Swords and Weighty Issues

Real conversation between HM (one and only daughter of mine, lovingly referred to here as "Hot Mess") and myself:

HM: "Mrs. Perry-Johnson isn't Jewish"
Me: "how do you know that?"
HM: "She wears sword earrings."
Me: Pause..."Oh, those are crosses. That's a symbol of her religion. Like a Jewish Star. She's a Christian."
HM: "Yeah...and also- she's skinny. Not like Jewish ladies".

My first thought was- FAIL. On two levels. First, the fact that my daughter doesn't know what a cross is and how the world is divided into Jew and "not Jew" for her. I fancied myself a more open mother, one who teaches her kids about all religions and that we're all just trying to find meaning in a chaotic world. That no matter what ones Higher Power is, the key is to believe in something greater than ourselves. That how you're raised usually dictates how you pray. It's the comfort of childhood memories that make ritual meaningful. That no matter what you wear around your neck or what book you read in your house of worship, we are all searching for the exact same thing.
Instead, my daughter think Christians wear swords and that Jewish women are all fat.

Which brings me to the second FAIL. I have an eating disorder. Period. My relationship with food is jacked up. Since I was HMs age, almost every awesome memory revolves around a meal. I remember lying in bed at 5, thinking about which cereal I was going to have for breakfast. I remember when my mother would get home from Publix and I would unpack the groceries and get super stoked about all the food that we had in the house. Every heart wrenching  break-up caused me to shun food entirely. It was hands-down the best diet ever. I couldn't stomach a single bite. Then, when I would crawl out from that dark place, I would rekindle my relationship with food....hard-core.
I've tried every diet- counted carbs, counted points, counted bites. I've belonged and paid dues to Weight Watchers for so long, it's become my charity of choice. I feel that if I still pay to belong, I get some sort of diet credit. I've belonged to many gyms and pledged to exercise at least 3x/week. That just made me feel like shit 3x/week when I didn't go. I did couch to 5K to couch to 5K to couch. I've even tried the "post-dieting" thing. Like, you know what world? I'm over this. I'm just going to eat when I'm hungry and not dedicate so much mind space to this issue. Well, guess what? I don't really know when I'm hungry because it's SO not about the food. It's complicated and has layers of crazy to it but that's for a different night. My point here was that I never want HM to inherit this crazy. I don't want her to have food issues, weight issues, body image issues. I want her to eat when she's hungry and enjoy her bites. I want her to not eat when she's nervous or bored. I want her to eat even if some dick steps all over her heart in college. I want her to look in the mirror and be OK with whatever she sees. Muffin top and all. I don't want her to disconnect and lose herself in food. I want her to exercise because it makes her feel good or because she gets a trophy at the end of it. If she misses a day of exercise, I want her to know that she still kicks ass. I want her to be present for every awesome and not so awesome moment and not look to numb anything with food (or fill in the blank vice). She woke up recently in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare. With tears streaming down her face, she told me that she didn't get a piece of cake at her friends birthday party last week. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I laughed.

Basically, I don't want her to think that all Jewish women are fat or concerned about their size. Or dieting/binging all the time. I get why she thinks that (duh). But it's ugly and makes me realize that I need to model a healthy way to eat for her. And for me.

So, I answered HM as follows:
"Christian women are not all skinny. Jewish women are not all fat"

Without pause, she answered-
" Can we go to Brusters?"

