her way.

i am walking on the beach in Morro Bay last week with three people that i love dearly...as i stand still and watch the ocean waves rolling in, one of them creates a circle in the sand around me with her foot, flashes her smile and tells me that i am not allowed to leave it.

i oblige her for awhile but then inform her that it is time to head back to the car...and home. she thinks for a moment and then appears to solve her dilemma by drawing a line in the sand leading from the circle back down the beach, towards the car - which is maybe a half-mile away, but probably less - and instructs me to follow it, and only it. both feet, no stepping off.

she walks backwards, dragging her heel in the sand, her foot line twisting and turning - this cannot be a straight line, no....and i MUST walk it and never veer from it.  with my arms held straight out to my sides (to help balance the unbalanced, of course) i speed up and try and rush her progress, maybe make her trip and fall, but she commands me to stop when i catch up to her and laughingly orders me to wait for her to get ahead of me again before continuing.  as i totter along, i watch in front of me - behind her - hoping to subtlety direct her towards someone she will run into while not looking.  cause, well...that would be hilarious, but she mysteriously manages to miss everything and everyone in her path, rarely taking a peek to see where she was headed.  she is just following along the surf line. sort of...and backwards.



she switches feet, because the right one is cramping up, but continues on, still swirling and veering, twisting and turning her line in the sand.  she tries using her toes because she is getting tired and we still have a long way to go.  i taunt her and tell her she'll never make it. but i dutifully follow my path.

i hear laughter behind me and i turn - being ever so careful not to fall off my mark - to see an old woman walking the line directly behind me, arms out like mine, with her husband at her side laughing.  she looks at me, giggles again and says, "so, where are we going?!?"

quite honestly, it was one of the most joyous moments of my life.

the old woman follows along with us for a few seconds more and then takes her old husband's hand and they wander off closer towards the sea, smiling, laughing, playful - loving their lives. they left the line in the sand that was meant for me and continued along their own path.

we make it to end of the beach eventually. when we reach the rocks that we had to climb over to get to the car, the girl picks up and drags a 12 foot piece of seaweed over them, ordering me to walk only on that.  i'd take 5 steps, step off of it and have to wait for her to re-position it so that i could continue on.

she never stopped, she never gave up.
she led me all the way back.
and i let her.  because it was important....to both of us
i followed her every step of the way. her way,
and it made us happy.

I Am Red.

Before you launch into this, make no mistake, this is indeed a pity party - but it was truly intended to be a personal one.  I decided to share it with you for a few different reasons.  Mainly due to the possibility that the mistakes I've made might help you avoid going through something like this down the road.  Personally, I was launched into the real world completely unprepared.  I can't remember if I was ever actually told that I could be anything, do anything, or achieve anything I wanted. What I do know, in retrospect, is that I set out searching for really nothing more than a safe haven in which I could spend the rest of my life...a place where I could love and be loved unconditionally. Never having been accused of being an over-achiever, I realize that this wasn't an incredibly grand plan, not incredibly ambitious or motivated. But it sounded nice to me then - comfortable and happy.   I still crave it to this day. It seems destined to remain just out of reach. and that is one of the shittiest feelings i've ever experienced.

I am red.

I am blue.

I am green.

I am yellow.

I am black.

I am angry.

I am sad.

I am envious.

I am anxious.

I am resentful.

I feel tricked and taken advantage of.  I feel like I have given everything I am and everything I have to people that cannot - or will not - consider giving back in my time of need.  There is no room right now for sacrifice in their hearts or in their lives.  They are too consumed with themselves and what they want.  They know that I am trapped without their help. They care, but not enough to change things.  Not enough to sacrifice for the one who has always done the sacrificing.

I feel devastated that when I finally get on my knees and beg for something that I think I truly need, I am led along like a fool, believing the lies half-truths because my survival depends on the outcome.  Clinging to what I know in my heart is probably too good to be true. And it turns out to be exactly that, just a cruel joke.  "Sorry, changed my mind…thought I could, said I would, but nope turns out I can’t/won’t/whatever help you.  But hey, hang in there buckaroo…it’s only 4 more years in your personal living Hell, you've survived more than that already, what's the big deal. get over it"

The big deal is that I feel such overwhelming, all-consuming sadness because my happiness has been relegated to the back burner, once again.  It’s how it has always been.  Their needs come first.  Mine are still secondary and always have been.  That is what I committed to when I got married, when I had children --- a life of sacrifice and of burying needs, wants and desires if they don’t mesh nicely with everyone else’s.  They don’t tell you when you are signing up that you are really signing off.  And now I have become a martyr.  Grrrrreat, the one thing I have always despised in my own mother is now my personal reality. The apple really doesn't fall far, does it?

Fuck.

I’m envious of those in my life that are fortunate enough to be in a place they love, surrounded by people that they love. Happy in their every days.  Ups and downs, yes.  But genuinely happy in the lives they have created for themselves.  I envy those who didn't make the same mistakes that I made, and those that perhaps made the mistakes, but were able to survive them and become stronger because of them.  My strength has been used up - I have summoned it in the past, it has helped me get through some tough shit along the way and it has gotten me to where i am now.  but...now...here, I no longer feel strong. I now feel broken.

