Here's a Reality Show I'd Watch...

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.
 
There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money. In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care (weekend, evening, on a holiday or right when they're about to leave for vacation). He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable inside and out, at all times.

The men will have access to television only when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
 

Each father will be required to know all of the words to every stupid song that comes on TV and the name of each and every character on cartoons.

Each man will have to make an Indian hut model with six toothpicks, a tortilla and one marker; and get a 4 year old to eat a serving of peas.

Each man must adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep their nails polished and eyebrows groomed. The men must try to get through each day without snot, spit-up or barf on their clothing.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must try to explain what a tampon is for when the 6-yr old boy finds it in the purse.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

He will need to read a book to the children each night without falling asleep.

He will need to feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair each morning by 7:00. They must leave the home with no food on their face or clothes.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

They must clean up after their sick children at 2:00 a.m. And then spend the remainder of the day tending to that child and waiting on them hand and foot until they are better.

They must have a loving, age appropriate reply to, "You're not the boss of me".

Oh yeah, and work a full-time job.

The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

Hallmark Card

Someday, he'll be a big-time movie star

or a Fifth-grade English teacher.

Someday, he'll marry, have a few kids.

Maybe he won't.

Someday, he'll change the world as we know it.

Or maybe he'll travel, send postcards from China,

phone you from Paris.

Someday, he's going to be a big,

strong man able to carry you in his arms.

One day, he'll have his own hopes and dreams,

not knowing

that once upon a time you closed your eyes

and made a wish to one day

have him in your life.

Postpartum Depression

Dunamas Communications is host to Pauline Dillard, a woman interested in postpartum depression. While never diagnosed by a treating professional, I was severely depressed after the birth of my son (and for a long time too). The results of this particular study is important because I was invited to participate. However, I was so depressed I couldn't get around to doing the questionnaire. That and the risk factors, even if preliminary, describe me to a tee.

The top 4 common risk factors for postpartum depression [of the Dillard study]were:

* A family history of mental disorder of any kind (Bi-Polar Dad, Depressed Mom)
* A history of trauma (of one sort or another)
* Dissatisfaction with birth experience (but not the outcome)
* A perfectionistic approach to life(I admit that I'm a Type A personality)

Paula asks about retrospect. What would have been helpful? The short answer is that I don't know for sure but I think that other people talking to me about their presumptions - despite the discomfort - would have helped (you know, no secrecy). My other thoughts on the subject have been being rattled around in my brain for quite a while now. The long answer continues to be less than cohesive and as a result, unpublished. Someday.

Sponge

----- Forwarded Message ----

From: Wonelle
To: Wood
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:16:08 AM
Subject: ?

Wood - Please take a deep breath and do not take this what I am about to report to you and/or bring up as a personal attack, criticism, or anything else negative. Take it as food for thought, reflection, and as necessary, action. Please remember that we are in this together - we're a team of three now.

Teacher told me about [Twig and] the lollipop issue this morning. She in fact did take his lollipop and throw it away yesterday afternoon. It had to do with behavior again and by behavior she means his general disposition. On his bad days (and they are not constant) he does not listen to the teachers, he hits pushes, kicks, and refuses to share with the other kids, and reacts to most interactions (someone accidentally bumping in to him, requests from other kids to to play, direction from adults) extremely swiftly, very strongly, and with an intense rage that she said she has not really seen in other children before.

This is normal child-like behavior. This is what kids do. However, when she explained to me the specifics of Twig's behavior (especially yesterday's) the way that you and I have been interacting for some time now, flashed before me. I could see him doing it and it reminded me of how we Bicker (Merriam Webster defines Bicker as petulant quarreling) - when we talk we both are quick to respond, we each do so with tone (not humorous), the conversation is often labored, usually intense, and many times angry. Even if it is not meant to be any of those things or if we each do not feel any of those things, that is how Twig is interpreting our interactions. He's taking it all in, processing it in his two year old minds eye, and giving back what he sees as the appropriate way that people respond to and interact with one another.

He is all of those things because he's of us, with us, and programmed (as all children are) to become like us. This is not new information. And neither is the fact that we've been struggling with our own behavior issues in our individual, couple, and parenting lives for a while now. Please shake off that 'I'm such a horrible parent, awful person, bad husband' feeling. Just stop. NOW. You are a good parent, a great person, and a fabulous husband. You are smart, hardworking, loyal, overworked, overburdened, intense, and loved by Twig and me more than you could ever imagine.

Honey, this is a subject I just wanted to bring to our attention for continued pondering. Please don't fret too much on this. It is one of those things that is going to plague us for the rest of our lives - at least for the rest of our lives as parents. Maybe it's even a talking point. Nonetheless, an issue that we both need to consider. We owe it to ourselves, and to our son, to at least try to figure out how to appropriately and effectively adapt our behavior for the betterment of his - now and always.

I love you.