Writing

I can get into this writing thing. It's been just a few weeks with this blog and I find myself wanting to sit with my laptop and just....write. To the exclusion of all else. I rather write than pack school lunches, finish my clinic notes, do 3rd grade math homework (parallelograms are dumb), convince kindergartener that changing underwear is a good habit to get into, sleep train a 7 month old (so not happening, by the way), make a grocery list, figure out thanksgiving plans, make a heathy dinner menu for the week, .....
It's basically another way to avoid doing the "shoulds" in my life. It's my Pinterest, my Facebook, my Words with Friends. Except I do all those too.
I remember when sister #1 had a few small kids and they were puttering around her apartment, calling for her to look at them or asking for juice or something needy like that. And she was sitting on her couch, reading one of her gazillion books. I couldn't believe she was able to tune out the little people and read like that. I probably thought to myself something judgmental like "I would never be able to ignore my kids like that. She should be listening to them!". A thought only a 20 year old girl with no kids would think. Now, as a 38 year old mother- I still can't do that. I can't tune out and read. But not because I'm paying all this attention to my needy little people. But because I think I have A.D.D so if I'm on the couch reading and child asks me to watch them dance a jig, I'm immediately distracted by the jig and the moment of zen reading is gone. And because my little people are the worlds most needy children, I don't get much reading done unless they're all unconscious. So too with writing. I can only write in a quiet house. My house is quiet for about 2 of my waking hours. And those 2 hours when it's just me and this computer are really special. Yes, I should be doing a dozen other things for the betterment of my little family but Jesus Christ, it's good to not.
I read magazines. Those are easy to read when you have A.D.D and kids. You can pause mid article and not really lose much momentum. I've read enough Oprah, Us, Peoples, Real Simples to fill a dentists waiting room. Sometimes, I start from the end and read it backwards. I've read enough chick mags to know that "doing things for yourself makes you a better wife and mom". Oprah says so even though she's neither. Redbook swears by it. Real Simple agrees. To be a good wife and mom, you need to pay attention to yourself. Even Dr. Oz says so and he's a doctor so he must be right.
How, though, are you supposed to do that and also pay enough attention to the little people and the big person that you live with? What's enough attention? I don't want them to think I'm not interested in their incredibly detailed story about what happened when they went outside and rode their scooter. Then they're at their therapists office telling him/her how their mother never listened to their needs (and blogged all this crap about them). What's too much attention? I don't want to create these narcissistic assholes who are shocked when someone tunes them out or isn't interested in their play-by-play recall of their soccer game. I remember going on a date with one such asshole and by hour 3 of the monologue- I interrupted and said "I'm in nursing school, I have 3 sisters, I grew up in Miami...just thought you may want to know something about me too". There wasn't a second date. But this was the pre-blog days. Now that guy could just blog and get it all out that way. He doesn't have to subject a woman to that torture. I don't want my sons to be that guy.
So, I struggle to find a balance. A balance between over-indulging and creating giant douchebag kids and under-indulging and creating insecure, needy kids.
The truth is, all I really want is an hour to myself. I'd be thrilled with that. The rest of the evenings can be spent watching the jig, listening to soccer details, feeding and bathing children and even measuring the perimeter of a square. If I knew I would have 60 undisturbed minutes to do nothing but write or read (for myself, not for work)...in silence....without any interruption.....I would give up Facebook and Pinterest. I would be a better mom and wife. Touche Dr. Oz. You were right.

Fertility Part 1.5

So here are the funny things about embryo-making:

• The "Production Room" and all that it entails. The fact that the nurse gives my husband a cup and a sharpie marker to write his name on it with so it doesn't get mixed up with the dude in production room #2 s junk. 
• The fact that he accidentally put marker in his mouth while trying to figure out how to screw on cap of cup, only to realize his grave mistake and spit the pen across the room. And then bleached the inside of his mouth with hand sanitizer. 
• The fact that my husband videotaped me when they woke me up from anesthesia post-retrieval and i was completely stoned and trying to get a saltine in my mouth. We never get tired watching that brilliant cinematography. 
• The fact that the ultrasound probe is so obscene. And it comes with its own XXXXL condom. Ouch. 

That pretty much covers all thats funny in IVF land.

Here are the un-funny parts of embryo-making:

• When you don't. After all the injections, ultrasounds (with the XXXXL probe), blood tests, retrieval, implantation, weeks of progesterone shots (more on that later)- you waltz in for your beta HCG test and they call you that day, before noon. Calls before noon are bad news. They like to get them out of the way so they call the negatives first. When the lovely nurse practitioner tells you "not this time, i'm so sorry". 
• When it does work and you keep doing those dreadful progesterone shots and you graduate from your "Baby Lab" to the land of regular pregnant women and you go in for routine ultrasound at 12 weeks and theres a little nugget in there- quiet and still. No flicker. No heartbeat. The ultrasound tech looks at you and says "the doctor will be in to talk to you". 
• When it works and anything goes wrong with that pregnancy you nearly killed yourself for. Or anything goes wrong with the baby that you painstakingly followed every single piece of medical advice for. When all the effort  and money and time and raw emotions were for nothing. Willy Wonka yelling "you get NOTHING!" in your ears. 

