Sometimes a girl just need a good F$*#!

Somtimes life gets overwhelming. Sometimes you can feel the anxiety building. Sometimes you're just down right pissy and you need a release. Yes, sometimes you just need a good F$*#!

Let me clarify that I'm not talking about what you dirty birdies probably think I'm talking about (although that's kinda great too!). I'm talking about screaming out the F word! You know it feels good ladies. There's something so amazing and cathartic about peppering your sentances with an F-Bomb or two!

"Where are my F-ing keys?!"

"Why is this F-inbg house never clean?!"

"Green means GO F-er!"

"Clean your F-ing room!" (as said to your husband because none of us would ever utilize this foul language with our sweet children)

"Are you F-ing kidding me?!" (My personal fav!)

Yes, that ever versitile word packs a punch that only it can do. It turns a request into a demand. It shows you mean F-ing business. And it provides a form of release that only the F-bomb can do.

There is a time and a place for the F word.  You don't just bust it out anywhere ladies.  You can't just drop it at work, the grocery store, or church.

"Where are my F-ing reports?!"

"Are you guys out of F-ing Cool Whip?"

"A-F-ing-Men"

No.  You need to choose carefully when and where you use this most beloved of words.  It is a gift, a treasure, a delight.

For me personally it's like taking the cap off an emotional bottle.  I keep my cool as long as possible but once I reach F-bomb status we know I've hit a wall.  And at that point the addition of the F bomb to every other sentance is sheer luxury upon my lips!  It eases the intensity of the moment.  It's like tiny moments that ease my tention and provide clarity.

I am most likely to use the F-bomb during a bad day or when I'm in pain.  For either instance the people around me know that once the first F-bomb is dropped it's all business!

So while I don't use it as part of my every day vernacular, I love it so.  It may not be an every day thing but sometimes a girl truly does just need a good F$*#!

These Can't Be Oldies!

I grew up in an age of really great music. And I know you wouldn't know it by looking at me but I was hella gangsta in my teen years. Okay...maybe not. And before anyone calls bullshit I'll raise my hand and admit that Madonna was my Lady Gaga growing up. But the rap and R&B music in the 90's was amazeballs!

Music in the 90's was about enjoying life, partying, and having fun! It was before Gangster Rap was really prevelant but there were rappers that were hard core and carried strong political messages.

R&B divas were having their day like no other! Ladies like En Vogue, Toni Braxton, Mary J. Blige, SWV, & Xscape were singing sweet melodies in my teen ears and I loved it! And the men were tearing it up too with the likes of Jodeci, Boys II Men, Color Me Badd, Shai, and more. Music from A Tribe Called Quest, Digital Underground, Salt-N-Peppa, Blackstreet, De La Soul, and even MC Hammer provided a sound track to my youth that is still fun to listen to today.

Summers were filled with the sounds of Warren G & Nate Dogg, House of Pain, Snoop, Bone Thugz, Will Smith, and so many more! It was a fun time for music!

So when I hear MY music playing on an "Oldies Hour" on the radio I'm all like "HUH?!" When did that happen? Those aren't oldies?! Oldies are Marvin Gaye, Aretha, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire. NOT Arrested Development and Biggie! Someone MUST have their information wrong. I mean who's running the show at these radio stations? 12 year olds?

So is that it? Is it official? Are we old because the music WE grew up on (which is still amazing!) is considered the oldies? I can't submit to this idea. So I'm taking my Tevin Campbell CD and I'm leaving!

How Much Is That Fatty In The Window?

I think I have reverse body dismorphia.  To be exact, I think I look better than I really do.  We can also refer to this as "The Jersey Shore Syndrome".

When people suffer from actual body dismorphia they hyper focus on one or more specific things about their body that drive them to think they aren't good enough or pretty enough.  Then they work endlessly to fix this issue even if it only exists in their heads.  

Me?  Well, lately when I look in my skinny mirror (Women know this well.  There are fat mirrors & skinny mirrors) I feel good about my post baby body!  I've dropped a few pounds, my clothes are a little less snug and I feel like a damned super model!  I'm still curvy.  Always have been and always will be.  I always say I'm not an hour glass figure, I'm more of an hour and a half to two hours.  My man loves me curvy so when I look in my skinny mirror I see one sexy beeotch!

Then reality sets in when I see a picture of myself.  UGH!  Who the hell is that hippo of a woman?!  I pick apart the picture.  Flabby arms, jello thighs, jiggly belly, and is that a double chin?  Oh hell no!  That all must be photo shopped!  That simply can't be the same beautiful woman in my skinny mirror!

So I have amped up my super model skills.  Mommies, you may already know them well but if not here are a few new moves for taking pictures. 

1) Strategically place small family members (a.k.a. the kids) in front of you as though you want them to be the star of this family photo.  But in reality you are hiding your rolly polly pudge.

