Funeral Cupcakes

Nancy died about two weeks ago, and just now our families are getting together to honor her. The past two weeks without this event felt wrong. There was no burial because she was cremated. Our families have been very close for the better of thirty years and I felt like I needed a funeral, even if it was an informal gathering just for us.
My mother asked me to make cupcakes for the occasion. Whether I was asked to make cupcakes because my cooking ability is weak or because there was an actual need for cupcakes at a funeral is still unanswered. I didn't really question it. I just made them. They were a box mix of yellow cake and chocolate icing. Nothing special. I felt, even cooking them, that Nancy would have hated that I was going to bring cupcakes instead of my original idea to bring Gouda and bread. She would have wanted something a little more upscale maybe.
So, tonight, uniced cupcakes and a jar of frosting in hand, I left my house and opened the trunk of my car. Alongside the snug plate of cupcakes I left my one key to our one car. And I shut the trunk. Yes, I did it. I left the funeral cupcakes in the car with my key and no way to get where I needed to go.
Wanting very badly to kick the car and very passionately yelling all kinds of profanity, we called the locksmith. Two hours and 125 dollars later I had officially missed the funeral.
I thought earlier in the day how it really didn't matter whether Nancy would have liked the cupcake idea. She is gone now. She can't say anything about it. And it's true. She can't. But she might be able to get me so frazzled that I lock my key in my car and inavertantly leave myself, with the cupcakes, at home. She's so tricky.

What Would Thoreau Do?

So I started a new job two days ago. I should be excited to bring in money. Especially with the holiday season here and my son truly wanting Santa to come this year. I should feel grateful for the little bit of extra cash to give him a good Christmas. Alas, I am not satisfied. After day two, less than a whopping twenty hours of work, I am so bored. Even more than that, I am disappointed that I am bored.
This is not a soul feeling, purpose finding job. I am strictly making money. But somehow I hoped to find a bit of purpose. I do realize that I have plenty of opportunity to affect the lives of the people I come into contact with daily, regardless of how menial the task that I am doing while connecting with those people is. On the same hand, I like for my motions, my physical and mental abilities to be in good use when I work. It turns out that most of the action required for this service industry position is pressing buttons.
I'm old school when it comes to making coffee. I want to feel the weight and pull of the espresso grinder. I want to hear the thud of dumping the used grounds out, the steamer skipping in the milk at my control. It's a small job, but those are the things I love. I love the meat, the grime of doing it myself. Now all I do is press a button.
In college I developed an appreciation of a Thoreau attitude towards industrialism. But I thought I would grow out of my passionate feelings about the world moving much too fast. Especially after moving to Texas, the epitome of materialism and industry. I am thankful for this job in realizing that I have not lost my passion for wanting a human aspect to working for a company.
One could argue that the machine doing all this on it's own allows more room for personal connection with the customers. But I have worked for an independent coffee company and connected in the very same way that I am now. Maybe even better because I am not so dulled by pressing buttons. I think that productivity comes first in a business like the one I work for even though they may not believe it. Efficiency. I think it develops a huge distrust with your employees to allow a machine to do all the work. Yes, it may be more efficient or consistent, but then again it may not. It may just be that trusting your employees to do some of the work develops a more meaningful way to pass the time, more of a feeling of accomplishment.
I don't want to be mistaken, whether hands on or not, it's definitely not the most important job in the world. I get that. At either spot I still desired more interaction with my brain. So there's that. But I also want to know that somewhere way up high in the corporate kingdom someone trusts me to pull my own shot of espresso and hand it to a customer knowing that I did it myself. That I am capable of doing this. I am not a useless human being that doesn't have a working brain. I think it's really important to be valued. Who knows where these feelings might take me. Once again it may be somewhere far away from employment.

Portland, aka Poor Me

I just got back from Portland, a trip I generally take a few times every year to see my best friend. This time it was for her baby shower. Needless to say, my BF is a little more laid back in her pregnancy, so this trip combined with the last one we took together where I threw a Harri Krishna cookbook at a bartender, missed and broke the bar lamp, kind of smoothed out into a pretty great year of traveling. I absolutely love Portland. It reminds me of what being alive feels like. I leave feeling excited about life. Texas really snuffs out that lusty feeling and replaces it with...hmmm...concrete. Cows. And work. I know a lot of it is my fault. I need to make more of an effort to connect. The sheer distance of places from one another in Texas makes it difficult though, especially if you aren't living in an urban area.
There's always an excuse. Poor me. The truth is that it's time to make a change. And changing really makes me uncomfortable. It always ends up being something really great that I can be proud of later though. So. Change.

