Hell, Fire and Dalmatian!

So it all started with wanting another Dalmatian. I got my first one at 20 and had her for 13 years. We had a bond. I am not sure that it is possible to be codependent with your dog but we were. I used to say that Kenya was ACOA – adult canine of an alcoholic. She had all the signs of being raised in an alcoholic home. It was both sad and interesting. But this is not what I am writing about. Fast forward three other Dalmatians, a min pin and a mutt rescued from the pound, two babies and a step son. There was no argument that I was lonely, I was never alone. Still my son was approaching kindergarten in the fall and I just couldn't stop wanting another Dal. I fantasized about it all the time. Mind you that despite my three kids, two dogs, three cats, and a fish I was not wanting in the things that need me department. I had lots of beings that looked to me for pretty much everything yet here was this desire for more, for different. I went to the pound and found a lovely little pup named Skeeter that the kids campaigned to bring home for a week. I was moved to get the little guy but selfishly I protected my right to get a Dal. I knew that my husband's tolerance and our wallets had a limit and it was somewhere around three dogs.

Being on a spiritual path and practice, I decided to sit with this. To just be curious about my obsession. There were the obvious reasons – my children were growing to the point that they didn't need me as much anymore. Logan was starting school and Grace was in the throws of the threes and not a lot of fun to be around. Alek was only with us for brief periods and was showing signs of impending teenageitis. So there is that. Then there is that I am now 40. I got Kenya my 20^th year so that seemed to make sense to me. A companion to last into my 50s. Again, not the reason. I came up with lots of things like that. Trying to reclaim my youth and a time that had passed. A chance to do it again but better now that I am in recovery.

Why did I want to complicate my life with a dog that is known for their stubbornness, high energy and lack of attention. I have three children that all fit that description, I was not lacking in that department…not even for a moment.

Then there are the dogs that I already have that I do not take on walks daily or even pay close attention to. They are an ornament in my life. I feed them and give them water and occasionally pet them. They sleep like uncomfortable lumps in my bed. I spend most days yelling at them to stop fighting with the dogs next door through the fence. So why can't I just love them like I think I am going to love this Dalmatian. Why don't I take the dogs that I have camping, hiking and with me to run errands. Part of that is answered by spending 5 minutes with Sonic, the min pin. He is so high strung that even getting close to the car causes him to hyperventilate and almost pass out. His aggression to other dogs is also a factor. As I am writing this, a cat jumped on the bed and he lunged at her. So Sonic is relegated to the home front due to antisocial behavior and my inability to deal with him. Trixie the pound puppy is much more manageable but I just don't love her or want to spend time with her. I am not sure why. I feel horrible about this but it is true. I keep her out of commitment and work on deepening my feelings for this gentle and loving animal for which I seem to only be able to conjure up the most basic affection.

The longer I sat with this the more urgent it felt to get the Dal and I also began to see why I wanted her so badly. This was how I lived my life. I didn't participate in the life that was occurring right in front of me. I was in love with the life that I didn't' have on many levels. I was happy living the life in my head with the dog that made me feel the way that I wanted to feel without the trappings of that pesky thing called reality.

Yet I kept calling breeders and rescue groups trying to find that right dog and had a couple of close calls that didn't materialize for one reason or another. So I had just turned one breeder down and was getting ready to turn down the last one when I got a phone call. It was a rescue group out of Orange County. They had a pregnant female Dal in a shelter and needed someone crazy that would foster her. I didn't hesitate! I said I am that crazy person. So today I am loading up my very present and real family and we are driving to Rancho Cucamonga to pick up the dog and her mate and bring them home and get them settled in. I haven't decided if I am keeping them or not. I am going to stop making plans as mine are always less grand and exciting than the universe has in store for me. Life is good and always unfolding right in front of me. So I am going to try to work on being present for it and to be of service along the way…with a sense of humor of course! I mean you have to have one right? How many people do you know that want a puppy and end up with an entire litter! I am sure that this experience will bring me a ton of new, interesting and painful lessons and I say bring it on!