Then you turn on MTV and watch an episode of "Teen Mom" and realize without a doubt that life is exquisitely unfair. 

Fertility Part 1

Between the hours of 8-5 every day I find myself in a place where tragedy abounds. Kids who are really sick, kids who die, kids who don't die but are just a faint shred of the child they were. The ballerina who's now mute and immobile did me in this week. Heavy, depressing shit. The kind of sadness that you feel in your chest and it radiates to your fingertips and you need to catch your breath because all you selfishly think about is if it was your healthy kid at home. Except when I get home, I still can be irritable and angry and just want these healthy kids to shut the fuck up for one goddamn minute so I can think. You would think that I would live in a constant state of gratitude. That I would come home and let all the "small stuff' fly away because at least my kids aren't paralyzed and mute from a brain tumor. This isn't the case. I do sweat the small stuff- most of the time. Even though I have 101 reasons not to.
Depressing career aside (and yes, if I ever wanted to bring a conversation to a halt, I just have to tell someone what I do for a living which sometimes works to my advantage), I also have another reason to appreciate my kiddos, besides the obvious reason of them being able to breathe, pee, laugh, run, learn on their own. In order for me to have children I had to enter the world of assisted reproduction. In addition to being technologically challenged, I am also reproductively challenged. I have all the right parts but my ovaries don't work. They don't make eggs the way my mama did. They just kind of sit there and collect dust. They try, these special ed ovaries. But all they can do is make these little, useless, space-taking nubs.
So to conceive Kid 1, we entered this ridiculous galaxy of assisted reproduction. By assisted, I mean these docs and technologists basically do it all for you. You just sit there. Or lie there. With your legs in stirrups and a giant probe all up in your business counting follicles. Daily injections and blood tests determine hormone level and readiness for implantation. You look like a heroin addict and feel like a meth head in withdrawal when you're on injections. Estrogen at super high levels is never good. For anyone. Ever. One of the really shitty parts of this stage is that you gain 10 lbs automatically so you look pregnant and feel pregnant from the hormonal surge but you are anything but. Emotionally, its a train wreck with casualties.
The waiting room in my "Baby Lab" is a fascinating cross section of women. The egg donors in their tank tops and sparrow tattoos on their shoulders. The 48 year old women who maybe missed the boat a few years earlier and realizes it's never (?) too late. The young, thin 25 year old who's thinking "how is this happening to me?" The hirsute, chubby woman who just needs her ovaries to crank one out for gods sake.
 It's a beautiful waiting room with comfortable sofas and a waterfall built into the wall. Top of the line coffee tables. Mellow music to soothe all the cranky, miserable, bloated women. Its top of the line because this is mostly a cash-only business. Most insurance companies won't touch infertility, so most couples need to pay out of pocket for this good time. My favorite conversation was when I called my insurance company and asked about coverage for IVF. Customer rep informed me that the only think they will cover is any tests I may need to get to the diagnosis of infertility. Anything after the diagnosis (i.e TREATMENT) will not be covered. I told her she was a really good egg who worked for a stellar corporation. Then I hung up and hoped they all died at blue cross/blue shield. And then we gave over our credit and just bent over.
After the injection phase, is the implantation phase. So, you arrive at the point where your ovaries are so full of follicles they may burst. Literally. Some women have upwards of 30 follicles with 30 potential eggs ready to hatch. So you get the call to stop all injections. Pronto. Except for the HCG injection which will let these suckers out of ovaries and to a place where they're ready to be "retrieved. The HCG shot is made from Chinese hamsters, by the way. I imagine these Asian hamsters on their wheels just trying to get some exercise when a sterile lab tech probes them and sucks out their HCG. My kids are actually "Made in China".
Retrieval is a nice way to describe a loooooooooooooong catheter inserted vaginally to poke around there and suck out the eggs. You are knocked out for this procedure. Obviosuly. Propofol is a beautiful drug. When you wake up, they tell you how many eggs you got. You hope for at least 5 or 6. Some women get 30. I never got more than 8, I think. I don't remember the details so clearly anymore. While you're unconscious, getting probed - you partner is retrieving his sperm. In the Production Room. He doesn't get anesthesia. He gets a cup, some magazines and a carton of shame. Except for my husband- who doesn't have any shame. He proudly hands his specimen over and makes a joke each and every time.....I love that man. We laughed through most of these crazy days. Theres a lot of hilarious things that happen when you're making embryos. And then there are lots of very UN-funny things that happen. More later.....This is just Part 1.

