I’m over at Imperfect Parent today blogging about the importance of being cranky.
Archive for October, 2006
21
Oct
Cranky = Smart?
Not long ago, I was wandering around a beautiful fall-leaf filled campus wondering about the meaning of life and training to be a junior political theorist. In my self-absorbed angst, I had no idea that someday I’d look back fondly at the carefree days of college and long for a time when an emotional crisis involved getting a C on an Astronomy Exam, and hard work meant cooking and cleaning for a small dinner party.
From where I sit today, surrounded by dirty carpets, small sharp loud toys, smelly dishes, chatty kids, and baggy clothes, those days seem halcyon and delightful. I had my whole life ahead of me, and the world, if not my oyster, was certainly rife with possibility. I could go wherever I wanted, study esoteric french feminist theory, practice vegan-ism, run every day, spend my days however I chose.
Yet I never experienced this freedom as happiness. As a lover of structure, those carefree days were haunting and terrifying. I flailed under the weight of all of those choices and so made a host of bad ones — changing jobs and house mates and life philosophies every other week, trying out fad diets and freewheeling intellectual inquiry, experimenting with drugs, and bad boyfriends and everything in between. I was totally lost. Not "happy and free" lost. Lost lost.
More than a dozen years later, I’m no longer free. I have obligations and bills and schedules and people. I am the cornerstone and the foundation of happiness for three small girls. I have a marriage to honor, friendships to support, girlfriends to encourage. Life is hard and tiring and relentless. I am beleaguered and bedeviled and exhausted and cranky.
Yet I’ve never felt so important and so integral to the functioning of things. Like a conscripted CEO, I’m pulled into all the emotional turmoil and household chaos and expected to smooth it all out. As the expectant faces of my family turn toward me, I become the directed strong woman I always dreamed I’d be.
16
Oct
I See Cranky People
As has already been established, contentment is far preferable to happiness in CrankMama Land. In my view, happiness, like success, is often an illusory experience, based on denial, or insularity, or a determination to ignore all grim things. It’s like that peppy high school cheerleader raw-rawing as I froze my ass off playing the flute in marching band. She just didn’t get it.
That same sensation of "huh?" grips me each time I talk to a mom who seems to not only never experience maternal angst and frustration, but whose very existence is seemingly wholly fulfilled by motherhood and its attendant domestic tasks and endless opportunities for craftmaking projects.
When you feel that you’re existing on the parenting edge of insanity, other’s cheerful chipperness and apparent normality make you feel so horrid and totally incompetent you not only suspect, you know you’re in hell. You’re just the dumbass in the band uniform while all the cute girls are dancing and laughing on the sidelines in their sweet little cheerleader skirts.
It is only now, five years later, one new husband and one more singleton child into The Motherhood, that I find myself… content. Not always, not predictably, but frequently content. I’m not fulfilled solely by these girls and the endless demands of preschooler twin girls (the TALKING the TALKING), but when they tell me they love me "bigger than the world" and my youngest puts her arms around my neck and snuggles her soft chubby face against mine in the waning days of her babyhood, I can finally see what all the fuss is about. Finally.
But I haven’t left the snarky, cranky fold of the imperfect. I’ll never be the put-together PTA president, the Halloween costume making stay-at-home-and-love-it-cutie mom, or the champion of all things mother.
Like my lovely sister-in-law who was the only person on the Canadian Boat O’ Happiness to pay real attention to the particular hell of chasing a new walker in a crouched position for two days around a small sharp-edged boat, I understand and feel great affinity for those who really get it –the many aspects of motherhood angst.
At one point, my pretty SIL put her warm hand on my arm, looked into my eyes and said in her beautiful Spanish accent, "Ahh, Rachael… I see you."
15
Oct
Phat Pants
Beauty and sexiness are in the eye of the beholder…to a point. After that point (Age 35? 3 children?) beauty becomes a smattering of courage, determination, counting vegetable servings, and illusion. Enter the category of garment I like to call the JeanGirdle….
Exhibited here:
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are a lucky and blissfully unaware young and/or slim person… or you are much more spiritually evolved than I and have conquered the physical world and its smelly needs in favor of a higher plane (in which case you’re not reading this…. you’re in an ashram avoiding mirrors).