FOOTNOTE - I wrote this two years ago.  My animal count now is 4 dogs (1 dalmatian), 4 cats, 6 chickens, 5 parakeets, 3 rabbits, 3 ducks, and 1 parrot.  I fostered the two Dalmatians that I picked up at the shelter (turns out she wasn't pregnant), fostered another Dalmatian and finally ended up with the Dalmatian that I have now (also a rescue).  It is official, reality says that I have taken leave of my senses.

The Baby Bird Lesson

It is a Monday afternoon and the kids and I are at home. Gracie is getting ready for speech therapy or rather she is playing awaiting nothing at all. Logan is getting on my nerves. I am contemplating dinner – the one that I would like to prepare – organic, wholesome, not out of a box and coming to terms with the reality that we will have something out of a box in the freezer. I comfort myself that it will be vegetarian…not that anyone but my husband cares. The kids would be fine if I let them eat cereal and mac and cheese for every meal. Then my mind drifts and I wonder if I am like most moms or am I just a failure. Because that is the term that you use when you can't think up a nutritious dinner…failure! I am so dramatic! There is a knock at the door and I am jarred from my preoccupation with dinner into the reality of Gracie's speech therapist. Shortly thereafter my husband arrives home and provides much needed respite from trying to manage Logan's constant interference with Gracie's therapy so I can sit and be present and delight, if just for a minute, my daughter's progress in learning to speak.

But not for long…I am drawn from therapy to yelling coming from the backyard. I jump up and run out there. It is my husband yelling at the cat to drop the fledgling mockingbird. Tom is successful in getting the cat to drop it. I grab a box and my gardening gloves from the garage and scoop up the tiny bird. It is not harmed but very scared. I see its mother hovering above me but she keeps her distance and watches me. After we are sure the bird is not mortally wounded, we begin trying to find the nest so that we can reunite it with its mother and safety. My son is very excited about this whole ordeal and has lots of ideas about what we should do with the bird – it can sleep with him – really he doesn't mind. I sit him down and explain why that is not possible and encourage him instead to help me find the nest. This is complicated by the fact that the nest is somewhere in the hedge that is in full blossom and full of bees. Patience not being my strong suit, I quickly delegate this nest finding task to my husband and son and return to my daughter's therapy session and my thoughts of dinner.

Shortly, my husband yells again for me to come there. He has found another bird hiding underneath the hedge and we decide to return this baby bird to its family. Out of the box and into the hedge with a running start! Once we are a safe distance away the mother bird quickly swoops down and the family is reunited…for the moment. The baby bird will not stay underneath the hedge! It continues to come out into the open, dangerous yard and chirp its little heart out. We get the dogs, cats and kids inside and trust that all will be well. Gracie finishes her therapy session and so ends the bird drama.  Now I can devote my entire attention to the dinner drama. I decide on pasta and begin.

As I am standing at my kitchen window, I see the little bird darting around the yard. I can hear the mother bird calling to it and see her swoop down to herd it into the bushes. But the little bird won't listen to its mother and in a horrifying instant is killed by a crow. My husband runs out to save it but this time he is too late. He helplessly watch life leave the little bird and looks to me at my window. I am grief stricken and destroyed. I watched the life drain out of that being as I stand helplessly at my kitchen sink.  I was totally powerless and I hated it! My husband leaves the fracture, feathered body where it lay because he is just too distraught to do anything else. He comes in for dinner.

At the dinner table, my son, fully aware of all that has occurred, is full of questions.  Why did the crow do that? Why are crows so mean? Will a crow eat him or Gracie? Should we try to kill crows for killing baby birds? My answers for him are limp and unsatisfying even to me because I am hating the crow too. I am grief stricken that the life that I just held in my hands a few minutes ago is now gone forever.

While I am grappling with my sorrow, I find that I could careless about dinner and don't think that I will be eating anyway. My son is relentless and the questions are coming rapid fire now. I want to escape into my room and let Tom handle this but know that I can't. I turn to my son and begin. I tell him that crows aren't bad, they just are the way they are. They eat other animals and that is how they survive. It isn't about being bad or good.  It is just that some beings kill other beings to survive and some don't. And in my explanation to him I realize why I am a vegetarian – I am a being that doesn't kill to survive and this thought brings me great peace. This peace helps me to endure the rest of the evening and the following days of my son's searching questions. 

