Am I ready to be a "mom"?

It happened.  Dash started calling me MOM. 


I just ignored it the first couple of times, thinking it would pass.  It's been 4 days now.  I am officially no longer a mommy. 

My pregnancy with Dash was insane.  By the time I was 36 weeks, my foot looked like this:

I had issues the whole pregnancy and at 37 weeks, April 29th, 2008,I was induced.  I had preeclampsia so bad that my blood pressure was 110/220.   The birth was horrendous.  When he was finally brought into this world with a pair of forceps, he was horribly bruised, misshapen, birth-marked and immediately turned into my favorite person on the planet.


Just like my pregnancy, his infancy was really hard.  He had terrible colic and never seemed at ease.  He never wanted to be cuddled and the only thing that really made him happy was sitting in front of a television watching Dora.   

This is one of my favorite pictures of Dash because it sort of encompasses his whole infant/babyhood.

Crazy.  He was crazy and all over the place and unable to do anything for more than a couple of minutes.  Life was hard, in the best way possible. 

I don't remember Dash willingly hugging me until he was 2 1/2-3 years old.  He also didn't talk until the same age.   He would say a few words like "Dora", "daddy" and of course, "mommy", but really that was about it. 

I try never to label my children, but with Dash I often wondered what was going on in his head.  I could see that there was so much more to him and I felt like he was often frustrated because he couldn't express what he was feeling.

When Dash started to talk, it was amazing.   He knew things I had no idea a child his age could know.  He knew what karma meant by the time he was 3 and could use it in a sentence.  He always loved trains, and when he started to talk he would all of a sudden just bust out with something like how a steam engine was different than a diesel engine.  I feel like one day he didn't talk and the next he did.

This is all why my new "mom" status is bittersweet.  Because he was delayed with his speech and because it seemed his mind was always working too fast to concentrate, I feel like the last year has just been me getting to know him...and now he's already on to the next stage.  The "mommy" stage was cut short for me with Dash and in a way it is sad.  In another way I feel like we DID IT.  Dash, mommy mom, daddy and some close family did it.  We said $%^& you to the labels and let Dash be Dash. 

Letting go of the control that a label seemingly gives you is freeing.  Maybe there isn't a diagnoses for what is going on.   Maybe nothing is going on. 

All I know is that as Dash's 4th birthday approaches, I realize all the hard times have paid off.  He is as happy as can be, healthy, smart and hilarious.  While he may not fit societies standards of how a 4-year-old should act I am officially refusing to say ADHD ever again.  He is just DASH!   And I love him to death. 

Mother %$^&*#!

If you had anything close to a normal childhood, you'll know what I mean when I say that I wish I could be a child again...even for a day.

Yesterday was a really hard day. It was filled with landlord drama, bad neighbors and a plethora of other stressful things.  When I laid on my bed last night, the one with two toddlers and a 5 month old, I thought about those simple days of childhood.

Parents do so much, but it's hard to truly appreciate it until you're in their shoes as a parent yourself.

It seems like most days are filled with shit you don't want to do.  Making three meals and two snacks, talking your oldest through putting his clothes on because they are 'too silly' to wear, cleaning up spills, messy baths, fixing broken things, throwing away what seems like endless dirty diapers, mopping, sweeping, vacuuming and of course the more serious things like finding a way to put food in your kids' mouths when you're broke, dealing with housing issues and keeping all the bills paid.  This especially applies if you're a single parent. 

One of the hardest things for me is after a crappy day, you've still got to go into your messy kitchen and find something deep in your cupboard to make for dinner, all while your kids are giving each other titty-twisters and head-butting the wall.

Kids are a daily reminder of how simple life can be.  A lot of what makes life so difficult is how we think --  societal standards and the pressure we put on ourselves because of it.  Whether we mean to or not, we end up telling our kids either verbally or through our own actions, what is appropriate and what is unacceptable, taboo and so forth.  

