Highs and lows even out
Sometimes people ask me about the secret to success when it comes to a blended family, and usually I laugh and laugh and then ask them what they mean by “success,” and also, have they actually MET my family…?
But I think I’ve figured it out. The key is to make All Things Family mimic the child’s natural propensity for mood shifts. Even-tempered kid? Keep things on a nice, regular keel. Not-so-even-tempered kid? Hit the outlet mall.
Where else can you go where—when your mother inquires about where to find that shirt in the window, and when the sales associate informs her that that’s the last one, but she’s welcome to have it—you find yourself dying of embarrassment as your mother steps into the window in front of God and everyone and starts dismantling a mannequin? And then your stepfather moves in to take some pictures of your mother making ridiculous faces with a disembodied plastic arm draped around her shoulders?
But then just when you’ve determined you cannot possibly live under these sorts of conditions, that very same mother (with the shirt she ripped off the mannequin, thankyouverymuch) waits in line at Aeropostale for, like, 45 minutes just to buy you some cool jeans while your stepfather waits in the car (thank God).
There you go. Free of charge, the secret to blending your family (and also picky-teen-approved jeans for $6): The outlet mall.
The root of all evil… and puppies
I think we all know I’ve been a little out of sorts for a bit. (“O RILLY?” you say, because you are mostly nice and only a little wanting to poke fun at my uncharacteristic use of understatement.) Various… things… and medications… have left me feeling… well, let’s say… unfulfilled.
[“Hey Mom,” said a child of mine, a few days ago, “I’ve been reading your blog and apparently you hate everyone and everything. How’s that going?” Testament to my priorities: I just felt self-satisfied that this information was obtained from my blog when said child LIVES WITH ME. I must be doing a FANTASTIC job of pretending NOT to hate everyone! (Also I did not smack my beautiful child, even though the fruit of my loins was making fun of me when I am busy having MANY MANY FEELS. I feel that I deserve… maybe not a medal, but perhaps a merit badge of some sort? Someone should really invent an entire line of “surviving teens” badges. I smell a new Etsy shop!]
There are two distinct money-related phenomena that occur when I’m trying to cope with feeling like this, and although they are in some ways total opposites, I’m living proof that they can exist at the same time and feel like they make total sense. I’m just super talented that way. read more…
Various
“DUDE I AM, LIKE, SO DRUNK.” Here we have a sentence that I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually said in 40+ years of life, mostly because I can count the times when I’ve truly been inebriated on one hand with fingers left over. I don’t actually like being drunk. I like occasionally being a degree or two more cheerful than I can manage on my own, but thanks to being a relatively small person and infrequent imbiber, one drink is all that takes. Perfect.
I know no one wants to hear me continue to bitch and moan about The Tragedy Of Stupid Medication, but I have been off the supposed Wonder Drug (why yes, it made me wonder if my doctor was trying to kill me) for about a week and I STILL FEEL DRUNK. Perhaps if I enjoyed this feeling, was a heavier drinker, or was otherwise a little more risky in my proclivities, this wouldn’t be a problem. As it is, it’s a big freaking problem. I hate everyone and everything even more than normal and THAT is a feat in itself, I’m pretty sure. Also I need to drink a pot of coffee anytime I need to drive anywhere.
My doc picked a shiny new Wonder Drug to put me on, and I’m not going to lie—I haven’t even picked it up, yet. I’m afraid to take it. This may have been the worst medication experience I’ve ever had and it’s enough to make a person believe that roots and berries were good enough for our ancestors and so probably just drinking some hippie tea or something will be fine. read more…
Seriously, quit it
Today I am tired of all the ways in which my family of special snowflakes is so extra snowflakey and specialish. Today I just want to be a regular family with regular issues and all of the same stuff that everyone deals with because half-grown humans are dealing with hormone poisoning and incomplete frontal lobes.
This means you get to delight in the one way in which our family is just like any other, and that means that over at Alpha Mom I’m helping you to clarify when you’re allowed to exist and when your teenager needs you to just stop it, seriously, GOD MOM.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to shopping for a Cloak of Invisibility.
Nightmare hangovers
I have never actually been an addict of any kind (uhhhh… eating all the chocolate in the house so that there’s not any chocolate in the house to tempt me doesn’t count on that score, right?), so this may be completely off base, but I think the process of going off this stupid medication that never actually worked for me has been a lot like withdrawal. (Maybe. I have no idea, like I said, but hey, I’m a squeaky-clean, middle-aged, middle-class woman who saw Trainspotting once. Or something.)
Basically, you know, I’m fine, and it’s no big deal. Except that while I was taking this med, I was exhausted all the time and had a lot of trouble sleeping. Now that I’ve been weaning down, I’m a lot less tired than I was (though still tired, because hey, WHY NOT), but when I sleep, good lord, I have the most vivid, disturbing dreams. I wake up every morning and from every nap in a cold sweat, trying to discern reality from nightmare, as some horrible scenario gradually fades from my consciousness.
