We’re going to be featured on Hoarders!

No, we are not.

That was a lie.

[But you probably knew that already, because who the hell would excitedly announce online “We’re gonna be on a show featuring sociopaths who collect shit!”? Okay, I know. I know. It’s a mental illness. It’s serious, very sad, what a shame, etc. But it’s a damn funny mental illness. And a weird one. And I make fun of everybody, including myself. Plus, I’m rude. The end.]

Though we didn’t actually get invited to Hoarders, I bet if we sent them pictures of our hallways, living room and kitchen, we might get the green light.

Now you may ask, “Why does your house suddenly appear like one of those whack-job homes on Hoarders?”

Let me lay it out for you in plain English: because my husband and I are fucking psychos.

That was not a lie.

So you all know what my life has been lately, right? Okay, perfect. So the full gravity of the following story will hopefully sink in appropriately: on Tuesday the husband and I went to Ikea (swoon – so much crap! Most of which I can afford! And it looks only like semi-crap once it’s installed in the home! Yay!). No seriously I love that place. Don’t judge.

ANYWAY, so we get there and we’re buying a few organizational items for what will become the homeschool room, and Mac sees these fake wood floors for very, very cheap and announces “Dude, let’s put this in the homeschool room, TODAY.” And since I’ve been asking for non-carpet in there and we’re poor and I’m a total and complete lunatic, I say “for real? Yeah. Good idea.”

Holy fuck why can’t we just  be like normal people? You know, the kind who plan shit?

Why isn’t there a little voice in my head that says “MAYDAY JANELLE MAYDAY!! – redoing the floors requires moving everything out of the room in question and all that furniture and stuff will be in your hallways and living areas and it NEVER takes one day to do projects like this you steaming pile of idiot! SAY NO SAY NO!”

 But I say “yes.” Because there is something wrong with me.

So for the last 5 days you have to walk sideways down my hall and there’s a piano in my entryway and we’ve all been eating in little huddles on the floor, where there’s space. The best part is trying to carry the baby down the hall, sideways, so she’s facing the photos hung on the walls…and grabbing for them. So you have to like DART quickly sideways down the hall.

Somebody please shoot me.

Because it’s even worse than previously indicated. Once we got the floors down I realized I hate the wall color with the floors. So.we.painted.  But while at Home Depot buying the paint for the walls I saw crown moulding and said to myself “well now looky there! Ain’t that pretty?!” So we bought some. But it had to match the base boards. So we painted all.of.that.too.

And now? We’re running like hell to put this together and I ask you, from the bottom of my heart, “WHY DO I DO SHIT LIKE THIS?”

Perhaps more importantly, “Why do I never LEARN from doing shit like this?”
Because I can guarantee you the next time we do work on our house, the circumstances will be just like this time.

And it will suck just as bad.

Though in our defense, it looks damn good (I’ll post pics when it’s done). Plus, we’re having a really good time making up “caulking” jokes [read: “cock-ing”]. Yes, we’re classy.

[To cheer me up, please CLICK HERE (or on the badge on the right) to vote for me for CBS Sacramento’s Most Valuable Blogger Award. I’ve never been nominated for anything, let alone won anything. So please. Hook it up, friends.]

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.

Yes. That was me.

I was the kid who rigged eeny-meeny-miney-moe.

If I knew we were about to do it, I would recite the little rhyme in my head, mentally jumping from person to person to figure out where the last word would land…then I would strategically place myself in the optimum position based on my objectives. And when I “won,” I would act surprised.

Maybe all kids act like that. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve always looked out for number 1, first and foremost. From the beginning, if there was a way for me to win, “come out on top” or get my way, I’d do pretty much everything in my power to make that happen.

It never really occurred to me to think of you.

It never crossed my mind that perhaps I should yield a bit for the benefit of others, even sometimes.

I figured “well, if I’m able to get what I want, why not do it? If you really wanted what you want, you’d try harder.”

I was not mean. In fact, I used to give all my toys away to my friends. I was deeply sensitive and loved hard. It’s just that I thought I knew the best way to do everything. Always. And I never questioned myself. I had a terminal case of Captain Justice syndrome – I knew the right, fair, smartest way to do it, damnit, and IT MUST BE DONE THE RIGHT WAY.

The consequence? I was bossy. Really, really bossy. Not a bully physically, but a verbal bully. I was a yeller. I was a shithead. I simply had to have my way.

This behavior pretty much continued until, well, I’d rather not talk about it. But I’ll give you a hint: I was over 29 and under 31. Yeah. I’m a slow learner.

As a result, I never had too many friends growing up. I had my one best friend in the whole wide world, Claire, who I met in 2^nd grade and have loved like a sister ever since. We also moved a lot, which made longstanding relationships difficult. But mainly it was my personality. I probably wouldn’t have liked me either.

