Dear my professor who apologized for picking on me in class today:

I should rephrase that…”picking on me” today is more accurate. But those were the words that you used. What you did was use me as a singular example of the whole concept you were teaching in class. No need to apologize…I’ll remember that section of the lesson clear as day, solely because you picked on me for a whole class. Honestly, I got the individual attention that so many moms lose and are not willing to admit they love and even crave, you gave me that…if only for 15 or 20 minutes, but you see, that’s probably more than I’ve had all year. 
I’m certainly not whining about my plight, because the reality is that all other mothers go through this too…I have no doubt it goes back to the beginning of time where Eve’s yelling at Adam for some dumb ass thing he has let their sons do – I mean shit, we have that whole Cain and Abel thing that went down…how the eff pissed do you think Eve was after all of that?!? She’s the only mom on earth at that point, I can tell you I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to go home to her that night, just saying….. 

But I digress… 

The point is that you made me feel human again; you made me feel individual, special even, and you didn’t ask about my kids or assume anything about me as a mom (and therefore person) before turning me into your example de jour. You just did it because I happened to be sitting there at the time. Thank you. 

You see, my “best” college years were spent in lecture halls of 400 or more idiot kids all taking BIO 101 (the first time) and a professor lecturing for God knows how long until you were finally released from the torturous monotony. The kind of classes where you can just read the book rather than show up, drink yourself half to death in the meantime, and get a B+/A- because you put the leg work behind it…you probably went to 3 lectures all semester (or maybe that was just me). But this school, this class…I can’t sneak by in anonymity; I can’t hide behind the 399 other students on any given day. 

Point is, thanks. I love my small classrooms, I love that every professor knows who I am and they definitely know at least one thing about me, if even just my major from the hokey intros we did the first day of classes. And it’s usually much more. I love that you hold me more personally responsible for my work, because I feel like there is a personal connection that is damaged when I don’t study your material. I actually really feel badly when I have to make excuses to you about assignments, probably because I know full well that you know that I’m better than that. And you know that I know it, too. You push me harder and make me better. Especially you, Dr. P., who picked on me this week in class (and PS: I think it’s pretty badass that you get to throw Dr. in front of your name). Your class is the hardest class I have *ever* taken, so I attack that shit like a beast. Challenge accepted. ✌🏻😘

You wanna talk shit about my kid?!? Go ahead…I dare you….

So today I did basically the unimaginable for a mom of a boy….I brought him to his first dance classes. It was epic, and pretty much all I’d ever dreamed of (both from my perspective at least, lol) but I couldn’t help but already feel the judgement headed our way. Maybe I’m imagining it. In fact, I hope I’m imagining it…like most of my other anxiety issues, I hope it doesn’t really exist and I’m just “making something out of nothing” as usual, as so many like to say. That’s a best case scenario, really. 

But yet, I still felt like I had to use a #boysdancetoo in my post about his first day. I feel like I’m already SO ready to fight this “imaginary” fight for my son who is taking not one, but TWO (gasp! Two! 😱) dance classes this year. I’m so ready for someone to make the wrong comment at me; to use my too-well-rehearsed comebacks for whatever they might have to throw at me. FR though…

But you know what I didn’t expect? This rare little mom-gem, born at the spur of the moment. Feel free to steal it, since I basically stole it from my own mother anyway…..

L: [after 5 full minutes of excitement about what he’d just done] “Mom, it’s just girls in my class though, I’m the only BOY!!” Me: “You know what that means? That you’ll *always* be the best boy in the class.” His eyes lit up and, if even just for a moment, all his thoughts melted away at that. He was the best boy, and right then he knew it. I hope he holds on to that one. And I’m beyond proud of myself for thinking of it at the exact moment he needed to hear it. 

It’s too easy for me to get frustrated, even with Logan. It’s too easy to make excuses and say I’m stressed out and react like a maniac to everything that comes my way. Believe me. I could have dragged him out of that studio screaming at him about how lucky he was to even be taking classes, or about all the things that we would all be missing out on to put him in them, or really, even how ferociously I was willing to fight for him to do what he loves (because to begin with, lets face it – we’re doing all of this because the effing kid loves to dance). 

But I didn’t. That’s the whole point. He, between classes, thought about getting mouthy for a second and I squashed it right quick. …*[Hard-ass staredown] We’re not doing that right now… [redirection]* and conversation over. 