Broken and anxious.  I am almost completely anxiety-driven when I am home.  I rarely eat. I have no motivation – I can’t stop stressing about what my life has become long enough to focus on anything.  I can’t sleep and when I do, I have dreams of stress and of being helpless.  Dreams of things falling apart around me with no clue as to how to stop it, let alone any power to protect those that I love.  I have dreams of spinning in circles with devastation surrounding me and people I love crying out for help, but I can’t find them in my dream.  I can’t find them and I can’t help them.  I have to listen to their cries and their pleas for help. I am powerless to do anything.  Then I wake up and realize nothing has changed.  I might as well still be dreaming.  I am powerless; I am broken.

I am resentful.  I am trying so hard to bury the anger and the hate and the blame and the RESENTMENT.  I know that I am responsible for the choices I have made.  I know that where I am is ultimately because of me.  I know that I chose this life.  But this is not the life I thought I was choosing.  All I ever really wanted was to matter.  To be loved and respected and needed.  By the people that I loved and respected and needed.  It hasn't worked out like that.  My kids won’t learn this shit until the damage is already done.  And yea, I’m pissed.  Between them and their dad, I have given everything I had to give, my body, my mental stability, my livelihood.  I have given up jobs, relationships and homes that I loved. I gave up a life that I had treasured, that brought me joy and happiness. I gave it all up for them.  Because I believed it was the best thing for them. I have gone to bat for each one of them when they felt they were being wronged, I have cultivated enemies on their behalf, I have supported them in everything {legal} that they thought they wanted to do – even the stupid, oh-so-stupid, shit.  I HAD THEIR BACKS.  ME.  Because that was my job.  That was my commitment to them when I married him and conceived them.  I didn't do it for the payback.  I have never asked for a payback.  I have asked for consideration, I have asked for respect, I have asked for cooperation.  And yes, I asked for support, and I dared believe that I would get it.

I have never felt more insignificant or alone as I do in the life that i have created, right here and right now.

(illegal) conversations while driving...

i was talking on the phone with a friend today who has been having some trouble with her teenagers.  (she says as if this is headline news in ANY dimension).  she was very upset at a pretty serious turn of events of late regarding her kids. very upset.  lots of guilt and embarrassment and feelings of failure. again, typical - i think - for the average mother of teenagers to experience. the little bastards suck the life right out of you.  there is a reason God made us love them so fucking much...but, i digress.

so, back to HER story...she was crying and i was trying to put a positive, if not bright, spin on the situation, asking a few questions and getting a few answers in return.  between us we had established that this new situation was probably, ultimately a pretty good thing to have happened.  timing, location...all of it - seemed really shitty on the surface, but when we broke it down we both realized that it was not as horrible as it had at first seemed.  still not an ideal situation, but far from as bad as it could have been in the grand scheme of things. in fact, parts of it were actually going to work out rather awesomely.

having made her giggle at something stupid - yet visually hysterical, i might add - we were wrapping up our conversation and i said to her "i am such a firm believer that things really do happen for a reason - we don't always get it, but that doesn't mean that we won't some day" and she says to me in her soft, tear-hitchy voice, "i've been praying for answers lately, anything to help me help my kids before it's too late."

this may not seem huge, or revelational (is that a word?) or anything out of the ordinary to you, but i experienced a DUH moment that instant...this situation we had been discussing - this PROBLEM - was the answer to those prayers she had just mentioned as an afterthought.  not how she had imagined they would be answered, to be sure...but damn, i pert-near heard the tabernacle choir belting out a hallelujah right then. i literally got goosebumps.

now, you may or may not believe in a higher power.  maybe you believe instead in the power of positive thinking or maybe you think that faith is simply misguided desperation.  whatever, for me this was powerful shit.  so powerful that i'm still thinking about it 7 and a half hours later and it fills me with this...this...hope.  it leads me to think that perhaps my life isn't just a badly written soap opera...that maybe there is a path for me and that i just have to pay better attention to where i am being guided.  maybe i need to allow myself to BE guided.  maybe i need to toss aside my preconceived notions of where i think i should be going and what i think i should be doing, and what i think the answers are, effectively ending the constant struggle i have within myself to direct everything towards my idea of the endgame.  what if i just continue to do what i know to be the right things, but allow other things - things i really have no clue about - to just...........happen?
whoa.
is that lame? is that giving up? bending over? CAPITULATION?
i don't know.
i will tell you that it gave me the first ray of hope that i have had in a long while.  i even experienced a split second of clarity.  so that must be a god thing, right?
that was a total typo.  i swear i typed "so that must be a good thing"

so anyway - there's this

and, on that note...i think it's time for mr nyquil to tuck me into bed   :)

pert near time to shit, or get.

lots to process these days.

big changes are looming, decisions to make, paths to take...it's time to at least pretend like i'm a grown-up for awhile.

