A cat stuck in a tree is my spirit animal....

Today the promotion I've been working towards for the past year came through. There was no email or department memo, just some updates to my personnel file and now I can add "Supervisor" to my email signature. Oddly enough my first emotion wasn't excitement or happiness but mostly terror. That is something that I really wasn't expecting. I know climbing the corporate ladder is generally associated with money hungry douchebags and sellouts. I'd like to think I'm neither. I'd like to think that the personal fulfillment I get from a job well done and the extra hours I put in will be worth it when I can see our boys graduate from college (hopefully not saddled with a boat ton of student loans).


But then the doubt and crap and fear started creeping in to my beautifully orchestrated 5 year plan.

 "What if you're really shitty at this?"
 " There's nothing worse than a crap manager."
 " Am I destined for 30 years of followingupsynergizingdelegatingbuzzwording"
 " Myers-Briggs says my personality type isn't best suited for this."

But the biggest one was:

"Did I just sell a little more of my kids' childhood?"

I'm lucky to work for a place that recognizes the importance of a work life balance, and  a manager that really does. That doesn't necessarily equate to a 50/50 split though, particularly in the growing pains of a new position. For all the MSN articles that I read about how to better balance a family and a career and despite every life-hack I try to adequately manage both, truth is I still feel guilty as hell for being a working Mom.

From what I've gathered though is that most Mothers feel guilty as hell. It's the way we're wired. If something anywhere in the world is wrong, surely we are responsible. And surely all the other types of Moms are doing better job. As much as I tried to channel my inner JC Wyatt and remind myself that I can have it all I drove home riddled with doubt the ugly cry damn broke.

But when I got home three things happened, I got a text from my Mom...the ULTIMATE in AMAZING working Mothers that said "You are capable and brilliant, you can do this!". Then my two sons met me at the door and seeing that I had been crying, stood and just hugged me, good hugs, long hugs, hugs that affirm that if nothing else I'm raising men that have compassion and are caring.

The final thing though was the neighbor's cat stuck in our Magnolia tree. We had gone outside to eat on the deck so that I could unload all of my fear and doubt and UGH on Doc. True to form, he just sat and listened, nodded and let me let out all of my shit. Before we could talk any more about the day we heard a meow. Small at first but increasing in volume and frequency,  we moved around and found it belonged to our neighbor's cat that had been scared shitless up our Magnolia tree. Now I know that cats stuck in trees eventually come back down on their own accord but seeing the poor thing trembling and scared I couldn't help but to identify it. Something big had scared her to climb up, and now she was looking around and meowing "WTF do I do now?". I then watched my husband spend the next 20 minutes with a flashlight, laser pointer and low soothing words and helped to talk the cat out of the tree. As incredibly lame as it sounds, it reminded me of how many times in the past 19 years he's helped talk me out of my tree.

We all have to face big scary things in life. Things we ask for, things we don't, things we feel like we're ready for and things we're not. It's the people that love us that get us through the big stuff. The ones that remind you of all the good parts of you, when all you seem to be able to remember are the weak ones. The ones that hold you and remind you of how loved you are (and that the best way to cheer up is to go listen to some Bowie-Thanks Rage). Finally, the ones that will just sit and listen to all of your fears and soothe you back down when you've climbed up a tree.

Mom Way vs. Dad Way

 

The stark difference in parenting styles can become glaringly apparent the moment you realize you're pregnant. Now pregnancy test and baby shampoo commercials all have us convinced that your husband's reaction to the big reveal will look something like this;

 

 

When in all actuality it's more like this;

 

 

Even if you had been "trying" (politically correct way of saying playing a LOT of Barry White and Al Green) for months or even years, the new Poppa reaction is I think more closely related to earth shattering shock. Dads, correct me if I'm wrong. Rage and Spazz, your Dad's reaction was and I quote "What are we gonna do with it, it's not the cat?"