Wonelle

Addict

The Husband has left for work and the kid is sleeping. The 17 year old beast that has been INCESSANTLY howling as if she were in heat all night - ALL NIGHT - is still at it. There are things that I must do to ensure a seamles and on-time transition from home to daycare to school this morning. However, the computer has been calling my name for days and days and days. Ever since I wrote about my 10 Minute Hall Pass yesterday, I can't get the possible sentences to stop prancing along the place in my mind where imagine things that could have, would have, or should have been. It's kinda scary, this need, this urge, this desire to write. And here I am, after saying I wouldn't, writing in secrecy. Just like a junkie.

10 Minute Hall Pass

We're ready to walk out the front door to begin our day, just like any other weekday. Except that it's 6:30am and we don't normally leave the house until 7:40am. Hmmm, I wonder how safe it is to broadcast on this here blog what time I leave the house to spend more than 8 hours away - hey there's no address posted anywhere here...

Why are we ready to walk out the door at 6:30am? Twig was awake this morning before the 5am alarm and when it chimed at 5:00 it merely ensured that there would be no more sleeping. Wood was gracious enough to let me adjust my attitude about the unwanted early rising time - alone, in bed - before he left the house.

Besides the fact that I married such a fabulous man, the silver lining is that I am Writing. Okay, you're right, I'm actually Blogging. But hey, it's been more than a week of using an old-fashioned ink pen to write simple notes to pre-school teachers and a few birthday/mothers day cards. All I've been using the computer for is the most mundane of activities - composing billing related emails to contractors or spelling out policies and procedures for my staff of 7. Not terribly exciting activities.

I do miss writing about the day to day activities of my household and the things and ways that my brain chooses to process them. Between work, a litany of family birthdays, Mother's day, and preparing for Wood leaving for this coming weekend, it's been kinda hectic around here. But it's been really good too.

Perhaps it's the lack of quality time spent with Keyboard and Flatscreen as of late that's been helpful. To Wood's surprise - and pleasure - several times this week when I was faced with choosing between writing, watching television, or some other quiet alone time activity, I chose the brain sucker.

I don't really know what's making things better but he's happier and by default, so am I. I don't entirely care what it is. What I do know and care about is that life has been pretty damned good here lately. I want it to stay this way.

See you again when I can.

Dennis Leary - I'm an Asshole (Uncensored)

Hiatus

My blogging is causing a rift. A huge, resentful, horrible rift.

It's not new information. But this is: whenever I sit at the computer, I am then an absent parent who lives on another planet, disinterested in her family and the goings on around her.

Writing in secrecy is not feasable. Until hubbie and I can work it out, I must take some time off.

The Reality Is...

Way back in 2000, I asked a friend from college to whom I had been quite close and active with in political matters to be a personal reference. He had this to say about my request:

I will do as you ask.

I could never refuse you.

Although if they ask me about [you] I will be truthful.

You are a disobedient wench who refuses to submit to the perverted whims of her master (as Vice Chair, you should have given in to my unrelenting demands for sexual favors).

You have the patience of a drunken sailor fresh from the brig released into a whorehouse on freebie night.

You are as dainty and charming as Torquemada the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.

But, I will add that you will support anyone you believe in until the end of the world, and you are kind of cute.

Miss you.

When I first read the email, I laughed out loud and thought "HA! That shit is hilarious!" And I can see you - you're laughing too, holding your gut, shaking your head, saying "yes, yes!"

The personality traits this friend describes are ones that I have always struggled with. Actually, I don't remember a time when I wasn't confronting or attempting to temper these parts of myself. And I can count on my left hand the number of people that I've known in my lifetime who openly appreciate - even revel in - my unwillingness to be quiet and demure merely for the sake of convention. On the surface I look and even act a bit conservative and pedestrian, but I'm actually pretty liberal and quite loyal. They're strengths and weaknesses all wrapped up into one big complicated package.

You're shaking your head, agreeing out loud again...

Beginners Mind Part II

I wrote yesterday's post, Beginner's Mind, in about 10 minutes. I should have been driving Twig to Pre-School but the past couple of days have been extra, extra difficult to manage. I hit publish with a very cursory review of the words, only to ensure that basic sentence structure was correct and that the concepts weren't too confused.

A friend read the post and called to talk. During the work day and in-between meetings I sobbed on the phone to her: there is nothing in particular that's bothering me, it's everything. The entire family is in a bit of a crisis. On many occasions I can practice 'right mind'. But other times it's not so easy. We didn't get to talk for very long and the call was ended rather abruptly, considering the degree of emotion and the topic at hand.

It is disconcerting, this heavy pain, confusion, and isolation that I describe.

When I had a few moments alone before bed, I re-read the post.

Since then, I've been wondering:

Do my words, either written or spoken lead you to believe that the edge has become so close to me - that one day writing the blog or talking on the phone through the tears won't release enough of the pressure - that I will act in ways to ensure that things fall apart, broken, irreparable?

Do my words make me like my dead bi-polar father who refused to treat his disease? Am I refusing to see that I have a problem? If so, why? Because I don't want to be like my clinically depressed mother, who in my opinion, took (or takes?) antidepressants to manage deplorable situations?

