1. Georgia’s new trick is to climb onto the toilet and then onto the bathroom sink, using the toilet paper roll as her support. Once up there, she drinks out of the faucet, douses her head under water, or “brushes teef.”
2. Tonight, just to spice things up a bit, she decided to rub hand soap in her eyes. Why was she alone long enough to do that, you ask? Because I’m a bad parent. No really. That’s the reason.
3. Damn. I should have said I’m into “free-range parenting,” then my neglect could seem purposeful. Not that free-range parenting is neglectful. I don’t know enough about it to form an opinion. At this point, I’m just talking shit.
4. How surprising.
5. Honestly, I think I kind of lean toward free-range parenting, unless it involves leaving my kids unattended in a park. Not because I don’t trust my kids, but rather because I don’t trust humanity. Period.
6. I went on the Paleo diet for 6 days. Yes, that’s right you heard me. Six days. Why? Because I want to lose the last 20 pounds and I thought that diet might help me break my crack-addict need for sugar. Why only 6 days? BECAUSE THAT SHIT IS FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Also, I’m a quitter.
7. I have an exam tomorrow in a linguistics class that constitutes 25% of my grade. I hope that explains why I’m sitting here writing a blog post, and gives you an idea of how well this semester is going. You know, my level of engagement.
8. Yesterday was my mom’s birthday, so we drove to Chico to visit my brother. All of us (my mom, brother, his wife, their 3 kids and my brood) all went on a bike ride in this enormous park with a creek, then we went back to his house and ate great food and cake (yes, that was the end of my Paleo diet).

And in the days leading up to my mom’s birthday, I was thinking about her.

I was thinking of the woman who nursed me until I was four, who never said I couldn’t sleep in her bed, even when I was 18 and home from college and just felt like it.

I was thinking of a single mother who packed up her kids with no money and a bursting heart and drove them up the coast of California, through Oregon and Washington to British Columbia, with not one campground reservation nor shred of restraint, camping along rivers, hills, in storms, in the sun, catching fish, building fires, shielding us from the rain and the world.

But opening it to us, too.

Of a woman who snuck us into events we couldn’t afford, laughed at crap in her way, stretched a few rules, but only the “little ones.”

Don’t bother telling her it can’t be done.

She’ll do it.

I was thinking of a woman who sang Grace Slick in the car and Big Brother & the Holding Company and talked of the first time she heard “The Times They are A-Changin,” how she cried because his words were so true, and she knew them to be true. How she listened to Sunday concerts in Golden Gate Park in the 60s, worked in a candy shop in high school, and for Francis Ford Coppola later, drank Southern Comfort with Janis Joplin. A woman with some history.

I was thinking of a woman who faced empty pockets but never defeat, started businesses on her own and when they failed, and she found herself at zero, on the ground, she packed up those kids, went to the beach and started again on Monday.

Don’t bother telling her it can’t be done.

I was thinking of a woman who taught me about natural birth and breastfeeding, and when the time came, she helped me do both.

I was thinking of a woman who raised my children while I lost myself in the depths of alcoholism – of a woman who held me but let me go, at just the right time. Of a woman who became “nana” to my babies, who love her and sleep in her bed, just like I did.

Of a woman whose message – single, undying, clearest message – the message she lived, not said – the one that now lives in me like a gospel hymn, the song of my mother…the one down deep in my bones that never quiets, no matter where I am…

No matter what, it can be done.

So get up, and move your feet, and make it happen.

Words that rose up from my soul in my darkest hour, wrapped me in the warmth of a mother’s bed, and pulled me onto my feet.

So happy birthday, mom.

I was thinking about you.

[P.S. I had NO idea this post was going to turn into this, which is why it’s part goofy part serious. Sometimes I start writing and what comes out is not at all what I expected. But I think we’re good enough friends that I can just leave it, and you’ll probably understand.]

my mom and my girls…

I don’t usually talk about current mayhem, but this one’s been killing me lately. I had to write something.

Going in from the top.

What am I talking about? Nursing. Public nursing.

Oh yeah. You know it. There are two ways to get to the boob:

1. Pull up your shirt.

• Advantages: Shirt covers top part of boob. Baby’s head covers bottom part of boob. People don’t see much of anything at all.
• Disadvantages: Bra must be removed, unclipped. Muffin-top exposure. Belly hanging out. Stretch-marks. Possibly drafty and cold. Potential ass-crack visibility.