 

Eventually, the shock wears off and thus begins the flurry of excitement and preparation that will carry on through the next nine months. Now the tale all about pregnancy and delivery surely merits it's own blog and the purpose of this little tale is to prepare you two for having your own children one day (Boys, this is not negotiable btw I want grandbabies! I've been assured that grandchildren are your reward for surviving the raising of your own children), and also highlight the glorious differences between the "Mom Way" and the "Dad Way".

 

After the first few months of new baby-dom (AKA-The Walking Dead Days, seriously why did y'all never sleep?) you hit your stride as parents. 

 

Feeding the baby:

 

Diapering the baby:

 

Even getting the baby to sleep:

 

You each find your own way to do these things. Your Dad was by far a neater baby feeder.  My love of pictures with you guys wearing on your spaghetti on your heads outweighed the bath time nightmare that always followed.  Never until you have kids did you think you'd have to shampoo marinara sauce out of a fellow human being's hair.

 

This segues into the quintessential anecdote I have about the Mom way vs. Dad way....bath time. Now Rage, you are the star of this particular show. It was after one of these spaghetti wearing dinners that your Dad lost the rock-paper-scissors to give you a bath. Daddy carried you upstairs kind of like this (without the crying)

 

And proceeded to give you a bath. After I'd finished checking facebook  doing the dishes, I headed up to check and see how you guys were doing. There you were all cute and nekkie and bubbly :) and your dad was holding you under your cute little arms and was more or less plunging you up and down gently in the bubbly water. Intrigued I asked him what he was doing.

 

Dad-"Well, washing the baby of course."

Mom-"What parts are you trying to get clean exactly?"

Dad-"Well his Downstairs, the water's soapy so a good plunging should do the trick, don't ya think?"

Mom-Can no longer be quoted as I momentarily died of laughter.

 

Moms will always be the washcloth all over kind of parent, whereas Dads adopt a plunge or water hose approach. Moms will demand two bites of hated vegetables and make you clean your room. Dad's will let you slide sometimes, and classify ketchup as a vegetable. Is one parenting style better than the other? After nearly a decade of this kid raising stuff I can honestly say no. Your Dad is by far more laid back and the guy you need around on the first night of  the "Cry it out" sleep method, all manner of technology/video game duties, and a crap ton of other tasks I'm no good at.

 

I also want to point out that over time, you pick up your partner's parenting traits. This past week, Rage came down with nasty case of Strep Throat. After the rock paper scissors of who would stay out with him (best way to make parenting decisions in case you haven't noticed), your Dad got you ready to go to the Doctor. I was running out the door to head to work, but not before I noticed how gently he picked you up and carried your big strong five year old self to the truck. Since you felt so bad, you were sort of draped over him with your head on his shoulder. He kissed your head and buckled you up. Now Dads may get the rep for being the rough and tumble fun guy, but at that moment it was glaringly apparent that the "Dad Way" can sometimes look a hell of a lot like the "Mom Way".

 





 

The Facebook Debacle of 2013

April 26th, 2067

Family #48693
Unit #099987
Total Recall Lane
Mars Bar City, Planet Mars

Dear Darling Spazz,

The year was 2013. Barack Obama was president, the Marriage Equality Act was under the scrutiny of the US Supreme Court, and we hadn't quite realized that Facebook was a super secret plot of a rogue Space Adventure Company that was preparing us all for life on other planets. As you know, teaching us remote controlled agriculture via "Farmville" and how to keep a Captain's log by posting everyday mundane details such as joy for the weekend and instagrammed pictures of our desserts, we would soon go on to colonize other planets thus bypassing the "Wall-E" effect of planet Earth.

Of course, you will remember Facebook as the Social Media site that got you grounded for two full weeks  when we discovered that you had acquired your very own account as a rogue act of your own at the ripe old age of 9. Your Father and I had forbade it until you turned 13, in hopes to protect you from Internet Predators. Aren't you glad they got they very own Planet? I'm sure that Alderaan Mark II is a lovely place. I bet they don't even notice the orbiting Death Star that will blow the whole planet up if they try to chat up 11 year olds. We also wanted to protect your future political career from posting pictures of your tween year old ass trying to look tough with a caption saying "I didn't chuse the thug life, it choze me! Lololololol".

