Saturday, September 26, 2009

Nature vs. Blaming Mommy

When I was a freshmen in high school I took an advanced English course. The school was Frankfurt American High School, in Frankfurt, West Germany. (How times have changed!) My teacher was an elderly lady that had been afflicted with polio. She had a cane and a limp along with other complications. I don't remember her name; however, I do remember she was a freaking hard ass teacher. I really think that she brought out the philosopher in me. I didn't pass her class with flying colours, but I did pass. One of the themes in that class was Nature vs. Nurture. I grasped the concept and my stance was Nature.

Now, more than ever my stance is Free Will. When a child misbehaves or does something outlandish EVERY ONE'S initial response is: Where is his/her mother? Not the father, mind you. The assumption is: mommy is at home and her job is to teach morality, confidence, and truths. The father is out at work providing food and shelter. He may or may not have a hand in raising children.

My profession is Motherhood. I chose this profession with great care. I am able to sustain a job in the workforce. It would make the financial aspects of our lives a lot more comfortable. However, I thought about having someone else raising my children and I didn't want that. I wanted to be involved with their learned behavior.

Now PLEASE don't get me wrong: this is MY choice. There are women that can work a job, be a mother, be a partner and LOVE it. Kudoos to those that can do this. I don't begrudge them anything. I am not jealous...okay, maybe of a little time alone, but not of their choice.

I try my damnedest to teach my children what I view as right from wrong. I try hard to instill my code of ethics and morals. I know that if I give them a base line right now - when they are most susceptible to ideas - when they grow up they have some sort of reference to fall back upon. HOWEVER, this does not mean that they will refer to anything as they grow older. They have something called Free Will.

Free Will is a great tool. I have learnt a LOT in my life because of Free Will. I have done some rather stupid things and some really wonderful things. And because of this, I either paid the consequence or reaped the benefits. I don't blame nor give credit to my parents for my Free Will. It is mine and mine alone.

I want others to do the same. Here is an example of Free Will: Kids lighting fire crackers that are planted in their...well....asses. I'm sure, but don't know, that the mom has not shown them how to do this. A scalded sphincter is the consequence to a moronic act. Hopefully they learn not to do it again in the future. I've watched it enough on YouTube to know that this kind of stupidity crosses nationalities and age.

Please don't blame the Mommies. I can't speak for others, but I do know that I am trying my damnedest. And if my boys decide to do something like....light firecrackers in their sphincters, video it and upload it to Youtube......I won't take the blame. I'll take them to the hospital, but not the blame.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Das Es

Okay....so I was thinking about my blog on the 13th of Sept. And I wonder if I didn't jump into some sort of self rightous mode with my generation. Actually, I am pretty sure I did. "We are better because we can blog" type of shit.

I know that there are a lot of nasties out there. I know that there has never been an era in human history when violence wasn't a major part of that era. As a military brat and now a military spouse I am pretty sure that I understand the concepts of war. My grandpa, dad and husband have all been in a war. I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. However, what I really REALLY don't understand is senseless violence. Stabbing or shotting someone because "I can" doesn't fly by me. The ugliness of people that just have no concept of what they are doing to another human being disturbs me.

I don't think we are any better than the Ancients. Our Das Es' are just as basic as theirs were. Some were born with an ability to keep it in check and others weren't. And those that can't or don't are the ones that I give me the willy jillies.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Motherhood of the Year Award

School started not too long ago. Time for new backpacks, pencils, notebooks and dis-eases. Kids spread dis-ease faster than orange mold grows in Georgia bathrooms. Kids get sick. It's inevitable. I am not squeamish of puke or diarrhea - it's my profession. Momhood.

Needless to say I have a sick six year old. He woke up this morning with 100.3. Not too shabby. I kept my four year old home as well. We don't need to spread more germs around. I made a late lunch. My four year old and six year old are sitting at the table. My infant is in his crib. All is well with the world until my six year old says he's going to puke. He runs to the bathroom. Two minutes later he returns to the table. He tells me nothing happened. I am in the kitchen getting the lunch fixings when he jumps up again and runs into the living room. He stops short and pukes on the rug. The he looks at me and starts running towards me puking all the way. He stops in the dining room more puke. He runs into the kitchen where I grab his head and move him to the trash can. He makes it.

I'm in the kitchen with my hand on my child's head, pushing it into the trash. My four year old is in the kitchen giving a play by play and adding "Eeuuuuuwwww. Eeeeuuuuwww. That's gross." And my infant, for no other reason than ganging up on me, is screaming at the top of his lungs. Can you say fucking stress?