Some Disjointed Evening

I heard from some that maybe I shouldn't write about my children so....honestly. "What if they read it one day?" "What if people judge them poorly because of what you wrote?" "Do you really want people to know how wacky your kids can be?"

So, first of all- let's be real. How many people will ever actually read this? A handful? 3 handfuls?
Those same people probably already know me and my kids. They probably already know how we roll. They know we don't often mince words or fake things. The other few people who don't know us- who the hell cares what they think?

The name of this blog is "Easier Than a Tattoo". I've often wanted to get inked but for really stupid reasons. Not because I love body art. Not because I have this image I just need to get burned into my skin. But because you really shouldn't in the world I was raised in. More than "shouldn't; it's actually forbidden. Hence the desire to get one. Again with the "finger to the man" attitude (or in this case-  needle to the Lord). Juvenile rebellion. Silliness. But still.....

So, I decided to write about things that irritate me, bring me immense joy, confuse me, make me laugh, throw me into despair and gloom. It's narcissism at its best. I get it. But guess what, it helps me stay organized in my head and a bit more sane. There's a certain pleasure in writing in a public domain what I really think. Without worrying about criticism or feedback. Being real, even if it elicits disapproval. It's way easier than a tattoo.... and it won't look moronic when I'm a saggy octogenarian.

I have a touch of frontal lobe syndrome (disinhibited) and so often times i will say things that should have probably stayed inside my head. This blog is basically my frontal lobe set free. It may make sense, it may be disjointed, it may just be really dumb, it may be meaningful and touching.

That being said, if you are reading this- please do something technological like "Join" or "Like" or "Follow"....I think i get free shit if you do.

Abused Vocal Cords

HM (Hot Mess) is my 5 year old daughter. We pay an exorbitant amount of money for her to be in a small class in a private school with teachers who are so supernaturally patient, progressive, structured, kind and smart. These teachers "get" my kid with ADHD, impulsivity, sensory seeking behaviors blah blah blah. HM is a kid whose voice is so loud (sensory blah blah) that her speech and language evaluation read "the degree of her loudness could be physically abusive to her vocal cords". For real. That's what it said. I know it's emotionally abusive to her parents but I had no idea about her poor vocal cords. I kind of feel bad for them. Battered vocal cord syndrome?
HM is a kid who doesn't like princesses or dress-up or playing house. I used to think she was transgender but now am fairly sure she's just a lesbian. Her class went to the library and she chose a book called "Backboard Admiral" which is a book published in the 1970s about David Robinson who must be a famous African American basketball player. She's 5. And white. And has played basketball once.
HM is a kid who is so impulsive that she can not wait one fraction of a millisecond to tell you what she's thinking. Even if it's in the middle of your phone call, her soccer game, your 3 minutes on the toilet. She was playing soccer (extremely loose definition of "playing") with her soccer league and in the middle of the game while kicking the ball, she stopped, turned and yelled across the field "Mommy- what do you think the snack is today?" Her coach- who is a godly saint- calls her name many times throughout the game to remind her that they're still playing, to focus, to stop dancing in the middle of the field. HM loves everything about that soccer team.
HM is a nightmare to shop for. She has a closet full of gorgeous clothing and wears the costco dress that was made for a Mexican christening every single weekend. She'll only wear leggings if she can wear one leg rolled up. She will only wear crocs or sneakers. If you even try to get her to wear any kind of decent looking shoe, she will have a full-on, batshit-crazy meltdown. When she insists on wearing her androgynous get-ups, we just call her Chaz Bono.
HM is always in your face. Either verbally (while beating the shit out of her vocal cords) or physically. She doesn't have personal space. It just doesn't exist for her. She doesn't find it problematic to crawl into your lap and talk directly into your mouth. She will put her face right up in yours- just to tell you she's hungry, or she saw a funny thing on TV. This is her way. She needs to dance, hug, move, touch, yell, hum all the time. She loves when you give her "the chills". That stimulation relaxes her. Like a cat, she purrs and gets quiet. It's her tranquilizer.
HM will no doubt follow the footsteps of her brother and wear a patch proudly. It will make it easier for her to have friends, be successful in the environment we chose to put her in, allow others to talk and learn and most importantly make her feel like she can control herself and slow down a bit.
Until then, yell like crazy HM.....We're listening.

