 month sleepers just so that diaper changes are easier. She hasn’t moved out of the 6 month onesies or dresses yet. Just in sleepers because she’s so dang tall. She will be 9 weeks tomorrow.

+ Our sweetness is smiling more and more. I think it is funny that a lot of her smiles happen on the changing table after she has a clean butt. I think she likes the wall in spring because she spends a lot of time smiling at the butterflies.

+ On the parenting forum I’m participating in a “stop yelling at your kids” challenge and whereas I’m not perfect or on a long streak or anything I’m doing pretty well. When I take into consideration that I am: a)barely sleeping b)in contact with a needy baby for 20+ hours of the day c) in a really lot of pain d)limiting pain meds like whoa e)limiting sugar f)and trying to go through allll the shit in our house…. I’m doing pretty well! Go me.

+ We are having a fucking fabulous time researching where we are going to move. We are looking at countries all over the world. This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime. My life is so fucking insanely good I can barely wrap my head around how fucking cool this is. I get to be an international nomad. That’s going to happen. In the next year.

+ I feel intense gratitude that I am still in the bay and still receiving wonderful body work from my excellent providers. That’s serious luck. I will miss them.

+ This is a little weird, but I’m grateful that since I appear to be allergic to alcohol… Noah is having some stuff go on that means he shouldn’t drink either. It means I get to look forward to a time of solidarity in enjoying silly juices together because we can’t have grown up drinks. We have to enjoy one another without inebriation. I like that.

-I dislike how much I am nagging everyone in my house. I feel like a mega bitch all the time. But gosh my kids would like to still have their entire “job” be playing and that’s not an option any more. It was appropriate when you were 5. Neither of you are 5 now.

-I am super bummed that I threw up so I needed to cancel a social visit with a friend I haven’t seen in months. That sucks. I was looking forward to talking to her.

-I would like to sleep through a night without waking up to side lie nurse. My shoulders hurt so bad. 10 months till I can night ween. *sob*

-I’m a little mad at the Educational Specialist because she has been pushing my kids for most of the year and in the last two visits she admitted that we are the only family in compliance and she feels a little bad that she shoved *us* as hard as she did because we were fully in lock-step-demand compliance. We only needed one item per subject per grading period and my kids have turned in two or three samples per subject every meeting all year. Oh. I’m not mad because we did the work, I’m mad because we had to fight over formatting so much work for turning in. We could have fought over 1/3 of the fucking formatting and that would have made my life better.

-I hurt. I’m minimally typing so most of the pain is coming from being a baby toting device. She’s heavy. And side lying nursing is the god damn pits.

Moments

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People from the High Desert get it when I talk about running from heat and poverty in a way other people don’t. It’s a kind of being seen.

I need to only listen to country music I carefully curate. The radio isn’t ok for me anymore because the constant drumbeat of “alcohol, alcohol, alcohol” is bothering me.

I don’t actually think I need to run from all heat. But I can’t do dry heat. It makes me want to die.

The trip to SF with the baby and MC was really fun. I had a moment of being a butthead on the train because MC told me they lost their bag of toys and I was a little snippy. Then we figured out it was in the backpack and I apologized profusely. The visit with Sarah was one of the better ones I’ve had in a while. I had less anxiety and I think it was partially that I didn’t ask her to come to Fremont.

I’ve been seriously flipping out internally over how terrible I am for wanting people to come so far to see me.

Today we did a ritual with the family therapist about trying to move on from difficult feelings. I think that was a good thing.

I’m bouncing between feeling really happy and positive and certain that things are so good and are going to keep being good…. and then I’m like ONLY I’M PART OF THIS FAMILY SO OF COURSE I WILL WRECK IT ALL.

I cleaned the refrigerator finally. It’s been on my to do list since before I got pregnant. Whoops.

I have reduced my sugar but I’m not finding it possible to eliminate it. When the baby screams I go for sugar because it keeps me from crying or flipping out. I’m using sugar like an anti-anxiety drug. Basically I am eating my feelings. But I’m still having less than the previous month. Not as much less as I wish I was having.

It’s fucking hard being nice when my nerves feel like a cheese grater is going over them. Just the screaming is that hard and she really doesn’t scream much. But the sugar helps.

