I can't believe that another entire week has gone by. Cheyenne had a great birthday. She made out like a bandit, as usual, and, also as usual, she's ballin' out of control. I guess that's the norm for kids' birthdays these days...but I don't think I've ever held that much money in my hand at one time. Ever.

 

In my life.

 

For my 13th birthday, I got a new softball bat and maybe a Mariah Carey cassette tape. Cheyenne got a cell phone and $200, plus more. I'm scared to think of what Mia will expect when she turns 13.

 

Moving right along. I've gotten a couple sign orders lately--actual orders--and I couldn't be more excited. Somebody likes my stuff enough to give me real live money for it! What?! My newest project is a sign that says "Saints". And here I was just thinking I could only do names--it never occured to me to capitalize on the love of football. A whole new door, people. A whole new door.

 

Preparing to prepare for my trip to Florida. I don't want to get to excited because then the next 10 days will drag by...but knowing my family's schedule, that would never happen, and we'll be scrambling to get everything packed and in order the night before we leave. It is nature's way.

And I don't even know why I'm on the computer right now. Tomorrow is Cheyenne's birthday and I have the fabulous idea of buying some fancy pastries and having a birthday breakfast. It's the only thing I think she'll actually go for--Miss Maturity does not want a "party" with cake and streamers...too babyish, perhaps? Fine. Whatever.

 

Mia gets mad whenever I forget to call her Peter Pan.

 

Merrick gets mad whenever I don't pick him up. Or whenever I won't put him down. Either way, he's not happy.

 

Caleb almost poisoned himself with bug killer over the weekend. That was interesting.

 

And that's about all the cool stuff that's been going on.

Merrick does not look like Caleb. Everyone pretty much agrees with that. Personally, I can't see one little thing about my son that points to his father's side of the family, except for maybe the gigantor dimples he's got whether he's smiling or not. But the full effect of how much Merrick takes after me didn't hit until the other day; I had the boy out in the sun, slathered-up from head to toe in Water Babies SPF 50, and he started to break out into a hideous rash all over his precious pale-white face. Scared me to freakin' death. I plopped him in the tub and poured water over his rolly-poly blotchy little body for what seemed like an hour. God bless his heart--he's even got my very sensitive skin.

 

And it hit me: I'm dealing with the male version of myself. And yeah, I know everyone has laughed and said as much since the day he was born, but I never realized the gravity of the situation until that moment. I was suddenly awestruck, and afraid. His blue, blue eyes. His blond, blond hair, his tree trunk legs, and his uncanny ability to sunburn. Will he have my sense of humor? Will he have my lack of common sense? Will he be easy-going, and in that same breath, will he inherit my unpredictable temper? Will he sass me like no one has ever sassed a parent before? Will he impregnate the first girl he ever car-dates? Will he suffer from a case of the crazies if he drinks too much caffeine in the morning and beer at night and stays up late and sleeps too much without exercising very often?

 

I don't know if this is the feeling Caleb gets when he thinks about his own mini-me, Mia. I wonder if his heart drops into his stomach everytime she does something to remind him of himself when he was little? It's an inexplicably scary feeling. I'm suddenly feeling an overwhelming responsibility towards my own children. Ha! I know--weird, right?

 

I'm sensitive and probably over-protective when it comes to Merrick. In my mind, he doesn't ever need to be punished, for anything--he's just being who he is and he can't help it! He's sweet and he would never cause trouble on purpose. His ice-blue eyes are playful, not cold. Sure, he's got rolls around his tummy, but he's not fat! When he wants food, I'm going to feed him, damnit. When he's sleepy, I'm going to rock him, and when he's crying, I'm going to pick him up. And whenever he smiles, I smile--which is a lot. It bothers me when someone jokes "Hey, does your mom know you're outside without your helmet?"

 

It took him less than a year for him to stand up and walk. These days he's running, sometimes so fast that I can't keep up. I am beginning to understand the special place mothers hold in their hearts for their sons. I worry about the world he will grow up in and I shudder to think of what it might be like by the time he is a man. That very word--"man"--makes me sad and afraid and proud, all at the same time. I imagine the people he will take care of and the responsibilities he'll have when he's older, and I hug him tighter and hold him a little longer. Overdramatic? Sure. But even by tomorrow, he'll be a little less little boy. And if he's anything like me, Caleb and I have a lot of work ahead of us.

