My Dearest Angel,

We don’t do yearly birthday parties in our house. We save the big celebrations with the fancy cake and themes for the big birthdays. Today is your first of those. Your 5th birthday. The year you start big school. The year you learn to read. The year you get a library card. The year you can finally drink beer at our family gatherings.

I’m just kidding! We don’t let you drink beer until you’re 8, you know that.

Right now I spend a lot of time talking to you about how you have such a good heart, you just sometimes make bad decisions. Because you get in trouble so often, I feel like it’s very important I remind you that I think you are a good person who I love dearly. Even if sometimes you spit in my face when you’re angry.

You love animals. All animals, really. You freak out if you see a bird close to us and squeal, “He’s so cute!!!!!!” You point out every squirrel you see, which sometimes gets a little annoying because there are a LOT of squirrels in our neighborhood. You want to pet every dog you see. We have taught you to respect dogs, however, and owner’s are always very impressed when you ask first before petting their dogs. You get bored playing games on my cellphone but you could hold our cat Sunflower and pet her for hours without moving. You are – deep down – a kindred spirit to all animals and I love seeing you interact with them.

You also love babies! The same instincts that make you so kind to animals come out around babies too. You want to rub their heads and pet their faces constantly. So far, your big blue eyes make it so that the Mothers of the Babies don’t seem to mind your attention. I’m not sure if that will last forever, but as long as it does I’m grateful. I love seeing you with babies, especially the ones in our family, I love watching you be so sweet to them.

I always tell everyone that you’re my snuggle bunny. Of my three kids, you’re the one who wants hugs and snuggles at all hours a day. And you give the BEST HUGS. Even though you are now five, just yesterday I carried you into Target and you wrapped your arms around my neck, squeezed me so tight and said, “I love you so much, Momma.” That is why I say you have a good heart, because your instincts are always to be loving and sweet. You just haven’t learned how to deal with your anger yet. But you know how to deal with the love you feel for family, animals, and babies. And I love seeing that every day.

You are probably going to be my last child. We wanted to have more but my body is just no cooperating in that area. So, I’ve been settling into the idea of you being the baby of the family forever. That means that every milestone you cross will carry a bit of sadness because I won’t see any one else pass that point as my child again. So, while I’m very excited you’re turning 5, I’m also very sad to say goodbye to all of the baby and toddler and preschool years we’ve had together. I wish I had savored them more.

I know you won’t call me your Best Friend for much longer, eventually you’ll make real Best Friends in school. I know you won’t give me those snuggle hugs forever. Or rub my back while we watch TV. I know you won’t ask me to lay down with you at night or carry you to breakfast in the morning. All of those things are fading as you become such a big boy! So, I’ll enjoy them while I can and I’ll proudly watch you grow up this year.

Happy Birthday my Sweet Angel. For every one time you get in trouble there are 1000 times that you make me proud every day. I hope you don’t ever forget that.

Love, Momma.

Since my layoff I’ve been doing 25+ hours of work a week from home. Without the cost of full-time daycare, plus some cutbacks, that put us financially about where we were before my layoff. ABOUT. Close enough that I’m not having nightmares about losing my home, but not close enough that I get to enjoy the weekend of Someone Else Cooks And Cleans like we used to.

However, until this week I did keep Wes in preschool two days a week because I didn’t want him to miss graduation. So, on Tuesday and Thursdays I would work as much as possible while he was at school. Then, the rest of the week I’d spread out my work by sticking him in front of the TV. He ended up watching more TV than is ideal, but not enough to make me feel guilty. Win/Win!

But he graduated yesterday. And his sister gets out of school for the summer on Thursday. So this is the adjustment week before ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

Here’s the thing – the TV trick will still work! They’re pretty good about giving me time to work if they can watch TV. But – you know – dead brain cells and such. So! My goal is to try my best not to use the TV as the lure to peace and quiet so that I can work.

I’d really rather not try to squeeze in my work while they’re sleeping. My early mornings are my exercise hours and I try to go to bed about the same time as they do at night. I can definitely try to squeeze 5-10 hours a week out of time that Donnie’s home, and declare 1) NO TV! and also 2) If you need something SEE YOUR FATHER! That will work some.