***
In other news, the blog world seems to be full of inside jokes and significant days of the week. One of those little traditions is the concept of the "meme" — and if you know what that means, please enlighten us– which is an opportunity for the blogger to talk even MORE about him/herself than usual.
So. You can blame her if you think this meme thing is solipsistic nonsense. Since she’s a smartass tarty great writer and in my next life she’s going to be my bitch, I’ll oblige:
What Have You Done?
( x) Smoked a joint - once and I didn’t like it
(
) Done cocaine - Nope
( x) Been in love - abso-fuckin-lutely (credit to ‘Mr. Big’)
( x) Had a threesome - yes. Me, him, and my fantasies and ghosts
( ) Been
dumped - No.
( ) Shoplifted - No. I was totally straight and square until about 25.
( x) Been fired - Why, yes, and thank you for bringing up this subject
( ) Had feelings for someone who
didn’t have them back - Not that I know of.
( ) Been arrested
( x) Made out with a stranger
( x) Gone on a blind date - that’s how I met my hubs
(x ) Lied to a friend - yes, but then I confessed (long story)
(x ) Had a crush on a
teacher - yes, yes, yes, I *heart* men in authority
( ) Seen
someone die - nooooooooo
( x) Been to Europe - yes, with my first husband who was…(see below)
(x ) Been to Canada
( )
Thrown up in a bar - No
( ) Seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show - No
( ) Purposely
set a part of yourself on fire - No
( ) Been snowboarding - No, but I really want to!
( ) Met a
celebrity -
( x) Met someone from the Internet in person - my hubs
( ) Been moshing at
a concert
( ) Gone backstage at a concert
(x ) Laid outside in the grass
and watched cloud shapes go by - I love it
( x) Made a snow angel
( x) Flown a kite
(
x) Cheated while playing a game
(x ) Been lonely - of course, of course where do you think I get my edgy wit?
(x ) Fallen asleep at
work - all the time when pregs with twins
( ) Fallen asleep at school
(x ) Used a fake ID - yes and (typical me) got CAUGHT by the cops.
( ) Been kicked out
of a bar
(x) Felt an earthquake - 2001 in Seattle while in an old municipal building — ugh!!
( x) Touched a snake - no comment
( ) Read ?War and
Peace?
(x ) Slept beneath the stars - yes yes yes OOOOOOOOOOHHHHH YEEEESSSS!
( x) Been robbed
( x) Won a
contest - I always win weird contests like "Name that Stuffed Pig & It’s Yours"
( x) Run a red light - all the time
( ) Been suspended from school - I was a total straight over-achiever…
( ) Had
braces
( x) Felt like an outcast
( ) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one
night
( x) Had deja vu
( ) Totaled a car
( ) Stolen a car
( x) Hated
the way you look - now I just look away and buy jeangirdles
( ) Witnessed a crime
(x ) Been to a strip club
( )
Been to the opposite side of the world
( ) Swam in the ocean
( ) Felt like
dying
(x ) Cried yourself to sleep - yes… many times the first year I had the twins
( ) Sung karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal
with only coins
(x ) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t - many many times…
( ) Made
prank phone calls
( ) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( x) Been kissed
under the mistletoe
(x ) Had a bonfire on the beach
( ) Crashed a
party
( ) Seen a tornado
( x) Had a wish come true –not telling
( x) Gone bungee
jumping — After my divorce with this super hot guy I wanted to impress… he was *so* hot..ahem… but I chickened out. Had to make it up to him in other ways…
( ) Gone parasailing
( x) Screamed in public - all the time
( ) Told a complete
stranger you loved them
( x) Had a one night stand
( ) Kissed a mirror
(
) Had a dream that you married someone
( ) Gotten your fingers stuck together
with super glue
( ) Been a cheerleader
(x ) Sat on a roof top
( )
Talked on the phone for more than 6 hours straight
( x) Stayed up all
night - ummm… this IS a mommy blog, you know
( x) Not taken a shower for three days - see above
( ) Made contact with a ghost
while playing a Ouija board
( x) Had more than 30 pairs of shoes at a
time - More than 50
() Gone streaking
( x) Been skinny dipping - years ago when I looked good naked
( ) Been pushed into a
pool/lake with all your clothes on
(x ) Had sex in a public or semi-public
place - abso-fuckin-lutely
( ) Been kissed by a complete stranger
( ) Broken a bone
( )
Caught a butterfly
( x) Mooned/flashed someone
(x ) Had someone moon/flash
you
( ) Cheated on a test
(x ) Forgotten someone’s name - my children…every day
( x) Slept
naked - again, with the silly questions…
( ) Gone white water rafting
( x) Seen the Grand Canyon - yes.. my bachelor uncle took 10 of us young cousins on a long -trip.. which ended with him in a home.. one of the stops was the GC. We rode on mules to the bottom… most pain other than childbirth I’ve ever experienced.
