Fashion, friends, and food poisoning

1) So Mimi is nine and starting fourth grade and she doesn't give a crap about her clothes. By which I mean she has certain items of clothing she likes, and some she doesn't, but she has no sense of whether things match or if she is wearing two different socks or whatever. I admire this about her but also, I'm worried that she's getting to the age where people start to notice this stuff. I clearly remember getting teased in fourth grade because I was the same way and this one time I had on pants that were totally too short. Some girl laughed because I was wearing "floods" and I didn't even know what that MEANT. 

So I guess I'm debating whether and how to bring this up with her. I know she'll get teased eventually because most of us do, and I don't want to make her self-conscious when she isn't, but I don't really want her to get teased if it's something I can help with. 

2) I'm now friends with my ex-husband on facebook. It seemed kind of silly to keep sending him pictures that I'd already posted and since we do things together with the girls so often, and for the most part get along, it just seemed pointless not to be. Of course this means I will have to be more careful about filtering posts but I should do that anyway.

3) I got food poisoning of some sort last week. I know this because I ended up at the doc on Friday after some, uh, slightly worrying symptoms. I was feeling a little better and had a table at Bookfest yesterday, which went really well, but I also ate a sandwich for lunch while I was there and apparently that was a mistake because last night I had massive nausea and ick again. 

Also due to being ill I wasn't as prepared for Bookfest as I would have liked and nearly sold out. But the good thing is that gives me a great idea of what will go over well when I do Liberty Local at the end of October. I need to get crocheting. The Oods in particular were a big hit. Also the tiny cell phone charms. 

Summer's end

Tomorrow is the first day of school, so Saturday was zoo day. The girls have been asking to go all summer so we finally arranged it -- we being their dad and me. Yes, I spent all day at the zoo with my ex-husband and our children. And it actually wasn't bad. We get along well, relatively speaking, and doing an outing like this is a lot easier now than when we were married and I was trying to make everything go perfectly all the time because I knew it wasn't perfect at all. 

So then today as a last hurrah I took the girls out for ice cream for breakfast. My friend Magda had the original idea and brought her two boys, and my sister brought her two boys. We went to the neighborhood ice cream/doughnut/dairy shop, and for 20 or 30 minutes the three adults were inside while all the kids were outside. They were directly outside the window where we sat, but for people walking their dogs or babies, it looked rather like vagabond children decided to wander down for ice cream at 9:30 in the morning. 

Tonight we went to my sister's new place for dinner with her and the boys, and Boo had an ear of corn, two spoonfuls of taco meat, and two pieces of apple pie. She wanted more pie but I refused on the grounds that I actually wanted her to sleep tonight. Mimi had a spoonful of taco meat, three sweet potato fries, and half a bag of Funyons. Obviously today was not a day for worrying about what they were putting in their mouths. 

Kids are fast asleep with clothes laid out and lunches packed (I'm organized at least one day of the year) and I'm contemplating tomorrow. I traditionally take a vacation day on the first day of school, and tomorrow is no exception. Nominally it's because I like to drop the girls off for their first day of the year and pick them up at the end of the day, whch is true. Also, however, there's all that time in between that I am COMPLETELY BY MYSELF. Granted, tomorrow I need to finish an article and do laundry and deal with the disaster that is my house, but I can do it without children following me around telling me they are bored and asking what there is to eat.        
   
In other news, I have a table this Sunday at the Kerrytown BookFest, which I highly recommend for anyone who likes books, geeky stuff, crafts, etc. I'll have crocheted amigurumi keychains, backpack clips, fascinators, toys, and whatever else I get done. My friend Kate will have also her magnets, prints, and notebooks for sale, and is participating in a panel about the history of Coney Islands in Detroit. So that's cool. You should come. 

Photosets later, on tumblr, and a post about the whole swimming thing.

Just keep swimming

I made a deal with Mimi last night. If she will take swim classes this summer, I will too.

Here's the thing: I do not like the water. I mean, I like water, in general. I like taking long hot baths. I like looking at lakes. I like sitting by the pool. I don't really like being IN the water so much. Because I never learned to swim.

It wasn't totally for lack of trying. My mom took me when I was little -- I was a goldfish, or a tadpole, or something. And then when I was in maybe 5th or 6th grade, my mom signed me up for swim lessons at the local high school pool, and the swim teacher was this absolutely terrifying man who taught 6th grade at my elementary school, and I just remember him yelling at me because I didn't want to do something called the "dead man's float." (Which seems sensible, because why would I WANT to do something called that?) I didn't like it. I tried to get out of it. I told lies to the instructor, that my mom would let me sit it out if I paid her back for the money spend on the lesson. No one believed me, of course. I was terrified.

I made it through that course and even the required dead man's float test, but I don't know that I voluntarily ever got in a swimming pool again. Then in high school we had to take swimming as one of our P.E. requirements. That sucked, too. My class was divided into people who knew how to swim and people who didn't; the kids who did went down to the deep end and worked with the gym teacher on jumping off the diving board and learning new stroked. The kids who didn't? We stood around in the shallow end holding kickboards, feeling idiotic.

And after that, I never HAD to get in a pool again, until the summer Mimi was three and I was pregnant and I decided it would be a brilliant idea to take her to toddler swim lessons. I spent those standing the shallow end with her clinging to me like a baby monkey, refusing to let the instructor pry her legs from around my waist long enough to teach her to kick. Since a year earlier she'd screamed when we tried to put her in two inches of water in the bathtub, I actually considered this progress. We did a beach vacation that year too, up near Traverse City, and I think that was the last time either of us were at an actual beach.

Then I broke my foot (yes, at seven months pregnant) and Mimi's dad finished out the swim class with her. And I think that's the last time Mimi and a pool had any formal interaction. Boo was born in September; I had massive PPD and was back at work in six weeks and my marriage was dying and I was dealing with a newborn and a three-and-a-half year old who was having SERIOUS adjustment issues to having a baby sister, and a 13-year-old stepson who, ditto times two. Extracurricular activities rather fell by the wayside for a bit.

A year and a half later we moved to a house less than ten minutes walk from a community pool, and talked enthusiastically about how we'd spend the summer teaching the girls to swim etc. But the marriage was in its death throes and the soon-to-be-ex lost his job, and things really weren't going well at all. And after that, somehow, we just never got around to hitting the pool.

Last summer, at the new house, the girls set up their kiddie pool and the sprinkler in the backyard and were happy with that, although Boo mentioned learning to swim a couple of times. I didn't want to discourage her, but I also didn't really want to be the one to take her. And Mimi didn't want anything to do with the idea. Near the end of the August last year we accompanied friends to a local water park, and I realized how much of my trepidation I'd unwittingly passed on to Mimi when she backed out of the "Lazy River" tubing ride, which was something even I enjoyed. And she wouldn't go in the water without me, while Boo would have dived in and not looked back, despite her lack of actual swimming ability.

