Happenings

No one is sick anymore- finally! After Jude's round of strep then viral infection, and Taylor's terrible cold, and Mochi's cold that turned into RSV, I finally got sick last weekend and wound up with strep all week.

It's been a rough past month, so we have all been enjoying our good health this weekend! I haven't been to hot yoga in a week and I'm dying to go. I probably could have gone back Friday, but I didn't want to be that asshole that jumps the gun and goes to yoga and gets anyone sick because I'm obsessed with working out or my ego needs the lift. The yoga studio is a mecca to pay tribute to your health and body and well-being. Sick- and even barely recovered sick- people keep their distance. 

My body feels stiff and I just want to go in there and stretch and sweat out all the toxins and get the blood flowing. Monday afternoon I'm back on the mat!

*Happy Dance*

Last night Jude went to his first Thunder game with Taylor and Dustin (ABOVE). I'm kind of jealous that I missed that, but our little dude needed some guy time. That's what he calls it: "Guy Time." Anything with just him and dad, or dad and dad's friends, is guy time. Jude told me the other day when I asked him if he was excited for "Guy Time" Friday, that "Mommy, you don't have a wee wee." 

Well said, Sir. This means that mommies don't partake in "Guy Time," but we have "Mommy and Pookie Time." 

He added, just in case I forgot and needed a reminder: "Mommy and Mochi have 'baginas." 

(Vaginas)

Very good! Needless to say, I beam with pride as I recap this conversation. He can differentiate our parts. He's been paying attention!

While Jude and Daddy and their wee wees were at the Thunder game, my brother and I took our dad to dinner and to see the Beatles tribute band, 1964- which was our Christmas gift to him. We decided that our hoarding-tendencied parents didn't need anymore stuff (at least this year), so we got them each something to do to share quality time with them. 

Our old man loves his beer, so BJs was a good choice. He enjoyed a beer sampler and jambalaya. Chris and I had water and fancy salads- trying to stick with our diets somewhat- but ultimately wound up finishing our dad's jambalaya. 

Here we are at dinner. This picture isn't an accurate photo of my brother and dad's personalities. 

This picture is more accurate. My brother and dad always have to make faces like this or do something weird or goofy in pictures. It's been like this since my brother was a baby and it has never stopped. My dad looks like a pirate. I wish he'd get his recently removed tooth replaced with something that made him look less like Captain Barbosa, but what fun would that be? 

Dad and his beer. Merry Christmas Old Man! 

1964. They were pretty good. I liked Beatlemania, which we saw in Tulsa a few years back, better, but it was fun. I have a weakness for Beatles tribute bands and shows. I feel gipped most of the time because I honestly believe I was born in the wrong era for music. My brother and I were probably 2 of maybe a dozen people under the age of 50 at the show. When "John" encouraged the crowd to get up for "Twist and Shout," my dad said he felt like he was at a retirement home- and after looking around- we staged scenarios about some of the older ones busting out their medicinal marijuana that they carry around for their glaucoma and died laughing about it. 

My brother and dad and I have always been a trio of buddies. We share the same interests and attitudes about most things. We appreciate one another's passions, overtly unapologetic opinions and perspectives on how we see and experience the world around us.

All three of us are oddballs. Chris and I have our Old Man to thank for that- since he is the one of the weirdest people I'll ever know. 

Spending the evening cutting up and enjoying the company of the two original guys in my life was a breath of fresh air.

No one gets you like your blood.

We had a big "send off" get together with my extended family today, for my cousin Robert and his wife Gabby and little boy Brayden who got stationed in Virginia and are leaving Tuesday, and for my brother, who will be leaving for officer training in Alabama next week. My cousin Andrea is already in Europe for a few years, and I miss her a lot. That's the thing with military families- people are always coming and going and getting stationed here and there. It's part of the package though. Without the reassigning of location due to military, most of my family (myself included) wouldn't even exist. 

The yummy plate of food above is how my family rolls. You should have seen the spread. It's insane how amazing the food is. You won't find better home cooked Japanese food on the planet. Seriously. My grandma and Uncle Chosei are from Okinawa and this is how they throw down. Tempura. Gyoza. Stir fried noodles. Fried rice. Teriyaki chicken.

Taylor and I pretty much fast all day to make sure we have plenty of room to gorge when we know we are going to be eating this food. 

My Great Uncle Chosei- the tempura master. He has a black belt in Japanese cuisine.

