Me getting dressed is an afterthought.

I’m still waiting for an invitation from Martha, but it hasn’t arrived.  Maybe we could be on house arrest together…

S Happens, That’s my theme. I know how not a day passes that you mutter to yourself, where is The Suburban Martyr! Well, like Martha is about to experience I’m on house arrest. I’m waiting for an invite from her, but the phone doesn’t ring. As I’ve said before, she’s going to be done and much richer than me after her stint is over. Mine’s not nearly as luxurious, Martha has a staff and cook, and although I’m the cook, and I’ve got the housekeeper and regular sitter, the light at the end of my tunnel is a freight train. I could stay with Martha, and we could do crafts Speaking of crafts, I’ve learned to knit, and it’s another craft I’ve gotten involved with that after hours spent…STILL LOOKS LIKE CRAP. Let’s pull my mind out of the fogged haze of “where the hell am I” and try to remember what has been going on….Pictures help jog my memory, as it’s hard to remember the day of the week.

Jack is playing soccer and will retire in March at 4 ½ . Such a sensitive soul, he can’t understand why after all these years of me insisting that he “share” that I would want him to be interested in a game where someone kicks him and makes him cry in order to steal his ball that he got for Christmas. He spends a lot of the weekly games crying, and snuggling with his coach and when he’s not doing that he’s usually on the playing field showing his opponent how to do “starfish” on the grass. Then, “whack”, some punk athlete of a kid (whose father has undoubtedly practiced with his son) kicks the ball in his direction, it hits him in the head, and the tears start. What have I gotten myself into? I haven’t mastered breastfeeding and playing soccer. Only 3 more games and NO MORE, Never again, not until he can drive himself. Only 3 more months and NO MORE, this well is DRY!!!! Life will be GOOD! We’ll try T ball next, or Swimming. Ashton, turns 3 in March, was potty trained “1 & 2” in less than 10 days…I’ll probably be shunned from the mommy’s group, but I’m not scared to shout…time outs don’t work. They especially don’t work in the area of poop and public places where company might sit. Severe threats and follow through, well, let’s just say if you need help call me. He’s my angel boy now!

It’s amazing what kids will do for a freaking marble. “Do this, get a marble, Do that, wait for the wrath on the step, please while I clean this up and compose myself”. It all started the day after his nap where he crapped in his diaper, took the diaper OFF, wiped his hand in the poop and then proceeded to paint on my walls, chase Jack with the poopy hand, SIT ON MY COUCH. It was everywhere, walls, furniture, dog, baby, baby dog, TV, bike, staircase, bed. Let’s just say it was a SHITTY day. MY technique changed, and viola, the kid now poops and pees in the potty and gets a marble. Mignonne is now allowed to sit up. She has been forcibly delayed in development due to my inability to deal with all three of them at the same time. Now that Ashton can poop and pee without supervision, her world is a lot better. So, she now cruises throughout the house chasing the boys in her scooter walker as they zoom down the hall on their bikes….Then, when she’s done she happily sits on the floor and eats toys. 24 lbs at 9 months old, she’s no petite thing and what are left of my breasts prove it. She’s bigger than some of Jack’s classmates! She’s got such a nice sweet personality and is pretty much laid back and our “easiest one” to date. She crawled/scooted on her elbows (if you want to call it crawl, fine) on Super Bowl Sunday and is discovering that our house has other places to visit besides my right hip.

Lille is neglected (as usual). We’ve spent the month reacquainting with neighbors bringing her home as the yard guy cut the wire for the invisible fence for the 100th time, she escaped and came home with a body of fleas and ticks. I kept asking neighbors if they wanted her, but she’s sleeping on my sofa in the Living Room as I type.

Speaking of S, Yesterday during pick-up from pre-school, I thought it would be a treat to take the dog. Until she SH*T in the car. I thought it was bad with the kids screaming or Ashton’s poop, until I had to deal with the screaming, and the smell of SMOOSHED dog feces. I thought, “Just Kill Me Now…”

Hope you put a shout out to the man upstairs to get me through this.

My affirmations are more realistic like, “I will drink three beers at lunch today.”

Part of my new years resolution every year since having children was that John wasn’t getting to heaven without me. Come hell or Tsunami, I was going to Church on Sunday’s and John wasn’t going without me. Foolish girl. Just like Father Leo said that one “kick off” Sunday, half of us make resolutions, the other half just know that they will fail. I’d been on a religious sabbatical since Jack was born. I’d try to attend for Christmas Mass, but would resolve that it was another year away after I spent three quarters of the service trying to block Jack or Mignonne from a much desired exit. Each time I would attend, John would stand there, or even better kneel, in some sort of peaceful trance, like his life was just perfect, his relationship with God was solid, and he had his lo-carb eating wife by his side with his beautiful kids. Dandy.

