My infant is sleeping.

I am in the kitchen, cramming breakfast in my face, awaiting the cries that tell me he is awake. I finish breakfast and HEY, there’s my computer right there, on the kitchen table. How convenient! I go online to check my email. I have TIME to do that, and then to check out the news. This is my fantasy life!

And then my brain does this thing, some of you might be familiar with it, or, hell, maybe it’s just me, all alone and psychotic:

“Oh  my gods, he spit up while on his back and CHOKED TO DEATH, AND YOU HAVE KILLED YOUR CHILD BY BEING NEGLIGENT AND EATING BREAKFAST AND WASTING TIME ON THE INTERNET!”

I do what many  mentally sound parents of an infant would do. I run like a crazed running thing to the bedroom, visions of horror running through my mind.

Of course, the infant is on his side, sleeping peacefully. His little body is making those tell-tale signs of a normally breathing little human.

And then I breathe.

Many have written about Mommy Brain. I have, myself, I’m sure, although I don’t have time to take a romp through the archives and show you. Because, you know, it’s been almost 6 years since I’ve had an infant. Here I am again! Wheeeee!

I’d write more, but he’s now crying to be fed. Bye, bye Internets. See you between the next feedings!

Leaving me to wantonly finish off the last of the coffee ice cream in PLAIN VIEW in the kitchen.

And getting to eat ALL of my Easter candy that a friend bestowed upon  me? All it took was explaining to the five year old (who caught me nom noming a bunny ear) that this was GROWN UP candy. And, stunningly, it worked. Hooray for sneaky!

As for 3 month milestones and such, I’m over the nausea and happily in cravings land. Emotions are running a bit high, especially when I’m starving or alone in a room with Laurel, who is going through some challenging developmental milestones of her own.

On the AWESOME side, my appearance has changed! The mirror no longer reflects a first-trimester sallow, discheveled mess with bags under her eyes. Mother Nature has been kind to me this last week. My skin is glowing, and I have rock star hair.  I am spring! Witness my body swelling with new life. I am fecundity!

And now, back to the freezer, to finish off the Neapolitan ice cream. Because the kids are STILL distracted!

That last sentence is now copyrighted to me. You can only use it if you send me $5.

So, anyway, I thought I’d use this space to find out just what “normal” means to those who read my blog. What is “normal” anyway, to you? It’s a relative term, subject to interpretation within whatever particular subset of society you live within. Or outside.

To help, here are some questions I came up with after much *scientific research. Answer quickly with the first thing that comes to mind. Please email your responses to me, and I will post the results on Monday! Send to terry@mothermirth.com

The how $normal are you QUIZ!

And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.

1. Is there a TV in your home, and if so, how many hours of television do you watch per day? The, umm, TV has to be plugged in and ON, and cannot just be a flowerpot. If you have used a sledgehammer on your TV, or put your foot or other object through the TV, you may skip this question and skip right to question #6.

2. Karl Rove is a douchebag? Yes  No  Discussion?

3. What does your bumper sticker read?

4. On the morning of election day, what will you be having for breakfast?

5. Can you snark in more than one language? Pig Latin totally counts here.

6. Humble pie, or Schadenfreude Pie?

7. Cake or death?

8. What would Sarah Palin’s 6th child be named?

9. Could you, would you, with a fox? Discuss.

10. What’s the weirdest thing you recycle/grow in your yard/create using art/call a hobby?

-Terry
Not weird enough for Facebook.

*”Scientific research” is also a relative phrase. My next quiz will thoroughly explore this fact. And the one after that will fully explore “fact.”

My gall bladder sucks big stinking monkey balls.

I’m back on the fat-free diet in my increasingly rather masochistic desire to keep my internal organs intact. AND I just started antibiotics to combat a particularly nasty bout of bronchitis. So I’m coughing my guts out, and said guts are already rather ouchy.

Now is NOT the time to tell me I have to soon relinquish my older daughter to some impersonal school system, trust in people whom I don’t know, happily. When the principal begins her well oiled tirade on Sunday night regarding how best to insert my precious li’l kid into the beaurocratic machinery of grade school, she may just find my well sharpened clog protruding from her trachea.

This mood swing is brought to you by Benzonatate, Doxycycline, Tums, and NOT ENOUGH FOOD IN MY BELLY TO KEEP A FUCKING SPARROW ALIVE.

That’s love, right?