2. Go in from the top. (Pull your boob out the top of your shirt and let the kid nurse.)

• Advantages: No belly fat or ass crack showing. Quick. Easy. Bra can stay in place (just pull the boob out of the bra and pop it back in when you’re done).
• Disadvantages: People see the top of your boob and this may make them afraid, uncomfortable, sexually frustrated, confused, appalled, disgusted and/or livid. You may end up on national news.

We’ll get back to this in a moment. But first, background.

I read about that professor who brought her sick baby to class and then – wait for it – nursed that baby while giving a lecture. And now, of course, it’s national news. Everybody keeps saying the “real” question is “why is she bringing a sick baby to work with her,” but let’s get real for one minute, please….

If she had bottle-fed her baby during that lecture, would we all be hearing about it?

Probably fucking not.

So the issue is that a grown woman decided to bring her baby to work so she didn’t miss the first lecture of the semester. Whatever, lady. Your call on that one.

(However, don’t you know that one of the beauties of having kids is that you get to get out of work when they’re sick? Whatever. That’s not the point.)

And during that class, the kid got hungry or restless or whatever, so she nursed her. And evidently, some dim-witted fucktard in the class crafted the following tweet: “Sex, gender, and culture professor, total feminist, walks in with her baby, midway through class breast feeding time #wtf”

And now, everybody’s talking about it. Because it’s newsworthy. Because feeding a baby while doing your job is newsworthy.

Because 40 college students can’t handle the image of a woman feeding her child?

NEWSFLASH, college kids: WOMEN HAVE BREASTS. Breasts serve the biological purpose of feeding a woman’s offspring. Oddly, their sole purpose is not to fascinate the senses and turn people on.

And now, kindly, remove your head from your ass and grow the hell up.

Is it that? Or is it that this society tells me that breast is best, but then dictates to me how and where and under what circumstances I may engage in this good, wholesome, nourishing act it allegedly supports…?

You should breastfeed, but not at work.

You should breastfeed, but only with a blanket.

You should breastfeed, but not in a way that exposes too much skin or (GASP) the nipple.

You should breastfeed, but privately, discretely, quietly…don’t draw attention to that womanly shit…it’s wonderful, but nobody wants to see it.

In other words, breastfeed, but do so in a way that doesn’t offend the sexually frustrated Puritan misogynists.

Yeah. I said it.

And I meant it.

You want to use a blanket? More power to you. You want to wrestle a 9-month old into one of those tent things? More power to you. You want to walk 15 minutes or 2 minutes to sit in a “quiet room” or car to nurse your baby, so nobody sees you? That is all good. I’m serious. If a woman has personal preferences of modesty, I hold that in the highest regard and respect that completely. Every woman has the choice to breastfeed how she feels comfortable.

And I happen to feel comfortable with my tits out.

Kidding. Sort of.

So don’t tell me, America, land of the fucking free, how I should be doing it. Don’t beam your lights of derision on me – calling me a slut, an exhibitionist, a radical rabid feminist – because I go in from the top, because I don’t mind 2 inches of breast flesh being shown to the world. (It’s okay in Playboy or Hustler or People or Victoria’s Secret, but not in public for life-sustaining purposes! NOT THERE!! It’s indecent! It’s wrong! Cover yourselves ladies!!!).

Check this out. I don’t give a rat’s ass if it makes you uncomfortable.

It’s how I enjoy nursing my baby. It’s what feels best to me.

And no, I will not use a blanket if I don’t feel like it.

No, I will not walk to a private hallway.

No, I will not feed my baby in a damn bathroom.

I will not accommodate your archaic arbitrary demands. You also once told me I couldn’t vote, and my life would probably be best spent pregnant at home serving my man – so forgive me, America, if my trust in you is a bit, um, unstable.

Am I making a production of my breastfeeding?

Yep. Abso-fucking-lutely.

Why? Because it’s time.

Because the assault on women has been going on for years, and it’s only through “bad behavior” that anything, ever, changes.

Does seeing the top of my breast make you feel funny inside? Ah, honey. I’m sorry. But don’t worry about it, cause after you’ve seen it 50 or 200 or 1 million times, you’ll be okay with it. You’ll grow accustomed, I promise. Or maybe your kids will.

Until then, you’ll find me going in from the top, wherever the hell I feel like it, giving a milky “screw you” to your searing eyes and hateful gaze.

Trusting that someday, it won’t be national news.

oh my god. BOOB FLESH!!!!

[For the sake of accuracy, I’m not breastfeeding anymore, since Georgie weaned herself a few months ago, but I wrote this post in the present tense because I still feel like a breastfeeding mama, and it’s how I’ve breastfed all 3 of my kids…so it’s very “present” to me, still.]