I am making small but noticeable progress towards culling the house. Hey! If you get a lot of mail shipments of small boxes (maybe from Amazon…) I would be SO GRATEFUL if you would collect them and give them to me. I am deliberately putting the books in small meticulously labeled boxes so that when they are in storage someone else can go through them.

It occurred to me that before we go through and do stuff to remodel the house… we should go ahead and put it up on a website. So that someone could potentially say, “Wait! I want to buy it and do that part of the remodeling!” To make that possible earlier (and to make every part of remodeling easier) I’m in hard-core cull mode and that’s working for me. If you have seen stuff in my house and coveted it in the past… now is the time to come shopping.

I’m not kidding. If you saw something you like ask fast. I’ve already taken like 10 bags and 5 boxes to get rid of and I’m moving along quickly. But at the rate I’m culling it will take six months. Who knows how quickly the thing you like will go….

Oh!!! I’m so thrilled! I asked the school across the street if they want me to donate stuff I’ve gotten for home schooling and they were thrilled. I’m excited about it being useful and easy to donate.

Ok, enough typing

HUUUUUUUGE outing.

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Today my not quite 8 week old baby will be on public transit going to San Francisco for the first time. This is… kinda early for this much people exposure but I feel like I’m about to yank all my hair because I’m too pent up. I need out of my god damn house.

We are going to see Sarah. Because she wants to see us and coming down to us all the time is a pain. Sharing the load is fair.

I joined a “stop yelling at your kids” support thread on the parenting forum. I’m taking too much cranky out on my big kids and it needs to stop.

My moods are bouncing like whoa. I’m really happy and I’m really irritable and snappish. I’m afraid I am too much for everyone and that means I deserve nothing.

Come on brain, pick a god damn track already.

vapid shit

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Sarah started a new job so I’m babbling at her a lot but I’m trying to not go too overboard. Pam has fallen into an activism hole and isn’t available to chat much because she’s off having a life or some shit. Jenny’s mom is visiting her so she hasn’t been free to Skype in a few weeks.

The words are bubbling up inside me. God I want to talk.

I finally made all the phone calls I needed to make to deal with medical shit for the kids. (Insurance verification stuff. Not a big deal. Just a thing to do.) I paid all the bills that have stacked up. I checked on car insurance stuff. I did useful things.

Noah’s mom wrote me a nice letter and didn’t address it to Noah. I will deign to respond. I now have a policy: when his family addresses a letter to him… I don’t answer. I’m not an invisible secretary. If they write to me I’ll write back an epic chatty letter with all the details they would like to get from him but he will never tell them. Like data about our children’s personalities. He doesn’t care enough about them to tell them.

I want my kids to show up and be accepted during the rare visits they have. That means the family in Texas needs to be aware and braced for the weirdness. I give that introduction. But only when they acknowledge me as a person.

So I got another box of adorable little dresses. I’m amazed she had any left after how many she sent when the older kids were small. But here is a whole stack of 18 month clothes. Sure. I have basically nothing in that size so far.

I will have to tell her we are moving and culling so that she doesn’t send a dozen massive boxes this Christmas. hahaha. It won’t help. She will do whatever the fuck she wants.

I’m struggling with how guilty I feel for advocating for myself. Noah is officially working part time for a couple more weeks (the fourth trimester is coming to an end… yay!) but I’m struggling with how ashamed I feel of asking him for help. I do stuff for myself when I shouldn’t and don’t have to and then I feel awful and angry. It’s not wise or useful or helpful or anything good.

I am using a lower dosage of medication than I would prefer for pain and sleep reasons. I’m not sleeping well because of nursing (although this kid is so easy I’m not really bitching… just noticing that it’s true). I’m in a lot of pain from holding the baby (as expected). I’m really struggling with trying to cut sugar.

I want to cry because I just want more fucking sugar. There’s so much I can’t have. Privacy going pee. A walk without my back hurting from holding a baby. Less pain in my body. Sleep. Not having sugar at the same time is feeling like horrible torture. I’m such a god damn baby.

There is no fair. I’m allowing myself tea with sugar. I have already had other sugar this month. The amount I’m cutting back to isn’t zero. I need to shut the fuck up.