Sisters

When sister #3 walked in to the room, I turned to her and said "cute acne"....
She responded "I think your new meds are making your tourettes worse".

So it is with my sisters. We know each other. All of each other. The good, the bad, the fat and the ugly. When sister #4 was extremely pregnant and people were telling (lying to) her how great she looked, it was  her sisters who told her she was seriously swollen and her face looked bee stung.
When I complain to them how fat I feel, they don't say "come on, you look fine". They say "yep, what are you gonna do about it?".
When sister #1 tells us how she thinks her house is cluttered; we're quick to point out she may be one shit stack away from an episode of hoarders.

It's our way. Some may find it hyper-critical, judgmental and rude. I wouldn't disagree, but it's our way.  In fact, I wouldn't really know how to be nice and polite with them. It would feel so....wrong. It would feel distant and dishonest.

Part of being in a sisterhood is that there are always 3 other women who you can call and say- "Do you know who I really love/hate/don't get/want to murder?" You can discuss your GI tract in more detail than you would with a specialist. Ditto for your vajay-jay tract. In fact, there are no bodily functions or fluids that haven't been talked about to death around our dining room tables. And that doesn't even cover the tribulations of unwanted body hair. That's a topic that never gets old in this family.

Part of being in a sisterhood is that there are no children in this vast universe than I love more than my biological three. Except for my sisters kids. They come in awfully close.

Part of being in sisterhood is that you always have 3 other women who know your parents like you do, have the same issues with them as you do, want to kill them sometimes in the same way you do. You have 3 other women who think about what we're going to do when they get demented and need Depends. "Not it" isn't an acceptable answer.

We also come up with our own emoticons:

; /  bells palsy

: {  cleft palate

: = )  happy hitler

I mean even if you're not our sister, that shit's funny. 

Weird thing with my sisterhood- we find the same things hilarious and devastating. I know exactly what movies will make them ugly cry. I know what email will have them peeing themselves.
I've been asked if I ever missed having a brother. Never. Not once. There wouldn't be room for a brother in this sisterhood. He would have felt like an outsider.

The sisterhood gives me fashion advice ("That outfit needs to be destroyed...today), childrearing advice ("your daughter is a hot mess of a disaster"), weight loss advice ("you're fat because you eat too much and don't exercise; it's not rocket science") and home decor advice ("it smells like pee in your house").

If today was my last day on earth, I know the sisterhood would pick up the pieces and love my kids forever. I know there are 3 other women who have my back.

Disconnected

One of the many goals I have this year is to be present. Really present. Connected to family, friends, patients, the universe. Feel them deeply. Don't rush through the day disconnected. It's hard. I'm very good at disconnected. I've perfected the facade of being highly functional/competent, when all the while I am just robotically checking off things on my to-do list.
Get married. Check.
Get a higher education. Check.
Pop out some kids. Check.
Work. Check.
Have a satisfying social life. Partial check.
Be involved in childrens life - both emotionally and practically. Quasi-check.

What to do to really feel the waves of the universe?

Meditate? Brush up on a belief in a Higher Power? Do yoga? Drop acid?
All of the above?

Some Thursday night thoughts as I try to find anything to do to avoid cooking yet another meal....