But typically? When they’re left on their own without TV I have to deal with some sort of issue every 20 minutes or so. They only time they seem to play successfully is when they’re allowed free reign to destroy the house. Which I’ve done during desperate times. But then it totally backfires because – while they’re okay at picking up reasonable amounts of messes – they suck at clearing out total destruction. So who ends up doing it? ME! And that’s not worth the exchange of a little bit of peaceful work time.

I’m thinking of doing daily schedules. If you let Mom work until 9am quietly – then you can watch TV for an hour. I also need some sort of system for keeping them from doing the whole Come To Mom Every Time We’re Unhappy With Each Other thing. Do I reward them for an entire day of handling conflict themselves? I hate punishing them for coming to me because it’s a tough moment to punish the Tattler, because then do I acknowledge the incident they’re tattling about? What if it’s something I typically punish? Usually if I hear them coming I’ll just say, “Is anyone bleeding? Is anyone breaking something that belongs to Mom? Is anyone doing something that could end in a trip to the ER? THEN I DO NOT CARE.” But I’m not sure how effective that is.

So! Do any of you peeps work from home? How do you do it? What are your secrets? Do you stick them in front of the TV when you need to work and just make the other hours in the day quality play time? Because I think I may actually start with that. Do you have any parks that have free WiFi where you live? Because that would be IDEAL. I think there’s a park downtown here that does, but not a playground. So it would work if they just wanted to run around and throw ball and stuff, but not much if they wanted to slide/swing.

I’ll take any suggestions you may have!

My son is a few days away from turning 5 and we are in one of the most difficult phases I’ve ever experienced in my 18+ years of parenting. He has full-blown tantrums that involve hitting and screaming and kicking and even lately…spitting.

That’s a new addition to the tantrum spectrum I’m really excited about. Nothing helps you make rational parenting decisions like having someone spit at you in the face. Seriously. It’s the best.

(NO, IT IS NOT. In case you didn’t see the sarcasm font I used up there.)

I’ve been on this journey for awhile now and I’m confident in my system of handling these tantrums. I basically trap him, or restrain him, reminding him I will let him go when he calms down and stops yelling/hitting/spitting. After trying everything else, this seems to be the best method that gets us past the DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! Zone and into the Let’s Talk It Out Zone quickest and with the least amount of damage to body and soul.

I’ve noticed in the last year or so that Wes seems to have a concept of embarrassment and knows his behavior is not ideal and saves it for the privacy of our own home.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, Wes had a full-blown meltdown in a hotel. It started in a room where my family was privileged enough to see him at his best: Kicking/screaming/hitting. I decided to leave the room (BIG MISTAKE) because I was embarrassed and wanted to find a quite place to handle this. Well…the tantrum continued in the hall where I tried to restrain him, and even grab him when he tried to run away, and let’s just say that what ensued was several minutes (FELT LIKE YEARS) of chasing, screaming, catching, kicking, yelling, spitting, chasing some more, yelling some more, and spitting some more. All while I tried my best to stay calm, talk rationally to my child, and not cry.

Spoiler alert: I cried.

At one point there was a lady and several teen girls walking past in the hall and they all gave me that look.

No…not the one you’re thinking of. Because you are here, so you are nice and calm and sympathetic. You would have given me the look that says, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been there. Hang in there, friend.”

No. They gave me the other look. The one I’m afraid I’ve given before. LONG BEFORE. The one that says, “You know, he wouldn’t act like that if you were a better parent.”

Yes. I’ve given that look before. And this entry is my public apology to any parent I’ve given that look to in the past. I am truly, desperately, and passionately sorry. My heart hurts for the pain I caused you by giving you that look. Because yesterday – when it was given to me by the stranger lady and her teenage girls – my heart broke. Then! Then, it was given to me again by an older couple trying to get on the elevator. And then…again…by the man who only glanced up from his phone to GIVE ME THAT LOOK. Except his look also was irritated that my son’s tantrum was distracting him from his important business. His was a combo look. He’s lucky I didn’t punch him in the face.

Three different moments of judgement from strangers. And for each of those moments my heart shattered into a million pieces, and I just knew this was my own payback for my own moments of judgement in the past.

