Confessions of a Bad Mother: Shut Your Trap, Darling.

one of the things i anxiously waited for was the development of language in Trixie and Dixie. and by "anxiously waited for," i mean i paced the floor evenings, scoured Babycenter, and occasionally peppered coworkers with questions about whether or not it was normal for 10 month old twins to not be able to recite The Raven.

but now that it's "coming in nicely" as the daycare ladies like to say....as if the girls language acquisition is much like a row of corn....i have to admit:

by the 200000000000th "maaaamaaaa!", i am totally over it.

i would like to share with you a snippet of what it's like living with Trixie Chatterbox and Dixie Clickygums:

"mamaaa! my juice! mamaaa! i want juice! my mouth! mamaaaa, my mouth, it hurts! mamaaa? mamaaaaa! MAMAAAAA! where's Co, mama? mama? mama! mamaaaaa, i want tv, mama! where's Dora? mama? mama! where's Ho Ho, mama? mamaaaaaa, i want juice! mamaa! up! down! mamaaa, i love you mama*! night night, mama, mama! no sleep! no sleep mama! potty! mama! mama, potty? potty! MAMA! POTTY!! mama! want to brush teeth, mama! my teeth brush! mama! MAAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

and on and on and on until i want to run screaming out the door.

think about it: do you want anyone you know in your life using your name that much when they speak to you? of course you don't. after the fourth or fifth time, your hand is involuntarily curling into a fist and there's this new tension in your shoulder you'd love to release. but most people and governmental agencies frown on giving your kids the two-piece when they irk you. so you're stuck listening to your child say your name 800 times a minute while your nerves jangle around under your skin like a set of old keys.

i love my kids desperately, i really do. but serioulsy? does anyone know where i can get a bottle of Shet Up, Already? does it maybe come in a liquid i can put in their humidifier?

just saying.

*okay, that one gets me right in the old ticker ever time i hear it. it truly never gets old.

I'll never let you go.

i've always been somewhat of a packrat. as much as i talk about that tv show Hoarders, i must also admit that i too hold onto things for much longer than necessary. things i can't really bring myself to part with. for instance, today i found my mother's living will and advance directives.

"whyyyyyyyyyyyy do i still have this?" asked my rational self.

"because it has my mother's handwriting. it makes her concrete. real." responded my emotional side.

"oh, bullshit," said rational, "you didn't even know you still had it until you just found it in your closet! and you know she was real, you look just like her."

like i said: i'm a packrat.

trying to break the habit before i infect my daughters, i really thought i'd done myself a solid by finally getting their closet organized and by getting rid of the chicks' tiny baby clothes, socks, and shoes. and yet there are a few items that i cannot for the life of me part with. for instance:

Dixie's frog feet pajamas. and the sick part is, every now and then i take them out, hold them up, and hug them, trying to remember the way the tiny little person who wore them felt. its not very effective, especially when that same now-two year old person is dancing around my legs damanding juice and a cookie.

i have at least 5 size 1 diapers just kinda hanging around in the girls' room: one in the top drawer of the changing table, 3 in the wardrobe, and one one the top shelf of their closet. again: how sad is it that i know exactly where these diapers are?

ultrasound photos! just last week i found two photos from August 2007 in my car. under the seat. beside an earring and a petrified french fry. and i couldn't bring myself to throw them away, so i brought them into the house and put them in unfinished baby books....which incidentally have envelopes of ultrasound photos in them, as well as the chicks' hospital bracelets, tarnished silver bracelets with their names on them that i never let them wear, and the happy cards annoucing their birth dates and times from the hospital. . i totally plan on incorporating each of those items in the girls' graduation and wedding annoucements.