And the other day my little Ava was talking about her new school and she said something like “This is the year I’m going to make some real, close friends. This is the year when I’m going to get a BEST friend like you and Claire.”

And I realized the child is just.like.her.mother.

Sadface.

She’s bossy. She wants her way. She gets pissed when others don’t comply and just can’t figure out why they won’t just do it her way because her way is obviously the smartest and the best and the brightest and the quickest. Isn’t it clear to you people? This is the ONLY WAY. It’s right damnit. Justice must be done!!

Unlike The Seal Incident, which rendered me speechless, I feel semi-confident in my ability to give a little guidance on this particular situation, since I lived the exact same thing and have learned some very tough lessons in the department of extreme self-centeredness.

So I suggest she take it easy on others – that even if she sees her solution as the only plausible one, perhaps she use her friend’s idea just for the hell of it, to give her some room, some respect. Some space to just be.

And maybe her way is indeed the right way and the smartest, but does it really matter?

In 20 years are you going to care what happens right now on the playground? Is the friendship more important than who gets to be the queen or the princess?

I tell her that just because she has a stronger personality than the other kids, just because she’s outgoing and quick and super confident, that doesn’t mean she has to USE her power ALL THE TIME, just because she can.

Maybe she can CHILL sometimes, let the other girl win.

I wish I could just implant in her what took me 30 years to learn…that I am not the center of the entire fucking universe…that my identity is not wrapped up in the outcome of every single situation that comes my way…that it ain’t all my problem and it ain’t all my concern…and that most of the time (and this is a big one folks), when I think I am dead-on, 100% totally and completely RIGHT, I’m 100% dead-on totally and completely wrong.

I want to teach her that there’s freedom in forgiving. In letting shit slide. In letting something else or somebody else or even nothing at all handle some of the big shit. Captain Justice can take a nap.

What a tough gig, huh? Trying to protect another human from themselves. Trying to shield another from walking down the EXACT SAME ROAD that nearly killed you. Trying to help her be somebody, anybody other than me.

Or perhaps I should just forgive. Myself. For being me.

And her. For being me.

Chill. Let it slide. Let us both just be.

Cause I’ve never really been equipped to handle the big shit anyway.

“]”]”]

"I may be a princess, but I'll kick your ass." P.S. this kid does not lack confidence.

Houston, we have a problem.

Janelle is out of shit to say.

NOOOOOOO!!!!! (voice fades off into the distance…)

There’s no way.

OR, she has so much to say she doesn’t know where to begin.

Enough with the third person.

Ever feel like your life is one giant holding pattern? Only you don’t know what it is exactly you’re waiting for?

For things to settle down, maybe. Get stable. Easier.

For more money to come around. For the real career to begin. For the kids to get bigger.

(Even though you nearly cried when your boy showed you his first loose tooth yesterday.)

For life to start fulfilling you all the time, for the vision to become reality. For the image you held of adulthood to become what IS.

Yes, please.

I’ll take some of that.

And I know what y’all enlightened people will say… “Live in the moment, Janelle. Wake up! Be present! Be conscious! Don’t waste your life!”

But none of that self-talk changes the fact that this shit is really hard. And sometimes it appears REALLY QUITE MEANINGLESS.

I mean check it out. We get up. We go to work. We drive around. We do shit. We eat. We sleep. We have fun occasionally. We work and work and work again. My husband works and works and works, pretty much 7 days a week.

AND FOR WHAT?

So we have a house and a car and food and some “savings” and retirement money and an occasional vacation somewhere, so my kids have an opportunity to misbehave in a new environment.

And my kids go to school so they can become good working Americans.

And we go to work so my kids can go to school to become good working Americans.

But what about living?

When do we do THAT? When do we get to just BE? When do we get to stop struggling for the bigger house and bigger car and better clothes…For the time and date when we look around at our lives and say “Sweet. We have ARRIVED.”

I lived in Barcelona for a year (studied abroad in college), and my Spanish friend told me an expression they use over there: “Spaniards work to live. Americans live to work.”

FUCK.

That’s true.

I’ve never forgotten that. And I saw it when I was there. I thought those Spaniards just didn’t have any drive – I thought they lacked ambition, the way they just kinda hung out and worked as little as they could, spending much more time in cafes and bars with friends…not really concerned with getting ahead or getting rich…leaving work at 3pm in the summer cause it’s just too damn hot, taking 2 months of vacation a year…closing their businesses for the afternoon siesta…every day.

But even then, I had to admit: those people seemed HAPPY.

I’m not trying to stereotype an entire nation. Those were just my general observations, of a culture I was living in for the first time.

But I think they have a few things figured out. I think their priorities make sense: do what you have to do to enjoy your damn life. Then, enjoy your damn life.

Because this is it, folks. This is the only chance we get.

THIS IS LIFE.

Am I going to give a shit how big my house is when I’m 80 and dying? How nice my cars were? How much money my kids make?