 

Of course, even at nine you had better sense than that but we'd seen it happen. We also weren't ready for you to get a little girlfriend at school and put that you were "In a Relationship", and when the two week old romance fizzled out have you change it to "It's Complicated". Sweetie, you were nine. The only thing that should be complicated at nine is long division.

Anywho, if you recall you threw caution to the wind and as your first, and Thank the good Lord last, act of rebellion (you were such a good teenager, sniff-pride tear) you fibbed on your age and created your own account. Now since your Dad and I were still naïve we didn't catch on until several months later when you left your email open........ Needless to say, that was the day that Daddy and I brought down the hammer and the parental controls ramped up. You took it like a man and never snuck behind our backs again, or at least you got better at covering your tracks. Either way, the fact that you're reading this now just goes to show that you did in fact "survive" two whole weeks being grounded.

I'm sure that now that our Darling great-grandchildren , Zenith and Qazzar, have they're own new fangled acts of rebellion that Spazz Jr. and his life partner are dealing with. I wanted to write you this, so that you could relate to them on their level. It's so hard these days to know what's "jiggy" with the young people. Particularly when you just want the 411, you know what I'm saying home-slice (Zenith and Qazzar love it when Grammy "gets down" verbally.)

Well, I'm going to go take your father his lunch at the laboratory. Who would've guess that Daddy's interest in making science experiments in my kitchen would have led to his eventual Director's position at the NASA labs here on Mars. Give my love to Alice and her delightful Mother Tina Fey. So nice to have another comedian in the family besides me, Lololol!

Love Always,
Mom <3


P.S.
Finally got that family photo back from the Instagram kiosk at Sky Mall.

I knew you were trouble when you walked in...

So some families spend their good quality time together playing board games or doing a sport or craft. What do we do? Make fun of Taylor Swift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=n4BMmVh7h5w

The Adventures of Captain Underpants

Flashback Time- As a mother of two boys, there's really nothing much cuter than your two year old son in brand spanking new Superman Underoos.  You lovingly buy these to entice your adorable baby boy to get excited for potty training. Armed with loads of internet advice, a bag of reward M&M's, and naivety you embark on what is sure to be a piece of cake.

.......And then......you actually potty train.

Now fortunately for me, my Mom (AKA-Bubbles) had blessed us with the sage advice that when potty training boys, you can start at two and they'll be done by three or you can start at 2 years 11 months, and they'll still be done by three. I'm sure that some of you have sons that were aiming and firing right off the bat with the precision of snipers. To you people, I applaud your superior pee teaching skills and secretly pray that you will one day have horrible teenagers. Anywho, for both boys it was a laborious task that thank the heavens is a blur years later. I'm also proud to report that neither child will be shipping off to college in pull-ups (believe me, you will be convinced otherwise when they're toddlers). We are out of the world of diapers, Amen-Halleluiah! At this point, one would think that there would be no more blog worthy incidents concerning undergarments. That was the case until one decided to start having opinions about style.

Spazz the elder, is by far the most laid back of our two about clothing. In years past,  he would have happily trotted to school in scuba gear if that's what we laid out for him. This year we've seen a bit of a shift, particularly in the fruit of the loom of it all. We've always been a briefs by the pack kind of family. It's cheaper and really no one should see one's pants so what does it matter. Apparently it matters when you're nine and there are discussions around the lunch table of boxers vs. briefs. Spazz actually asked Santa for boxers this year, that's how dire this fashion crisis was. So thanks to his new Santa gifted boxers, his coolness factor was once again restored and all was right with the world.

Everything was groovy, until we hit one of those normal rare weeks, when the laundry gets behind and we're all down to the last pair of draws'. In poor Spazz's case, this meant either returning to the very un-chic last pair of way too small briefs, pulling a college kid and turning them inside out (ew, seriously, ew), or wearing the pair of boxers that his best friend had left from a sleepover. These had been washed and bleached repeatedly as they kept getting thrown into the dirty clothes. So statistically speaking, these were probably the best option he had going. What followed was a very heated debate about the pros and cons of each choice. Surely, the entire student body would be instantly aware of his underwear choice for the day. His whole 4th grade career rested on this one monumental decision.