I put off thinking about this for most of the fall and winter, and now suddenly spring has morphed into summer as it tends to do in Michigan, and people are buying pool passes and talking about beach trips and making summer plans, and I realized I have to do something about this. So last night I brought up the idea of doing swimming lessons.

Mimi immediately buried her head under a pillow, as she does when she doesn't want to talk about something.

"NO. I DON'T WANT TO DO IT."

We talked about why not -- this is what therapy has done for this kid, she DOES eventually take her head out from under the pillow, with some encouragement, and use her words -- and she said she was scared. And that she was worried about going under the water. And that she would sink. So I told her that I was scared of the water too, and that I wished I had learned to swim. That I didn't want her and her sister to be afraid of the water like I was, and that it was really smart to learn to swim because then you can go in pools and lakes and boats without being scared. That it makes you safer -- she interrupted, at this point, that "then you can just swim to the shore if you're in a boat and it sinks, instead of waiting for someone to come rescue you," which, HI MISSION ACCOMPLISHED as far as indoctrinating the "learn to rescue yourself" lesson -- and she said that yes, she does want to learn to swim, but she's still scared.

So I said, "A lot of times bravery is being scared but doing something anyway." And we talked about examples of that. Learning to ride a bike. Taking a shower by herself (this was a recent accomplishment, and a Very Big Deal). Playing on the soccer team. I told Mimi she is the bravest person I know, who has done the scariest thing of anyone I have ever met, and she looked at me like I had no idea what I was talking about.

"Mimi, you got on an airplane with two people you had just met, who you were still a little scared of, and came to a different country where the language was different and the food was different and the people even looked different, and you let us be your family and take care of you."

She started to laugh. "But I was a BABY! I didn't know any better!"

And that made me laugh, too, but I pointed out that made it even braver, because we couldn't even explain to her what was going on, that she was two years old and that she could have decided not to love us but she did. She started to cry, and I started to cry, and she said, "Well, at least these are the kind of happy tears. It's not really SOBBING. That's when you're like ah, ah, ah, and your face is ALL WET." Heh.

So THEN we calmed down, and she said she was still scared of swimming, and suddenly this was about a lot more than heading down to the pool, so before I even thought about it, I said, "look, if you will learn to swim this summer, so will I." And her jaw totally dropped open, and I thought, oh, SHIT. And she hugged me, and told me SHE was proud of ME and that I was the bravest person she knows.

So, it looks like I'm learning to swim.

The world doesn't hate you. Don't hate the world.

Dear daughters,

This is you being awesome

The world does not hate you.   

Look, everything in that post is true. The world is unfair. People can be horrible. A whole lot of the world, in general, thinks that being a girl is pretty much the worst thing you can be. So I'm not writing this to criticize the parent who wrote the above, or argue with anything she said. I admire her passion and her principles. I love that she teaches her daughter to go out every day and show the world how awesome she is. I like big chunks of that post, and the first time I read it, I thought "right on! Fuck 'em all!"

But I kept seeing it posted on facebook, by a lot of different moms. And I thought about it. It occurred to me I would express the same basic ideas rather differently, and I want to tell you why.

Granted, sometimes I want to say "fuck 'em." I have said it. When I get sick and tired of "girly" being used as an insult. When I get fed up with the "girl toys" and "boy toys" aisles at the big-box stores, or when I am frustrated because I have spent untold hours looking for appropriate Halloween costumes for your age. (This, by the way? NOT appropriate.) When I think about a culture that tells us motherhood is the most noble thing we can be, then doesn't support parents or families or children after they leave the womb, unless they fit into certain very specific, very gendered boxes.

You are 5 and 9 years old, respectively, and I shouldn't have to special order and pay $30 each for a pair of shorts that reach mid-thigh and don't have words written across your butts, or go to three or four stores in search of sandals in a size one that don't have heels. That makes me feel ill. A lot.

I could write several posts ranting about how utterly broken gender culture is in this country, about the messages we send little boys and little girls -- and big boys and big girls -- that can screw us all up for life. But that's not what I want to tell you about. You will find that out soon enough. And when you do, you will, I hope, be horrified, and refuse to buy into the conventional wisdom that your looks and your weight are your only source of self-worth, or lack thereof.

What I want to tell you, instead, is that the world loves you. I want you to wake up each morning knowing that you are utterly awesome, and that other people are too, and the world is a freaking fantastic place.

You will, of course, learn that there are people who treat other people badly because of things they have no control over: gender, sexual preference, appearance. There are people who are just bullies. There are people who want to make sure you stay in what they think is your place. You both have already started to learn that lesson, and there's no help for it. But you also know -- and I never want you to forget -- that there are completely wonderful people in the world, as well. Who help other people just because they can. Who give up their own comfort to make things a little bit more comfortable for someone else. Who will go out of their way to make your day a little bit brighter, for no reason other than that you both live on the same planet and it feels good to make someone else smile.

I'm not saying you have to be one of those people. Lord knows I'm not, not very often. I don't have that much energy and frankly I don't have that much self-sacrifice in me right now. But I want you to know they are out there. They might not outnumber the haters, but they are out there, and they love you.

And I'm not saying give up, accept unfairness and stereotypes and do nothing to change them. You can fight them, without hating the world that brought them into being. That world brought you into being, too.

Here's the other extremely important thing: you have nothing to prove to anyone. You go out and be awesome, because you ARE awesome, but if you don't want to be the one who proves that a girl can [fill in the blank] just as good, or better than, a boy, you don't have to. You didn't choose to be female, and you don't have anything to prove just by virtue of your sex.

You know that it's ok to like trucks, and motorcycles, and the color pink, and sparkly nail polish, and princesses and Transformers, whether you are a boy or a girl. You already know you can grow up to be anything you want to be. As long as you don't forget that you have a zillion choices, you don't have to be the one who makes the most radical choice. Someone will, eventually. If it's you, because that's what you want, fantastic. But if what you really want is to be a yoga instructor or a parent who stays home or an English teacher, then that's what you should do, instead. Don't do anything just to prove the haters wrong. Do what makes you happy.

Don't let people make you feel bad because you like to wear makeup or cry at sappy movies or collect Barbie dolls. And don't let people make you feel bad because you hate makeup and would rather sleep an extra 15 minutes, because you chop all your hair off and wear black nail polish, or because you would rather learn to rebuild an engine than sew a straight seam. Don't feel bad for wanting to get married and have children. Don't feel bad if you don't. Both are perfectly fine, valid choices. Frankly, just about anything you choose is just freaking fine, if you are choosing it because it's what you want. Not because you want to either a) conform or b) rebel just for the sake of fitting in or sticking out.