*** There. I did it. You happy now?***
13
Oct
For You
And Sex Week concludes with this final meditation dedicated to all of you hot mamas out there, working hard to keep your heart and soul together while changing diapers and changing the world:
Ode to the Mamas
If only you could see yourself
How beautiful and tender and true you are
How lovely in moments of swearing and lust
and grocery shopping and frozen pizza making
In doubting and depression and frustration and despair
How beautiful you are
with your secret shame and your hopes for the world
with your silliness and your smarts
your naughty duplicitous heart
and your truest marital devotion
How lovely and sweet you are
with your complexities and vulnerability all shot through
with hormones and cookies and flat comfy shoes.
You are a mama, woman, child, sister, lover
You deserve the world
Since it’s Sex Week here at CrankMama, I thought I’d tell you a little about my life during my 2nd week of working again.
First, the pimp calls to set up the meet, identifies the John and tells me where to go, what was ordered, and how much I’ll get.
Then, I get all dolled up, do my quick tantra meditation, grab the lube and whip and go!
Not really. That was my other job.
This job is less remunerative, but also quite a bit less stressful and, let’s face it, much much easier on the wonderflower.
Today is only my 2nd of 3 work days this week and I’m already totally dog tired, hope I never have to use my legs/feet again, and am gripped by the familiar mixture of joy & despair that accompanies working while raising young kids. Ambivalence is the hobgoblin of working mothers everywhere… at least this working mother.
The inner dialogue goes something like this:
Jesus! The kids are driving me CRAZY this morning! When will J get here so I can get OUT and go to work? Thank GOD she’s here so I can go…
I hope V doesn’t do anything cute today that I’ll miss. She WON’T! She’ll be napping most of the time you’re gone anyway!
Ahhh… work. A reprieve. Hot coffee. This is such an interesting spreadsheet. A headache… Shit! I really miss the kids! Look how cute they are in that picture… Was V ever that small? I have GOT to do that photo album before I lose track of time…
I want another baby! NO! You DON’T! You just THINK you do because you’re no longer insane with sleep deprivation! But I do! NO NO NO! What if you had another set of twins? GULP. You’re right.
Only 2 hours more and then I can go home.. I’m so tired today I can’t see straight. Poor V.. I hope she doesn’t miss me.
Home again. Relief.
See? Working girls can’t win…
whip whip
10
Oct
Erotic Love…Part II
Since several of you seem quite interested in the Erotic Love post, I’m selecting 2 of the responses by folks who might just have this problem licked (couldn’t resist). They are also two great bloggin’ chicks, so it’s also an opportunity to check out their sites…
Martini Mom said:
Grab asses randomly during the day…touch touch touch…whisper dirty little thangs in each others ears whilst cooking up dinner…flirt…kiss each other often and with passion (nothing too gross out but it’s OK to kiss in front of your kiddos…this way…they learn now to imbue passion into their lives when older)…fight about sex and then go make up…flirt…give a massage with no "goal" in mind…kiss…look each other in the eye…breathe…FLIRT...
Stay At Aum Mom said:
Oh the dearth of freaky freaky that comes after the babies… Most of the time, it’s the old "just too damn tired" excuse. Every now and again, though, the wild hare strikes and there is a week or so of unbridled, exuberant lovemaking. Followed by a few weeks of recovery, since necessarily this involves using up time that would normally be filled with heavy duty sleeping.
Everything in life is a trade-off, isn’t it? And then, there is the unavoidable embarrassment of having your preschooler suddenly come upon a pair of handcuffs and some rather difficult-to-explain items of clothing. That’s always fun, too. "Yes, baby, sometimes mommy needs to dress up like she’s going to school…"
You heard it here folks, schoolgirl uniforms, grab ass, and breathing…. Who knew?
