emotional reactions

I'm a very emotional person, I know that surprises you all terribly much. But I don't hold much back, well that's not really true, because I do actually censor myself a lot or else I'd have no friends or family left at all, but for the most part people know how I feel most of the time. This came about due to a childhood where I felt unheard and invisible, my reaction was to shout louder so maybe someone might hear. The less I felt heard the more I cried and yelled and talked about how badly I felt, hoping surely if I got dramatic enough someone would react.

No one really did. They just didn't have the capacity to see someone else's pain, they were too wrapped up in their own mental illness, alcoholism or narcissistic way of life. They were not going to take notice, and thank god I didn't do the final act I dreamed about: doing some dramatic suicide attempt so they could discover I was really in trouble and finally do something about it. Knowing my luck and circumstance, no one would have found me in time, and just look at what I would have missed.

But I have noticed that there are three kinds of people I run into who react to me totally different regarding my emotionalism. It's pretty easy to categorize them:

1. The over-reactor. This is the caretaker person who can't react in proportion to the problem at hand. A splinter in my finger is a code blue emergency that must be handled immediately with bandages, pain killer, ice cream, calls to the ER for backup, a police escort and possibly even a helicopter evacuation. This person drives me crazy because I then have to be all "my head hurts -butI'mreallyokpleasesitdown." My mom used to hear I had a headache and call me the next day to see whether my migraine had gone away. No, mom, headache. I'm fine.

2. The under-reactor. This person is pretty much totally uncomfortable with any display of emotion whatsoever due to whatever their upbringing where they were taught that stuffing their feelings waaaay down deep and showing nothing in public is the 'right' way to handle things and you should just pull up your big girl pants and get over it. Well I disagree. I respect that this is another way to handle your crap and sometimes I wish I could just shut the heck up but I also don't have some nuclear quality bomb growing inside me that might blow up on the wrong person and I don't need to be passive aggressive about my anger. I am healthier when I can express myself, I just think I could use a little calming down. I don't hurt people's feelings, I don't scream in the middle of the grocery store, I cry in my own home amongst family. That seems fair.

3. The just right reactor. This is my best friend. This person listens to my crap, lets me get it all out and moves on in her life without worrying too much. She knows I can handle pretty much whatever is thrown at me and just need to vent to someone safe now and then. Or all the time. Whatever. However, when I get down at the bottom of the pit and can't find my way out, she'll call in the national guard to get me out. She reacts when the time is right and she'll react with all due speed and force necessary, but she gets when and how the reaction is necessary.

We all have our own ways of dealing with life's curves, but sometimes life hands you so many lemons you get buried. When that happens I talk about it. I try to find someone who will listen. And if I feel no one is listening I lose my cotton picking mind. I just want an ear.

Oh crap. Literally.

Dear Huggies,

I hope my recent missive regarding the severe diaper failures I was experiencing with your overnight diapers did not reach you at an overly sensitive time. It seems that since that letter all size 6 overnight diapers (of which we use 1283 a week) have disappeared from store and online store shelves all over America. Perhaps you were not able to pinpoint my location and so had to punish the masses for my sins?

In any case, I should have thought that a company of your size and stature would be able to take a little criticism by now and roll with it. I didn't even ask for any free diapers or an apology, I just wanted to vent. And I suppose I did ask you to create a size 7 line for me, but that was just a suggestion. If it meant you had to shut down production of size 6 for a time, that would not be a good trade, so please let me withdraw my request.

In the meantime, can you please, please, return size 6 overnights to the shelves somewhere in the vicinity of San Francisco? Because, while I don't like visiting every drugstore and department store in the greater Bay Area, I will in order to have my children diapered properly at night. Naturally, a 'regular' diaper will cause me multiple wake ups per night, and that is unacceptable.

Whatever your terms, public apology, televised, youtubed, whatever, I'm pretty willing to comply with. And I can certainly promise never to complain about your product again (until my children are out of diapers which is a long bleeding time) if it makes you feel better.

I just freaking need some overnight diapers! Come on! Help me here! Please?

Holiday shmoliday

Long holiday weekends annoy me. Particularly because here I am exhausted at the end of one and everyone else is all fresh and, well, perhaps hung over. Fine, exhausted for a different reason. All sunburned and overfed and smokey throated from cookouts and sitting by pools and watching fireworks. See, I'm a holiday lover. Before I had kids who, for the first years of their lives, are keeping me from having any. Because what is a holiday if I lose my usual childcare for the day? That seems like NOT a holiday to me.

And I want to laugh about the idiot hooligans who set off firecrackers in my neighborhood half the night but I'm trying to sleep here. Why? Because my molar teething daughter has kept me up for 3 nights straight waking every hour or two to complain about it loudly. Because in the morning I have to get up, dress, feed and clean them and take the to the park singlehandedly. While at the park I have to monitor them on a jungle gym, catch B as he slides down the slide head first, A as she eats sand, C as he finds a step to just sit on and cry for no reason. But I also apparently have to monitor the 8 year old daughter of a dad playing basketball in the nearby courts for some reason?