Both of my older kids' goals in life are the same today and have been for the past three weeks or so.  They want to step on each other and to be stepped on and they want to jump off of furniture.  As long as there isn't any danger in what they are doing (and there isn't, surprisingly), who am I to tell them to stop?   I always try to explain to them that if they were in a situation outside of our home, they would have to ask before they do certain things to people, because not everyone thinks like us.  But as far as stopping a behavior because society would think it is weird makes no sense to me.  To me, it's like saying 'lets speed up your childhood so you can become an anxiety-ridden, paranoid, insecure, unhappy adult...and don't wear socks with sandals, you ugly outcast!'. Of course there are a few obvious exceptions, mostly involving genitals.

Before about 5, you're either just not too aware or don't give a crap what people think about you.  Its about doing what you want to do and the shit that you DON'T want to do, your parents take care of.  They don't realize that when they are turning that light switch on and off 700+ times a day that there was a bill paid to make that possible.  When you're down to your last two potatoes and have to make fries for lunch, they think 'mm, mommy's making fries!  SCORE!', they don't think 'we are so low on food that all we have is these two potatoes'.  

While there are a lot of things as an adult that are truly stressful, especially when you've got other lives involved, there are also many situations in which you create your own chaos. 

I'm not going to say to live in an unsanitary house in exchange for jumping on the bed with your kid for sure, but I think we can all take a lesson from our kids (or kids in general even!).  It is more important to jump on that bed and use the blankets as a tortilla than to have a neatly made bed.   By having set ideas of what your house (or life) should be like, you're limiting creativity and stifling yourself, your kids and whoever else is around you.  This is creating your own chaos.  A non-situation that you make into one because of societal or your own standards. 

Even with adult responsibilities I am desperately trying to find the kid in myself.  It is definitely easier when you have kids around because you've got constant reminders on how it works.  Living in the moment, not thinking you need to be up doing this or that.    Time is passing in the same way whether you're enjoying it or stressing about dishes.  I have to tell myself to just stop a lot every day but I am getting there.  I am trying to make my kids' lives and my life as fulfilling as possible..especially because my kids will soon know the stress of adulthood.

Addicted

I have a total of 5G's per month on my internet plan and I'm already maxed out, with 9 days to go until it resets.  This may be a blessing in disguise as it's made me realize how distracted I get by internet-y things while I'm trying to write.  And not just that...but how distracted I am by the internet in general. 

I feel like living simply trumps most everything else, because the appreciation for life you get from living this way is a far better pay off than, say, spending all of your time bullshitting online with people you've never met in real life.  If you're a real internet addict, you lose time with things like FarmVille, but that's for another blog. 

I think at this point, for me, I've got to find balance.  I don't want to be an idiot and shun technology.  The fact that I can question how to spell a word and within minutes have the answer and 500 other random facts about the word is amazing.   It's also useful in that I don't need a dictionary sitting around waiting to be dusted, or having pages ripped out by naughty little boys.  It saves me time, energy and space. 

It also sucks the fucking life out of me.
I often have what I think of as internet hangovers.  I get carried away looking at Facebook and end up staying up way too late.   In the morning I'm groggy, irritated and have that weird heavy head/eye problem.  And yes folks, I even have the guilt that goes with a typical hangover.  Instead of the ohgodhowmuchdididrinkandwhatdidisay-guilt, it's more of a whydidispend9hoursstraightlookingatbackslidersfrommyoldchurchthatihaven'tbeentoin20yearsonfaceook type of guilt.  What a waste of time...of life!   I always think it's fine to have some meaningless entertainment -- the kind where what you're doing has no real purpose other than to entertain, but often when you get caught up in internet-things, it's not meaningless, it's destructive.   

Whether you're looking at an ex's - ex's profile or doing like I do with former church members, the feeling you get isn't anything positive.  It's not like 'aw, they look so happy, yay!'.  It's more like 'I wonder if that chick who wears too much lipstick and doesn't have any eyebrows realizes that the person she's dating uses his toenails as toothpicks?  MAYBE I SHOULD TELL HER.'. 

I usually know when it's time to start putting some rules down for myself and I think it is JUST about that time! 
The point of minimalism is to free yourself up to live life, to be able to enjoy things more fully without thinking of things you need to do, clean, move, take somewhere else, put up, take out, take down or throw away. 

So, I think it's time for me to minimize the time I spend online.  To minimize the inane shit I end up watching on YouTube (uhm, auto tuned dogs?). 
This is all life-filler and not the good kind.

