Rock And Drool

Posted By Melissa on February 7, 2010

Have you noticed my inconsistent and sporadic online presence lately? Well, it’s for really good reason. Wait…what? You didn’t notice? SIGH.

For some reason, things have gotten very overwhelmingly chaotic in my life. I think all my kids are going through some sort of hormonal crisis, which will be a blog post or two sometime in the next few days.

Honestly? I’m not doing well in my business law class and I’m studying a lot. Or, I should say, trying to study. A little. But for some CRAZY reason, I’m noticing my ADD is super active during this class. When I take the quizzes, the questions look like they are written in Egyptian hieroglyphics. I can’t figure them out. And the book? I have to sit VERY upright or I’ll fall asleep after reading 3 pages. It makes for good nighttime reading.

Also, I have to write these crazy, godforsaken poems. And I’m sure I mentioned that I don’t know how to write poems. My next one that is due on Wednesday, I have a choice of a Sonnet, Villanelle or Ghazal. The last two I’ve never heard of. I was hoping for Haikus. At least our next unit is in short stories. I think I can do that. No, wait. I KNOW I can do that. I think.

Not to mention, I think I have major blog post idea burnout. Life isn’t throwing me posts, it’s throwing me some sort of citrus fruits.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget. I don’t have internet until tomorrow night. Don’t tell anyone but I think I’m pirating someones internet signal right now. Because somehow, this evening, I was able to get online and not have to use my cellphone. Heck if I would want to write a blog post from my cellphone. That would be nuts and take forever. And really? I suck at texting so I can’t imagine trying to text a blogpost.

Lastly, I’m just fricking lazy.

But I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. With a real post. About a real event. That really happened. Not saying that none of this has not or isn’t happening. I’m just saying that tomorrow may have a more interesting, entertaining, heartwarming or just plain awful post. So good night. I’m off to figure out how to ruin the Sonnets, Villanelles and Ghazals as we know them today. Assuming anyone today knows them.

And those. Are my reasons. Good enough for me. But, I miss all of you and your lack of comments.

In the infamous words of some big guy with an accent…I’ll be back.

Category: blogging | 10 Comments »
Tags: business law sucks, life, school, writing poetry sucks

Posted By Melissa on February 3, 2010

I woke up a few mornings ago in a cold sweat panic. It took me a moment to realize that it was only a dream because of how real and vivid the details were.

My son. (Now remember, what I’m about to tell you was just dreamnightmare).

He, my darling, precious baby, told me that he lost his virginity.

I was irate and horrified due to the fact that he is barely 14 and that is so young. I told him how disappointed I was and I hoped that protection was used. I also made it very clear to him that this was much too young of an age to be schtupping(ph, that’s for you).

His response was, “I know Mom. I didn’t really want to do it. But SHE wanted to. Really badly. So I just did.” He appeared to be very upset with himself and not at all pleased that he had done the deed.

And then? I woke up. Absolutely sure that my son was no longer a virgin because some slutty 8th grader couldn’t keep her legs together.

On the other hand though, my son gave in to peer pressure, in my dream. Which, isn’t him in real life. Yet.

This leads me to my next story.

So. My 14 year old daughter is in love with Justin Bieber. She stalks him on Facebook, leaving comments on every single status update the kid makes. She knows all the stats that are supposedly his and not hearsay, rumors or gossip. She loves this girlie boy as much as she loves Robert Pattinson. You should see her room. The walls on her side are covered with team Edward AND Team Justin. I feel my stomach bile rising into my throat whenever I set foot in that shrine of a room. Not to mention, my 11 y/o daughter is Team Jacob and her side is a shrine to Taylor Lautner.

Anywhooooo…

Last night, my 14 y/o finds out, through her stalking, that THE Mr. Justin Bieber himself has an aversion to Ugg boots. He finds them to be vile.

It just so happens that my darling daughter lives in her chocolate brown, size 9.5 Uggs. Until last night.

She won’t wear her Uggs anymore. Because some guy that she will NEVER, EVER meet, said that he thinks Uggs are unsexy and unattractive. He’s 15 and hasn’t appeared to go through puberty yet, this high-pitched voice Bieber kid. What could he POSSIBLY know about sexy or attractive?

The thing that angered and troubled me most. If she’ll stop wearing her favorite boots and instead, don a pair of WAY too small Converse that makes her feet look like they are being binded. All because of a untouchable kid she has a crush on, that she will NEVER meet. What will she do to gain the acceptance of a REAL LIFE, flesh and blood boy?

I teased her a little but I tried to make her realize that these were ridiculous actions. It embarrassed her but hopefully, I made her think. I hope.

