Because Growth is Important

Growing is important, admitting you were a shithead and incredibly unpleasant is too. I've been thinking about this, especially in regards to restarting this blog. I'd abandoned it for a while because it'd gone of the rails - the rants were mean, not smart or cute, they were shitty and angry and just generally made me sound like this frothing Glenn Beck type of ladyperson.
Which, you know... I can def go there, but I am not that person. I'm not even "drama". I hear tell that I'm (somehow, somewhat mysteriously to me) the level-headed friend who won't feed you a line of bs, someone who can put things in a way that is straightforward but funny. But here, on this blog, it got gross. It got nutty and ugly and it wasn't funny, it was mean and angry and sanctimoniously shitty. Prepartum depression had a whole shitload to do with this, I'm not even gonna lie or dick around veiling that right there. And everyone now is all... "yeah, no shit, Miss Thing". I know. Hey, I didn't even know it was a thing, you know?
Rest assured my baby Tupperware days are over.
So yeah, I've gone back and deleted the grossest, ookiest, and most awkwardly heinous stuff on here. I didn't want to start entirely over. As I read through things here, I actually remembered some stuff I'd forgotten about! How cool! But then, as the pregnancy wore on, so did the shittiness. The "I know it all, fuck you" doctrinaire bullshit started much earlier though, and I want to put an apology and an acknowledgment out into the ether and vapors that is Bloglandia for whatever that is worth or affects.

The best thing, for me, about being a parent and writing and communicating with people as much as I can is that my compassion grows. My capacity to be righteous and stand in someone else's shoes grows and I like that. I can look at things that would just out and out enrage me back in the hormonal psychosis and see where I was coming at things wrong. My big resolution this year was to be more upright and come correct as much as I possibly can. Being judgmental is useful, but being married to those judgments or using that to make value assessments of someone as a whole is not. And mostly, it isn't my thing to concern myself with.

I'm not trying to get up my ass or holier than thou here. I'm not.
But the thing is... hm. The longer I parent two small humans who have their own travails and needs that are occasionally beyond my personal capacity to fulfill, the less apt I am to have a strong opinion about any one way to parent or any one way to be a good person. I have less of a strident political opinion, I have less of a tendency to think someone's trash or stupid or fucking up.
Let me explain how I'm getting to this slightly less awful state of being.
My kids are both extremely challenging. Saderator is a dismantler of anything in her grasp, and a scary, parrot-level problem solver. She's TWO. To watch her during the day, I pretty much have to sit in a central location and keep one eye on her continuously, because otherwise tears, bodily harm, broken glass, cat scratches, bloody noses, or dishsoap in my dvd player WILL occur. I go to bed at night and feel like I've run a marathon, no lie. Mr Man is pretty rough to run himself, but in an entirely different way. Squidge was recently diagnosed with *extreme* Attention Deficit, which we've been half-unknowingly but occasionally suspecting and continually coping with for four years now. It's all been rough. The roughest part is accepting that his brain simply doesn't work like mine, and that when I ask him to engage in the real world and focus that not only is he incapable, he feels worse for my confusion, frustration, and yep, occasional anger. Having a kid who spaces out so hard that he literally wanders into traffic is incredibly difficult, and gives you perspective even on kids who are the opposite, those "monster" children that jump around like holler monkeys and the parents we scorn for their inability to get their damn shit together and punish them accordingly. You don't know their shit. You don't know how often they go to bed late, thrashed, drained, and crying because they feel like they are continually fucking their kids up. You don't know how hard they try the best they know how to help their kids. Sometimes, the kids need help, and sometimes, hard as it may be to believe, the parents are NOT clued in. Denial and butthurtism go a long way when it's your baby. And no, you don't just "get over it". It's a process, sometimes it takes an outside impetus, and sometimes it happens organically.
Not often organically, though. Something about being a protective parent makes you pretty blind to when your kid is wired different, especially if it's harmful. Assbackwards, but pretty true from my (anecdotal to y'all) experience.
My good (dear, sweet, lovely and insanely intelligent) girlfriend has a sweet little boy who is currently being helped with some of his own challenges, and she and I had a good chat about being completey butthurt about not being able to be SuperHumanParent and fix all your kids' stuff on our own, kind of insomuch as it's a phase YOU go through. Talking to her about her experiences and her process helped me define my family's and my personal experience with Squidge's issues. When you have any sort of hiccup that turns into a Big Effin Deal, you get mega butthurt, you have an acceptance period, then a long adjustment period. If you try and work it out you're doing better than so many people, is what you have to remember. Introspection is tough, and it's rare. It's like a mantra: "I'm not fucking this up, because if nothing else, I am TRYING" because that whole process is harder than childbirth itself.
If you can surrender to the fact that no, you are mom but you CAN'T fix everything, you're superhuman. If you can surrender to being human and being flawed and still be able to have faith in what you're doing, you're astounding and I want to be your friend even if I don't agree with your path.

