Thank you, Hoarding: Buried Alive

For totally  making me want to throw away/craigslist/freecycle/ebay/goodwill/burn all of my possessions that I’m not using right this very second. Which includes three children and a dog, along with pants.

I went to the hospital recently to get some IV fluids, and while there I watched four straight episodes of Hoarding/Hoarders/FURRRRR-EEEEEAKS With Serious Mental Disorders Who Are Being Exploited For TV And Are Probably Spending The $5,000 They Make On Buying More Trash No Really I Mean Actual Trash.

And then my parents came to visit and bought the kids new winter clothes — although I am not certain I believe it will EVER get below 90* here — and that reminds me that I have to purge last year’s winter clothes, along with this year’s summer clothes, and it’s always a hassle.

Particularly when I’m pregnant and am probably having either a boy or a girl and don’t know what I should or shouldn’t keep.

Also, I recently went through the garage and found My Chemical Romance’s ORIGINAL birth certificate and social security card in one of eleventy-zillion boxes that he SWEARS he has gone through with a fine-toothed comb (I found a few of those too) and knows exactly where everything is.

Me: “Where’s your social security card?”

MCR: “I know where it is.”

Me (eyes narrow): “Where?”

MCR: “In the ‘important paperwork’ folder. Along with your Publishers Clearinghouse Award for 10 million dollars.”

Me: “Ha. Ha. Ha. Har de har. No, it’s not with my money. It was–” dramatic pause to look him up and down “– in the garage. In a box. With some wires and shit.”

I was raised in the midwest, where basements are used for storing boxes full of wires and social security cards and shit, and you park your car in the garage to avoid having to scrape the snow/ice off it in the morning. My Chemical Romance is 100% Southern California, so he thinks the garage is for storing boxes full of wires and social security cards and shit, and you park on the street.

God help him if we ever move to a climate where it actually snows regularly.

And now I have to go purge.

Or dear. It’s like Cream of Celery!

I’ve noticed lately that I’m getting a lot of hits from things like golden*shower.com and areal*s*xvideo.com and things like that, and I thought, Oh come on! It’s not called a ‘fistula’ because of fisting, people!

My Chemical Romance says it’s because of my name, Cream of Mommy Soup. But, you know, it’s like Cream of Celery or something! Not… ewww.

Should I change it? (again?) Sometimes I lean toward MommyMarinade.com since I love to marinade. Or is it marinate? Whatever. I can actually purchase that domain, mommymarinade, should I choose to.

Please let me know what you think!

In other news, Prop 8 (aka PropH8) was overturned. To which, if you can’t guess, I say HELLSTHEEFFYEAH!

I used to have my minvan covered in bumper stickers of all kinds — including “Don’t blame me. I was raised by wolves.” (Sorry, mom) and “Visualize Whirled Peas.” I had probably 10 stickers on there. Then I decided to get rid of everything except the ones that were really important to me.

So I kept my Cardigan Welsh Corgi Euro-sticker, and

However, when I was looking for that bumper sticker image, I totally wanted to buy this one:

SNORT.

There is something about gay rights that has always been a big thing for me. I can’t explain it. I have no dog in the fight. I don’t even have any close gay friends.

Maybe it’s not even gay rights — I just have empathy for people who are told that they can’t do XYZ because they’re ABC. I’m sure if I’d been around in the 1960s, I would have marched for equality; I definitely would have been all about suffrage. Gay rights seems to be the hot topic for my generation.

I just don’t get wanting to deny the right to marry. Seriously, why not? Marriage is a legal thing, but don’t we all have our own interpretation of it? No two marriages are alike. If two people genuinely want to get married, who am I (or you, or anyone) to say NO? Sorry, you do not have the opportunity to be an idiot like Britney Spears and get married in Vegas for 20 hours. Nor do you have the right to be like Elizabeth Taylor and pledge commitment to someone “til death do you part” — seven different someones.

Apparently we simply hold gays to a higher standard than that.

