Shitters Full

The end of the school year has come. I have mindlessly made it through the last day of school, the last day Kindergarten party, the last soccer, baseball and lacrosse game, and the last sports team end of the season party. Thank goodness because I don’t think my over-taxed brain could handle any more “lasts”.

My brain, at the moment, is like a running toilet that keeps sending water into the fill tube but the flapper will not close. Work, kids, phone calls and my herd of animals are the water trying to rush in and fill up the tank but my flapper is stuck and the information just keeps draining out. I need a new brain flapper.

I have always been easily overwhelmed by too much stimuli invading my thought processes but having three kids has thrown me over the edge. I miss the days of having most things in my life under order and control. I don’t need everything to be perfect but I do need some resemblance of organization. That got flushed down the drain years ago.

So, the question to myself is how to regain some level of control. How do I clear out the cobwebs and make room for more data? It’s not like cleaning out your computer files with the easy click of the delete button. It’s more like hooking up the external hard drive and transferring all of your shit to another device. You still own it but it is conveniently placed somewhere else.

The beach is usually my clearing out method. I can sit and stare at the waves for hours in a bikini listening to my Ipod and sipping on a cold one. Unfortunately, that retreat will have to wait until July. I need a clean sweep now.

Just an example of auditory overload going on at this moment: my two oldest kids are putting the clean dishes away while fighting over who gets the TV remote next and for how long. The dishes are clanking, one is humming obnoxious, high-pitched nasal noises to annoy the other and the other is shrieking at him to knock it off.

I’m thinking that there has to be one of those spa/resort/rehab places that will hook you up to IV fluids with a continuous stream of sleep-inducing juice that will detox your system, clear your mind and allow you to check out for a few days. You wake up feeling cleansed, focused and with a few pounds of weight loss to boot.

Funny Farm, here I come.

Tween Guidance and Zyrtec Advice

Tween girldom hit me hard this week and I have to say, that as prepared as I thought I was, I am at a loss. Every parent knows and feels the anxiety of watching your child navigate through the social structures of each grade. But the resurgence of my own middle school years took me by surprise. How do I advise my own daughter of the triumphs and perils when you know that these years will be hard and ongoing?

My own middle school years were not horrible. I will not say they were fabulous but I survived and moved on. The worst for me were centered in 7th and 8th grade. I remember those as the “crying years”. Raging hormones thanks to being a late bloomer confiscates my memories but I do know that there were good times intermittently. My low times were more of the result of my own insecurities and lack of understanding. As I trailed through each of these trials, my transition into high school was relatively good.

My daughter’s experiences are similar to most of us girls. The catty talk in front of, behind and to the side of different social acquaintances and friends. Talk of who is in the popular or “prep”, as they call themselves, group. Talk of who are friends with whom, who likes what boy or what boy likes them. None of this intimidates me and is easy to advise.

At the moment, at least, my daughter is happy with herself. She is a self-described Tom Boy, likes to wear t-shirts with logos, jeans and tennis shoes. She does not have a problem (yet) with the social pressure to conform to more girly (as she calls it) fashion and appears to be secure with herself to express her individuality.

But what has thrown me for a loop is the criticism from her friends about how she should be more like a girl, how she should care about her weight and try to lose some pounds, and how she should restrain herself from speaking her mind or communicating with others. This is the part that blows my mind.

How can 12-year-old girls be concerned about their weight at this age? I know they have the “healthy body image” lectures at school. I hope that their parents talk with them about healthy eating and exercise habits and positive body image. But to be honest, I’m not really sure.

I do not make a huge issue out of this subject because I believe that too much attention fuels the fire, if you will. I do not EVER talk of dieting and clearly state that we do not diet in our family. We eat whole heartedly and enjoy food. But that food is like fuel to a car, you put the bad stuff in and it will not run properly.

I want my daughter to be smart about who she listens to, what influences are around her and how she teaches others to treat her. A great quote by a very smart friend of mine (one I go to consistently for advice) told me that “you teach people how to treat you”. Meaning, do not take any shit off anyone.

With her advice in my mind, I talked to my daughter about the importance of lifting up a friend, not dragging her down. But we also discussed the topic of boundaries. I explained that each of us has personal boundaries and when we have positive people and friends around us, they respect those boundaries. I want her to continue to be comfortable with who she is, to not feel like to she has to look like everyone else or allow them to dictate her on her wardrobe, and to know that it is okay to tell someone to zip their pie hole when giving unsolicited criticisms.

It’s hard to explain all of this when I am consistently amazed at the number of people who criticize others on their choice of fashion, their decisions, their weight and everything else in between. What happened to the much touted slogan of our youth, “Be yourself, be different”. Not where I live. Conformity is the norm here and is a constant constraint in all age groups.