*sigh*

divorce papers are signed - after 7 years.  hell, after 20 years - it was a long road, rewarding in so many ways.  no regrets.  we have now each retreated to our corners and are taking a breath.  we are still partners in parenting and we are - amazingly - friends.  seems we have always been headed in two different directions...and now we find that, finally, it works.

i have so many decisions to make and i find that all i want to do is run away.  from everything.  i can't breathe here, i need to breathe.  i'm circling - shit, i'm balls out spinning - around and around.  don't know where to stop, don't know where to start.  i have people depending upon me, depending upon the decisions i make.  i don't want to make any of them, i just want to fade out.  i have people counting on me to do the things that are right for them.  i've rarely ever done the right thing.  and now, it appears that it's really important. totally fucking sucks. (she says in her new grown-up, responsibility-laden voice).

it's changing me. i feel it, from the inside.  it's frightening because i have no idea what the result will be. truly...none.  for such a long time, i've just ambled along just doing my thing.  going where i'm supposed to go, doing what i'm supposed to do, then making the time to do what i wanted. what if i no longer know what i want?  what if i never really did?  i stop, step back and take a look at shawna and wonder what the fuck her life is even about now.

i dig me, i just confuse the shit outta me.  i make things so much harder than they need to be.  it's a great time in my life...i'm starting to feel the freedoms that come when your kids branch off and start to do their own things.  one kid is moved on to do his own grown-up thing.  i feel for him...i remember when i first became aware of real responsibility.  i remember wanting to run back home, dive behind my mom and say "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?".  i feel for him because he is in such a hurry to get moving in his life - we always are.  i get it, but i still feel pangs of sadness for what lies ahead of him. having to back away from mama-bear mode is very hard for me.  i know he has mistakes to make, i know he may fall.  i believe he is strong enough to get back up and straighten the shit out, but it still frightens me.  another kid seems to be growing emotionally right before my eyes.  it may be a temporary thing, but what i am seeing is helping to ease some of the stress.  thank God.  yet a third kid is beginning a whole new chapter in her life these days.  she too, is growing before my eyes - here it is more of a physical/mental thing.  she is growing but she is just now entering a whole new realm of reality for all of us:  a teen-aged daughter/sister/creature-with-snake-hair/whatever thing.  she will change each and every one of us, in one way or another.

i am at a crossroads.  a natural one, i get that, but no less frightening than any other has been for me.  i just don't do change well...looking back into the past on some of the biggest changes that have occurred in my life, i realize that i have rarely handled them well, emotionally.  i realize that after the dust settles, i tend to flail about for a good while longer.  trying to find *my* ground.  sometimes it takes awhile.   i will see to it that the things that need to be taken care of, are...but won't be surprised if i wander off in my head afterwards to sort it all out.

baby steps.  fuck this day-at-a-time crap.  i WANT to take it one bottle at a time, but even *I* know that isn't the way to handle things.  :)

how about we do this one hour at a time. i think i can do that.

all kindsa fucked up.

i was told last week that i was to not blog about what's been going on in my life.  it's private, shawna...keep it that way.  know what?  this is me...giving a shit about what you think.  i communicate, it's what i do...i realize that's a foreign concept to you.  oh, and you know what else?  ...fuck you.  just because you continue to hide everything away so no one will ever discover the truth about you, doesn't mean i have to.  not any longer. you aren't my real dad.  my real dad digs me.


<3 i love you, real dad <3

i am in turmoil.  like i haven't been in a really long time...things keep hitting me from all sides and i'm buckling.  seriously.  i truly am a weak person.  sure, i can be strong on the outside and around people i don't love. i will protect and shield those i do love, when they need it.  but, get me inside, surrounded by my heart and i am a complete mess.  i cry, i question everything i've ever done.  it blows balls.  i am all kindsa fucked up.

out of respect for those involved, i won't go into details, as much as i feel the desire to...i will say that i have hit a wall in one respect - i'm out of ideas. i've beat my head against this for about 3 years now over the same thing.  even when it appears to be, it's not better, just smoke and mirrors.
{hahahahaaaa, omg i just made a joke and you have no clue.  seriously, i think i'm finally going bat-shit crazy.  ok...back to the surface i go.}
the truth is, nothing has really changed in this situation...all of the talking and rationalizing and deal-making.  none of it seems to have made any difference...it's still going downhill.  or at the very least, plateaued at a not-so-great-actually-rather-shitty-when-you-really-look-at-it level.  i went to my final at-bat with regards to this last week and i'm pretty sure i have still failed.  time will tell, but it's not looking good.  does there comes a point in certain relationships where it's better if we say "fuck it, i really truly gave it my all and i don't know what else to do" and let the chips fall where they fall?  is there really is a point in which you can do no more to help someone see a positive path?  this will come back to bite me in the ass, i have no doubt.  somehow, it will fall back on me - but i really truly have no other aces up my sleeve right now.  it's quite possibly time to let what will be, be.

on another front, i have been fucked over by my personal sense of trust and judgement.  it is really messing with my head.  someone i trusted with all of me turned out to be nothing but a manipulative piece of judgmental, psychotic shit.  don't really want to talk about that.  it is very nerve-wracking.  but, i find myself questioning every thing and worse, every ONE right now. good on you, you piece of shit...you have infiltrated the inner sanctum.  you have fun with that...you fucked up mother-fucker.

lastly - i don't mean to be cryptic, but stick with me here, i do have to protect the "innocent" - someone close to me is echoing someone else who used to be close to me.  in a very painful way and, therefore...it really fucking hurts. bad.  like a knife directly into my gut and then twisted over and over again, bad.  back to the questioning everything.  this has me rethinking everything i've spent the last 25 years doing.  everything.  think about it.   go back 25 years and question the direction you set off in back then.  maybe you shouldn't have taken that particular path, eh?  maybe, just maybe, you should have done something COMPLETELY different.   like, oh...i dunno...become an astronaut, a hobo, a fucking nun*, for that matter...ANYthing other than what you chose.  you were clearly not cut out for this shit. in fact, you are definitely sucking at it.  you are sucking at your chosen way of being a contributing member of life right now.