So to you parents who I may have judged? I am sorry.

I know you are doing your best. I know that many moments of many days – your beautiful child is well-behaved. I know that your child is good. Even if – in that moment – people think he’s evil. Those judgmental people are probably envisioning the headlines when his sociopath urges manifest as an adult. And you know they are doing that by the look they’re giving you. But…I know the truth. I know that your child can also be so very sweet. That when he hugs you at night and tells you he is your best friend, that those are the moments when his true character shows through. I know that later he’ll apologize for spitting on you because it probably made you cry, and no matter how bad his tantrums gets, sometimes his heart is open to your pain and he apologizes with a sincerity many adults are incapable of. I know that you try your best to hold on to those moments of true kindness from your child because those moments get you through the times when he’s punching you in the head.

I know that the tantrum I’m seeing is no reflection of your parenting or of your child’s character. It is probably a reflection of his level of exhaustion. Or of yours. Maybe it’s a reflection of a bad day, or a feeling of insecurity. Maybe it’s a reflection of an oncoming illness or an upset stomach. I know that you are a good parent and your child has a beautiful heart. I know your child sometimes makes bad decisions, but other times he makes decisions based on his love for you and you desperately wish the strangers glaring at you in the hall could see those moments instead.

I’m so very sorry for any judgement ever passed on you. I know your heart has broken at those looks like mine did at a hotel in Tennessee yesterday.

I finally sat in the stairwell with Wes where we had some privacy. He still fought me some more. He yelled and hit some more. He kicked some more. But then he calmed down. And he cried. And I cried. And I prayed that no one would interrupt us because I needed those hugs from him to heal my heart. Not just from the spit in the face, but from the judgement in the hall outside the door. Because, truth be told? Being spit on by my son, and kicked and told, “I DON’T LOVE YOU!!!!” None of those things hurt as much as that look from those teenagers, or that scowl from that businessman, or that head shake from the gray-haired couple on the elevator. I would take my son yelling at me, “YOU ARE NOT THE BEST MOMMA!” (His go-to insult) 100 times over those looks from those strangers. Because – in the end? My son calms down. He talks to me. He apologizes. And we go on to hopefully have better moments later in the day.

(Spoiler alert: There were a lot more bad moments later in the day than good ones.)

So, I’m sorry to the parents I judged in the past. And I per-emptively hug the parents I’ll see fighting the good fight in the future. I don’t judge you or your child. Just the opposite. I’m sending virtual hugs to you both now, and I’d give you a real hug in person in the future if I witnessed you going through what I went through yesterday – but that might be weird.

Hang in there. You’re doing a great job. I can tell by the way your child is kicking you that they’re awesome soccer players! And that scream they have – that indicates they will be powerful orators in the future! And that spit on your forehead? That totally brings out your eyes.

Wes is still quite obsessed with death. Lately it’s manifested in a bit of a different way, though. It seems Wes has figured out that he gets some positive attention in the form of hugs and snuggles if he speaks about death in a sad/sweet way. Like, “Momma, I’m going to miss you so much when you die.” He even cries when he says it! How could I do anything other than embrace him and kiss him and rub his feet and his back and whatever THE HELL ELSE HE WANTS when he says something as pitiful as that?

But I can totally tell he’s playing me. I mean – I believe he’s truly sad about the idea. I know the tears are real. But I know he ALSO knows he gets lots of love when he does it, so he pulls those sad thoughts to the surface when he’s in the need for some attention.

Recently he’s even gotten out of bed when he should be sleeping just to come in and say, “I just can’t stop thinking about how much I love you.”

COME ON.

But tonight? He went too far. He found the limit of the power of the Adorbs. He was doing his, “I don’t want you to die! I’ll miss you! I love you so much!” routine with the tears and the huge blue eyes and I was doing exactly what he wants…telling him I loved him and rubbing his back and all sorts of sweet Mommy things.

Then he said, “When you die, can we get a new Mommy? And maybe she’ll let me have a dog for my birthday.”

Don’t be too sad, kid. Jeez.

