Thanksgiving

It's that time of year again. Turkey and all the fixings, football, family....I love this time of year. The kids and I have been talking a lot about being thankful, because with the moral and judgement deficits in my own life, I never miss an opportunity to dole out a lesson in character.
And this year, we happen to have a lot to be thankful for. To understand, we're going to have to take a look at some past Kate family Thanksgivings.
Or should I say, Batshit family Thanksgivings.
Batshit husband was always adamantly against traveling for the holidays. For someone like me, whose childhood consisted of all packing into the car and heading to Grandma's to celebrate with my extended family, this was a traumatic change. But seeing as my opinion was about as important as a beer at an AA meeting in my "marriage", I had no reasonable option but to blow off Grandma and concede. So, instead, we spent our first of several sorry Thanksgivings with his sister.
Total. Fucking. Clusterfuck.
First off, even though most of his immediate family lives within 20 minutes of one another, they did not all attend said Thanksgiving dinner. So we're left with Batshit husband, Mama Batshit, one of the sisters, and her inlaws. Even though this event was hosted at the sisters, I ended up supplying everything, including THE TURKEY, while she contributed a few assortments of canned vegetables. To make a long and pathetic story short and slightly more bearable, I sat and ate MY turkey with complete strangers and people I hate while my husband and mother-in-law bitched incessantly about how shitty this was and my sister-in-law got plastered. Thats the stuff memories are made of.
The next one wasn't much better. Batshit husband and Mama Batshit refused to repeat the previous year, so we spent it just the three of us and our kids, stuffed into the tiny efficency where we were living. Fun.
This year, sans awful inlaws, we are preparing for a three day extravaganza filed with church, friends, family and food. As it should be.
So when I asked the kids what they were thankful for, I was not at all surprised when my oldest son replied, "That the police put daddy in jail.", just a little sad. Our safety and an actual joyful Thanksgiving is a lot to be thankful for! But when his sister insisted on, "chocolate milk", I was perplexed and offended. I do so much, we are so blessed....CHOCOLATE FUCKING MILK?!
Then I got to thinking. Who puts the milk and chocolate syrup in the fridge? Who lovingly prepares said chocolate milk, and makes sure she doesn't get it in excess? This woman. Chocolate milk is delicious, and an expression of my maternal love. It's something that she enjoys with her siblings and friends. It's a treat, a reward...it's something to be thankful for, yeah. Actually, that child is more grateful than I am. I get so caught up in my daily life that I am rarely thankful. In fact, I made the kids give up their list, but did not offer my own.
I'm thankful for my freedom and safety. I'm thankful that my family is close and loving and supportive and NOT the Batshit clan. I'm thankful for my beautiful, smart, healthy children and my awesome fucking friends, for the roof over my head and the food on my table. I'm thankful to be alive, that in a few hours I will be enjoying a beautiful holiday and not stuck with depressing white trash. I'm thankful for my church. And yeah, I'm thankful for Batshit husbands continued incarceration (therefore our continued safety), and I'm thankful for chocolate milk. Why not?
Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'll have a glass of wine for all of you!

