Two Years

Update: Sorry about the faulty links. I think they're all fixed now.

Two years ago today, I started this blog. At the time, I’d recently had a miscarriage, and the doctor had just given us the green light to try again. I was a bundle of nerves.

Since then, I lost 15 pounds, (and gained it back); I obsessed about the presidential election; I turned 35; I got pregnant, nauseous, brave and scared. I had a baby, had trouble nursing, fell in love, lost my mind, wondered what I was doing with my life, lost out on a few jobs, got depressed and brought PMS to a new level. I laughed about my kids, complained about my kids, and got sentimental, too.

Cool things have happened to me while blogging. I won Blogging for Books, became a DotMom, and was featured by Mommybloggers. I started running ads on this site and giving away books and DVDs, which, the hell? How bizarre is that? I never thought I’d keep writing here for so long, and if you told me I’d start running paid ads here, especially ones with scary looking guys like the one at right, I'd never have believed it.

The best part of blogging for me, though, has been the kind people who have left comments, sent emails, or added me to their blogrolls. Even though it can morph into a strange social pressure (five people removed me from their blogrolls this week -- *twitch*), for me the good far outweighs the bad. The friends and acquaintances I’ve met through Wonder Mom are the main reason I keep it going. Thanks to all of you who stop by and read and sometimes take a moment to share a laugh, say hi, or tell me you understand. I’m always so surprised and glad to hear from you.

Since it’s my anniversary, and since Brian’s on vacation this week, I’m taking a week or so off from the blog. We’re taking the kids to the beach and to Story Land, and we'd like to relax and get caught up on a few things, too. I know the week will fly by, and I know if I sit at my computer too long, my husband and boys will rip it off my desk and bury it in the backyard. Even Ava has figured out how to turn my computer off, and she uses this skill often. I need to, you know, GET THE HELL OFF THE COMPUTER!

This is good timing too, because everyone’s going to BlogHer this week except me, and no one wants to hear me whine about that, especially me. I decided against going because of funds and because I don’t want to leave Ava for so long.

More than those things, though, I can be a bit of a sociophobe, and I think if I met all of my blog idols and crushes at one big social event I would blow a tube. So, next week sometime I'll be back, tanned, relaxed, and with all tube’s in tact.

That’s if I don’t run away before then ...

Fool's Paradise

I've written quite a few safety-related posts lately. Then my neighbor started calling me "safety mom," and I sense it's not meant as a compliment, but more of a "You're freaking insane, woman, lighten up," kind of statement.

I earn the title, though. At first, I tried to assure my neighbor that I'm not a paranoid fraidy cat when it comes to my kids' safety, but as I looked around my yard yesterday with some trepidation, I realized that yeah, I'm paranoid. And a fraidy cat. Click on the picture to see the hidden dangers I see lurking back there.



For all of you that mentioned a fence in my swimming pool post: Brian and I have been debating (read: fighting) about this one for years, and guess what? The pool incident tipped the scales in my favor. New fence coming soon!

For Ben

OK, um .... I know this is weird, but I was checking out Hey, You! the other night and found myself perusing Ben's photos. Then I came across this picture in his family photos, and realized that we live in a parallel universe of beige-painted, paneled walls and brown leather couches, lounging children and lazy pets.

This is Ben and Shadow hanging out in the family room. Strange, huh? Too bad Ben wasn't holding a ukulele, or something.

Should School Buses Have Seat Belts?

My latest post is up at DotMoms today.

Last month, my 4-year-old son went on his first field trip, with his preschool, to a farm 30 minutes away. How exciting! His first school bus ride.

My enthusiasm fell into uneasiness, though, when I remembered: Massachusetts school buses don’t have seat belts. Picturing the little boy I’d strapped in to his car seat a billion times whizzing down the highway freestyle on a bench seat, I seriously considered driving him myself and meeting the class at the farm. In the end, John took the bus and lived, and I chastised myself for being overprotective ...

Safe

Saturday morning, while giving Ava a tour of our back yard, I saw something that made my heart stop. Then I marched across the yard with the baby perched on my hip, ripped bits of a Maple leaf falling from her hand. With each step, the narrowness with which we’d avoided tragedy crystallized in my mind.

A little background: Two summers ago, our neighbors got an above-ground pool. While we have a nice backyard, our house is right on the street, with little elbow room between houses. So having a neighbor with an above-ground pool feels much like having a pool ourselves, except without the swimming.

On Saturday, I had been standing with Ava, letting her assault the young maple tree near out neighbor's property, wondering why the filter on their pool sounds like a small airplane. Then I saw it. Beside the filter, up against the side of the pool, stood a storage trunk. I continued to look at the trunk while coming up with polite ways to tell my neighbors to build a box around the filter to keep the noise down. (“You know your filter? The one that’s sounds like a Boeing 747?”)

Then, in a divine moment of clarity, I realized the trunk did more than store miscellaneous pool supplies. Standing at 2 1/2 feet against the 5-foot pool, it also made a nice staircase for my boys.

A stairway to heaven, if you will.

By the time I got to the living room, my lungs and heart had converged in my esophagus and together administered CPR on themselves. Even though no one got hurt, I felt the weight of it, of what could have happened.

In a matter of seconds.

How many times had I lost sight of the boys, and assumed they were in the woods, if only for a few minutes?

That’s all it takes.


This is the boys' sandbox with the gray side of the neighbor's pool in the background. The trunk was right there.

I sputtered the facts to Brian. He insisted the trunk had been there just a few days. But still! Just in the last few weeks, we had started letting Ben go in the yard without staring at him every second. Ben, my six year old who thinks he can swim because of the inner tubes that keep him afloat, even though I tell him he’ll drown and never, ever go in the water without mom or dad.

