In the Trenches of Motherhood...with Stupid Cats and Fox Hats...

Motherhood is hard.

 It's emotionally taxing. 

Combine that with my lack of patience and tenacity for creative outlets and it's a roller coaster around here.  I admit with the move and the loneliness from being so far away from everything and everyone we have known, it's especially difficult.  Then if that's not enough, add the frustration of not breaking ground yet on the new house and hearing from Thing 1 and Thing 2 "Queen Creek was better because....." 

 I am trying not to lose it.

Well, no...I already lost it a few times.


Then of course, there's the 14 year old teenager and the hormones, rudeness, and disrespect. Just the latest example? The crying Friday morning and not getting out of the car because I asked her to go into seminary to see if she could get me a doughnut...You would have thought I stripped down to the nekkids and went in there to get it myself while doing the Macarena.... Of course it doesn't end there. There's the boys' ADHD and Christian's borderline Aspergers (his obsession for computer components and computers in general yields some interesting situations around here) and there's a reason I locked myself in the room a few times this week to watch the PBS special on The Roosevelts. 
 I needed an intellectual escape! 

See, Moms don't just lose brain cells because of the kids sucking out every last viable IQ point from our cerebral cortex. It's also crap on TV and hearing the same Team Umizoomi theme song over and over that makes us progressively dumber. 

No wonder I crave something nerdy and historical.

I am trying to keep it together....

This is a very raw account (link below), but I feel like this a lot. Don't click on it if you have a problem with language. I posted this link on my wall, and sure, some people have probably unfriended me over it. Especially some of the sweet people I've met here in Wickenburg and friended me on Facebook thinking I was a safe bet (HA!).  However, while I do have a filter (I don't voice everything that pops in my mind...) and I want to keep the big picture together and keep my eye on the road, I also don't want to be fake. I hate fake.

Motherhood - The Big Fat (Screw) You

But despite losing it yesterday (similar to the author in the link above who lost it) with a disconnected computer mouse and earlier, Thing 1 and Thing 2 fighting over kitchen chores, I was reminded from all three of them how being their mother is also the most amazing thing I've ever known. 

For example, we were driving home from school and Christian was quiet the whole time.  Then out of the blue he says, "Something died over there...." He was looking at some buzzards or something circling an area over by the river. 

I don't know...maybe it's not that funny when I try to write it down and describe it, but it cracked us up. Sadly, when he says something like that and he may not mean for it to be funny, he feels we are making fun of him by laughing. We're trying to explain to him that it's not like that at all. We appreciate his delivery of things and love the joy it brings us.

Just add tons of snow and that's pretty much the street where that cat met its end...

And then there was later yesterday when Christian and I took our second doctor appointment trip into Central Phoenix. Fun times with rush hour after the appointment, but it was to be expected. Well, Christian cracked me up again.

But I have to back up. A few days ago, Mikelle reminded me of the time in December 2009 when she, my mom and I were driving slowly through a small town in Idaho headed to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and this stupid cat darted in front of us...near miss, right? Wrong. The idiot cat then came back (no, not like the classic Muppets song...the kids did start singing it after the story the other day...) and despite my mom slowing down even more and trying not to hit it, the cat was, in fact, struck.

 I will spare you the rest of the details, but it was quite traumatizing. 

Well, when Mikelle brought it up the other day, I told her I didn't appreciate being reminded of that distressing incident. For some reason the way I said, "That cat was stupid..." is something Christian found funny and he brought it up again yesterday in our rush hour fun in Phoenix. Then the radio was playing The Joker by the Steve Miller Band and Christian sung, "That cat was stupid..." to the tune of one of the guitar twang's in the song. That boy cracks me up.

I still feel awful about that cat though. Stupid cat. 

Alexander's evolutionary additions to the Snakes...

And do I even need to bring up Alexander and his bag of tricks to be reminded of the joy and laughter that comes with the chaos? No. That goes without saying. 

But I'll share this anyway. 

Back in May, one of my Sunday Doodles was "Snakes on a Plane" because I was flying back from Utah. Well, in that notebook, I discovered this morning that Alexander has since added legs to the snakes (left).

 See the brown fingerprints? It's either chocolate or dirt. At least I hope it's one of those two.

And then there's Thursday night when Mikelle comes in during one of my Roosevelts marathon and demands I watch this Japanese commercial that I still cannot wrap my head around the combination of drugs someone was on to create its concept. Her humor cracks me up too as she laughed all over again watching my reaction to the weirdness. Then I showed her this one (in honor of Scotland...as it's in been in the news lately with the question of whether they would remain as a part of the UK or not...) as being one on the top ten of my favorite commercials.

Mikelle didn't get the "Fox Hat" joke and I tried to explain it in a way for her to think about it and then "get it". She finally did and no swearing from me had to ensue. 

Then she asked me how that commercial could sell beer. I then in turn asked her how that Japanese commercial was supposed to sell anything other than LSD! 

Point taken. 

Yes, our humor is a little warped, but it's our "normal".

Somehow after that, I went back to rebuilding lost brain cells with the Roosevelts.