The Pioneer Woman

Disclaimer: This is me whining about having to go back to work. Because this blog is for me and my own therapy. And I need some.

In case you don't know The Pioneer Woman, here she is. I'd never heard of her before yesterday. I swear. Because I blog, you'd think I would have read her blog. But no. I have not. Or at least not before this morning (well yesterday afternoon). Apparently she's like SUPER FAMOUS (making my little baby blog seem pretty silly). My friend Staci pointed me in her direction (as she was encouraging me, in the way only my sweet Staci does, to start a professional blog) and I admit I was drawn right in. Her blog is fantastic. I mean really. She's got photos and contests and recipes and crafts. She's like the wonder woman of blogging. However, as far as my own personal blogging is concerned, I feel like the internet is pretty saturated with blogs and people trying to make money that way. It's all been done, as they say. I have nothing unique or new or fresh to offer the world. Not when there are Pioneer Women out there that are the epitome of amazing.

However, that said, if I could quit working in the sense that I put on clothes and my badge and stethoscope and go out into the world every day to care for the sick and dying, then I would. I'd miss being able to give to society in the way I feel I do in my job as a nurse. I'd miss my patients and their families fiercely. I'd miss the nurses I work with. But... you really wouldn't have to ask me twice. In fact you would even have to ask me one half of once. If I could make a living at home blogging/cooking/crocheting/ knitting (ok I probably couldn't make a living knitting cause I suck at it)/watching TV professionally/babysitting other women's children/baking cookies/, I totally would. I went to school for like EVER to become a RN (ok it was only a few years but still, nursing school is stressful) but I'd still put all that on hold to see my little baby grow.

I'm pained by the thought of leaving Ella.

Like pained pained. It's the elephant in the room for me right now (which is why it deserved it's own line). Oh sure I can conceptualize the thought of getting dressed and driving to my office and going to meetings and going to patient's homes every day. But when I REALLY think about it, dropping Ella off at someone else's door, pumping during the day, not carrying her around in the sling, not seeing her smiles and giggles, my heart wants to break into a hundred million tiny pieces. I just don't wanna do it. Like throw a temper tantrum on the floor kicking and screaming and make an absurd scene don't wanna do it.

Since I've started looking for childcare options my desire to throw a tantrum is growing stronger. Must. Kick. And. Scream. I know I'm not alone. I think statistically something like 58% percent of women would rather work outside the home. Yeah. No thank you. Not this momma. I'm perfectly content to cook and clean and care for children. I'd darn socks and make dresses and bake my own bread. I'd get spit up on ad pooped on all day. I'd scrub floors and toilets (when I wasn't gazing at my sweet baby). I'd do it. I swear. And I'd never ever ever complain (well maybe a little bit when I missed adult conversation). I was born to be domestic.

When I had my first sweet screaming baby girl my mom gave me this sage advice, she said, "Oh honey by the time that baby is 6 weeks old you'll be DYING to get back to work." She lied. She totally lied (it's not the first time either, sorry if you're reading this mom, you're a really good cook, just so you know). Liar. I took Kelsey to the sitter (who was my friend ever) and then I cried. And when I say cried I don't mean blotted my eyes with a tissue and silently sniffled, I mean ugly sobbing snarfy cry. You know the one I'm talking about. I did it every day for months and months. It was torture. But I had to work. And I have to work now.

There was a point where I didn't work. It didn't make sense to put 2 kids in daycare (and then 3 kids in daycare) on the salary I made then but you know living is like expensive man. Expensive. And we've got 4 kids. And the two in the middle eat enough that I have to work just to feed them (Ella only drinks boobie which I can make for free, thank goodness). Also my 12 and 10 year old boys have both already grown out of the pants I bought them when school started (which was, in case you aren't keeping track, like 2 months ago). And. And. And. Kids are expensive too.

Anyway, the point being, I need to work, and I'm working on getting ok with it. My sweet husband is working his hiney off trying to find a way for me not to work. Bless his talented pea picking heart. But alas, I am skilled. I have a degree and I should probably use it, even if I'm totally not in the 58% mentioned above. Frown.

Suggestions are welcomed and encouraged from all you working mommas.

Pumpkin head :)

On being a mother...

Disclaimer: I use a curse word in this post. Twice. The word is shit. I apologize. It was for effect.

My friend Val over at Val McCormick Photography linked my blog on her facebook yesterday (I've know Val since I was a snotty preteen, btw, and so has my husband. He wasn't snotty in 7th grade though, just cute.). She suggested moms read my blog which made me think about...well, being a mom, and blogging.