I want to spend more time with my kids, enjoy the simpler days in my life before I am doing school runs, before I am forced to get a job again..I don't want to look back and know that all I've done with ALL of this time I've created is ultimately...nothing.  Will I remember those 5 minute 'this is the cutest baby laugh ever!!' video or how many rows of corn I planted in FarmVille 5 years from now? 

What I WOULD remember is staying in the backyard all day because we can, picnics, morning park runs, taking a drive for no reason, forts, making huge train tracks that span the entire house and baths in the middle of the day with dish soap bubbles.

You really got a hold on me

Advertising!


I am not sure what initially prompted me to start looking up how to apply makeup online, but it started at about 3:00pm yesterday and didn't end until 11:00pm.  That's right folks, I spent 8 hours (a work day!) online researching how to apply eyeliner and then going through Amazon.com with a fine tooth comb searching for that perfect eyeliner brush (plus a whole lot more!).

This morning I woke up still thinking about which set of brushes I wanted to get, the $20 set of 15 or the $60 set of 16 slightly higher quality brushes.

Let me give you an idea of how this 8 hours went.

I look at a youtube video, mouth gaping, of this perfect looking man applying the perfect line of eyeliner with a specific type of brush.
I close my mouth, gather myself, and hop on over to Amazon.com.  I enter 'eyeliner brush' into the search bar.
A few single brushes came up for between $5 and $25.  Wow, pricey.  Especially since the only brushes I've ever been exposed to have been from the dollar store or from a discount bin.

I imagine what I look like right then and how I really need to start taking better care of myself.  It doesn't matter that I am a full time mom and never go anywhere...I need to look good, damn it!

I continue searching.  I spot a large quantity of brushes for about $100.  I think wow, that's a lot, but one brush is 1/4th of that.  I realize I can probably find an even better deal on a brush set for much less.   I was right!  I can!  Brush sets start at around $10.  I don't want to go with a $10 set though, I am worth more..I can get something decent.  I spend the next couple hours searching for vegan brushes as I do not want to kill any animals so I can look better.  I found about three sets that I liked in different price ranges.  I read reviews.  Damn, the angled brush isn't the best says most reviews, but the rest of the set is fabulous.  According to reviews if I get a MAC 203 brush I can replace the faulty angled brush in the set and have a really nice professional quality set in a lovely faux crocodile case.  SCORE!

I put it all in my 'cart'.  I want to make sure I can get to it easily when I get my tax return.
Then I see the 'people who bought this also bought...'.  DAMN!  A set of fingernail brushes to do detailing!  And I was just painting my nails and doing detailing today!  Before I even saw that!  I click.  $4.99!  $4.99 for a set of 8 'professional quality' nail brushes!  An astonishing $85 off the original price.  How can I pass this up?  Really?  I feel like I'm stealing them!


And then this afternoon I had a moment of clarity.  I only need one eyeliner brush.  One.  I do not need a blush brush, an eyebrow dealy, an eyebrow comb, a concealer brush, a foundation brush, and powder brush, a fan brush, a eyeshadow brush, a eye crease brush, a smudge brush...I just need one fucking eyeliner brush...and eco tools sells it for about $3.

It doesn't matter what a 'deal' I'm getting if I'm not going to use these things.   What it boils down to is I would have spent between $20 and $60 for an eyeliner brush.  ONE eyeliner brush.  The rest would be crap that I would have sitting in my bathroom getting knocked over, played with, stuffed in the toilet, put in bath water, used as a toothbrush, dipped in chocolate milk and used a sword.

This is what advertising does to you.  You can get MORE for LESS.  $$$$$  You can be beautiful if you just have these 16 brushes to make sure you address every flaw you have!  You can have ALL OF THIS for the same price as one of those.  $$$$$$$  What a small price to pay for feeling like you're worth a shit. $$$  Impress your family and friends with all this stuff that will sit on your counter!  $$$$$$$$

Now I feel like a complete moron.  I bought into it.  I don't think of myself as a dumb person, but last night this felt very real, like I was right back where I was a year ago when I still wanted things I didn't need, when I still went into purchases blindly.