(*hahahhaaaaa...i said "a fucking nun").


these things have me seriously wondering if i may really, honestly be a certifiable head-case. (all together now..."nooooo, really?")  it would maybe not explain everything, but would at least give a reasonable platform for all that is fucked up.  normally, i would think that possibility was totally cool and bask in it, but i still have to be a responsible person for some people in my life.  ball-blowing, i say.

it's a shitty place to be and i'm really trying to find happy-shawna - she is still in there, just squashed a bit by feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness.  usually this passes, but i've never actually been up against what i am facing now.  i'm a little bit scared, and that just doesn't happen that often. i'm not sure what to do with it.

hold on loosely, bisshes....don't let go.

to shoot or not to shoot...

school rant #3:

go ahead and add the high school nurse to the list of people that hate me...i'll wait.

CA kids are now required to have a bullshit booster shot or they will not be allowed to enroll in school next year. the martinez kid is stressed about not getting his schedule if i don't race down and pay for a booster shot that he shouldn't need. another bullshit scare tactic.  the school's need the money, they'll let my kid in; i just have to sign a waiver. can i really be the only one that calls them on their freakin' dumbass rules? according to the nurse...pretty much, yea.


she told me it was for the safety of my child.  we had a whooping cough "epidemic" in CA last year and 7 kids died.  i asked her if all of those kids had been immunized or if the parents had opted out and she said, and i quote "uhm, i can't verify that - i can tell you that almost all of them either hadn't started or hadn't finished their series of childhood immunizations". 

yea.  that's what i thought.  you know, you peeps that choose to not immunize your kids - for whatever reason - are largely to blame here.  people dying from the freakin whooping cough? in this day and age - seems a bit ridiculous.  i immunized my kids...i didn't like it, they didn't like it, i stressed when they ran fevers afterward - but i did it.  i followed the rules, like a good trained meenky.  now those of you who didn't are threatening the health of MY kids? kinda pisses me off.


i know, i know...immunizations are maybe linked to autism and other things, i get it.  it's a personal decision whether or not to immunize.  personally, i figured the odds of my child developing something terrible after getting shots were slim enough.  plus,  i would rather my children and i be the ones that suffered from my decision TO immunize, instead of a school full of kids that get polio because of my decision to NOT. again, personal choice; no judgment.

argh.  i live in a freakin' community of cattle.  they just go along to get along.  "oh, the state said so?  ok, they must know what they are doing." uhhhh, yea.

jeebus, marcus and jimbob.

with all due respect, william and kate...

i am freaking seething right now.  therefore, i'm once again all over the map :)

two weeks ago my 5th grader informed me that she watched portions of the royal wedding in class that day.  that earned an internal eyeroll on my part, thinking to myself "how the fuck does this even begin to pertain to the education of an 11-yo girl?"  but, i managed to keep my disdain inside as i asked her how the teacher tied that into her average school day...not surprisingly, she had no clue..."i dunno, it was just on".  this morning, the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavor was televised live from Cape Canaveral shortly after her school day started.  this afternoon, when i asked her if they watched it in class, she said to me, "what's a space shuttle?" 

whattheeffevs. i'm so over this school district and their Nazi-control-freak-about-ridiculous-things-yet-clueless-about-things-that-might-actually-affect-the-kids-in-a-positive-way ways. these kids can only wear shorts to school from may through september...keeping in mind they are out of school june, july and august of those 5 months and that central valley often reaches into the triple-digit temps well into october.  they are told that the shorts are a distraction and they are lucky they are allowed to wear them at all during the school year.  these kids also have rules about how long their hair can be - well, the boys have rules; the girls, not so much.  their hair cannot be in their eyes, cannot be past their earlobes and cannot touch the collar of their shirt at the back of the neck.  i'm told it's a "distraction" if these guidelines aren't kept. once,  i went so far as to suggest braden use a hair clip to keep his hair back out of his eyes...the administrator didn't see the humor and denied my request. one time, at band camp, my child was pulled out of class and sent to the office to call me for a change of clothes because he had a factory-ripped (and patched) 1.5" tear in his jeans.  evidently, pulling him out of class and sending him to the office wasn't a distraction, but the sewn-up tear was. our kids no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance at school and if they were to, "God" wouldn't be allowed to participate.  everyone in sports gets a ribbon because if there were such things as winners and losers, feelings would get hurt. uhm, yea...i could go on.  

re-fucking-diculous.

side note:  there are parts of our dress code that i do understand:  no pro-sports team jerseys, hats, logos whatever.  it's a gang thing, check;  ass cheeks are not to be hanging out when they are allowed to wear shorts.  it's a horny teenager thing, check;  camouflage clothing (unless it's pink) is not allowed.  ok, not sure what the reasoning here is, unless they are afraid they'll lose a kid or two during the day to the underbrush outskirts of the enemy's perimeter *eyeroll*, but whatever, i've let it slide.  check.

sorry, back to my original rant.  at Garfield Elementary in Clovis CA, our 11 year old kids are watching the royal wedding in class, but not the launch of a space shuttle into space.  INTO SPACE.  that's still a big deal, right?  i mean, obviously it was back in the dark ages of *my* 5th grade. the AV nerds lived for shit like that.  rolling the equipment into the classroom, anticipation building because we were going to get to watch TV!  surely, America's space program still contains a "teachable moment" or two for science, for technology, for history, for SOMETHING, no?

