If only it were that easy

When I was baby, did I steal all the food?
What food?
The food in your belly. Did I eat all the food?
Well, yes.....in a way. That's how babies are fed, through their mommies.
Oh, well.....when I was a baby did I grow big, big, BIG in your belly?
You were defiantly a BIG baby. You started out this big [me holds up fingers illustrating size] and by the time you were ready to come out, you were THIS BIG [hands over exaggerating size]

And then you pooped me out?
And then I WHAT?!
You pooped me out of your belly.
NO! You don't poop out babies, Brae! What?! Crazy boy.
Oh well....
bracing myself
How do babies get out of their mommies tummies?
Ummm.....
Do they kick their way out?
Why, yes. Yes they do.

Bedtime stories

It was slightly pass 1 am when I heard the hacking that has become an all too familiar sound over these past few weeks that Brae has been sick. Sleeping with a four-year obviously has it's downfalls, the worst of which is the sounds he makes in the night.

Because he talks in his sleep; whines, laughs, kicks and farts. And most of the time I am able to completely tune him out. My sleeping mind works on a parental filter- only what needs to break through my subconscious does. Therefore, Brae can wake up and do headstands, practice his downward facing dog and recite a sonnet, and provided he is still safe on the mattress, I will remain blissfully unaware and dead to the world. Yet the moment those chunky feet hit the floor and his body eases off of the bed, my eyelids have flown open like a pair of venetian blinds.

So there I was enjoying my rest....
hack
The first time in over three weeks I had gone to sleep before Midnight.
hack
Possibly dreaming, though I don't remember
hack
My mouth slack jawed and rimmed with spittle
hack- gurb
When something broke through the filter
gurb-blech
And I felt something wet
bleeech-bleeech
And then......
EwwwwwwMoooooommmmy!

Alarmed, my eyes flew open to the sound of Brae wailing and.....vomiting. EVERYWHERE. On him. On me. On his stuffed dog. Hell, I bet the some of the stream of steady goo that shot out of his mouth last night with such velocity found itself in Linda Blair's home, soaking her nightclothes as well as mine. Lucky for me, there is nothing I like more than to wake up in the wee hours of the morn to find the ass-end of a partially digested Chicken Nugget staring up at me from the blanket wrapped around my chest. It was a real delight and surprisingly....pretty well intact.

In a stupor, I held my nose as I stripped the sheets. Stripped Brae. Stripped myself. I somehow managed to grab a trashcan from the bathroom for more bedside puking and tucked my son back in.

For the next few hours I was awaken intermittently by the gurgling sound of vomit rising in a throat. And every time I sprung to my feet and produced the bedside puke bucket in just enough time. From the hours of 1am- 4 am I was practicing my lunges across the mattress. I was becoming quite good at it and Brae had his aim down as well. Were we slowing rising among the ranks as the worlds best heaving duo.

He woke up at 7:30 this morning, completely unnecessary as I had already decided sometime around 2 am, that work today was as desirable to me as wiping my ass with fire-ant infested pine cone. I tried unsuccessfully to convince him back into bed but my alluring words and promises of pudding waffles were no match for Speedracer who lay dormant in our DVD player.

He's been slowly recovering through the remainder of the day and although he isn't holding much down, he still has his energy. And of course, Speedracer. On repeat.

He'll be a vision in white.

I had to buy Brae's first pair of tighty whitey's over the weekend. [EDIT: I had to buy an entire PACK of tighty whitey's over the weekend, as evidenced by this photograph because it is impossible to buy one pair of white underwear. Not only is it impossible to buy one pair of stark white size 4 underwear, it is also impossible to buy a SMALL pack of stark white size 4 underwear. I digress.]


And yes, I do have better things to do with my time than arrange an entire pack of toddler briefs on the floor, photograph them and then upload it to my computer, but at the time I could think of few.

Well.