Taaaaaaacky ass headbands. somewhere along my pregnancy, some well meaning person who claimed to care about me gave me two packages of the most horrifically tacky headbands i have ever seen. and while my mouth said oh thank you how thoughtful, my mind thought never on the heads of my precious daughters. and i have stuck to this promise.

and that's because i put them on MY OWN heads on the weekends. yes, you heard me. as a matter of fact, just last Saturday i was wearing on and noticed Trixie giving me the "i gotta break eye contact with you right now and stare at your hair because i don't even understand what is happening right here" treatment.

you know the one....

anyway, noticing the break in eye contact, i asked her "hey! you like mommy's headband?"

she said, very seriously and without missing a beat, "no." 

but that's cool. she's two. she doesn't like anything except juice and cookies.

it's really interesting to me that someone who didn't really ever want to have kids and prayed nightly during my maternity leave for time to speed up so i could wake up to toddlers instead of wailling infants now can't seem to let go of the items marking their infancy.

i hope by the time i'm sitting my my car in on the first day of kindergarten crying into a pair of frog feet pajamas, i will have made peace with my rational self. i don't need her giving me shit over the size 1 diapers i'll have in my glove box.

touching my stuff is bad for your health

"Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister, and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!"

isn't it funny how you can be completely convinced you don't want or need something in your until you see someone enjoying it? then, of course, you gotta have it, right? it's the most important thing ever, right?

there has got to be no other realm other than the world of twins where this little quirk is played out regularly in all its ugly, irrational glory. the same girls who can tag-team a cohort into a corner at daycare suddenly start circling each other like Armored Bears over the smallest of things.

for instance, i submit for you this scene from a snowed in Saturday afternoon:




Boca: Dixie, do you want this teddy bear? want your teddy?

Dixie: no.

Boca: you sure? you don't want your teddy?

Dixie: no.

Boca: ok. here, Trixie. here's a teddy.

Dixie: MYYYYEEEEEEEE TEDDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! *kerSNATCH*

and so it went all weekend, with various items substituted for teddy, such as crayon, blanket, baby, juice....and i just took a moment away from the keyboard to break up a battle over a stroller.

i grew up an only child with half-siblings on my father's side in their own houses touching their own shit and not mine. i'm not used to this and frankly, it annoys the hell out of me. my inner only child cries out in torment every time i see a toy jacking go down "gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd, why can't you just leave her shit alone! you got your own shit! go get it!"

See? nobody talks about what it's like for only children to raise siblings groups. well let me assure you, much like calculus and pimpin, it ain't easy.

ok, granted, i get that they are two and that means they are by nature irrational self-centered beings. but i promise you, when this carries over into their teens...and i said when, not if; i'm quixotic, not naive...i will completely lose my mind.

not that it's gonna take much. my mind is already on a long, long leash and has galloped away out of my eyeshot. the irrational fights over shirts, shoes, and (god help us all) boys will surely cause that leash to snap like an old rubber band.

so here we are. epic battles threaten to break out at the slightest provocation. if i tickle one, i better get to tickling the other. kissing one, pucker up, mama, here comes the other one, holding one, scoot over you, i need me some lap as well, and on and on and on.

let's just hope that in the furture, they are just as jealously preoccupied with one another when it comes to chores:

"but, moooooooooooooooooooooom, I wanted to do the dishes! she did them yesterday!!! why are you trying to ruin my life????"

yeah, a mom can dream.

Lupus? Depression? Hair loss? Have you tried Motrín?

One of the best jokes in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the dad's insistance that Windex could fix or cure virtually anything. when i saw it, i thought to myself "cmon! NOBODY'S dad is really like that!"

and then I had Trixie and Dixie. and their dad because an ardent, faithful, and obediant servant to the gods of Motrin.

This past weekend, Trixie had a congested, runny nose. Early in the morning, she coughed once or twice as she was waking up. That led to this genius level conversation between me and her dad:

"do you have any Motrín?

"yes."

"we should give her some."

"why? Motrin is a fever reducer and pain reliever. she doesn't have a fever."

"because she has a runny nose."

"Motrin is a fever reducer and pain reliever."

"but she coughed. i think she would feel better if you gave her some Motrín."

"Motrin.is.a.fever.reducer.and.pain.reliever."

"oh. well, if you're not going to give her Motrín, can you go buy something to give her? something over the counter?"

*icy blank stare*

i don't know which part annoyed me the most, his desire to give her a drug that in no way, shape, or form could even possible address her symptoms OR his lack of knowledge of recommendations against giving OTC med to kids under six.

why do the mommies always have to be the ones staying on top of things???

Trix and Dix's dad was pretty unhappy when President Obama announced he'd be sending more troops to Afghanistan. Perhaps we could instead send the Taliban some Motrín.