Chris and Jude hogging out on dessert- what they do best. 

Mochi with Mimi and my kick ass aunties

Jude will pummel you with his gigantic fists.

The kids fell asleep on the drive home. Taylor and I have started prolonging our trips home when this happens, because we know as soon as we get in the garage, they'll wake up- usually groggy and cranky if they don't get a sufficient cat nap- and they won't go back to sleep. So we get coffee. From Starbucks. Which up until recently I had always refused to do- get coffee from Starbucks- but since they have put all of the other conveniently located coffee shops out of business in our area, that's really our only option.

I refuse to order Starbucks in their fancy named sizes. We aren't in Italy. We live in America, and in America we have SMALL, MEDIUM, and LARGE.

Venti. Grande. I can't remember the other name. It confuses me. I want a medium coffee. That's it.

It's funny hearing men order fancy named froo-froo coffees.

There's something emasculating about a man who orders a venti green tea chai latte with coconut and whipped cream- like the guy in front of me in line did today. I like to think that men should take their coffee black. Taylor doesn't take his coffee black, but he also doesn't order venti green tea chai lattes with coconut and whipped cream. That's enough for me.

So we get coffee and drive around and talk. That's what you do with kids. You create and squeeze in grown up time when you can and let them sleep when they'll sleep.

Jude after we got home. Family time with the relatives and cousin wore him out. It's a beautiful sight to see this kid this worn out. It doesn't happen often. 

Mochi finally has enough hair to wake up with bed head. 

Sleepy-faced babies with bed head are one of life's best kept secret treats. 

Holy crap it's 12:30 a.m. and I am still on the computer. This is going to hurt in 5 hours when Mochi wakes up and decides she'd rather be in bed with Taylor and I. Why isn't husband back from Dustin's house yet? Why is it so easy to get annoyed with husbands when they really aren't doing anything wrong? 

Oh well.

Good Night! 

Hoarder

Hoarding. What an interesting disease. So American, wouldn't you say? To have access to so much stuff that you are literally sick and drowning in all of your material possessions. There are starving people in the world who have nothing- and then you turn on "Hoarders" and see the flip side to having little or nothing.

The husband doesn't like the show "Hoarders." He also doesn't like the commercials during "Hoarders," which is always for more depressing, shockingly horrific programs like "My Strange Addiction," "Intervention," or "My 600 Lb. Life." What is it about A&E and their niche with the depressing real life shit that no one really wants to know about?

Well, I guess people do want to know about it, or people wouldn't watch it. That channel digs up all the freakiest freaks hidden in society, unEarthing them so that we normal people may feel more normal. I honestly think that the audience for these shows has been born with the birth of the shows themselves- the interest is sparked once you get a taste of the highlights (lowlights?) when one of those shows flashes across your television screen. Like, "What is that craziness I just saw? I must check that out..."

Follow the trail of crying, disheveled societal rejects to gag-worthy utopia.

Jersey Shore? The Bachelor? Young people getting drunk, having threesomes in hot tubs and fighting and using "BLEEP" words? Cat fights, whiney and crying dingbat chicks competing for the attention of some douche bag guy?

Weak.

Let's see a guy who has an emotional and sexual relationship with his "male" car that he has named Chase. Or an old lady who has so much garbage and junk and cat feces in her house that she can't even make it through the bathroom door- so she just relieves herself in diapers that she leaves lying around all over the house, and THEN when the house is cleaned out, she finds dead cats under the mountains of dirty adult diapers piled up around the house.

They say people like the shocking, dirty laundry aspect of reality television.

Now that's just about as shocking and dirty as it gets. Unbelievable. It's hard to fathom the idea that it's real. It's mind blowing. There are some pretty sick tickets in this world ("sick tickets..." Steel Magnolias? Anyone catch that? I can't take credit for that great play on words...)

I don't really keep up with any television that's not HBO (with a recent exception of The Voice, because that guy from Maroon 5 just won't let me change the channel...)- and although I don't blame Taylor for disliking "Hoarders," from time to time I catch an episode or two just for the thrill of feeling disgusted for 60 minutes.

It's so disturbing- yet it's the disturbing factor that keeps me glued to the TV for back to back episodes, clutching my pillow with eyes open wide and nose crinkled in horror and fascination when I get the chance to watch it in syndication. By the time I'm done watching and turn the channel, I'm mentally going through my home thinking of all the crap I need to gather and drop off at Goodwill.