A really interesting book on the subject of marriage — historical through contemporary — is Elizabeth Gilbert’s follow up to Eat, Pray, Love, which is called Committed (A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage).

Friday Night Jugs

Every Friday night, My Chemical Romance goes to Nerd Night; Animal, Mineral, The Informant, and My Masterpiece watch a movie, and I have my girl friends over for Friday Night Jugs.

I have no idea how FNJ officially started. I love playing cards — my parents are actually professional card players, so games are part of my vernacular – but I refuse to play with My Chemical Romance because he is smarter than me and usually wins, and I’m a sore loser. Wii, on the other hand, is more my intellectual equal — at least when it comes to cards. Wii’s husband works very late most nights, so we were probably hanging out on a Friday night with our kids and they were bogarting the TV, so we decided to play cards like intelligent adults (SNORT).

Then we invited Nice-Nice, because she lives very close to me now, and she brought her baby, E, who still refuses to eat anything that doesn’t have Nice-Nice’s nipple attached to it.

I think next we invited Renaissance Redux — there! You officially have a nickname, RenRedux! I’ll explain it later — and Das Goofendorfer, both of whom have nursing babies.

In fact, everyone but Wii is either pregnant or nursing. I do not think she feels left out, though. She did nurse for four straight years.

Finally, Wii brought in The Mathlete, because we needed someone smart. She has the youngest baby, less than three months.

Occasionally we have She’s Super Sweet, and once we were graced with Six Degrees of Lora. She’s a photographer and everyone in the crunchy community “knows” her.

There are a few rules:

1. It’s always at my house and I make the best food. It’s at my house because four kids — and a half — trumps two (the next closest), and those two are Wii’s kids, who can hang with my kids if her husband isn’t home. Everyone else has not-quite-mobile babies. Also, Nice-Nice, RenRedux and She’s Super Sweet live very close. So it’s easy to get together for a game of four.

I make the best food because… I just do. Last night I cooked baked potato skins (sans bacon), mashed potatoes (made from the insides of the baked potato skins for Nice-Nice, whose baby doesn’t tolerate cheese), and black forest chocolate cake with overly-sweet vanilla frosting that I’d made for Nice-Nice the day before, when she watched my kids. Prior to that, I spent a few weeks experimenting with various deviled egg recipes.

I love cooking for FNJ because they appreciate my food!

2. When we have food, it stays in the kitchen.

This rule was instituted after a game-less game week in which we brought the food into my dining room and rather than play cards or games, we all stuffed our faces and yacked like girlfriends do all night. Wii said it was because the food took up the table, so we didn’t have any room for games.

3. Nice-Nice finds something offensive.

Nice-Nice herself isn’t actually offended; she merely points out that a certain phrase, gesture, word, look, food, child, joke, story, name, picture, internet site, magazine, book, movie, article, or Face*book game could be considered offensive. And how.

4. We offer three invitations to Friday Night Jugs; if you are invited and turn us down three times — without good reason — you are crossed off The List.

Honestly, I can’t see why anyone WOULDN’T want to come back after they attend once. The Mathlete drives over 25 miles one way for FNJ. Because it’s that awesome

I love Friday Night Jugs. It’s very refreshing after a long week, to hang out with my girlfriends. I look forward to Daylight Savings ending, when I can put my kids to bed even earlier and get more girl time!

Yes, the rumor is true.

I really did rub stool softener on my nipples and then pump breastmilk for my then-34 week preemie twins. Or put them to my actual stool-softener laced breast. Either way, they drank Col*ace.

And I might even win an award for it! Please vote for me!

Weird things I like/don’t like

LIKE

1. Organic Milk. 2%.

This isn’t that weird — except for the fact that I’m craving non-raw milk right now. Maybe it’s the consistency of raw that is turning me off. The first few cups of raw milk are practically cream; the last few cups are like drinking skim ::vomit::  Sometimes the place I buy my raw milk runs out, which is how we’ll end up with a gallon or two of organic, and I’m totally hoarding it.