I've spent the better part of the last month fretting over my friend's wedding, not for the fact that she is plunging herself off of the proverbial cliff of freedom into this bonded state of matrimony, but rather for the role my incredibly loud, cantankerous and seemingly bi-polar pre-schooler has been asked to play in it.

I'll give you a hint: It involves a pillow and me crouched at the end of an aisle with a cookie dangling from my fingertips.

When she first asked if Brae would like to be in her wedding I was thrilled. My little man IN A TUX! How fantastic would that be?! The wedding march was ringing in my ears as I pictured Brae sauntering down the aisle, clutching the delicate satin pillow to his chest, wide smile erupting on his face.......and then suddenly....his face contorts as he realises he is UNCOMFORTABLE in this miniature monkey suit, he RIPS off his jacked ringing it around his head and releases it just in time to hit grandma (who inconveniently chose an aisle seat) in the face. I see him popping off his shoes and running down the aisle screaming about how, 'Thissss iss takkking tooooooooo looooong'. He reaches the end of the aisle, drops his pants and moons the attendants while cackling and provoking someone to try and 'pinch the hiney'.
I see me. Standing. Staring ahead in disbelief and I realize,

This is going to be bad.

What was I thinking agreeing to this? Yes, YES, he is adorable and what bride wouldn't want my little kewpie doll adorning every wedding picture and break dancing at her reception?

But this is a four year old. Boy. Who likes very much to make fart jokes and educate his fans on the dual meaning of the word 'crap'. [ASIDE: I do not condone this, thank you.]

Yet I relented. And once more the rational side of my brain was beat down by the less realistic side who gushes over miniature bow ties and cumberbuns.

So, this Saturday is the big day. First the tux came, but the brown vest that I had ordered with it was the size of my thumb and clearly did not fit. So I had to request a new one. Then the shoes, oh, THE SHOES. The damn shoes. You know, I'm not even going to go into the shoes right now, but lets just say that my levels of compromise have never been so high.....and somebody is getting a Porsche 911 on their 16th birthday.

And now finally, after weeks of trying on and taking off, practicing a slower gait, purchasing white underwear and discussions on when it is appropriate to drop your drawers, we are ready.

Well, as ready as we'll ever be.

Things that need to be flogged

1. Speedracer and the amazing technicolor visuals. It's like dropping acid in Honey Pie Pony Land and I can't take the neon-induced hangovers much longer.

2. My African Lit teacher. Because my love for slave narratives does nothing if entice me to read 100 pages of turn of the century literature for hours every night.

3. Indecisive shoppers. Yes, you buddy.

4. All of my co-workers. My brain does not operate in a functional way before 10 am (and I don't give a rats ass anyway).

5. Rhinovirus and the dirty daycare grubbing children who carry it

6. Dodger, for inhaling a piece of bark the size of my fist and lodging it in his throat so far that I was elbow deep in his frothy maw trying to dislodge it.

7. Poorly constructed white patent leather dress shoes and chunky size 9 toddler feet

8. Writers block and dirty deadlines

9. Thongs that shrink in the wash or asses that grow larger as I sleep

10. William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies and the owner of perhaps the most annoying voice I have ever heard projected on a book tape. Ever.

The 100th post

Really.

I started this blog to alleviate some of the boredom I felt while working in my past position at my current place of employment. I was fresh out of a marriage, struggling to find a means to a divorce, re-adjusting to the complications that came with my return to my parents abode and generally dissatisfied with my life and past decisions.

It was a means of escape from the drivel of everyday tasks and a form of entertainment for myself. Although at the time, no one I knew was really reading what I spent my time writing, it was fulfilling in a slightly self-occupied, you're-so-vain-this-song-is-totally-about-you way.

And then somehow people started reading this.