Despite what Disney convinced me in my youth, I’ve learned that love is a whole lot messier, MUCH more disturbing. Here is a picture of me and the spouse in the marriage bed. I just cleaned my dirty feet with a diaper wipe, and I’m surfing porn in bed (for research purposes only — I’m looking for an apt metaphor for what our president is doing to the country). The husband surfs the sports news, reading up on next year’s NFL draft.

In 6.5 hours, our older child will jump on me and grab my ears in a comfort gesture, while the younger will pull my hair until I promise her a cup of orange juice. Her diaper will leak on the cotton sheets after.

No one ever told me love would be this grand!

If you get it, if you understand that sometimes your husband, or your lover, or your *insert significant other’s title* will say something that will just blow you away, and if you can see the funny in it, you’re safe. YOU understand that you share a level of intimacy with someone that allows for the exchange of even the stupidest of remarks. You can even use such remarks to your advantage, get some use out of them.

In the dynamic with my husband, such exchanges happen. He is my best friend, and I understand that, between guys, there are fewer filters. Guys, when talking to other guys, can say things that are downright insulting with total impunity. So I know that sometimes my adoring husband will treat me like he would treat one of his guy friends and just let something fly verbally that wouldn’t normally be allowed past his lips. I can forgive him when he says things like “It seems like you’re always on your period” (from December of 1999) or “Those pants look a little small on you” (October 2001) or “Wow, you are SO boobylicious” (when my breasts were humongously engorged after the birth of our first child in March 2002).

I never forget. And I keep a running tally. But the important thing is that I can giggle about it. It’s damn hard to put up with sharing your space and your life with another human. The fairytale weddings end in ugly divorces mostly because two people can’t make all the components to a functional intimate relationship work, by seeing marriage as an adventure AND as something to work on. And, most important, as a source for intimacy and an endless font of things to laugh at.

And Kelsey is basically the team cheerleader, disguised as one of the players. She follows around after the kids who have the ball, on whichever team, just to be in the fray, in the moment. Just digging the grouping, flocking herding of like-sized bodies, the craze of inexplicable direction changes (The ball? Where’s the ball? What ball?). She stops to hug a teammate. She asks a fallen opponent if he’s OK. She looks to the sideline and gives me a thumbs up! I melt and laugh and wish I had video.

Next spring it’s T-ball. And then, next fall I’m thinking cheerleading. Because, really, every sport I put her in is going to end in cheerleading, whether it’s conscious or not. Because my child is the cheerleader. And since I am her driver, as my father-in-law so sensitively informed me, it appears I’m going to be a cheerleader mom. I can see my future. I’m sure it involves a minivan. But, damn it, I’m keeping the long hair, the hippy skirts and the hemp necklaces. I might get a tattoo even, to proclaim my uniqueness in this new cookie-cutter community that wants to make me just another bland sugar cookie.

I am NOT a cookie. I am a fantabulous trifle. Or a T-licious sundae.

Just kidding about the tattoo.

Rah, rah.

You hear this saying everywhere: children’s museum, indoor playgrounds, preschools, theme parks. Everywhere you go where they take your money so that your child can play work for the profit of some business. You go to one of those kid-oriented restaurants, and there’s a guy in a rat’s suit just inside the door, beckoning for my kids to enter the big rat play area “Come on in. Play is the work of children. Yeah, *cough* please have your credit card waiting, yada yada yada.”

And every time I hear it, I picture Kelsey trudging down the stairs in the morning, going straight to the refrigerator and pouring herself some juice into her cup, getting ready to start her work day. Walking into the play work room, where her dinosaurs await being hitched up to the ducks and puppies for the first parade of the day, the first item on the agenda before having to begin negotations with the 2-year-old. Their daily meetings involve who gets to use the soft go-go puppy first. And after the first parade, after the negotiations, there’s always so much more work play to do. There’s bugs to stuff into the bug cage, a ton of plastic fruit to throw all over the room, and–talk about the drudgery–the hats and tutus and magic wands ALL have to be tried on in front of the mirror.

I see her get all fed up, trying for the upteenth time to get the remote control T Rex to eat the doll’s head (the jaws just don’t close all the way, do they?) “Aw, fuck this. I need a vacation.” Stomping off to her room to pack.

If play is the work of children, what is the job I’m doing? Is it work? If play=work for some in our species, at what age does that become a false statement? I don’t consider what *I* do work, as a lot of the time I’m playing! But doesn’t it sound irresponsible to say that MY work is play? “Do you dare leave the kids with me, honey, because we’re going to go off and PLAY and the hell with responsibilities!”