Sometimes I would sit there trying to read his mind and be certain that he was doing some positive self affirmations recommended by his bosses wife one night over dinner, like “I can remain married to my wife”….”She WILL be skinny”…..”She WILL be a good cook”….”She WILL take care of me” Meanwhile, I would try to indiscreetly pop another valium to make me not care that I couldn’t hear what the priest was saying over the loud speaker because I was wrestling with an alligator on my hip. Frankly, I was rather annoyed at the entire picture of happiness that John was painting.

My affirmations were more realistic, like, “I WILL drink three beers at lunch today”…

“I will get to take a shit and read that article about Jennifer Anniston when I get home”….”

“I WILL not abandon this for a Caribbean island and a fancy umbrella drink”.

“I WILL not kill myself”.

Early in this leave of absence, I justified myself by saying that I could Tivo the Pope and get him in between diaper changes and sippy cups during the week. Then the guy finishes his term, so to speak, and we get another guy that I couldn’t pick out in a celebrity line-up. I was falling from the church and falling hard. I felt so alienated from my religion, but I wasn’t crazy about any of the other rules of the other sects, either women had to be submissive, alcohol was looked unfavorably upon, or the religion was on pay per view. I had pretty much decided I was an a la carte Catholic. I could sleep at night with that decision.

Anyway, we missed the first week of the year as John had a consummation contest of Cosmopolitans the night before with a neighbor during a friendly Poker game with the wives, so I was really geared up to attend that day. Usually mass is an exorcism affair with Ashton, so when Jack came to me that morning and announced that he wanted to call his Nana (Ashton in tow), I dialed my mother and put the four year old scam artist on the phone. A couple of grunts and yeah yeah’s later, Ashton handed me the phone. My mom asked when I wanted to bring them over, and I replied, “After Mass”. Puzzled, she asked me if I just wanted to save myself some grief and drop Thing 1 and Thing 2 off on the way, and I didn’t hesitate replying that we’d slow down on our way and that they should look out their door say 10:30 for their heirs.

So there I was, partially showered, and in my delirium I had put on a lavender sweater to match the one that Mignonne was wearing. I looked like one of those mothers that mean to dress alike with their eight month old to be cute. It wasn’t until we were pulling away from my parent’s house that my wonderful husband snickered, “Did you MEAN to dress like Mignonne?” It was at that point that I wanted to just have him drop me off at home, and he could take the princess to Church and I could go back to bed. But, I mustered up the courage and on we went to Mass. I looked ridiculous, in a breast feeding nothing fits, but I might have to whip it out in an instant sort of way.

As we were exiting the mini-van that I drive like a medal of honor, I noticed that Mignonne was without her right patent leather shoe. WE FORGOT TO TAKE THE OTHER ONE OUT OF THE SHOE BASKET…Curses flew, but I gracefully took the shoe we HAD managed to put on her off, and on we went into the church.

As soon as we sat down, John announced that he had to go to the bathroom. I should have seen it as a premonition.

It was blissful, going to Mass without Jack and Ashton to contend with. I was feeding Mignonne Cheerios, she was happy, and then Mass began….Stand, sing a song, sit, stand, sing, sit. Little lamb of God in a lavender dress.

Each time the priest talked about Jesus and the Lamb of God (a lot during the homily) Little Miss Mignonne started GRUNTING. LOUDLY. So loudly that people were snickering. I would have thought they were snickering about my lavender “matching” outfit. But no, Miss Mignonne was GRUNTING like she was “Working some stuff out” and having a hard time doing it.

Grunt Lamb of God, Grunt Lamb of God, Grunt Sheppard, Grunt Grunt Grunt…Lamb of God.

Then, the scent of God, and it wasn’t incense.

R took the opportunity to change his daughter’s daughter outside of the church. He knew I needed some time with God. His comment when she returned clean and happy was, “I know why she was making so much noise…It was a ball of poo.”

Then my little lamb decided that she was ready to take a nap and she wanted the congregation to know about it as she cried herself to sleep.

We accepted communion with my baby passed out on my chest, I had to squat down to receive communion from the five foot lady handing it out…Instead of going back to the pew, I skirted over to the confession area to wait for mass to end so that I wouldn’t have to disturb the sleeping princess. I thought I just wanted to take about 30 milligrams of valium and call it a life. Why did it have to be so hard? Why was I struggling with it, when all of the other mothers in the church seemed so happy with their lives. I felt so lost, so helpless, so fucking tired.