In no way am I pretending that I’m always right or even that I know what the fuck I’m doing at any given moment. I just felt like for one second, I had a good moment I wanted to share. Maybe it might be helpful or insightful from someone else (because I’ve had plenty of my own moments in those “small stories”) but really it’s just that I’m overloaded with twins and life and school and work, (and Logan, which seems like an afterthought only because he’s SO damn easy) and every other fucking thing that we all are dealing with daily. But today…maybe just today…today, me and my favorite little guy, we had one of the best days we’ve ever had. And that’s all that could ever matter. That’s all 😜🤘🏻 #boysdancetoo #dancemom 

A lesson in self-care…

I very often tell my 6-year-old how much I thank him, appreciate him, couldn’t live without him, etc. for all he does – and you know why?! Because he HELPS OUT more than anyone could imagine, and I’m truly grateful for that!! I joke all the time that he does “everything but diapers” – but it’s actually true. This kid *actually* watches, entertains, wrangles his sisters while I’m cooking or doing laundry or the dishes or whatever else I might need to get done around the house. He’s *actually* there for the 2.5 minutes that I’m worried that Ari will climb out of her high chair and plummet to her death. He takes baths with them both so they have more fun (because they really do when he’s there). And when mom is yelling at everyone because she’s at her last straw, he comforts them and tells them what to do to not make me be so angry anymore (in a 6 year old’s way, but it honestly always calms me a bit too, lol). 

He does it all without question and with love, laughter, and a super genuine adoration for his baby sisters, nearly every time I ask him for the favor (hey, no one’s perfect; why should I expect him to be?!) My beautiful little 4-year-old niece Elizabeth assists him when she’s here, (we get her every other weekend and some holidays…standard “separated-parents scenario”) and it’s basically the cutest thing you’ve ever seen with the four of them. 

And then we come to today….today I told him to go take some time for himself. The girls were screaming at me for some dinner (which I was making for them at the time) and he was trying to help but you could tell he was tired. The kind of tired that I get at the end of the night. The kind of tired where you, yes, still love them so very much but maybe just want to run away forever kind of tired….

Self care is important. Really important. And I told him that. I strongly encouraged him to have a moment to himself when we got home,  because he had been with the girls all day while I was at work, and I knew he really needed it. Again, self-care is really important. It’s important for you and I, and it’s important for a six year old too, especially when he has baby twin sisters that he genuinely helps with day in and day out. 

And now he’s in the bathtub, teaching his girlies “how to blow bubbles” because he got a little recharge and came back to help for the night while dad’s still at work. I told him to take 5 minutes in his room but gave him half an hour (or more….I really never did ask him to come back downstairs…) to have for himself. When he hesitated at first, I told him it was important for him to take care of himself too. That even though I might need help, that it was important for him to take care of himself. And he totally did, and I was super proud. 😍😍

It’s 5 o’clock in the morning….

Aaaand I’m going so nuts, literally packing everything in the damn house for our first family “vacation” for an entire week away with the 5 of us. I mean, thank God the girls aren’t on formula anymore (bc you bet your ass I’d be bringing that Baby Brezza too if they were) but the amount of shit you need, or think you need anyway, for 3 young kids for a week in the middle of nowhere is maddening. Please, little blue pill, just get me through the night here…. 💊😳😬✌🏻😂

So fingers are crossed that we actually have a good time and all of that. I’m skeptical (especially bc alllllll of the siblings are gonna be there and plus who knows who else will show up lol) but this is as good as it’s getting for as far out as I can see right now, especially financially but even just logistically, so we’re gonna effing make the best of it!!

I was doing my “last shopping” earlier tonight for the trip (which, we still have to go first thing….meaning in a couple of hours…for some very, very last minute stuff anyway, smh…) and ran into one of my new mom friends. Well, when I say my new mom friend, what I really mean is that Logan has a new friend from teeball and those little friends tend to come with parents that you have to deal with regularly, like it or not. But this one seems great….cool, easy to talk to, seems like she drinks like a fish like me (which, if anyone can keep pace with me they immediately get bonus points in my book, lol). We shot the shit for like 10 full minutes where it was glorious not to care what I was supposed to be doing or who wanted what or who was beating on who or anything else that is the nonsense of my daily life right now. What a difference to effing feel normal, like you have friends in this God-forsaken town in the middle of effing nowhere lol. I grew up here and still feel like I have way more friends back in Newton. Making friends as an adult is the effing most awkward thing in the universe, man. Idk how the hell people without kids even do it at all because these days it seems like the only new friends I come across are because of my kid in all honesty! But I digress….