So my daughter is awesome. I knew that already. But when she came home with not one, not two, but--well, honestly, I lost count how many--awards from the annual ceremony her school held on Friday, I was pretty blown away. I've already bragged to everyone in my inner circle (no less than 60 people) and now I'm bragging to you strange and possibly not-real computer people. She pulled off (out of the entire 7th grade) band student of the year, choir student of the year, geography student of the year, science, reading...she won an award for having the most advanced reading points. She won an award for making straight A's all year long. And best of all, she spanked the rest of her classmates and took home the most coveted award of all, the award every mother wants her kid to win, the one they save for the very end of the ceremony: Highest GPA in the 7th grade. I almost cried. It was all I could do not to literally jump up and down and scream, "In your face, bitches!"

 

Merrick had his first birthday party on Saturday, where, surrounded by friends and family, he tore into an orange-and-blue frosted birthday cake. Surprisingly, he got a lot of it in his actual mouth--but not without fanfare. He seemed to know exactly what was expected of him: we stripped him down, gave him the supplies, and he got right down to business--smearing frosting on his chin, on his chest, and in his hair, stepping in the frosting, and smiling winningly at everyone all the while. He's a showman, for sure, but when it comes to sugar, that kid don't play. It was all over pretty quickly. I gave him a bath, brought him back out to his adoring public, and let him "open" presents. I suppose the rest of the party was kind of a drag, but how do you compete with a cake-covered baby? I'll put up pictures later when I feel like it.

 

All our company left this morning. I went so far as to wash one set of sheets and a few towels, but I'm putting off any major house-cleaning until tomorrow. Or next Monday--even though our floors are gritty with the red dirt the dogs are constantly tromping in, and there's crap all over the living room that belongs in every other room but the living room...yes, I think I deep clean next week.

 

Our Alero is still broken, and now our lawn mower is shot to hell, too. I'm seriously considering taking up an Amish lifestyle, minus the long ugly dress and waking up at dawn. Caleb's a pretty good farmer. Sort of.

 

Tomorrow begins the last week of school. Thursday can't come soon enough. My deepest desires? To sleep until 7:30 without waking up with that "Oh shit!" feeling, and to put Merrick down for a long, blissful nap everyday at 10:30, which his body would love to do but our schedule has never allowed. We have 50 billion t-ball games, mostly make-up ones, to get through and I'm praying it won't rain at all--even after only a slight amount, the field is flooded. At this rate, we'll be playing t-ball until August. They're already taking games to the end of June--of course, we won't be here after the 10th, and that's not something I feel remotely guilty about, mainly because my family's vacation is more important to me than a piddly kids' sport, but also because other parents are planning on skipping town, too! So even if we rearranged our whole summer to make the games, the team would still be screwed because so many other girls would be missing in action. So there.

 

I've got a dummy problem. It started with about 6 last year. It took a little while to get them out of my garage, but I finally got it done. And now, they're back. There are 3 of them, but I'm told there will be more. Many more. Right now, they're kind of creepy, but in time...they'll be downright freaking scary! I love having a friend who teaches a class in ass-kicking. Otherwise this door might never have been open to me. He says he's going to show me a book about gang-bangin' tattoos. I'm already thinking one of them is going to need a big fat "Fuck the POlice" tat somewhere conspicuous. I'll leave you now with a few of my favorite memories of the Rubber Posse:

 

 

My little Merrick, my sweet, little, precious baby angel who was once pink and tiny and helpless and messed up in the skull, is today, officially, 1 year old. I'm having a little trouble believing it; the last 12 months have absolutely flown by. Flown by, I tell you. When I look at him now, all I see is big boy. He's walking--running, even--and blabbering and he likes to have things his own way when he wants them. He has a sense of humor and he tries to make me laugh. He's sweet and loveable and loveable and sweet. He might be a big man at 1 year old, but I could still just eat him up.

 

Painting. I don't know what exactly triggered my mini-renaissance period. I think it might have been partly because of KM's new online store, and partly because I've had a few babies to make new name signs for. Or maybe it's just that it's been so rainy. It could be because I've got all the ideas in my head. Anyway I've been painting safe things like giraffes and trees and big globs of color on top of other globs of color. It satisfies the need, for now. What I really, really want to do? Is find a bunch of Barbie dolls, chop their hair off and paint them completely green, make their faces look all demonic, cram them into the clear vaccuum cleaner trap and take pictures...no reason. I've got a couple sketches of cute little birds and jolly fat men, but it's the wicked aliens on the next page that I keep going back to. Sigh. I really wanted to make some art that I could put in my house without scaring the children, or my husband.