in the news just last week:  "The World Economic Forum ranks the USA 48th in math and science education...On America’s latest exams (the National Assessment of Educational Progress), one-third or fewer of eighth-grade students were proficient in math, science, or reading. Our high-school graduation rate continues to hover just shy of 70 percent, according to a 2010 report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, and many of those students who do graduate aren’t prepared for college. ACT, the respected national organization that administers college-admissions tests, recently found that 76 percent of our high-school graduates “were not adequately prepared academically for first-year college courses.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/8497/

48th?!?  how is that even fucking possible? how is that acceptable, how did this happen, we ask...well, *i'm* asking anyway.  in a phone call to the school tomorrow; in a letter to the school district this week and in a letter to the editor of every CA newspaper i can get ahold of.  i'm naming names, mary.  i'm fed up with this elitist, uppity and IGNORANT bullshit.  ok, quite honestly i've been fed up with it for a long time - but hey, i'm actually going to do something about it beyond my local bitching this time.  i let a lot of shit roll, i'm aware of that...and this royal wedding vs space shuttle launch in the classroom bullshit is small stuff in the grand scheme of things...but jeebus, it has something to say to everyone of us.  i think it's time we paid attention to what

a few days early this year, but necessary for me right now...

i'm never sure whether or not to post this on the anniversary of the death of my daughter...i've decided to do it again this year for me and me alone.  it is a sad, painful recollection of the day she died, as told 18 years later.  it took a long time for me to put it all down into words and it was amazingly cleansing to do so.  she is always in my heart and she guides me daily.  still.

just a warning of sorts that it isn't pleasant.  it is raw and it is real.  it is a day in my life that changed everything i knew to be real and reshaped everything from that point forward.  it is actually the story of the day that i realized i had no choice but to live my life - regardless of what obstacles were thrown into my path.  we don't get to choose much of our way, but we do get the chance to change how we deal with things in our future.

to those who have never experienced this, may God allow you to continue on through your life without ever knowing it; to those who have experienced it - and i know way too many of you personally - know that you are never alone and that you actually were given an amazing gift.  something that you may not be able to hold in your arms today, but something that will give you the single-most amazing moment yet to come.

miss morgan: december 22, 1990

oh, that tangled web...

been a slightly effed up week...my guy has a wildfire close to his home and has been sitting in ready-to-fly mode for a couple of days now.  he feels particularly stressed, as he has previously watched a home - and all of his belongings - burn to the ground.  it appears that his home is safe, but he is still under evacuation orders...if he leaves to go to work, he will not be allowed back in.  so he sits.

one of my close friends from jr high/high school had surgery yesterday - rather emergency, she found out about it a week ago - all is well as of now and she is supposed to be able to go home this afternoon.  i worried for her for a few different reasons, mainly though because she was petrified that something bad would happen to her.  she has a son that has just started kindergarten two weeks ago...that wasn't going well, and leaving him to stay in the hospital was weighing heavily upon her.  as i said, that appeared to have gone as planned and i think i can rest easier as far as she is concerned.  whew.

got a phone call from my mom yesterday about my gram's...last summer they discovered she has fluid building in her lungs.  she went to the hospital a couple of times to have them drained and discovered a weak valve or some such crap and needed surgery.  well, the bird is 89ish and a bit frail nowadays so they decided last summer that they would not operate on her and just monitor her recurring pneumonia as best they could.  she's been quite good for about a year, but just went back into the hospital last week.  they drained the fluid and released her.  two days later, they will filling up again.  they have now decided that the hospital trips are too hard on her and have agreed that they will monitor from the home, but not readmit her to the hospital.  so...gram's isn't well.  i called her today and i'm not sure she knew who i was for a bit.  she sounded very weak and pretty out of it.  talked to my mom who explained that she has been pretty drugged up this week.  problem is my grams is 5 hours away from here...i'm not sure what to do.  whether or not i should pull the kids out of school and drive up there to see her or wait for more news from my mom.  ugh.  my grams has been such a HUGE part of my life for as long as i can remember - it's some sad shit to say the least.

one of my kids has been having problems that i will not go into here...they involve "friends", school and people of a shitty ilk.  the kind of people you do not want your children to know - ever.  we're dealing with that on a day-to-day basis and i'm trying to not have nightmares involving worst case scenarios. have i mentioned in the last 20 minutes how badly i want my fat, innocent little babies back?

smaller, less significant issues include phone/house alarm/tiVo problems; car needs work done; yard work is - once again - out of control; girl's soccer season has started, and halloween is coming back.  cripes why do i have to deal with this STOOPIT "holiday" every. single. year? ugh.

the good news is that i have food in the pantry, my man loves the shit out of my guts - regardless of the ridiculousness that is my life - and everyone is healthy.  well, the kids are anyway - that is crucial and for that, i am grateful.

holy shit - did i get through that post without one f-bomb?  wow...i am off my game.

i'm sorry, is that the sound of you bleeding out?

have you ever had one of those days where you go from simply 'pissy' to full blown 'bitch' in about 22.3 seconds?  i want to blame my lazy-ass, don't-give-a-shit, it's-all-about-me kids, but i'm not sure that's fair.

what the FUCK am i talking about - of course it's fair.  i keep running through my head "you'll miss them when they are gone" or, "you'll wish for a loud messy house again, just to have the kids back home" but i truly believe that will pan out to be the biggest crock of horse shit known to man, once it's all said and done.  hopefully i'm wrong, i just really doubt it.