Soooooo ‪#momconfession: today I bought my daughters bathing suits (…bikinis…) that I’m honestly kind of horrified at, but they were the only cute, matching, in-their-size bathing suits at Walmart less than 12 hours before vacation, and we needed (“needed”) another set…..my obsession with dressing them alike has officially reached a new low….‬

But they’re soooooo cute tho…. 😍😍

Here’s to packing till the last minute, staying up all night, no one getting a bath lmfao, and to what better be a fucking great week away from reality…. 🍻✌🏻🇺🇸🎉👍🏻

The sun doesn’t shine quite as bright anymore…

Yes, I suppose the past few days have just been overcast and rainy. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it sure feels like it’s because she’s gone. The loss of someone so young is heart wrenching, and watching a friend lose his wife and the mother of his two young boys has been doubly painful, even from afar. 

This is a good time, or as good a time as any, to mention that I personally never got the chance to meet Ester Eva. Her husband Spencer is a friend of ours, and they went to school with Dan (a grade or two below) so the circle between us wasn’t far, but when you have a bunch of kids and work and life and everything else, you don’t always get to just hang out like you’d  always like to. God I wish I had gotten to meet her in person just once, because from her YouTube channel to her FB posts to the love her husband, friends, and family had for her – you just knew she was really special and it didn’t take much at all to get that impression. It rubbed off on me so quickly, even never having the chance to physically say hi or get to know her. She was one of the most positive people you’d ever have met though, that I can tell you for sure. She was (as described by her husband) a “free spirit” and anyone close to her has raved about her selflessness, her passion for life and her children, and her caring kind nature toward everyone she met. I feel like I’ve gotten to know her better through the posts of condolence than anything else, which is just as tragic to me as any other part of this story. 

1. I saw her, despite being 2 1/2 years younger than myself, as a role model: she was one of those organic, clean/healthy/fit eating and living kind of people, kind of crunchy but still down to earth enough to forgive the rest of us who couldn’t live up to those kinds of high standards. I will never forget how devistated I was when Dan told me about her diagnosis, and how I cried for someone I really didn’t even know well, if you could even say I knew her at all. I just knew what kind of person she was, and how fucked up this world was that someone so genuine, so healthy and loving, could end up with the diagnosis of “Stage 4 Stomach Cancer.” When I told my mom she had passed, and why, my mom said (sympathetically, though it still felt blunt), “I’m so sorry hunny…stage 4 is almost always a death sentence.” More tears ensued. It was just so unfair. In EE’s own words in a post telling us all about her condition, she chose not to accept this as a death sentence but rather to fight. I believe that until her dying breath she maintained that mindset. I knew when her husband posted that he had finally gotten to marry the woman of his dreams, a week ahead of schedule, (which was 2 months ahead of their initial plan to begin with) that it couldn’t mean anything good. Not that the marriage – which is one of the sweetest, tenderest, most beautiful loves you could ever wish to even just witness – wasn’t a good thing, of course it was. But the haste and the impromptu date and circumstance, that was what couldn’t have been good. We found out a day or two later that she had passed and the same hole formed in the pit of my own stomach like it had when I saw that post from Spencer, or when I first heard about the cancer at all. 

Life isn’t fair…I remember my parents telling me this from a young age, and I couldn’t even tell you how often I say it to my own son flippantly, about trivial shit that on the long run means nothing but to a five-year-old seems like the world. But unfair is beyond what this is. I’ve gotten my own condolences at work when I’ve tried explaining what happened, why I’ve been teary-eyed or “off” and I feel so selfish every time. I don’t deserve the sorry. I don’t deserve any of it. Shit, Spencer and Othinn and Viktor (and obviously Ester Eva herself) sure as hell don’t deserve any of this, and yet it’s all there. Like it or not. Look at it this way: Princess Diana died and we all felt sad; we all felt that we lost someone we “knew” and we all sat and cried and hashed out our grief about it, but we didn’t walk around saying sorry to each other because of it. So it feels so ingenuine of me to say “thank you” when someone tells me that they’re sorry to hear of it, while at the same time I feel ingenuine if I don’t let myself cry when I’m sad or tell others that I’m having a hard time because of her death, because I am. 

Because at the same time, her diagnosis managed to change me somehow when I learned of it. I think we all have a bit of a Superman complex sometimes, where we don’t think that things like this can really happen to ourselves (or our friends) and that they must just happen to others on some kind of random, sad, unfortunate basis. Not this time. This time it was someone so pure and bright and loving, I just couldn’t fathom how it could possibly be true. I resolved to be better: to love my kids and my life more, to take better care of myself, to be kinder to others. I saw how very many people she had on her side, doing everything they could, and naïvely thought that everything would be fine, because we (well, they, let’s be real…) were raising money for treatments and their wedding and everything that would make it so everyone just lived happily ever after. Denial is such a powerful thing….it works in so many different ways, and while sometimes it can be a bit of a motivator, it can also lead to some pretty crushing defeat. That’s how it felt when I learned she had passed; it felt like defeat. Like no matter how hard you try, no matter how badly you want it, sometimes it will just never be enough. Maybe that’s what is so crushing about it all in the end. Maybe it’s just that it’s sad and there’s no getting around that. One of our friends said to Spencer in a post: “There are no words for your loss and she can’t be replaced, I won’t even try to pretend.” I think that about sums it up for today. 

