Sweep the Leg

I’ve always been one hell of a sleeper. My favorite pastime, besides constantly bemoaning the relentlessly sticky South Louisiana humidity, is crawling into bed at night with a bag of veggie booty and passing out face down and drooling into a good book. I am still trying to figure out a way to work an 8 hour day from my bed. I think it’s absolutely possible.

I used to be able to get by with less sleep, though. Now, less than 6 hours and my whole body and soul punish me for it. I get so cranky I actually growl to myself while getting ready in the morning— a feral dog slapping on moisturizer and scratching at mange. At this moment I am so exhausted I actually think I can hear my hair growing. I down two, three cups of shitty work coffee, feeling it souring in my stomach, wishing I could just bypass my mouth entirely and mash the grounds to a nice paste I can inject right into my arm or between my toes or my eyeball or wherever it is people inject things into themselves.

Usually I make more of an effort to get good sleep nowadays because I know what a vile and worthless piece of bitchy excrement I am when I don’t. Being sleep-deprived is what I would envision a bad acid trip to be like, but with more yawning. I speak from the dank bowels of experience in this area because
I spent the first two years of Lily’s life without any real, substantial sleep.

‘Sweep the Leg’ was a game conceived in a state of serious sleep deprivation. I created it when Lily was about 18 months old, an age where she was big enough to kinda grasp bipedalism, but not so sturdy that she could get anywhere fast without falling down a lot. The game quickly became a favorite in our house; we’d come home from the park and instead of laying down to a sweet nap like other toddlers I knew, Lily would demand, ’SWEEP THE LEG, MAMA! SWEEP THE LEG!’ and for the next two hours, I’d lay on my back in the middle of our giant, king-sized bed and pretend to be asleep. Then Lily would jump up and down next to me and shriek like a maniac. Without warning, I’d reach out and literally swipe both her legs, so that they’d fly out from under her and she’d tumble onto the bed in a giggling heap of hysterical glee. I think even then she was an adrenaline junkie; there was this insane thrill she got from never knowing when she was going to be completely wiped out. I loved the game too, because it was the only game I could play with my kid where I got to lay like a corpse. It was a setup that worked well.

That is, until one day I accidentally fell asleep mid-game and swept a little too far. Oh, I will never, ever forget the sound she made hitting the floor. It haunts me still. Nothing in the world stings like hearing your kid in pain. Except when you’re the dumbass who caused it. Then it’s a million times worse.

She ended up being fine. Just a little surprised. And probably her feelings were hurt more than anything, that Mom could actually over-sweep and send her to the floor on her butt.

That day I learned an important lesson, and was never sleep deprived again!

That’s a big, fat lie. But I think that might’ve been the last game of Sweep the Leg we played for quite a while..

Sage Advice for Single Parents

I had a conference with Lily’s 5th grade teacher the other day. The woman locked eyes with me across the table. I became painfully aware of my ass oozing out on either side of my child-sized plastic seat. Uh Oh, I thought. What now?

Then she smiled. A mothering kind of smile. And a warm jelly of relief flooded my whole body.

‘Lily…oh, Lily is a delight. She has such a strong sense of herself and such good self esteem for a girl her age..whatever you’re doing, keep it up. you’re doing it right.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, resisting the urge to reach over the table, cup her face in my hands and plant a hugely inappropriate kiss on her pearly pink lips. She might as well have just handed me a book deal or a winning lottery ticket; her words were a McDonald’s sundae sprinkled with xanax. The relief was so potent, I wanted to just get up and walk out right there, toss a pile of papers in the air on my way to the door, and say, ‘SEE ya Motherfuckers, I WON.”

My life so far has been pretty good, all things considered. I have very little to complain about, but as far as big accomplishments, massive milestones and the like, I haven’t had a real shitload to put on my Life's Resume. I can say with complete honesty that so far, Lily is really my highest accomplishment. My mad Momming Skillz are by far my greatest source of pride. Kind of ironic, since becoming a single parent was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

I remember sitting in my therapist’s office many, many moons ago, contemplating the idea of kicking out my then-husband. Her sage advice: ‘No matter what you decide, just remember that being a single parent is the hardest thing in the world.’ I was like, hey, screw you, lady. You don’t live with the guy.