But it hurts.

I god damn hate being an adult. Fuck this shit.

There is a piece of me that is afraid that if I cut the sugar more I’ll drop weight like whoa and I don’t want to.

Body mass and weight are fascinating. I’m in the mid 160’s right now (which is at the low end of the middle of my weight fluctuations… I go from 145-205 with most of my time being spent in the 160’s-180’s) but my belly is still distended and I’m wearing pants I usually wear in the 190’s. My shirts are fitting weird because I have no extra fat in my back/shoulders. I look very much like I have the kind of body where I could lose 20 lbs and all of a sudden look skinny and fit. It’s weird. Usually I feel like I look more like a chunky person but smaller? This isn’t that.

Bodies. Weird.

Ok. Time to go pick up MC from camp. Don’t wanna move from the couch but life doesn’t really give a shit what I want. Move it, wench.

Patience is a struggle.

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Do you know what would make being patient easier? A whole lot of drugs. Do you know what I am going to have? A very small amount of drugs.

That’s not exactly, fully what I want here. Life doesn’t give a shit. I’m nursing a dang baby. Minimal drugs, bitch. Just enough to keep me shitting and eating and not cracking all my teeth. Not enough to feel cheerful.

Frankly there aren’t enough studies about the impact. I do minimize what I put in my baby as much as possible.

I just can’t use zero or I will melt down.

This phase is challenging but so important. I love so many parts of having a nursing infant. I will never again be this wonderful, this able to solve needs just with my body, this needed.

I didn’t think I would get this third chance and I appreciate it so much because I didn’t truly have hope I would meet this child. I’ve been through the baby gauntlet and come out the far side with big kids. I know how short and magical this time is.

But nursing fucking sucks. It’s also wonderful. More than one thing can be true.

I love this stage and it is hard. Ambiguity. Strong opposing feelings. That’s life.

I rewatched Orange is the New Black with an eye towards watching Susan more carefully. (Crazy Eyes) Watching the way she freaks out… that feels so true. I am not quite at the level of that character (I have a high IQ and she is developmentally six years old) but as I was flipping out at my friend on Sunday I kept getting flashes of Susan. My friend wanted me to calm down because I was reacting really big to an interaction that felt small to her. In my head I was seeing Susan screaming “I did a bad thing” and hitting herself in the head.

Shit. I totally do that.

I mean, my tantrums are slightly more nuanced and I’m better at hiding them… but that’s a huge chunk of what is different. I’m better at hiding my crazy and that’s a lot of what makes me be perceived better. If I was put in a setting like prison I don’t think I would do well. I would be seen as being as crazy as she is.

That scares me.

I am not better. As I watch all the stories of why these women are in prison… my fuck ups mostly haven’t been smaller (except the folks who committed murder or major fraud…) and I just didn’t get caught. I have muled drugs. If I had been caught on one of the times I was bringing all the drugs to a party? Phew.

I’ve done other shit I’m not going to list now.

For the record… I haven’t done much in the last few years that I could get in trouble for. I won’t model it in front of my kids and I don’t get a lot of space from them.

I understand why my sister did drugs in front of me. There was no one to watch me while she was supposed to be “responsible” and that was as responsible as she was capable of being.

I grit my teeth more and swallow pills or eat bits of medicated candy at meal times but I don’t spend my time hot boxing the house with my kids around. Learn better, do better. My kids are exposed to a medical explanation of drugs and they are not around smoking. They don’t need the medication and that would expose them.

I keep reading people describe other women as “good mothers” and I want to know what they are being judged on?

I’m not sure I’m a good mother. I’m doing my best and somedays that’s pretty good and other days it isn’t. I don’t know about anyone else. What is a good mother? I don’t understand. I don’t know what all these darned kids need.

My back hurts.

overwhelmed, feel panicky

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I would dearly love to up my medication dosage right now because this lower dose shit is eating me alive.

Things I am freaking out about: stuff. How to store it, how to dispose of it, how to get people to do the parts that I think they want to do but I’m communicating poorly so it is a mixed bag.

