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Duggar Insanity

February 4, 2010

I don’t know about you, but I have a powerful visceral reaction to people who are full of shit. Typically people who act like everything is sunshine and roses all the time – cause we know it’s not. Life is messy, parenthood has ups and downs, marriages can be rocky, working full time or staying home full time – these things can wreak havoc on your mind. Nothing is easy. Certainly everything isn’t rosy every single day. I like it when people are real. If we are friends – tell me about something totally hilarious and awesome that happened today. But when something crappy happens, don’t pretend like your life is a sunday walk in the park filled with sunshine and roses. Cause guess what – it’s pretty transparent that you are faking it.

So, I immediately puke in my mouth when I see the Duggars on the TV. Specifically last week, I caught a bit of them on the Today Show. Unfortunately real life – 2 sick kids and a nasty cold myself – prevented me from blasting them immediately when I saw them on TV. First of all, I think they are psycho. You cannot tell me that you have that many children and it’s wonderful and there is no impact on the children. Give me a freaking break. I can barely find enough time in the day to feel like my TWO kids are getting sufficient attention from me. Add in 17 more and forget about it.

So first, in case you feel differently, then you can tell me how the Duggars were awarded 2009 Parents of the Year. And I still puked a little in my mouth. Someone get me a towel to wipe it up. Wait – maybe if I had a dozen more kids, one of them could run and get me a towel?

Or you can tell me all about how they make their money themselves and never lived off public assistance.

I’m sorry, we should even mention that?

But here’s the added twist – their 19th child – keep in mind Michelle is in her early 40s and has been pregnant roughly every 9 months for about 20 years. So tell me what that does to her body? How is that good and healthy for her to constantly be pregnant or nursing?

So the 19th child was born at 24 weeks and has been in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Arkansas since early December. She’s almost 2 months now and weighs 2lbs. Yet the Duggars sat on the Today Show, beaming smiles, and waxed on about how their life is a blessing and everything is wonderful and their daughter is so beautiful.

BE REAL PEOPLE

Give me an f’ing break. Having an infant in the intensive care unit for easily three months with innumerable possible developmental problems due to her early emergency delivery must rate up there among the highest stressors parents can face. Then you add in 18 more children, many of whom are very young and still need constant care and attention from parents – and who is paying attention to them? Surely at least Michelle is pretty much always in the hospital with baby Josie. So you’re telling me that one parent is sufficient in taking care of all the needs of 18 other kids? But wait – so then who is working to make money to support this family? Oh right – I guess that’s where pimping your kids out to TV networks to make money off them comes in handy? I’m sure God would definitely approve of that strategy. And you’re telling me that the absence of one parent and the logistical inability of the other parent to pay sufficient attention to all these other kids doesn’t impact them? Before you consider bringing home a baby a potential host of special needs? Or maybe instead of hiring nannies to help them tend to all these children and all the needs they have (school drop offs and pickups, sporting events, ballet, music lessons, art class, birthday parties), maybe the Duggars farm out the parenting responsibilities to the eldest children. Ah yes, I can see how that would earn them parents of the year award. Let’s keep having children so our older children can raise them!!! God said it was ok.

And then they casually toss in that they moved their entire family to Little Rock to be closer to the hospital – and we’re still meant to believe life is grand?

Having moved every three years of my life until I went to college, I know all about being uprooted and how stressful it can be on a kid. So they uproot 18 children and you’re telling me there isn’t resentment and anger among some of the kids that they had to leave their school, their friends, their life because their parents can’t stop having children? By my last count, at least 5 of the kids are of high school age. My sister still talks about having to move before going into her senior year of high school…and well…..she’s many years past high school.

I think it’s irresponsible on their part. I think it’s irresponsible and disgusting to constantly put themselves out there, to welcome and encourage media attention (hello- camera crews in the ICU? Remind anyone else of the Octomom, profiting off the circus show of having so many children? Yet they hide behind God’s blessings instead of a creepy Angelina Jolie plastic surgery make-over and it makes it OK for the Duggars to do?), and I think it’s dishonest to smile and talk about life’s blessings.

I think the media play a role in perpetuating this insanity by paying families like the Duggars to profile their lives on TV. And it’s time to stop.

Bottom line – the only thing I am left wondering is – given the fact that Michelle always has the same plastered, spacey, taped on smile on her face, I am left wondering -what is she on? And can I get any of it?

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Celebrities, Husbands, Motherhood

Sanity Spared

January 26, 2010

I have three sisters. We all are roughly three years apart. This age separation between us worked – it worked for us as sisters (as if we had a choice) and it worked for my parents. According to my mom, it made raising four children as manageable as one might think it could ever be – to have us spaced out from 0 to 9 years old when my youngest sister was born. I think this line of thinking just sort of seeped into me over time, I grew to understand this age spacing as the ideal way to have subsequent children.

