Eat. Play. Love. Repeat.

I don't have anything to say.

Truly. I keep wanting to post something new on the site and find that there are some things I could complain about, other things I could celebrate and still more that are just the teensy tidbits flying around in my brain like fluff. Not worthy of a big ole "post"!

Still.

I read recently that when you feel adrift or amok or a-whatchamacallit you should muse on the fact that a dead person would give ANYTHING in the world to just be in your skin, just for an hour. To feel life. To smell your child. To wipe a toddlers ass. To bake for your loved ones.

I've had a bit of thing lately about playing with my kids. I don't want to. I usually love to have chats in fairy wings over garlic and lettuce sandwiches on a tin tea set. Or watch a Triceratops "show" at DinoWorld complete with a water, dragon fountains and flips. Who knows? Maybe I never really liked getting down on the floor and making petting zoos out of Legos.

I try to wake up and say "thank you" as I fall out of bed (like the part time Buddhist that I am) and bound through the house like the image I carry in my head of what I would like to be as a Mother. Fresh. Open. Endlessly creative. Ready to make a bundt cake quick as you can say "Supermom." And hey, I am sure most people see me this way. (I am after all a recovering actress) But what if it's all just smoke and mirrors. Something my Mom drilled into my head that she herself never did.

So. I just breathe. Slow down. Eat my peanut butter with apples. Throw back the daily vitamins. And today when Grand Slam bounded up to me with sparklers in his eyes and asked if he could whisper something in my ear I said yes. He stage whispered 'I wanna play with you!' and I had to laugh. Life, like children, will always give you what you need to work on right now. And as I helped him lay out his dinosaur flash cards across the floor in a line and as I was eyeing my book I'd give anything to read at the moment, I suddenly hear...Pointasaurus. Jagged Eye Rex. Snortadactyl. I realize that he is making up his own names for these dinos! And I get to hear them! And they are mindbogglingly cute and hilarious and absolutely one hundred percent my son. No one else. And how could I want to be/do anything else?

We learn this over and over as Mom's. It's like those self help books you read that blow your mind open sideways with a life changing concept. But, by mid turkey sandwich at lunch time you've forgotten how to even spell the word peace and are telling off the counter person for putting too much mayo on the wrong side of the bread.

Today I will try and just wake up. Eat. Play. Love. And, thankfully, repeat.

Stop it! Stop it with the growing!

Stop it! Stop it with the growing!

4:34 AM.

Grand Slam cries out in the night for me. And when I say cries out I mean yells out at me like he's been doused in burning lava. I run through the house. My heart is flailing. I'm imagining he's chewed his own arm off in his sleep. Or some swamp snake has made its way into his bedroom. Or he's drowned on his sippy cup of lukewarm water. It could be anything! I brace myself and open the door....

"So Mom, what does Charlie Brown mean when he says 'Oh Brother?'

Oh, and I need you to pull the covers up."

I stand there waiting for the rest of my brain and body to catch up to me post hallway renegade run. He's all cute and sweaty in his dino pajamas, holding his stuffed T-Rex, rubbing his grubby little feet across his wall that I painted the color of Decembers Eve three years ago. Not a care in the world. Just, ya know, thinking about Charlie Brown dialogue at 4:34 AM.

"It's like when you say...Oh man! I think honey." "So is it like calling people stupidhead? Does he get in trouble for saying ugly things to people?"

Stumped. My tongue feels like a sloth tail. My brain knows I have to get this right and yet has no caffeine to arm itself. I bait and switch..."Baby, tomorrow is pancake day. Let's hurry and get the sleep part over with so we can go stir up the batter."

Thud. His head body surfs into the Tonka scene on his pillow case. I pull up the construction vehicle comforter and tuck the tip of the digger right under his chin. I notice his body is the length of the entire excavator truck right beneath it. In fact, I'm pretty sure if he were totally stretched out his toes would be in Concrete Mixer territory. How can this be? Just yesterday he was barely long enough to reach past the windshield and now he's two trucks away!

I lie down next to him. Really, just because I'm his Mom and I because I can. I wrap my arms around his little Humpty Dumpty tummy and shove my nose into his hair. I suck up a snort of sand and make mental notes about moving shampoo night but let's face it- shampoo night is so hideous on the entire family maybe I could just suck the sand out with the mini Dyson. Kinda present it as a game? Remembering I don't even own a mini Dyson brings me back to the night. And his little snores bring me back to him and all at once I am screaming in my head, "I wanna put him in a box! I wanna smoosh him down and stop all this growing up! It's going to fast! Can't he just keep on asking me things like "What's dirt?" and "Why can't we go to Australia today?"