John grabbed the stroller and then joined me. Then I saw him “slip” some money into the candle box. I said, “What are you doing?” To which he replied, “I always light a candle for those not attending mass”. Great. Why the hell did I even come?

I popped a valium and headed out the door, Mignonne in transit.

Have You Ever Seen a Two Year old imitate a dog at the grocery store?  On his hands and knees?

As I was trying to fold that last load of laundry tonight as Mignonne was screaming her head off, I thought to myself, “I know why people stop at two”. I guess I have met my threshold of tolerating motherhood, and I’m at my brink. Where do all of the weeks go? I’ll tell you…they go driving my kids up and down the road, picking up and dropping off from pre-school, and pleading with the boys not to embarrass me and to be on “their best behavior” whenever I’m brave enough to take them out in public.

The most ridiculous punishment our generation has inherited is the “time out!” Ooohhhh, that’s SOOO scary. “Yeah mom, make me sit on the staircase for a few minutes while you compose yourself not to beat me senseless.” It’s supposed to be a minute for each year of their lives, but I just wish that I could get a 33 minute time out and let them figure out how to do laundry, feed themselves, bathe without drowning, change their diapers, wipe their butts, let the dog out, and best of all, pick up all of the little trains that have multiplied like rabbits all over our house. I know how John and I got ourselves into this, two kids is cake and it seemed a rather good idea that night, besides, our family dreamed of a little girl, and now we have her, and THREE KIDS! Four, two and a half, and 7 months old.

Mignonne joined our rowdy clan this year. Currently seven months old and always wearing the most adorable outfit I’ve ever seen, the Gerber baby weighs 22 pounds and looks bigger than most two year olds. This is not out of line with her two brothers. Jack is in Pre-K 4s this year and although he is the youngest in his class, it’s not surprising to mention that he’s taller than some third graders. Jack is very sweet and sensitive and loves to snuggle and tell stories of trains. His partner in crime, Mr. Ashton turns three this March and is consistently up to “NO GOOD”. He has a wicked sense of humor and creativity and a strange addictive love-affair with his best friend, “Baby Dog”. This security blanket/dog goes everywhere with him, and has a regular appointment with the washer as it gets dragged daily through parking lots, grocery stores, play grounds, restaurants, and sleeps with him. Like my American Express card, we don’t leave home without it.

Have you ever seen a two year old imitate a dog at the grocery store? Up and down the aisles he goes, barking, growling, whining, and giggling, ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES! The meat department is always a treat as I squirm thinking about some leaking chicken or pork that didn’t get cleaned up very well. It’s my weekly opportunity to evaluate where I’ve gone wrong as a mother. I would also like to mention here that Baby Dog’s bath time is no picnic. It usually involves Ashton convulsing on the kitchen floor screeching, “I WANT MY BABY DOG!!!” Baby Dog has been removed several times prior to the dry cycle completing, as I can only tolerate so much and the wine runs out fast in our household.

John has had a great year. He continues his career with The Firm, and is really now starting to reap the rewards of all the marketing and early morning breakfasts and Rotary meetings. We fled Tampa for North Carolina for Hurricane Ivan, only to have it slam the Gulf Coast and miss us completely. Mr. Firm has a home on the Outer Banks and the company evacuation plan (Tampa was going to get hit with a predicted “4”) was for everyone to relocate and work from condos they rented for the duration. As John and I were dealing with our three hellions, we left early Saturday morning to beat the flow of traffic destined to compete with our Mini-van, pee-pee parties, and diaper changes. Fifteen hours later of pure hell drive time (we spent the night in a random motel) we arrived on Sunday to absolutely splendid weather and the news that the Hurricane wasn’t hitting Tampa and that no one else from the company was coming. We stayed an entire week, and John worked on the patio while I managed the kids. Afternoons we spent watching waves crash in the Atlantic while Mignonne slept, Jack played in the sand, and Ashton ate sand. It was blissful.

John just informed me that he got the boys down and it’s time to drink some wine. We’ve had a regular scheduled date on Sunday’s to watch Desperate Housewives, and this week it’s off because we’re supposed to learn about the “Five People you meet in Heaven”…I’m just trying to survive and death is too pessimistic. But we have wine, the laundry is done and put away, the kitchen is clean, and the baby doesn’t squeal for another two hours. Gotta get while the getting is good. Get your mind out of the gutter; we’ve got a Four Year old roommate at the foot of our bed.