This event has caused me to realize that as a mother, I can only do so much to protect my kids.  I am just like that mother bird. I can scold, herd them to safety, and swoop down on them but that ultimately my kids will exercise free will.  They are beings in their own right and their ideas are going to cause them to behave in ways that I do not understand, agree with or condone.  Devastation is the focal emotion when I very painfully take in how much like that momma bird I am.  I close my eyes and pray with all my being that my "little birds" meet with a kinder fate. Still, I am overwhelmed by powerlessness. After all the running around to save the bird from the cat, it was killed anyway. It is times like this that I cannot rectify that it feels that some beings are on this planet just to be killed.  I cannot get past how unfair and wrong that feels. I find myself a bit despondent about life and death. But my son's comment quickly jerks me into the present. "Mommy, crows are bad and I am going to kill the next one I see!"   Jarred by his honest, deeply felt and adult like speech, I get down on my knees, look him in the eyes and say, "then there would be two dead birds and don't we feel bad enough that there is one?" And like a bolt, I realize that killing is sad no matter what the circumstance, it is not what makes us bad. There is no good and bad – just my judgment about events that happen every day.  I want to explain this to my son but how can I?  It has taken me almost 40 years to even begin to get this lesson and despite my strong desire, I cannot give it to him.  It is a lesson that he will have to learn himself and my job as his mother is to be present and available when he seeks to access my wisdom.

I feel in awe of the cycle of life which includes death.  Somehow this experience has made me feel more connected to other beings. I see more clearly the cause and effect of all actions.  That there is no vacuum in which one action does not deliver unintended consequences.  I expect to feel depressed and lost but instead of feeling destroyed by this experience, I feel strangely uplifted. My witnessing and participation in this event has affirmed my vow to not cause harm in this life.  That I want to be in this world in a peaceful, loving and non-harming way.  I know that my life changed because of the little bird and I know that my son was affected too. And as always, I don't know what lesson he learned from this experience.  What I do know is that I was able to be present, honest and loving as we tried to sort it out together. I know that I may not set a good example of compassionate living everyday but on this day I did. When I look out my kitchen window, the little bird is gone. The crow came back and took his dinner home. And I am relieved. Relieved that I don't have to dispose of the body and that the little birds death was not completely in vain. Another being will live another day because of its sacrifice. I do not like the way world works frequently but if I stay present I get a chance to be present.  And the present is the only place that I have a chance to protect my own "little birds".

Motherhood...a lesson in trudging.

I never wanted to be a mother - a wife or a mother.  I was adamant that I did not want to be a wife and entertained the completely reckless belief that being a single mother was something good to choose.  Knowing what I know now, being a single parent is heroic.  But knowing what I knew then, my ideas about being a single mother were just ill informed, grandiose and stupid.  

I am currently being paged by my two year old daughter – she wants me to tuck her in…AGAIN! I swear tonight is an all time record – this is now the 5^th time that I have tucked her in. There aren't many people on this earth, save my children, that I would lovingly stop what I am doing, go to them and be nice. My husband surely would not get that treatment – admittedly maybe he should but he doesn't and isn't likely to. Even my own mother, whom I adore, would get some form of exasperation from me. And, on my not so good nights, so do the kids but tomorrow is Mother's Day so I am on my best motherly behavior.

Before I go any further, I need to own up to the fact that I find mothering very hard.  My time in the motherhood trenches has been not unlike mortal combat.  I still have days, perhaps weekly, that I would trade both my kids in for the mere promise of a day at the spa or Nordstroms.  Fortunately, those moments pass and I am able to return to the present and see that, for the most part, my life as a wife and mother is enjoyable and rewarding.

So tonight Grace got the better me - five times in a row!  This is a truly rare occurrence!  As a mom, I feel that I am frequently not up to the task.  That I have more bad days than good.  But tonight I feel blessed.  I do not mind the inconvenience of attending to her needs.  Tonight, in the moment, I am content with the life that I fell into and amazed at how far I have come - completely contrary to all my plans and ideas.  