Let me get real for a minute.
I wear makeup when I go out.  By 'out' I mean grocery shopping, diaper-buying, or to a drive up coffee shop.  I have like..2 friends, which I don't see because I never have a babysitter.  I don't date, I don't go to movies, I don't go out to eat, I don't go anywhere where makeup really matters.
I even got sucked into thinking of purchasing an extremely pricey professional set just in case this was something I absolutely loved and wanted to do on other people (oh my god).
Like I said, I have like 2 friends and lets face it.  I don't want to touch their faces.  Not with my hands, not with brushes.  If I can't even find time to go have coffee with a friend, why would I all of a sudden have time to learn how to apply makeup professionally and then goop it all over my friend's faces.

I can't believe all of this went through my mind last night.
I was all about getting a 'deal' and absolutely had put aside the fact that I want things OUT of my house, not more useless crap IN my house.  I got caught up and it is thoroughly embarrassing.  I had to document this because it has to be one of the lamest things I've done in a long time.

Today I just keep thinking...buy your $3 eyeliner brush and then how about, I don't know...pay your past due PG&E.

God help me.

                                                                          

What "poverty" looks like in the U.S.

According to Wikipedia the poverty level in the United States in 2011 was $22,350. 
I live so below that limit that you wouldn't believe me even if I gave you a number. 

Why is it that I can live so far below poverty level, yet I am able to have everything I need and much, much more?
We live in the U.S., that's why.  I am not living in poverty.  I was lucky enough to be born in the United States instead of a country where when you hear the word "poverty", you know that it means not having running water or even so much as a pair of shoes without holes. 

We have program after program to help people that are low income.  We have cash aid, foodstamps, the foodbank, WIC, HUD, other low income housing, the CARE program for PG&E, Medi-cal, SSI if you have any sort of disability, programs that will help with security deposits on rentals, the Mission for homeless to stay, free meal where you can sit down and eat something hot, the free store where you can get clothing, we even have Freecycle where you can get basically anything you could imagine..for free.

Our own little U.S. version of "poverty" is laughable. 
The fact that our society is all about having more, wanting better, trading in and up, having multiple, having extra and complaining about what we DO have is outrageous.

Shame on us.

My mom was watching a special with Sean Penn on Haiti and though I do not know the exact quote, he said something like 'seek out situations that humble you'.

That is exactly what minimalism is.  It is seeking out a living situation that humbles you.

For me, my idea on what I 'need' has changed greatly since I started this journey. 
I think about everything I touch in my home.  Last night I picked up a small pot and thought 'I do not need this, I can make do with the other one I have'. 

When you stop comparing yourself to people who have more (everyone in the U.S.!) and start focusing in on what you actually need, you realize how amazing you actually have it.   If more people would embrace the "I have too much" way of thinking rather than the "I need more and better" way of thinking, maybe we wouldn't have people starving while we are throwing away 25% or more of the food we buy. 

My goal, just as it was a year ago, is to only keep what I really need.  The thing is, my idea about what I need is ever-changing.  As I see more and more what real poverty looks like, I NEED a less.  My urge to purge things from my home has become almost obsessive.  The less I have, the more I feel like I am closer.  Closer to everything.  Life, I am present.  Closer to finding my calling in life.  Closer to my kids.  Closer to nature. 

My appreciation for life is 10x what it used to be.  I look at pretty much everything I have as a luxury which makes life so much more full. 

Looking around and seeing bare spots is success to me.  It is a visual reminder of the freedom I feel inside.  And the few things that I do have are a visual reminder of how lucky I am to have ANYTHING. 

I live in "poverty" and I am content. 

Oh, what a nice bag of expensive stuff!

Ugh.

I saw THIS link today on Perezhilton.  This sort of post is the reason why I look at sites like these.  My favorite posts are of celebrities buying groceries.  Its totally a guilty pleasure, but I love how you can spot the authentic people really fast when you see what they buy.  I saw a picture of Kim Kardashian buying about 700 bottles of Gatoraid.  She needed two carts.  Then I saw Jessica Alba looking at some iffy green beans to see if she was going to buy them.  Posts where you see an intimate part of someones life really shows you that we all have very basic needs.  We've all got to grocery shop.  Seeing people who are real and true to themselves makes the divide a lot less great. 