2. Nonfiction.

I just finished Orange is the New Black and it was the best book I’ve read in a long time. Which is really saying something when you consider that I probably read two books per week. Another recent nonfiction winner? Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth. I’m on a wait list for the Oprah bio; I can’t wait for that one either. Along with The Imperfectionists, which is supposedly creative non-fiction.

3. Baking.

I love to cook, that’s not a secret. Baking has never been my thing because it’s so scientific; you really can’t play around with it. You can see or taste if you put in too much flour or not enough baking soda *Not that I would ever do that. Perhaps baking is appealing to my current control-freak tendencies, leading us to #4…

4. FlyLady

Yes, that evil witch with her stupid fairy wings and lace-up shoes — and her ridiculously clean house. I’m trying to form a long-lasting relationship with my “swish-and-swipe” routine. FlyLady is probably improving my marriage: she has taught me that expecting My Chemical Romance to do all the dishes is futile; six people plus a Dog Without a Downside use more plates and bowls than one person can keep up with. Even when using that modern convenience called a dishwasher — and we always use a dishwasher. I am morally opposed to washing dishes by hand. It is perhaps the one way in which I’m totally not-crunchy.

5. My Sixth Sense for Pregnancy

Recently I’ve noted that two women were pregnant long before they even announced it. One, I realized it on the very day she peed on a stick. Another was from a Face*book status. I thought it was abundantly clear to everyone who read it, but so far I’m the only one who has even guessed. Clearly I’ve got some ESP going on with my fellow breeders.

DON’T LIKE

1. Fiction

Oh, whine. If I pick up one more book that involves a “birth gone wrong” scenario, I’m going to live webcam my homebirth so that people can see that birth is normal. Seriously, even that bestseller that I waited on a library lists for months for, The Postmistress, somehow brought in a HORRIBLE TRAGIC BAD BIRTH STORY. The most frustrating thing is trying to find a book that (1) is well-written (2) doesn’t involve HORRIBLE TRAGIC BAD BIRTH STORIES (3) is well-written. Seems like you get either well-written or you get normal birth/no birth.

2. My therapist

Actually, I love her. Possibly too much; I want to know how much longer therapy is going to continue. I started seeing her because I needed a note from a psychologist clearing me for weight-loss surgery; two years later I’m skinny and still problem-plagued. At least in my mind. But having a therapist is a bit of a crutch for me: I use her to gauge where I am, and I need to trust myself to gauge where I am. She says I’ve made progress. Eh, I probably have, but who’s to say I wouldn’t have progressed on my own without her and her $10 copay?

3. Pregnancy brain

What was I just typing about? Where am I? What time is it? I got on this computer to do something, and now I find myself doing something completely different with absolutely no recollection of what I am supposed to be doing, and a vague sense that I’m forgetting something important when I go out in public, like my purse. Or a bra.

4. The Library’s New Hours

Or lack thereof. Due to city budget cuts, my local library is currently open four days per week, two of those days only until 5pm. All I want to do is read (nonfiction; or well-written fiction about non-breeders) and I get agitated when I realize it’s going to be three days before I can even browse paperbacks again. The next closest library is 20 minutes away.

5. The Heat.

GO. AWAY. Seriously.

It’s not about the baby

Y’all, I am freaked out.

For about a month, I’ve known that I’m pregnant and due in December, and I just cannot freaking believe it. I am still in shock, and I’m still not at the point of happiness.

It’s not about the baby, himself or herself. I’m sure he or she is lovely — I’ll find out in six months or so.

I’m just freaked out about having FIVE kids. Five.

The truth is, I’m overwhelmed by four. I don’t think I’m very good at this; I yell more than I should, I don’t give any of them enough individual attention, I’m short with them, I spend too much time online, they’re growing up in SQUALLOR. This parenting gig is hard — I totally GET why people only have one or two.  (Well, as an only child, I would have preferred a sibling, but I get it from the parent’s point of view.)