To put your ego aside, to do the absolute best and to try and do the absolute most RIGHT by your kid is the most righteous thing anyone can do. It applies to more than parents and children, it applies to your relationships with anyone, it applies to how you lead your life.

I get a lot of uppity posts on my facebook feed condemning each other for their choices - people who eat "clean", nonparents who want to get up their own superior butts about cloth diapering (get it, pun) and breastfeeding, people who make condescending, classist comments that start with "I don't see how ANYone with HALF A BRAIN can...." yeah. It gets on my tit, man. And I want to open my mouth and be an asshole right back, but then I remember the blog here, the shit I've come with that was so far from correct or righteous or compassionate, and I stop. I've been that asshole, in longer forms. With paragraphs. With judgey shitty statements. With absolutism. So I try to think of my journey here, to being calmer, to being more accepting, to be more willing to slow down and stand in another light and look at things from that angle and see if my bullshit still holds water. I try and be calm, and I try to offer my experience or food for thought from a standpoint that only asks for an effort in the direction of that mentality. Maybe just in the neighborhood of it. Maybe just the same county. But it matters. It matters to not be a dick. It matters to be kind, it's important to try and come clear and correct and from a *truly* righteous heart, not a self-righteous one.
I tell you what, though, it's hard as shit to grow up when you get older. And I wish someone would've mentioned to me that the growing up doesn't start or stop or have a direction. I thought I would've been done eating crow and looking back while cringing by now.
So. You know. That was a lot of brain spew, and touchy feely and awkward for me, but I really feel deeply about it and about what I'm doing here now, so it had to be put out there and established. I love you all, I love writing, and I want to be happy to do it again. But it's all kinda different now. So hopefully now that I've worked that one out and gotten it all out, I can get over my stupid shit tiptoeing around here and get back to it.

Love!

Ms SSA, Deebee, Toadhead, Ms Thang, The Amazon, and always the Squid.

All About the Ol FamDamnily

So bear with me, I am at a loss for really interesting or sparklingly witty quippy bitchiness to post today, but I am (trying to be) very up on posting regularly - hopefully every day, just to get my chops... um... up to chopage? Sure! There might be some self-indulgent stuff or things that are really only interesting to me, but I think that's okay. So let's start with...

The Dudes and Little Boss dying eggs. She supervises.

There is my lovely, gorgeously long haired, delightfully goofy and all-around wonderful Husbandman. He is also known as Manwife and Professor Husbandman around here. He's not a professor, he just tells terrible jokes like a 70 year old math prof and it makes me cry.

Well, no, I just groan. But it sounds like I'm dying, it's awful all around. 

I mean, he gardens. And bakes! Happily. I can forgive a lot of bad puns for that sort of thing.

I've already done an entire post on the wonders of his awesome awesomeness that is awe-inspiring here, so we'll let you get caught up and then move onto...

Hikin'! Next year we try Squidge out on snowshoeing, yay :)

The two little pixies gnomes! Squidge/Sweetbean/Tatopie on the right. Saderator/Little Boss/Jellybean (known as Bumblebee in her fetal stages) is the small lady there, looking very burglar chic. Squidge is 7, and has recently lost his two bottom front teeth and learned to read - it's been a big year! I still see him as a tiny carrot infant in the hospital billirubin bed, squalling and being  a hellion, or as a poofy, Michellan Man lookin' little toddly man, yelling at the stove and running around nakey butted. Sigh. I do like that he can wipe his own ass now, though. I'm a big fan of that. I like that he can read now, he's always loved books, but now he has this look in his eyes like, "AHA! The mystery, she untangles. Excellent" and it really is. Very excellent.
Little Boss there has just turned two (I know, it's been a while, blogland, I apologize) and has been acting it for months now. She's wonderfully willful and independent, which can be a struggle but ultimately worth it. She's going to be an ass-kicking wonder woman of immesurable strength, I can tell... now if only I can get her to come and get dressed when I ask... and to stop licking the dog. I mean. Really. 

They're both a little odd, but that's pretty great too.

This is my family. Well, when I say my family, I mean just the four of us, plus three dogs and a cat who thinks he is the lord of the dogs, nay, a canine ninja...

Abbot and Costello (yes, seriously)

Jett! She's 17 and a lot like Big Edie.

James Kitty!