Once I actually did write part of a book. It was more just a bunch of stories stuck together in what I thought might become a book someday (in the spirit of David Sedaris), but it didn't make any real sense, my rambling about whatever that wasn't really connected. The only common thread of the collection being I was a mom of 3 small children at the time and some of my days were so sitcom comical that I felt like I had to write about them (again, David Sedaris). Then one day, in true sitcom style, my computer crashed and it was all lost, because, in true sitcom style, I hadn't backed any of it up. I thought that might have been the universes way of telling me I ought not to be telling my stories to the general public. In any case, it was funny, if I do say so myself. Tales of me gardening in the nude because I was so frantic to water the tomatoes that I forgot to get dressed, of grape juice containers exploded upon white kitchen walls and freshly mopped wood, of cheerios spilled on grocery store floors with 3 crying children and other things about being a mother (PS I really love David Sedaris. You don't have to read his books but if you don't you're missing out. I'm just sayin'.).

In that light I want to tell you 10 things I wish I'd known about motherhood (you know, before I had a crying real live baby on my hands at the ripe ol' age of 20). Some of them I learned 15 years ago and some of them just in these last weeks, since I became a mommy to another sweet soul. Life is a journey, not a destination. So here it is...


1. You can live on less sleep than you think. A lot less. Chances are when you look at your baby you won't really care that you haven't seen the inside of your eyelids in what seems like an eternity. You'll sleep again someday. Probably. I should add that the combination of lack of sleep + having not enough hands or time to do all that needs to be done (like look at yourself in the mirror) you will eventually walk out of the house with your hair in total disarray/your teeth not brushed/a stain on your shirt/a booger hanging out of your nose. Possibly all of those. On the same day.

2. Alternatively, you might feel like you're going out of your mind from lack of sleep. If this is the case, you probably are and you should get some sleep. Like... now. A sleepy, grouchy mom is ineffective and just plain miserable. Ask my kids. Even with a full nights sleep, no guarantee on the booger thing though.

3. Having a baby will change your body in ways you can't imagine. Women don't tell you this. By your 5th pregnancy (and in truth it probably won't take near that many) your stomach may act as a curtain for your pubic hair and your breasts might resemble something like a tube sock with a rock in the end. On the other hand, if you are one of those women who can fit into her pre-pregnancy jeans and look like she's never been pregnant at two weeks postpartum, I'm sorry, the rest of us hate you. Well, not hate so much as envy. In any case, your husband, if you're lucky like me, will love your body even more than he did before it carried and birthed your baby. I suggest you try to love it too. It's the only one you've got. It's not broken, it doesn't need fixing, it's just new and improved. And squishier. (Note to self: have husband write a guest post on this)

4. Your house is going to be a mess. That's ok. Laundry will pile. Floors will be dirty. I promise you it won't be messy forever. Well it might, but whatever, it's just a house. When your kids leave and it's tidy, you'll just wish they were there to mess it up again. Trust me, I might be the most obsessively clean person I know (next to my mother), the day I let it go was the day I was freed from the prison of my own misery. When the 3 big kids leave to go to their dad's house I madly clean the messes they've left behind, then I sit on the sofa and cry, wishing they'd just come back home and make it a mess again. It's just a house.

5. The things you said you'd never ever do in a million zillion katrillion years like give your kids candy for bribery/take them to McDonalds/beg borrow and steal to get them to eat ANYTHING green/let them sleep in your bed when they are 4, you will do. People will judge you. If you have to give your 3 year old a sucker to survive the grocery store, oh well. That might be the only way you both make it out alive. Those teeth aren't permanent anyway.

6. Your children will make you cry. When they are babies you will cry along with them because you can't get them to stop crying/don't know why they are crying/are just realizing what you signed up for. When they are toddlers you will cry because you can't get them to mind you/eat anything that isn't macaroni or comes from a box/stop crying for every toy in the store. When they are school aged you will cry when they scrape their knee/don't make the football team/get left out of whatever circle of bratty kids they wish they were part of. When they are in high school you will cry because they tell you you're the worst mother ever because you won't let them have an xbox/cell phone/boyfriend/black eyeliner. When they are in college you will cry when you drop them off at the dorm and then again when they get their heart broken/fail a class/move into their first apartment/graduate. What happens after college, I can't say yet because I don't know but I'm sure there's just going to be more crying. When they get married/have their own kids/cry because of said kids. You're going to cry, with them, for them and sometimes because of them. If you're not a crier like me then you'll just do whatever thing you do. I cry. I just keep tissues around.