“I can swim, Mama. Really.”

At first I told Brian to go talk to the husband. Then I decided, no. This is between me and her.

When her car appeared in the driveway I walked over, Ava still attached to my side. They were eating lunch but invited me in. I thanked her for the advice she gave last week about Ben’s sting (put a baking soda compress on it).

“It worked within five minutes,” I smiled. Then, “You know that trunk next to your pool?”

Maybe she thought the boys had done something to it, ransacked it and strewn the contents about the trees.

“The trunk? Yeah.”

“How long’s it been there?”

“Oh, I don’t know ...”

“Forever?”

“Yeah.”

Forever. Two years. Here I was, considering myself overprotective, knowing the hazard of that pool. But I failed to see that damned trunk! Anytime I changed a diaper in the nursery and thought they were in the basement. All the times I “knew” they were in the woods and kept searching the tree line, looking for a sign of John’s shirt. My boys could have ...

But they didn’t. They’re safe.

“My boys can just step into the pool using that,” I managed to explain with no air coming in our out of my lungs.

She paused. “Gee, I never thought of that.”

"Why should you think of that??" I screamed. "You’re just the #$!%* school nurse! The one who sent the note home about summer !$#!#$ safety!! What the !$##@! were you THINKING?! Why are you TRYING TO KILL MY BOYS??!!”

Well, no. Thankfully that all stayed in my head. I said nothing, and she said, "I'll move it."

“Thanks. The new tile looks great in here, by the way. Well, I see you two are eating lunch, so I’ll get out of your way.”

Later that night, I stopped shaking. My heartbeat slowed back to normal. My brain stopped playing nonstop shorts of Ben or John floating face down in the water. The trunk has been moved, my boys are safe.

My boys are safe.

PMS Journal Entry, 25th Anniversary Edition: Bitch on Wheels

Yesterday was a lousy day, a hormonal hurricane of impatience, hollering and general parental failure. However, on reflection, I can remember some good things I did, too.

Good: When I found myself standing at the kitchen sink at 10:30 a.m., feeling the tears coming as my 6 year old yelled at me, I stopped. I bit back the tears, walked to the calendar and noted that, yes, Dorothy, you are P minus 5 days.

Bad: I still spent the rest of the morning doing battle with said 6 year old, chasing him around tables and couches, guiding him to his room or his corner.

Good: Realized that my boys can smell PMS on their mom the way a dog can smell fear. Took deep breathes and repeated, “You have PMS, they are children, you have PMS, they are children.”

Bad: Still let their bad behavior get to me. Yelled way too much, and smacked both boys on the butt at different points.

Good: Resisted the urge to email everyone I’ve ever heard say they would never smack their kids, especially those with no kids or just one, and tell them to bite me.

Bad: Drank lots of coffee, ate lots of chocolate.

Good: Considered that perhaps the 8 million articles on preventing PMS that advise avoiding chocolate, caffeine and alcohol may have a point after all. Decide to try cutting down on those things during PMS week. Next month.

Bad: Got to the point with my boys that I didn’t even want to speak to them or play with them. Sat at my computer working and let them fend for themselves, the brats!

Good: Called Brian and arranged for him to take charge of the kids after work.

Bad: Did order five pairs of shoes after finding the Amazon sale through WantNot.net.

Good: Did not order every other thing I could find through Wantnot.net. Did get some free stuff though. (Gosh, that Mir's so pretty!)

Bad: Mentally wrote a scathing email to an editor who didn’t hire me, the one who at first said she would hire me in the next round but then passed. Thanked her for her consideration, then berated her for telling me they decided not to hire a second round of writers when that is obviously not the case. Explained how rejection hurts but rejection with a lie attached is just plain insulting.

Good: Didn't send it.

Bad: Realized that this summer marks the 25th anniversary of getting my period. Wondered why, after a quarter century of experience, I still cannot prevail over the hormonal ravages of PMS. It gets me. Every. Time. Also? Ben has been such a pain in the ass lately! And?? I feel like the meanest mom on the planet!! Maybe I’m just a bitch who uses PMS as an excuse.

Good: Refused to wallow. Called a moratorium on thinking for the day. Tomorrow’s a new day, yadda, yadda. Went to Amazon.com and ordered Your Six Year Old: Loving and Defiant.

Bad: In the waiting room at Ben’s speech therapy office, while I stood with Ava on my hip talking to the therapist, John kicked the shape-sorting bucket that a little boy was playing with on the floor. Hard. Struggled, under the gaze of three other mothers, to administer a timeout to my wayward charge while retaining the therapist’s words. In the van, as I buckled Ben in, he looked at me and said, “Hey, big nipples, stinky butt,” sending both boys into Beavis-and-Butthead laughter.

Good: Decided that the boys should not have the ice cream I had planned to get them after speech therapy. I, however, should. I pulled into McDonald’s drive through and ordered myself a cone. This was my first ice cream since giving up dairy for Ava last summer and, with the element of due punishment for the boys added in, it was the most delicious I have ever eaten. I turned up Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home,” on the radio to drown out Ben’s incessant whining and, obligingly, took the long way home to savor my soft serve.

“Cause you’re the joke of the neighborhood
Why should you care if you’re feeling good
Take the long way home
Take the long way home ...

“Does it feel that your life’s become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy.
When you look through the years and see what you could
Have been oh, what might have been,
If you’d had more time.

So, when the day comes to settle down,
Who’s to blame if you’re not around?
You took the long way home
You took the long way home ...”

Good: Drove and thought about how hard Brian and I will laugh about this later, me eating ice cream in front of my deprived/depraved boys. Felt glad that, unlike the poor bloke in the song, I do have more time. And, I am home.