That was, similarly, what bothered me about my dream. He didn’t WANT to have sex and lose his virginity to this slut whore girl. He only did it because she wanted to.

Which then, led me to the realization that I’m not ready for teenagers and trying to encourage them to use their own mind and to steer away from peer pressure. To be their own person. To stay true to themselves and what they believe in.

Yet another aspect of parenting that I neglected to think about when I spread my own legs in hopes of conception.

What. Was I thinking?

This is going to be a long journey.

And darn it! Too bad those Uggs are a 9 1/2 and way too big. They are super cute!

Category: my life | 13 Comments »
Tags: kids, parenting, peer pressure, teenagers

Posted By Melissa on February 1, 2010

I was innocently chatting with a couple of moms outside the kindergarten classrooms. I have no recollection what we were discussing, probably something very unimportant. Well, at least, pertaining to my story it is. Regardless, we were maybe laughing and gesturing our hands and words were coming out of our mouths. Small talk, big hand movements.

Suddenly, a pair of glasses drop on the floor. We all look down, inspecting. Obviously, I thought to myself, they are mine. I mean, look at them. Big tortoise-shell, glam glasses. Who else would they belong to? I mean, duh.

I bent down to pick them up. My glasses.

Someone said excuse me, and reached around my hand to pick up the glasses.

Those are mine, I asserted.

No, she replied. They are mine. She met my gaze, determined.

Well then! I exclaimed, exasperated. Where are mine?

After all, they weren’t on my head where I always left them.

She smiled at me.

They are in your hand, she said. Smugly.

Sure enough, they were. I blushed as I put my glasses on my face. Which, by the way, were WAY cooler than the ones in question.

Yes. It’s finally happened. I’m turning into my mother.

Category: my life | 11 Comments »
Tags: being an airhead, growing older, losing my mind

Posted By Melissa on February 1, 2010

It’s Monday. Time for Menage A Monday! Today I’m excited to share with you BOREDMommy who you can also find, over on Twitter as BOREDMommy.

This is one of her earlier posts…

Here Comes ChubbyBunny

Since MonkeyBoy debuted on Wednesday, I thought it only fair that I write a post about my daughter’s birth. That is after all in my job description – make everything fair amongst children or face subsequent tantrum. I figure if I give the illusion of fair, I’ve succeeded.
Nasia was born, via c-section, late September 2006. She is the sweetest, loveliest little girl that I could have ever hoped for. She is fascinated by the funniest things but only for a given period of time – she just got over the spoon phase. She gets much attention for her beautiful curly hair, and is just the girliest girl when she wants to be. Having an older brother however, has also given her the ability to appreciate a good superhero, and fight with lightsabers. She loves to dance, loves to sing into her pink microphone and if I could clone that child, I would.
Having a c-section was a very odd experience, and one I had to get used to very quickly. Although she had been head down the entire pregnancy, two days before my due date, the baby decided to flip to breech. My gut reaction told me to panic, but my naive ignorance told me otherwise. All I could think about was that this meant an extra night of rest for me in the hospital, and what sleep deprived mommy doesn’t want that!
So how did it go down you may wonder? Here is my c-section synopsis:

1. I show up at the hospital starving and pissed at my husband for stopping at McDonald’s on the way (evidently childbirth makes him hungry).
2. I wait in a small room with a tv and a toilet and put on a lovely blue gown that makes my fat self look like I am actually arriving for gastric bypass surgery.
3. I wait and wait, and try not to get more pissed at my husband sitting there with a full stomach, while i enjoy a lovely glass of air.
4. I have a team of doctors – all total strangers (one doctor, a resident who looks 12, and a gaggle of students who look like they should be in daycare, and actually came in to use the potty), arrive to tell me that I may actually die during the operation.
5. I drink the sodium citrate poison as I go to the o.r. alone, because my husband has to wait outside and take pictures of himself in scrubs, because that’s as close to being a doctor as he will ever get.
6. I sit down on a gurney in a freezing cold o.r. while my ass is out for everyone to laugh at, and everyone keeps reassuring me that everything will be over soon. Meanwhile, I keep wondering if it’s the surgery that will be over soon, or the little dignity I have left.
7. I get a freezing shot, an epidural shot, and 2 or 3 other shots in my back while I slowly hyperventilate, and go numb at the same time.
8. I lie down on the table, strapped, trapped and crapping myself because I know what’s coming.
9. My husband is now in the room, with this goofy look on his face, because he just realized that he’s had to do NOTHING but donate a couple of sperm to the process, and he feels like a total putz because he knows what’s coming too.
10. I get sliced and diced, they pull out the babe, who is a WHITE BLOB by the way, all the while my hubby takes a million pictures that NO ONE will ever see, because they involve my guts splayed on a table, and who wants to see that?

