Having a voice amidst the Christian cacophony

Apparently this is offensive.  

Is it the word penis?  Unless you're a nun or a female minor with no male siblings and no father to accidentally walk in on in the bathroom, chances are pretty good that you've seen one.  If you're male, you have one.  If you're female, your father/brother/husband/son has one that you have mostly likely seen at some point.  My 8 year old daughter knows what a penis is and knows how to use it in a sentence without any qualms.  (Cole, you just went to the bathroom and probably touched your penis. Wash your hands before you eat.  True story.)

Okay, so...since a penis was involved in the creation of just about everyone in one way or another, certainly we can't be offended by the word penis.  Granted, the above statement does mention whipping it out in public and waving it around, but it's prefaced by the words please don't.  So that's okay, right?

Hmmm... PLEASE don't try to shove it down my children's throats.  Well, yes, okay... that's some pretty evocative imagery, true.  But again, it's saying PLEASE don't.

Maybe it's the comparison of religion to a penis.  But then that only works if you attach negative connotations to the idea of a penis.  Not me.  I happen to have a certain fondness for them.  The idea of a penis evokes acts of pleasure, acts of love, and acts of creation.  I think the world would be a sad place without penises.

I also happen to have a certain fondness for religion.  All of them.  Spirituality in general fascinates me.  I know God, and I even think Jesus was a pretty cool guy.  But...

Animal house

Why do we have all these animals??

I should never ask this question out loud.  I never like my husband's answer.  He likes the dogs, but he also likes to blame their existence on me.  That's fine; that just means that I don't ever get to complain about them without the requisite you're-the-one-that-wanted-them response.  

I found myself asking it again last night, though. 

First, let me introduce you to the dogs...

Belle
Golden Retriever
Age: 13
Dog years: 91

Sweetest dog you'll ever meet, seriously.  No leash necessary, ever, because she just wants to be wherever her people are.

Izzie

Previously thought to be a Saint Bernard

Now suspected she may be a Pyrenean Mastiff

Age: 5

Dog years: 35 (but still acts like a big giant goofy puppy)

I refer to Izzie as "the retarded one." She means well but doesn't have the sense God gave a goat.  Leashes are extremely necessary. She's like the dog in Up... "Squirrel!"  

Jimmy Choo
aka Choo Choo
aka The Chooch Pooch
Chihuahua (from BonBon Chihuahuas)
Age: 1 year
Dog years: 7

Cute and snuggly, but for God's sake don't open the front door in his vicinity.  He's officially the girl child's dog. Leash is mandatory, and has to be crated if front door is going to be opened.

Suck it, Monday

6:30am: Wake up 30 minutes later than I like to.  Lay there, try to convince myself to be alive.  Husband says, "Did you remember to buy coffee?"

"No.  Did you?"

"No."

Dammit.  "Starbucks?" I say hopefully.  Yeah right, his look says.

So, no coffee.  Great.  Haul myself out of bed and try to remember what I need to do first.  School clothes.  Do we have them picked out?  Do they need to be ironed?

Ask the girl child.  Spend some time arguing on wardrobe.  Attempt to find school shirts (an increasingly rare commodity for the girl.  I think she eats them).  Iron school shirt.

Dad feeds kids.  I make school lunch.  Dad finds one coffee K-cup and makes me a cup of coffee.  My hero!

 Snack in backpack.  Water bottle.  Book.  Folder.  Okay, she's ready to walk out the door.  Except--

7:07am: Shit, there's the school bus alarm, time to go to the bus stop.  "Grace, I haven't fixed your hair yet!"

Find her in my bathroom with goop glopped on her head.  A pony tail it is, then.

Spray her hair.  "Go get a pony holder.  Hurry!"  I'm still having some crackpipe delusion that she's going to make the bus.

Dad is in the hall, girl child is not coming back with the pony holder, I go to summon her, and I can see her past her dad.  Then she looks at her dad's feet and screams.  I think her brother has thrown something at her.  I look down for the offending item.  It's a roach.  I scream and turn tail back to the bedroom.