1. Do you ever get annoyed when you have to pee because it’s just ONE MORE THING YOU HAVE TO DO?
2. Or…maybe that’s just me.
3. Speaking of pee, I do it like 6 or 7 times a night. Literally. I think that’s weird. Is that weird? Maybe I should get on WebMD and diagnose myself. I think it’s my third kid’s fault. Ever since I had her I piddle on myself with startling regularity, particularly when I sneeze in an inopportune moment (you know, when I haven’t peed because it’s just ONE MORE THING TO DO) or I laugh too hard. And I pee a thousand times a night. Kegels? Yeah, I thought so.
4. Forgive me for over-sharing. I guess once I realized I lost all coolness and most dignity, I figured I might as well just seal the deal by discussing my bladder online.
5. We donated the guinea pigs to a 2^nd/3^rd grade classroom at my kids’ school. Ya know why? Because my kids – who were DYING FOR THEM last Christmas – never play with them at all, and each week an insane argument ensued over cleaning their cage. So for a few weeks I agonized, “I want to get rid of them but I don’t want to hurt their feelings. Plus I should make them stick with this commitment. Tenacity. Devotion. Etc.” But then I just got sick of the damn fighting and declared “Guys. If you don’t play with these small rodents at least ONCE in the next week, I’m giving them away.” I’m expecting some big emotional response. You know what the little bandits said…? “Why don’t you give them away now?”
6. Done, offspring. DONE.
7. That was probably bad parenting. But whatever. A woman can only take so much. And it wasn’t fair to those adorable little animals to never get any attention. In the classroom they get held daily and there are twenty children to clean the damn cage. SCORE.
8. You guys should go read Calamity Jane at Apron Stringz. She lives in this super remote Alaskan town doing crazy home-steading awesomeness, and she’s funny and smart and doing some super intelligent things in the arena of “Reclaiming Housewifery.” Radical homemaking. “Cowgirl, Cookie Baker, Renegade.” Soul sisters? In her words she’s a “punk neo-feminist housewife.” Um, rad? Yes. Yes indeed.
9. Yesterday we went on a mini-hike near Point Reyes in Marin County. We went with some gorgeous wonderful friends. It was lovely. The weather was fine, the company superb. And Point Reyes, well. It’s Point Reyes. There was a meadow involved – ‘nuff said, right?
10. Have you ever noticed how flattering and wonderful it is when people take interest in your children, like real interest? Particularly when they don’t have kids? Like they play peek-a-boo with your toddler and wrestle with your boy and give piggy back rides and engage in deep conversations with your budding intellectual 10-year-old daughter? These people did that. And my heart swelled. A big, warm “thank you,” and a little burst of pride, maybe because people – at least some people – find my kids engaging, and interesting, and worth their time. There is no better compliment to a parent, I think, than engaging with their children, listening to them, and, dare I say it? Appearing to genuinely enjoy it.

Don’t have many pics, but here’s one of the meadow, and two of Georgie…taken by my super lovely talented friend Katie Stohlmann. You can find her here (in case you missed the first link). Follow her Tumblr blog. You won’t be sorry.

Have a great week, everybody.

xoxo

So, as formerly mentioned, we had a birthday party for Rocket last Saturday. He invited everybody from his class. That’s right. Everybody.

But, thank my lucky stars, only 10 came.

It was fun. I mean, I guess. As fun as a party can be with a bunch of people you hardly know.

And their fucking kids.

Dude. People. There are some seriously terrible children in the world. I think I’ve grown accustomed to my own offspring, and that of my friends, or haven’t had much access to the general population recently…or something. Whatever, there are some BAD kids and even worse parents out there. That’s all I know.

While speaking to one woman, I heard a commotion. I looked over and it was her 4-year-old son JUMPING on the decorations. He had ripped them off the table and was destroying them, just for funsies. I moved to stop him but remembered I was standing right next to his mother. I looked at her, waiting for her to handle it. She was laughing. I shit you not. LAUGHING. She even called him some pet name. Like he was funny and cute.

Not the adjectives that popped into my mind.

I stood there dumbfounded for a moment but as soon as she walked away I went over to the little hoodlum and took the decorations away from him, thinking “hey you little bastard, I’m poor. I reuse these things.” Plus, the landfills people. THE LANDFILLS.