Basically, I feel like with each kid I have, I have become less effective as a parent. I certainly become less “gentle” as a mother, which is what I strive for in my parenting. (Although I give myself some credit for breastfeeding my fourth child for a year; for cloth diapering #3 and #4 and this one will be in cloth; for switching to organic; for being a better nighttime parent as I’ve gone along. I’ve gotten better at some things. But I’m still not even close to hitting the target on many many things that pain me as a mother.)

Yes, this is mommy guilt talking, as well as tiredness and of course the old standby: pregnancy hormones. And I think that in real life, it sounds like its about the baby — but it’s really not. It’s about me, of course (isn’t everything?)

I visited my friend Heather this week for a few days. She blogs at It’s Twinsanity. She has two older boys, and then two sets of identical twins. Her husband is deployed. For those counting, we had, between us, a total of ten kids ages seven and under — seven kids ages five and under! Anyway, she totally LOVES her life with her crazy amount of children — and actually wants more! I felt bad because I found it very overwhelming — and I find my own life overwhelming — and I can’t bring myself to enjoy something when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Is that normal? Maybe I need to just act and not think — which is what I saw Heather doing. She just did the 3252532532 things that needed doing every single day without taking the time to think, “wow, I am really feeling overwhelmed at this moment.”

I need to do SOMETHING about these feelings I’m having — they’re causing a kind of psychological inertia about both my current life and my future life with five kids. I’m distracted. I’m filled with a lot of thoughts and feelings.

Blogging guilt

I was raised Jewish, so of course I feel guilt more intensely than, say, Jesse James or Jack the Ripper.

And, believe it or not, blogging causes me some amount of guilt. Thus proving I could never rob a bank or steal fruit from a grocery store; I can’t even type words on an empty page without feeling bad.

(I’m also a terrible liar. My friend Wii is the smoothest liar I’ve ever seen; once, while sitting in the office of a very prominent criminal defense attorney, she ran into an acquaintance who worked in the same building. The acquaintance, who clearly attended the Cream of Mommy School of Tact, asked incredulously, “What are you doing here?” Wii smiled a very kind, very mysterious smile and said, “Just in the neighborhood.” It was probably her smirk that put an end to that conversation.

Still, if you’d asked me the same question, I would have said the following:

“Who me? Here? Are you asking me why I’m here–” not snarky (for once!); just trying to buy more time “– well, um, I know it probably looks like I’m here to defend myself against committing a crime using this prominent defense attorney in whose lobby I am currently sitting looking very very nervous and guilty and flipping through Charlotte Magazine, but actually there’s another reason why I’m here. And it doesn’t involve a crime. Particularly NOT a felony. I swear. Um. There was this cat. It died. And I had nothing to do with it, but since everyone knows I hate cats with a passion, and because I happened to be the one who found the dead cat and reported it to the police, they think I did it!”

That is verbatim what I would have said.)

But, despite the fact that I do hate cats passionately — my friend Emily’s husband used to hate cats too, and he once told me that while in school he had to dissect a cat and did so “with relish;” I relished that story until he went and DIDN’T DISOWN EMILY WHEN SHE BROUGHT HOME A CAT, AND IS NOW A HAPPY CAT-OWNER, THAT TRAITOR — my guilt is about blogging.

1. If you’re reading my blog, and if you’ve ever commented, I have probably read your blog and not commented. And I feel bad about that.

2. If you blog, and your blog is even remotely funny/snarky/interesting/relating to the following topics: attachment parenting; food; cooking; your family; hating cats — basically if you’re more than borderline literate and have anything to say about anything — you probably have a great blog, that I may have saved to my Google Reader, but I am not caught up on it, and I feel bad about that. Alternately, I am not reading your blog, and your blog is teh awesome, and I feel bad about that.

3. If you’re following me on Facebook or Twitter, I’m probably not following you back, and I feel bad about that.

4. If you are Animal, Mineral, The Informant, My Masterpiece, My Chemical Romance, or The Dog Without a Downside, and you’ve ever needed me to wipe your butt/give you a bucket to vomit into/find you something clean to wear so that the neighbors don’t think we’re exhibitionists, and instead I’ve been blogging and let you walk the dog while naked with little poo-flecks on your rear end, while someone vomits into our pyrex bowls that never get cleaned in the dishwasher, I feel bad about that.

5. If you’re my neighbor, and have seen me wearing my pajamas at 3pm, while my children ride their bikes naked with the dog’s leash attached to their handlebars so she can get some exercise, for heaven’s sake and maybe someone is throwing up into a bowl because I’ve been too busy blogging to take a shower/do laundry/walk the dog/ensure my children are using toilets to hold their bodily fluids — I feel bad about that

The truth is, I love reading — and writing. I’ve loved writing ever since The Evil Fourth Grade — fourth grade! — Teacher Who Shall Not Be Named But Forced Nine-Year-Olds To Write Book Reports Each Week For The Entire School Year assigned her very first weekly book report. I hated doing them — seriously! nine years old! fourth grade! — but I had a talent for writing. And my writing improved. I got a lot of A+ on those book reports; once I got an A- during an off week.

I went on to earn a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.

And yet, until the last few weeks, I’d hardly written in anything beside my journal since I graduated. I was busy getting unplannedly pregnant, with twins, who had Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, then being a single mom of twins; then meeting My Chemical Romance, then getting married; then moving cross-country; then being a wife and mom of twins; then getting pregnant with The Informant; then moving to another state, then being a wife and mom in a really really depressing small town; then becoming a doula; then having My Masterpiece; then being a wife and mom of four kids ages four and under — all while only knowing my husband for that long; then finding My Chemical Romance a job away from the small depressing town, then moving cross-country again, then being a wife and mom and doula in a completely new part of the country; then having weight loss surgery –

And I’m kind of annoyed at myself; I did so much stuff over those years and I never wrote about it. Only imagine what I would have called the town we lived in on the border of Mexico, where My Chemical Romance learned Spanish slang so offensive he couldn’t tell me — me! Only imagine what I would have written as I lost 130lbs.

I almost feel bad about not writing. Looking back, it seems disingenuous.

I’m making up for lost time. I’m here now.

Homeschool lesson #25233296532: Poetry

In which I use my recent experiences to illustrate three common types of poetry.

Cinquain:

Proctologist

Butt Doctor

Examined my behind

Very tender tissues there

Improving

Haiku:

Rear end floating high

Shining light shows incisions

Doctor says I’m fine

Epitaph — according to this site, an epitaph is a form of poetry!

Here lies Cream of Mommy’s ass-ventures. They began in San Diego, during her pregnancy with The Informant. She felt something sticking out that should instead be in; definitely an anal tumor. However, it was “merely” a hemorrhoid.* After pushing out two more daughters**, and having weight-loss surgery( a Biliopancreatic Diversion with a Duodenal Switch), the fun continued in Charlotte, North Carolina. This time, she employed the use of a colorectal surgeon, and thus had her first experience paying a doctor to worship at the High Temple of Ass-In-The-Air-Under-Bright-Lights. Next she took her show on the road to Florida. While on vacation, rather than sip a Mai-Tai on the beach, she wore My Masterpiece in a Mei Tai — which had absolutely nothing to do with anything, except that it gave her the opportunity to use the phrase “mei-tei” twice in one sentence, which may be a blog record. Thinking she may have yet another “mere” hemorrhoid, she opted to see a doctor. Although staying in the vaulted, gated residence of her parents in an affluent neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale, she could only get an appointment with a colorectal surgeon in the seediest of neighborhoods in Miami.  Of course. The doctor who performed his version of an ass-ectomy — markedly different from the type of ass-ectomy that would be performed by the surgeon in Charlotte, apparently — continued the chain reaction of events: from ass pain, to pain in the incision of the ass; completely different, and leaving her to wonder if the surgery itself was worthwhile at all, save for the good drugs. Now, thanks to copious amounts of pain-killers, as well as sitting on pillows, she is on the mend and believes the ass-tastic adventures of Cream of Mommy are dead.