I’m not freaking out because of you. I’m freaking out because I need to start getting rid of stuff and if I wait 6 months to start I am going to be very sorry because then I will need to move quickly and that will be so much harder. We are going to end up with a small storage unit worth of stuff (mostly books) and suitcases. Everything else will have to go and if I try to do it quickly it will hurt my body.

So I’m starting now. I’m giving things back to people who loaned me stuff (which I’m communicating poorly about and then I feel like I’m about to flip out because I’m doing such a bad job of advocating for myself) and I’m trying to get rid of stuff. One of my buddies would like to sell stuff for me because it represents possibly many hundreds of dollars but she wants to do so on her schedule with me storing stuff until she feels like picking it up.

That is not a bad thing for her to want but if my goal is getting it out of my house and her goal is to make as much money off of selling things slowly while storing things at my house…

I’m not doing well at advocating for myself and I feel like a horrible bitch.

And then when I do get to Goodwill the employee yelled at me that I have to sort all of the stuff I donate.

Fuck. Everything.

Getting rid of stuff is so stressful.

And my kids are kids. I’m tired of fighting over food. Like, seriously fucking tired of arguing and fighting over every god damn meal. Lately things are awful. This comes in waves. The kids want to be micromanaging control freaks about every bite and none of them should be healthy. I’m done. I’m at the point where I am going to start flipping out so I need to set the boundaries early and hard. It’s not ok for me to scream at them. So I am going to start sending them in the back yard every single time they argue about food. We have regular negotiations where everyone gets an equal vote. Everyone gets to ask for meals at meal planning time. Everyone gets to say that X or Y vegetable is a hard limit and they will not eat it ever and have that respected. No one is forced to eat fucking eggplant or onions or mushrooms or… the list is god damn long. Our “acceptable” list of vegetables is fairly tightly proscribed. We only make foods that are on the tolerable list. So having to get into a fight about every god damn meal is feeling just unfair to the extreme. I’m sick of it. It is so god damn rude.

It’s like how my kids are feeling the need to interrupt their classes and argue with the teachers to the point where they are disrupting anyone getting to learn. Everything has to be about them every second of every day.

Dude. I am totally a more respectful student than this so it’s not just that they are acting like me. This is bullshit. They are hella rude. I need to get this shit in line. This is not ok.

I need more medication. And my children need more friends and time away from each other but we are struggling to make that work. I could put them in school but it wouldn’t give them friends or emotional benefits beyond time away from each other. I think it would create a lot of problems.

It’s 8:10 and the kids will be in camp all day and I am just about to explode with impatience. I want them away from me. And right this minute I’m feeling hella sad that the entire day will be spent under the baby. I love the baby. I’m feeling touched out and overwhelmed and I want a little space to be in my body and in my brain without someone complaining at me or hurting me.

I hate breastfeeding.

Just another day in paradise.

briefly cause i don’t have hands free

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I am not even going to fix lower case letters. Hard to type while supporting a baby head.

Baby is wonderful. She naps independently sometimes! Holy shit!

MC is struggling with spring break tennis camp. Folks are arguing that they “have to be a girl” and calling them a baby for crying and they were told they were crazy. The coach (with a distinctive Australian accent–I’ve heard that trans awareness is not quite as robust as one might hope in Oz) gave lip service to trying to help the kids get along but was persistently using female pronouns for MC. Today MC is wearing boys athletic shorts and a Minecraft shirt in hopes that not wearing a dress will help with people’s perception that they are a boy.

It is hard being a boy in  a dress with long hair. People are assholes. I’m sorry kiddo.

We came home and signed up for summer camp. MC is going to a trans-kids/gender diverse summer camp in the south bay. It will last two weeks and involve kids from all over the world because apparently this camp is utterly unique. I’m excited we have this opportunity. If it is a big enough deal I can imagine us flying back for it in the future. There are apparently several kids from other continents who fly in because there isn’t similar support closer to their homes.

EC gets to sign up for three weeks of camp because city rec camps are so much cheaper. She is taking martial arts, nerf/swimming, and a musical theater one where they will perform Moana.

I was looking at the calendar. Ok. We are busy enough till the end of the year with big stuff.

May gets a Pam visit, the end of the school year, EC’s birthday and Noah flies to Japan.