as much as i love my kids - they are a huge pain in the ass.  they are lazy, they mess up neat areas for no apparent reason, they break things that they shouldn't even be touching, they make messes simply passing through a room., they destroy things - they have ruined carpet, clothes, walls, blinds, cabinets, fences, plants... all seemingly without a care in the world...they are expensive, they complain when asked to do simple routine things - then they do a shitty job, they have selective hearing, they have selective sight, they have selective brain power.   they are expected to do well in school - they are smart people.  really smart.  until they run across a subject they don't particularly care for - one child might be math or reading, another child might despise physical exercise.  then there's the one that hates anything even remotely related to school and actually shows enthusiasm when he gets detention because his girlfriend is hanging out in there too.  also probably for not giving a shit about anything related to school. terrific.

here is where most of you say "there's your problem, dumbass"  and i don't really care.  sock it to me. here goes:  my kids eventually get pretty much anything they ask for...they have phones, computers, game consoles up the wazoo, ipods - like i said, pretty much whatever they ask for. and sure, they are supposed to maintain decent grades (some do, some don't), they have chores around the house they should be doing without being asked (uh...never), they have rooms to keep somewhat inhabitable (only when my head spins around and i spew hot asphalt tar from my nose), but my definition of that must be completely ridiculous, because they can never seem to hit that mark for more than 10 or 15 minutes.  my point is they rarely apply themselves to doing things the right way.  after nagging and bitching at them about it for days, they look at me like i'm insane and irrational when i finally get pissed.

i really don't ask much of them.  i acknowledge that  most of the reason they are who they are is because of me and who i am.  i see my own shortcomings in them daily - i can be very lazy and look for shortcuts.  what i battle with is that more than anything, i want my kids to be kids...i want them to be happy and experience a kid's life before becoming bogged down with grown-up shit.  but i also want them to someday be adults that people actually want to be around for an extended period of time.  why is it so hard for me to find a middle ground, something between being a helpless needy little kid and a slovenly teenager with frakken ADD?  i mostly make them come back and pick up after themselves when they leave shit laying around or make a mess of some sort.  yes, it is easier for me to throw or put away their crap, but i feel like i need to make a point.  i figure if i get on their nerves enough they'll pick up after themselves for no other reason than not having to hear the sound of my devil-woman screech anymore.  alas, i tire of it before they seem to.

i have a child that begged and pleaded for a fish tank and finally got one with the understanding that it was their responsibility to maintain.  yea, the tank is half full right now, making GOD-awful sucking noises from a lack of water for the filter and contains 2 out of the original 10 fish.  what do i do?  do i say fuck it, and hope the last 2 fish die quickly?  do i take this child by the hand - once AGAIN - and show them how to prepare the water and fill the tank? what do i do?

i have another child that managed to spill hot liquid RED wax in their room.  not just on the carpet, not just on the white baseboards, not even just on the stucco walls - the wax is splattered throughout a roughly 9 square foot area, covering books, clothes and furniture, in addition to the other things mentioned. did i mention that the wax is RED? why, you ask, did this child have hot liquid RED wax in their bedroom?  good fucking question.

i have yet another child who's office 'workspace' is covered with candy wrappers, water bottles, dishes, cd's, dvd's, mxc's (no clue, just made that shit up)...you name it, it's on the desk in there.  have i asked them to clean it up?  of course.  have i cleaned it up myself on occasion?  of course. have i threatened to burn it down if it wasn't kept clean?  probably so, now that i think about it. is it still a mess in there as i type?  absolutely.

seriously, what in GOD'S name made me think i could actually handle raising children?  the baby/young part was easy...i loved it when they were small and defenseless and messy and whiney.  THAT was rewarding.  this...really, not so much.

i'm overwhelmed and probably pms'ing.  i have summer vacation approaching in 2 1/2 weeks and these little bastards are going to put up or...no, no 'or'...i'm starting a list, i'm not even going to check it twice - i know who's been lazy and who's going to have a whip cracked on their ass.  i'm not a horrible parent.  my kids are good kids, but they are even lazier than i am.  i pray that ultimately, Lord willing, they will emerge as kind, albeit not organized or clean, adults...someday.  but the next person that tells me to "be sure and enjoy them at this age because it all goes so fast", can pluck my mexican-by-injection switchblade out of their carotid and then kiss my ever-loving frustrated big ass.

trashed and hanged...

concert was awesome - and i don't just throw that stupid word around lightly. braden loved it, as did everyone else, and we remained the loud family all the way through monday - ears still ringing, i'm pretty sure we all yelled at each other a bit more than normal.

saturday's yard day kicked ass. my kids can work when they are pushed...a bit of whining, yes, but they did a pretty good job getting the yard in shape. one minor "shawna" happened when i was trying to move the green waste bin across the lawn and somehow, inexplicably, tripped on the lid and kinda fell in, yet kinda had it fall on my head. braden had just dumped the mower bag into it and it rained cut grass and thorny rose cuttings all over me. i laid on the ground laughing my ass off, and then the look on braden's face as his brain tried to decipher what it had just seen kept me giggling all day. wow, how lucky are my kids to have me for entertainment, eh?