She was right, though. And wrong, too, in some ways.
Here is MY sage advice for anyone considering walking this path:

1. Don’t mourn the loss of your social life too much.
Find a nice teenager on the block who will hang at your house for a few hours after your kid is asleep if you want to go have a cocktail or scream in your car or something. Personally, I’ve never been much of a social butterfly. I have a book club once a month at my house, so I get to see my lady pals and drink and talk about vibrators and periods and afterward I just crawl into bed. It’s kind of awesome.

2. it’s helpful to have a granola bar/cookie/trail mix stash in the console of the car for the times you forget to pack breakfast.
Also, flip-flops or sneakers, for those times you rush out of the house wearing two different shoes. I also keep tweezers in there b/c once in a while I will glance at my face in the rearview at a light and Jesus Christ.


3. Know that people will assume things about you.
People might assume you’re lonely, or that what you really want, more than anything, is another husband. If your married friends tend to be insecure (and we can all be sometimes), they might even worry you’re after THEIR husbands. Or that your disease of divorcedness is a highly contagious swine flu that they might catch if they hang out too much with you.
Your ex’s family will especially have ideas about you. Remember that these are based solely on what your ex is telling them about you, so their opinions are a weeee bit slanted. Also, it doesn’t matter what these people think. Lets just hope that they keep these opinions to themselves around your child, biting their tongues as you have almost bitten yours into Swiss cheese many times.

4. Speaking of tongue-biting…
Yeah. This is the biggest challenge ever. Maybe you and your kid’s father are on great terms, so this one doesn’t apply. I have a friend who traveled to Disney with her ex and their kid, they like each other that much. That’s not my situation. Take it from me, I struggle daily with the urge to blurt out one of the multitudinous depraved things Lily’s dad did during our marriage, especially when she is on a tear about how much better it is at his house than at mine. Not doing it can be cruelly difficult. But doing it will have even more disastrous results.

5. You will feel guilty.
A lot. No, all the time. Like mostly every second. I even have guilty dreams. Last week I dreamt that I went on vacation to Jamaica with my boyfriend and came back to find out that Lily had started smoking crack. I also lay in bed at night NOT sleeping sometimes, running through all of the things I must be doing wrong: Am I loving her enough? Too much? Preparing her for the real world? Teaching her not to loathe her body? Enabling Daddy Issues? It never ends. And you can’t even take an ambient because what if the house catches on fire and you’re too zonked to get your kid out of bed? Then what, huh???

6. You can’t do it all, but you can do SO much more than you ever thought possible.
When I go through my day, I’m amazed that I was able to get as much accomplished as I have. When I was in college, I would sometimes spend entire Saturdays laying on the couch, smoking pot and watching movies. Today, the idea of wasting a day sickens me. Not because I think it’s a bad thing to do, but because THERE IS SO MUCH THAT HAS TO GET DONE. Truthfully, I usually go to bed at night feeling pretty smug that I managed to feed, clothe, support, teach, play with, and listen to a small, ever-developing person, while also keeping our house from disappearing under a pile of laundry and cat litter. Multitasking is no joke. Today I hopped out of the shower to iron a school uniform while dripping wet with soap in my hair. I don’t recommend this, by the way.


7. It can be amazing.
I always think about that old Peace Corps ad from the 80s, where they say it’s the ‘Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love’. It’s true. Any parent will tell you that, but doing it on your own is especially tricky because, duh, you’re doing two people’s jobs by yourself. But here’s the cool part: You are your own sovereign nation. You have nobody to defer to, nobody who needs to be consulted on the big decisions. There’s nobody with whom to share a bathroom. No weird, kinky items show up on credit card statements. Bills get paid because you are the one earning the money to pay them.

