Motherhood: It's just Poop

Make no mistake; I love my son. He is the god damn Disney World of my life and as far as I am concerned he shits fairy dust. Still, I must admit, motherhood is no picture off a box of Pampers, and I feel that reality of parenting must be brought to light. After all, it is the most critiqued, closely studied, and most often judged part of one’s behavior. My bookshelf is currently covered with literature written by doctors, scholars and gurus that dictate parenting styles word for word, page for page, and warn me about how badly I am already fucking up as a mother. Sometimes, I look at my newborn peacefully sleeping in his swing and think, “I’m doing alright.” And then that Bitch from Chapter 3 whispers in my ear, “He isn’t swaddled you worthless piece of crap.”

I hear people say practice makes perfect. Well, when it comes to being a parent, that saying is just a load of shit. Honestly, at the end of the day, no matter how many diapers you changed, every now and then, you will find fecal matter in your hair and not one chapter of any f-ing book will convince me otherwise. Shit just happens.

 For example, the first few weeks of my son Chace Jaxon’s life, my husband and I were in survival mode. My role as a mother was to provide food, new diapers, and a place for my baby to sleep. Two hours would go by, and I would rinse and repeat:  Food. Diaper. Sleep.

 At week four, I thought I had it in the bag. I was running remarkable well on adrenaline and found myself in a routine nonetheless. Then, my husband, Chris, got the Nurovirus. What is the Nurovirus you ask? Simply put- it’s the stomach flu on mother f-ing steroids and it is 200 times more contagious than any other strand of flu. So there I was, 1:30 am, with a newborn latched onto my the right breast, peacefully nursing as I ran  up and down two flights of stairs to care for my sick husband and his abundance of bodily fluid projecting out of every orifice of his grown body.

Epic latch skills, I know. That night, Chace and I mind fucked Chapter 2: Perfecting the Latch that night. I can assure you none of those books that lined my shelves would know what the fuck to do in this situation nor would my super educated friend Google. So, did I fall to the floor and cry like a coward? Well, maybe a little. But after my brief mental break, I did what any new mother would do with her horribly needy and super contagious husband. I checked him to a Holiday Inn.

Just kidding, that was option A and I chose option B. I called the only person that would give a shit if Chris preferred yellow vs. red Gatorade at 3:30 am; the one person that understood that caring for a newborn was similar to caring for Chris. I called his mother.

Fumble

Jan2011     You think you have seen it all -until one day, you become the sole eye witness to a grown woman lifting her leg high above her head while taking a shit. Initially, all I could think about was the fact that it took at least ten 90 minute Yoga classes to get my leg to go that high.  Knees locked- toes pointed. Fuck, that’s impressive.

 Then, I did what most people would do in my situation- I found the nearest poor soul to come look for themselves; For this was a story that would require a second witness.

 That was the first time I ever saw my husband cry.

 Personally, I was equally delighted as I was nauseous. This must be submitted into evidence immediately.  If one can get their asshole to touch the popcorn ceiling, one can get their ass in Depends.

As I ran to my phone, I attempted to mentally assemble the words that might explain what we had just encountered. But as I held it my hand, the caller ID reading “DAD” and T-Mobile’s jingle informed me that I was already fucked.

Fumble.

 I’ll be damned- Lucifina must have called him mid-shit.

 
 I pressed the green “answer” button and before the phone reached my ear, I realized the call was  already in progress. Apparently, in our family, “hello” is unnecessary verbage.

 I held my breath and listened to my Coach call the next play.

“Ash, my mother has some laundry for you.”

FML.

Endurance of the Resilient

Feb2011

I have, indeed, accepted the fact that when I express my hatred for my own Grandma to others, my soul appears to be as empty as my Xanex bottle. But what I refuse to accept is reasons for this hatred must go unnoticed and my mouth must remain shut.

As a lawyers' daughter I have learned to be strategic with my arguments and present the facts in a rational way in order to state my case. And as a woman, I have learned that making an effort to keep my mouth shut is about as easy as giving birth. These two facts have made me a force to be reckoned with.

With that said, no rationale is needed to argue the case that if one refuses to bathe in two years time, one should be deemed incompetent; or at least labeled a fucking disgusting pig. Evidently, comments like such make me insensitive, so needless to say I have stock in Yankee Candle and I buy bleach in gallons of five.

Initially when we moved in, I briefly witnessed the faint fear in her eyes as I whirled through the house throwing away her expired Helman’s Mayonnaise coupons. The stacks of direct mailing letters from the Pope himself made their way into the garbage next to my optimism. No amount of prayer cards or holy water could help us now. She is alive solely based on the fact that neither God nor the Devil wants her, so she remains here on Earth mind-fucking the feeble and assessing the endurance of the resilient.

Valentines Day

Happy LOVE DAY 

 Feb14.2012

Today is my first Valentine’s Day as a married woman and I woke up to my very own Prince Charming.  He is mostly every bit of what the fairytales promised, with the exception of all the gas. I don’t recall Cinderella ever having to wake up to the sounds of her Prince’s asshole, but I’ll watch it again just in case.

 I stared at the ceiling, wondering if all my Valentine’s Day dreams have come true. As a realist, and as a woman, all I want from Valentine’s Day( aside from my husband’s undying love) is a clean fucking house. The glorious aromas from a PineSol cleaned floor far surpass the smell of a dozen roses and chocolate covered calories. But alas, my husband is a hopeless romantic, and it is unlikely he found time to bring his dirty socks to the laundry basket with all the planning necessary for this special day.

I count my blessings though, because my Grandma is spending this Valentine’s Day at her new home with my Dad. She can torture me from afar, but at least my house doesn’t smell like a septic tank. I wonder if my cold is severe enough to be worth driving up there to cough on her silverware and spit in her juice. Maybe tomorrow.