Ultimately, the show inspires me to have less stuff and "cleanse" my house of junk and clutter and things that I have no use for.

On those nights that I watch "Hoarders," after the babies are tucked into their beds sleeping and I have some time to kill all for myself, I settle down in bed with my cat Niles and the husband is laying on his stomach next to us, farting around on his tablet, occasionally looking up to catch a few minutes of the show when I gasp and exclaim, "Holy shit!" before he turns his attention back to web surfing, muttering something along the lines of:

"What the hell is wrong with these people?"
"Omigod."
or my favorite,
"They don't have a disease. They're just fucking lazy."

I remember being on the phone with my mother one night while watching Hoarders, and we were discussing whatever episode was on. Although I've gotten better, I've yet to learn to keep my damn mouth shut sometimes when talking with my mother. Do I get under her skin on purpose? Maybe a little- but for the most part I pretty much just say whatever is on my mind, her feelings often unspared. The woman makes no quams about sparing my feelings when sharing with me what she really thinks about things, so in turn, the apple doesn't fall too short from the tree.

I wouldn't call my parents Hoarders, but they may be some kind of distant, related by marriage cousin of Hoarders. I told her that and she got really defensive- so jokingly I told her that the first symptom of Hoardism is denial. She got PISSED. I then talked myself into a corner, trying to explain the rationale behind my theory of her hoarding tendencies- citing specific examples and assuring her that it was endearing and I could understand how she and my dad have come to have so much stuff.

It didn't do any good. No sense of humor there- she all but hung up on me- which makes me seriously consider the idea that she may very well have some distant mild case of hoarding disorder. I won't get into details, but my parents have so much random stuff it's kind of ridiculous. Not like, scary filthy obscenely hoarded out or anything- but definitely a clean, organized, much less severe version maybe.

There is no clear space on any surface of their home, no drawer unstuffed, no cabinet unpacked to the max, no closet unstuffed to capacity. Expect for my dad- who keeps his bathroom drawer and closet neat and uncluttered. I suppose that as a man, those are the two spaces all for himself that my mom can't fill with stuff, and he's very territorial about it.

I don't think it's uncommon though- hoarding tendencies in our country. Look how much crap we have, compared to what, 30 years ago? How much crap did people have back then? My mother grew up very poor and had very little. This is why I think that once she became a successful adult with a healthy income, she started buying things that she wanted because she could. And bless her, her heart is so big that she looks for things to buy and gift to family because she's so incredibly generous.

I've learned in the past not to have a gather and collect for donation days when she's at my house. She'll rummage through my bags and pull things out and find ways to justify keeping things. She'll find things that she may have given me or the kids that we no longer have use for, then get all huffy and act upset like I don't appreciate her. This is how people wind up with tons and tons of... dare I say it... junk?

JUNK: Old or discarded articles that are considered useless or of little value.

Think about it- I don't know how any of your moms are, but if I kept every little item of clothing or trinket or whatever, I'd wind up on Hoarders and we'd be eating dinner atop a massive pile of clothing and trinkets and whatever.

Over time, slowly but surely, bits and pieces of the past are making their way to the donation piles. Items and accessories and clothing from past "lives" that are momentarily hard to let go of. In the past ten years, Taylor and I moved 4 times and have lived in 5 different houses- and with that, we've moved around a ton of stuff that we should've gotten rid of along the way.

We're also both the oldest children in our families, so over the years, relatives have always pawned their junk off on to us. When we didn't have much, that was helpful and useful, but now that we are "grown ups," we have bought our own stuff, but are still in the process of getting rid of the years worth of hand me downs we accumulated. We've almost succeeded. It feels good.

I've said in the past that I'm a nostalgia whore- so letting go of stuff isn't always so easy for me. But then I think back to episodes of "Hoarders"- like the one with the woman who had over 600 pots and pans that she never used but got all emotional over getting rid of- and it helps me to rifle through things much quicker, with less thought and less sentimentality.

It's especially difficult with the babies clothing. Oh God, the babies clothing... but I'm getting better.

Of course I keep and save things that I have grown attached to- things that are significant and particularly special- but I find it so necessary and important to CLEANSE my living space of junk. Because there is always going to be more junk. More clothes. More trinkets. More books. I've learned after the past few Christmases, since we had children, that there has to be room in the house to put stuff- otherwise, you wind up wandering around with a gigantic collection of stuff that you have no idea what to do with. That makes me feel like a crazy person.

