The New Welcome Gift

First impressions last forever. At least that's what the elusive "they" say, right?

So the other day we visited our new next door neighbors (and I mean next-next-next door -- We could see into our kids' bedrooms if we were creepy enough to try) for a quick handshake introduction. You know, "Nice to meet you. We'll be neighbors and we're so fricken thrilled. If you ever need anything ..." and all that obligatory nicey-nice neighborly welcoming committee stuff that lasts until YOUR DAUGHTER PISSES ON YOUR NEW NEIGHBORS BRAND NEW CARPET!

Yep. That's right. Pigtails, who recently potty trained (or so we thought) at the ripe old age of 2.5, rained down the "golden showers" on our brand spanking new neighbors' brand spanking new carpet last Saturday. What better way to introduce ourselves than to make like a dog and pee on the nearest thing. "Hi. Let me clean that stranger-kid piss, I mean MY stranger-kid's piss, off your newly unfurled berber for ya. So sorry." Way to start our neighborly friendship off on the right schmut.

At first I tried to conceal telltale Pigtails' wet patch, slipping out the new neighbors' front door (remember we're so damn close as neighbors that we could fart and hear each other) to my cleaning chemicals cupboard for my trusty Resolve carpet stain/odor remover. It wasn't long before my clean-it-up-before-they-notice-and-judge-me-and-my-leaky-daughter plan was foiled. The gorgeous new working mom next door busted me red handled, spraying a noxious substance on her daughter's princess room rug.

"Um, whatcha' doing?" she asked.

"Well, uh ... This is so embarrassing and it's never happened before ... and, uh, she's been potty trained going on three weeks now and hasn't had an accident ... and ..."

"She peed on the floor?"

"Yes. Exactly."

Luckily my new pretty neighbor didn't seem fazed. She has two young kids of her own. She refused to let me clean it up and patted Pigtails' pee spot with her own two hands, something I never would have done if the pee were on the other carpet. I have this lame thing about "other" kids' pee and pooh. I've always hated changing any diapers other than those hugging the 2-D flat butts of my three children.

I haven't talked to my new neighbors since my daughter's pissy introduction to them. I wouldn't know what to say. At least she didn't drop a deuce on 'em, like a booger-nosed kid did on our playroom berber right after we installed it two years ago.

Would I feel as bad about the whole thing if Pigtails were a dog? Somehow I think a pet dog peeing on a new neighbors' carpet would have been better.

If your kids have ever done this, feel free to piss and tell. I'm curious.

When the Ish Goes Down

I have exactly 15 minutes to spill the contents of my heart all over this post. Then I’ll have to gather up the pieces, put my game-face back on, wake up my daughter from her nap and pick up her brothers from their schools. I apologize ahead of time if I end abruptly or without reaching an actual point here.

Begin rant:

Over the weekend a trusted, respected friend advised me to perhaps look over my blog and spot areas where I could be more balanced, less negative, perhaps less cynical about my life, my career, my children. Basically, my everything.

I agreed with him. “Yes. I’m very negative. Nary a positive post can be found. You’re right. Perhaps I should write some “up” content. Some feel-good commentary.” A positive slant 8cmdeluded makeover might do me and (all 10) of my regular readers some good. Happy, happy. Joy, joy, right? Lest I should alienate anyone who tires of my droning complaint posts.

But you know what? I don’t feel good. I don’t feel up. And I certainly don’t feel positive and perky. So, why can’t I be up-front about it?

Truly I wish I could post more positive reflections on motherhood. Maybe my current situation would feel better and perhaps actually improve if I simply adopted a better attitude. But, shit, the place I’m in right now just won’t allow me to take that leap, needed or not. Plainly put, my attitude sucks.

Just as when I launched this blog six or so months ago, I remain committed to being as brutally honest about my situation as possible, without hurting my children or my spouse. With so much in the media as of late centered around the “how much is too much information” personal and mommy blog debate, I’m beginning to feel that I should hold back more. But holding back is against everything wrapped up in the confessional nature of my blog (and my personality). I refuse to be muzzled because what I have to say sometimes makes others uncomfortable. Isn't some of the best, most compelling art confrontational, challenging to behold at times? (Not that this is bona fide art ...)

I want this blog to be about catharsis, for both myself and those of you in the trenches of mad-crazy motherhood too. Allow me to enlighten you with the dictionary.com definition of catharsis, one of my favorite words/concepts:
1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.
2. Medicine/Medical. purgation.
3. Psychiatry. a. psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable affects.
b. discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation of symptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.