8. Remember that this is all so temporary
Some day, sooner than you think, she will be gone. Grown up, set out to live her own life, which is exactly what should happen if you’ve done this whole crazy thing right. You will always be her mom. But some day, you’re going to remember what it was like to be a lot of other things too. You'll have more time than you do now. So don’t worry about the stupid scarf you don’t have time to knit, or the memoir that is sitting in pieces on your computer desk, scratched up to hell with red pen (these are hypothetical). There will be time. It will be worth the wait.

Lemme Stand Next To Your...

Just recently I realized that every important thing that happens to me doesn't necessarily need to be shared with my parents. I know, I know, perhaps a little late at the tender age of 41, but...yeah.

As the product of a closely-knit family of oversharers, I've typically told my family EVERYTHING. Not sure why, but I feel like every weird, wonderful, humiliating or painful event isn't really and truly HAPPENING to me until I've broadcast it to my mom and dad.

It has come to my attention, however, that it isn't necessarily appropriate to pick up the horn and impart absolutely everything to my parents, who are 3,000 miles away, retired, and after spending their lives validating everything I've ever done, might actually deserve a little down time.

I'm realizing that not every milestone, be it good, bad, or terrifying, needs to be passed on to the elders. Like, say, for example, when your house catches on fire.

I guess I can say I've had my metaphorical housefire-cherry broken. As a child, having my house go up in flames was absolutely my biggest fear. Well, next to cobras. Also, the white witch from Narnia. Escalators, for a time. And my sister being abducted by a serial killer.

Anyway, fire safety being paramount, I would vigilantly palm closed doors 'just in case' they were hot before I entered a room, and would be the first to knock over the family dog in order to reach the nearest exit if dinner got a little smoky on the stove. Funny that, given these proclivities, the only thing I felt when my fire alarm went off the other night was irritation.

My house's fire alarm system is a little high-strung. It's been known to whine if the back door is open and the grill is going in the yard. It doesn't like certain scented candles. Generally, when I hear it, my first instinct is to want to smack it with a bat. So when I lit an incense and went into my bedroom to savor my few kid-free moments (Lil was down the street at her friend's house), I didn't exactly hustle out to the living room when the alarm started to chime. "Fucker," I muttered, trudging out to see what the trouble was, grumpy as a teenage boy whose bathroom masturbation time has been cut short by his kid sister's need to pee, like, now.

I saw the smoke just as the ping of the alarm graduated into an urgent wail--I'd never heard it do this before, and the siren was deafening, like a hundred foghorns and ambulances converging on my living room at once. In minutes, the room had filled with gray, turbid smoke, curling furiously toward the ceiling from a fire -- A FIRE -- that was fast leaping up the wall.

You'd think this would be the time when a dramatic 'impending danger' soundtrack would play, wouldn't you? But it's shocking how utterly silent a fire really is. The only sound was me yelling, "OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT HAPPENING", over and over, which I tend to do when the fight or flight instinct is supposed to kick in for normal people.

I don't remember every detail of the next few minutes, but I do remember thinking briefly (if not absurdly), 'What would Michael Landon do?', since I generally look to Pa Ingalls as my go-to crisis guru. So I grabbed a blanket from the laundry room and hastily threw it over the fire. The flames retreated beneath a cloud of smoldering black vapors, rising up to the ceiling like hateful spirits. They stained the wall and ceiling a sticky black and coated my nostrils and throat in the savagely toxic odor of THINGS THAT ARE NOT MEANT TO CATCH ON FIRE.

As the alarm continued to wail, I suddenly thought, I should probably get the animals out of the house.

Oh, and probably me too.

Somehow I grabbed my phone and gathered the smoldering blanket, eyeing a melted plastic picture frame in the rubble. I realized that the incense stick must have somehow set the frame on fire, as it was no doubt a cheap-ass Family Dollar purchase, painted with a ridiculously flammable shellac probably not legally manufactured in this part of the world.