What I'm saying is, in my long-winded, god-mom-get-an-editor way, is don't go out every day thinking the world hates you for being a girl. Or for being anything that you are. Please don't. Because that will make you hate the world. You will grow bitter and angry, and you will do things just to spite the anonymous "them" who you think are telling you who you should be. Feel free to ignore "them" and do whatever you want, obviously, but don't do things just to spite "them." They don't actually care what you do. They only even exist because we give them any power to have any effect on us.

Look, I'm no Pollyanna. I know that political machinations will continue to make the world a difficult place for women. I know that some people will look at you and think "she's just a girl, what does she know?" I know that some people will judge you on the size of your breasts, not the size of your heart or your intellect. Someone someday will see you in a short skirt, or in sweatpants, and decide they know something about you because of your clothing choices. I know that at some point in the next 10 (20, 30) years, you will feel bad about yourself because of the way you look.

You know what? I'm almost 40. I'm divorced, renting a tiny house, driving a 12-year-old car, working in an underpaid, female-dominated field. This is not what I expected my life would be at this point. And still? I'm pretty sure that the world is an amazing, beautiful place. I don't feel it every minute of every day. Of course not. But on the whole. And I know that unless I let politicians, marketers, misogynists, and oversexed frat boys make me jaded and bitter, then I still win.

I want you to win, too. I want you to be awesome. Not to show anybody anything or teach anyone a lesson or to get back and anyone who said something hateful or mean or ignorant. But just because you are both amazing, wonderful, strong, loving, beautiful human beings. And I never want that to change.

This is you being awesome, too.

It's About Choice

Oh yay, it's the Mommy Wars redux! This time with added false Republican vs. Democrat dichotomy!

To recap, in case you hadn't heard: a Democratic strategist I never heard of before, named Hilary Rosen, is taking some heat because she said of Mitt Romney, in a CNN interview, “Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing.”

What Rosen was saying, I believe, is the arguably true statement that Ann Romney, married for most of her adult life to a very rich man, doesn't exactly have experience with the pressing financial problems of parenting that many of us do. Instead the media picked up "Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life" and ran with the "stay-at-home moms don't really work, according to top Democratic strategist" angle.

So Hilary Rosen had to issue an apology, saying that as a mother, she knows “raising children is the hardest job there is.” OF COURSE SHE DOES. Any mother who is raising her children and doing even a half-ass job knows that parenting is a shit-ton of work. I sincerely doubt Rosen meant to argue that Ann Romney didn't work hard and likely do a fine job of raising her five sons.

Obama campaign advisers were quick to distance themselves from Rosen, of course, calling her comments "inappropriate" and "wrong." I would say, however, that they weren't wrong. Ok, fine, "never worked a day" was a cheap shot. But is it wrong to say that Ann Romney has "never dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing?" I don't think that's wrong at all. I think it's spot on.

There's also the argument that, as President Obama said when he got dragged into this manufactured controversy, "I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates." Well, fine, but that's a little unrealistic. Ann Romney has been active in her husband's campaign, and Mitt Romney brought her into it when he said she was his "top adviser on women's issues." Since women are a pretty damn big part of the electorate, Romney's position on women's issues is important. And if his top advisor on women's issues has little experience with the type of issues most women are facing -- well, I think that's fair game for the Dems.

So when Ann Romney says on Twitter that she "made a choice to stay home and raise five boys," I can't imagine any mother -- up to and including Hilary Rosen -- who would argue that was not hard work. The point both the Romney and Obama campaigns, as well as the media in general, missed, or chose not to address, is that Rosen wasn't criticizing Ann Romney's choice to stay home. She was criticizing the Romney campaign's portrait of her as an expert on the economic issues facing women.

Ann Romney told Fox that her "career choice was to be a mother" and "we need to respect choices that women make." Again, true. And again, beside the point. Some will disagree, but again, I don't think Rosen was disrespecting Romney's choice to stay home. She was pointing up that unlike a lot of us, Ann Romney had the means to MAKE a choice.

See, however the campaigns want to frame it, this isn't WOHM-vs-SAHM. It's Ann Romney, or her advisors and strategists, pretending she can relate to any mom, working or not, who has ever had to prioritize buying groceries over paying the electric bill, or feel ashamed that her child is going to school in outgrown hand-me-downs, or who has to explain to her third-grader that he can't go on the field trip because Mom doesn't have the ten bucks to send to school that day. It's any politician, parent or not, thinking they know how that feels if they haven't been there. Don't tell me you understand me because you're a mother and so am I. It's not that easy.

The media might want to cast this as a working-outside-the-home versus a stay-at-home debate, but the truth is, most moms I know fought that war a long time ago and have achieved, if not peace, then some kind of wary détente with it. Most of us are working outside the home, or working at home, or not working at a job we get paid for at all, with the knowledge that we are doing what we need to do for our families.

We might have "chosen" to work because even though our spouses make decent money, we find it fulfilling to go somewhere people are wearing shoes and having conversations with multisyllabic words. Or we might be working because kids do, after all, need to eat and wear clothes and have somewhere to sleep. We might be staying home because we can't imagine missing out on a moment of our progeny's childhood -- or maybe it's because we know that whatever we might make at a paid job wouldn't cover what it would cost to keep said progeny in halfway decent daycare.

I'd wager that among the moms I know, most of us have a lot more in common with each other, whether we work outside the home or not, than any of us do with Ann Romney, or Michelle Obama for that matter. What I would really like is for politicians to stop creating fake media wars that distract us from actual problems, and get back to work making this country a place where more of us actually have the choices they all take for granted.

In which I ramble somewhat incoherently

What kind of effed-up world do we live in where people are telling us that we should be more scared of a kid in a hoodie than a maniac with a gun? Where "slut" is apparently a perfectly acceptable thing to call a woman who happens to enjoy sex, and people in long-term loving relationships are told they are what's wrong with America? Where people just go on shooting rampages because they are mentally or emotionally crippled from seeing their friends blown up or because they are indoctrinated by a certain worldview that says some people don't even count? Where if you don't agree with someone you don't ignore them them or sit down and listen to there side but instead call them every filthy thing you can think of because it's all anonymous on the internet? How did this happen?

I cannot stop thinking about the completely and utterly arsed-up state of the world and hoping that at least we are starting some kind of resistance and change by talking and protesting and making ourselves heard, which is easier than ever because hey, retweet, and I've done my part. But then I become paralyzed by my inability to comprehend and articulate how truly horrific it is that someone just shoots a child, here or in France or in Afghanistan, and I just want to protect my children from ever finding out about any of it; and then I think that if I do, I'm part of the problem because they need to grow up and be the people who make this sort of thing stop.

And if my kids are going to change the world they have to eventually become aware that not every child grows up happy and healthy with their only concerns about why we don't have their favorite Pop-tart flavor and how unfair it is that Alyssa got her ears pierced at NINE and why do I have to wait until I'm TWELVE. But how do I tell them that, and when?

Not right now, obviously. I'm not going to sit my kids down like that dumbass in the Kony video who is explaining, unprompted, to his 5-year-old about a crazed madman who kidnaps children and makes them kill other people, showing him pictures of "the bad guy," like, thanks, Dad, when I wake up screaming for weeks I hope you are there to reassure me that no one is going to come kidnap me out of my bed and make me shoot you. But I will always tell my kids the truth when they ask.

And maybe they won't want to change the world, but dammit, I hope that they do, even though I'm sorry that we've screwed it up enough that they need to change it. I hope that we are doing something right now, between the Occupy movement and marriage equality finally being a thing that can really happen and people sending knitted lady parts to their congresspersons and people speaking up, finally, about how shitty it is that we have so much and do so freaking little, but there will be so much more they will have to do.

There are things we can do but I am starting to think that the best thing we can do, in this generation and the one just behind us, is to try and raise fewer assholes, racists, misogynists, and xenophobes, and more people who speak up and speak out and are willing to listen, not just talk.

Don't pretend to your kid that skin color doesn't matter and we're all the same inside, because it's not true; don't let them think that civil rights and the feminist movement are just something in history class because if recent events prove anything, it's that it's not enough that our great-great-grandmothers got the vote; we have to keep protesting and talking and working to protect what they put themselves on the line for. It's not over.

I don't know the point of what I'm typing here, I'm just typing because the first line of this started out as a Facebook status, like "I'm so horrified about the state of the world right now that I just want to lock my children inside forever," but then I couldn't stop typing so I just kept going. It's Friday and I've had less than five hours of sleep for the last four nights in a row and that's probably a big part of the reason I can't actually formulate a constructive and supported argument or opinion, but am just typing until it seems like a good place to stop, but really, world, cut it out.

Stop being assholes to each other. I want my children to grow up and I want them to see the beautiful parts of the world and not have to deal with this shit. So stop it. Is that really so much to ask?

The walls go all the way to the floor, and some days that's all you can hope for

First day at Disneyworld: "Mom, today is going to be the BEST day. As long as I don't fall down."

Oh, Boo. My funny, frustrating youngest child. This morning she had a meltdown when I told her to stop threatening to poop on her sister and get dressed; I had to drag her out the door and into school, 10 minutes late, and she was fighting me every step of the way. Stubborn. So, so stubborn, so determined to show me that I can't make her do anything she doesn't want to do.

We Will Survive (Imported post)

This is just to say massive thanks to everyone for listening and commenting. I took all your advice and internet-hugs to heart, and it has helped me to cope the past two mornings, when there was a giant fight about whose toothbrush was whose (REALLY?) and today, refusing to walk.

It seems obvious, doesn't it, that it would be something about school? And yet Boo seems to love school, by all accounts, and is almost always cheerful, if tired, when I pick her up at the end of the day. She's never said anything negative about school aside from complaining, after the first day, that they don't get naps. And my gentle prodding and flat-out asking if anything at school upsets her goes nowhere. She's not a kid who generally plays her cards close to the vest, so I have to think I'd know by now if there was something going on. All the same, conferences are next week and I'll be asking about her classroom behavior and any overall issues in the room.

Not seeing her dad on any regularly scheduled basis isn't helping, although why that should cause specific morning meltdowns I'm not sure. The girls do see him quite a bit, but various circumstances right now mean that we don't have a set two-afternoons-and-every-other-weekend schedule, or any variation thereof. And that's not good for either of them, so I do what I can to make sure everyone knows at the beginning of the week what's going on.

Then there's the fact the Mimi *is* doing so well. Boo has seen Mimi overreact and go nuclear on many an occasion, and now she sees her basically doing what I expect of her in the mornings. So it's possibly delayed reaction/imitation to something that's proven attention-getting? Will be trying to make more of a point of spending one-on-one time with Boo, as much as possible, although that is more difficult these days with the girls on the same school schedule and my work schedule being what it is.

Anyway, I have some ideas. And just putting it out there, and knowing that others have been through it and are pulling for us, helps me cope. I forget what a relief blogging is. It doesn't matter how many comments I get on a facebook post, it's not the same thing as sitting down and spilling my guts onto the keyboard and getting all this virtual love in return. I really must try to do this more often.

What About Boo? (imported post)

I need help. I am in dire straits here and I have no idea what to do. It’s Boo, is the thing. She’s supposed to be my “normal” kid (for what that’s worth) and right now, she’s the one that is giving me an aneurysm every. single. morning.

She’s a whiny kid. She just is. It makes me want to stab myself in the ears with my crochet hooks, frankly. I do all the things you’re supposed to do to break a kid of whining, including ignoring it, making her ask more politely and in a different tone of voice, using positive reinforcement like stickers and rewards for when she’s NOT whining, time-outs for massive tantrums and really improper behavior. Sometimes, in the immediate, these things work. But long-term, nothing has broken her of it, and in fact, it’s getting worse.

Now we’re at the point where every single morning is a battle. Last year, getting her out of the house for preschool was occasionally difficult and frustrating, but NOTHING like this year and kindergarten has been. We are late to school nearly every morning, despite the fact that I have taken to getting up two hours early and being completely ready to go before I get the girls up. I’ve moved her bedtime up so that she is getting, consistently, between 10 and 11 hours of sleep. We lay out clothes the night before, pack lunches the night before, have backpacks by the door ready to go. And yet. And yet.

It’s not predictable, but the kid knows how to push every single one of my buttons. Some mornings, she’s not hungry and cries at the mere mention of breakfast. Other mornings she’s STARVING and cries if I suggest getting dressed before she’s eaten something. Some mornings it’s asking her to put on her coat, or put her lunchbox in her backpack, or put on socks. There’s no telling. And there’s no warning, is the thing. She goes from zero to 60 in a millisecond. If I were nagging her to put on her socks, I could at least understand why she gets upset. But I’m talking about something like the following:

 Boo comes out of her room, dressed except for socks. Me, noticing this: “Oh, sweetie, you need to put socks on.” Boo immediately screams “I CAN’T FIND ANY SOCKS” or “I DON’T WANT TO WEAR SOCKS”, begins sobbing, and dashes back into her room and slams the door.

I think this is what I find most frustrating. Everything can be going so well, and then with no warning whatsoever, we’re in total nuclear meltdown mode. That’s what happened this morning. I was ready to go. Mimi was ready to go. Boo was ready, except that she had to put on her coat and pick up her backpack and lunchbox. She’d gotten distracted by a toy left out in the middle of the living room, and when I walked out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth and said “ok, everyone at the door” she started screaming at me “I’M DOING SOMETHING OK JUST A MINUTE.” With no warning, or provocation, or anything. Just screaming.