June is a continuation of Noah’s trip to Japan, his birthday, a Grandpa visit, and it’s Pride month.

July has 3.5 weeks of summer camp.

August has 1.5 weeks of summer camp and MC’s birthday.

September is the trip to Mexico and my birthday and our 12th wedding anniversary in reverse order of how I’m listing them here.

October is a trip to Disneyland for Sarah’s birthday.

November Noah is traveling for work.

That’s only two conferences listed. Are you sure that’s enough, Noah? Doesn’t your company really want you to travel more this year? Not that I want you to go. But I do want you to keep this spiffy, awesome job. Yay for this job. I love having you in the garage every day. Like you are my pet. heh.

Ok, almost time to take kids to camp…

Spoon math

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I would like to put my hair up in a cute hair style. But my shoulders hurt so bad from sleeping curled around the baby (the only position in which she will sleep for an extended period) that I can’t hold them up that long. And I have to hold the baby all day so I really shouldn’t spend hand spoons I don’t need to spend on anything.

This is why I’m not typing almost at all right now.

Grumpy face

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For records: sugar and screen time stuff is rough. Kids aren’t keeping agreements and they are driving me batshit.

I am not giving them Easter candy in their baskets it is so bad. I need a line in the sand. This is it.

I am tired of being asked for sugar after *literally* every bite of vegetables. I’m done.

And EC figured out how to sit on their browser history page deleting stuff she isn’t supposed to look at.

Screen time is limited to academics indefinitely because I need to research key logging software. Cause I always wanted to monitor people like this.

Parenting sucks. But I need to pull the boundaries in hard and fast because I’m about to explode and beat someone. (Not really. But screaming mean words isn’t ok either and I’m running low on self control. I need to act like my limits are real.) If they are acting like velociraptors testing the fence to see where the real boundaries are, time to turn the electricity up so they back off.

I need to enforce boundaries and limits when I am 100% in control of myself. I can’t lose my shit and freak out. That’s wrong. I can instead say, “Sugar and screen time are privileges not birthrights. You have lost both.” Cause holy shit that’s true. I asked them this morning if they think they have been keeping agreements. They acknowledge that they haven’t even a little. At least we agree about how things have been going. Sigh.

This would all be easier if I got more god damn sleep.

I’m debating putting the candy in the freezer but I am more likely to make little baskets and send the kids to deliver the baskets to neighbors tomorrow while I hide the eggs for the hunt.

I’m not taking Easter away and they will still get baskets with treats. But no sugar. We need a break.

April will be as close to sugar free as I can manage. Except fruit. That’s not a problem. It’s like me taking a month off of pot to reset my tolerance levels. My kids need the same thing. Noah does caffeine fasts periodically. So we are doing something with our kids that we do as adults to manage our drug usage. (Caffeine, pot and sugar are all drugs we are addicted to. Let’s be real here.)

We aren’t doing this just to make them feel bad. We need a break so we can try again. Attempting to lower usage levels a little has failed. Tolerance breaks are useful.

Research

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Argentina- probably too politically unstable.

Australia- they even speak English

Canada- also English speaking, Jesus H Christ cold

Columbia- I need to look up more.

Costa Rica- I hear good things, a strong possibility

Ecuador- first glance around indicates expats like it but internet sounds too slow for us

Jamaica- could be fun

Mexico- I grew up in neighborhoods full of Mexicans. I think I could live near the culture with great harmony. I have a lot of faith I could make friends there.

Peru- Also a place I hear good things about but I need to learn more.

Spain- the primary European country I’d be interested in. I guess pushing my weak ass Spanish to fluency is more appealing than trying to learn another European language.

Uruguay- I don’t know much yet

In the US, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, or Alaska are the best choices which isn’t surprising. They are the more tempting states.

I need to start doing some research.

Things I want to know about all of these places: availability of internet, weather, what are they like culturally, is home schooling legal, and what is the situation like for expats?

Reading expat sites is fascinating. A lot of these people… don’t go meet the locals so they can’t find things. That seems so silly to me.