I know that when I encourage her to walk her own path, I am essentially guiding her down a road less travelled. This individuality will cost her at many levels within her peers and even among the adults. So, my anxiety has not been what I am hearing from her but more of what I need and want to tell her. My years of being honest and direct with her about most subjects have slowed to a speed of caution. What do I say that will carry her through the next few years of her life to make it easier on her? How do I manage the next few years knowing that my advice may set her apart?

After a Zyrtec-induced sleep, I awake with the clarity and intention of telling her to be herself. I tell her that I love who she is, that I support the way she dresses and that I know that she will learn to take care of herself and set boundaries with her friends. I could not live each day knowing that I had taught my daughter to settle for the average quo. I want her to expect higher than that. And I realize, as I am telling her this, that I am relearning the same principles, again, for myself.

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else” ~ Unknown

My New Year Read: Marie Claire

Oh yes, I am completely serious. I decided for Christmas that I would ask for a year’s subscription to a magazine. Courtesy of my children, I am now a monthly subscriber to Marie Claire. Laugh all you want but I will be the first one to know what beauty, clothing and makeup trends are hip. Plus, it offers great literary writing such as Must-Read: I Agreed To A Threesome For My Husband’s Birthday, The Woman Who Is Funnier Than The Boys (Chelsea Handler) And Girlfriend Material (The Good, The Bad And The Ugly; A Look At Female Friendship).

So, while I wait for my fake nails and color to dry (sorry, Ronda, the ugly real nubs had to be covered for a black tie event) I sit on my bed to read my latest delivery in beauty, fashion and sex. The above parenthesis is noted because my buddy, Ronda, has talked me into discarding the fake nails on a daily basis in an attempt to let my gross, smashed by a hammer and fungus from the garden nails repair themselves. I have gone the “a la natural” route for two weeks. I am NOT going in a beautiful gown and shoes with filed down slithers of nail on my fingers. At the moment, they are short, filed to a small curve and deliciously dark burgundy.

My first read, of course, is the ménage a trois article on the wife who arranged a threesome for her husband on his 40th birthday. Yea… what happened to forty stupid penguins in the front yard? This gal is an American married to a British man and they live in Paris. My first thought is this a common thing for French couples and most importantly, why would this fruit loop want to pimp a buck on a story that involved her? Who knows but after multiple conversations on the rules of engagement (really, I figured the rules were out the window on this one), an ad for a third partner (one time deal) and several lunch dates later with potential women, fruit of the loom makes her choice. They meet, get naked, her husband says thank you repeatedly and she ends the story with wanting to go home and take a shower. As you can tell, I am intrigued, not because I want a ménage a trois. Hell, I’m not even in the mood for a one on one with my fluctuating hormones trying to leave the vessel. More of a shocked interest in why someone would want to experience this. I love Tom a great deal but if he ever thought to speak something aloud in this direction, he may end up missing the lips off his mouth.

My second intrigue is the fashion trends for spring. I get it that the runway examples and photography layouts are visually more artistic in nature than what the average woman wears. But girls, get ready. On page 70, they highlight how you, too, can “Look like a Million for Under $100”. If you want to debut this season as Minnie Mouse. ..
Polka dots (sorry, again, good until about 8th grade), yellow shoes with black and white clothing (nope, I do not do Easter egg colors) and bows. Bows… my longtime friends know how much I despise bows. Bows should be worn on females until the age of five or six. After that, they are plain ludicrous. Especially on young college women. That’s all I’m saying because, really, I could write an entire blog on why grown women should not wear bows.

My favorite was the article on Chelsea Handler. I love that chicka. As the header describes, she is “sharper, ruder, and ballsier than the competition” and I love it. I would love, love, love to have the gumption to say what she says and to be paid for it. Her show revolves around the humor behind celebrity lives and their escapades. She states, “If you go out and behave in a ridiculous way, you should expect to be made fun of”. I can respect that. I always feel for her nightly guest, though. Man, I would be shaking in my NYC boots waiting for her to make a sarcastic joke about something I commented on or wore. Anyhoo, I like her because she is one of the few women in comedy who is raking in the viewers in a male-dominated field. And she is downright hilarious and crude. My favorite mix of humor.

I feel like a real woman after flipping through this best seller. For my fashion conscious gal pals, the t-strap sandals with “sexy” cutouts are in, wedges are still the rave but in metallic colors, as are animal print flats. There’s a “Shade Shifter” lip gloss that goes on clear and turns into darker shades of pink as your body temperature rises (bring it, hot flashes), military colors and camouflage are back in (hot damn, still have and wear those). Make fun of me but my wardrobe is going to be either smoking hot or like hanging snot (fourth grade rhyme). Maybe my grubby nails will grow out, at least.