Have I wasted too much time running around cleaning my house, doing errands, texting on the phone, surfing the web for things to do with my kids while my kids are right there asking me to build a fort out of brown sugar? What's the big deal about building a fort out of brown sugar? At the end of my little life I'm sure the Brown Sugar Casita would stick out in my mind far better than the improvising I did to get them interested in Legos vs. brown sugar.

Sigh. I have to let it go. They are growing up. No way to stop it. Gotta just ride that sucker as hard as I can and enjoy the heck outta bolt upright sleep stops. And missed chances to further the career or make dinner without breaking up fights. Or learn to play piano or make more money. Hell, I gotta let go of ever getting the garage cleared out and EVER having all the laundry put away.

But here's the rub. There's a little dino in my bed that's betting I won't regret a minute.

Now Showing....

A slide show of some installations we are working on at home. These are all works in progress, but still the artist, Grand Slam, feels it's important to draw from your roots when expounding upon an artistic vision. This work was inspired by embellishing his mother's things and adding his own 'toy le faire' style with which he has become so known for on the playground. These are all entitled "'Wild Beasts" and explore themes of hunger and hiding. They are currently on exhibit at Spatula Ranch Art Compound. Enjoy.

Bodily Fluids

Short stack has some wiring in her body that makes her throw up if she has too much mucus. Whoever heard of a kid not having too much mucus? Or mu-kose as it's referred to in our house.

So we're going on day 7 of rapid fire vomiting in her crib right as she is falling asleep. (that's the killer, OMG) Tonight was no exception except that she and Grand Slam were allowed to try and sleep in the same room tonight. Here is some vintage dialogue I heard:

GS: So, what shirt are you wearing tomorrow because I like green.
SS: Oh. I like pink.
GS: Yeah, bunny and giraffe are going to wear blue. And lion is going to wear blue. That's fierce.
SS: Oh. Well brand new baby is going to wear nekkid.
GS: Oh. Yeah. But sweetie she will be really cold.
SS: But brand new baby is going to wear blue. But brand new baby is going to wear pink.
GS: But I am going to wear green.

And this went on and on.....

Then I hear, cough...cough. I know what's coming. I race into the room and yell, "Are you going to throw up??!!" No. Uhghhhrrrrrllllll. (sound of the upchuck)

I pick her up as fast as I can. But I am not fast enough. The hurl rages against the windows and far walls only to be stopped by train table with a barnyard full of animals sleeping on their sides. I rush her into the bathroom and hold her head over the toilet. She goes and goes and goes. It's funny how timeless holding someones head over the toilet is..I mean I've done it for countless friends, myself, my husband. I think of my Mother doing it for someone and her Mother and on and on. But never did I dream I would be holding my 2 year old daughters head over the can to vomit. We are related though.

Most of it goes down her front. I can tell it's all over the floor. She's shaking and scared. But quickly she's smiling and experiencing that post hurl euphoria. You know what I'm talking about. It's such a crazy ride to feel so miserable one minute and so utter fabulous the next after you've thrown up. I'm about to start the triage when she suddenly throws her arms around my neck, slamming her body into mine and whispers, "I wuv you too, Mommy." And there we are. Hugging. Giggling. Making a double stuff puke Oreo. And I'm happy.

I'll never understand why she said, "I wuv you TOO, Mommy." But I guess, you know, on some level she knows that holding your head over the toilet is as close as it gets to knock down, drag out real love. So she just answered me back.

I wuv you too, Short Stack.

Old and New

So I went to the Eye Dr. today to pick up some more contacts. My prescription was expired so I found myself 15 minutes later in a dark room having some nurse shoot puffs of air into my pupils. Next comes the Dr. who is quite perky and oddly nervous for a Dr.... but what the hay. She starts off, I mean the first thing out of her mouth is...."so, have you started wearing reading glasses yet?"

Long pause.

"Um...you mean the glasses they give you when you go see movies like Avatar?"

Nervous laughter, "No, no! You know! Reading glasses! You are of a certain age for them."

Again. I can't understand. "You mean, like, the glasses I walked in with? What do you mean my age?" as I took over the nervous role and slyly glanced down to see what gravity was doing to the girls these days.

I really couldn't believe I was sitting in a medical chair being counseled about my ancient corneas. Reading glasses? Like, my Grandmother????

Then I started in with the questions...So does everyone need reading glasses at some point? yes. What about me? yes. Do women have to get reading glasses before men? No, every one's the same. What if I eat more carrots? Or better yet, grow my own organic carrots and juice them in high quantities? Everyone has to wear reading glasses around this point in their life.