Am I even slightly like my father and/or mother? I've always thought not. Maybe I'm wrong.

Am I depressed? Periodically, yes. Consistently and severely or intermittently and mildly? I don't know. Some degree of depression is normal right?

Do I need some form of formal treatment? Or am I just overly dramatic?

Feline Babies, Part 1

Little Foot the grey Tuxedo cat with a white belly and boots was born feral. He was found when he was probably only a few days old, near dead with his litter mates, sans mama. Some animal loving humans took him in, fed him with a bottle and gave him a chance to live.

His little Tuxedo yanked at my heart the moment I saw him in the pet store. Even though I knew the tugging was probably the pain of having just lost my Ms. Kitty to Radiator Fluid, I couldn't help but take him home to the first apartment where I lived alone, a converted garage behind a house in Hayward.

As soon as we got home he became Mr. Kitty. One of his nick names was "Little Lion". His legs were bowed and the way his body moved reminded me of a Lion on the savanna. He answered to just about anything that I called him though: Bub, Bubby Boy, Big Boy (because even after he was neutered he had the biggest balls!), Mama's Boy, Hunny Bunny Bubby Boy, and just about anything else that rhymes with the word 'Boy'. Oy!

He sleept under the covers with me cuddled up under my chin, purring and periodically licking or nibbling at my neck. When he was really comfy his tongue would stick out of his mouth ever so slightly. He just couldn't help any of it, having never really had a cat-mama to speak of. He spent a fair amount of time alone in that funky apartment in Hayward as I had to work full-time to pay the bills and was attending Junior College too.

Soon after Mr. Kitty came to live with me, I was accepted to Fresno State. We moved there and I started working on upper division units to complete my Bachelor's Degree. I was busy extra curricular activites and working to pay the rent and tuition. I spent a lot of time away doing all that stuff. When I was at home he stayed under the bed most of the time, didn't visit guests or just hissed at them, and was pretty much afraid of his own shadow. He was always a one person cat. He had issues.

Mr. Kitty and I were together for 16 years. He was a really sweet guy. I Miss him.

In the earliest days of College in Fresno, I didn't know too many people. Some burly bo-hunk of a jock that had befriended me (he actually was a right-wing christian missionary assigned to the College to lure young girls into Church with his good looks so as to save their souls) had some friends living in College sponsored housing who had been threatened with eviction because they had a kitten. Jock had been to my house and knew I had a cat. He had probably pegged me as a Crazy Cat Lady (as well as in need of soul-saving). And correctly too because the moment he told me that the cat was going to be sent to the pound (apartments are much harder to come by than cats after all), I said I'd take her. With not one ounce of hesitation, I agreed to take in the cat. No, that's wrong - I didn't agree to take the cat, I decided to.

A couple of days later, Jock arranged for me to go to the girls' apartment to pick her up. I would have never been invited to, nor willingly visited these girls or this apartment building under any other circumstance (much different worlds we all existed in). So I cautiously walk in the place and see a sweet and rather demure cat sitting on one of the dining room chairs. I thought "poor kitty," swooped her up and ran her home to Mr. K as quickly as I could.

This is Maggie. She came with the name and for some inexplicable reason it never seemed right to change it. She's also known as: Mistress, Mistress Maggie, Mama, Sweet Mama, Mama's Girl, Old Lady, or Maggit (tone, volume, and/or cadence dependent upon her behavior at any given moment, of course).

Maggie and I have been together for 17 years now.

This picture pretty much sums up her personality.

She's a piece of work.

Birds Of A Feather...

Beginners Mind

Yesterday I felt vaguely sad and slightly fragile. In the morning, Twig cried uncontrollably about not being able to take his baseball glove to school. We were running late to meet our deadlines and it weighed on me. As we meandered in the car along our usual path, he began to talk about Nemo again. He's very scared about Nemo going to the boat and even more scared about his Dad not being able to find him. Since we watched the movie, he now says "Don't go, Mommy". It's always in the context of our parting. It makes my insides flutter the way they did when I was a kid. It feels kinda like a tickle but it's really deep emotional anguish. He's two years old and as hard as I try to explain things to him, it's just not adequate. How do you express to your child that if they were ever lost you'd never stop searching for them? How do you tell them that if they were lost it would consume you possibly to the point of your own demise?

Today I feel very sad and extremely fragile. The day began with a mini-argument in the shower. That hurt-feeling hit my belly just moments later. Tears ensued in the hallway, during cereal, whilst dressing Twig. There is no consistent place or time that is easy any more.

My back hurts. My waistline is growing by the day. I miss Hubbie, Twig, and my former life. Old difficult patterns are beginning to re-emerge - again. All I want to do is sleep. I know what needs to be done and yet I feel consistently unable to be in charge and do it. I feel like a child trapped in an adult's body and that sucks because all I ever wanted when I was a child was to be a grown up, in charge of me and the goings on around me. I figured there would be less suffering. I figured wrong.