 

Our cars. Damn them. The Saturn, as I mentioned in a previous post, is sure to explode at any given moment--it's just a matter of time--and the Alero refused to start Friday morning...just in time for Caleb's trip to Alabama for his little sister's graduation. He ended up renting a little yellow clown car and is now back in one piece, but the Alero is still jacked up. I say, thank goodness it's stuck in our driveway rather than on the side of the road somewhere in Arkansas, but...still. Cars are so frustrating. For once--ONCE--in my life, I just want a dependable car with great air-conditioning. It doesn't have to be a new car. It doesn't have to be a big car. I don't care if the interior is neon green and you have to roll the windows up and down with a crank. I just want a car that I can rely on to get me to the grocery store and back, a car that I'm not scared to put my children in, a car whose engine noises don't make people physically recoil as I drive by.

 

Awesome. I got...AN MP3 player for Mother's Day! It's little, and black, and it only took me 6 hours to figure out how to use it! I love it. I love it. I love my dear husband for buying it, and I love my dear little children for passing it off as a gift from them. With this musical device, I can listen to any song I want, whenever I want. I can run fast. I can rule the world.

 

Movies. I watched "Australia" this past weekend while Caleb was gone. I've since added it to my "List of Hugh Jackman Movies I Like Not Just Because Hugh Jackman Is In Them" though yes, I did rent it based soley on the fact that it starred Hugh Jackman. I figured, you know, since I hadn't yet had my Wolverine fix and whatnot. All in all, it was a pretty good flick. Kind of long. At times it seemed a little Gone-With-The-Wind-y (which, by the way, is fine--if the movie actually is Gone With the Wind.) I also rented "Juno", which was way stupider than I expected. I honestly do not understand what all the hype was about. I don't. I did, however, like the fact that it didn't end with the girl keeping the baby. I liked that she gave it to the single mom, and afterwards she was okay--happy, even. Good deal.

 

Birthdays. I am pretty much done buying Merrick stuff, and on Saturday, I'll be picking up a little cake that he can wreck. For Cheyenne, I've bough a lamp that has silver mirrory circles all over it. I'm determined to make her room look...like a 13 year-old girl actually lives in it. I think she's got this idea for her room, and that if she can't make it look exactly like the idea, then she doesn't want to do anything at all to it. And so, she has a very plain room. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the bedside table, white quilt on the bed, white pillows. Boring. I might not be able to find everything she wants, but I can get her started. And I love shopping for sparkly things.

 

 

Being a mommy. I just freaking love it, okay? I know I bitch and moan and talk a big game about how I'm so not cut out for this motherhood crap, and what a slacker I am when it comes to all things parental, but I actually don't mind it so much. Career woman? Office hours? No fucking thank you. I'm good right where I am.

 

I mean, I have my days, right? Sometimes it's a full 24-hour period full of fatigue, and frustration...or inexplicable rage. Whatever. Sometimes it's just one quick moment--I close my eyes and count to 10 and wish I were somewhere else, like, say, curled up on my own mother's lap, letting her wipe away my tears and handle everything that I'm supposed to be handling.

 

Take for instance this afternoon. It's hot. It's ever so hot. I'm in an un-air-conditioned car that's on the brink of exploding with a whiny preschooler and a screaming--and I do mean screaming--1 year old.  We'd been running errands all day long, and while we succeeded in picking up a birthday present for a party Mia's going to tomorrow at the most obnoxious place known to man (Andy's Alligator Park--the very sound of it is offensive, no?), we effectively forgot the gift bag for it. I turned the car around and dragged my motley crew back into Target for a stupid bag. There were a million other people in my way, all trying to buy mother's day cards and graduation presents, and my kids just weren't in the mood for a crowd, or the hold-up that came with it. I, of course, handled everything with grace and dignity and magical Jedi powers as I usually do. But when a snooty bleach-blond fat ass 20 year old know-it-all college girl ahead of me in the checkout line had the fucking nerve to roll her eyes and shake her head at my screaming baby boy, I lost it. A little. It was all I could do not to go all Anakin Skywalker on everyone within a 10-foot radius. So I did what any mom would do--I took the passive aggressive route and piped up to the kindly grandma-like cashier: "Boy, oh, boy, is he ever done! I guess I just can't get accomplished in one day all the things I used to back before I had kids!" Said the cashier: "Bless your heart--being a mom is the hardest job there ever was!" Said the woman behind me: "Amen to that!" Said the woman behind her: "It's amazing my kids aren't throwing a tantrum right now! I guess they haven't seen the candy yet!" Said the cashier to the girl ahead of me: "You young people just don't know how easy you have it." Said the girl: nothing. Nervous smile, exit stage left. Fuck her and her designer sweat shorts.