• Nikki’s love life has become the most important thing in her life this last month or so of school. She had the same boyfriend all year and it wasn’t a big deal and then BAM! they broke up and it’s been a non-stop cycle of breakups/get-together’s since. This note is just the tip of the iceberg.
• E got his cap and gown (SOB!) but the one-size-fits-all cap does NOT fit. Not only does he have my head, but he’s got more than his fair share of hair. (Say THAT 10 times really fast.) I’m trying to convince him that this minor setback means he can’t go to college in the fall, but he’s not falling for it.
• Wes said, “I don’t like you!” at least three times on Mother’s Day. I’m just proud he hasn’t reached the, “I hate you!” phase yet. That’s enough of a Mother’s Day gift for me.
• Re: Mother’s Day. I did not escape the two chores I hate the most: Mowing the lawn and changing the kitty litter. I’m trying my best to not hold on to this and throw it out in every argument from here until next year. “I HAD TO MOW THE GRASS ON MOTHER’S DAY. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.”
• The local Farmer’s Markets have started back up and Nikki fell in love with a Tuscan Goat Cheese from one of the booths. She’s been taking it to school with crackers for lunch. I got a call from a Mom last night saying, “I need to know where you got the goat cheese. My son won’t stop talking about how awesome it is.” My daughter is now a dealer of goat cheese…thank you very much.
• Wes has been regressing lately about needing me to sleep with him at night. It used to be a periodic thing and he was okay with just waiting to see if I slept with him or not. (I don’t regularly sleep in my own bed if you’ll recall.) But lately, before he goes to bed every night, he wants me to PROMISE HIM I’ll come lay down with him eventually. He’s also necessitating leaving the light on every night. AND! AND! AND! He sleeps so lightly that when I do sleep with him, if I get up to go to the bathroom? He wakes up and FREAKS OUT that I’m leaving. All of this, I feel, is not helping his behavior problems. Or MINE for that matter.
• We hired a new babysitter recently and I took preemptive measures to keep the kids from tricking her by leaving a note. It seemed to work well.
• Nikki has already started talking about wishing she could shave her legs. This is on top of the boyfriend drama. I don’t know what’s going on at her school but I feel like she must have about 13 girls in her class with older sisters influencing them, with the prevalence of Teenage Girl Issues I feel like we’re already dealing with.

This weekend was INSANE. The only time I was home all weekend was to eat/sleep/bathe – and I didn’t even do all of that at home. Nor did I do much of any of it. From about 3pm on Friday until bedtime last night it was a constant flurry of activity and it may not slow down at all until June as we have an out-of-town wedding, two graduations, one birthday, and family coming into town for several of those things. CALGON…BRING ME A BEER!

BUT! I can NOT let today pass with taking a moment to feature one of my favorite people…NOT on this planet. Colonel Chris Hadfield – Commander of the International Space Station up until a ceremony yesterday where he passed the baton to someone else in preparation for his trip home tonight. Officially he was commander of expedition 35, unofficially he is the commander of my super-geeky heart.

In the last five months, Col. Hadfield became quite a fixture in the lives of the kids’ and I. Mainly with Wes and I. We looked at the pictures he took every day and watched all of his educational videos. This was one of the coolest:

He’s been up there for five months and tonight? He comes home. And I’m going to miss him being in space! I hope someone else (Maybe an American?) takes up the mantel he’s carried and continues the social aspect of the work on the International Space Station. Look at this FANTASTIC collaborative event he did for Music Monday – singing a song song co-written by with Ed Robertson from the Barenaked Ladies. IT’S A SONG ABOUT THE SPACE STATION. I MEAN…COME ON.

That’s what I love about Hadfield. He’s not just a scientist and astronaut. He’s a musician and he’s simply passionate and excited about everything he does. He loves showing off the photos he takes and the tasks he does. And when someone is that excited about what they do? That enthusiasm is contagious. Wes often asks to watch videos from the International Space Station. And he calls it just that…the full name. Because he knows what it is thanks to Col. Hadfield.

He has posted several “goodbye” type videos the last few days but his cover/production of one of my FAVORITE songs in the world.

Follow him on twitter and like his page on Facebook so you can see the final hours of his stay in space. And help me wish him and his fellow travelers a safe trip home.