The Power of Chores

Someone once told me that the main reason the world should continue to repopulate is, cheap labor. Kids get to a certain age and for those blurred years that you covered EVERY aspect of personal and family care, they have to start giving back. Ideally.
It is my personal belief that children should start being assigned chores around two. Nothing huge, I save the oil changes and oven cleaning for my five year old, but two is a good age to implement cleaning up toys, sorting laundry, helping to make the bed.
Let me just point out, chores sound wonderful, but it's not easy. Small children are programmed to have fun at all times. Chores, hard as you may try, are not always fun. And those young children grow into older children who are inundated with schoolwork, socialization, television...all seemingly more important than chores. Then they grow into teenagers, and well, you know.
But chores are important. They teach responsibility. When handled properly, they give children a proud sense of belonging and contribution to the family. And they help to afford you the luxury of say, a shower or a few minutes in a book or writing in your blog ahem. For me, chores are not even a question. I am the sole caregiver and provider for an entire tribe. I have eight trillion more important things to do every day than put away ALL those clothes, sort ALL those shoes and pick up ALL those toys over and over and over again. I like the beds made in the house. But if the kids didn't do it, let's be realistic, it wouldn't get done.
And chores have helped us bond. When my kids proclaim, "This is my house," they couldn't be more right. From the innocent little age of two years old, they become cogs in the gears of the mechanics from which my house is run. It doesn't always run smoothly, we have our yelling matches, but I made a decision some years back when children began popping from my loins like little baby rabbits, I will not ever be perfect. I am a good enough mom.
Which is good enough for me. The kids' school and daycare are constantly raving about my children's behavior and intelligence. "If we could clone your kids and put all those clones in this school," they tell me, "We would." Instant gratification.
Growing up, and until she passed away recently, I was incredibly close to my grandmother. If you knew her, you would've been too. Having raised seven children who raised their children, who for the most part all turned out to be successful, intelligent people - and all turned out to be good, kind family oriented people, I trusted her opinion entirely. She had been a school teacher from the age of nineteen. Grandma knows kids. And in between priceless bits of advice and encouragement, she would forever praise my parenting and the amazing people my children are shaping in to. "It's uncommon and so beautiful," she would gush, "How well behaved they are."
It will forever touch my heart, that my children were mentioned in her eulogy. I am so proud to have created such amazing little beings that were able to touch her life so profoundly. The way that she touched mine.
Still waters run deep, as they say. The meaning that I glean from my flash of a life comes from more than just these dates that I push myself to go on, more than a bad husband that has shaped us so completely.
No matter where we go from here, the foundation in which I build my children's lives will never waiver. Trust me when I say, even when they come home for summers from college (which they WILL attend), they will still have chores. Because we will forever be a family, and they will forever be components to the mechanics of my life. Grandma taught me that much.

I have too many children.

Today, I accomplished a great feat worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. No, I didn't cure cancer, end world hunger or erradicate terrorism. I got all my children, the number which is more than two but less than five, ready to get their bus in seven minutes flat. Woke up, 7:51am, out the door to wait for the bus, 7:58am. Yes, there were tears. I barked orders like a drill Sargent. I felt bad. But WE DID IT.
I remember lying in bed next to my husband, tracing hearts over his bare chest, talking about a "large family". It sounded sort of nice. A bunch of little Kate-and-hubby clones, running barefoot in the yard, their dad chasing them and eliciting raucous laughter as I stood on the deck with a big pitcher of homemade lemonade.
Yeah, right.
Now I have as many children as I've had my heart broken. They are not puppies, that poop and pee in the yard and can be bathed one a week. No. My brood are all under four years old, with only one NOT in diapers. All those baths every night, teeth brushed a.m. and p.m., snacks, diaper changes, boo-boos kissed, fights broken up, scrawled and scribbled pictures to admire...outfits to pick out and wrestle over defiant little heads, bedtime stories to read and nighttime fears to overcome. And forget about the expense....having a "large family" is a full time job in itself. I am exhausted most of the time.
And doing it alone??
I am low-income. Conclusively. I spend many sleepless nights adding, subtracting, multiplying and praying.  And in some ways, I meet the criteria perfectly. My kids are nearly always barefoot and dirty. I wear cutoff jeans more than I'd like to admit. My husband walked out and has little interest in our finances or daily life. We get in to nasty fights when he calls. I drink. I smoke cigarettes, a lot.
But every day I work to break that stereotype. It's my personal affirmation.
My preschooler knows what Ratatouille is, and not just the Disney movie. We don't have cable, and the T.V. is not a baby sitter. We eat extremely well. We cook together, recipes from all over the world. We go to church on Sundays, where my whole full-time nursery class sits (more or less) quietly in the pew as our Pastor reaffirms our faith and then they all shuffle off to learn about God as I sit and pray for penance for my shortcomings and the terrible things I've thought, and usually said, all week. I read to my kids, every night, from birth on. My house is not sparkling, but most of the time it's clean. We are the typical low-income white trash family on the surface, but look deeper, and we're so much more.
When my daughter was the only child, she was spoiled. Name-brand clothing, more toys than your local daycare center, vacations to Florida to visit Mickey and vacations up North to see the first snow and my Father-in-law. But, kids are expensive. We've had to adjust, severely. At first I was miserable, guilt ridden. We're broke. Everyone's laughing at me. I can't provide as well as I should. But in having WAY too many children and not nearly enough money, I've learned so much.
You have your bachelor's in pyschology? Yeah, well I have A doctorate in my children's pyschology. When you're broke, overwhelmed and overworked, all you have left in your spare time is to revel in your little miracles. I know how to elict laughter, who gets along with who, what will unavoidably turn to tears. I know it all. I know that one week at Disney World is worth a lot less than a whole summer worth of walks to the playground, cookouts in the driveway, late night movie nights and days at the beach. I know that all the toys in the world cannot possibly be as fun as all gathering in the kitchen to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I know that no educational dvds or "learning systems" can hold a candle to what we learn exploring the world together, that no one can teach my children to read better than I can, brandishing our beat-up copy of "Mr. Brown can Moo, can You?" for the eight millionth time. I hate to be cliche, but when it comes to money and children, less can be more. When your resources are limited, you find yourself improvising in ways you never thought was possible. And as much time and work as it is, more is more with children. You think your heart is finite, that with each child it cannot grow to accomidate all the space required to love this family ballooning in front of your eyes. But my love for my children is endless...this I have learned. I couldn't imagine my life without them, each and every one.
I'd be lying if I said that my life was complete, though. There is a tinge of resentment in everything I do; it's dark and toxic and menancing. A longing for some semblence of an adult identity outside of offical poop-wiper and monster-sprayer. It makes me snap when I wish I wouldn't, it makes me collapse in bitter exhaustion at this end of the night and stare at my cell phone, wishing it would ring, knowing it won't.
I read somewhere that having children doesn't neccessarily make you happier. In polls, people with children can actually be less happy than those without. I can believe it. The question I leave you with, the question I've had hanging in my own head - how do you balance the wonderful identity you find in yourself when you have children, with the identity you had before??

Depressing.

So I took a walk to downtown today. I don't know why I thought it would clear my mind - it was at least 100 degrees and stifling. I'm walking, and a scruffy looking guy approaches, herein referred to as "The Desperate Vagrant".
Desperate Vagrant: You have a lighter?
What, do I exude "smoker"? But yes, I do.
Me: Sure. (rifles through pockets)
Desperate Vagrant: So, where you headed?
Are you kidding me? 
Me: Court.
Desperate Vagrant: Oh, did you get in some trouble?
Me: Yeah, sort of. I snapped on my baby daddy and stabbed him. They're prosecuting. i might get lucky, he's still in the hospital and I don't think he can testify.
Desperate Vagrant: (Fumbles to light cigarette as I wait for my lighter, awkward) Some guys are such assholes, eh? Seriously? So how many kids do you have?
Me: (What I see as clearly irritated, still waiting for my lighter)Eight.
Desperate Vagrant: Wow. You look too young. (At this point just holding my lighter)
Me: Yeah, well some of them are my brother's. I met a guy, had a few more, and then he just begged me to stab him - I snapped. It's too bad. He was my favorite cousin.
Desperate Vagrant: (STILL holding my lighter) Wow. You need some company on the way there?
Kill me now. Are you shitting me??? Fuck it. No lighter is worth this.
I walk away, abandoning the lighter and the quite possibly mentally retarded vagrant on the side of the road. I take the long way home, not taking any chances.
Is this really my prospects? The first interaction with a member of the opposite sex in MONTHS.
Things aren't looking good, people.