I Got Your Back

His boogers hurt. He's been telling me this all day. He's been sneezing, teething, crying, whining, and asking me to put cream on his mouth, his boogers, his feet and other random extremities that are causing him pain. Ever since a severe infection that required lots of cream, that's his new remedy to any problem. He wants to put cream on it when we get home.


I took him to story time today at the library and he stubbed his toe. He wanted cream on it. His molars are coming in and he wants cream on them.

Same day, different note...

When he is playing with other kids, I usually assume that he has an equal amount to do with any issue that they are having, which is usually sharing. He is two, and two equals mine. It's that simple. And sometimes, he just does things to assert himself and irritate other kids, like only playing with the toy they want, or holding the door to the playhouse shut so that no one else can get in. I forget a lot that instead of apologizing for him and always assuming he has done his share, that there are times when I need to defend him. Even if it's just staying out of it and teaching him that I trust him to do the right thing.


Today at story time was one of those moments. Another kid wanted the toy he had, and instead of telling him that he needed to share, I just sat there. When he looked at me for my approval in not handing the toy over I just smiled. All I wanted to say was, "I got your back." And it felt good to be devoted to that. It felt like a new way to let him know that I love him. And it felt good to be an ally.


And a small confession, the other kid was a brat. So even if Ethan had been trying to hoard the toy, I think I still would have sat there and let my son assert himself.

I Heart Forgiveness

And no, I don't mean that I love engaging in the act of forgiveness where I am the forgiver and you are the forgivee. I mean my son forgiving me. I want it, but I have a harder time giving it. That actually kind of kicked me in the teeth tonight when I thought about how grateful I felt that all my crankiness from the day could just be swept away with a little laughter and love. Awwww.
I was cranky all day. I even threatened to not let him go see the fountain in the middle of the square because I was ready for him to take a nap. Nevermind that I had promised to take him several times throughout the day. It wasn't until he took on a joint effort to ask nicely with his nanna that I gave in.
I was cranky despite the pure joy he got from laying on his belly and sticking his hands in the water. I was even cranky when he held my hand, his tiny palm so soft and warm, to cross the street without my having to ask him twice.
And at the end of the very busy day when I finally felt bad about just how cranky I had been, he said from the back of the car (no, not the trunk, I wasn't that cranky), "Mom, I love you very, VERY much!" And when I said, "I love you too, babe" he said "awwwww, that's so sweet."
That's when I felt grateful for forgiveness. Thus the topic. I haven't evolved enough to talk about how forgiving I am. I only got so far as to think, "Man, I bet it would feel nice to someone else if I forgave them. Hmmm. Interesting."
The end.

Giving Thought to Amazing Creatures

A bit of advice for women who want to raise babies.
When you decide to raise a child, often you become that and only that to other people. A woman who raises a child. Not that it isn't extremely important to make and raise a monster. It is important. But it is also important to be valued as a woman too. As a writer. As a poet. As a teacher. Painter. Whatever.
Once in a while someone important comes along and realizes that even though you may stay at home with the baby, you have a crucial amount of intellegence and creativity that leads your child into knowing what they know or becoming who they are.
It almost seems unfathomable that someone might look at you and ask you how you are. They may tell you that you are beautiful. They may ask you if you want to go get a drink. And then, hypothetically, of course, you start crying because you feel like someone values you again. The same way you were valued before you were a mother.
Before having my son I wasn't oblivious that this lack of appreciation happens to women all the time, but I was in serious denial. I didn't think so many people would participate. But they do. Be the one who doesn't. Women are women first. And then we are mothers too. And pretty amazing ones, competent ones, at that.

Again, exhausted.

