Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Update

In a surprise to no one (except me), I ran out of my brain enhancing supplement because I forgot to order more. I emptied the bottle into my hand the other morning, and thought, "Huh. That's strange."

News flash, Naomi: THINGS RUN OUT.

More should be here tomorrow. This is good because, if I wasn't sure it was helping after I started taking it, I know for a fact that it helps now that I've run out. Life is for sure more exciting when surprises (aka things I've planned/ordered/promised and then forgotten) happen all the time. But panicked flight from one barely-remembered activity to another is not how I enjoy spending my life. Thank goodness the kids are on a two-week break from school right now.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Facebook, late at night

When I've had some wine, a thing usually happens to me. A thing where I go about sharing all of my reserved feelings with everyone. I don't mean a drunken sloshed-up sentimental tirade. I mean an almost-entirely-sober gushing forth of all the emotions I typically find too vulnerable.

"I love you. You have no idea what your friendship means to me," I say to that woman who showed up with margaritas once four years ago when Jeremy was out of town forever, and one of my kids had a weird illness that kept us couch-bound for days.

"Oh... Kay..." she says.

"NO I MEAN IT."

Or, "Your hair is so pretty. How is it so shiny?" Or, "Your cake tastes like unicorn fruit, and can I live here?"

It's like I am holding back everything at all times, so the slightest lowering of inhibition (we're talking a single glass of wine here, friends) sends it flying out at anyone in my path. I don't feel repressed at any other time, but apparently I am. One glass of wine, and I will begin to tell you how lovely and kind and meaningful you are with the intensity of a Jack Nicholson character.

Well the same kind of thing happens on Facebook late at night. I go on sprees of liking and commenting (I never say anything I don't mean, mind you, but that actually makes it more uncomfortable sometimes), then wake up the next morning and have no idea why I have all these notifications.

I'm a super night owl. If I didn't have a very specific routine and didn't take mind-quieting drugs, I would never sleep. In ten years I would still be awake like a cat strapped to the hood of a speeding car. So I don't know why I get so weird at night. It's not as if I'm tired.

But for some reason, come 11:00, I perceive myself as the cleverest person on earth. I spend ten minutes crafting a witty comment, cackling all the while, and wake up the next morning to an effusive word salad. It's both embarrassing and amusing. I'm not sure I dislike it enough to ban myself from Facebook after 11.

There are odd things about myself that I like, and I'm not sure why. So if you've encountered this side of me, don't worry for my sanity. I'm just as bananas as I've always been, and it's never turned violent. So we're good, right?

Right?

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Weird things that stress me out

"It goes by so fast! Treasure every moment!"

I hate that.

My kids are to the age where I do want time to stop; I want them to freeze right now, while they are sweet and carefree, but old enough for basic logic. If kids teleported to this stage after 6 months, we would probably have ten of them.

But I have no regrets about looking forward to when my toddlers and preschoolers were older. Of course I miss the fat rolls and on-demand snuggling. OF COURSE. Unless your life is an unmitigated hell, there is always something to miss. The frustration of those years changed me into a better mother and forged a bond with my kids that can't be replicated.

However. I do not regret casting my mind forward to the future in order to get myself through another day with a one year old and a two year old. I do not regret visualizing grown-up conversations with my three year old while she threw herself face-first off a piece of furniture and cried into my arms for the third time that day. I do not regret gagging and gritting my teeth through yet another stomach bug where my vomit-covered babies required immediate hugs.

I know some people get through those days by reminding themselves that these years are short, that the baby fat turns to ribs and lean muscle. I get that. You do whatever it takes to find joy in the moment.

But for me, knowing that these years are short is exactly what got me through it, for exactly the opposite reasons. I knew there would come a time when I would be able to have a conversation at dinner with my six- and seven-year-old about Harry Potter, and we would all more or less understand what each of us were saying. One of them would no longer scream until snot fell into the dinner I spent an hour crafting, while the other refused to eat anything but salad (yes, this is a valid complaint when it is literally the only thing your always-hungry child will eat) and rubbed the rest of her food all over her body.

During that time, commands to TREASURE IT only stressed me out. Someday I'll be 35 years old, and my kids will be at school, and my dried-up womb and I will sit on the living room floor, sobbing into baby clothes. 

No.

I'm not 35 yet, but this hasn't happened. Every time I eat dinner with a mom of a very young child, and her dinner gets cold while she cuts up his food into tiny pieces, I think, "I'm so glad that's over." Every time I change the diaper of a friend's baby, I think, "I'm so glad we don't have to pay for these anymore." Every time I hear a toddler throw a fit in a store, I remember every time I had to wrestle a writhing 30 pounds of Emmy out of Target in a swirl of humiliation and think, "YES! It's not mine!"

There are things I miss, but as a whole? I'm so glad those days are over.

(this is where God decides it's time for a surprise baby, right?)
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Now, the other thing that stresses me out, and this one is super weird.

Coloring books.

They're supposed to relieve stress, right? No. No, I look at a coloring book in the store and I feel like I'm looking at my term paper I haven't even started that's due tomorrow. Even pictures of them on Facebook stress me out. I can barely look at this image:


I just broke out into hives.

It is the weirdest thing, and I want an explanation for it. I keep Googling things like, "Coloring books make me anxious" and, "Adult coloring books cause me more stress," and I come up with everything except an explanation. On a planet with seven billion people, I find it hard to believe that I am unique in any one area, but this might be it. I may be the only person on earth who breaks into a sweat looking at a coloring book.

I don't know if any of you are psychologists (via a legit school or Google university, I don't care), but I really want an explanation for this.