Double life

Life is big, nuanced, complicated....multi-dimensional, you could say.
When I think about a typical shabbat/Saturday for me, it can feel very dichotomous at times. I can be in a synagogue in the morning sitting in a separate women's section with a wooden divide between the genders, then I will be at a lunch with no less than 15 people in a dining room with an obscene amount of food (and children) and no electrical appliances or screens being used. So- for all the mothers out there- imagine 12 boys in your house with no electrical distractions (babysitters). After lunch, I will take my kids to the synagogue afterwards for youth groups that teach my kids more Torah and Zionism.
After sundown, however, is when the shift happens.
Take last night. Shabbat went as planned, as we always do. 24 hours of complete Judaic immersion. After sundown, I headed over to a friend from works 70s themed 40th birthday party. My work people are a group of women (mostly) who I spend more time with than my family, and certainly my jewish community people. These women are awesome. I mean it. Really really kick-ass awesome. Pediatric oncology chicks who work hard and play hard. We bitch and moan, we laugh at sick shit, we cry at work, we drink a lot, we take care of very sick kids who sometimes die despite it all, we drink a lot, we talk about our husbands/boyfriends/lack thereof, we talk about our kids, we talk about our bowel movements, we talk about how underpaid we are, we talk and talk and talk...
The birthday girl last night is a pediatric oncologist who works like a horse, often emailing and writing at 3:30 in the morning. She goes to bat for patients with the energy and determination of a raging bull. She's a machine. And here she was decked out in a gold sequenced tank top and leggings dancing to ABBA and karaoking "Bobby McGhee" at the top of her lungs. I, personally, paid homage to Stevie Nicks and did an extremely loud, drunken version of "Go Your Own Way".  At this party, there was no divider between men and women, no mention of religion, no discussing which presidential candidate will be better for the State of Israel, no complaining of how many days we have to take off from work and how much food we have to cook...again.
In a period of 24 hours, I live in 2 separate worlds. I'm comfortable in both. There are irritating things in both. Sometimes, I would like to totally walk away from both.
I can't imagine only living in one of these worlds. I need them both.

Enjoy your children

A wise friend of mine was telling me that she recently took her teenage daughter to a drama group and she noticed that the parental units there really enjoyed their children. Peacefully, truly enjoyed being with their children. Wise friend lamented how she feels that in our community, where there is no shortage of children- the parents don't seem to enjoy their children as much and often seem like they're on edge, 5 seconds away from a meltdown. What immediately came to my mind were all sorts of arguments defending the kind of parent who seems to live 5 seconds from a meltdown.

My internal defensive rant went something like this:
"When should I enjoy my children? From the hours of 6-8pm when we're all home together and my house is reminiscent of an 80s rave- glo lights and all?? After 8, when the series of negotiations revolving around bedtime and basic hygiene are U.S attorney worthy? (Enjoy your oreos in bed, hope they go down smoothly with the powerade chaser). After 10, when all are mostly asleep and my mind is just a mess of static electricity? At 3-4am, when baby is up squealing in delight? At 6:45am when I'm waking them up for school and notice the iPad buried under sons blanket so am fairly confident he fell asleep just a few hours before? At 7:15am when I'm trying to find daughters shoes, put some lip gloss on, remind children to brush the oreos off their teeth, make sure I'm wearing matching shoes (to eachother, not the outfit), brushing out matted knots from daughters jewfro and trying to take a piss undisturbed? I enjoy my children at 7:55am - when I drop them off at school. When the doors of my mini-van close in that carpool line and all is silent in my car- that is enjoyment."
And then it hit me. I am doing something very wrong.
I know for certain that when I'm old and decrepit and look back at my life I will want more moments with my children. When they were exactly these ages. With exactly these quirks. I will regret spending so much time being irritable and impatient. I will probably regret letting them eat so many Oreos too. I will probably want nothing more than to be in a house that is so full of ENERGY and LIFE.
So, how do I go about changing this paradigm? Do I work less hours? Do I spend more time with my  children? Do I meditate before they wake up to get to a place of zen? Do I take more drugs?
The answer can't be to think how short life is and see people who have lost children and then really appreciate our own. Though that may work for a few days, it's not sustainable. I will fall back to old habits of living a chaotic life with a short fuse.
I don't have the answer....but I know that the question of how to really enjoy your children is too important to leave unanswered.
Oh, and wise friend- I would be lucky to have half your zen and child-love.