If you follow me on Twitter or are local and therefore friends with me on Facebook, you’ll know this story already. But it’s one of those rare incidents in my life that I think are entertaining enough to be written about IN ALL OF THE PLACES.

So! I’m working from home now. Part time (hopefully growing to full-time someday!) web development type work. I was worried at first about how it would go with a kid around most days, but it’s much better than I thought it would be. Turns out – if you put Wes in front of the TV with the Roku remote, he’ll watch Power Rangers all day! Score one for productivity!

(What?)

Okay. It’s not quite like that. But – I do intentionally schedule him some TV Time where he gets the Roku remote and can navigate his Power Ranger episodes at will while I work. The Roku box is simply a tiny computer that allows us to watch things from our Netflix or Amazon Prime accounts on our Television. The remote only has arrows, an “Ok” button, and a home button. There’s not a lot you can do. Wes just uses the arrows to scroll through all of the Power Rangers episodes that show up on the first page of Netflix. Easy as pie.

Yesterday, I was making him lunch when he came into the kitchen and said something like, “I wanted to watch the Power Rangers movie but I ended up choosing something really inappropriate.”

I went in the bedroom and it turns out he had managed to “Search” for something on Netflix. This is not an easy task due to the simplicity of the remote. You have to scroll through the ABC pad and choose a letter and click “Ok” and then another letter and so on. He had searched for something random like, “&(#hjipdjoiw8(*” and ended up with some foreign adult film that offered subtitles to accompany the s3x scenes. I’m not sure if he clicked on it or not, or how much of it he watched if he did, but it was there on the search results. Right next to 97 million episodes of Power Rangers.

SCORE ONE FOR ME! Wes watched his first p0rn! Woo hoo!

As I said on Facebook, if this doesn’t score me extra AWESOME on Mother’s Day? Then I don’t know what my family’s problem is.

• I would wake up in my bed cuddling with my two small children. My adult child would bring me coffee made exactly how I like it, along with my laptop so I could Facebook about the perfect coffee he made me. Someone would do the vacuuming and change the kitty litter for me for the day.
• I would read a little on my Kindle while someone showered for me because I hate showering.
• I would catch up on some TV from the week while drinking more perfect coffee made by someone other than me. The other someones would play with my hair and rub my feet. I would instagram a picture of my hair afterwards.
• My husband would go for a run with me when he would actually stay at my pace so we could talk and he wouldn’t complain about how slow I was. He would proudly post about how wonderful of a Mother his wife was on Facebook alongside a picture of us after the run. He would also mention that his wife was REALLY FAST and he could barely keep up with her. After the run, my husband would mow the grass for me (for the first time of the season – I might add) and then openly proclaim about how awesome I am to typically mow the grass.
• Someone would shower for me again after my run because – again – I hate showering. And on the perfect Mother’s Day – showering for someone would be a possibility. (It’s no more fantasy than the idea that my family would play with my hair and rub my feet while I watched TV.)
• We would all pile in the car to go eat breakfast at the Mexican restaurant down the road that serves the best breakfast in the world. It would be calorie-free.
• Someone would make sure all of the grocery shopping was done for the next few days. My diet coke supply would be stocked.
• We would then all go to see Iron Man 3 and I would eat all of the buttered popcorn and peanut butter M&Ms and nachos & cheese that my stomach could handle. It would be calorie-free. I would check-in on Facebook with a picture of us all seated in the theater next to each other. We would each have our own popcorn because no one likes how much popcorn salt I put on mine.
• After we watched the movie would would go to one of my favorite outdoor locations in town where my perfectly groomed children would let me photograph them to my heart’s content. They would smile angelically and stay clean the entire time. When I instagrammed those pictures they’d get a million likes because — Come on? Who doesn’t like Harry Styles.
• We would make a trip to the Space and Rocket Center where everyone would act as fascinated by the museum exhibits as I am. They would buy me something dorky and space related that I could wear around town the rest of the day. Maybe a space suit!
• We would go to Dinner at my favorite restaurant – Anaheim Chili – where everything I ate would be calorie-free. I would Facebook a picture of the Chili Cheese fries alongside a note that no one was allowed to touch them until I was done. That’s the rule on Mother’s Day.
• We would all pile in bed – ALL OF US – and watch a movie together when we got home. A movie of MY choice. They would take turns playing with my hair and rubbing my feet. They would make sure all of the laundry and dishes were done for the day so I wouldn’t spend my last hours before bed doing housework. I would write a blog entry about how awesome they all are.
• After everyone was asleep I would get up and re-do all of the housework they did for me during the day. Because, let’s face it, no one does it like Mom does.