I always thought of love and marriage to be a kind of trap - one that I should avoid - much like one avoids falling off 40 story building or down a mine trap.  Yet here I sit on my Temperpedic mattress in my suburban home, SUV in the driveway, two dogs at the foot of my bed, two kids sleeping or rather not sleeping upstairs, writing while I mindlessly watch hockey with my husband.  10 years ago, this image would have sent me on a self-indulgent spending spree at Nordstroms, so how is it that I sit here and can't imagine my life any other way?

The truth is that I don't have a clue. I am living the American dream – my former nightmare and I am content. I have all the trappings of modern life yet I do not feel trapped. Instead, I feel lucky…blessed even. Lucky that I got sober at 25, blessed that I didn't marry until 34, blessed that I spent my 20's and early 30's getting to know me, grateful for the brief but satisfyingly successful legal career, lucky that despite my advanced maternal age (35!) that I conceived and delivered two absolutely gorgeous, healthy children, lucky that since Logan's arrival I have been able to work from home and spend time with my children and witness childhood in progress. It is true that I am fortunate and my life miraculous.  However, the miracle is not that all of this has happened, it happens to lots of women everyday.  The miracle lies in that all that I have received, I never wanted yet somehow I have come to embrace, accept that this is all that I have ever needed.  For someone like me, wanting what you have is nothing short of a miracle.  Had someone told me 15 years ago that the life that I have today would be my fate, I would have surely jumped off of a very high bridge.  But today I am content and deeply grateful that I didn't get what I wanted. 

All of this was accomplished by not planning a thing. I, in fact, planned the opposite. I planned to be married to my career and maybe, if I felt like it, at 40 have a kid on my own so that I could hide from the thought that if I didn't choose to procreate that I was just selfish. Today, I feel deep gratitude that all my plans never came to pass. That somehow in the years between 25 and 34 the woman that would request to be resat at a restaurant if she was sat remotely near a small child has matured into a stay-at-home mom who loves her kids & husband. I even happily drove a minivan for a couple of years. (THE HORROR!) Unlike many other women I knew while pregnant, I didn't have a birthing plan or a coach or any idea about what I was getting myself into – I just knew that I had come this far just putting one foot in front of the other and didn't see any reason to change that way of being. When I look back at it all, I see that I am a trudger.  I move forward with purpose.  What I didn't know was that it was never my purpose.  I apparently have always answered to some higher purpose even in those moments that I have so talked myself into believing that my purpose is the right purpose.  So like becoming a lawyer, getting married and having kids, I just trudged along and tried to stay out of the way and let it happen.

Today I am so grateful. I love my kids – they are the best teachers I have ever had. But most of all I love who I have become because of my kids. They challenge me in ways that no other person on this earth can…or should for that matter. They demand from me that I am on the top of my game every day, day after day whether I feel like it or not. And they know they have me – they know that despite my rantings that I am not going anywhere without them. They make me want to dig deeper and work harder than I ever have worked for anything in my life. And believe me, working at getting sober was the most demanding and difficult thing that I ever took on, but it pales in comparison to motherhood. So on the eve of this hallmark holiday that can become so meaningless and trite, I want to say thank you to my kids (and well my husband too after all he did play a part) for allowing me to trudge my way into motherhood and morphing into a person that I never wanted to be and probably wouldn't have liked.  Today, I see that I have never known what is in my best interest but if I trudge along, someone will show me the way!

Fagnitall!

What does it mean? I have no idea but I know that it is a bad word to my three year old son. I think that it is a combination of fuck, damnitall and shit. He says it in the very same tone that I use when I revert to type and let loose with my lesser nature. He learned it from me of course even though I have never used Fagnitall! Ever until now. In his three year old mind, he knows already that there are those moments that just don't work out the way that we want them to…those moments that we just aren't able to summon a higher self and instead resort to damning the moment because it is the only tool that is always ready and at our disposal.