I can’t remember when my last confession was, but I’m sure it was over 10 years ago.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I can’t remember when my last confession was, but I’m sure it’s over 10 years ago.” So started this year’s New Year’s resolution of self-preservation and maximizing tax benefits. I needed to secure my place in heaven, should there actually be one when this was all over. But I also needed to maximize savings should I be around for human’s typical life span…80 years or so. I am convinced that living life is purgatory. Some times it’s a good life, other times it’s bad. We’ve already lived one life, and the one that you are live now is penance for what you did in the last one. Life is like groundhog day. The more lives you have, the more time and penance you have to endure before going up or down on the elevator. Life gets easier than the one before; more modern conveniences and liberties, but you pay or get back daily for what you did the life before. Call it good Karma. Call it Hell. I’m was certain from where I was parked in the pre-school drop off line in front of St. Paul’s Catholic Church that rainy January morning, it was either blissful or very hot. It must be the only reason why children die at such a young age. Purgatory ends when you die. Some never have to suffer.

My life’s entire existence is to complete this final penance. I had to endure the odyssey of motherhood.

My resolution this year is to attempt to self-preserve my space in heaven should there actually be one when this was all over. Then my ultimate goal would be achieved. I had been on a religious sabbatical since my second child, Ashton was born. This January morning, I now have three children, 4, almost 3, and six months old. Jack, Ashton, and Mignonne…I also have a very tall husband.  John.

One phase of my life, before I knew what reality really was, or even before I could comprehend what life was really all about, I had this vision of my life. It’s blurry now, kind of like the day after a drinking binge when you don’t really quite remember what happened or how you actually got home. Sometimes I would sit and try to go back to that place that I thought would be perfection and try to see if I was there yet.

If I knew then where I would be now, there are so many things I would have done differently, or taken less seriously at the time. I would have spent less nights worrying about some shit of a boss with an ego trip or my desire to succeed in my career at my social life or love life’s expense.

I certainly would not have wasted my weekends trying to move ahead in my career.

I know now looking at the fine lines on my forehead achieved “BK”, before Kids, that what I did achieve was meeting and keeping the best man that I could have dreamed of, John. How I accomplished this feat is still vague, and that I would never change.

My husband John and I are best friends. We like each other’s company, laugh about the same things, and there is no one I would rather spend my day doing nothing with than him. I love him, trust him, and look forward to the next time he’s with me.

We dated several years before getting married, but I was committed to him the moment I met him. My aspirations were high. If I had been asked what I wanted to achieve, I would have said to be on the cover of a magazine. My private women’s college set me up for those aspirations.  And I believed it.

As I got older, the magazine title changed, but the goal remained. Instead of a fashion or pop-culture title, it moved to Business Week or Entrepreneurial titles. I enjoyed what I did, I became successful doing it, and I could actually see the outcome of my work. I was paid handsomely for my work, and I was proud of myself.

Regardless of what I thought of myself, I always had the nagging of parental approval and control hanging over me, whispering “you need to worry less about your career and start having a family”, or the always present mention of some cousin that had given birth to yet another baby.

My least favorite time became Christmas when I had to stomach my mother purchasing countless presents for children of cousins that I didn’t even know, and then the pricking jab of a comment like, “well, you don’t want to have children, so I’ll just buy for them”. I wasn’t jealous, I was 28.  I really did have my own timetable and I wasn’t going to be forced into doing something for anyone other than me or my husband.

Once we got married, I stopped taking the pill and we bought a dog. We named her Lille, she was a miniature schnauzer. John and I poured all of our parenting skills into this creature. For Christmas that year we got a video camera. We have hours of footage of the dog, and we actually used to watch the movies. Lille became a pest, a “teenager”, and our last animal.

The dog grew to hate me, and my goal in life metamorphosized into ensuring that my children didn’t end up the same way.

John and I were both working on our brilliant careers as well as our bodies. A year into marriage, convinced that my clock was ticking and tired of my mother’s nagging, I decided in my gunner personality to implement the business of having kids, instead of just winging it. I started to entertain the idea of leaving my full-time travel consulting career in order to work somewhere locally and with less travel. I had just quit my job and was in between companies. I bought a BMW 528i to reward myself for my new job title of “Vice President”. The same day, I also purchased three home ovulation kits and began the science project of trying to pee on a stick three to four times a day to determine if “the time was right”.

Day after day the stick never showed that it was the night.

It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. John’s mother, Bea, had come to Tampa to spend Thanksgiving with us. I had invited my parents as well as my grandparents to join us for Thanksgiving Dinner as well. It was not as I had dreamed it would be. Both of our families together during the holidays was like chewing glass.

That one Saturday afternoon, my heart stopped. There it was, the sign that I was ovulating. Bea left to drive back to Baton Rouge and before she was pulling out of our neighborhood, R couldn’t get his clothes off fast enough. It was the most surreal sexual experience of my life. I laid there on the queen size sleigh bed with my ass up on a pillow so that none of his sperm would leave before one had successfully reached the destination. Damnit, we were going to have a baby and I was going to be a mom.