7. Your children will also make you crazy. Batshit, looney tunes, going out of your flippin mind crazy. Just when you think you've got them figured out, they'll enter a whole new phase and make you crazy again. Just when you think your baby is going to sleep all night long they'll start teething or having separation anxiety or having nightmares. Just when you think you've figured out how to get your 3 year old to eat veggies, they'll go back to eating peanut butter and jelly. Every. Single. Meal. Just when you think you see eye to eye with your 11 year old because you have a reasonable conversation, they'll hit puberty and turn into a hormonal monster. And just when you've got the teenager all figured out they'll move away and you won't know what they're doing or where they are and that will drive you crazy too. It's helpful to recognize this before it happens so you don't commit yourself to an institution.

8. Your first child will get a full baby book with a million photos and every milestone recorded, brand new un-spitup on clothes, lots of attention from family near and far and every minute of time you have. Your fourth baby (or 2nd or 6th or whatever) probably won't get all that. At least not the full baby book. I'm just keepin it real. You just won't fill out the book when 4 (or 2 or 6) small people are trying to get your attention. Bottom line: If you only have one child you'll be worried it's going to be spoiled rotten/self-centered/unable to share. If you have 4 children you'll worry they are going to feel left out/ignored/abandoned. You can't win either way. Accept this now. If you are a mother who has kept a full baby book for every baby, please email me now, I need lessons and then to award you the Nobel Prize for Peace AND Literature.

9. Whatever kind of parent you are, someone will tell you you are doing it wrong. If you are an attached parent (like me) people will say things like you're spoiling your baby/your baby is never going to learn to walk/you're going to be sorry you let your baby sleep with you/I can't believe you're STILL breastfeeding etc. etc. It's bullshit. You have to parent your kids. You might be doing it wrong, it's possible, but if you love your children and you aren't abusing them, the person criticizing you is probably just an opinionated jerk. You have my permission to tell them so, or at least just to nod politely and completely ignore them.

10. Along those lines you will continuously question your parenting. If you think you've got it all right, all the time, there's something wrong with you. Or you're Jesus. Or you should write a parenting book. Or you're one of the people mentioned in #9. You will worry that you're spoiling them/not spoiling them/hugging them too much/not hugging them enough/being overprotective/not being protective enough. You will worry that they are going to grow up to hate you for what you did "to them". Don't worry, they will. They'll probably go to college and then need therapy and then call you and tell you it's because you never bought them an xbox/cell phone/black eyeliner that they are so terribly dysfunctional. Then they'll have their own kids, call you, apologize for being a jerk and ask you how you did it. At this point you should write them a list of things you think they should know about parenting, like this one. Start the list with #6, just to make them feel guilty.

11. (oops, turns out there were 11) Until you are a parent you won't believe how much you can love another person. Other parents will tell you and you'll nod and agree but you won't really know it until you feel it first hand, until you gaze at your baby and see the future through their little eyes and realize they are your heart, your soul and your everything. And you'll probably cry. Just keep some tissue around.

Theses are my four hearts. :)


(FYI: The one in the blue shirt is thinking about how I am ruining his life by making him take pictures. As far as I can tell the other 3 are just hoping it's over soon.)

Crossing the lines to party.

aka crossing party lines.

Blog Disclaimer: I'm not trying to start a political debate. Just, you know, writing. My friend Liz over at Pharm Girl did a blog post yesterday about voting. I read it just I was starting mine. Anyway, Liz is a smart girl and a conservative voter. But I love her anyway :)

So... It's voting time again. Just in case you live in a vacuum or black hole and you've haven't heard of Meg Whitman. Yeah. It's that time of year. The leaves are changing. The weather is cooling. The phone is ringing off the hook with the sounds of pre-recorded voices urging you to vote for this or that or whatever. You can hang up. I give you permission.

Let me start with this: I am liberal. (Oh. My. What did she say?)

Yes. That's right. I am a liberal in a town of conservatives. I confess. Please don't toilet paper my house. Being a minority is tough. My Obama sticker got stolen right off my car. Twice. I wasn't raised by liberals. That doesn't make sense because my parents smoked a lot of weed and were into that free love thing but still my dad is conservative. Weird. I don't think my mom even votes, which is worse than being conservative even. My grandparents are also conservative. Like "have a signed picture of George W. Bush on the wall" conservative. Reeeeally conservative. So I came to my liberal place on my own. I went to an eco-conscious/liberal college where if you didn't recycle you might as well have been a felon and if you weren't pro-choice you might as well have been from Mars. I chose that college. It was my first choice. I applied to 4 other colleges but that was the only one I cared to attend.