Stumbling outside, I called 911. Have you ever actually had to do that? punch in the numbers 9-1-1? I hadn't. I always wondered what it must be like to be the poor person on the 'actual 911 recording' you see on reality crime shows, and now I do. It sucks. I felt like someone else was talking for me, giving my address, describing the situation. Yes, a fire. No, it's out. Yes, I'm outside. Within minutes I heard sirens in the distance-- such a commonplace sound, really. I tend to hear sirens outside and feel a sense of comfort that they aren't coming for me.

Except that now they were.

Three fire trucks pulled in front of my house and men started streaming out. It's weird, but my first instinct was to hug one of them. "THANK YOU!!!" I wanted to cry, "THANK YOU FOR COMING! OH MY GOD, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE! THIS IS SO SO NICE OF YOU! ARE YOU THIRSTY? HOW ABOUT SOME FLAVORED SELTZER??"

They marched inside and thoroughly inspected the entire house, even going into the attic to see if some residual smoke/damage had spread (it hadn't). They brought in giant industrial-sized fans and blew the caustic hate-smell out the open windows (and with it, 2 inches of black ash that covered everything in the living room. Amazing how even a small fire can cause SO much damage). By then neighbors had started coming out of their houses, rubbernecking to see if there might be anyone passed out on the lawn or trying to jump to their death from an open window. My friend Khipi pulled up and I crumbled into her arms. Jeremy arrived a few minutes later and I pulled him close, so grateful to have people in my life willing to just come and BE with me.

I caught the reflection of my tear-and-soot-smeared face in a window and sob-laughed. "Do I look hot right now?" I asked Jeremy. "Like, in a Little Match Girl sort of way?"

We all cracked up because it felt like the right thing to do.

In the end, there was only cosmetic damage to the wall and a small part of the ceiling. The firemen told me it was lucky that I acted so quickly and put the fire out before it spread. The dog was panic-stricken but safe in the yard, and the cats, I don't think, even noticed a thing. Lily was safe at her friend Molly's house, and it seemed, for now, we had dodged one very hot bullet.

As the firemen were leaving, I still felt compelled to throw myself at them in gratitude. Maybe I could send them a fruit basket or something, I thought. I mean, really. They deserve it. A bottle of wine, a thank you card. Something.

I got through the rest of the night with the help of my loved ones and a large jug of wine. But it was everything I could do not to call my folks. It seemed unnatural, wrong, to keep this from them.

But I didn't call.

I'll tell them about it at some point. They'll probably read this post and go, "WHAT THE HELL?? A FIRE?!?!" but by then the danger will have long passed and it will be just something that happened, no big deal. I'm ok not sharing this with them, because they've spent their lives trying to protect me from unpleasantness and pain and worry. And I think it's time I start doing the same thing for them.

Those aren't really skinny jeans; they're too-tight jeans that don't look good on your butt

My daughter actually said this to me today when I was getting dressed. I am living with an insult ninja. It seems that every morning lately I must steel myself against a varied and colorful barrage of indignities, hurled like Chinese throwing stars, not from an abusive partner or bitchy co-worker or vindictive celebrity gossip site, but a from a knock-kneed ten-year old sitting cross-legged on my bed. She turned double digits and the filter button on what comes out of her mouth just sort of broke.

It's not bad enough that I'm my own worst critic – after a weekend diet of nachos and wine and an exercise regime consisting of draping myself across the couch and watching "Glee", my jeans DO feel a tad like sausage casings, so I choose a flowy top that will be sure to cover my puffy midsection. Also, I will admit that I tilt my full-length mirror against the wall at an angle that makes my reflection look a little bit thinner and taller, because it helps me start my morning off in a proper frame of mind. What do you want from me? I do what I can.

But now my daughter, speeding down the luge to adolescence, feels the need to critique everything about me, and it's like living with Joan Rivers and my bathroom is the red carpet. No area is off-limits, being it my outfit or my boot-heel-height, the age-appropriateness of my hair color, or appalling lack of eye-makeup.

And don't even get me started on Lily's critiquing of my child-rearing style. ("Haley's Dad lets HER watch Freddy Krueger! Molly is allowed to Facetime on HER IPOD TOUCH!!! UGHHH!) Always I am reminded of my shortcomings in the Momming Department, these sentiments constantly punctuated with requisite eye-rolling and shoulder slumping that really drive home the point that her life, like, totally sucks.

I read an article today that likened tween (I hate that word) girls to folks suffering from multiple personality disorders. I laughed out loud when I read that, because it rang so terrifyingly true. Over the last few months I have treaded very lightly around my daughter, worrying that too much sarcasm or the wrong question about a boy in her class might embarrass her right into having her first period all over my kitchen floor.

It's as if suddenly Lily woke up and found herself with such an overdose of emotions and opinions that she had no choice but to release them constantly and without any filter, for fear of absolutely imploding. She suddenly is experiencing life with such an intensity I worry sometimes that her head will pop off her body from all the drama-tinged adrenaline.

So I try to talk to other moms. Seems that this is a relatively new but all-too-common trend: our girls are growing up a lot faster than they used to. One mom frowned, "Oh yeah, she tells me I ruin her life just about every day." A co-worker with two teens suggested her behavior could be fueled by hormones in flux. So we went to the health food store and bought some overpriced "Power Teen" vitamins. The hot pink label on the bottle boasts lightning bolts and a sexually ambiguous girl skateboarder. Seemed like a good place to start. But god forbid anyone know that she's taking them. Though it's great to think about being older and cool, Lily is horrified by the things that are about to happen to her body. She's looking forward to growing up, I think, but scared of it too.

That makes two of us.

I Miss Writing

I miss writing so much. It feels like I'm missing an appendage, maybe something small, like a finger...not so big like an arm or a leg. Nothing you absolutely cannot survive without, but something that makes the day to day seem easier, more fluid, somehow.

I have been so busy trying to keep my head above water I maybe forgot how to swim a bit. I definitely forgot how to float. I would give anything to just sit back on cool lapping waves and just drift. On a purple blow-up floatie. That'd be divine.

Lately I have been feeling my heart pounding a little harder. I worry about high blood pressure but probably I have about ten years before that's really gonna be a problem.

I literally start to panic when the sun goes down b/c I know that the day is going to be over soon and I have only completed a portion of what's on my 'to do' list.

I probably need to slow down.

I have been taking my dog for a walk at night with Lily and those are my most serene moments...those and the times we spend piled up in my bed when we get home from work and school and I strip off my clothes an slip into yoga pants and the three of us just jump onto the bed and grab at each other...the dog, who is all mouth, tries to get a hold of us in any way he can. He is so excited for the attention and contact. Lil, still in her plaid uniform, does a silly dance and tucks her head down so Ted can nuzzle the hell out of her. These are the moments I am trying to hold on to. These are the things that I need to keep me tethered when I feel like I'm just going going going and I don't see any end in sight...

Sometimes You're Just Mrs. Bucket

Hey moms: do you sometimes find yourselves feeling like Mrs. Bucket? Not the quirky, buck-toothed, Tim Burton Pixie played by an extra camped-up Helena Bonham Carter; that one never resonated with me. I'm talking about the greasy-nosed, red-straw-haired Mrs. Bucket from the 1960s, the one who slaved all day washing strangers's clothes in a hot steamy vat of something resembling cream of celery soup for probably a dollar a day. The one who wore a scratchy-looking, worn-at-the-elbows sweater and made cabbage water to feed her extended family of parents and in-laws who all shared a bed in the living room/kitchen. The one who called a loaf of bread 'a real banquet'.

THAT Mrs. Bucket. Ever feel like that?

I do.