This, of course, means that my doctor said “Go down in dosage this much for one week, then this much for another week, then decrease by half” or somesuch, and after the first few days of heightened technicolor dreamscapes I took the proposed weaning schedule and tossed it in favor of being off the meds in about half the time. read more…
Making you feel superior again
Sometimes I share stories because it’s something I want to be sure to remember, myself. Sometimes I share stories because I think they’re funny. Sometimes, there’s something that causes me to have MANY MANY FEELS and then part of the way I deal with that is by sharing (either for solidarity or because misery loves company or whatever).
And then, sometimes, I’m just here to make you feel better about your own parenting choices. Just another service I offer!
This went up at Alpha Mom yesterday, and already a couple of commenters called it an excellent “Pinterest antidote,” which made me laugh. So, if you have any sort of packed-lunch-related guilt, allow me to show you what goes into a real-life, picky teen’s lunch box.
Avert your eyes
I continue to be a giant barrel of fun wrapped up in a drooling, spontaneous nap. Perhaps I should try to enter a new line of work, such as mattress tester. (Not that I’d be all that good at it; turns out I can sleep just about anywhere.)
Now I have a new thing to keep me awake, though! Woooooo! Lucky me.
Have I ever mentioned (once or a hundred times) that I have terrible skin? More specifically, I have finicky, easily insulted skin, as befits a delicate flower such as myself. As a teenager I had the occasional pimple, no big deal, but my acne has continued to worsen in adulthood until it was joined by rosacea and wrinkles, and it’s a veritable PARTY OF HORRORS on my face these days. I’m used to it, and for the most part I’m able to keep things under control.
It’s all part of the joy of being a woman, right? I use the special face wash with the fancy facial scrubbing sonic brush doohickey, then I coat my face in special serum made from the tears of unicorns, then I apply a moisturizer that both hydrates AND controls oil (magic!), and finally I apply spot treatment to any active zits and Holy Hell You Look Tired And Old undereye-de-bagging cream to the circles under my eyes. As one does. And then if I’m feeling really fancy (and haven’t fallen asleep yet…), I put on makeup. read more…
Continuing adventures in sleepyland
Do you have any coffee? No? It’s because I’ve taken possession of All The Coffee. I drink it all day long, now, instead of just my usual mug in the morning. You know that song Smoke Two Joints by Bob Marley? That’s me and coffee, now. I drink two cups in the morning, I drink two cups at night! I drink two cups before I drink two cups, then I drink two more!
Unlike the song, however, it doesn’t “make me feel alright.” It makes me feel… less like death. But still very sleepy.
Monkey was kind enough to come down with some sort of cold this week (step right up, come see the miracle boy with no immune system as he catches every virus in town!), which means that he’s been sleeping in, which means that I’ve been dragging my sorry butt out of bed at o’dark thirty to fix Chickadee’s breakfast and pack lunches, and then after she and Otto leave for school I go back to sleep until Monkey gets up. That part is handy, but the part where we’re both cranky after we get up is not so great. read more…
Raising kids is not for wimps
I have two sort-of-parenting-related things for you today:
1) I’m coming clean and I’ve donned my fireproof suit; over at Alpha Mom I’m explaining why I feel justified in snooping on my children. Now I just sit back and wait for someone to explain to me why I’m a terrible person, right? Because that’s how the Internet works.
2) While I am merely angering random people online, some other folks are doing awesome charitable things while being rockstars. For the entire month of October, my friends Asha Dornfest and Christine Koh (co-authors of Minimalist Parenting) are donating 100% of royalties from books purchased via this link to WOMEN AT RISK, an Ethiopian organization that helps women lift themselves out of prostitution. Their book is fantastic, anyway, and this is an easy way to extend your charitable reach for a worthy cause. Go buy a book. Heck, buy two—they’re small.
It turns out my life is dull
I don’t know if my life used to be more interesting than it is now, or if I just used to believe it to be more interesting. (Maybe don’t tell me. Allow me my fantasy that my life was once better than it is now.) I keep thinking, “I’ll write once something fascinating happens.” But guess what! I suppose this is middle age, yes? When you realize that your life is just not all that exciting…?
(To be fair, I actually had that epiphany over the weekend when Otto was watching Formula One and I plunked myself down on the couch next to him. The coverage cut to a new thermal imaging camera they’re using to show how hot the tires get on the track, and at the same time both of us went, “Ooooooooooh!” That was when I realized that what passes for excitement in your 40s is really nothing like what you imagined when you were younger. It was also when I realized that true love is also a far cry from what I once assumed.)
So until something thrilling happens (haaaa), you get snippets. read more…