Now that I have two children, instead of think about having them and rationalize why timing them a certain number of years apart is ideal, I could spend all day ticking off pros and cons to closer together or more spread apart. But what good is that – they are what they are – which is 4 years old and 14 months. My children are exactly 3 years and 10 days apart in age.

What I’ve discovered is one is physically demanding and the other is mentally demanding. Currently I am finding the physically demanding one to be the more high maintenace. I don’t love this phase of constant roaming, getting into everything, having no understanding of consequences or danger. And DD2 is particularly curious and adventurous -100 fold more so than DD1 ever has been. Either that or I just don’t remember DD1 when she was 14 months because it feels like 100 years ago already.

So who would have thought that one simple plastic contraption would be my sanity saver? C’est vrai. A gate has come to change my life. Because I birthed the next adventurer to hike Mt. Everest, we obviously had a gate up at the stairs months ago. But maybe sleep deprivation and general foggy thinking got in the way from DH and I realizing that we needed to add a gate to the playroom door. How ingeniuos! Trap the children into one room – where they are safe – I can see and hear them – but they can’t get out. A veritable prison in my own home!!!

Now don’t think adding the gate transformed into the miracle play time with both children happily packing off to the playroom. Making it work evolved into an art form with missteps along the way.

As we all know, introducing change to a preschooler is not accepted with welcoming open arms. So we got off to a rocky start, DD1 disdainfully glaring at me as I begged her and promised infinite wealth and opportunities for treats, if she would just go into playroom with her sister and stay in there for a few minutes and not open the gate and let her sister out. I hope I never said, way back when I was naïve and clueless, that I wouldn’t bribe my children. Cause that’s my MO around these parts. DD1 eventually acquiesed once she secured the volume of spicy chips and popsicles she deemed acceptable for playing along with this new rule.

A few days passed and the arguing and bribery started to wane…..a few times a day (read: when I am struggling to get breakfast or dinner on the table without DD2 climbing into something and ending up in the ER) I was able to coax the 2 of them into the playroom and keep the gate closed.

It’s an art form really.

Sure, there’s a specific room dedicated to all their toys but DD2 won’t stay in there alone and DD1 prefers to empty out her toys de jour from the playroom into the living room. Just coercing them to go into the room and stay there was a feat in and of itself.

And then it finally happened. A few days ago I asked DD1 if she would go play in the playroom with her sister while I made dinner. No arguing. No bribery, off they went. I was stunned.

Then they stayed in there for about 20 minutes.

TWENTY MINUTES.

I think we all know that is a gift. You can make a meal, do laundry, pee in peace and quiet, hell, flip through a gossip magazine – all in 20 minutes. Give me a few more minutes and I might be solving world peace.

But see – there’s more to it than that. I have learned that to make it last that long, I have to exercise total discipline. DD2 will come to the gate, stand there, shake it and laugh – attempting in her cutest way to get my attention.

I must avert my eyes.

And forget talking.

If I dare make eye contact with either of them or they hear my voice…..it’s all over….out they will want to come.

So then I have to be stealth and cat-like when things get quiet. Typically I can hear DD1 playing and talking away…but it’s when DD2 is quiet that I worry she has discovered some new way to climb out, something elicit to eat and choke on, or has broken free and is climbing the stairs. But remember the rules – if they make eye contact with me or hear my voice, it’s over.

Then you add in our creaky old hardwood floors and creeping up on anyone is next to impossible.

I’ve actually figured out the quietest route to peer into the playroom and go unnoticed…..and then slip back into the kitchen and finish whatever it is I am making.

It is a true miracle over here. This gift of time, delivered via an agreeable older child along with a plastic gate. Somehow getting these extra few minutes to just get stuff done makes the day seem that much more manageable. Here’s hoping it lasts…..and praise the person who invented the gate.

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Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Preschool, Toddler Antics

DUCK!

January 20, 2010

That ought to be my MO when feeding DD2. Every day I am surprised with just how different my two children are. It’s remarkable how they can look the same but different. How they can have the same habit of doing exactly what they know they shouldn’t be doing and look at me and then take off and do it. And it is remarkable how different they are in so many ways. Shall I list them?

No. I think we’ve all had enough of lists.

But if what happened this morning isn’t the ultimate in blog material then I don’t know why I have a blog. Is it a tale that I’ll mention off-hand as she’s on her way out the door with some punk with a daddy complex? Probably. But is there any way to casually drop “Hey honey, try not to toss your half-chewed sausage down Johnny’s shirt during dinner?”

I didn’t think so.

Let me paint the picture.

I am dragging this morning. I had one of those totally off-why did I bother to drag my ass out of bed in the sleet to get to the gym for this -workouts. The coffee wasn’t hitting the spot. My head was kinda half hurting but not quite enough to get Tylenol. I wanted breakfast but I just wasn’t sure what I wanted.

Until it landed in my bra.

You got it. DD2 is scrappy. She’s thin, she’s always on the go, she never stops climbing but she loves to eat. She’d already eaten more breakfast than our neighborhood football captain but as she was cruising past the breakfast table, she reached up to grab some food off her sister’s plate. I squatted down to intercept her as she moved along, to be sure she wasn’t eating anything she shouldn’t be, when suddenly I felt the lukewarm soggy mess of it on my bare skin.