*Only people who have never had a hemorrhoid can say “merely” like that.

** Folk wisdom says that pregnancy with a daughter steals her mother’s beauty. I believe that pregnancy with a daughter steals her mother’s blissful unawareness of her own ass and the subsequent pain and discomfort that can happen down there.

Stay tuned for more homeschool lessons: Science! History! Economics!

I officially take it very seriously

when you say that something is a pain in your ass.

When you tell me something is a pain in your ass, I will immediately assume that whatever you’re talking about — your kids, your husband, your dog, your washing machine — is causing you the most intense, sharp, shooting, red-hot burning experience of your life. I will immediately tell you to dump it (husband) or sell it (kids, washing machine). Because, for the love of all that is holy, ass pain is not a joke! Ass pain is very very serious! Whatever is causing you ass pain must be gotten rid of, without haste! You can always get another husband or kids!

On the other hand, do not get rid of the dog. Dogs are very useful for cleaning up car upholstery after you take too many pain pills and eat a big meal and there’s tons of traffic on I-95 and you vomit into a paper bag, which leaks, and causes your pain-in-the-ass husband to complain that the smell of vomit is going to make him vomit. Dogs will eat vomit, which mitigates the smell, and voila, you’re still on your way back home.

Here’s to hoping Jesus rises tomorrow and takes my ass pain with him:

And then I can continue my life blogging about really important things like sunglasses and phones that have internet and why, as an adult, I officially like fanny packs, teva sandals, and onions.

Homeschoolers: Vacationing with Regular-Schoolers since 2010

I find it wildly ironic that I happen to take our first vacation as homeschoolers when all the other kids are on spring break. Here’s a quick recap of Disney.

Ten Random Moments at Disney

10. Star Tours. Animal and Mineral thought it was the coolest ride they’ve ever been on. I thought I was going to vomit from motion-sickness.

9. The Informant at Bippity Boppity Boo. Despite being one of those progressive moms who didn’t want to gender stereotype my children, I made a little squee upon seeing The Informant looking like she stepped out of a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Or a mouth.

8. Maizey on the tram to Hollywood Studios. I was hoping I could park at the front and take her to the kennel there (of course Maizey came with us to Disney!) but the parking attendant said she’d have to ride the tram like all the other… people.

7. Eating hamburgers every day: I was in heaven!

6. FastPass. It just rules. Part two is that our tickets somehow mysteriously de-magnetized, meaning the automated FastPass wouldn’t work, so we had to get FastPass tickets from a Disney worker. Meaning we could get FastPass tickets to multiple rides since the automated machine wouldn’t notice!

5. It’s a Small World After All. I even got a little teary, it’s such a sweet ride. Still my favorite.

4. Seeing my aunt Alice and uncle Ronnie and cousin Adam for dinner at TRex in Downtown Disney. Great food; the ambiance was total sensory overload. Afterwards, Ronnie took all of my kids to the Lego Store and bought them sets! Even My Masterpiece! Thank you uncle Ronnie!

3. Breathe-Right Strips: Epic FAIL. My mom still snores like a drunken 400lb trucker. Except now she looks like a drunken 400lb trucker with a sticker on her face.

2. Hollywood Studios. I liked it almost as much as Magic Kingdom. Who knew?

1. Seeing Animal and Mineral enjoying themselves. They’re 7, which is the perfect age for Disney. The Informant got tired and cranky after a few days of staying up late and getting up early, and My Masterpiece is a little young for Disney, but Animal and Mineral were so full of wonder! They were wonder-full.   

I will post some actual pics soon. My camera was awesome!