I really try to live “Green” in as many ways as possible. But – like with most things in my life – I only do what’s easy on many levels. I recycle, I conserve, I try to be wary of excess packaging, but lately I’ve totally thrown out my habit of using reusable grocery bags because – well – I forgot them once or twice and then just never remembered them again.

That’s the kind of lazy I am. It’s so easy to get back into the habit of doing the right thing, especially if it became a habit for awhile, but that one step of doing it the right way that one time seems like climbing a mountain.

I think this is how it used to be with exercise with me. When I would get out of the habit of it, then getting back in the habit by just doing it one time was close to impossible. Somehow, I’ve grown out of this. After several years of regular exercise, my “off days” are only as long as I choose them to be and starting back is never a big deal. Yet…those damn grocery bags…I can’t seem to remember to bring them even ONE TIME because I just think, eh…I just don’t feel like it.

Do you have behavior like that? Something you know you should change that is actually so easy to change yet the idea of making that step seems more daunting than the step itself? I mean…JEEZUS LADY…you have 14 million reusable grocery bags…USE THEM ALREADY.

As a triathlon wife, I’ve learned the art of spectating the multisport events. I know Donnie’s swim/bike/run times, I know his outfits, I know his style so he’s relatively easy to spot at any stage of the game. I wait at the transition area for each changeover and scream bloody murder for him whenever I see him. And I love doing it.

He had his first big race of the season this weekend. His first race as a Fleet Feet Racing Team member. His first race with his new, leaner, faster body. He was pumped.

Unfortunately? The weather was awful. 42 and raining. The race was “wetsuit legal” so that helped, but as soon as he got out of the water and into his cycling gear, the reality of the weather hit. He went out on his bike in the same outfit he’s worn in those temps before, just fine. He didn’t factor in how much colder it would be in the rain and how much colder this leaner body would get.

Long story short? He never showed up at the transition area on his bike when he was supposed to. I went into hyper-anxiety mode with each cyclist I saw that was not him. I was standing in the rain/cold and wasn’t even aware that I was soaking wet because I was so worried. I knew something was wrong. I waited. And waited. Finally – one of our friends rode in and said, “Do you know about Donnie?” My heart stopped. I followed him into transition where he explained that Donnie was okay, but he was in one of the firetrucks – he was having some sort of cold-weather reaction and they were trying to get him warm.

Then I spent the next 20+ minutes trying to find him. When I did, he was with the race director and when I saw him get out of the car he was white as a ghost and had blue lips. And this was AN HOUR after he had been pulled from the race. He was still shivering. I went into Mama Bear mode and got him to our car where he could continue to defrost and get into dry clothes. By the time I got all of his gear to the car, he was starting to look human again.

It was terrifying. He said his body started convulsively shivering, he was unable to control his body or his bike. That’s when he finally knew if he didn’t pull off the course he was going to wreck. He is still kicking himself today for getting his first DNF (Did Not Finish) but he was not the only one that day. We knew several who had to get medical attention for the same reason. The inability to control their body from the shivering. He couldn’t even TALK at first, that’s how little control he had.

He wanted to hang his race number up in our room as his “motivation” but I wouldn’t let him do it. I told him (while crying, of course), “You see that number and you get motivated, I see it and I re-live a very terrifying 40+ minutes of my life.” I mean, I kinda like that guy, when I knew something had happened to him it was everything I could do to keep from vomiting. I was grateful for the friend who finally let me know what was going on, but seeing him white with blue lips and barely able to communicate thoughts to me? Was a bit more terrifying than I like in my normal routine.

So, he took the number down. He has another race in three weeks that he’s even more determined to kill now. It’s a much shorter one and hopefully will have much better weather. It couldn’t get too much worse, that’s for sure!