After the puking session I have my six year old help clean up. Thank God it's mostly water, but still....eeeuuuuwww. My four year old is tasked with getting the mop. Infant is still screaming. There is water puke in three rooms. Sweet Jesus, help me! We get most of it up. I wash my hands, grab little man and try to feed him enough to placate him. My six year old is on his hands and knees trying to find all the water and the four year old is in the kitchen. Four year old tries to get his lunch and drops it all over the floor. Luckily 1. it's only crackers at this point and 2. puke is cleaned up. I tell him to clean it up. He refuses. My composure is about to ready to snap. My eye twitches and I walk off. I put little man back in the crib. I tell my six year old to strip so that I can start the wash. I walk back to the kitchen and my middle son tells me "I need meat. Make my lunch."

Holy Sheep Shit! What did he just say to me?! I felt my head cock, my eye twitch four times and now my lip is quivering. And with that there is a litany of curses followed by a spanking followed by sending kiddo to his room.

So....I graciously accept the Motherhood of the Year Award. I want to thank Loki for making this all happen. With perfect timing too. It couldn't have been better.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Emily

Emily Dickinson wrote a poem titled Because I Could Not Stop For Death. These are the first two quatrains:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

I wonder, Dear Emily, what you would think of us now? There is no time for just about anything. Everything we do is in haste and still there is no time. Rush. Rush. Rush. Hurry up and Wait (for the inevitable line at the DMV). Hurry. Hurry.

Are we forever White Rabbits in a feverish rush? Will I, too, succumb to time only through death?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

When I Was Younger

Seriously....I am a thirty seven year old chick with a six and a half year old, an almost five year old and a two month old. I consider myself to be young of mind, medium of body and old in spirit. I am not a old spinster nor am I a decrepit witch (old wise woman) - you know the type: gnarled hands, stooped so low boobs hit the ground, shufflin' feet like Yoda.

However, I find myself saying "When I was younger"...... and that truly pisses me off. I don't want to compare myself to others, but damn it, it's hard.

Generation - whatever the hell is after mine and then after them - are whiners. Really. I had it good. They have it better. And they want more. Nothing is fair to them. Nothing is good enough. And the really scary part is that most of these kiddos don't have empathy. I played Pac-Man, eating funky colored ghosts, and they play Doom or Grand Theft Auto. They don't know how to separate violence in games from violence in life.

I read an article about a fifteen year old who solicited his thirteen year old friend in matricide simply because the mom said "no." What? Really!?! She didn't beat him, she didn't molest him and she didn't sell him on the black market for drugs. Nope. She told him that she wasn't going to let him switch schools. For this, she was stabbed multiple times. Is human life that expendable? Is this few and far between or are there more Menendez brothers out there?

I'm sure there was nasty shit like this when I was younger; however, it seems that the isolation of the cases are becoming more common. OR is it that with the information highway going a trillion times faster than light, that we are more informed on crap like this? And if so, do I really want to know?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Confidence

I recently read an article on spiritual confidence. It suggested that a person have confidence in their core spiritual values. It made me think and wonder about my own confidence...

I used to be very confident. I trusted myself completely. However, that changed with two things.....having a baby and the internet. Completely different entities, one would think; however, quite the opposite. Having a baby gives me unlimited opportunities to totally fuck up another human beings existence. I could hurt them psychologically, emotionally and physically. I use the internet to validate my behaviors towards the kiddo or to find a solution for whatever it is that I am searching for. For example: A cough. Shit. Is it whooping cough or just a freaking cough? Was something swallowed? Is there a marble, penny, crayon, toy lodged into my infant (left out by toddler), toddler, even a six year old mouth? Is there some sort of horrible allergy out there that I am not aware of? Did I feed my child something that is, potentially, life threatening? Am I the worst mother out there?

I get on the internet and crap, I just cannot win. If I smack him on the back I could shake his brain around his skull and hurt him further. If I stick my finger down his throat I could lodge it even further down and make him choke even more. If I hang him upside down, by his feet, he could smack his head on the floor and go into a coma. What is the solution? What is the freaking solution?

I want to be a good mom. This is the profession I have chosen for the time being. I don't want to be responsible for an ill adept child. But sweet Jesus, SERIOUSLY, my confidence is taking a serious beating.

Too much information. Not just for a random bedroom secret said aloud to people, sometimes strangers, in conjunction with a momentary brain fart. Nope, I suffer from the lack of confidence due to searching the internet. Please say that I am not the only one.

I am slowly weaning myself off of the search engines. It is hard. It's like a drug. Am I still searching for validation.....that other people actually think and do the same things that I do? Am I searching for the sense of conformity? Seriously, please say no on that one. When did I let myself become trapped? I always thought of myself as a free thinker. Someone that would do what I thought I should do.

I feel like shaving my head, bleaching my hair and screaming at the top of my lungs:
STOP THE INSANITY!!!!!

I can do this. I can. I just need to google how to start.....