So there you have it, that’s pretty much what happened. Of course they closed me up and cleaned me up (via a lovely sponge bath that I highly enjoyed and recommend – thanks to Nurse Christine; I forgive you). Seriously, two years later, and I still think about that sponge bath. In the end however, none of it mattered as soon as I got to hold my little lady. She was a perfectly cherubic little girl that I affectionately called my chubby bunny.
I still her call her my bunny. When she smiles, which is often, you get to see the perfect little gap between her two front teeth. My husband always calls her Lori Hutton (He means LAUREN Hutton – he’s slow on the uptake, what can I tell you). She is a stubborn little thing too, just like her mommy. Actually all of her delightful traits are a direct result of my ability to birth her from my womb.
Coincidence? I think not.

Please, check out all the other Menage A Monday posts…
Lizz One Nerve Left

Lynette My Messy Paradise

Maria BOREDMommy

Deb Spawnocalypse where my post is the featured post!

Category: guest post | 4 Comments »
Tags: guest post, menage a monday

Posted By Melissa on January 31, 2010

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Posted By Melissa on January 31, 2010

I try.

I do.

I try to remember who I’m dealing with and take her actions for what they are worth. Which are nothing more than selfish and pathetic excuses for piss poor parenting and a raging case of personality disorders.

But. I’m so pissed. Smoke erupting from the top of my head, ears and nose. Eyes rolling. Frothy rabid mouth.

Frustrated. Resentful. Seething.

As you know, I’ve gone back to school. I’m taking 7 credits, which is two classes. It’s all I have time for. It’s all I could afford at this point.

As you know. The bio mom is back in school too. She, on the other hand, is taking a full load. 4 classes. Because she signed up for one of those government grants. And she got the full amount that one is eligible to receive because she claimed…get this one…she is a mom to 5 kids. Hers and her new husbands.

None of them live with her. They have an occasional sleep over. That. Is. It.

She has the time to take those 12 credits. She isn’t raising kids. She doesn’t work. She collects unemployment, thanks to Obama who has enabled this unemployment extension, even though she hasn’t worked in over a year nor has she pursued looking for employment. PLUS. She got a stinking government FAFSA grant to pay for her entire year. She doesn’t have to stop her life to stay home with sick kids. She doesn’t have to do laundry for 7 people.

She has 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. To do with as she pleases.

So why is it that she barely see her kids anymore? She has started using studying as a guise to blow off the fruit of her loins. But what else is new, right? If it isn’t school, it’s headaches and period cramps.

This is all fine and dandy. Except, the thing that is pissing me off more than anything is…

I don’t have that luxury and privilege. I don’t even have that choice.

My study time is limited to an hour here and there. Because, I work so that I can pay for school and whatever other incidental comes along. I have laundry for 7 people. Meals to make. Kids to take care of. A household to run.

I have a life. It’s not just about me.

I am not ALONE. Although, holy hell, sometimes I wish I was.

I can only study during those moments when my life is at a dull roar. I can only do my homework when my life is walking.

Quiet, slow times in my world still are full of ruckus and chaos. I just have to figure out how to block it out and get my stuff done so that I can get decent grades.

I KNOW! I have to get over my anger and resentment towards her. Because all it’s going to achieve is absolutely nothing, except to do what it’s done today and distract me from writing the two poems I have to do for my creative writing class and prevented me from studying for my Business Law quiz. Yeah, that’s all it’s done. Nothing.

While she sat quietly in the library. All day. Studying for her Business Law quiz and whatever else she had. Alone.

And I sat. In my kitchen. Full of noise and activity. Trying to study.

Yet. I got nothing done.

Except for this blog post.

Sigh.

Category: crazy family, my life | 15 Comments »
Tags: bio mom, family, husband, kids, life, parenting, selfish bio mom

Posted By Melissa on January 31, 2010

I can’t believe that I completely blanked about drawing a winner for the Toast Birmingham onesie giveaway. That number of entries was disappointing. But whatev. Thank you SO MUCH to those of you who played to win!!
I used Random.org’s Random Integer Generator to choose a winner. And, without further ado…

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

6
and the winner is:

Kathleen Gereg says:
January 27, 2010 at 7:57 pm

I an a follower of ToastBirmingham @kgereg and a fan as well. Thanks!

Congratulations Kathleen. I just need your address so that I may send it on to the powers that be who were kind enough to ask me to hold this lovely giveaway.

Thanks again!! And congrats.