So I have accomplished teaching my three old to curse. Kudos to me! Every time he uses this word, I cringe because it is a vocal and sometimes loud example of my failure to parent well. I am not going to flog myself on the altar of perfect parenting but up until he was 10 months old I really believed that I was THE perfect parent. Patient, loving, present…then he began to move on his own…and everything changed for me. I did not find the newborn stage all that hard. I co-slept and nursed and to be honest I used to lay in bed with him for 12 hours at a time often getting myself back to sleep before he was even done nursing. When I awoke in the morning, I knew that mothers everywhere hated me. But if those first few months of life were easy for us, I have paid the price since. It seems that I was capable of complete sacrifice and loving adoration until this little being began to have a way of his own and a method of achieving those ways. Here is where fagnitall began for him.  The days where he would crawl over to the electrical outlet and just sit there waiting for my response.  He would move closer as my eyes widened in horror as I saw him move closer to death.  As I am leaping over Elmo, he delights in my panic and moves closer still.  As I plunge like a wide receiver over the couch, I arrive in the nick of time, for him to smile and crawl away.  Fagnitall! I am now sweaty and my heart is racing. He has peacefully moved on to the next thing that has captured his attention…the dog. Still reeling from our imagined fate, I say out loud FAGNITALL!

And so begins the cycle – Logan moving further from me and closer to dangers both real and imagined. My ability to deal is compromised. I over- react and set myself up for feelings of dismay. Fagnitall! Logan observes and knows that his mother is excitable and unpredictable. He knows that I am usually distracted and consumed with all sorts of activities that take me from the present moment and away from him. He knows now how to bring me back…FAGNITALL!

When I was single and parenting was strictly theoretical, I knew that I would be able to impart wisdom and respect to my imagined children. They would be well behaved and I would glow…all the time. And I guess I wasn't totally wrong, I do glow but that is usually from perspiration and exhaustion. These imagined children didn't learn swear words until they were at least 15 and never made up their own! So I bow my head in defeat and know that this is really a much harder job than I imagined. I get up every day and smile to myself and ask, "So what's it going to be today theoretical parenting or in-the-trenchs parenting?" And you know, some days I just have to say Fagnitall...but only quietly to myself.

Happy, Mommy?

I had so many things to write about this morning! And now I am at a loss – such profundity at 5:30 am but my day has ground me out and now my mind is blank and searching. So why am I writing at all? Not sure but I made a commitment to do this daily so I am honoring my commitment to myself? That is novel. I keep thinking about accountability but that wasn't it – a worthy topic but not tonight. Authenticity – that was it! Yeah, I love it when I get back to where I was all by myself!

Moving on quickly so that I don't forget again - I am more aware lately of all the little ways that I lie to myself and others. The tiny cuts to my wholeness that bleed me enough that it hurts and I notice but not so much pain that I actually stop what I am doing, really see what I am doing and maybe do something different. Before recovery I had no ability to change yet I was constantly changing. I changed my hair color, my likes and dislikes to conform to my audience – whoever that might be. I was completely convinced that external things like hair color or whether I liked hockey or baseball mattered. In some ways, life was easier then. I knew how to change…but I wasn't real. I just morphed into whatever form I thought someone wanted from me and there was no me anywhere to be found. I wonder if people really liked me back them or if I was just an audience member in their morphing phenomena. Then I go further and wonder if the audience necessitated my shifting and if that was the case why did I suddenly get these great ideas when I was alone to change who I was? I was my only audience member at that moment and I wasn't even interested in my own show…so where does that leave me?



I know that my children have caused me to grow tremendously in this area. They want the same Mommy all the time. They are not interested in having the PMSing mommy, the Ihaveworktodo mommy, or the yellingmommy. They want and in fact demand that I am my higher, more evolved self on a minute to minute basis. My daughter is so in tune with me that the minute she sees a scowl come over my face she looks at me with those big blue grey eyes and says "Happy, Mommy?" At first I just felt guilty and destroyed that, no, I was actually NOT happy that she or her brother had just pooped their pants or spilled cereal all over the floor and I would answer her with a not so nice, "No, mommy is NOT happy!" But children have an amazing gift to get you out of your comfort zone to make you see that the impossible is really possible. And I began to realize that her question "Happy, Mommy?" could be seen as a reminder in that instant of how was I choosing to be – happy or angry? When I started to be mindful of this I realized that I choose anger more often than not and I had no idea why. So I beagn asking myself – "happy, mommy?" And I began over a course of weeks to change my behavior. The perceived slight of spilled cereal or poopy pants that had previously set me over the edge now was put into an easier, more acceptable context to which I could choose to be happy instead of reacting to the external event that had already occurred and that I was absolutely powerless to change. In reflection, I realized that I was allowing events that had passed – trivial events to rob me of being present and sane to these small beings that I was blessed with. So I no longer feel guilty or destroyed when she says, "Happy, mommy?" I just smile at her and say "yes, mommy is happy honey. Thank you for my reminder." I love that about kids – breakfast, a bowel movement and a spiritual lesson and it is only 7:00 am. Where else can you get that?