2) To reduce the double chin appearance suction the back of your tongue to the roof of your mouth.  This will lift your second chin just long enough to take that shot!

3) Stand up.  ALWAYS stand up!  Taking photos of yourself in the sitting position will send you into a manic depression where you consume all chocolate within your reach.

4) When taking pictures with your husband, have him wrap his arms around you from BEHIND.  Pictures where he is embracing you face to face show just how much work it takes for him to get his arms around you.

5) Make it a priority to have your arms hidden behind you whenever possible.  A hand on the hip with elbow pointing backwards is a classic pose.

Despite the reality of my post baby body I am still proud of it.  It gave me my sweet baby boy.  And I am fortunate enough to have a man who loves some meat on his lady!  I'll close with this saying my husband lives by:

"Women weren't meant to slip through a man's fingers....but they weren't made to break his arms either!"

Thanks baby!  I love you!  Now go make me a sammich!

Demons

I have three amazing boys.  I love them unconditionally regardless of what they do. 

My boys are 15, 4, and almost 10 months.  There is a reason the first two are 11 years apart.

My oldest is a good boy with an amazing heart.  He also has Absant Seizures and ADHD.  Absant Seizures are seizures of the brain.  Meaning that my son didn't have physical signs of the seizures since it was just his brain that was seizing for many, many years.  So for years, we had no idea that there were physical causes for my son's behavior.  He was impulsive, angry, energetic, and had trouble in social settings or while under the care of anyone outside of our house hold.  He required structure and if anything in his little world changed we braced ourselves for the fall out.

Over the years numerous day cares and schools worked closely with us to try and figure out what was driving these issues.  I am thankful to each of these places for not giving up on him.  My husband and I worked day and night to try to teach him the steps to making better decisions, control his impulsivity, and be a better self manager.  And he made great progress.  But when he had an episode it was horrible.  I remember sitting on the edge of my bed crying my eyes out and telling my husband "We can't have any more children because we fucked this one up so bad!".  That may sound irrational to many but when it's YOUR kid and you just can't figure it out, YOU take the blame.  YOU shoulder the guilt and burden of each thing he does.

I need to clarify that he wasn't a monster child.  I would say to people that 90% of the time he was the most amazing, funny, happy, loving kid you would meet.  It was just the 10% that people never forgot.  I think that's what caught people off guard when he'd act up.  They just couldn't understand where it was coming from.  This wasn't the sweet boy they knew.

Well many tears, lots of doctor's appointments, a couple of therapy sessions, and a whole lot of tests later we got closer to taming the beast when he was diagnosed with the seizures.  At the time of diagnosis he was enduring upwards of 20 seizures a day and who knows how many at night.  That must have been exhausting for him.  He got to the point, at about age 8, where when he had a seizure his eyes would slant shut and he'd just check out for a minute.  He'd been doing this for years, in a subtler form, and we just thought he was shooting us dirty looks.  We called them the snake eyes.  Once we got his seizures diagnosed and he was on steady medication for that, the behavior greatly improved and we exhaled thinking this was what was causing him to act up all those years!  But while the behavior got better, he still had a few severe episodes and was ultimately diagnosed with ADHD as well. 

The two conditions had been fighting each other for years.  For years I cried thinking I had done something wrong.  For years I carried the burden of believing I was a horrible mother. For years I felt the eyes of the people around me as they judged my child.  For years my poor son probably couldn't understand why he couldn't just act right.  So now that we had answers we could fix it. 

For several years now my son has been on the right medications to control both issues and is finally the kid he is meant to be.  I am happy for him.  But I still carry the demons.  I still feel the effects of the years of judgement and the feelings of inadequacy as a parent.  I still hold my breath and wait for that phone call that he's hurt someone or himself.  I wonder if our other two boys will suffer the same fate.  Most of the time I can talk myself down and know that we are great parents who trudged through the muck of parenthood and came out the other side.  That he is a good kid going through normal kid stuff now.  But then there are the other times.  When he has a bad day and gets angry or moody.  I question him, me, the meds, his hormones.  I go into that old problem solving mode where there's a reason for this and I need to fix it before it's too late and he ruins his life.  I have a hard time differentiating between an ADHD episode and a regular old teen mood swing. 

This is my scar.  I am a different kind of mother because of what we have gone through.  I don't have the luxury of saying "He's just a boy." or "You know teenagers." No.  I have to wonder if everyone around me is looking at me like I have failed him.  I have to hope and pray that he will be a good person and a successful adult despite the things he had gone through.  I carry the blame despite the cause.  This is what mothers do.  And until you have been in these shoes, you don't really know just how much it hurts. 

I don't know if I will carry these demons forever or just until he turns 18.  I don't know if these demons will continue to make me question myself until all of my children are grown.  But I know that they are here each day.