I did today, in fact. Scooping laundry out of the washing machine and dumping it into the dryer for the seventh time since I got home from work (OH, how many times have I walked away without remembering to turn that motherfucker on, only to return the next morning to a sodden, musty pile of dank towels and school uniforms?!!)

I clutch my aching back and hum REM's "Finest Worksong" while simultaneously calling out spelling words to test the kid, and keeping one eye on the stove to make sure dinner isn't getting more burned than usual...

That woman, Mrs. Bucket, that is, seemed to me the epitome of every failure a woman could possibly face, all rolled into one overwrought, exhausted wretch of a human being.

Mrs. Bucket days are the worst. I think the only bright spot in this whole miserable scenario is that there is, luckily, a tomorrow. I can pack it in and get a good night's sleep and there will be coffee and a sunrise in my future, and clean hair and a worn pair of jeans and my favorite boots and tomorrow I get another shot at doing this all over again...

Here's to keeping Mrs. Bucket at bay.

Things I learned this summer

Man, I cannot believe the summer is practically over. My summer, anyway. The rest of y'all still have like a month of it left. Actually, we down south have about 4 months of it left actually, so I win.

Ever since Lily and I moved to Louisiana - gasp! - four years ago, her dad and I concocted a harebrained yet workable arrangement which allows her to spend the school year with me, and the summer with him in New York.

It's a good deal, I think. Since I chose to take my kid and hightail it thousands of miles away from all of our family, I inadvertently put myself in a situation where I don't get a lot of relief at those times when I'm ready to lose myself in a single mama pity-party, so the summer, for the last three years anyway, has been a bit of a respite for me. OK more than a bit. It's fucking ruled.

Lil gets to go and live in the mountains and hang with her cousins; she enjoys healthy activities like swimming, tending her grandmother's vegetable garden, bonding with her dad, and generally cavorting the normal kid-in-the-summer way that our subtropical climate does not allow. I get to read more, not buy groceries, and join my boyfriend in bloody-mary-soaked brunches that sometimes extend to dinner time on Saturdays. My batteries get recharged and by the time fall rolls around, I've undergone a much-needed attitude adjustment and am ready to take it all on again.

The time apart is hard, make no mistake. It's very strange being a full-time single mother who is joined at the hip with her adored, possibly overindulged, attachment-parented offspring, and then suddenly being allowed to act like I did in my early twenties for a summer break. I go through the self-flagellation that goes along with letting ones nine-year old spend two months away from her. However, I think given the choice of a summer spent riding bikes outside and catching lightning bugs vs. two months sitting in some poorly air-conditioned rec room at the Y while the temperature outside verges on deep-fry, any fool would want the former for their kid. Since I work full time, and we live in a part of the country that has absolutely inhumanely high summer temperatures, it really is a no-brainer. New York it is.

The summer is also a nice time for me to reflect and allow myself to learn lessons that I otherwise might be too busy sticking my head up my own ass during the school year to figure out. Lke:

1. It's okay sometimes to drink alcohol at brunch, come home, take a nap, wake up, eat dinner, and binge-watch Netflix till bedtime. THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU.

3. You can make all the 'must do over the summer' lists you want in order to create the illusion of some sort of control over your life, but you will never get to everything. Maybe two things. One.

4. Since you have a kindle now and are all fancy and shit, and suddenly find yourself with a little extra time on your hands to read the 85 books on your Goodreads list, that doesn't mean it's wise to download a shit ton of them over the course of one month. Amazon ain't the library, dumbass . That shit adds up.

5. No matter how much you will it , your ex still isn't going to get his shit together and at least once in the coming school year you are going to be more than tempted to engage in that inevitable, icky exchange of hate-texts because he hasn't paid the school tuition. Try and stop yourself. Just pause…see if you can find that floating-in-a-sensory-deprivation-tank zen you reached this summer when your morning routine consisted solely of hitting snooze several times, slapping on some eyeliner, and driving to work while listening to NPR.
You can do it, girl. I know you can.

That's it for now. I get my little one back in two days. See y'all then.