Just as he was reaching for the one size too small Borat skivvies, Dad came to the rescue by finding a lone pair of clean boxers stuck in the pants leg of his jeans fresh from the dryer. Order had once more been restored, the crisis was averted.

So why you may ask, have I aired our family's literal dirty laundry? What's the moral of this whole story? Underwear is and always will merit a giggle, and next year Santa needs to splurge on two packs.

There is no Mommy..only Zuul

This is a common phrase heard around these parts. In case you're not familiar with Zuul, it's a character from the 1984 classic Ghostbusters. And really, if you're not familiar with Ghostbusters I highly doubt you will guffaw, chuckle or even LOL at this blog, so head over to TLC and learn about Sister Wives. Anyway, Sigourney Weaver's character Dana is possessed by otherworldly and overall bad ass Zuul. She goes from mild mannered Cellist to this.... Adorable, no? So why do you ask, do I frequently liken myself to a possessed Cellist. Well that can occur for one or all of the following reasons;

1) I've not had my coffee. The boys learned from an early age, don't talk to Mommy pre-coffee. Danger, danger Will Robinson!

2) I've just cleaned a room only to have the boys declare it a Nerf Gun War Zone. Or that they need to make their own tea. Or that the really need to wear the clothes that are neatly at the top of the closet. OCD + House full of boys=Zuul.

3) Pot holder battle- Consists of chasing each other around the kitchen smacking with pot holders. What, you guys don't do this?

4) PMS-Psychotic Mood Shift. Hate to live up to the stereotype, but there it is. Fortunately I have a brilliant husband who tracks things like this like a weather pattern. He then brings me chocolate and tells the boys I'm grounded and have to stay in my room. Smart man, just sayin'

5) Plethora of other random things they do that never occurred on the Donna Reed show.

I would love to say that I'm the perfect mom, who never loses her cool but sadly that's just not the case. I hope that when the boys look back on their childhoods they'll remember more of my other personality's-Bill and Ted (I say "Dude" a lot), My Mom-(For all of the things that I do right, and also the gasping panic I get whenever someone makes a choking sound), and Molly Weasley (because who doesn't want to be Molly Weasley). Funny enough I'm also an accountant by trade, so my work version of Zuul also exists :)

Generally speaking, having more than one kid can be kind of a pain in the ass. It's double the work, double the pregnancies, twice as long before you can sleep through the night. But then there are nights like tonight. When my boys, 9 and 5 years old are playing in the front yard where I'm watching them from the kitchen window. They don't know I'm watching, as Spazz (our oldest) just made a chalk drawn hopscotch board for Rage (the littlest). They don't know that I saw the high-five for winning their bike race in the driveway. Do these idyllic moments happen often? Not hardly. These two couldn't more different. More often than not they are fighting over the x-box, or the last ice cream sandwich or blaming each other for the sugar spilled on the kitchen floor. It took us four years to get "brave" enough to make this family of ours more than the three amigos. Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to only be responsible for raising one little person. Would I be a better Mom to just one? Would that child do better in school with more attention? I've come to realize though, that you really don't get the full experience with just one. With an only child you never have to break up a fight or give your damndest to keep things fair. There isn't a democracy, but a dictatorship. We're still at the early phases at parenting. My mom has told me that the roughest years are soon upon us. I for damn sure don't feel prepared for that and I can only pray that we make it to the other side in tact albeit with a bit more grey hair. Our boys will probably be at each others throats again in the next fifteen minutes. But for now, I'm at peace with our decision to have two simply for the fact that they will always have each other. And even when they're being little shit teenagers, and coordinating lies to sneak out of the house I'm thankful that they have someone to conspire with. I know this isn't much in the way of introducing a blog, but the backstory will surely tumble out in time. The best way to capture the now, is to write in the now. I hope to chronicle our adventures raising Rage and Spazz (names changed to protect future political careers) to remember all of these little thoughts and days that slip by far too quickly. Stay tuned for more adventures of the "Rage and Spazz Show"!