I realize my kids are annoying (aren’t they ALL?), but as you know, I have a thing about manners. Plus, I’m so self-centered and egotistical I watch my kids like a damn hawk when we’re out in public, making sure they don’t violate generally agreed-upon social codes, thereby making me look bad. If I’m gonna look bad, I prefer to do it through my own poor decision-making, as opposed to the deviant behaviors of my offspring.

I have my standards, you know.

Here’s another one for ya: some awesome parenting. I debated forever, at least 45 seconds, about whether or not I should provide soda at the party. At first I thought “no, just water,” because kids will be there, and I shouldn’t be contributing to the ill-health of America’s youth. I envisioned hordes of kids running over to the ice chest, guzzling soda after soda, and then they all get rotten teeth and diabetes and I live in guilt for the rest of my life. But then I remembered “Janelle. People can parent their kids. Rocket knows he gets one soda on special occasions. Other parents are doing the same with their kids, so stop trying to control everybody.” Plus, maybe the adults want soda.

I mean, parents can parent their kids, right?

Yeah, I know. You’re already thinking it. I shoulda known better.

So I ended up buying a TON of water and a few small bottles (the mini ones) of soda. Most of the kids were handed soda instead of water but I was like “whatever. Rocket had one too.” But this one kindergartner comes back after finishing the first one in like 3 minutes and starts grabbing another one. I happen to be standing at the ice chest. I say “Oh, sorry buddy, each kid only gets one soda.” Yes, I fully made that up. But whatever. I thought the mother would appreciate it, so she didn’t have to be the one to tell him “no.”

He runs over to his mom and says with this horrendous whine “SHE says I can only have one.” Eye contact with the mom. Scowls from mom. I plaster my nice-girl smile and walk over, whispering to her “He can have another one, I just thought you probably wouldn’t want him having more than one, so I was trying to get you off the hook.”

And this woman looks me dead in the eye and says “Yeah, there’s no reason a kid should ever have more than one soda, but it’s easier than telling him ‘no.’”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I’m having an out-of-body experience. She gives him another one, and I die a little inside. I mean shit, I’ve been a horrible parent on more than one occasion, but if my offspring were demanding another damn soda and threw a fit about it when I said “no,” I would have one response: “If you continue throwing this fit we will leave the party now. I have no preference either way, so it’s your call, dude.” (And if they choose to leave, you get out of the party. SCORE.)

Problem freaking solved.

Oh, but friends. Neither of these kids (or mothers) had anything on a child we’ll heretofore refer to as Jane. No wait. Jane is too sweet. Let’s go with “Doris.” No idea where that came from, but I’m stickin’ with it.

Doris has needs. She NEEDS PEOPLE SHE NEEDS. When she first arrives she sees the helium tank and decides she wants to blow up balloons. But by this point the party has started. I put the tank away. First she tells Ava: “I want to blow up balloons. I’m getting the tank.” And she walks over and pulls it out of the box. Ava tells her “no, we’re not doing that now,” and puts it back in the box. At this point, Doris turns her sights on me.

Doris: “Rocket’s mom? I want to blow up a balloon.”

Me: “Sorry, honey, we’re done doing that. It isn’t a toy. I only had that out before the party.”

Doris: “But I want to blow up a balloon.”

Me: “Yes, I understand, but we’re not doing that right now.”

Doris: “Why not?”

Me: “Because I’m busy. I already told you. Why don’t you go play with the other kids on the play structure?”

Doris, scowling, raising her voice: “But I want to do the balloons and I want to do it right now!”

What I want to say is: “You’re a terrible child. Please go away.” But I don’t, because that would be wrong.

We go on like this for a good 5 minutes, while I’m trying to do whatever party nonsense I’m doing. Finally she leaves. Three minutes later the aforementioned conversation occurs again, VERBATIM.

And she comes up to me every 3 minutes the ENTIRE PARTY. “I want to paint my pot NOW.” “I want to put the dirt in my pot NOW.” “I want to blow up a balloon NOW.”

And each time I’m tripping out, thinking, “No really. You are the most annoying human specimen in the world. You must leave.”

I look for her parents for back-up. My eyes are begging “HELP ME.” They’re OBLIVIOUS. No idea their offspring is terrorizing an innocent human. No idea their kid is relentless.

They probably think it’s cute.

“I want to plant my seed. Where are the seeds? Why can’t we do the seeds? I wanna do the seeds! Rocket’s mom, I wanna do my seeds.”

It keeps popping into my head “Does this shit actually work for you at home?! My God, your parents’ lives must be miserable!”