I clearly feel a strong pull towards the Spanish speaking countries. Noah knows a little and would pick up more easily. I’m 33% of the way to fluent according to Duolingo but when I worked in clothing stores and food service I could help customers.  I will improve fast. MC is already studying. EC hasn’t wanted to learn yet but I think she would pick it up fast if surrounded by it.

We need to research the shit out of these places and do positive/negative comparisons.

EC is voting for Canada so she can go meet youtubers.

That’s 11 possible countries. 2 still in North America. 3 are English speaking (Jamaica doesn’t really count but sorta). 8 are Spanish speaking.

Ok. Lots of research to come.

It’s funny having perspective

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There are parts of caring for a baby that are hard, even when the baby is easy for a baby. There are nights of disrupted sleep even if the baby sleeps pretty well. There is fussing and discontent because sometimes it takes mama a few minutes to figure out that the current problem is what position I’m holding her in. Baby screams are designed to climb inside your ear drums like shards of glass. Do not ignore me say the frantic screams that can erupt in a minute when the baby realizes OH MY GOD MY DIAPER IS WET. THIS IS NOT OK. FIX IT.

But I’ve been through this rodeo. I remember crying because I needed time off from EC. Now I’m still thrilled to get time off from EC but don’t you touch my baby. She will only need me for a little while.

The load on my brain and body feel different. I have been all the way through this and come out the far side with functional, interesting big kids. I don’t feel impatient with my baby this time because in my body I know that this dependency period is so short. Then they pull away and want to do it alone.

She will only think I am everything for a few months. I can be patient for that long. It means I get to snuggle her sweetness. I’ve been calling all of my kids my/your/her/their sweetness as in almost a stand in for “highness”. It keeps me from calling them “your heiny” which sometimes I am inclined to do because I am a turkey butt.

She’s not the most robust nurser ever. She doesn’t suck very hard and then my nipple falls out of her mouth and a pool of milk spills. It’s not spit up, she just didn’t swallow fast enough/hard enough. But the double chin tells me that she’s getting enough in her. She just prefers to stimulate my let down and then just let it spray. This is wise; my older children would suck hard after my let down and then get mad because they choked with the intensity. My boobs are energetic about how they deliver milk. HI. YOU WANT MILK. HERE HAVE ALLLLLLLLL THE MILK WITH GREAT FORCE.

It’s funny to me. But I spend a lot of time staring at walls so I need whatever levity I can get.

Height wise, baby is about out of 3 month clothes. She has plenty of chub space left, but the toes are getting tight and that makes it hard to dress a baby. Luckily some kind friends are going to come get my we-are-done-with-it pile this weekend. R will pick up the stuff she lent me that I don’t need to keep and Y is picking up stuff we are culling so she can sell it on the internet. She has time, energy, and the extreme need for money so she’s happy to do it. I’m happy I don’t have to get all this stuff to a donation center this month. Yay. It also means she can pick through my stuff to see if anything is useful in her new apartment. Shopping in your friend’s house for free is the best shopping.

I am not hosting an Easter party this year. I just can’t. I’m tired and not up for the amount of stress I put on myself for it. I spend 30-50 hours getting ready for the Easter party every year. I do a lot of yard work over months prepping for it. I do a massive deep clean of the house so I can have other people’s children come over and dig through the nooks and crannies of my house. I don’t want all the germs around my newborn.

I am going to hide eggs, of course, but my kids are going to spend a freakin week finding eggs.

The kids asked if we could put the house on the market next year after Easter so we can have one last big party because wouldn’t it be sweet for YC to get a real Easter egg hunt in this house…

We’ll see but it’s not a bad time line.

And I’m totally out of time.

Go.

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Noah is asking more insistently about leaving the country. He points out that we are looking on the verge of fascism/revolution and uhhh my personality is the sort where I would probably be in the first wave of people who would resist in a stupid way and get shot.

He’s not wrong. I’m not secretive. I’m a fine activist in a democracy. In a fascist state I would be silenced.

History shows that his concern isn’t paranoia; it’s logic. I’m loud in a problematic way and I know it. But that does change the search for “where to go” by a lot. Marijuana is going to be one of our biggest issues. It’s not legal in many places.

This is going to be hard. But, we’ll figure something out. Anywhere these four people go will be my home. I’m glad that part is for certain.