As I sit here watching Mickey’s Clubhouse with my two year old niece, I have to smile at the various forms one can find love. The episode goes like this: Mickey needs help planning a sleepover. Truly, Mickey is being a douche because Minnie has a cold and he is still worried about planning this goddamn party with Goofy. But, my niece loves Mickey. So when Mickey looked through the TV at my niece and asked her if she would help him plan the sleepover, she shrugged her little shoulders and unenthusiastically said, “Sure.”

 She would do anything for Mickey. She can barely get her own sippie cup off the counter, but I’ll be damned if she didn’t sit there for 30 painful minutes to help find the biggest red balloon and the correct color of sprinkles so Mickey would have the perfect party. Afterwards, she let out a sigh of relief and went on about her day.

Love can be the most forgiving, innocent, irrational emotion that causes us to pause and care about someone else more than ourselves. Without it, even Mickey would be a prick.

So today, I forget about the socks on the floor. And when I go into the garage, I’ll see the pile of laundry and walk right by it because it will be there tomorrow. Today is a special day. It has nothing to do with reservations, cleaned houses or even the best balloon.

It’s about the one emotion that keeps us from killing each other.

2011: To my beloved journal. May you rest in peace.

Jan2011: RIP Journal

I’m not exactly sure how I got to this point or what brought me to document my thoughts.

I’m pretty certain it was the irresistibly adorable -yet seemingly useless- notebook on sale at Target.

I went in for carpet fresh and came out yet another self help project and $78.62 worth of shit. Damn that store.I really need to start filtering my ideas, because this undoubtedly was another bad one.
This pink polka dotted notebook made entirely from recycled paper is already taunting me.
It snickers at my pathetically unorganized handwriting and how its’ inconsistency mirrors the equally messy situations in my life that will soon contaminate its pages.

I can hear it scream, “Use your laptop you fucked up bitch, I’m too adorable for your filth.” Still, I scribble on. I do this for two reasons.

For one, this journal is way cheaper than a therapist and anxiety meds and being dependant on either has long term side effects.Secondly, I’m doing this because my journalism degree- unlike this notebook- isn’t seemingly useless; it absolutely is. That framed diploma is just proof of my wasted time and this is my way of telling it to fuck off.

I’ll tell you one thing though. Target and their plethora of inspiring, yet totally unnecessary shit can go to hell.

Most stories have a defined beginning, middle, and end. But in here in Hell on Earth, time stands still. The minutes intertwine with years like snakes on Medusa’s head and since I can remember, I have emotionally stayed in the same pool, treading the same goddamn water.

When my parents divorced, my dad acquired legal custody of my brother and me, and my mom acquired the ability for forgot about all of us. She got a condo on the beach and we got a handicapped grandmother from Jersey. Overtime, Grandma declared herself our household Jesus and quickly became my personal Lucifer. At home, my name changed to “she” and “that girl”. Hand to God, the only thing I ever did to her was be born with a vagina. Grandma hates women. But she loves her boys -all three of them. And now we know one of her boys loves little boys- so Grandma can fuck off.

My mom had her moments, but she wasn’t exactly mother of the year-

(Or runner-up for that matter.)

I’m a lot like her though. I see it in the mirror, and feel it in my bones. It aches as much as my abandoned heart. We share a bond stronger than our DNA; and that is a deep, unrelenting hatred for my grandma.

I’ll tell you one thing about my mother. She never shit on towels.She shit on a lot of things, including my mental health, but never on towels.Grandma claims she can’t get up to use the toilet, or move her legs to put on her Depends.

So, naturally, the only solution is to provide her with a towel to shit on while she lies in bed. Then, she gives the towel to the closest walking vagina to wash-and only her.For awhile, I was lucky she urinated in a plastic pitcher that my dad kept next to her bed. I would just empty it daily. Eventually the pitcher was too much to ask of her, and we moved on to just peeing off the side of the bed onto a towel below.

As it stands, the carpet surrounding her bed is saturated with piss as one lonely neglected pitcher sits untouched. At this point, I think it’s for visual effect.

It’s been nine months since my fiancée and I moved in with her to help out my Dad. Looking back I there was no way to know it would turn into this. “Temporary situation” I believe were the words used. Nowadays, most of the words used only have four letters.

If her evil wasn’t so apparent, I’d be concerned about going to hell myself. I’ve fantasized about rolling my grandmother’s wheelchair right off our dock into the depths of the canal in our backyard. In reality though, it’s only six feet deep, and with my luck, I’d roll her off during low tide. Her head would stay safely above water as God’s way of giving me the finger.

She never needed that wheelchair, you know. It was just another form of sympathy from her boys. Now that stubborn bitch is stuck in that goddamn chair, just like I’m stuck in this nightmare of a life.

She chose the chair. Misery was never my choice.

I’ll watch as she sits in that chair and rocks back and forth, back and forth, on the tile in front of the window- Her body as stiff as her heart.

Stone faced; just staring with her knobby knees propelling her steady motion.

She waits for Him to come back.

Her beloved son and my only Dad.

My dad’s relationship with grandma is unhealthy to say the least. I used to say if she could eat him whole in order to consume him entirely, she would. I know better now. Her two rotten teeth can barely chew through her overcooked noodles. Manipulation and a strict monarchy are her two biggest strategies. She’s good. People should study her success.

I hate her for taking my dad from me. And honestly, I’m disgusted with him for allowing it. My dad is so focused on being a son; he sometimes forgets he is also a father.

He used to tell me, “If you don’t laugh, you cry.” I’m beyond both. Now, I just focus on breathing and in this house,  even that has its challenges.