If you’re still with me here, let’s get on with it and bust open a super-sized can of catharsis.

Meanwhile, if I had a soundtrack for this cathartic moment, right here right now, it would be Cypress Hill’s “When the Shit Goes Down” from their Black Sunday album, one of my favorites from back in the day. I find myself singing the lyrics a little too often when the kids are out of earshot: “When the shit goes down, you better be ready!” If there was ever a gangster anthem, this song is it. Yes, despite becoming a parent, I have an ongoing love-hate relationship with gangster rap. Blame too much childhood intake of YoMTV Raps! from the 80s and 90s and stations like 105.9 “Where Hip-Hop Lives” and 93.5, good old KDAY.

But I digress, as way too many people say these days ...

Now that you know what’s up musically for the setting of this post, here goes my hopefully cathartic rant, socially acceptable, feel-good or not:

I’m as broke as a joke. Spent the last money I had today at Target and I refuse to be embarrassed about it. Can you feel me? $28.80 on the essentials – bread, milk, eggs, cheese, canned fruit (can't afford the frest kind until pay-day), granola bars, apple and orange juice. Everything store brand or on sale. My kids think peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a food group. A mom’s got to do what a mom’s got to do.

Again - “When the shit goes down, you better be ready!”

Well, if my shit went down, “shit” being something as minute as busting a tire or having to bare the brunt of another ER co-pay (knock on wood that I won't have to suffer either in the near future or ever), I am so NOT ready.

I’m about one flat tire away from financial collapse. One oil change away from not making mortgage.

And no, my husband does not work at 7-Eleven or McCrud. In fact, we both have our degrees. Hell, he’s on the verge of having three college diplomas. He is gainfully white-collar world employed but we choose to live in Southern California.

Some would say you made your bed … No doubt you know the rest of that saying. I agree and we’re lying it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t vent all the while in order to feel better.

“Just what are you doing to better yourselves?” you may ask. I don’t blame you if you’re wondering. Just what ARE we doing? I’m writing a book that will hopefully bring at least some grocery money in the door. Soon my blog will have yet more ads that hardly any one will click on.

(BTW, are any of you ad-incorporating mom bloggers out there making bank off your ads? If so, email me and let me know what your secret is. BlogHer seems the way to go.) Also, I’m trying to take on a couple of mundane writing and editing projects that really don’t interest me but would be irresponsible to say no to at this point.

I wonder how long my hair will get because I can’t afford a haircut. I could be the brunt of a grip of "Yo' Mama" jokes with this one.

Shit, I can’t afford my kids’ haircuts, and they’re starting to look skuzzy and unkempt. So much so that it hurts my pride. My husband cuts his own hair, thank God. I’m not too far from allowing him to buzz the kids’ heads once more. And you know that’s desperate because I nearly castrated him the last time he tried that shit.

“Why would you want people to know how broke you are? Have you no shame?” No. No, I don’t have any. Why don’t we do away with societal shame all together by writing from the insides of our hearts, right from where we are coming from, where we are living. What’s wrong with admitting the “real” stuff from your “real” reality?

Where on the Internet are the voices of the stay-home, part-time working suburban poor mothers like me? The mothers who don’t qualify for assistance because their husbands earn two or three thousand dollars too much to? Why can’t I find them?

Why is it shameful to write about falling hard times? Is it because you expect to hear this from someone who lives in the projects? Someone who never finished high school? Not someone who has her bachelor’s and graduated Magna Cum Laude like me? Someone with a different skin color perhaps?

Chew on these facts for a minute if you’re still perplexed. According to a recent Newsweek article titled “Poor Among Plenty: For the first time, poverty shifts to the U.S. suburbs,” “… for the first time in history, more of America’s poor are living in the suburbs than the cities – 1.2 million more, according to a 2005 study… “The suburban poor defy stereotypes about how and why people slip into poverty.”

Wow. My fifteen minutes are up.

All I can think of to end this is yet more depressing commentary. Even when “money’s too tight to mention” as Simply Red sang it, you smile in front of the kids, keep their young spirits high the best you can. Even if it’s eating at you on the inside. Even when you have to put back the extra pack of gum they asked nicely and politely for at the check-out because it’s $1.25 more than you have in your pocket.

Though it will be hard to click “publish” this time, I want to. I need to. Maybe some of you suburban struggling moms will be able to relate and will somehow find comfort in my situation, knowing you aren’t alone. Keep your chin up, ladies. I'll be chinning up too.

And that, my friends, is how the shit is going down at my house.

(No time to spell check or edit. Sorry.)