I walked over, plucked the toy out of her hands, CALMLY reminded her that mornings are not playtime, and told her to put on her coat.

“I’M NOT PLAYING I’M JUST LOOKING AT IT.”

“Whatever you are doing, it’s time to stop. We need to leave now so you can be on time for school.”

“JUST A MINUTE I JUST NEED IT FOR A MINUTE.” Screaming. Crying. I steer her to her bag and coat, on a dining room chair, and attempt to wrangle her into both. She fights me. I pick up the coat and say that ok, then, she can put her coat on in the car but it’s time to go. She screams that she wants her lunch box IN her backpack, and I reply that I will do that in the car. She starts crying. I start getting REALLY frustrated. She attempts to dash past me back into the living room, and I instinctively stick my arm out to prevent this because I know from prior history she’s headed to her room to throw a tantrum and this will cause further delay. Unfortunately, she runs into my arm neck first, and I catch her by the throat. So she starts crying harder. At this point *I* start crying, from sheer frustration and guilt that I have no idea how to help her.

I ended up sending Mimi to the car ahead of us, picking up the coat and backpack and lunchbox and half-carrying, half-dragging Boo out to the garage. I set her down to unlock the car and throw everything in, and there’s a melee about who is sitting in which car seat, at which point I just scream at everyone to get in the car, dammit, why do we have to do this every single morning? Can’t we just get out the door and be on time for once?

By the time everyone is in the car and buckled, we are all in tears. Poor Mimi, who has done every single thing she was supposed to in a timely fashion, gets upset whenever I get upset and tries to be sympathetic. “I’m sorry you had a bad morning, Mom,” she says. Which makes me feel guilty and makes me cry some more.

We get to school and Mimi dashes in just in time. Boo won’t get out of the car because her lunchbox isn’t yet in her backpack, so I have to park and drag her into school five minutes after the bell rings, both of us with red, swollen faces. Boo stands in the doorway to her classroom, while other kids stare at her, and her teacher asks her to come in and hang up her stuff. I am on the receiving end of yet another Look from the teacher.

I go back to the car and sob all the way to work. I get to the parking structure and spend another five minutes in the car melting down, trying to collect myself, and dabbing on the face powder I now keep in my bag because I am so often trying to cover the fact that I’ve been crying in the morning. I can’t focus at work. I feel horrible.

I feel like a terrible, terrible mother. I know I’m not. Mimi is doing so well. We’re going to therapy once a week. She listens. She follows directions, at least as much as the average eight-year-old. She hardly ever rages, she talks to me about her feelings, she acknowledges when she screws up. She apologizes when she has a regression and acts out. I’m so proud of her, and I have to think that some of the credit is due to how hard I’ve worked with her to get a handle on this.

Is it just that we’ve focused so much on Mimi’s issues that Boo is screaming for attention? I really thought we’d made a big effort NOT to leave her out. To make sure both girls get time with each parent and special treats and attention and cuddles. Boo snuggles with me at bedtime and we read a story and sing a song. She tells me “I love you Mommy” out of the blue, offers hugs and kisses, holds my hand when we’re out in public, says “please” and “thank you” and is so funny and awesome and smart.

And all that and more is why this morning thing terrifies me so freaking much. I cannot get a handle on it. She does this at other times, too, but mornings are the worst. Sometimes getting ready for bed does not go so well but usually I can stay calm and deal with that. It’s trying to get the three of us out of the house in the morning, fed and dressed and sort of on time, that stresses me out. I hate being late. I hate when the kids are late and I imagine the teachers shaking their heads and judging me, even if they aren’t. (I kind of think Boo’s teacher is, though. Gah, the Look.)

I hate feeling like the single mom who cannot manage her kids. One morning last week, I was so pleased because we were EARLY to school. Then after we got there we realized that no one had lunch money, I’d forgotten to give Mimi her medicine, and Lila only had rainboots and not gym shoes. This happens to the best of us, I know, but it happens to us All. The. Time.

I’m doing everything that has been suggested to me. Mimi’s therapist has given me advice about coping strategies in the morning, talking to Boo about expected behaviors, sticker charts, positive reinforcement, ignoring tantrums, time-outs, and on and on. Boo screams at me “stop TALKING TO ME!” when I bring up my expectations. She gets time-outs and loses privileges for that sort of rudeness, because I can’t allow it, but it doesn’t seem to stop her. Massive praise and rewards for good mornings, positive behavior and pleasant tone of voice doesn’t seem to give her any sort of incentive to keep it up. Nothing is working.

I needed to get this out. I haven’t blogged in ages and ages, and I don’t really have time anyway, and Facebook and Twitter are so much faster and more convenient and all that. But this is so much more than I can explain on any social media platform, is so much bigger than 144 characters, and I am just at a loss.
I’m not necessarily looking for advice. I just needed to put it out there. If you have a miracle solution, God knows I’ll try it, but don’t tell me, please, that she is seeking attention, acting out cause she misses her dad, needs therapy, or any of that stuff. I know all that. I know. I’m working on it. I’ve BEEN working on it.
And this is my “normal” kid. To cop a phrase, God said HA.

Two is Enough (imported post)

Today we went to the movies. Last night I promised the girls if they got along and didn't fight for the entire evening we could go today, and indeed, they managed to be civil for three whole hours until bedtime, so we observed Memorial Day by celebrating our freedom to pay exorbitant prices for inferior popcorn. We were waffling between "Rio" and "Kung Fu Panda 2" but then fortunately I got the word from some of my friends who are also parents that KFP2 would not be a good choice for Mimi right now.

(Side note: Dear Hollywood, could we effing PLEASE have a kid's movie not rife with abandonment/adoptee issues on some level? PLEASE? Because they turned up in Rio, too, although not as central, and really, I am tired of my kids asking what happened to various characters' parents every time we watch a movie.)

surprise

Mimi has a weekly writing assignment for school. She knows about it on Monday but we usually end up doing it, of course, on Thursday. Before we could even get started on homework tonight, she had a massive meltdown that involved yanking my hair, which hurt badly, and hiding under a blanket on the couch screaming that she hated herself, that she didn't want to be her and that she didn't want to be from China.

She calmed down and, as she tends to do, went on to do her homework like we hadn't just had a 45 minute screaming fit at the thought of it. This week's topic was "write about a time you were surprised." After some thought, this is what she wrote.

I forgot my umbrella yesterday so I was surprised when it rained. Another time I was surprise when my mom and dad came to pick me in China! I was surprised because I was two and I never seen any body with blond hair before. And brown hair too!

