I am so tired.

Okay so I don’t want to say I made a mistake.

But I think I made a mistake.

I am too tired.

FOR.MY.LIFE.

If I wake up at 5am, clean, make breakfast, get Rocket up, get Ava ready for school, start homeschool by 8am, put baby down at 9 or 10am, continue homeschool, take a shower, leave for grad school at 11, go to classes, study between them, race home, make phone calls on the way home that I’ve been neglecting for too long, get home, see kids, feed kids, bathe kids if they stink, put kids to bed, read, study, work from home (oh yeah, I’m doing that too), write, get to bed by 11pm – and actually SLEEP, I can usually manage to get up the next day and start all over again.

BUT, as you know from this post, most of the time it’s “go to bed at 11pm and realize you can’t freaking sleep because there is too much on your mind and you can’t stop reflecting on how you’re totally not meeting any of your kid’s needs on any level in any way and pretty soon the ball is going to drop and Ava is 9 which is almost 10 which is almost 12 and everybody knows 12 is the beginning of prepubescent insanity (so you’ve lost her) and Rocket and Georgia and AND…it’s pretty much all going to hell in a handbasket. The end.”

Irrational nutjob am I.

Seriously, people. What the hell was I thinking?

I want to go back to the office, where it’s safe.

I want to drop my kids off at school where they become somebody else’s problem (did I just say that out loud?).

I want to sleep at night like I did when I was a kid and my head would hit the pillow and immediately. I’m gone.

I want to not suck fear all the time. Like air. Fear of failing. Of letting kids down. Of missing my life. Of bad grades. Of regretting. Of not getting a job. Of totally and completely blowing it for real.

I want I want I want I want.

I sound like a spoiled kid.

Because the truth is, I’m living the damn dream. I’ve never had it so good. My fears are inventions of an overtired brain. The death-and-doom scenarios concoctions of a hyperactive ego.

Shit, I’ve already totally and completely blown it. And YET, I’m fine.

[Of course I’m using that term loosely.]

Which reminds me, I heard this woman say she has two prayers: one for the morning and one for the night. In the morning it’s “Whatever;” in the night it’s “Oh well.”

Now that’s some spirituality I can get behind. Bring it on, life. Whatever you got. And then, at the end of the day, acceptance that nothing ever goes as anticipated. Oh well. Over it. Movin’ the hell on.

And then, perhaps, rather than my panties getting’ all knotted up and keeping me awake all night, I could let go and my head would hit the pillow and immediately. I’d be gone.

Because seriously people, nobody respects my visions. And they aren’t even big.

Take this evening, for example. I made carnitas. Wow. Real food, at dinner. Mac was coming home from work – I was home – I was not doing something more pressing. Soooo, being the superstar mother that I am, I decided that we would, for a change, eat a real meal at the table together as a family (this used to be something I was adamant had to occur every day – but now, I’m lucky to get it twice a week, which I’m sure will contribute to the early degeneration of my offspring, a theory that torments me, nightly, at approximately 1am) – and, back on track – so I’m making this dinner and puttin’ in the effort and being cheerful and whatnot and the 9-year-old, well, she decided to have one of her 9-year-old episodes.

She was horrendous. Full of drama and self-pity and nobody can say anything right and she’s about to slaughter her brother and me in fury (for some reason) but then it’s tears and I’m trying trying trying to fix it but I cannot.  I attempt jokes, fail. Strong hand, fail. Fail. Fail. So when Mac gets home I’ve quit trying, everybody’s pissed and the baby’s crying and I’m about to chuck carnitas at the cat and Rocket’s putting his Legos in his milk (my attention was on Ava, remember?), so we sit and eat our food in irritated small-talk and all I want is to get it over with so I can read the 75 pages I’ve got looming. For tomorrow.

NOW.

Do you see the beauty of those two simple words?

OH fucking WELL.

(Okay fine, three.)

Actually, I can think of three more: We will survive.

The end.

I have a real toddler.

My first two kids weren’t “real” toddlers. Evidently they went through the toddler stage, but they didn’t really ACT like toddlers. They just kind of hung out. I’ve never bought those drawer or door locks or done any “toddler-proofing” (what a stupid expression).

This one, though? This Georgia character? She’s the real deal.

And holy crap my friends, this is a lot of work.

I spend most of my time averting disaster.

If she can reach it, she pulls it over. On her head. On the floor. On the cat.

If she’s in the bathroom, she’s inspecting the toilet bowl brush.

Or the trash.

She’s climbed into the dishwasher. Onto the kitchen island. Attempted entrance into the fireplace. And will leave through any opened doors.

Gets stuck under tables. Gets inside bags, baskets and boxes.

Wedges herself into all accessible small spaces. Then screams.

Topples head-first into items she’s attempting to scale, such as, the bathtub.

Climbs stairs.

In short, if there is an item in the room that is disgusting and messy or has the ability to choke her or cause some other grievous bodily harm or threaten her immediate well-being, she makes a damn beeline for it and if I’m not RIGHT THERE, there will be disaster.

Not maybe. For sure.