Slackstress Vlog: Confessions from the Brat Race

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9jPpJ695wk Follow the link to see my latest vlog:

You'll see Slackstress me, harried mom of three (3, 2 and newly 6 as of yesterday), sounding off on the manic nature of my experience of modern motherhood - crammed schedules, hours upon inactive hours logged in confining car seats, scarfing down artery hardening food scraps from random drive-thrus, always in a hyper-rush and "inconvenient truthfully" blowing minivan fumes into the warming atmosphere. Can you relate?

*As you can see by my blog postings, I'm having technical difficulties with the new version of Blogger. Can new version users delete posts? Where the heck is the "delete" button?! I'm super irritated by this. My blog is wacked now.

Slackstress Vlog: Confessions from the Brat Race

Here's Slackstress me, harried mom of three (3, 2 and newly 6 as of yesterday), sounding off on the manic nature of modern motherhood - crammed schedules, hours upon inactive hours logged in confining car seats, scarfing down artery hardening fast food scraps from random drive-throughs, always in a rush and "inconvenient truthfully" blowing minivan fumes into the atmosphere. Can you relate?

Welcome to the Mom Blogularity Contest, Take a Number

*Thank you, Oh The Joys for emailing me and helping me gather enough courage/gumption to re-post this for keepers:

Several commenters on my blog recently pointed out that some mom blogs are now doubling as popularity contests. Ya think?!

I feel relieved that other mom bloggers are buzzing/ranting/bitching about this at a time when blog awards bestowed upon bloggers from fellow bloggers appear to be at an all-time high. And some blog awards are getting downright ridiculous. And, yes, I'm jealous.

There's an award for everything now. While I'm all for patting each other on the blogging back, well, I think it's gone a little too far. Did I already admit that I'm jealous?

Perhaps I wouldn't be knocking some of these awards, gratuitous or not, if I'd just become the recipient of some amazing, impressive, complimentary mom blogging award. It's pretty likely I'd be basking in the glow of my accolades, not knocking the ubiquity and overall overcooked processed hot dog quality of the recent glut of blog awards.

I'm going to come out and admit the ugly, embarrassing truth right now -- I wish I were a popular mom blogger. I hate it when I (compulsively) check my Google Analytics and see that only 26 people stopped by my blog on any given day.

What ever happened to when I used to get 100 visitors a day? Doesn't sound like much for some, but those kind of numbers spell success to me. Oh yeah, that’s when I was busy broaching controversial topics like sex after kids and the freaky pedophiles that stalked my blog for weeks on end.

I abhor it even more when I log on and see that my post of the day only garnered one measly comment or perhaps none at all. Why is it so easy to become a comments addict?

Hi, my name is Kim (aka domestic slackstress) and I’m a comment-a-holic. I have been comment free for 10 days. I’m now living my life one comment at a time. From this day forward, I'm going to work the program and work the comments.

I wish I were as modern-mama-blog-a-mama cool and commercially blog-successful as Dooce, who only seems to turn on her comments capability when she feels like instantly getting 368 validating answers to basic questions about potty training and nutty fan letters. You know you want to be like her too. Admit it, honey. Why can't short hair like Heather B. Armstrong's look as sharp and edgy on me?

How can I be as naturally funny as OhTheJoys? That's right. Funny isn't learned. It just is.

I wish I could post something as simple as "I went to Trader Joe's with the kids to buy Japanese Rice crackers because we had a collective craving for MSG and seaweed," and instantly receive 32 comments saying irrelevant blibber blubber like, "I loooove Nori Maki too." and "Wow. Great post. I was moved by your simplicity. Way to list your grocery list, girl. Keep up the good work." Some of the posts that win a million comments are shockingly mundane. Shockingly terse. Shocking in their lack of content shock value. Shocking in their Lack. Of. Content. At. All.

Why do I feel the need to be a well-known, super-popular mom blogger? What drives me to be such a star-struck blogger with a blog that started as a way to pitch in a little Google Adsense (Google No-cents) money into our bad joke of a non-budget? Exactly how sick of my unending questions are you?

Let's face it. I need the money. I want the fame.

Between tackling toppling stacks of laundry and scraping dried-up jelly donut innards from the germ incubating kitchen floor, maybe I'll have time today to create my own blog award called Most Wanna-be Dooce-i-est Mom Blogger Award. I’ll even nominate myself for it straight away.

Don't hold your breath. Just be sure to click on "Comments" before you turn blue.