On death, dying and potty training

If you have ever had the pleasure of spending a little time with my three-year-old, you would be shocked and amazed at the information you could receive. Depending on his mood, you just might get a discourse on death and dying as that has been a popular subject. My death and ultimate demise is especially good fare. I cannot tell you how pale I get or how much my hands sweat when he brings this topic up. I wonder if maybe he knows something that I don't!

This has become a troublesome topic as of late and I am afraid of why his little mind seems to be completely preoccupied with death and dying. This seems like way too heavy of a topic for a three-year-old. Let alone the three-year-old of vegetarian, Buddhist parents. But as it is, I would hazard a guess that almost all of our conversations lately revolve around the condition of his pants and my death. These two seemingly unrelated ideas have wound themselves into the fabric of our everyday lives.

I guess it began with potty training which we began in earnest one January. We surmised that after many failed attempts that Logan was now ready; which if you are about to begin this task is an essential ingredient I would say far more important than say you being ready. Gracie was a little young but I was only going to do this once. My husband and I enlisted expert help from the self proclaimed Queen of Potty Training and hunkered down for what turned out to be the longest 3-day weekend of our lives.

Day 1 - Removal of diapers and the donning of underwear.
This was met with not-so-quiet defiance and resistance. Next, all the unused diapers are rounded up and hurled into the garbage in an invigorating game of "today we grow up!" My guilt about using disposable diapers in the first place would just not allow me to fill the landfills further so I discretely packaged up all of the diapers, wipes and related creams and donated them to charity. The day then devolved into following the kids EVERYWHERE! I mean FOR EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY! If you don't know how hard this is just try it for an hour and then have a neutral third party evaluate your sanity. The thought is that you will catch them in the act and once you catch them in the act, you quickly pick them up and run them to the potty. Once at the potty, you place them on the potty, allow them to finish and then make a big deal that they did it! What actually happened was that we placed them on the potty one second after they were done eliminating. Whoever was running behind the mad potty dash usually skidded through urine or excrement and quickly abandoned further thought of witnessing the blessed potty event. Let me tell you that I was not happily dishing out mini m&m's and praise. By the end of Day 1 my husband and I were absolutely ok with both of our kids moving from Pampers to Depends.

DAY 2 - Moving forward?
More of the same but both kids did start to get some of their bodily fluids into the toilet. By Day 3 – Logan had it. He did poop the kitchen floor once on Day 1 but what is a little guy to do when he is being rushed by his father like a linebacker through the kitchen at NFL speeds? At the end of a very long weekend in which my husband and I were held hostage to the digestive systems of our 21 month old and 3 year old, Logan emerged potty trained! The mad dashes to the potty, the bribes, the potty fairy sticks and never leaving their side for 3 full days left us all exhausted and in need of a little space. Gracie still had a little way to go but all in all – the kids were trained! I felt victorious!

For about 15 minutes – because the moment Gracie got it Logan regressed. Now at first I thought it was just a bad day. Then a week passed by and I realized that my sweet boy was beginning to smell like an alley wino! I noticed that the laundry – the bottomless mountain of laundry – was growing. What I found was a very large sampling of Logan's clothes and the entire mass of spent clothing reeked of urine. Enough! I sat him down. We talked. We discussed. I bribed. I bribed again. I walked away confident that the urine stench would be leaving us for another 50 or 60 years until it was my turn.