 

I know I don't do things right. I use crib bumpers...and blankets, and, depending on how tired I am, a pillow--in Merrick's crib. I still breastfeed on demand. I've given up on trying to keep his face clean. He's a grimy little thing and I'm sick of fighting it. I've let him chew on paintbrushes and toothpaste tubes and balloons. His poor tender forehead is full of bumps and bruises from smacking it into the tile floor constantly. Some nights Mia doesn't get a bath, even though she needs one. She's had cereal for dinner. I let her climb up the wall on the side of the house just to see it she could do it. Once she watched "Enchanted" 3 times in a row because I was desperately tired. And, though I don't laugh out loud, I think it's hilarious when she says a bad word. (Geez people, it's not like she says them all the time. Just every once in a blue moon. Really.)

 

Cheyenne's not a lucky child. Sometimes I'm downright mean to her. But I firmly believe that all the laundry and dishes and babysitting and poop-scooping that I have her do on a daily basis builds character. Add in the fact that she doesn't own a cell phone, a Wii or a golf cart and she'll be Miss A-freakin-Merica when she grows up. Whoever winds up marrying my daughter will have me to thank for grooming her into such a fine, character-y woman. As I write this, she sits behind me and asks, "How does that build character???" and then, "Shut up, Mom! You're not answering my question!" Little does she realize that I have said nothing to shut up for in the first place. She might think I am dumb, and maybe, just maybe, I am, but she? Is awesome--because of me.

 

I love my kids. I'm not a fan of other people's kids; unless of course they're family or like family, then? They're tolerable. How many other people's kids can sing Boston's "More Than a Feeling" verbatim, complete with the "Waaaawaarrrrr, waaaawwwrrrr" guitar sounds? (That's Mia.) If I throw out a random quote from an obscure movie like "The Chipmunk Adventure", who can I count on to laugh her head off and come right back with the next line? (That's Cheyenne.) And when I'm delirious and sleepy and completely out of patience, who gives me a slobbery, open-mouth kiss right on my eye to bring me back to my senses? (That's Merrick.) My kids are so adorable, they make everyone else look like calculating androids.

 

And while I don't think I'm a bad mother, I'll never--never--understand how my own mother managed to do all the awesome stuff she did for us girls while we were growing up. Maybe she just seemed like supermom because I was young. But then again, I know for a fact I couldn't mow the lawn, wash the cars, fix 3 square meals a day for 3 bratty little girls, cart them back and forth to a million-and-one places, feed the dogs, clean the house, attend PTA meetings, sell Home Interiors, go for walks AND get showers AND have some sort of a social life on top of it all...and we only had one old car! Whew! After all that, I'm semi-depressed.

 

I don't believe in a mothering instinct. Okay, well the whole cradling a crying kid, or kissing boo-boos, yeah--that's a no brainer. Call it instinct if you must. But motherhood--modern-day motherhood--is a fine-tuned skill, a craft, that takes years and years to perfect or even get remotely good at. And once you do, your kids are grown up and gone. Maybe that's why grandmas seem to know everything. It makes perfect sense, does it not?

 

And so, without further ado, here's a big fat THANK YOU to my mom--the Obi-Wan of all Mothers--and Happy Mother's Day to you. May I one day come close...

So anyways. My ex-husband and his wife had a baby last week, and he? Is beautiful: Logan Michael--making Cheyenne the big sister of yet another little brother. Congratulations to them, and congratulations to Cheyenne...even though I'm not quite sure how she feels about it. Truth be told, she doesn't seem the slightest bit excited--but then again, she didn't act all too thrilled about Merrick until he was actually in her arms. Now, if there's anyone in this world that Cheyenne unconditionally adores and treasures, it's Merrick. She is absolutely in love with him. And it's so sweet.