Plus- I want my kids to grow up seeing us rid ourselves of junk by the means of donation. Pass the buck along. Hopefully someone else will find new purpose and use and meaning in any one item. One person's junk is another person's treasure. Forget a garage sale. Who has the time and patience to go through all that? OK, a lot of people. But I don't. I want it out of sight out of mind.

Go through the house, at least once a season, and collect things that are taking up space and are serving no purpose.

Load up my car and drop it all off at Goodwill.

Get a receipt for tax purposes.

Go on with my life.

Anticipate the inevitable return of future crap to replace the old crap in the temporarily emptied space.

And the Beat Goes On...

I'm sooooooooo tired. Wait a sec. Is this a blog I've already written? Am I having deja vu? Nope. It's a new day. And I'm still soooooooo tired.

I am going to need to have a sit down with my soon-to-be 9 month old Mochi Cakes and explain to her that she was born into a household of Night Owls, therefore, there is no room for Early Birds in this nest. She's taken to waking up at about 4:45 a..m., all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to rock for the day. I've always been able to nurse her back to sleep in my bed with me until about 7:30, but now she wants to roll around and climb on me and pull my hair and shriek and chatter away in my ear, therefore forcing me out of bed at a most unGodly hour.

9 months old and still not sleeping through the night. Fantastic. She started to go in that direction for awhile there- there was a light at the end of the tunnel! Then both she and Jude got sick for like 2 weeks and fucked it all up. So here we are again starting over and I'm tired like I was the first couple of months after she was born.

C'est la vie with a child.

I forgot how when babies start doing new things- like crawling or sitting up- it can disrupt their sleep cycle. They'll sit up in the night and not know what to do, or crawl into a crib corner and be too sleep induced to know how to get back out. It's gotta be rough being a tiny human being learning how to function in the night- when it's dark and you wake up all disoriented. A lot of us never even manage to master the ability to sleep soundly through the night into adulthood- so I empathize with babies.

Once babies have discovered their mobility, they are up and ready to get moving before roosters have even gotten out of their beds. They have sights to see and places to crawl to and things to pull up on- and older brothers to piss off.

5 a.m.? The day is a-wasting! As tired and disheartening as it can be to realize when you are stupid sleepy that, "Yes. This is happening. We are getting up now," I'll open my eyes and look at her lying next to me, with her round happy face right up next to mine, patting my cheek with her chubby little hand, smiling her two toothed grin, and I turn all melty and light as a feather.

Ooooo-K. You win.

Jude too hit this up and at 'em stage at Mochi's age. You'd think that as a now more seasoned mother of two, I'd be more prepared for it, but I'm still all but retarded in the mornings. I just am not wired to be up that early.

If you aren't my babies, don't talk to me before 8 a.m. I might punch you in the face.

I don't understand how Early Bird people do it.

I will say that I have gotten better at maintaining a more cheerful-if-not-still-drunk off lack of sleep mood- but my cheerful face is only for my babies. My husband need not apply. This is because it's difficult to be cheerful with someone who has been snoring like a God damn bear all night in our bed while I get up to tend to the baby in the middle of the night, then again before sunrise to collect the baby and later to wrangle our grumpy 3 year-old boy who has the attitude of a 14 year-old boy when he wakes up and is forced to get ready for school.

Husband will often wake up, emerge from our room after getting ready for work and proclaim how tired he is, recalling,

"Man, Mochi just didn't want to sleep last night. I hardly got any sleep at all!"

I wonder how many other wives/mothers have heard this lamenting and felt appalled at the audacity of their husbands for even musing over the restlessness of their infants, after they have YES been woken up, but rolled over and went back to sleep, completely unfazed and oblivious to any obligation to get up and comfort the baby back into their own sleep?

Tired? You're not tired. I'M tired. He'll argue that it's not a contest- but I beg to differ. Oh yes it is, buddy. It is most definitely a contest of who is more tired- and I WIN.

Anyways. This complaint is nothing. Sometimes it feels good to get it off my chest- release it out into the universe and set it free. Then the beat goes on and another day marches forward. Husbands and wives getting on one another's nerves over child related incidence? We're not alone. That's a comforting thought.