I'm sure that would fix their terrorist ideology RIGHT UP, along with any sneezing, depression, or hair loss they may be experiencing.

awwwww, i heart-shaped-poop-stain you too!

as i find myself nearing closer and closer to Operation Big Girl: Battle of the Buns, i find myself filled with several different emotions. sadness, because my girls are growing up; giddyness, because soon i will be released from the tyranny of Luvs; excitement over helping them reach another milestone; and finally, fear.

pure, raw, uncut, almost crushing, fear.

an incident occured the other evening during bed time (which is now referred to as the nightly meeting of Fight Club) that both chilled my heart and made my soul trill sweetly with hope.

Trixie is a rambuncious sort. she has no fear of climbing and tries to scale most things, both animate and inanimate. she has even shimmied up my leg with the intention of having me hold her. during Fight Club, she gets out of her bed, takes her clothes off, steps out of her diaper like it's a pair of panties, and runs about starkers, taunting me. we go through several instances of me catching her, dressing her, and re-bedding her....only for it to happen all over again until she finally passes out.

but this weekend, something different happened.

this time when she took off the diaper it was full of poop. and instead of running around naked, she plopped down on the carpet in her room and started playing.

and that's when i discovered her, nude from the waist down, playing with her tea set. and i discovered a couple of heart shaped poop stains on my carpet.

i've long gotten over the mortification that comes with cleaning atrociously poopy diapers. so long as i keep the action in the diaper and not on my hands, i'm straight. but on more than one occasion over the last few weeks, i have come uncomfortablely close to Trixie's fecal matter. but on this particualr instance, i wasn't horrified or grossed out...too much.

i was excited! because don't they say another sign of potty training readiness is the child's dislike of soiled diapers next to her skin?

see, if you look at it that way, then this was Trixie's way of letting me know that she knew what i was thinking and that she knows just like i know that she is indeed ready to poop in the potty!

and to that show of confidence, i say to her:

Let's Do This, Tyler Durden.

lots of tears.

i've been overcome off and on all day with this sweeping rage and feelings of powerlessness. i have ranted, prayed for the painful death of the child's mother and the rat dog piece of shit that she gave Sheniya to, and cried so many tears out of deep sadness and grief. i have discovered, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that i there is a threshold that can be crossed within me that would allow me to easily and gladly take the life of another.

when i think about why Sheniya's story resonates with me so deeply, i realize there are things about her that trigger deep emotions within me. when i look at the pictures of her being carried by someone who meant her so much harm, i see Trixie's hair in the mornings when i wake her up. when i see her hand holding onto his shoulder, i see Dixie's hands as she hold her arms up for a hug when i pick her up from daycare in the evenings.

i see her without shoes and i'm enraged. 

when i see her profile, i see my own daughters. and i am reminded that there are broken subhuman pieces of shit out in this world who don't see my girls as wonderful amazing little girls, but as things to be abused, used, and destroyed.

i love my girls more than anything or anyone in this world, including myself. i would never put them in harms way, knowingly hand them over to someone who would harm them. it's impossible for me to fathom what type of woman would do such a thing.

we have got to do a better job of protecting our girls. we have got to start recognizing that being born female makes our daughters more likely to be attacked, abused, raped, and exploited.

and we've got to do something about it.

and for all those people who saw Precious and wrote it off as unrealistic, manipulative, poverty-porn:

is this real enough for you?

when it totally sounds like fun IN YOUR HEAD.

i got a totally unexpected invitation on monday evening from an old friend from KY via gchat:

"hey! can you come home this weekend? the art's league is having their costume party and it's gonna be great. if you can make it, everything will be paid for. my mom told me to let you know she'd love to babysit the girls for you!"

i can't go. there's no way i could go.

i would love to go, would have a blast, would see friends and family for the first time since 2007, but i can't go.

there are way too many ends which need tying, arrangements in need of making, and whatnot for me to just up and go. anywhere.

it's just as well. i probably wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much as i think i would. it's most likely one of those "sounded great in theory but sucked in reality situations" i try to avoid at all costs.

and yet, i totally wish i had the freedom to just throw together a bag, hit the gas station, and GO. because i really think it's gonna be fantastic and i'm gonna totally miss it!!!