In Honor of Ester Eva…

Today the world lost a genuinely, really really good person. I just wanted to put down some things that were shared on FB because it has been such an emotional day for me….

As much as it can bring us beauty, life is sometimes so cruel and unfair. The world lost Ester Eva today, a beautiful soul who I never personally met but still touched my life in an amazing way. Her memory lives on through her children, husband, and everyone who knew her. If you have a single dollar to give, please consider doing so. Spencer, Othinn, and Viktor need support now more than ever, and no amount is ever too small!! Spencer, please let us know if we can do anything to help: I’d be honored to help and take the kids for an afternoon somewhere with mine, come do something around the house, or really anything at all you might need in this challenging time. I am praying for you and your family, I hope and wish nothing but the best for you and your family for so very many years to come buddy!! 😢💖😇✌🏻💗

It’s literally the least I could do for them. I am so tremendously sad for Spencer and the boys’ loss (along with everyone else’s’), but as a mother what truly has hit my heart is my sadness for Ester Eva…..you always dread missing your kids’ first steps, or first day of school, or the first anything because of other things going on in your life. But this, this is so far beyond that. To not ever have the opportunity to miss those events, that’s just devastating and unimaginable. It breaks my heart in a way that I’m not sure anything else has hurt it ever before. 

Macayla, you’re closer to them than us, so I trust you’ll know better when the time comes…..if Spencer or those boys ever need anything, not now when he’s inundated with help (I remember from when we first had the twins, on a much different level of course…) but 6 months from now, a year from now….five years from now, will you please let me know? I may not be able to do much, but I will do whatever I can if I can help in any way. That family has some of the most wonderful people on this earth in it, and if I can help at all, even the smallest bit, I’d really be honored. 💖💖

Please consider donating to this beautiful family. They need support now more than ever. https://www.gofundme.com/cancer-treatments-wedding-day 

When you finally grow up….

The thing about when you finally grow up is that it doesn’t happen all at once. I mean, maybe for some people it does, but for me it didn’t. It took me the better part of 6 years worth of having kid(s), 7 years of marriage, and a late night trip to Walmart for essentials for me to get there. Cruising down the aisles with only trash bags and two gallons of milk in my arms, it hit me like a ton of bricks. All the shit I wanted – all of those cool things and impulse buys that you pass when having to go all the effing way to the back of the store for a gallon of milk – I saw them all so clearly that night for whatever reason…along with just when those impulse buys faded away for me, one by one through the years. Adulting at its finest, #truth ✌🏻.

Maybe it was from watching our wedding video with Logan earlier that day; maybe it was just that life was becoming so overwhelming and intolerable, honestly. And maybe it was just time. Looking at the “treat” of a king sized Reese’s I got for myself, since the kids are in bed after all, and the Kit Kat I got for Dan (because it would be inconsiderate to come home without something for him too), all while trying to go as quickly as possible so as not to lose my slick-mom-wine-buzz I’ve achieved tonight, it hits like a wrecking ball. It’s this wonderfully terrifying combination of hollow, accomplished, defeated pride that I can only imagine is what comes standard with a pack of 3 kids, a house you can’t afford and two jobs that aren’t cutting it. Yikes, lol 😳. Oh well. 

As I pull up to the McD’s window for my dinner (that yes, I am finally going to eat…after a fat bowl-skie or two when I get back home…) I remember that it was I who used to work that same late night drive-thru shift at a McD’s near the UCONN campus – with the same combination of nice, reasonable people like myself just trying to get some food real quick along with some dicks who were total assholes because they were drunk, or young, or just stupid, much like the ones in line with me right now – and I realize that while everything has changed, nothing has really changed at all…. 🤔😳🤦🏼‍♀️✌🏻

It can’t be….

I finally broke down and actually cried because we’re 4 days away from the twins turning one. Like legit – had a hard, long cry that the first year of my last babies’ life has already passed us by. Time is so cruel to mothers….no matter how long the days, the months and years are forever shorter somehow. 