Probably not.

I will, however, probably feel it deeply if I wasted my life in the ego-driven pursuit of STUFF, buying into the well-established fallacy of the American Dream, at the cost of my contentment, my time, my joy.

My life.

Part of me wants to fuck this whole deal, move elsewhere (Borneo, perhaps?), run some goofy dive shop or café and just live. Let my kids run around. Let my mind run around. Stop seeking earning running.

Sit in cafes with friends. Make enough money to get by.

Work to live.

Clearly it’s too hot. I’m losing my damn mind.

Or, I’m ready for a change. I think I’m on the brink of change.

I just don’t quite know what it is yet…

what it is exactly I’m waiting for.

I created a new category called “things I shouldn’t say out loud let alone publish on the internet.” This post, my friends, falls squarely into that category, and may actually redefine the term “over-sharing.”

I actually considered not writing this, even though I felt compelled to do so.

Because this borders a little too closely on something I may want to pretend doesn’t exist. Something I may deny. Something my ego hates to admit.

But in the first post I wrote for this blog, I asked “where do the bad mothers go?” (Wait. Did I just quote myself? Wow, that’s a new low.)…and that got me thinking…I already admitted I’m a bad mother, and I don’t mean “bad” in the “ha ha ha aren’t I funny because really I’m a great mother and we all know it” kind of way…I mean “bad” like for real bad – like people may wonder if I have a heart bad. Like screw you, Janelle, bad. Like I’m not proud of this but it’s true, bad.

And since I already admitted it, why back out now from telling this shit the way it is?

There’s no reason.

So here you go…

Most of the time, I pretty much can’t stand playing with my kids.

You see? What the fuck. Bad.

Sometimes the stars align perfectly and I’m in a great, playful, carefree mood, and I can play with them and sing and be goofy (like recently when I walked around Walmart with underwear on my head – (I was buying them, they weren’t dirty)…and the kids were in hysterics and we played sword fighting with the foam pool noodles, right there in the aisle…and it was fun and we laughed and I felt like an alright mom for a minute.)

But say…oh…I don’t know…say the kids ask me to play with them, and I’m not in that kind of mood. Say yesterday happens, when I had been cleaning the house for 6 hours and was finished, but was suffering from allergies and feeling not quite right…just a little uneasy…just a little depressed…just a little, wait…what was it? Oh right. Self-pitying and self-centered and DOWN. That’s right. Uninspired. Over it. Fuck this family crap. Down.

But they are kids and they deserve a mom that plays with them.

And they’ve been asking me all day.

And the game’s all set up.

And I should do this for them.

But what I really want to do is leave. Be by myself. Not clean. Not listen to kids. Not be in this house for one more damn second.

But I have that pull. I hear that voice “Janelle…you should do this. Mothers do this. Just fucking do it.”

So I sit down to play Monopoly and they are bouncing. Bouncing. Because mama’s playing a game with them. Mama’s involved. As a courtesy they pretend to buy my plastered smile.

They even put cushions down in my spot, so I would be more comfortable on the floor.

Those kids are damn angels.

But check it out. Everything they do irritates the hell out of me. The way they slam the board when they’re moving their tokens across it…the way they lean over and knock the money piles everywhere…the way Ava directs everybody’s every single move…the way Rocket won’t focus and rolls around constantly…the energy…the time it takes… all of it. My skin is crawling. I act terribly. I’m a straight asshole to those kids, telling them what to do, demanding they do things my way.

Demanding that they not act like kids.

As I’m doing it I hate myself.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m there. But I’m not there.

I try, but I can’t snap out of it.

If you’re reading this and your kids are in college now and you’re thinking about how much you miss them, please don’t tell me how I’m short-sighted and should cherish these times because wow they’re SO QUICK and before I know it they’ll be out of the house and soon I’ll give ANYTHING to have these moments back .

Don’t tell me that.

Because I already know it.

I felt a yearning for that Monopoly game 5 hours after it happened.

I realized the beauty of what I missed while lying in bed that same night.

Right now I feel the sacredness of playing a game with my non-stop director daughter and goofy distracted son. I feel it. I know it.

And YET it doesn’t change it. It has no effect on The Now – when I need it. And all the self-talk “Oh come on, Janelle, be patient. Be kind. Chill the fuck out. These are your KIDS…”… all of it withers in the face of…well…I don’t know. Whatever the hell it is that makes me act like that.

It’s only the next day and I wish I could go back. But as one of my favorite songs says… that’s a “no-go for this hobo.”

I wonder how many times I’ll feel this before I learn.

Sorry, guys. You got dealt a mama who ain’t that good all the time. In fact she’s pretty shitty most of the time.

She’s a bad player.

But she loves you. And she’ll keep trying.

Hang with me little ones.

"I know Alcatraz stopped taking prisoners a while ago, but do you think they'll make an exception for that bitch mother of ours?"