Fast forward 6 months, to the middle of June, 6 full months since the potty "train" left the proverbial station. Gracie embarked and is trained. Logan embarked sort of…he poops in the potty…and pees in his pants. He is capable of peeing in the toilet. I have seen him do it on more than one occasion. Determined, I begin to try everything a good mother would – I begin with bribery and when that doesn't work I up the ante with more bribery with better bribes. I threaten. Threats are completely useless so I use those more…all to no avail. I try discourse. Nothing! I enlist the grandparents' assistance because they have resources that far surpass ours in the bribery department. I try my best to ignore the behavior but I just can't. Can anyone tell me how when the checkout clerk at Target tells you "Hey, lady, your son is peeing his pants!" Exactly how I am to ignore that? "No he isn't. Nothing is happening here." Do I then take the time to explain to the pimply faced overgrown adolescent, "I am trying to potty train him and he is not cooperating so I am just ignoring it?" I am pretty confident that child protective services would meet me at my car! No matter what I did, I got nothing…nothing but wet pants!

And so it goes. I try to ignore in the relative safety of my own home. I praise when he is dry and when I fail at the ignoring which is pretty much all the time, I comment on the state of his pants and my disappointment – sometimes in a nice voice and sometimes not. I am smart enough to know that there is something going on with him but not smart enough to figure it out. When I ask him about why he continues to pee his pants and send me over the edge he says with a devilish grin, "Gracie taught me." "Well she pees in the potty now so you can too!" I encourage. To this Logan says "I am a big boy mommy but I need to pee in my pants – that is just how I have to do it." "Why?!?!?" I exclaim. Logan delights "I don't need to grow up too fast, mommy!" I slap my forehead which is better than what I want to slap and bow my head in complete defeat. "You will just be the only kid in college to pee your pants." I respond. Logan yells, "I don't want to go to college!" as he runs from the room. Several days later, I overhear Logan telling Gracie that if she pees her pants mommy will send her to college too. Great – I have now unsuccessfully potty trained my son and at the same time sealed his fate and now perhaps Gracie's that they will never go to college. I am a total failure as a parent. I mean who else could screw up potting training and remove college from the agenda at one time?

But as life usually does – a few weeks go by and then like a flash I get a different perspective on the potty training issue. We are driving home from the gym and Logan starts talking about me dying…again. Logan says tearfully "Mommy, I do not want you to die." I launch into what is becoming an all too familiar discourse on the nature of death and dying scripted of course to be age appropriate for a three-year-old. But I barely get started and he stops me and says, "No, mommy, you aren't going to die today but later when I get older." My first thought is "how the hell does he know that today is not my day" followed quickly with the hope that perhaps he has just shed a little daylight on the pee pee pants.

Perhaps it is this fear of him growing older and me dying that is why he does not want to grow up! Possibly he is not too lazy, distracted or busy. Maybe he is not intent on causing me to have a complete breakdown. Possibly Logan has figured out at 3 ½ that if he ages so do I. In his little innocent mind he thinks that if he continues to wet himself he can't grow up and in so doing can prevent himself and the mother he loves from also aging and finally dying. It is hard to point out flaws in logic to a three-year-old so I don't even try. But I see for the first time that even though he can't tell time, he is acutely aware of time and its ramifications. I somehow thought that if you couldn't tell time then maybe it didn't affect you. But it appears that our society's mantra of "do everything you can to stop the hands of time" has been passed on to my three-year-old son. Now he is not out shopping for Oil of Olay or other products designed to keep us safe and protected from the constant tick-tock. But acutely aware he is. While I am still dismayed at the state of his pants, I am heartened that despite the daily dose of urine stained pants and undergarments he loves me enough to pee in his pants to keep me vertical and breathing. There aren't many other people on the planet that would willing wet themselves to prevent my ultimate demise. I am honored and grateful that he loves me this much. All those moments of complete and utter exasperation melt away. I am not sure how I am going to move him through this and back onto the potty where his little precocious butt belongs. I do know that I am grateful that he is so smart, loves me and has taught me that the clock ticks but it is us who wind it up.