You got it.

DD2, as she is prone to doing, removed the half-chewed sausage from her mouth and chucked it – only this time her aim was so solid – she managed to toss it right above the zipper on my hoodie and with enough force for it to fall down against my chest and into my bra and fall into little pieces.

I got out of bed why today?

You can’t make this shit up.

So fast foward to the year 2025….DD2 all dolled up in her appropriate fashion forward, I’m stylish but too cool to dress like I was excited for this date outfit…..with apathetic or overly eager teen slobbering boy awaiting her in our foyer (by then I will have a foyer. mark my words)….I’ll be sure to ask where they’re going for dinner and remind her not to toss her chewed sausage at him. I don’t think boys like that.

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Life with 2 kids, Motherhood, Toddler Antics

Got a minute?

January 18, 2010

Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine cover story was all about moms and time. This is a tired story. Yet I’m gonna go there because I can’t resist.

Time and tracking time is one of those things that has hogged my thoughts and dictated my life since I had our first babe over four years ago. For the purposes of self-disclosure, I am pretty anal and organized, I run my house by schedule and have policed my children’s sleeping and feeding schedules from the minute they came home from the hospital. It’s the only way I know how to bring order to chaos. In fact, in that foggy daze of adjusting to life with a child, my first fight with DH was triggered by his comment “I lost track of time.”

I completely lost it. Sure, sleep deprivation and hormones had a lot to do with it. But we’ve never had a fight like that in our 8 years of marriage. The idea of losing track of time seemed like such a luxury to me, though I was only 6 weeks into this whole parenthood gig, that I both resented him for having that chance and was furious that he wasn’t consumed with time, schedules, feedings and sleep patterns as I was. And still am. Four years later.

So I read Sunday’s piece with great interest and frankly, was largely disappointed in the end. I felt the writer, Brigid Schulte, came off as a martyr in a way she probably didn’t mean but I think that is one of the great challenges facing moms when discussing the absence of free time in our lives. In the piece, Schulte ended up attempting to track her time for a professor who specializes in time-use, to analyze her time spent and help her find 30 hours of leisure time each week. Of course the whole idea that this is possible is a total joke but the point was that it depends partly on how you define leisure time. It was never clear to me how Schulte defines leisure time.

For me it’s easy – am I without children?

LEISURE.

Am I out with just one child – half-leisure.

It’s really that easy. So while Schulte questioned if gym time is leisure time – to me that is the panacea of leisure time. My morning gym visit has practically turned me into a gym rat and without that precious quiet time, I can’t face the day. Schulte challenged how waiting 2-hours for a tow truck was leisure time. She was without child so the prof deemed it leisure.

Again, expectations. To me – two hours anywhere without the kids equals leisure time.

Am I saying I don’t like my children? Of course not. Am I saying that I don’t love spending time with them? Again, of course not. But any time that I am not responsible for fetching something for someone, shuttling someone to preschool while another one is screaming for her nap in the back seat or chasing down a toddler clueless to danger in one direction while trying to make sure the 4- year -old on the opposite side of the park isn’t being kidnapped, is leisure time. It’s really pretty black and white to me.

So back to the premise – moms and time. There is so much about moms and time. How much is written about dads and time? And Schulte barely skimmed over this in her piece. She once referenced her husband out back smoking a cigar while she was doing dishes or something. I’m thinking – what the hell is he doing having leisure time while she is working.

And here’s where I think moms fall victim to being martyrs. So many of us, me included, are control freaks – and so with an inability to let go and pass off responsibilities to husbands who in all actuality, are capable functioning members of the human race (hence why we married them and then went on to have children with them) – and so we end up in this reality where we are frazzled and exhausted and have bad hair and need a moment. Why is this? And what are we doing to change that. I’d like to see more written about this issue in how we divide our time than the “woe is me the mom without a minute to spare” ballad.

Again, I’m picking on Schulte because she put herself out there. She writes about making cupcakes at 3am, kids homework at ungodly hours of the night, etc. So again, where is her husband? What’s he doing? At what point does a gal need to learn to let go so that she can have a minute? And what does it take for her to figure that out?

I guess we all have our breaking points. And I am sure there are couples out there where the dad is the one consumed by time and the mom loses track. It’s not me, but I’m sure they’re out there. That being said, I’d enjoy seeing more about how families constructively divide time and moms do find time to themselves instead of the raggedy old mom icing Valentine’s cupcakes at 4am for school when she has a board meeting with the CEO 4 hours later. I also think learning to say “no” is part of this. Are our children completely overscheduled? Do we accept every invitation and spend weekends driving from one birthday party to the next? Is this fun for everyone?

So again, maybe I’m tired and cranky but I think too many women take on everything and lack the confidence to say “no.”

There you have it. I am picking on women this time instead of men.

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Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood