Bucktooth Mama

I have been kind of obsessed with embroidery as of late. I got into it aloooong time ago, but I haven’t picked up my hoop since having kids. At least that I recall, kids can do that too you, make you forget what happened before yesterday I mean. What was I talking about? Uh… RIGHT! Embroidery! So I have a few projects in the works, for Valentine’s day (or Balentime’s as Olive calls it). Here are some pins to get you as excited as I am! (I think I have been reading to many smutty books, as I was writing about how much I am feelin’ the embroidery the only words that would come to mind were related to arousal. YIKES!)

Did those get you all hot and bothered? I knew they would!

So many things about this video…

1. I really wanna rage out, life is getting me down right now, and I feel like throwing a fit, but luckily I have television’s Perry King to talk me down.

2. WHO doesn’t like an accordion recital? WHO? I’d take that over the stinky beach any day, and I know you would too. (If you’re reading this blog, I’m betting you are more of an accordion fan than a beach fan, just sayin’ – ’cause I know all two of you.) Why would Perry King lie like a lying liar and say he’s not a fan?

3. I totally love this girl’s outfit.

4. You know Aunt Myrna was totally expecting her cute niece & nephew to be at her recital and had spent months learning the reading rainbow theme to surprise them and make them smile and when they didn’t show up she turned to the only thing that could fill the deep dark giant hole in her heart, black tar heroin. Nice job turning auntie into a junkie kids! Hope your trip to the beach was worth it!

I feel the rage rising again, gotta go watch more 80′s PSAs!

Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden who had lots of time allll to herself. She would laze about all of the time and do whatever amazing little thing that popped into her head. Anytime of the day or night, she was her own lady.

Then that fair maiden got a bit older, but she was still able to do what ever her silly little heart desired, in between the demands of making shiny sparkly toilet seats. In the evening she rested, or did not, she did housework, or did not. Her life seemed demanding and full, but all the while she was exercising her free will unbeknownst to her.

Then the fair maiden, like all fair maidens eventually do, got older. She also decided to have not one, but two sweet and happy faced babes. Like many tales, this one was both sweet & bitter. For while she had the most lovely and healthy daughters one could ever wish for, the precious free will that the maiden had wasted and most certainly had not cherished was GONE. *POOF* Like so much smoke it wafted away into the ether, perhaps not to be seen ever again.

In years since, the maiden, now a withered old crone, has sincerely lamented the loss of those rosy days. The times when she could stare, bright eyed, at a spot on the wall daydreaming, or not, to her heart’s content so sooo loooong long away. She now is buried under a pile of laundry taller than the highest hill, she toils from sun up to sun up, and never, ever, never, never gets to the bottom of her to do list. Granted, she still stares at the same spot on the same wall, but now her eyes are glassy and bleary.

Luckily she has two little ones, almost ripe enough to share in the to-doing of the list. Someday, far far off in the future when the old crone gets her free will back, she hopes that she will greet it as an old friend. With a hug and a kiss far too intimate for two who will be as unacquainted as these two are. She will love it and stroke it and be content, because she will know what a wonderful and awesome thing it truly is.
THE END.

(Next up, the companion story about a handsome young lad whose hands were turned to craggy old stumps from the endless stream of dishes he was forced to do by an evil temptress/witch. It’s a doozy!)

I took a time out from the hustle and bustle this week and just hung out with my sweetie & the kiddos. It was great! Dangerously fantastic even. I felt like it was a peek into the insanity my life has become. I think that I have been spreading myself a titch too thin over my two jobs & my two kids. After May one of my jobs will be less intensive, and the other need not be so time consuming, it’s supposed to be flexible, soooo I just gotta set some personal limits there.

I feel like crying, when I look back at the last three months. Oh, my dear! It’s good to be able to take a step back and focus on your priorities. I think being a parent & being conscious are two teeny tiny tightropes that we walk, and inevitably we will take a giant misstep here and there. I hope the key is to fluff up your tutu, hold your fancy balance stick up, and keep on riding that unicycle, or whatever tight rope walkers do.

I am sitting here realizing that in the morning I have to deal with one job, then volunteer at one kid’s school, then take the other to dance class, then go to a evening meeting for my other job. I am trying not to let the stress of it weigh me down, or cause 14 million new pimples to pop out on my face, or God forbid, get another cold sore like I had two weeks ago… I am trying to remember “boundaries”, “limits”, “priorities”! Here goes nuthin’!

I’m glad that’s over. My cuticles are all frayed from knitting, and my fingers are sore from all the sewing, but we got through another holiday season.
Now time to breathe.

As I’ve mentioned here before I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I know that anyone who has ever been in my presence for more than five minutes might laugh at me adding the “bit” part in there. I am really a very huge and insane perfectionist. I like to think about how even when I was what one might call a “slacker” I really worked hard at perfecting that even. I mean, I was the quintessential slacker to beat all slackers, I was truly workin’ hard at hardly workin,’ but I digress.

It is painful being a perfectionist. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The inner critic is a far harsher judge than any outer voice. It is difficult to get things done, because in my mind, if I can’t do it perfectly, why would I begin it in the first place? I know it’s sick, I know it’s wrong, but thanks to my extra special blend of mental health, it’s what I am thinking all the time. When I complete a task and it doesn’t match what I was aiming for in my mind, I feel physically ill. I am typing this an realizing what a nut I am! It’s not going to change my behavior, but I know it’s crazy. So isn’t that something?