And now I have a screaming baby to tend to….

I think the most exhausting part of being broke, along with being a parent of three, is waking up every morning feeling like you’ve already been beaten. Nothin like feeling like the deck is stacked against you before you even open your eyes for the first time of the day…  😞

When you burn a candle at both ends….and then throw a lighter right in the middle while you’re at it….

I used to think things were hard…that life was hard. Life is hard, but my previous life – before the twins – doesn’t hold a candle to the torch my life now has become. To recap, I’ve gone back to work (long ago, and far too soon but that’s another story for another day), and then had the crazy idea that it would be smart to go back to school for nursing…while having infant twins and a 5 year old, being the sole income for the household right now, and well, you know, just having the rest of life and a home and family to deal with on top of it all. This will be all well and good in the long run, but let’s be real, it’s batshit crazy right now. Talk about climbing an uphill battle on the daily, for real.

I used to think I was tired. Like before I had kids I thought I was tired…that is fucking hilarious to me now. Tired from what, Christina? Late night bong rips? Sleeping in till “only” 10:30? To say now that I’m tired doesn’t do justice to the literal exhaustion I’ve reached, both physically and mentally, at this point. I wake up tired, I feel like I’m dying half the time (if not more), and I drink wine as much as water these days to get me through to the next. Which probably doesn’t help things, but it certainly makes me feel better or at least care a bit less that the world is hanging off my shoulders. I cry, frequently, at the mere thought of everything I have to do, things that aren’t getting done, things I’ve messed up, how I probably lost my patience with the kids more (like way more) than is fair to them, how they don’t get enough of my time, pretty much over anything. I’m tearing up right now just putting it all down. But I have to get it out. It’s toxic and it’s eating away at me, not particularly slowly I’ll add.

They say when it rains it pours, well – this past week has been one hell of a tsunami-shit-storm if I’ve ever known one. First my other half of intake was out for a week starting last Wednesday, which is a well-deserved vacation on her part, but when there are typically just two of you to take care of an entire department and one leaves, it makes for a whole hell of a lot more work and frustration trying to cover EVERYTHING in the world all at once. Thursday my little sister K decides to throw a shit-fit and move out of my mom’s house (again) over a fight that I honestly couldn’t even tell you whether it was huge or tiny because I’ve now heard no less than 17 different versions of what happened. Friday my brother and sister-in-law N & T, along with my niece and infant nephew, moved back up to Maine…and while we all knew it was coming (and honestly all felt it was time, that this had well run its course and was no longer a great situation for anyone) it hit super hard once it was real and the day was here, moving truck and all, that they’d be leaving for good. Significantly more tears were shed than I thought I had in me, and it turns out that it was pretty crushing to have them actually go.

Oh, and did I mention that along with my mom (who works overnight shifts, and then takes the twins most days while I’m at work), my sister and sister-in-law were the ones primarily watching the girls? Cuz yea, that’s the case. So in two days I lost 85% of the help that made me feel less bad that I’ve been running my mom ragged watching my kids all the time…for free… My stepdad and brothers totally help too, and I can’t discredit that, but T was doing the vast majority of the work with them once my mom left for her job each day at 3:30 (along with caring for my 2 year old niece and 2 month old nephew of her own), plus the girls adore both of their aunties, and now there’s just plain fewer people in the house to help out every day. And with twins, you need all hands on deck, always, because it’s just a shit show day in and day out.

Dan finally got a job, but it’s a part time and kind of shitty gig that now just leads to more complication of who’s going to get Logan off the bus, be home for this or that, who is gonna make dinner and keep the house in one piece (which Dan has been doing wonderfully while I’ve been in school…we’d be living in squalor if it weren’t for all that he has been doing). But I genuinely have to wonder if the job is even worth the extra headache of dealing with it all…and I’m not totally sure we’ll even be breaking even once you consider that our benefits and stuff will likely get reduced (if not eliminated) once I have to report his first paycheck. I can’t deal, where’s the wine….

I thought I’d feel better putting everything down…I thought I’d see that it’s really not so bad after all. No. Just nope. Now I’m at work bawling because I really feel like I’m losing at everything I’m trying to do because I can’t put enough effort into any one thing anymore. I’m beyond exhausted, our “budget” is a freaking joke, I’m not eating right, I’m drinking entirely too much, I feel like I’m falling apart…I’m just not adulting as well as I should be. I know I can do better than this. But I don’t feel like I have it in me. I’m beyond overwhelmed. What have I gotten myself into?!? We’ve all got our demons, but this week it really feels like mine are just taking over. 

Rant done, unfortunately the tears are not…