Three days later I started my new “stay in town” job as a Vice President for an Internet Consulting Company from hell and began puking my guts out from the stress of the job. I would literally vomit in the front seat of my new BMW, all over my Ellen Tracy suit that I had just picked up from the cleaners. I thought I was just miserable. I was angry at myself for leaving what was a great job with wonderful security to work for a fad consulting company in a popular high-tech sector so that I wouldn’t have to travel full time and might actually get to spend some quality time with my husband of one year. I thought I could achieve the work life balance of family and career.

There was this girl that was assigned to work for me, and from the moment I walked through the doors of the company, she became a demon from hell. It was a daily battle to get through the day, and I was powerless to fire her. I should have known better, the Wing nuts running the company wore pinstriped double breasted suits and two tones shoes. Immediately I was informed by the company’s public relations director that the most shady of them all, the guy that would disappear quite often and really didn’t have much of a job to do was under watch my the FBI for suspicion of murder of a fellow business partner, and the other two were ex-used car salesmen. So there I was, the pinnacle of my brilliant career and I was on the fast track to a fiery crash…plus I was now pregnant.

So long magazine cover.  So long career ambition.  So long to my Brilliant Career.

Three weeks into the job, I felt like something was missing in my life. Another week passed, and I stopped by the drugstore and purchased my first home pregnancy test. I peed again on the stick, and there it was. We had successfully produced a miracle and my life changed direction. The next day at work, I attempted to secretly find the name of a doctor that would treat me in my state. I called someone on my health insurance plan, “Dr. Angel”. When I spoke to the receptionist, she asked, “Are you high risk?” I didn’t understand. She said, “We’re perinatologists” Not knowing what that meant, I whispered into my phone while drawing my blinds closed and shut the door, “I think I’m pregnant”.

Long Pause.  She said, “Have you taken a pregnancy test?” “Yes”. “Okay ma’am, we see patients that are high risk”, I then went into this garbled explanation of how Dr. Angel was highly recommended and that I was in a highly stressful work environment and that I had moved from New Orleans and I wasn’t familiar with the Tampa physician network, but I really wanted to see a doctor that went to a real medical school and that spoke English, and was close to where I lived on my way to work, and that Dr. Angel fell into that description. She took my information, and then called me a few hours later and said, “we usually don’t take non-high risk patients, but Dr. Angel agreed to see you, so we’ll see you in two weeks.” I was in! I immediately went to the executive restroom and barfed.

Nine months of weigh gain and bizarre battles with the bitch from hell, my stomach stretched and I swear I would lose feeling in my coochie if the baby fell any lower. I gained 45 pounds, but I didn’t care. Always trying to find the bright side to any punishment, I was mistakenly optimistic that the company that I was working for would either be sold or go public, and that I could cash out and never go back again.

I should have known better. The major investors in the company were the Boys from what we’ll call Fastpace Steakhouse. Millions had been invested in the company in hopes of an IPO or cash out. As a vice president in the company, undeniably the top woman in the company and undoubtably one of the top eight key employees, I never met the Boys.  Instead of smelling of steak, it smelled of sushi.

The rumors with the other executives continued to come in. Each time a political or government official would stop by the office, the supposed ex-con would disappear for a few hours. Another former executive with the company was in federal penitentiary for tax evasion. Two of the employees I suspected of being the drug dealers for the used car salesman CEO. They were always flying off or boating off to the Caribbean. The bitch was living with one of the lead developers, both original employees of the company.

There were stories of bringing air conditioners to Cuba by boat. There were ex-strippers designing web sites, answering phones, fake boobs on all of the wives, and there I was now in my Pea in the Pod Maternity wardrobe, a knocked up prisoner of my own now failed aspirations. I might as well have been in handcuffs myself. With a belly the size of an award winning watermelon, there was little way that I would be hired to work for another company or go back to my old company, India Y2K Outsourcing.

I couldn’t hide the fact that I was pregnant; I showed my pregnancy like a show girl shows her plastic surgery.

Betting that a woman will really return to work after birth is like placing a suckers bet on a fight between Paris Hilton and Mike Tyson. You can place a bet, but the odds aren’t in your favor. Not only that, but I couldn’t quit either. Health insurance is a hard thing to get when the “pre-existing condition” is pregnancy. Working at Freeport Media was like being sent to purgatory after death. I was sent there to make up for my sins and to prepare me for the next level of punishment, becoming a Mother.

Had I only known…