Perhaps it’s the words themselves. We assume that “play” and “work” are opposites. And therefore the juxtaposition of the word “play” and “work” in that statement “Play is the work of children” gets your attention. But what if you don’t put a lot of stock in the belief that “play” and “work” are in opposition? Aren’t there some other words we could throw in there, just to shake things up? Why must we have always this seeming contradiction in our language, this black or white dynamic? How about “Play is the tea of children” or “Play is the building blocks of children.”

I’m also noting that I personally am assuming that “work” is rather a pejorative term. It’s got a negative connotation. But is that fair to those of you who LOVE your work, those of you for whom working is more akin to playing? Oh hell.

Play is the work of children. MY ASS, I want to scream. Play is the play of children. And get your damn hands out of my wallet!

Every so often, I feel the need to gain some control over my various addictions. None of them are particularly dangerous, unless you consider the side effect of ultra-crankiness to be dangerous. If I’ve had four cups of coffee in a small amount of time, that’s bordering on unsafe. I get dangerously bitchy and twitchy.

But I’ve recently grappled with my psyche for control over caffeine once again by reigning it in and going back to moderating. Damn it. And it makes me think a lot about such things as addiction, and what types of behavior we decide fall into this category.

In grad school, I drank alcohol to excess on regular occasions. But, as my husband argued in a sociology paper once, such behavior isn’t really classified as alcoholic when one is in college. It’s just… being in college. That same behavior, when applied outside the context of college would be called alcoholism. I’m not being clinical here. I’m not in the mood to support my claims with scientific research. Hey, it’s my blog.

I hear a lot of women claim that they are addicted to chocolate, and they always say this with a giggle. Sometimes it’s a nervous giggle, with that junkie glint in their eyes, but usually it’s a harmless way to say “yeah, I LOVE THE HELL out of chocolate.” Few of these women are, I believe, actually suffering from an addiction to chocolate.

It’s also much more politic to say one has an “addiction” to something rather than a “fetish”, because that latter word is taboo! It’s sexy! Here’s a few definitions for fetish, from dictionary.com:

fet·ish also fet·ich    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (ftsh, ftsh)

n.

1. An object that is believed to have magical or spiritual powers, especially such an object associated with animistic or shamanistic religious practices.
2. An object of unreasonably excessive attention or reverence: made a fetish of punctuality.
3. Something, such as a material object or a nonsexual part of the
   body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual
   gratification.
4. An abnormally obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation.

See? This word is so much more fun than the word addiction. I could say that I have a stationery fetish, and it could either mean I only get off if there’s a ballpoint pen in the room OR it could be completely innocent, and mean that I simply have a fixation and attachment to fine papers and office supplies. But you don’t know! I could be the queen of stationery kink, or just your average somewhat obsessive compulsive person who likes to hang out at Office Depot. 

You just don’t know.

Anyway, TANGENT. Enough about fetishes. Back to addiction.

For me, when I’m feeling dependent on something like coffee, when I feel it’s ruling me and affecting my personality negatively, I need distance. I go cold turkey. I went a full week this last time. In the past I’ve given it up for years, especially while pregnant and nursing. My addiction doesn’t rule me. I am stronger than a Starbucks triple grande two-equal latte.

*looks lustily at empty coffee pot*

Skinny women just give me the creeps.

They’re always passing up the muffins at get-togethers. Drinking bottled water. Worried about that 5 pounds they put on during the holidays. “Yeah,” I think, “I’m not so worried about the 5 pounds from the holidays…it’s the other 40 that are kinda weighing on me!”

Skinny women are twitchy, to borrow a word from a friend of mine. You don’t want to hug them because they’re bony and self-conscious of that 5 pounds. Or maybe they just act all nervous, afraid that I’ll crush them?

Yes, I know. Americans are all obese and we’re all going to die with a pork chop in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other. And the rest of the world will say “I told you so!” Heart disease, diabetes, choking on pork chops…. all big killers in the land of the free.

It’s just not natural for your bones to stick out, girlfriend. Go eat a sandwich and turn on CNN to see the people who are REALLY starving. Yeah, it’s nice to have great abs. If you’re a body builder. But what’s wrong with looking like a woman? Curvy. Satiated.

Bring on the voluptuous women models, ye paragons of media! I’m trying to raise women here, and I could use a little help!