Dirty Little Secret

So yesterday I had an epiphany. Not the kind that will solve the healthcare crisis or even make the Jersey shore cast return to their natural selves (no steroids! no tanners! no saline!), but hey, it made me feel better.

For the longest time, I’ve been really slacking in the blog arena. Not keeping up with my favorite bloggers, not posting as much, not posting as well. I blamed it on writing for Demand Media and on not having as much time in general.

And that, dear readers, is bullshit.

I have been depressed and I haven’t wanted to post about it. I’ve had a lot of excellent reasons to be depressed, but I haven’t wanted to post about them either. In fact, I’ve been afraid to post about a lot of things, for fear of insulting or over-sharing with the people I know in real life who read this blog.

And it occurred to me yesterday that the more I worry about not living up to other people’s expectations of me, the less I feel like myself. You’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s so sad that you didn’t figure that out when you were 20.”

I did. But motherhood – and all the inherent expectations of “good” motherhood – made me forget. Then we moved back here to Stuck-Up (where not everyone is Stuck-Up, but you all know what I’m talking about) and I completely lost it.

I started imagining other people’s expectations of me. It was like in my head I went back to the last time I lived here. In high school.  Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a high school mentality and adult problems?

My head has been like a really bizarre episode of 16 and Pregnant.

And I am SO over it. If one of my posts offends you, I’m sorry. Feel free to write a nasty comment or ignore me at the grocery store. If you don’t like me and you take it out on my kids (my greatest fear), I will kick your ass.

And if I’ve been ignoring your blog, I’m sorry. I’m back now.

I felt guilty when I first read it. “Oh my God, I do that all the time! I did it to all 3 kids! I’m so irresponsible!” And then, well, then I took a deep breath. I turned off the “Supermom” voice, the one that screams (internally) whenever the baby eats a cracker from the floor, the one that panics (mostly internally) whenever she sees one of her child’s peers exhibit a skill her child doesn’t have, the one who is thinking about learning to knit just because she thinks moms should know how, not that she has actually interest.

I reread the paragraph. “What was she thinking?” I wondered this time around.

The “she” is some mom who wrote to Parents magazine because her daughter’s car seat fell off the shopping cart. Now that sucks, and I’m very glad the baby was okay. Apparently, the shopping cart went over a bump and the car seat fell off the top part. The part where I’ve been putting my car seats for the last 5 years.

I have never had a car seat fall.

Possibly some of that is luck. And possibly some of it is that when the terrain is bumpy, I freaking hold on to the car seat.

Look, I’m not judging. I’m sure this woman is much more patient than I am and spends hours reading to her baby every day. I bet there are no crackers on her floor. So I’m NOT saying I’m better than she is. I’m really not. I’m just saying. . .didn’t she ever notice what the car seat did when it was bumpy? How it bounces it bit? How did she not notice?

And why did Parents magazine have to publish this? Now poor new moms are going to be strapping their babies into Bjorns and not giving their poor backs a damn rest while at the grocery store. Why not just say, “Hold the car seat in the parking lot”?

Is it really too much to ask people who procreate to have some sense?

Dear Mom of That Toddler,

I’ve always felt kind of sorry for you, as you tried to leave the preschool as your son screamed from the room across the hall. Sometimes I would even see your older daughter tearing up outside of her classroom and I would think, Man, that must suck. I had sympathy. But yesterday your son ran over my daughter while they were playing outside. We were both watching, which is probably what made Ironflower burst into tears. I know your little boy didn’t mean to hurt her. But. . .you should have made him apologize anyway. It’s polite behavior. I don’t care if he wouldn’t have meant it, or even understood it. If he’s old enough to go to school he’s old enough to understand that he should be polite.

So, I will no longer give you sympathetic looks while your children freak out in the morning. Instead I will be thinking superior thoughts because my children generally only freak out at home.

Yours,
Ironflower’s Mom

Dear Kelly Bensimon or whatever the hell your name is (from the Real Housewives of NYC),

As I watched your little brouhaha with Bethenny this week, I couldn’t help but wonder if you were simply stupid or the biggest narcissist this side of . . .um. . .Madonna. If you wanted to prove how mature you were (and how immature Bethenny supposedly is), running around whining to everyone about Bethenny’s comment was not the way to go. Also, you wouldn’t have stated – in front of everyone at the meeting – that you wouldn’t put your name on the invitation. You would have said it privately. If you had class.