I could very easily try and pretend that I am not the person who sits at home this Friday night and blogs about some ungodly injustice done to me during my workday. But I'm over it. I am that girl tonight. I am totally exhausted, but I can't sleep yet. It's still too early. Although I'll regret it in the morning when my baby wakes up early and comes in to get me up.
I'm pretty sure this is how people go from adolesence to old person without that middle age youth in between. They have a child. Or several. But for me, it's only one. And it turns out that I love him a whole lot. Which means that aging is now partially tolerable, and I can somehow talk myself out of feeling bad for not having exercised today, or whatever the thing I didn't do is at the moment.
I have reached a new understanding of something this week. One: I do not want to work with two year olds. Two: Migranes are worse than childbirth. Three: It isn't worth it to stay at a job that 1) gives you migranes and 2) harbors children that follow you around screaming and crying and flapping their arms like birds while you tell them to scream and cry but do it in the opposite area of the room from where you are so that your head doesn't pop open and spill guts everywhere like an over ripe pumpkin because you are sure at this point that your head is twice the size it was an hour ago and it must be filled with goopy bloody pulsating goodness that surely isn't a working brain.
Yes, I quit my job.
Yes, I will never try and teach two year olds for a living again. Especially not for nine hours a day.
Whew. It already feels better just saying something. It's over. The End.

Oh baby, baby

Alas. My son is finally a two year old. I mean a two year old. I thought that he was the exception to the other two year olds on this planet that create chaos for all the other living things around them. Nope. He is a bonafide chaos machine, well versed in his ability to cause damage and confusion.
It was only two nights ago that I sang my sweet baby to sleep in his red rocking chair. Now, 2 days later, I am sleep deprived and frazzled to the point that I can hardly see straight. I swear I have turned wrinkly and old since last night. My son is subjecting me to a strange form of pain that feels like Chinese water torture must. He refuses to sleep. I literally kept him moving all day long so that by bedtime, he would not get out of bed 15 times, hysterically asking me to "sing sunshine away again."
I remember hearing my neighbor's child screaming at night a few years ago and I was sure that he was being abused. No child that little screams like that unless someone is hurting them. Being very sensitive to children being in a safe environment, I considered what I should do. They moved out while I was still thinking about it. I know that now, I am the one under scrutiny. I am the one that my neighbors watch really closely trying to tell if we act or look like people who hurt children. They might even think about telling me that they hear my baby screaming at night and they wonder what is going on.
In the throws of the horror, I had a minute to consider which type of criminal I might look like if the police were to come to my house right then at that particular moment. Having not showered since we went to the pool, my hair frizzy and dry, my workout clothes looking disheveled, having no makeup on at all, I realized I would be the criminal that you look at and imagine living in a dumpy one bedroom apartment where I harbor sexual deviants. But then if I were to be showered and well dressed, my makeup fully done for my mug shot, you'd probably associate me with the Ramsey family. You'd think I had enough money to get away with anything. Either way I'd be screwed.
SO, my child is a monster. When I woke up the second day of him not sleeping any more than six hours, (which means I got 4), I let him run around the house for 15 minutes before I could actually open my eyes. In that 15 minutes, he had colored almost every wall in our entryway and living room with hot pink marker which he claims as his favorite color. He had taken the broom out of the closet and left it strewn on the kitchen floor with an empty shopping bag next to it. He had taken his breakfast and hastily put half of it in his mouth and half on the floor. As I sat scrubbing the wall with the dish sponge instead of drinking coffee, he cheerfully sat next to me and told me how he drew on the wall. Over and over again. Repitition. Another joy of parenting.
Life is all about clues. My clue of the day, the piece of life that I apparently need more information on, is unconditional love. That is what parenting is trying to teach me. I'm sure of it. There is nothing quite like the test I get when standing outside his door, waiting to hear the thump of him half climbing/half falling out of his bed, going in without looking at him and laying his tense screaming body back in bed, closing the door, waiting for the thud, going in... You get it. Repitition. Until he is too tired to clib/fall out of his crib and he whimpers himself to sleep only to be up in another 45 minutes. I begin to repeat to myself that he is just a baby and I love him. It will end. It will. It will. And I count the minutes until his dad is home and can take him away. Or distract him long enough for me to leave.
The wincing as if I am being completely damaged has passed and I am exhausted. I just want him to sleep. I want the sheer terror of it all to pass. I want myself, my life, my hope back. I want some sleep too. A lot of it.