I want to know when these two will start teaching seminars… or bloginars??
I’m truly IMPRESSED!
09
Oct
Erotic Love
In an excellent article in Salon, author Esther Perel argues that marriage and family as they are formulated in American culture are not hothouses of erotic love. Friendship, managing children and household needs, and a literal and figurative intrusion of kids into the parent’s bedroom, spells doom for excitement in the marital bed.
Not news to most of us, surely, yet I always appreciate an honest discussion of the struggle to find eroticism in monogamous-kid-filled marriages. How does one account for the supposed sexual peak that occurs for most women in their mid- to late-30s and the concomitant decline in some men’s appetites? Regardless of who wants what, when, and how, the issue boils down to managing differing levels of desire.
More than money, in-laws, and differing religious beliefs, sexual desire has always been at the core of most of my relationship conflicts. And I don’t mean mild disagreement, either. All the loud door-slamming and yelling and crying has been committed by me during discussions of sex. And these fights have usually occurred because I have a higher level of sexual desire –talk about feeling out of sync with the mainstream! My first marriage more or less crashed and burned over this issue.
Assuming one is committed to staying within the bounds of monogamy, that one loves and desires one’s spouse and loves one’s children, what is one to do to rekindle erotic love, passion, and desire amidst the prosaic reality of laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and diapering?
Perel argues (and she seems a good authority, she’s been married over 20 years) that part of recapturing eroticism is to carve out a space that is kid and chore-free. I can appreciate the idea that some of one’s house should be kid-free, but I don’t need to tell you (because you know) how totally off putting it is to be the little french waitress and have one of the kids yell out that they have an itchy bottom. And yes, we can employ babysitters and run away to hotels far far away (which my hubs and I do occasionally), but I don’t want to have to spend $200 just to get my freak on.
What I’m talking about is something more revolutionary… imbuing the every day with the sparkle of the erotic. And no, goddammit, I haven’t figured out how to do it yet. But it can be done, I know it can. Meanwhile, all I have is the bad late 80s album by Bruce to keep me company in my quest…
Well it ain’t no secret
I’ve been around a time or two
Well I don’t know baby maybe you’ve been around too
Well there’s another dance
all you gotta do is say yes
And if you’re rough and ready for love
honey I’m tougher than the rest….
08
Oct
Sweet Beatrice
I’m a contributor at Sweet Beatrice today. Take a look.
06
Oct
Call Me Hallmark & Die
When I’m having a difficult day with my children, I always feel completely maternally inferior when I read another woman’s love post of adoration or declaration of "wonder" about her children. I usually roll my eyes and think "Of course she loves her kid, she’s on
tons of DRUGS!" But then I calm down, mist up, and realize I too am
on tons of drugs (mostly legal).
Truthfully, I prefer to laugh
with the cranky soul-sisters who have to dip their heads (mouths open)
into wine vats just to survive the evening hours. But sometimes I wonder if my Mrs. Tough-Cakes act gets in the way of my soft lovin’ feelings toward my fellow travellers — children, friends, people starving in Africa. Because occasionally even when they are as cute as apple dumplings on top of a cream pie (my kids, not the starving people), I feel like there’s a film over my heart as I brace for the next tantrum or explosion of maternal frustration.
You can imagine my surprise when the other day I found myself smiling like a PTA President with a bloodstream full of Zoloft literally oozing love and kisses and adoration for my daughters. It seems that now that I get to leave the house a few days a week to use my brain and
talk to people who don’t force me to make them sandwiches 30 times a day, we’re having a mommy-daughter honeymoon and I’m really enjoying them. Really. I’m practically ready to sign up for goddamn Gymboree. Not quite, but almost. Next thing you know, I’ll be knitting wee pants and sewing Halloween costumes while wearing an apron. I even helped them make caramel apples the other day. Me. The Queen of I Hate All Things Domestic.
I don’t want to sneeze or blink or say "Betty Crocker" for fear that this will all blow away. My daughters are so beloved and sacred to me. It’s just that I’ve often been too tired and worn and addled to admit it.