I like Jessica Alba.  It isn't like she is an annoying, obnoxious, skinny, mouthy celebrity who has an opinion on everything and tries to be smart (I'm talking about you, Megan Fox!).  I don't know her, obviously, but this post just made me sigh.  

I am not here to judge her, because in all honestly I don't even know what is in that bag.  It looks like there is food in there to me!  What really gets me is the comment below it.  'Now that's a good mom!'.  WHAT?

How does it make you a good mom to bring a large amount of toys to an office so your kids wont be bored?  When I saw this I thought about what my dad always says about having only a couple of toys when he was little.  Kids do not need 500 toys to be happy.  In my experience, if I were a small child going to my mother's office, I would much rather mimic what my mother was doing.  A few pieces of paper and a random object to use as a phone would suffice.  

It is so frustrating how everywhere you look you're told that things = happiness, things = love and things = good parenting.  Its all bullshit!  I bet her kids would rather go to a park or take a walk over playing with a bag of toys ANY DAY!   How can you possibly label a person as a good parent based on a bag of expensive shit?  We don't know, she could beat her children at home.  I obviously don't think this is the case, but expensive crap doesn't = good parenting and I wish more people would use more care when throwing statements like this out. 

I am far enough along in this process to be frightened by that bag of stuff, but just months ago I would have definitely felt inferior and like I wasn't giving my children all that they needed.  Even if only subconsciously.  That crap would still be in my head.  Now I can spot it and call bullshit.

Spending time with your children, telling them you love them, hugging them, letting them ruin a pair of pants out in mud puddles...'now that's a good mom!'.

Does this dress make me look like a person?

I have been getting rid of clutter from my house for almost a year.

One of the first things I read about minimalism was that there are several different phases to decluttering, which has ended up to be one of the things I think about and go back to a lot.  Each phase is supposed to get easier because you'll have (hopefully) learned more about why you hold on to things.  The initial decluttering of your house is extremely hard because you're struggling with your emotional attachment to things.  When you go through the phases you learn that the item doesn't = the memory.

What all of the blogs about minimalism failed to mention was when you get to the last phase; the phase where you're down to the things you 'love' or 'absolutely need', you're forced to sit with these things.  These things are YOU.  Or...what you have decided is you.  So, what happens when you decide you can't, or don't want to be defined by these things?

What about a cliche little plaque on your wall that says 'friends are forever but the blahblahblbhalbha' screams 'THIS IS SO ME!'?  Wouldn't you be being more honest if you were to make your own plaque, with your own thoughts?  Mine would say something like 'I use my back door because I don't want to have to talk to my neighbors' or 'I only check the mail when it gets dark and neighbors aren't awake so I don't have to bullshit with them'.  You are letting someone else define you every time something comes into your home.   If you have two panda bear figurines, you are now Joe Schmo who likes panda bears made in a factory in China.   I imagine myself in a empty white room standing there.  Then I imagine myself in a room with all kinds of knick-knacks around me.  Which is more me?  I, of course, think standing alone in a room is as close to 'me' as it can get.   I am me.  I am standing here.  This is me.  Talk to me.  I will tell you if I like panda figurines made in China.  If they are so important to me, I will definitely mention them.   I am every single thing you can know about me.  All right here.  In ME.

So what do I do with all this crap in my life that I've collected to show what kind of person I am?  The crap that ended up taking new life, picking up more crap like a fly strip along the way.   What the hell do I do with this mixed up bunch of shit that was supposed to represent who I was/am?    How do I get past the fact that I do not love cat figurines?  Somewhere something took a wrong turn and I turned into a cat figurine lover without even asking myself if I loved cat figurines?  WHO THE HELL AM I?


I am not saying that anyone should get rid of all of their possessions, but why do you have what you have?  Is it because when you look at it you feel a sense of happiness, calm, warmth or peace?   Or when you look at it do you think 'I like ladybugs.  I like red and black.  I am a ladybug collector.'?  Has all your crap BECOME what you are?

After some thought, I realized what is important to me is the feeling I get off of something.  If I look at a picture on the wall and feel happy, I should probably keep it.  Not just happy, but like, a deep sense of happiness.  Like, when I look at this picture it enriches my life. 



I've always heard that things don't define you, but uh, they sort of do.