I would like to say that it was my alluring charm and amazing manipulation of the English language and yes, I am particularly deluded at times, but I know the lure of this blog. Its entrance into a life that is not your own. For the same reason I've committed myself to the daily intoxication of several other blogs and sit on my ass Sunday nights watching the re-runs of 'Living Lohan', you are reading me. Me and my disjointed sentences that would make my English professor weep. Me and my crippling flaws and evident shortcomings. Me in the most basic way you can have me.

So to all of my Internet voyeurs, I just wanted to say thanks. That's it. Just a thanks. And if you were slightly more inclined, a many thanks. And to the 67 people who have me bookmarked, comment with your phone number because that type of commitment deserves something a little more. A leg hump, perhaps.

I know.

I'm a little distracted these days.

It's not just my work. The work that catches in my throat each morning and forces my blood pressure to reach levels equivalent to a post-op cardiac patient on my morning commute.

It's not just the overwhelming commitment I have made by plunging backwards into a whole new program at school and suspending my eyelids open each night with toothpicks while flipping through the pages of Up From Slavery.

It's not just battling bedtime, bath time, teeth brushing time and 'for the love of God, if Pre-school expects him to magically know how to wipe his own ass now that he is four then they should probably make the parents aware of such expectations!'

It's The Three.
Rolled up.
Held together with horrific amounts of stress and bound with the alarmed sense that paying particular attention to only one facet of my life will have detrimental effects on the others.

I confess. I like to stay busy. I like a sense of purpose and idle hands do make me nervous. However, recently I've begun to feel the slender rip that has been creeping down the center of my being as I attempt to juggle these responsibilities.

Full time work
Full time school
Full time mom

My trio of identities. What I chose.

Awakenings

If you ever stop to think about how easily it is to become preoccupied with matters unimportant, it is overwhelming the degree to which we busy ourselves with trivial tasks.

I spent last week in Orlando at a statewide Dependency Summit. Dependency Court, for those who do not know, is the group of judges, magistrates, laws, etc. that govern child welfare and protect those children who are removed from their home due to cases of abuse or neglect. Essentially, the Court is central to the work that I do.

The Summit was an event that was open to all facets of the child welfare system and I was pleasantly surprised when asked to represent my company there. I attended, along with a handful of other employees from my work (mostly upper management). The Summit consisted of speakers, those from DCF as well as this author. It was delightfully informative as well as equally emotionally crushing. Workshops were given on a wide array of topics pertaining to child welfare and I found myself involved in a particularly upsetting one involving how to recognize child abuse.

At my level of work (remember my corporate bubble) I never witness child abuse but through pictures, case notes and court documents. It becomes easy to distance myself through what I perceive as my slight involvement in these children's lives.

As I sat uncomfortably in the cushioned steel chair for three hours, shifting slightly to allow access to the images on the screen, I was reminded that the world in which we participate in has evil threaded within.

The pictures revealed stories, recounted by the detective who worked the cases. Stories of hurt, despair, desperation. Stories that burned into your brain and sliced coolly through your heart. They were all different and yet...all terribly the same.

Images that flashed on the screen held my attention with such tremendous affliction that I was stricken. Unable to turn from the screen and the hideous accompanying stories, I was barred into the chair, invisible straps bound me and my eyes pried open with hideous intrigue.

I walked away with only this.

There is certainly evil in this world. Evil that exists outside of a Bram Stoker novel, outside of a Hitchcock movie and certainly outside of communities medial attempts to contain it behind bars. Evil that is real and alive in the most basic sense.

It is a scary world that we live in, as it has been said before. My timid observation is also this: this world is a helpless one.

What can be done? We are a solution focused population. Problem solvers, we elect those to public office who promise to solve the greatest amount. Truly though, what can be done to prevent the evil that mars the souls of the darkest individuals? What preventative measures can be taken to stop the broken bones, bruises and deaths of societies most vulnerable individuals?

Consequences, yes. Those we honor.
Yet, to a child who waits in fear every night that this night may be her last- consequences are not enough.

Helpless.

Only, Trivial things can consume you.