It made me think of this picture, which Mimi's dad took in the elevator in our hotel. She screamed and screamed the first couple of times we went in the elevator (but we were on like the 12th floor, so, sorry babe, but we're taking the elevator) until she discovered the mirrored back wall. Then she loved it and wanted to go in the elevator all the time.

Oh, my baby. So tiny. So scared and surprised. I wish we could find a magic mirror for you again.

Surprise!

Make It Better

 

I kind of forgot to blog this week. Here's a picture instead. 

Ok, fine. I didn't actually forget. It's been a rough week all around and every time I thought about writing about it, I found something else I needed to urgently do ... You know, emergency Etsy Treasuries, complaining on Twitter about the use of the word "soda" on Detroit 1-8-7, and downloading free Tetris apps onto my fancy new phone (which was fairly cheap since I was due for an upgrade, and is PINK, which makes my daughters ecstatic).

I've spent most of the past couple of weeks dealing with Mimi and her needs. Not unusual for parents. Really not unusual for parents of special needs kids. (That link, by the way, goes to a wonderful site, essential reading for anyone parenting a child with special needs.) The thing is, see, it's really hard to write about your kid's special needs and biweekly doctor's visits when those needs are psychological and the visits are to a psychiatrist. It's hard to write about the bedtimes when when your kid says "I hate being me" and "I wish I wasn't born" and talks about the people in her head who make noise all the time and keep her from being able to sleep. Or how when asked about her biggest worry, your kid draws a picture of herself in jail. It's hard to think about putting your 7-year-old on Pro*zac, never mind write about it. Rit*alin, ok. Lots of kids take ADHD meds. We talk about ADHD a lot, and kids on the autism spectrum. These are things people are starting to understand in children. But a clinically depressed, chronically anxious 2nd grader? People start to look at you, as a parent, a little funny. What's this mom doing wrong that her kid is DEPRESSED? (Must be the divorce. Or you know, those adopted kids, you never know with them.) What does a 7-year-old have to be depressed about? 

Well, a lot, it turns out, and nothing that I did "wrong" made her this way, but it's what we're dealing with, and it sucks all around. It sucks for Mimi, of course, most of all. But it sucks for me, too, and for Boo. It is really hard to live, never mind talk or write about. I come home from work most days, and spend four to five hours dealing with Mimi's needs, meltdowns, behavior issues, and moods, while trying to love her as much as I can and make sure Boo isn't completely ignored in the process. The other day I spent nearly a full hour walking back and forth between the bathroom (where Boo was taking a bath) and the girls' bedroom (where Mimi was supposed to be doing homework -- one math sheet with four questions on it  -- but was actually screaming, throwing her pencil, spinning around and around in the desk chair, crying, whining, and tearing paper into teeny shreds), dealing with their needs in 3-minute bursts. Bathroom -  bedroom - bathroom - bedroom -- they are about nine steps apart, but I felt like I was running a marathon. Some nights it's homework, some nights it's whatever I made for dinner that she doesn't feel like eating, some nights it's when I say "no more tv" and turn off the set, some nights it's nothing at all that I can discern but something awful is happening in her head and that's enough.

It's not all bad, and I don't mean to suggest that what we're dealing with is any worse than what many other parents go through. There's still this stigma, however, to mental and mood disorders, and so often we still are too squeamish to discuss them openly. Especially when it comes to children. I struggled with whether to post this or not, because after all it's not my issue, it's Mimi's. She doesn't seem to mind talking about it -- in fact, recently, she's become quite verbal and open about it, and for the first time is really finding the words to describe what goes on in her head. I want her to be matter-of-fact about it, and so we say things like "some kids wear glasses because their eyes need help to work right. Some kids have leg braces or wheelchairs to help them get around because their legs aren't as strong. Some kids take medicine to help their brain figure things out a little bit easier, or help them feel better." But it's different, of course it's different and she knows it and so do I, because no one wants to think about a 2nd grader with crippling anxiety and mood disorder.

So I'm posting, so you know. It happens, kids DO get depressed, seriously, life-changingly so, and if we don't talk about and do something when they are little, or whenever things start to get bad, then

we raise people unable or unwilling to share the hard stuff, other people unable to deal with people who are not like them, people who can't cope with their own feelings never mind take into account what other people might be going through. And ultimately we get bullies, and kids afraid to go to school, and kids who won't talk to their parents, and parents who don't see their kids' emotional pain, and middle schoolers and college freshmen, beautiful young people who could change the world, we get these kids hanging themselves and jumping off bridges because they have no hope that things will ever get any better.

It will get better. Whatever I have to do to make it better for Mimi, I will do. And I hope that talking about it can help, a tiny bit, make it better for someone else.

life is messy

It has been a super-annoying week.

Mimi and Boo have both had difficult days, although they at least had the grace to alternate; Wednesday Mimi raged and screamed from the time I got home from work right straight through until bedtime; tonight Boo started whining at me the minute I walked in the door, everything from "I want milk!" to "That's BOOOOOORING" to "my thumb tastes nasty." I am thinking about ripping my ears off.

I made my kid cry by threatening to trash her play-doh.

My kids keep substituting the word "poop" into random song lyrics.

The house is a wreck and I'm having family and friends over tomorrow for Boo's birthday so I have a ton of clean-up to do. Plus presents, decorating, wrapping, etc.

I got called judgmental on twitter, in the process of asking people not to judge others, in regards to the whole Similac formula recall. Some people can't successfully nurse their babies. Some people choose not to. Can we all stop being MEAN about it, please?

I posted a link to a blog post about taxation an the middle classes on facebook, and started a whole thing without intending to, and called someone an asshole, and somehow got insulted for being short. I just thought it was an interesting blog post. I should really know better by now.

I have crochet orders backed up the wazoo and barely any time to work on them. I strained a tendon in my hand a few weeks ago and couldn't crochet at all for a couple of weeks, which didn't help.And I was recently reminded about some stuff I still owe people from the summer. And it practically takes an act of God to get me to the post office, I don't know why.

I got accepted as a hack writer for a content provider which is wonderful because I desperately need even the pittance that might bring in, but I have not been able to get my brain functional enough to write a 500-word article about perch fishing in Michigan. Seriously.

The cat keeps eating the dog food. The dog keeps eating the cat food.

And this is not even counting the normal, everyday woes like not having a functioning washing machine, the laundry piled everywhere, my broken tooth, the house falling apart around me, my negative checking account balance, Mimi's psychological issues, childcare scheduling difficulties, and my tendency to start crying at the stupidest things these days.

This is my life. It's insane. I wish certain things were very different. I would like to be able to pay my bills and own a house and sent my kids to gymnastics class and buy pretty things for myself.
No time, no time, no money, no time.

Really, the reason I started this post was to say, gah, I have had a crap week so here's some cute stuff to look at. But instead I made a wish list at etsy to cheer myself up. Someday when I have discretionary income again, I am going to buy myself some cute stuff and not feel guilty about being good to myself and everybody else can just bite me.

I'm here. I'm alive, and I'm grateful for that. Life is messy. The alternative is worse. I beat myself up for lots of reasons, most of them related to things listed above that aren't really even in my control. I am not the best mom in the world. Or the nicest person. But I'm the best me there is and that's what you're all going to get.

This post was inspired by this one. Please read it. It's important.

What's Going On With Us

I don't know if anyone missed me, or what, but since it seems I am blogging again, I thought I'd do a nice little catch-up post. I haven't really blogged regularly since May of 2009, and kind of a lot of stuff has happened since then. Although you might mostly know this already, since I tend to overshare on Facebook. Anyway. In no particular order (neither chronological nor in order of importance):

I got divorced. I separated from M officially in December 2008, although things had been pretty much over for about a year before that. The divorce was final July 2010, which took longer than I might have hoped but was at least fairly drama-free, as these things go. It was delayed because we filed for bankruptcy jointly before we filed for divorce. M's years of unemployment and some poor financial decisions on both our parts had got us into a hole there was just no way out of. Our house went into foreclosure in the summer of 2008, and we moved into a rental, where I still live with the girls. The only way out of that was bankruptcy. So that all sucked, but it's done. I'm still on rather shaky ground, financially, since I'm not getting much in the way of child support -- M is working, but not making much more than minimum wage, and there's a support order in but sometimes I get the money and sometimes I don't. I'm managing (some months, just barely, and I have no savings or extra) and things are hopefully starting to turn around in that regard. Emotionally, I'm good. The girls have adjusted fairly well, all things considered, although it's an ongoing process. M is around a lot, takes them to school most mornings, and we get along well. But I'm making all the big parenting decisions and most of the little ones, and paying all the bills, and yeah. It's stressful.

Mimi is now in second grade. She'll be eight in December. EIGHT. Remember when I was blogging her adoption? That was six years ago. Seriously. I didn't blog any of her first grade adventures, and I feel kind of badly about that, but it was a tough year all around. Second grade has gotten off to a bit of a rough start, but things are starting to settle down. I hope. She's dealing with some major adoption-related trauma -- her dad not being around as much has predictably brought up a bunch of abandonment issues -- but we're getting through it. She's talking about it, which is huge. She blindsides me with it at bedtime or on the way to school, but she's talking. And because her dad's disregulation was contributing a lot to her own, she's also relaxed quite a bit in the past year. Developmentally, she's still a bit behind her peers in her class, but she's come such a long way. And she read TWO CHAPTERS of a Junie B. Jones book out loud to me last night. That is remarkable. I about cried.

Boo is in full-day preschool. Seriously. She can write her name and climb to the top of the monkey bars and ride a bike with training wheels. And she will be four next Sunday. Thankfully. Because three has been extremely difficult for her and for me, and while I know she won't magically be a reasonable person next week, I can hope that the combination of being FOUR and being at school all day will turn her into more of a human being and less of a wailing banshee-child. She already has a friend, whose name she actually shared with me, and this is a big deal. Because last year at daycare, where she was two to three days a week, all day, she pretended not to know any of the other children. For MONTHS.

I started tango lessons. I'm still doing this, although not as frequently only because my schedule is all effed up right now. I love tango. I have shoes I wear just for dancing. This is remarkable, trust me, and I will be writing more about this.

I started dating. Kinda sorta. With varying degrees of success. And dealing with quite a bit of emotional that the whole oh-right-I'm-single-now thing brought up. That's an entire post in and of itself. More than one. But for the moment things are going kind of well in this department, and that's all you're going to get. For now.

I made it into the Regretsy book. Because I make these chapstick cozies, see, and sell them on Etsy. And then I made a whole bunch of them for a Regretsy book signing and the photos made it onto several mainstream sites. Never would have guessed I'd get my 15 minutes due to crocheted genitalia.

I think that's kind of the highlights. I traveled a bit for work-related conferences and classes -- Chicago, D.C., Charlottesville VA, Philadelphia. I crocheted a lot. I wrote a little. The girls and I all watched too much tv. I got drunk. I kissed some boys (sometimes while drunk). I lost a couple of friends, and made new ones. Just, you know, life. And stuff. And so now I'm back. Yay!

Nobody puts baby in a tutu

It's that time of year, post back-to-school and pre-Thanksgiving, when we parents start hearing about Halloween every five minutes. The stores have costumes and candy out the minute they get rid of the lunchboxes and notebooks, so it's difficult to avoid. I've been poking around the web looking for ideas for Mimi, who is in 2nd grade and therefore, I feel, should not be dressed as a stripper or teen skank ho. I blogged over at The Sink about the issues I have with adult costumes, which seem to have a theme of "take a beloved childhood icon and make it 'sexy'," which mostly have the result of making me want to take a very hot shower in bleach.

So I don't have time to make a Halloween costume and I don't have the money to buy one (or the inclination to support the business of any industry that suggests this as an appropriate "nurse" costume for a child. (I particularly like the stripper shoes.) I could do a whole post on inappropriately sexy children's costumes, but I won't, because I don't particularly feel like grinding my teeth to nubs today.

Instead I went over to Etsy to look for ideas for appropriate, cute, handmade children's costumes. And what did I find? Tutus. Lots and lots of tutus. If your local Joann's is sold out of tulle, this is why.

 

Look, if your kid is a ballerina or a fairy for Halloween, fine. Maaaaybe a ladybug or a butterfly -- it's a stretch, but ok. But if your kid is Cookie Monster, a pirate, or a cowgirl? NO. TUTU. Ditto giraffes, spiders, and cupcakes. Seriously. Does EVERYTHING have to be teeth-achingly adorably girly? 

So I set out to find some cute, reasonably priced kids' costumes on Etsy that did not involve tutus in the least. It was harder than you'd think, and I had to venture into the dreaded BOY territory for some of them, but I was reassured to discover that there are people making cute, creative, APPROPRIATE outfits for kids. I put together a Treasury (because those are SO FUN, seriously, and I'm a little addicted to making them.) Click on the image below to get to the treasury, and click on each pic to go to the individual items. Explore all the great stuff in these sellers' shops. Enjoy. And buy handmade! 

Nobody puts baby in a tutu

not myself

Mimi was in a major funk today after school. She's been in a mood for the week since school started: everything is "booooring" and "toooo haaarrrrd." She wants to come home from school and sit in front of the tv until bedtime, basically, and gets terribly angry at me when I won't let her.