It’s great and awful that kids come along and challenge every single one of your perceived notions. Whether spiritual or mental, your cherished beliefs are held under a microscope and then reflected back to you when you are a parent. Every button you have ever had is pushed and kicked and pushed some more. If you are very lucky and you can remember to do it, it allows you to examine your beliefs, your ticks, your insanity. It’s a mental check, and Oh My GAWD! does it hurt. I want to be the perfect parent, but I fall short 99 times out of 100, because it is just impossible to be a perfect parent. You snap, you miss opportunities, and you fall short of your expectations constantly. If you are lucky you don’t cycle out of control down a deep dark hall of depression. There are always bright spots where you can walk away from a situation, an interaction, and think to yourself “Yes! I handled that! I was the parent and person I want to be!” Then in a millisecond something else happens and you are back in the thick of it and you are missing steps left and right.

Parenting is a rough job, because it is not a job, it is life. You never ever get a day off, even when your kids are away, you are still trying to balance your personal needs against the needs of the many. For me, ever the Capricorn that I am, it is infuriating, because there is no mountain, (but that of the never ending laundry,) that I can climb and feel I have succeeded. There are no promotions, no kudos even. I can’t be perfect, because by the time I’ve figured out even what that would be, the moment, the need, has passed and perfect has mutated into something else again. I wish that I could just throw my hands up and go with the flow, and on a good day, I sort of can. I can let the dirt and the chaos and the screaming and the crying and the not knowing the solution and the wishing for better wash over me, but it stings, and it hurts, because my expectations are cruel thorns that snag and tear at what little sanity I have left.

If I sound like a lady just barely hanging on, then you are receiving the signal loud and clear. Those last tenuous threads are mighty strong though. I know I won’t really snap. I know that the good moments will keep me sane, help me to persevere. I know, I know, I know, that if I can ease up on myself things are really quite fabulous. I just want to tell you and myself as well, it’s not easy, it’s not always comfortable, and I am not always holding it together so gracefully, but I am holding it together.

I don’t know why, but every single year at this time, I get the following song stuck in my head.

I did just learn from the youtube comments that it is produced by Tom Moulton who produced a lot of my favorite disco tracks. Including Grace Jones’ version of La Vie en Rose.
So, really it’s like a freaking gem and we should be playing it all year round, not just at Christmas, OK people?
Also, CHARO!
So you know… Why isn’t there a monument dedicated to the awesomeness of this song?
I mean, besides in my subconscious? Where it plays 24-7.
Someone get on that please.
Thanks.

I grew up an alternative girl in a dominant culture. Living in Salt Lake City and being the love child of a teen Latina/Asian mama and a teen Jewish gay dad kinda put a giant blinking red arrow above my head from the get go. Add to that fact that my mom fell in love with a wonderful Buddhist man, and married him, only to find he had just bought a house in a super mormon subdivision of a super mormon neighborhood far from the somewhat diverse heart of Salt Lake.

Christmas time was when the difference between my family and the neighbors was most notable. We lived on a circle where we could look out of our front window and see a panoramic view of Christmas decorations. Each morning I rose to see Santa waving out from the neighbors yards. Don’t get me wrong, we celebrated Christmas. My new dad’s family REALLY celebrated Christmas, and I loved it. It’s just that we didn’t JUST celebrate Christmas. Also, my mom was a pissed off 21 year old who had all but converted to Judaism and who frequented a tarot card reader more than she ever did a meeting of an organized religion. My mom is incredibly crafty, and when she couldn’t find her own GIANT Star of David to fill our front window, she made one. It filled our front plate glass window. It was covered in foil and blue lights, and shone as brightly as if she had hung a giant middle finger in the window. We used to decorate the pine tree in our front room three times in December. Once for the Buddhist holiday of Bodhi Day, once for Chanukah, and once for Christmas. My mom was very straight forward about the myth of Santa, but she and my dad still played the Christmas morning game every year.

Here I sit, 30 some years later. I have two kids of my own and the world is a different place. I don’t have the external pressures my mother did, I live in a pretty progressive area, and really, I am just not even as confrontational as the nail on my mom’s pinky. We celebrate Christmas and Chanukah. We have our various holiday books and decorations out, but not in yo’ face. There is that last issue though, even before we had children we had the SANTA debate. We thought that by neither confirming, nor denying the existence of the dude we could skate by the issue. HA! As an avid listener of AM radio, I should know that it’s the ambiguity that can drive a person to madness.

I am sitting here with an envelope on my desk, from Sadie, addressed to Santa. In it, she shares her wish list, but then she has some hard hitting questions, showing off her journalistic skills she is honing doing newscasts in front of the photo booth camera on the computer everyday. After the list, she writes, “Now I have a couple of questions for you…” Then the list of questions ranging from, “Are you real?” to “Are you Magic?” to “Are your elves like ninjas?” goes on for an entire 8.5″ by 11″ page.

This is one of those parenting moments that they have lots of advice for, but really you have to just follow your gut. I don’t know exactly how I plan to deal with it. I remember being both proud and embarrassed when my mom hung that giant silver beacon of differentness in our front window. My hope is that I can somehow walk a fine line between holiday fun, social commentary, and thought provoking cultural discourse. That’s possible with a first grader, right?

Both of my lovely daughters are in the midst of growth spurts of both the mental & physical type. A growth spurt is not the time you want to be around a child. They are grumpy and frustrated and downright miserable for seemingly no reason. Our house has been under the cloud of said spurts for about three weeks. We can see the marked changes in the girls surfacing, so hopefully it has almost passed. They are both taller & more articulate than they were when November started, but I feel ever so much more wearied and old. I’m not sure who shoulders more of the growing pains, the parents or the children.

a tumbleweed rolls by…