Living with children

You always hear about the exhausted years of parenting babies and toddlers... Even if you don't have kids, it's easy to imagine life with babies and toddlers. You're sleep deprived, covered with spit up, changing (and, if you're like me, washing) dirty diapers, you own every child proofing device known to man in order to try to maintain some hold on sanity, and you have a little velcro monkey attached to you all the time...

As they get older, much of that just magically dissolves into the ether, pushed back to the back of your memory like the vestiges of a bad dream.  You know, the ones you wake up from remembering that something disturbing happened but not quite recalling the details?  That's what it's like when your babies outgrow babyhood and toddlerhood.  You know it was challenging and there were bad days, but you somehow don't recall most of the details.  

Ah, but then... 

Then, you're living with these little people.  They become little invaders; they live in your house, they eat your food without permission, they invade you head and take away your ability to form a complete thought, they force you to become a referee, they make new kinds of messes... sports equipment, dance gear, school work, craft projects... When they're babies, quiet is good.  Quiet means sleep.  When they're older, quiet just means trouble. You walk into your kitchen and realize that you've either been visited by a flock of evil fairies... or your 8 year old daughter did a "project" with glitter without asking and then just walked away, seriously believing that you might not notice that she spilled gold glitter... everywhere (not just in the kitchen anymore, because the dogs have helpfully tracked it all over the rest of the house).

Having older kids means never having paper in the printer when you need to print something.  

It means that all of the envelopes in your blank envelope box are either gone or have writing on them.  

It means that a roll of scotch tape will not last more that about 6 hours in your house; then, it either mysteriously disappears or, better yet, gets put back in the drawer empty of actual tape.

Truths that piss me off

I came across this in my Facebook feed originally posted from here.  

Truths that piss me off (in no specific order):

Sugar makes me fat.

Carbs are not my friend.

Ignoring poor behavior is not an effective parenting tool.

Marriage is WORK.

Being right doesn't matter.

I don't always like my kids.

My parents are just people, too.

Smoking smells bad and gives you lung cancer.

Not everyone thinks my kids are as cute I think they are.

I'm not a good housekeeper.

Everyone has money issues from time to time, but nobody talks about it.

There's no cure for stupid.

What other people think about me is none of my business.

Nobody else really cares what you want them to do; if you want something done, do it yourself.

I need degrees in psychology, medicine, nutrition, and education just to raise my children.

Worrying that something might happen actually increases the likelihood that it will.

I don't spend enough time with my friends.

My dogs like me more than I like them.

In order for someone to love me, I have to love myself.

Kids are mean and judgmental, and so I can't tell my son to just be himself.

I said "I'd never," and then learned the taste of my own words.

Being a mom is and thankless job.

It's impossible to house train a chihuahua.

"Hi, is this Cole's mom?": the Halloween edition

It's 2:45 p.m., and my brain has turned to mush.  I have about 20 minutes before the girl-child gets off the bus. All I can think about is a shower to wash away last night's Halloween festivities and today's brain cobwebs.

I turn on the shower and make it nice and hot.  I find my towel and place it nearby.  I evict the dogs, even, from my 15 minutes of sanctuary.

I step into the shower, and the hot stream hits my back.  I sigh and move to submerge my head under the wonderfully hot water, and-

Rrrrriiiiiiiiinnngg.  Rrrrriiiiiiiiinnngg.  I freeze.


WTF?  Seriously? *sigh*  I'm not answering it. Who is it?  God help me, it's the boy-child's school.

I pick up the phone with a sense of foreboding as my hot water continues to flow in the background.

"Is this Cole's mom? Hi, this is Mrs. [Teacher That Always Gives Your Son Conduct Marks]."  

Crap crap crap.

I turn the hot water off in defeat.

"Cole isn't having a good day.  He's been with me since 1:30 and he's already gotten 3 conduct marks.  I can't get him to stop talking in the hallways. He did bring us candy today, and I was wondering if maybe he had some of it."

Well, of course he did, because I expressly forbid him to do so, caught him in the attempt, and reiterated my directive not to take candy to his teachers or anyone else.  So, why not?  Never mind the money I spent on sugar free candy to replace the Halloween haul.

I thought I would steal 15 minutes of tranquility.  Ha.