Luckily, I didn't need them today. But maybe because I kept talking and talking and she kept examining and examining she did find something funky. Turns out I have a freckle inside my left eye. Kinda cool. Okay mostly weird. Proving once again my Anglican ancestry knows no bounds. They took a bunch of pictures. Called in the head Dr's to get opinions. Telling me not to worry and yet doing everything possible to make a sane person freak. The words melanoma were throw around. And for a brief 20 minutes of my life I went into the death zone.

The first thing I always do in the death zone is imagine my funeral. Sometimes there are hundreds, thousands of people in attendance. Crying. Singing songs I've written. People I've known all my life and those I've just met squeezing themselves into some church I don't belong too because I brought them a sour cream pound cake when their baby was born and they've never forgotten my thoughtfulness...

Or, the Mary Tyler Moore Party funeral. Where nobody shows up but a few people because everyone else figures hundreds of others "were much closer to her" and nobody would notice if they went to the movies instead.

But then the shenanigans turned to my kids. My kids. My little tiny just starting out in life kids. What the hell? They already had to deal with a Mom wearing reading glasses to the school play and now she dies on them??

Both my Grand Mother's are still alive. Both are 93. Ninety three. These woman are the strongest, funniest, shrewdest and most colorful women I have ever known. Momo (my Mom's Mom) taught me how to walk like a lady (with my toes pointing out..?) and dance the Sottish in her blue bedroom one day and shoot a rabit bobcat comin' down the hill the next. Emmadean (my Dad's Mom) could cook a meal for 40 by the age of 4 and hasn't stopped since. Now they are alone. Both sitting in very old houses, filled with possessions of loved ones that have died, nearly all their friend's gone and too tired, blind, forgetful and sad to do much but just pass the days.

The Dr's made up their mind that I was fine. Just fine. We'll just monitor things. And schlooop! I'm back from the death zone. Thinking about how long I have to exchange something at Target before picking my son up.

Here I am in the middle. Not young like my kids. Not old like my Grandmothers. Just middling. So much behind me. So much to go. So much to see.

Better get the glasses.

Bag the Bear

Who is responsible for bringing Build A Bear Workshop into our lives?

I just....I just don't think I can say anymore today.

The Guilt Factor

Today I almost took a bite out of Short Stack's cheek.

She wakes up from her nap all flushed, troll doll hair swirling up like the top of a Dairy Queen soft serve cone. She doesn't talk much when she gets up, like her Mama. And unlike my son, she'll climb onto my lap, put her head against my boobie (her word, not mine) and just be. Who needs a kitten? She's so warm and squishy and her cheeks are all chunky and smooth and before I know it- I've almost bitten her. It's like I can't get close enough or near enough to her. I want to just roll her into a ball and stuff her into my shirt and then I realize that I didn't even like that when I was pregnant and I calm down.

I've heard authors use the phrase 'I loved them so much I wanted to devour them.' And of course that's what I'm getting at here. But really, why aren't there words or phrases or even great works of art that sufficiently describe HOW that love feels? I want so badly to be eloquent and original enough to explain- I don't even know to who- how it feels to love your children. And why I've made certain choices.

I put my life/art on hold for three years to be with these amazing creatures full time. And all the time I justified it as something I was doing for them. The fact of the matter is, it's been for me. I never in a million years saw myself as a stay home Mom. Even writing that gives me the willies. But when it comes down to it, I just couldn't leave them. I think I am the only Mom who sent their son to preschool and never left the classroom. Or if I did, I would crane my head around some bush on the playground and watch for some sign that I shouldn't go. I am convinced my cell phone will die right when Sasha the gerbil becomes rabid and attacks only my child. Lately Grand Slam has started to turn to me when I drop him off and say, "Mommy I'm ready for you to go now."

I guess I'm writing about this because of the guilt. They say you can't escape the Mom guilt. It wakes me up sometimes. If you work, you feel you should be at home with them. If you're at home, you feel you should be doing something for yourself. But often when I'm home with them I'm checking my iphone compulsively. And I've canceled countless artist dates with myself because I thought the kids "needed me too much to go." Of course the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Or is it?

Personally, I've always felt balance to be overrated. I mean what brilliant art or thoughts or acts of courage came out of coloring within the lines? So, bring it guilt. I ain't skeered a you. And I'm gonna keep loving the guts outta my kids too while I'm at it. Shamelessly. Endlessly. I'm destined to be the Mom that wears big hats and sings too loudly.

And if you see my daughter and she's missing an ear- you'll know why.

Mindless Mommy