dinner at the neighbor's sunday was a blast - the weather was PERFECT, the food was DELICIOUS, the wine was ABUNDANT, and the friends were THE BEST! ended up heading to another neighbor's house for a mini concert with drums and vocals provided by karl and the kids. we ended with a fashion show and dance off of sorts - ok, that was all stacy. all of us had so much fun, but damn was i hung monday. which is weird, cause generally, i can put away the wine...but i woke up with a monster headache that refused to leave me all day. my baby waited on his drunken lush girlfriend hand and foot while she recovered. he's so totally my favorite one.

back to the grind boners.

they're baaaaack...

back in the classroom a-gay-in...THEY'RE BAAAACK! sing it with me.

this is week two and so far, so good...braden seems to have gotten over his annual 2nd-week-of-school jitters where he goes to the office 5 times a day with a stomachache or a headache, begging to come home, insisting he's REALLY dying this time. i'm quite proud, seems he took to heart our discussion on dropping a few of those way tired junior-high antics, now that he's in the the "Big Boy School" :/ seems also that he is going to try and pick up school baseball again (please GOD, let him do well) after taking quite a few years off. keeping my fingers crossed - this kid so totally needs a pastime.

the girl is doing well with 4th grade, as usual. she's not only playing soccer, but decided she wants to do cross-country as well. crap, who's kid is this?!? she loves her teacher and has a ton of friends in her class...not exactly the best news for my little social butt-fly, but she seems focused enough. for now.

bennett is...well, he's bennett. he's taking his PE class at home so he can take a college psyche class in it's place. he has an amazingly difficult schedule this year as a junior and has had, since the first day, hours of homework each night. i told him the other day to let me know if he was feeling overwhelmed with it all and he looks at me like i have 7 ears and a penis and says "what good would THAT do, mom?" the unspoken line that followed was "you know you can't help, you're not good at school.", (a warm and fuzzy nod to his dad's gracious pat on my back a few years ago.).

sigh. my babies are growing up.
thank you God, i still have my doubts i'll get them there in one piece.
have i mentioned that AC/DC is in 2 DAYS?

word for the day: necessary

i've been stewing about this cleaning of the bedroom thing for two days now and have come to the conclusion that there really is nothing i can do to *make* him clean his room. he's too big to drag around by the hand and force him to pick things up. my choices are to clean it up on my own - this might actually prompt him to take a full can of garbage and pepper his room with it...he's that stubborn; let him live in his filth - which, granted, isn't horrible...i *can* see the floor, there isn't food growing in there and he's right about the fact that a clean room isn't "necessary" to a productive life; or i can attempt to show him the error of his newly acquired, let's call them "logically free-thinking" ways.

let's take the first option...if i clean his room it causes two problems: one, *I* have to clean his room - ew. two, honestly i would only be doing it to piss him off - he despises his room when it's clean...he says it's depressing. safe to say this isn't the best option. next...

second option: what message does letting him blatantly defy me send to the other two sweet wonderful accommodating children that do clean their rooms when i ask? is it just a matter of time before they put their humongous feet down and refuse to clean their rooms in an act of sibling solidarity? this option does not sit well with me as the MOTY that needs to keep her children respecting her authority in order to not go completely insane, resulting in the packing of my shit and leaving them all with their dad.

option three: he says i'm being spiteful, he says i'm ignoring the respect he has and does show me and painting him unfairly as a derisive little punk. i will admit, the term passive-agressive *has* entered my mind the last two days as i contemplate all of the things i do for him that are truly "unnecessary", but i think i'm gonna run with this option...

i think it will show him that he can't have it both ways - that if one path is chosen, another is foresaken. sacrifices must be made, repercussions will follow the liberating act of overriding authority with "logic"...he needs to be ready to embrace everything that his decision entails and that it's NOT spiteful, it's NOT passive-agressive, it's NOT disregarding his goodness...

it's NOT personal, it's life.
right? RIGHT?!?
f me if shit and two isn't eight.

it started out as a simple request...

mom: "braden, did you clean up your room like i asked?"

braden: "oh, sorry i forgot, i'll do it after dinner."

bennett: "well, i actually didn't clean up mine either."

mom: "what do you mean you didn't clean it...why not?"

bennett: "well, i thought about it and decided not to do it because it's really not necessary - why should you care if my room is clean?"



did i mention i found my first gray hair last week? i swear by all that is Holy, this last year with these kids has been tougher than the previous 15. this particular child has an incredibly rude awakening in his very near future.

Lord almighty...

my baby boy is 16 today. isn't he so handsome?

wah.

a mom walks into a bathroom one day...

and sees that something has literally vomited little foamie bean bag beanies all over the place. they are smashed on the mirror, they are all over the counter top, they are covering the bottom of the bathtub, they are in the toilet, on the toilet, around the toilet, there are some stuck to the ceiling. they are everywhere.

my ex-husband's (ok, a girl can dream) child explains this bizarreness in this way:

"i was bored and so i stabbed a stuffed animal"

what. the. fuck. over.

at what point

does my responsibility to my kids as far as carting their little asses around town at their slightest whim become something i'm allowed to say no to without feeling guilty and/or having to explain myself?

first off - i'm pretty fucking accommodating to all of my kids. their school's are maybe a 1/2 mile away, yet i drive them every morning and pick them up pretty much every afternoon. to be perfectly honest, mostly it's from the fact that i stay at home and consider it to be part of my job.

one child has been visiting with friends after school and on weekends, going to their houses or having them come over here. since most of them live too far to walk, i generally drive him or pick him up - sometimes both and sometimes neither one. sometimes it's not a big deal, sometimes it's a real pain in the ass (think friday - or OK, tuesday - night when all i really want to do is have a bottle of wine and chill). sometimes i bitch about it but mostly i don't, i want my kids to have social lives and would rather drive them myself than not know who the hell they are with.