I've never been much of a cat person, and still don't consider myself one (though I've met some nice kitties here and there), but James Kittyman there is pretty much the coolest dude ever. I think I like him so much because he's got such a good personality. He's social and friendly without being smothery or gross, and he is one useful damn cat - dude catches about three mice a day, that I see, anyhow, at the height of summer mousieness. It's amazing and well worth the deworming bills. My favorite part of his Jamesness is that he thinks he's one of the dogs.
No lie. He even wrestles with Costello (cute tiny black and tan Chiweenie/Puggle on the far right).
Jett, the old lady on the far right, is my first dog I've ever had in my family. I got her when I was 10! She's never been the friendliest pup, but she is definitely the Doggiest of Dogs, especially in her energetic youth. She used to go camping, hiking, and wandering around the Cascades with my mother and me. I have a lot of excellent memories of feeding her ice cream cones after a long day hiking at the Nooksack River. Now that Jett is almost 17, she mostly hangs out on her special rug by the fire, or in a sun beam, and eating lots of table scraps (yeah, I'm awful, whatever). I'm pretty sure her big joy in life is being the grouchy old lady, yelling at the much younger Abbot and Costello to get off of her lawn.
Abbot is our giant Lab mix, he's about 1 1/2, but he's already about 90lbs. My husband always tells me, "Just wait til he fills out a little" while I look at both of them in horror. I got him thinking Labs were a bit smaller than that, but... well... he's a lumox and my best buddy. He's a sweetheart and a total mama's boy. He tries to sit in peoples laps and knocks things (and children) over with his gargantuan beaver tail. Abbot was the runt, and the fattest puppy in his litter (What's fatter than a friar? His Abbot. HAHA get it? no? that's ok it's silly), I guess I thought he'd stay smallish and fat, but I like having an energetic hike and walk partner. He's also the gentlest dog I've met, he and the tiny 12lb Costello play for hours and lay all over each other and even play tug of war! I've seen Abbot stop and adjust his grip softer, or his jumping lower, or slow down for Costello. It's amazing to see two dog buddies who are the best of friends and really hilarious looking together to boot!
Costello was an impulse addition - my parents had bought his sister (Cujo, who is half his size but lives up to her name) from a neighbor and we had to get one of her siblings. We were lucky, Costello was the last puppy left! He is a snugglebutt, with all of the gawky clumsy goofiness of a kid aged dog. He loves to battle James and annoy Jett. His new favorite hobby is climbing up on the dining table and "cleaning" it. Sigh. Yeah. He's definitely Husbandman's dog, haha!

I may spend the rest of my life chasing animals, cleaning up shedded fur and occasionally eating it, picking legos out of my heel and vaccum, yelling at kids to get their asses outside and stop pestering me, and listening to terrible, godawful puns for the rest of my life, but I think the life we have made for ourselves in the little yellow bungalow in the foothills is a pretty damned good one. In my youth, I was a pisspot and fancied an adult life with no children, no spouse and no permanent residence to tie me down. Shit happened, things shifted, I rode the waves and here we are. I'm happy with how things shook out and glad that I trusted the ride.

Well, I Totally Suck and Blow Simultaneously at That Thing That is Bloggin'.

Ok, so... two years of neglect. Oh blog. I am sorry I abandoned you. You see, I squoze out a baby almost exactly two years ago, and she is what is referred to as a Trouble Baby (TM my mom). She takes things apart. She removes garbage from the bin just so she can throw it away again. She chases the dogs and cat and eats their food. She climbs. She stomps around the house doing funny dances and yodelling. She gets in the middle of the dining table and eats the pepper.
All in all, she's pretty excellent.
Just, you know... spirited.

 See, she's very happy. About being evil.

She has really gnarly fashion sense, though. And loves shoes. Hell yes.

I mean, basically life stuff has happened, we bought a house down the road from our old rental, Sweetbeanboy started school (ending 1st grade now) and all of the excitement that sort of thing entails, Professor Husbandman has had all sorts of crazy career moves and shizz going on, and I am basically trying to keep the ball rolling more or less forward in a sane and fairly orderly fashion. 

The house we bought needed (and still needs) lots of work, it had sat empty for the better part of a year through pretty much all of the rainy months here - all nine of them... ahem. Prior to that, it was occupied by hippies who put the dirty in Dirty Hippie. Really, really scuzzy and grotty. So we had to do all sorts of crazy crap I had no experience with, like doing new drywall and mud and using that fun texture spraying thingie, tearing up carpets and doing glossy plywood floors (very Mo-Dern looking, until the Giant 90lb Labrador Incident) and tearing up counters and backsplashes and UGH. That was last year, right when we bought it.

This year - we are landscaping. I hurt every single day, I go to bed sore and my hands look terrifying, but I wake up feeling great and my guns would put Thor hisself to shame. So, you know... good times.

Any how, the kids have become more self sufficient and less clingy, so I'm capable of taking some time out to write again. I've over-pondered what kind of direction I want to take blogging for a while now - I read lots of fashion blogs, "lifestyle porn" blogs, cute tattooed ladies in sundresses (I think they have a secret club that I need to somehow wrangle an invite to... I have tattoos! I love sundresses! I am just maybe too foulmouthed to join), and honestly, the thought of pigeonholing myself or changing my tone really stresses me out. I may be branching out from straight up ranting or charming cusses, maybe some crafty crap, cooking stuff, trips we take, house progress snaps, maybe even some of that super awesome see-what-I-wore-because-I-am-hell-of-cute-and-have-rockin fashion-sense sort of thang. I'll still talk about feminism and idiots and why I think Brak should be president, though.

And cusses. There will always be some goddamned cusses.