So Mochi is on the Go. It's a lot of fun. She's in my very favorite baby stage. I learned with Jude that this crawling era in a baby's life is very short and very precious- because the next era is the toddling era, when they get up and on their feet and transition into the "I suddenly have an opinion and will run away from you" era. They're still babies, but not BABY babies anymore. It happens so quickly. When they are  in this crawling stage, they are still baby babies, but mobile- and their little tushies are so cute when they scoot around the house. The only thing that isn't cute about this stage is listening to Jude freak out about his baby sister going after his things- which is CONSTANT.

Never dealt with this with him of course, because as the first and only, he never wanted for anything. Everything (well, almost everything) he had full access to. No jealous or territorial siblings to get in his way. Little siblings don't have this luxury. I think it will make Mochi a tough little cookie, growing up with a big brother like Jude.

I got my fireball child first and my easy going child second. I'm pretty happy that I have had the opportunity build a tough skin with Jude, because every day with Mochi (Vivienne) is a little slice of strawberry cake.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to hold this mild-tempered baby- particularly on Jude's more emotionally explosive days. It's just a part of his nature- and a part of his age I'm sure, but sometimes I think my little boy is crazy. I think, "Omigod- you have got to be crazy. What did I do to make you so fucking crazy? I don't even know what to do with you right now, Crazy!"

Jude's stuff is the only stuff Mochi wants to play with. Baby toys, what? She wants Thomas the Train. She wants Hot Wheels. She wants big colorful preschool Legos. Whatever Jude is playing with- that's what she wants. Of course, Jude is thrilled about this, you know, since sharing toys with a tiny creature who has come into your life and stolen a lion's share of mommy and daddy's attention isn't enough change to deal with. 3 year-olds are super open to change and sharing. Didn't you know?

One of my biggest pieces of advice to a new mother-to-be would be not to waste too much money on baby toys- because the first baby only wants to play with tupperware, pots and pans and other household objects. Then the second baby also only wants to play with those household items, and even more so, their older siblings possessions- and they will all but raise an eyebrow at you as if to say, "Are you serious? What in the hell am I supposed to do with this crap?" when you dork out attempting to entice them with the baby toys that the first one never really played with either.

I hear shrill, "That's MINE!" cries at least 100 times a day. Jude is a bipolar teddy bear. One minute cute and cuddly and huggy and lovey and doting on his baby sister whom he calls, "Wittle Moe" (short for Little Mochi), bringing her things to play with and begging to hang out with her in her pack and play. Then the next minute he's trying to push her arms out from under her while she's crawling, getting in her face shrieking about a laundry list of different things that she's doing to annoy him, climbing on top of and over her, or snatching toys out of her hand and angrily declaring them to be his no matter what the objects are, be them kitchen spatulas or rubber baby blocks he hasn't touched since he was 6 months old.

Mochi is resilient. She gets an iron kung fu grip on whatever she gets her hands on, and Jude often has to fight her to pry it out of her hands (when we're not intervening of course). She doesn't cry or fuss- and almost seems amused and pleased with herself for getting her brother all worked up. Then she'll willingly give it up and move on to the next thing.

Some days everything she does gets on his nerves.

"No Wittle Moe- you can't sit there. That's mine!" in reference to sitting on the living room floor. The floor is his.

"Stop it Wittle Moe- don't wook at Gretchen bear! That's mine dog!" in reference to our dog. The dog is his.

"No Mochi- no eating. Don't eat! STOP EATING!!!!"

Taylor wondered aloud the other day when this kind of behavior will stop. He has two younger sisters and he still pesters the shit out of them when we all get together. I reminded him of this and his face fell. I'm pretty convinced that it's going to be an ongoing thing for a very long time- to lesser and more severe degrees as the years go by.

But you know what's crazy? When I get even just a tiny window of time when the two of them are getting along and playing harmoniously- and I get to watch them learn together how to cooperate and share and get along and communicate in their own teeny tiny person way- the feeling of peace that washes over me makes all of the frustrating other behavior and challenges worthwhile. I enjoy every second of it because those moments don't last very long before the "That's MINE!" song and dance starts again.

It's a circus- but I love my family circus. I love my cute husband and my crazy little monkey and my sweet little pink elephant. In my circus, I think I would totally be the ringmaster, but I think that Husband would say that he is the ringmaster.

I say that the person who best and most efficiently tames the circus animals is the ringmaster... and that would be ME. Mom!