anyway - i've been trying to explain to them all that even if it appears that i have nothing better to do than cater to them, sometimes it's not going to happen - whether i have a legitimate reason or not. sometimes i just don't feel like it and sometimes i feel like they just expect it and that annoys me, even though that is mostly my fault.

this child asks me last night to go visit a friend today after school and i say ok, but he has to scoop dog poop in the morning before he goes to school. he makes some stupid face and complains about what a crappy way it is to start the day (hahahaa, my sense of humor is deep within in him even if he hates to admit it) and nevermind, he would rather just come home after school. so this is where i blow it. i tell him that, ok...i'll drive him over there if he wants to come home first, scoop, and then go. stupid, way-too-accommodating move on my part, i realize, but it's what i did. so, this morning he gets up and scoops the poop before school. whoa. what? ok, cool. i thank him for compromising and saving me a trip and tell him i'll pick him up from her house around 6 tonight. he calls me after school today and asks me if i'll take him to her house because she got a ride home with some guy he hates and her house is too far for him to walk to. i tell him no that he can just come home because i don't feel like driving him there and then going back to get him a couple of hours later...pure lazyness, i can admit this. besides, if she invited him over, she should have told him that they would be riding with the Dick - she knows they don't like each other, but that's besides the point.

so he whines a bit but starts walking home. he calls me 5 minutes later as it has just occured to him that i was willing to take him over there when he still had his chores to do and he wants an explanation. well.

do i get pissed because i've contradicted myself without a real reason? do i get pissed because i'm being lazy and he's making me feel guilty? or am i just pissed because the little 15 year old fucker is challenging me and making me explain myself? probably it's all 3. we get into a verbal tussel and it just makes me madder. why the hell do i have to spend 20 minutes arguing about why i won't drive his ass to his friends house when i said i would the day before? maybe i don't have a good reason, ok? maybe the circumstances changed and now i'm annoyed that he still wants me to chauffeur him around. my question is do i really need to have a "good reason"? i generally try to explain myself to them because i don't want to be the parent that says "because i said so", but shit...after 20 minutes of his cross-examination that was about all i could say. well, that or "shut the puck up and leave me alone".


i get so frustrated with how little my kids appreciate how fortunate they are. like i said, i know that their expectations are set mostly by me and my examples - the solution to that can only start with me. my problem is in knowing how to explain to them that sometimes i really don't mind and other times it really puts me out and the difference isn't always predictable. i just want them to accept it when i say no and move on.

omg - i'm so missing my little sweet, fat, controllable children these days.

i'll take it with salt, no butter please.

my 8-1/2 year old grill is in a lovely, please-pay-attention-to-me-at-least-18-hours-a-day-or-else-i-will-loudly-interject-some-random-word-into-the-conversation-that-you-are-having-with-someone-else stage.

one particular word happens to be the family code for it now because while visiting my gram (who is old and really cannot tolerate sharp loud noises) a couple of months ago, my girl was evidently not getting enough attention and just belted out, as loud as she could...

"POPCORN! HEY, I WANT POPCORN!!!"she interrupted approximately 3 different conversations that were going on around her, without her. by the look my sweet old gram gave brynn, i could tell she totally wanted to say "what the fuck is WRONG with you, over?"

at any given time, the attention-getter could be a loud noise, a random word, an action, a statement, an article of clothing - anything that effectively stops all surrounding activities and draws all attention instantaneously to you. doing this in our house this now causes everyone within earshot to stop what they are doing, scream "POPCORN!!!" at you and then go back to whatever they were doing before being so rudely drawn off-task. this simultaneously gives you the attention that you so pathetically crave - obviously to the point that you don't even care if peeps get pissed off at you in your attempt to get it - and tells you to bugger off all in a neat little one-word package.

brynn (the one who does this the most) generally refers to some sort of food that she wants; braden has revealed his "popcorn" as a huge (and oh, do i mean huge - kid's running 6'2", a buck-sixty) full-on flop to the floor at your feet accompanied by a loud grunt; and bennett happens to be currently perching one of those personalized, stitched pirate's hats from disneyland on the top of his head, one that apparently used to belong to some swarthy, tiny-headed, badass named Captain Carl.

oy. you can't make this shit up.

but, but, but...

friday morning and things are settling...

company left yesterday afternoon, after a grand week of laughs, love and relaxation.

my dot seems to be doing better every day. i think she feels bad about healing, as she mentions how she misses lucy constantly, but just in a passing kind of way. like it hits her that her pup is gone and oops she had been having fun, so she'll take a moment to kind of sigh and say, "mom, i really miss looby" and then jump into the pool and go back to being the sweet carefree girl that is my daughter.

she has begun "just looking" at puppies on-line. God, kill me now. no, really. just kill me...i SO much don't want to go through another year of raising a puppy, but how do i tell her no? anyone?

"can you feel the loooooove tonight?"

ok, my boys are now 15 and 12 and as gross as they have ever been. overheard in a conversation between the two of them earlier today:

"knock it off chode!"

"shut up, queef!"

"you're a douche."

"you're face is a douche"

"dude, at least MY face isn't a coinpurse."

"MOM! BENNETT SAID MY FACE WAS A COINPURSE!"nasty little chodesmokers...