From
Someone who has no doubt you popped that guy

Dear Mr. D—–, (co-owner of Ironflower’s dance school)

Look, I don’t really have a problem with how you exploit the parenting paranoia around here for financial gain. We’re adults, after all. Most of us are well-educated. So it’s our own fault if we allow ourselves to be suckered in to overpaying for things so that our daughters fit in at your school. But. To stride into the classroom on parent observation day and to tell me – in front of my daughter, her classmates and the other parents – that I’m the only one who hasn’t bought tickets for the recital yet? That’s not okay. Some might even say it’s shitty.

I say it means that my daughter will be attending a different dance school next year.

Happily,
A soon-to-be former customer

Back when I taught school in the ‘hood, I was thrilled to death when parents offered to help me. And by help me, I mean send their kids to school well-rested and well-loved. Helping out in the classroom was a bonus I didn’t count on. In fact, one year I did not have help at one single party , though I did have a few parents sit and watch while I set everything up. That also happened to be the year I had the most behavior problems. Just sayin’.

Anyway, I never planned to raise my own children in a similar environment. I knew their school experiences would be filled with volunteering parents, because that’s how it works around here. But there’s volunteering parents, and then there’s volunteering parents who desperately need psychotherapy.

The other day I heard about “theme day” at the elementary schools in the next town over. The school picks a theme, each class does an aspect of that theme in their room and naturally the parents help a lot. They spend hundreds of dollars of their own money they stay at the school until all hours just to make sure that little Johnny or Julie has an especially authentic experience while never leaving the school grounds. As I heard about that part of it, I was already pretty sure that despite my years of study learning how to truly stimulate young minds that I would not be very involved in theme day. Because for theme day to actually teach them anything they should be doing most of the decorating themselves, not sleeping at home while their moms build covered wagons (true story).

But I sort of got it. I mean, it’s fun to create things for the kids. And, of course, I think that a number of people around here miss high school desperately and this gives them a chance to be creative and competitive at the same time, all in the name of being good parents. I silently chided myself for being such a cynical bitch. Then another mom shared another true story.

One about how an EVENT PLANNER was hired by one class’ set of parents on theme day last year.

EVENT FUCKING PLANNER for a school theme day.

The mom, who said that the class’ theme was the country of India, did mention that the room felt very authentically Indian.

I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open.

The mom mentioned that she thought that things might be getting out of control for theme day. Gee, really? Maybe next year they could just go to India for theme day instead.

I still couldn’t close my mouth.

Other moms expressed mild shock and dismay. The covered wagon mom said that she would have appreciated somebody else doing the wagon.

I thought about moving before I ruin my children socially for not being willing to pay for an event planner for theme day.

Have just gotten out of the hospital. Yeah, again.

I am feeling a million times better, despite the emotional hell of being separated from my children, the fact the Ironflower developed pneumonia while I was gone and that I loathe pumping. Suffice to say they had to operate on the abscess. Oh, and I got IV antibiotics. And tons of really bad food.  Weirdest thing? I was put in the same ward (section? area?) as my dad was after his heart surgery. I guess because all the rooms are private there and they weren’t sure if I had some horrible infection? I doubt it was to give me pumping privacy. But whatever – it made the experience barely tolerable.

But I’d rather talk about my experiences in the ER right now. Because I as I called to schedule my home nurse care (that’s what they call it, but it’s not really “care”, she’s coming to show us how to dress my wounds ourselves because that’s all our insurance will pay for), I had to wait on hold. And while I was on hold, instead of hearing that light non-offensive muzak that no one actually likes (FYI, the IRS plays excerpts from The Nutcracker – so much nicer) I heard a message. The message was asking people to sign a petition against another hospital. This other hospital is planning to open a “for-profit” emergency room in a now-closed hospital here in the county.