Category: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Melissa on January 28, 2010

I always ho-hummed when the Been-There, Done-That’s told me to embrace the moments and breathe in their scent. I humored them with a smile when they warned me how fast it goes. I was hopeful when they reminded me that they don’t stay babies very long.

To me, back then, time didn’t seem to go fast enough when I was feening a full night of uninterrupted sleep or a day without having to change diapers or be followed into the bathroom.

I loved my babies though.

Everything about them.

Their noises.

Their smells.

I was there, watching every milestone come. And go.

Taking pictures.

Writing dates in baby books which have long since disappeared.

Promising myself that I will always remember. I will never forget the firsts, seconds, thirds. Cute little -ism’s that I thought were embedded in the photo albums and tape recorders of my brain.

Then, I blinked.

And those memories are gone. Trapped in the cobwebs of my overwhelmed and fuzzy mind.

Now, before me stand deep male voices telling me angrily that they don’t have to.

Girls who are becoming women begging for new razors and pads.

Rebelling, hormones, angst, depression, anger, boy-crazed, girl-crazed, Mom, I hate you, stop it your embarrassing me, don’t kiss me in front of people…

Teens.

All I did was blink.

And they replaced my babies.

My sweet smelling, cooing babies who wanted nothing more that to just coexist in our own little world, are now these beautiful young adults. If I squint and stare long enough I can see the babies that they were.

I wish I breathed in just a little deeper, a little longer. I wish I held them a little tighter.

Maybe it wouldn’t have gone so fast.

I’m trying to embrace these few years that I have left with them. I am trying to not wish it, these difficult and hormonally charged teen years, to be over.

Because I know. I must be careful what I wish for.

Category: my life | 11 Comments »
Tags: parenting, preteens, raising children, teens, they grow so fast, time flies

Posted By Melissa on January 28, 2010

I recently got involved in a collaborative effort of wonderful Detroit area women bloggers like Erin Rose of Positive Detroit, Becks Davis of Detroit Moxie, Nikki Stephan, Jennifer Wright of Looking Glass Lane and Lauren Weber of Staircase to Earth’s Lovliness to raise money to get dictionaries out to kids in particular school districts of Oakland County. It’s called Operation: Kid Equip, The Dictionary Project. Please, go check out the incredible blogs and websites that I have linked you to!

Why am I getting involved?

Because my kids go to school in Oakland County. My husband is a teacher in Hazel Park, which is the district that we are trying to benefit right now. And our school districts are in absolute dire straits.

And these children, as cliche as it sounds, are our future.

With all the budget cuts creating loss of important school curriculum, our schools need all the help they can get so that they are able to turn out educated and productive citizens to enrich our global community.

Starting with dictionaries.

Without a knowledge of words, there is nothing but ignorance.

Words are the most powerful weapon and we need to ensure our children are armed.

So please, if you can, even if it’s $1. That is one more dollar toward our goal of $650 to bring dictionaries to the elementary schools of Hazel Park students. See that widget on my sidebar? That accepts payments starting at $10. Or, you could mail a check, made payable to:
Operation: Kid Equip
P.O Box 364
Royal Oak, MI 48068-0364

Please make sure that in the memo line it notes Dictionary Project.

Also, if you’d like to help in a way other than paypal or check, please contact Menachem @ operationkidequip.org

Who knows? One of these dictionaries may fall into the hands of a child who may someday make a positive and drastic mark and change course of the world. Because you helped by placing a dictionary into his eager hands.

Category: blogging | 6 Comments »
Tags: blogging for change, detroit, dictionary project, oakland county schools, operation kid equipment

Posted By Melissa on January 26, 2010

In their own words on the Facebook fanpage, Toast describes itself as “Toast in downtown Birmingham, Mich. provides a chill vibe, exquisite atmosphere with great service and oh by the way –we serve exciting, delicious and creative food. Taste a bit of NYC in the D! We call it gastrocasual.” Gastrocasual…AWESOME!!

Toast is celebrating its one year anniversary. In honor of this illustrious event, we are giving away this onesie…12 months size…designed by Robert Stanzler.

All you have to do is check out the Toast fan page and become a fan or follow them on twitter: ToastBirmingham.
Leave a comment letting me know that you did.
I will pick the winner by Random.org on Thursday. It’s a quickie giveaway for a really cute onesie. You do not have to be a Michigan resident to enter or win the drawing.
The winner will be notified via email so please leave your email in the comments so the company can contact you to get your info.
It’s that easy.
And if you are in the Detroit area, check out Toast in Birmingham.
Good luck.

Category: Uncategorized, giveaway | 7 Comments »
Tags: detroit, giveaway, toast