I'm not too crunchy but I do recycle. We do what we can. I teach my kids love and responsibility for their surroundings (I mean not their bedrooms obviously, but whatever). We drive an astoundingly big car, it's true, but my husband drives an abnormally small car to offset this environmental offense. We conserve water. We cloth diaper. I wear my babies. We had our baby at home, but we aren't hippies. I breastfeed, not for 6 years, but I do. I'm not going to stop washing my hair or anything, but I do what I can.

Anyway when it comes to politics and voting I subscribe to the following method: Vote your conscience. So I do. I acknowledge that my conscience might not be yours. That's ok. But here's how I vote: I vote with love and concern for other people, or what I think best promotes that. The gay people. The straight people. The people who can't pick. The Christian people. The Jewish people. The atheist people. The liberal people. The conservative people. The socialist people. I even love and care about the people with the Vidak sign on their lawn (or it was on their lawn, but I didn't steal it, I swear. It wasn't me). If I'm not sure how to vote on something I vote 1. for the good of the people I care about (my kids mostly) or 2. for the environment. If I'm really not sure I ask my husband because he's also liberal, and has a lot more opportunity to read the news than I do (AKA: His job is awesome.)

I don't mind political debate. In fact, I welcome it. Good conversational exchange leaves both parties feeling like they've gained from the experience. I think that what makes being human great is that we aren't the same. So let's celebrate those differences. Get out and vote, however you're voting, unless you live in California and you're voting for Meg Whitman. Nah I'm just kidding, you can vote for Meg, then we can have a good conversational exchange about it.

I voted. Now I'm going to go vacuum. Priorities you know.

Cit-ay: day 3

This will actually be a short blog. I'm not lying. I know, alert the presses, right?

As promised... day 3 synopsis.

It wasn't quite as eventful as days one or two, but more fun because we were with Daddy (YAY!). I'm thankful that Daddy called the bay home for enough years to be able to take us around town without getting lost (as I most certainly would have). And also that he can parallel park.

We started our day with Bob's Donuts. Daddy ran (literally) to the store in the early morning (a mile or so from the hotel I guess) while Ella and I enjoyed our last moments on the Hilton linens (they are fabulous btw). He didn't have running shoes (or shorts, or shirt) so he did this in jeans and brown dress shoes. He's that good. The kind Asian lady at Bob's told Daddy he could eat donuts because he ran. He returned, pastries in hand, slightly sweaty but still astonishingly fresh looking. We had the apple fritters and other tasty things. Yum.

After donuts and readying (which is not exactly like it used to be when it takes me an hour just to dry my hair in between diapers and feedings) we set out to do some touristy stuff. Namely Crissy Field and the Palace of Fine Arts. A year ago my sweet and I sat around the water at the Palace of Fine Arts eating sandwiches and talking about our future. Oh how things have changed wonderfully in the last year.

Us at Crissy Field (a good view of the GG Bridge). Daddy took this picture using the "stretch your own arm out in front of you" picture taking method and it turned out far better than the alternative "ask a British tourist to take your picture" picture taking method. We can both complain about our hair because the wind was, well windy. Ella had her hat though (plus she has so little hair it's irrelevant).
We then went to Nini's in Burlingame which is basically the best place ever to get breakfast. Ever. But we didn't get breakfast because it was 1 pm. I guess we both felt a little conspicuous ordering pancakes for lunch. After that is was into San Mateo to a great little toy store (well not so little) where we got the kiddies some treasures and me an AWESOME 3D puzzle of Neuschwanstein Castle. My favoritist castle ever (I mean that's not saying much since I haven't been to like a hundred castles or anything but this one is fantastic). It was probably the only castle I cared to see when I was living in Germany because it looks like something right out of a Disney movie and I'm totally into that fairytale crap (Not really, but what other reason is a castle appealing?). Just as a short history lesson King Ludwig II (it was his castle, though I'm sure you figured that out) died in the lake just below the castle. Hm. The water was only knee deep. Hm. You can read about it here. I'm not trying to force a history lesson upon you or anything but he drown in knee deep water AND he was an excellent swimmer. And his psychiatrist was with him and ALSO drown. Dun. Dun. Dun.

This is Ludwig: Fantastic hair right?


That concludes the history lesson.

This also concludes the blog post.

Next time: We'll talk about, well I don't know yet, I wait for inspiration. We might just talk about 12 year old boy's hormones. Because our house is currently overrun with them. And I fear I might be losing my mind.