And I say. . . I hope they open it soon. There are not a lot of ERs around here for a county with this kind of population. (I can say this with authority because I lived in Kansas City where there are a lot fewer people and a lot more ERs.)  And while I applaud my hometown hospital for their excellent nursing staff (I will not comment on the comedy of errors that was my doctor care), their open mindedness (there’s a pre-op transsexual nurse in the ER, she totally made my day) and the fact that I’m not dead, I have yet to see that ER not completely backed up. I mean people on stretchers in the hallway, five hour waits (and I was a “high priority” person since I had a doctor who called ahead and had already signed off on admitting me) and a waiting room so crowded that there are no chairs left. It doesn’t matter what time or day of week you go, either.

And let’s be honest – I live in a place where the vast majority of people are still not hurting for money. Where cutting back means letting go of the cleaning lady. Is a “for profit” place going to stop them from getting health care? No. With any luck, the for profit place will be where the people with the stomach viruses and the tooth falling out will choose to go. Yes, those were some of the complaints of my fellow ER patients. Of course, if you don’t have health insurance, you have to go to the ER for everything. But a stomach virus? A tooth falling out? Are these emergencies? If you’ve got insurance, go to your doctor or dentist already.

Call me a bitch, but I think there should be a checklist outside of the ER that describes what an emergency is. A gaping wound. A potentially broken bone. An inability to breathe. A fever that doesn’t respond to Tylenol. Not, “I threw up twice yesterday and once today.” Not, “I’m 85 and my tooth fell out while I was eating an apple.” (Yes, those are real quotes.)

What do you think?

When Hubby asked me if his friend Sam could stay with us for a while, I said okay. When he shared that Sam would be bringing his Chinese (as in, Mandarin speaking from China) girlfriend with him, I said okay. When he said that they would be staying for two weeks, I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

Back in like 1991, Sam’s family let Hubby stay with them for a long while. In Sam’s world, this means that Hubby owes Sam.

We do not have a guest room. We do not have a foldout couch. When guests (rarely) come, they either take over Ironflower’s room or sleep on a cot in our not remodeled but still used as an office basement.

Since the cot doesn’t even really fit one adult, Sam and Celia are now ensconced in Ironflower’s room. The original plan, made when I panicked over the thought of having guests in our house for two weeks, was that they would spend a night with us, then go to stay with my parents. Who have an entire floor that can be a guest suite (aka the attic, but they remodeled it very nicely when I moved up there as a teenager). But for whatever reason, the couple is now staying here UNTIL NEXT WEEK.

They are nice and polite, but Sam and I have never been close and I’d never met Celia. Ironflower and Lovebug are unhappily sharing a room and now I have extra housework to do. And we’ve already run out of toilet paper. Hubby is busy with work all week (like, tonight, for example) and wait. . .so am I. We literally do not have money for extra groceries or for entertaining guests. We don’t even have time for entertaining guests. We are no way equipped to have guests for two days, let alone two weeks.

Obviously I never should have agreed to this, but Hubby made it sound like Sam would never forgive him and they’ve been friends since like the first grade.

Any tips on how to deal with this? Because I just want them to go away, or at least leave me alone the 90% of the time. I suppose this makes me a bitch. I could be using this time to get to know Sam better, or to learn about China (I could say get to know Celia, but since they had such a big fight before coming here that they almost didn’t come, I don’t think I’ll ever see Celia again, to be honest). But I don’t feel like getting to know anyone or anything while I’m getting used to being pregnant and working from home.

I hate baby showers.

I don’t like bridal showers either, unless they are coed and involve cocktails.

I haven’t been to that many showers (could it be my attitude?) , but I feel like I’ve been to thousands. It’s not the gifts or the registries that bother me, it’s the conversations as everyone discusses each onesie or toaster oven. How many different ways can each person say, “Cute!” or “So practical!” And then there are the games. I like party games that involve drinking, not creative uses for toilet paper.

I hated my own showers more than anything. Then I had to be the FIRST one to come up with an appropriate and original comment for each gift. And I couldn’t even go do a shot in the kitchen (I only did that at one shower, I swear). Well,I did like one of the showers I had. Because it wasn’t like a regular shower. My friend Mimi asked me what I wanted and I told her that I wanted her to invite people over to her house for a Chiefs game. The shower was coed, there was beer (not for me, but the guests had a good time) and conversation was mainly about football. There was some baby talk, but it wasn’t bland gift discussion, it was real information.

That was the best shower ever.

What do you think? Do you enjoy baby showers? Did you have a traditional one? Do you think I’m a complete bitch?