Today I got home from work shortly after my mom picked up both girls from school, and when I came in I could tell it was going to be one of those days. Mom was tired and cranky, Mimi was tired and cranky, and Boo was pretty much the only one glad to see me. I let Mimi finish the show she was watching, and then reminded her that it was time to turn the tv off and have quiet reading time. She is very stubborn about reading, and still wants me to read for her most of the time even though she is perfectly capable, so I am trying to encourage her as much as I can. But reading? It's BOOOOORING and TRIIIICKY and TOOOO HARRRRD. I understand her frustration, and I was ready for it so managed to stay calm and offer to help her with her book. Instead of listening to what I was trying to tell her, she ran across the room and burrowed into a blanket, totally hiding herself.

I know she's stressed and anxious about school and changes and all the new things. I don't know how to help her through this right now. Eventually she came out from under her blanket, after I started reading to Boo. She said she didn't know what to do, so I suggested several options: reading, drawing a picture, coloring, writing a story or a letter. None of those were acceptable. She finally decided it might be ok to go outside and do chalk drawings on the driveway. Boo was thrilled with this idea, but once we got outside Mimi threw herself down on the ground and just stared at the sky. I asked if she wanted me to make a chalk outline of her we could color in but no. I asked if she felt ok, and if something was worrying her, and she said no. Then she thought for a minute and said "I'm just not myself, mom. I don't feel like myself."

Later we came inside and cut out pictures from magazines to paste into a collage. Boo didn't want to come in but was convinced when I told her she could use scissors and a gluestick. Mimi at first just wanted to watch, but she shortly got into the spirit of things and produced a fantastic collage of a peacock on a spaceship exploring the solar system. Then she gave me a big hug and said "Mom, I'm myself again! I'm so happy. I like being myself." Then we put on some music of Mimi's choice and danced around the living room, and both girls dissolved into hysterical laughter while they watched me. "Mom! You are shaking your booty!"

Crisis averted, for tonight, but oh, I am so tired. I don't have the energy for this sort of intense hands-on Mimi management every single night, and keeping Boo entertained at the same time. The evening eventually devolved into fights about coloring and what color a certain princess's hair should be so I had to cut things short;  Mimi accuses Boo of copying her but when Boo wanders off to do something else Mimi can't leave it alone and keeps poking at her until Boo comes back and "copies" some more. This is fairly typical sibling stuff and I can manage it, for the most part, but when it's on top of all Mimi's emotional issues, well, I'm exhausted. Mimi will be fine, I know, and Boo totally is fine, but me? I don't know if I'll survive.

so now what?

So I haven't been writing much lately. At least not much longer than 144 characters; if you follow me on Twitter, you've no doubt found that I am quite prolific over there. I do think that as I became more active on Facebook and Twitter my need to blog about my life shrank to almost nothing; cute stories about the kids which I used to blog now go on Facebook; pithy quotes (again from the kids, for the most part) go on Twitter. Random updates about myself and my life can be found both places. And then divorce process finished killing what had been already dying slowly; there was so much I couldn't talk about no matter how desperately I wanted or needed to.

I tried focused blogging, for a bit, experimenting with a crochet blog, a tango blog, even a "look at this ridiculous shit"-type blog that people keep getting book deals for. I'm no Cake Wrecks or Regretsy, however (although I AM in the Regretsy book, so booyah) and no book deals fell out of the sky for me. I also had difficulty keeping on topic, since I'm a bit "ooh shiny!" when it comes to my writing style. So I established this site without really knowing what I'd do with it, since I can't just, you know, NOT have a web presence or a place to write things down when the mood does strike, which is still does once in a while, but I'm still trying to figure out how that presence will manifest itself. I have a few ideas, which I am presenting for your consideration. If anyone is actually reading.

1) Twitter, but more so
I've thought about taking me tweets and expanding on the more interesting/funny/popular ones. The main idea is already there and written, so it's a bit of a time-saver. This seems a little self-indulgent, however.

2) Single-parent blogging.
There are a lot of "mommy" blogs out there. Mine was one of them, for a long time. I don't know if there are a a lot of single-mom blogs. My guess is most single moms, including myself, are too freaking busy and tired to write about how freaking busy and tired we are. We also face a lot of challenges 2-parent families don't have to deal with, and considering how many single-parent families there are out there, I do think we are rather underrepresented in the blogosphere.

3) Dating, with children
An offshoot of the single-parent thing is trying to restore some sort of social life to one's schedule after a divorce. We're still human beings with the need for adult interaction, adult beverages, and adult activities, and this can be quite difficult to manage, as I am discovering. It can also be fun. And heartbreaking and frustrating and all the things regular dating (pre-children) was, but more so.

4) Crochet, with patterns
I'm not sure about this. I love to make stuff. I love that people are starting to actually buy stuff I make. I don't know about pattern-writing, which is harder than it seems, I've discovered; I don't know if anyone would pay me for my patterns.

5) Contract blogging
There are a few aggregate sites which hire bloggers for specific gigs, or for certain topics. I've thought about chucking my own site altogether and trying for a gig like that. However, I don't know how to write a pitch and I have no idea how to go about getting it together for something like that. It would be nice to get even nominal pay for this stuff, though, I mean really.

And again, I just don't know if I can stick with a focused format, or if I'll eventually do what I always do and either wander off, or go back to writing about whatever pops into my head.

These conversations always happen in the car, for some reason.

Scene: We're in the car, on the way to daycare. For some reason I don't really recall, we are talking about babies.

Mimi: I was a baby in China.

Boo: I was a baby and I grew in Mommy's tummy!

Me: Not in my tummy, in my uterus. We talked about how there is a special place in your body just for babies to grow. [Note: I hate the "tummy" thing. It's factually incorrect, and then there's the confusion with how the baby GOT in the tummy. Did you SWALLOW it?]

Mimi: Yeah! And then the baby comes out your VAGINA! [Note: We had just talked about this a couple of days before, after Mimi informed the babysitter that "Babies come out your butt!!!" Again, precision is important.]

Boo: Ewwwwwwww!

Mimi: Yeah! There's a hole the baby comes out of! [Pause] Mom, when I grow up ... [longer pause] You know what? I changed my mind. I don't want to grow up anymore.

Me [stifling laughter]: Well, you will grow up. But just because you get to be an adult, doesn't mean you have to have kids. Some people choose to have kids, and some choose not to. And some people adopt.

Mimi: Like me! You adopted me!

Me: Right! And some people, like our friends Kate and Deb, chose not to have children at all.

Mimi [indignantly]: BUT THEY HAVE US!

Boo: YEAH! US!

Me: Well, yes. And they like to come over and play with you and then go home. They are friends, not parents. So maybe you will choose to have a baby that grows in you, and maybe you will choose to adopt, or maybe you will choose not to be a mom at all. Those are all good choices.

Mimi: I want to have kids. As friends. Can we listen to the Chipmunks now?