 

But back to the new little man in her life--I think she was a little ticked that they didn't call her sooner with the news. We got word yesterday after almost a whole week had gone by. Cheyenne was none too pleased...but then again, I know how freaking crazy busy life with a new baby can be.

 

I watched Borat a few weeks ago. We've been Netflixing random movies, and I've always been curious. MISTAKE. It was so stupid. But I couldn't shut it off! And now, I can't get it out of my head.

 

I haven't gone running; I haven't even gone walking, and I'm using the rain as a convienent excuse. Clearly I'm not lazy--it's all this bad weather! Otherwise of course I'd love to be outside exercising and sweating and expending energy that I don't have.

 

In my comments down below I've got a tag to do a blog about motherhood and what I love about it. I'm going to need some time for that one, but I intend to crank it out, hopefully soon. I'm a little ate up at the moment with painting and...painting, and trying to keep track of schedules around here. I did say that May was the worst month in the world as far as school activities and field trips and concerts and plays and ceremonies and tests and parties and if I don't update my space in the next 2 weeks than it's safe to assume that I've rammed my car smack into a tree on purpose. Know that I loved you all and wanted nothing more out of life than to draw and paint and write and booty dance and drink cherry cokes like it was 1999...although I don't really know what cherry cokes have to do with the end of a millenium.

A blog friend of mine--probably one of the only few people left that still check out my space from time to time--has just started up her own arsty website. I am excited for some number of reasons: 1) She's been working on this for a while. 2) She's very talented. 3) She's a stay-at-home mom, too, only with a lot more get-up-and-go than I have. And, 4) It's exactly the kind of thing I've wanted to do for the last 10 years but for some reason haven't been able to even make time to even think about how to figure out how to make it happen, and she? Has done it.

 

So here's the link: www.redbeandream.com

 

It's very Lousiana, very southern-y. I love it. Makes me feel like painting.

 

Went to Church again today. Mia went off to Sunday school with friends from her class, and Merrick lived it up in the nursery, which (in theory, should have) made for some quality distraction-free worship time for me and Caleb. This makes 3 weeks in a row for our family, which--I think--is some kind of record for us. I don't know why I fight church tooth and nail. I don't know why I can't settle down and I don't know why I can never quite grasp that calm and Godly state-of-mind that everyone else in the pews beside me seems to have. I'm a spiritual retard--what can I say? I'm working on it.

 

Something that bothered me this morning? I read this on a collection envelope: "3 out of 4 people in Canada and the United States DO NOT have a personal relationship with God." Says who? Says the Southern Baptist Association? Based on what? A door-to-door study? A phone survey? On the percentage of people in North America who are not Baptist? Do you have to be Baptist to have a personal relationship with God? Do you have to run crying up to an altar in front of hundreds of people on a Sunday morning? Do you have to shout "Amen!" after everything a preacher says during his sermon? What? What then?

 

And, if there's no fact to back up the statement on the collection envelope--and I'm pretty sure there's not--why are they strategically placing it every 3 feet throughout the church? To guilt people into giving money? To scare people into being "saved"? Are they going to try and scare my kids into being saved? Will they tell my kids that Catholics are ignorant in the ways of the Lord, and that to really go to heaven, they have to say a prayer with real tears in their eyes one time, and after that, everything's gravy?

 

I'll stop now, before I get too carried away. I'm over-analyzing. I'm sure the church only aims to enhance the religious life of families, and that my kids will be better off in a Sunday school class than they will sitting at home watching Dora the Explorer, or worse--Hannah Montana, who is probably the devil anyway.

 

I can't control the way me children feel about God and Jesus and church and Sunday school, not completely anyway. I feel completely unworthy and unqualified when it comes to being the director of their spiritual growth. But I hate to think that they might one day, one moment, be emotionally manipulated into believing. It should be so much more than that. I want it to come to them. I don't want them "getting saved" after watching a scary Christian cartoon about hell, or after an hour of much poking and prodding from a well-meaning Sunday school teacher. Surely that makes sense, right?

 

As for me, I just want God to grant me the ability to chill out in church. For once, it'd be nice to get the message and not go crazy with questions and worry. It's not the place, either: I'd probably roll my eyes if I were doing a one-on-one bible study with the Pope himself. Please, God--just let me get it.