First of all, this park is divided into two play areas with fences. The one we're in, for very young kids, and the other one for kids her age. Where does she choose to play? Here. How many times to I have to remind her that she has to close the stinking door behind her on the way in and out because I have THREE running toddlers trying to escape at every minute? And why does she have to bring in a cup of water to play in the sand with, leaving two wet sandy spots for my kid to sit in and walk in after she's abandoned them? No, I don't bring a change of clothing to the park with me, why would I? And how bad of a mom am I to have to let my daughter run around with a big wet behind on a 60 degree day?

Dad? Whomever you are? I don't think your wife's idea for you to take your daughter to the park was this exactly. I don't think she was supposed to entertain herself completely, do you see this as father/daughter bonding time? Do you think she'll look back on these days fondly? Oh, remember dad, how you used to take me to the park and abandon me so you could pretend you were still single and play with those loud sweaty men a testosterone laden game of basketball? Right.

So, I leave the Independence weekend a little crabbier than before. Shocking I know, but I think my transition to grouchy old lady may be completing. I'm the one at the window looking out at the neighborhood fireworks (and I'm not talking little tiny fireworks, I'm talking they got the kind that shoot up over their 3 story houses and explode, lighting up the neighborhood and echoing for miles) grumbling and moaning about kids and hooligans and where are the police. I'm the one sending dirty looks to the dad on the b-ball court ignoring his lonely daughter. I'm the one who can't wait until next year when the kids are old enough to take to a fireworks display and maybe spend the day cooking out and baking ourselves in the sun. Wait, what? That doesn't fit. Ok, fine, I have a little holiday spirit left in me. Even if it is all in future fantasy land.

First priority

My mom keeps threatening to come visit me and the kids again, like she did before she became "too sick" to do so. She was always allowed to visit Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, since she moved to town and that worked for me because I'm always fine with someone else entertaining the kids for a while. Gives me a bit more free time. However, as you might expect from my previous posts, it has to come with a touch of chaos. Inevitably, she needs a taxi right as I'm fixing dinner, feeding dinner to the kids or about to take them up for bathtime. I do everything in my power to avert these type of conflicts, but she's a master. Oh, no, she's not ready to leave yet, she'll wait until after dinner. Five minutes later, while I'm actively shoving food into my triplet's faces, oh wait, she suddenly needs to leave right now because she's about to turn into a pumpkin. So what can I do? I can call her a damned cab and get her out of my hair. Even though my kids are left with a mom only paying half attention to them at dinner, it pays off in the end I suppose because she leaves.

So she calls last Saturday and says she wants to come over right now. How is it ok to not only invite yourself over but give 30 minutes notice when someone has 3 kids to care for? Is there anyone's family in which that is ok? I suppose some people like flying by the seat of their pants and don't mind drop in relatives, but then I suspect their relatives aren't nuts. I thankfully negotiated my way out of that one nicely and had a nice Saturday afternoon with the family. But come Monday I expected her to come visit and so I called her. I had her groceries and needed to know if she could take them home with her, oh no, no she would not make it to our house today because she felt so terrible, so could I bring her groceries? I hopped in the car for the 30 minute drive over intending to spend an hour visiting and get home in time for the kids coming back from the park.

"I should go home with you" she says to me when I arrive. Oh no lady. I did NOT just drive all the way down here to spend time with you and deliver your groceries only to drive you back to my house so we can spend the whole stinkin' day together. No I did not. "I have to escape this place." Dramatic, aren't we? Why mom, what is so bad? "It is just terrible here, and the food is horrible. Let's go to lunch together." So wait, you think you can go to a restaurant, sit and order a meal, eat it and come home but you can't sit in a taxi to get to my house where you could relax in a recliner in order to see the grandkids you claim are your only reason for living? Okay. How do you do that math?

So then I made some random comment about being fat because I eat due to the stress of my life and lack of time. She asks "what is so stressful, what do you have to do that takes so much time? Mess around with kids all day?" Mess around with who? What? Are you kidding me? My own mom honestly thinks that all I do is lay about and play with kids all day. How does one respond to such an offensive statement? I seethe quietly and respond "I have three kids, a husband and an ELDERLY mother to care for. It takes a lot of time mom."

It is so hard to swallow that someone can be so dense sometimes. It's like she has no idea what her words sound like. But then, since the world does revolve around her, I suppose she wouldn't. Narcissism must be nice since you never have to think about other people's problems. I could be coughing up a lung (like I was on this same Monday visit) and she would ask me the next day on the phone as if surprised "oh, are you still sick?" She called Tuesday at 1 to say she was coming over immediately because, again, she "had to get out of this place." At 3, she calls to inform me that instead of coming to visit her grandchildren, again the only reason she has to live according to her many statements, she has gotten her hair cut, and a manicure instead. She is now too tired to come over. Okay. I ask you, once again, in what world is that an ok thing to do? Say you're coming over, then call 2 hours later and say you're not after all because you decided to get a manicure?

I guess I shouldn't complain, because once again, a week has gone by and no visit from mom to my home. I should be happy that I only have 3 kids to take care of instead of 4. But I still keep shaking my head. Where do her priorities come from? Does she hear herself talking? Does she have any clue what she sounds like? I have to answer for her. No. Not. A. Clue.