Because to be honest, part of the reason my kids have decent manners is because I’m way too impatient to tolerate the alternative. I mean seriously, if my kid harangued me for 45 minutes about some event he thought he needed to happen…holy mother I’d lose my shit. Not only would I not do it when he wanted, I’d probably not do it EVER, just on principle, because he was so fucking annoying about it.

There’s nothing noble there. I just can’t take it. I mean, if I have a valid reason to be doing what I’m doing and not what you think I should be doing, you have no right to harass and harangue endlessly, hoping I’ll change my mind, or cave because I can’t take it anymore.

But then I started thinking about it and I realized that this sort of horrible kid behavior must, on some level, result in horrible adult behavior, which is way worse, since they don’t have the advantage of being cute and small, or the excuse of being five.

To illustrate, I made some flow-charts.

 
You know? That woman who just won’t take “no” for an answer? She just WILL NOT get the hint? You try to be subtle. She keeps on. You try a slightly less subtle approach. She still doesn’t get it.

And so, you give up. You just lay it out, “No, lady, I don’t wan’t to buy any of your fucking Avon. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not EVER. Did this work for you when you were five?”

Well yes, she responds. Yes it did.

1. Ava came home the other day with a sheet to sell cookie dough as a fundraiser for her school. She told me about it. Here’s what she said: “Mama, the school wants me to sell cookie dough. When my teacher handed me the sheet I raised my hand and asked ‘how much of the proceeds actually go to our school? You know, cause I don’t want to sell my family something that’s just going to make money for some company with sweatshop-like working conditions.’” Then she says “I’m probably the only 5^th grader asking these questions, but I don’t care, because I think they’re important questions.”
2. I’m sure her teachers adore her. No really, I’m sure they do.
3. Is it weird to have that sort of skepticism at 10 years old?
4. I don’t understand those “baby on board” signs people put in cars. Every time I see them I’m like “So glad you let me know, because I was just about to ram into your vehicle. Now that I know there’s a baby on board, however, I’ll pick somebody else.”
5. I think there’s something wrong with my brain.
6. Speaking of something wrong, does anybody else have a son who pretty much cannot accomplish a ten-second task without getting distracted, possibly by something existing only in his brain? You know, like getting in the car. I swear to you my son gets distracted from the time he opens the car door until he sits down. He’s just standing there with the door open and I’m like “Rocket! What are you doing?! GET IN!” And he’s like flicking something off the handle, or staring at the ground, and when I yell at him he looks at me like I rudely snapped him out of a deep important revelry. More on that later.
7. My insomnia is back. I wake up every morning around 3:45. I could get up and  do something useful, but I seem to prefer to lie there miserable wondering why I can’t sleep and wishing I could either sleep or die. Sometimes my preference for the former is miniscule. Such good times.
8. Oh, yeah. Rocket turned seven yesterday. I only cried about 5 times. For some reason I always have a tough time on his birthday, I guess because I got really sick with alcoholism almost immediately after her was born, so I was basically absent until he was nearly 4 years old. I try to forgive myself, move on, live in today, but the remorse sits like an old friend in my soul, all the time, and it rages when his birthday comes around, reminding me with perfect clarity of the birth of my beautiful son, and my joy at his arrival, and my prompt inability to be there for him. Last year I wrote this post on his birthday. At least I’m doing a little better than that.
9. Anyway we had a party for him on Saturday. Despite my attempts to urge him away from said party (“Rocket, let’s go to the beach!! Wanna go to the BEACH!? The BEACH would be amazing! I love the BEACH.”), he insisted on the party, so I made it happen. About 9 kids showed up from his class. Seven of them I had never met. It was a good party, I think. The painted pots went well. Also, as I mentioned on FB, I had a revelation: My kids are not that bad. No really, I mean it. There are some fucking terrible children in the world. More on that later, as well.
10. And so, here we go, my son is seven. Another year gone by, little man. Another moment I must accept, of a boy getting bigger, growing up, telling me things like “I liked being six. Six was a good age.”

He wanted a cake with monsters and flowers. [I die, people, from this cuteness.] Since Ava, my mom and I have been taking a cake-decorating class (WHAT? You didn’t know I’m Martha Freaking Stewart? Well, now you do. HA.), I was able to make a cake, frost it, and add monsters and flowers. (He stuck them on.)

I was, in short, relatively impressed with my skills. Okay fine. OUR skills.

But still. I made the damn monsters.

I love you, Rocketship Rock On.

THE CAKE

And, the boy…on his second birthday. I know it’s old, but I’ve always loved this photo…

Alright fine. Here’s more what he’s like now…

But to be honest, it’s all the same to me. Happy birthday, son.