These are the narcissistic ramblings of my tired night mind. Of my busy digesting crab rangoon and nine sesame date balls I stashed into my purse at the buffet mind-body-belly. Stuffed like a hormone swollen turkey at Thanksgiving with Chinese food from a cheap Chinese joint.

Does a bottle of Tums count as dessert?

Ps. Someone who is royal a pain in the arse kind of good friend just now reminded me that I won a Rolling on the Floor Laughing Award (ROFL) for my Oct. 2006 toy ad satire post called "F-Bomb Cop." You didn't hear me complaining about that award, now did you? Now I can shut up and cease being a hypocrite. I even wrote a post-win post about winning the award, officially making me a willing member of the mom blogularity contest. Oops. Count me in.

Pretzel Sticks Are Too Salty to Be Cigarettes

It's nearly 11 and I'm still in my jammies, which I only put on when I woke up. I was too lazy to deal with a change of clothes last night. Living up to my slackstress title is so trying.

The kids are fighting. Pigtails wants to vacuum. She thinks it's a toy. The Lawyer is playing basketball in the house with a ball that isn't Nerf but not exactly regulation. Cheeks is talking gibberish to himself while taking shots at the small mesh pockets in the tent with a mushy mini-basketball that his sister bit a chunk out of.

Oh well. I'm ignoring everyone and writing. Nothing new there. Adam is outside smoking his weekend wake-up cigarette. Nothing new there either.

... which brings me to the topic of my children knowing their father smokes. For a long time I tried to shield them from it. (Hey, didn't I chain smoke three cloves at the hookah bar last night? I was alone. It was an indulgence. An assertion that I'm still me before being a mom. Still independent enough to make stupid, unhealthful choices. Still cool enough to throw caution to the wind, along with a few fragrant plumes of smoke. Sound the hypocrite alert?)

Without going into to much explanation, eventually I relaxed my rigid rules and stop relegating my husband to the garage when he puffs on his beloved Camels. Now he leaves the garage door open when he smokes and asks the children to go inside until he's done his "break."

The kids aren't stupid, though. They may be young but they know what's going on. When they ask me where dad is and I say, "He's having a break," they know exactly what mommy's referring to.

"Oh, you mean he's outside smoking," The Lawyer clarifies.

"No, he's just having a break," I un-clarify.

"No. He's smoking. Why don't you just tell the truth? That's what you tell me to do."

Point taken.

So, if my children know their daddy is a regular, one pack a day addicted smoker, where do we draw the line with their inclusion in the circle trust (or TMIL - too much information loop)? Should they light his cigarettes for him? (I just threw that in there to incite reaction, to goad you on. Obviously I would never allow that. I'm being dramatic, something I've never, ever done before for attention. Me? Neva'.)

Should I allow them to pretend they're smoking while salty pretzel sticks jut from their pouty mouths like extra long Virginia Slims? Well, when it actually happened, when all three were on the front lawn on a picnic blanket pretending to light each other's pretzel sticks, I promptly, sternly asked them to stop. I was disgusted. My daughter often tells me she's going outside to "have a smoke." It's really gone too far. Way too far.

"Why would you want to pretend to smoke? Smoking hurts people," I said, hoping the neighbors hadn't noticed my pediatric trio of would-be smokers.

"Because Daddy does," Cheeks replied.

"Yeah, because Daddy smokes. Daddy smokes cig-wets," Pigtails confirmed.

How sad. But really, how sad? As the teachers at Cheeks progressive preschool say time and time again, "Life is not a fairy tale." In some cases, children should know the truth, even if it isn't laced with powdered sugar sprinkles and rainbow jimmies. Is this a truth they should know? All signs point to no. But I'm afraid it's too late. At least their father doesn't smoke near them or in the house. We don't want to endanger their health. I even force him to change his shirt when he holds them.

Yes, children, your parents are human. They are real people. They make mistakes. They made choices that aren't always right. They aren't the poster people for perfection.

Just last week I hid outside cloaked in darkness in the front yard with my mom friend. We sneaked cloves in front of the bushes, like a couple of kids hiding from the camp counselors, doing something bad. Something that could get us sent home from camp if we were found out. And you know what? It felt good. Really good. Really freeing. Really adventurous. Again, how sad? Maybe not so sad after all.

It felt good until my daughter peeped through the mail slot and saw me.

-- To my older and only sister: I hope your quitting experiment is a success.

Ps. What ever happened to those fake, pink-tipped candy cigarettes I used to gobble up as a kid? Did the candy industry get a conscience or did Big Tobacco cut off their funding? I wouldn't let my kids "smoke" them anyway. They have enough poor role modeling in their orbit as it is.