Period Amnesia

As I age I become more acutely aware of my body's limitations.  I can no longer run, dance all night, stay up past 9:30 or drink to excess.  For the most part, I have accepted these limitations with ease and without a great deal of strife.  Oops, not true - giving up running and drinking were excruciatingly painful, of course not that ever did them together.  Running is more of what happened after I stopped drinking as it is very difficult to run anywhere when you often wake up still drunk.  I am not a big fan of puking either so it was definitely the drinking and then the running.

When I turned 40 I realized that my memory was shot.  Oh, I was not forgetting to pick up my kids from school.  But I could not remember if I ate the sandwich that I brought with me or whether I forgot it on the kitchen counter.  Nothing fatal - just unnerving.  A visit to my 45 year old doctor proved damning as he told me to get an iPhone and just accept that my brain would need technological assistance from here on out.

So all of this aging and I am aware and present and relatively accepting of all that is coming to pass...except my period.  Almost 41 years old and still having it.  I was a late bloomer at 15 so I guess I should count my blessings and quit my bitching.  I have never been one of those women who tracked it or paid much attention to it.  In my 20's, it went unnoticed unless I was not on the pill and then its arrival marked a cause for celebration.  I didn't really have any symptoms and it was, well, unremarkable.  I spent my early 30's on Deprovera so I didn't have a period at all and it was GOOD!  No pregnancy worries, no period - NO PROBLEM!  At 33, I saw that perhaps I might want to have a baby so I thought it prudent to stop the shots and allow my body to regain its natural rhythm.  Less than a year later I was pregnant and happy. Stopped nursing my son in July 2006 and got pregnant with child number 2 in July 2006.  The years from 34 to 39 were pretty much again period free as being pregnant or nursing for four years required that my body devote its attention to other things.

So at 39 my period returned and I treated it with the same summary judgment that I had in the past and got another dose of Depo.  Three months of bleeding daily was enough for me so I tried the pill.  Nasty PMS and the threat of divorce allowed me to see the light and forego hormone treatment for the little bugger.  My husband, being a wise and generous man, agreed (read kicking and screaming) to get a vasectomy.  He did - problem solved.

Not really.  I still have the period.  It comes seemingly with increasing frequency and symptoms.  I am a bitchy, crabby, bloated, chocolate craving maniac for most of the month.  But here is the weird part - every month it is the same and every month I forget.  Every month when I try to eat my husband for breakfast, I cannot figure out why I am behaving that way.  Every month when I cannot fit into pants that I just wore last week, I am perplexed.  Every month when I eat all of the Halloween, Easter, you name it holiday chocolate I despair.  If I were a crier, I would cry my heart out.  But I am not so I just eat and yell my way through the month.  Right before I get it, I think to myself that I should make an appointment with a doctor or a psychiatrist because clearly there is something WRONG with me!  Then it comes and it all makes sense.  The entire last month is immediately put into perspective and I slap my forehead and vow to remember next month and spare myself the drama.

Funny thing - next month I do it all over again.  I am not sure whether I am the only woman who suffers from period amnesia.  The only one that seems doomed to relive each menstrual cycle in a proverbial fog only to awaken to the light of day and 7 to 10 days of yuk.  I think that as I age, I should be more in tune with my body as my relationship only grows longer with each passing year.  That I would be able to dial in its subtleties and use this information to my advantage.  I know that I can be in tune - I knew that I was pregnant at 2 weeks both times that I was pregnant.  So what is up with my period?  I have done a lot of soul searching on this topic and what I have come to is that I don't like it - never have and apparently never will.  My period has always been a pain in the ass that I have actively avoided.  So I will continue to be amazed every month as I cycle my way through the symptoms and confusion.  However, I have started praying for menopause or a hysterectomy...whichever comes first.

Welcome!

After months, perhaps even years of delay, my blog is born.  I am full of fear as I willingly place my private thoughts and feelings "out there" for all of you to read...judge.  I have no idea why I am doing this as I never take the time to read any blogs so why would any of you read mine.  Fear is a wonderful emotion that keeps me stuck and content living the paralyzed life.  The life that happens without any planning which does not match the life that occurs in my head.  I have been writing since I learned to write but rarely share anything that I write.  So today I am putting myself and my blog out there in the hopes that it may help both of us live more authentically.