I'm Not Daddy, I'm me.

If this is a story about redemption, I guess I should start with my kids.
There are four types of divorce. Amicable divorce, where the marriage does nothing more than fade into dusk like a sunset. Mutual, no flaming emotion - lack of emotion is the reason for the marriage dissolving in the first place. There's contentious divorce, where one party just can't let go, even after the other has packed her bags, walked out the door. The papers become a tether, the final break in a one-sided bond. There's volatile divorce, where there is so much hatred that even after it's over, the fighting never really stops. You've just stepped outside to do it. And then there's my divorce, so sick and twisted I can blog about it. Where both people swing between absolute detest and false hope of a better tomorrow. Where the marriage turns on itself, every intimate moment and personal detail is just another bullet in the chamber. The divorce papers are a vague, false threat, a sobering reality, a terrible implosion that sucked my whole world into a hateful void, in that order.
Add children to any of these, and the volatility multiplies exponentially. I know best. No matter who "I" am. And like my dad always said during his divorce and consequent custody battles, "He who has the kids has the power."
Since when is marriage and parenting about power?
As soon as you step into court.
I love my children, absolutely. Entirely, unequivocally. I have made more sacrifices and endured more pain than is humanly reasonable to those without children. But if you have kids, you understand.
Mommy, do "martyr" and "mother" rhyme?
We love our children because they are a part of us. We don't have children, we receive them. An ethereal gift from our own bodies.
So what happens when we lose ourselves? If our children are a part of us, a reflection, what happens when we can no longer stand ourselves?
Or worse, the other parent? The other part of the proverbial minor-dependent puzzle?

Which brings me to this:
My son said something all together too profound for 7am this morning. He didn't mean to; he's two and a half. But it hit me. Out of nowhere. A six car pileup on an otherwise sunny and uneventful morning.
"Mommy, I'm not Daddy. I'm _____."
This child is the spitting image of his father. He has his mannerisms, his temper, his name. Everything about him is shaped into his father's image. And he's difficult. Painfully difficult.
Moreso since I finally separated from his father.
He's not daddy. He's him. And I am supposed to love him, unconditionally. And I do. But I don't like him.
I know why he said it. He knows he's named for his father, his sister and neighborhood kids tell him this. He wants to assert himself. He needs to be separate. Is it just his name? Or does he sense I struggle to give him his own identity? Does he feel stuck in the crossfire, by something that he can't even control? His own birthright?
This is supposed to be simple. We don't love each other, we hate each other. We can't be in the same room, let alone the same household. Our marriage didn't dissolve. It burst into flames.
But here I am, left to solely support my band of children and run my household. Boo-boo kisser, personal chef, nurse, cheerleader, personal care assistant, chauffeur,  referee. I knew he wouldn't help as soon as he left. I had to get rid of him regardless. I knew what I was doing. So why am I still angry.
On the surface, it's a., b., c., d. Love, marriage, children, not necessarily in that order. Fights, tears, someone moves out. Now we have to move on. I shoulder this responsibility, I bear this cross, because my ex never could. There's the martyr again. Oh well. But it's so much more. It's the end of an era, it's a lifetime of regret, of wasted time, money and resources. It's the death of my girlhood dreams and romantic fantasies, it's the hard reality of what SINGLE MOM means. It's the birth of distrust of men, the slight glimmer of hope that there's someone out there who gets me. Who I get. Someone not tethered to me by children we have in common or a stupid piece of paper of a semi-convenient living situation. The hope for love.
The other day, I let my daughter have a "sleep over" of sorts in her room with her brother. We try not to talk about their father  because he is not a presence. But you can never forget. She tells me, "This is so cool, mom. Daddy would never let us do this."
Well, I'm not daddy. I'm me.