Everything I do I have to do it quickly, because there is a toddler on my tail. She’s gotta be RIGHT up in my business, all the time. If I’m unloading the dishwasher, she’s standing next to me grabbing shit out of it, preferably knives.

And what is she some sort of power crawler? She’s NEVER IN THE SAME PLACE for more than 3 seconds. She’s there. I look away. She’s GONE.

And then I’m bolting around “Georgia!?” (as if she’s some sort of dog that comes when called), finally finding her wrapped in the computer power cords and grinning at me like “What?”

Taking a shower. Always a treat.

Three to five minutes during which I leave the toddler unattended. I usually resort to letting her play with a roll of toilet paper or some other weirdness, because at least that way she’s not engaging in potentially life-threatening behavior and it’s a mess I know and anticipate, which somehow makes it easier.

I guess.

There is really no way to make toddlerhood easier.

This shit pretty much just bites.

Except for the fact that they’re freaking adorable and are still babies most of the time, cuddling and being fat and babbling and laughing and kissing and perfect.

Well, when they’re not eating the cat’s food.

Or pulling books off the shelves.

Or crawling into the refrigerator.

For the tenth time today.

Because your older kids just can’t seem to figure out the whole refrigerator-door shutting phenomenon.

Shiiiiiiiiit.

Let’s just look at a picture. To forget.

Or maybe, to remember.

"Who, me?"

So yesterday I went out with the three kids. Mac was working (shocker), and I was feeling ambitious and altruistic, figuring “I can handle this. I’m a good mom.” Plus, if I’m OUT of my house I don’t have to deal with the mess IN my house.

I know. I’m a thinker.

So we went to breakfast. Then we went to a craft store to pick out fabric for curtains I’ll never actually sew, and we walked around the 2^nd-hand baby store (where I bitched about the prices, realizing I can buy the same shit for cheaper at Old Navy and it’s NEW)…then we went to a couple other stores, then Costco.

And really the little hoodlums were pretty good. I mean they’re kids, so they can’t be THAT good, but for kids, they were alright.

But by the end of our outing I realized something: My kids never stop talking. They never, ever, ever fucking EVER stop talking.

“Mama, do you think it’s weird when girls talk about boys they like?”

“Mama, why are we going this way? Can’t we walk to the next store? Why can’t we walk? I wanna walk. We never walk ANYWHERE. Why do we never walk anywhere?”

“Mama, can we buy this wooden chest of drawers for my doll clothes?”

“Mama, I love it when I fart in my underwear.”

“Mama, Georgia has a booger.”

“Mama, you never buy us anything.”

“Mama, how do the police tell the bad guys from the good guys?”

“Mama, how did the Russian Revolution start?” (Yes, Ava actually asked that.)

“Mama, how come Hitler used gas on the Jews when  all the countries signed that agreement after World War I promising never to use gas again during war?” (and that too.)

“Mama, will I ever grow up as tall as daddy? How tall is daddy? Is he taller than an elephant? I want to be taller than an elephant. A crane is taller than an elephant. But what about a giraffe? Is daddy taller than a giraffe? A crane is taller than a giraffe for sure. Pretty much everything isn’t as tall as a crane. Right, mama? Is a crane taller than everything?”

And ON and ON and ON and ON.

And on.

And on.

And on.

Please give me a break. One break. Two minutes of silence.

Holy fuck do they EVER stop talking?

No. They don’t. They are relentless. I don’t think they breathe. They only talk.

When I’m with all three of them, there is always one of them making noise in my direction, needing me. Always.

Whether it’s whining or crying or wailing or squealing or talking…there’s always noise coming at me from the little people.

My husband can sit there and, by all appearances, not hear a single smidgen of it.

I on the other hand hear every single speck of chatter and feel compelled to answer each and every question they pose. [Unless it has to do with farts or poop or underwear. Most of those questions I let go unanswered, realizing the purpose is usually just to say the word “fart” or “poop” or “underwear” – any response being almost wholly irrelevant.]

I do okay at the beginning. But after a few hours…my Lord I’m tired of people talking at me. I’m an extrovert and all, but shit. Everybody’s got a limit.

And then I start giving one word answers and my daughter starts picking up on my impatience and I start feeling guilty so I try again but my heart’s not in it but they don’t stop because they actually physically cannot (by the way, is that some sort of ailment?)…so we just go on like that…forever….it’s all really quite a lovely little picture.

So I turn on music. Loud.

But they talk anyway. OVER THE MUSIC.

Sometimes I pretend I can’t hear them.

But they only TALK LOUDER.

Deep breaths. Mantras. “I am a rock in a stream.”

Yeah right. That shit never works.

I tried telling them once about the Dalia Lama stating that “senseless chatter” was a bad thing, clouding the mind and separating us from our Buddha nature. While it appeared promising at first, that particular strategy backfired miserably when they started accusing me of “doing senseless chatter” almost every time I brought up a subject they didn’t feel like hearing.

Oh well.

I know I’ll miss this in 20 years.

OR WILL I?

The only time I get any peace from the NOISE. Except wait a minute. Ava is not in this picture, which means she was probably with me. Talking. Talking to me. Talking to me endlessly. Shiiiiit.