I am moving yet again. My new home is at caloden.com. I am so giddy I might pee my pants at this new prospect! If you ever drop in to read the sillines here, please come join me here.

Caloden

I have never made any claims that I have easily adjusted to motherhood. After nearly 13 years at this gig, I still feel spanked at the end of most days. The past few days have been stingers. Although I bitch incessantly about my difficulties with Cassidy, I do love her to core of my being. For most of her life she has been the most amazingly glittered star in all of the sky. Her sass, her kick ass, get the hell out of my way approach to life have been such a gift -though sometimes when it is me she is kicking aside, I wonder just what it is I brought into the world. But in the last few months Cassidy's sparkle has faded. I didn't get it at first, and I might still be wrong. But when I really started watching her I realized that this child isn't eating. And not in a I-don't-like-this-fix-me-something-else way, but in a 400 calorie a day way. Not good for a growing girl. It could be she is physically sick somewhere in her skinny, boney body. I am taking her in for blood tests to rule out anything. But I suspect she started to cut back somewhere along the way in the past few months and now her stomach always hurts and she will go to all sorts of lengths to avoid eating.

But then ther are bright spots. Cassidy is going to Disney Land this Friday. The family that took her to Sea World for their older daughter's birthday is celebrating the little sister's birthday. She will again board a plane on Friday morning, land in L.A. and spend the day at Disney Land and return home in the evening. Craziness. Absolute insanity. I have my issues with this. Soaring gas prices, not enough fossil fuels to keep the world moving, holes in the ozone layer from too much pollution, what sort of message does this send, if she isn't eating how will she have the energy for this sort of excursion, all those sorts of things. But she is excited. I'll pack some protein bars in her pocket and hope for the best. What the hell else can I do?

We have a new expression in our house today. It is called the stinky lizard. It lurks in Devon's diaper. He finds this most amusing. When the lizard comes for a visit he runs as fast and as far as he possibly can so that the lizard can linger.

My boss is a cruel, cruel bastard. He insists I begin my work day at his whim, this usually means I clock in by about 5:45 a.m. He then requires me to tend to his every desire for the remainder of the day. The pay sucks. I ignore my needs for his. His communication skills are sub par and he is prone to tantrums. Little fucker.

Today, Mother's Day, is ending on a somewhat typical note of what a lousy and usuitable mother I am for Cassidy. I try. I swear to freaking god I try so damn hard with that child, but it so often does not work. We are the two repelling ends of the magnets. We so want to be the other, stick-together ends but we aren't. Yes, we have those stick-together moments, but they very often in end in a tiff or tears.

Tonight she and I decided to paint our toenails. I made the mistake of clipping my nails while she was in the tub because I view toenail clipping as rather gross and I wanted to just get it out of the way. Apparently she had envisioned us clipping and painting together and this put her into a pout.  There was another drama about her hair and yet another about bed time. I am now so irritated that I want to go out in the dark and walk around the block a few times. In fact I am in such a huff that I have grown melancholy because not only is it Mother's Day but it is also my 13th wedding anniversary. Or it would have been had Matt and I not gotten a divorce three and a half years ago.

Yes, you have to suspect the day has gone awry when you start wondering just what would that thirteenth anniversary gift have been. A new pair of shoes? A hot stone massage? But in all fairness I can't bitch about it too much, Matt and I never once celebrated our anniversary. I sometimes thought this was because Mother's Day doesn't always fall on a given date, it changes every year and we could never agree just what was the exact day of our nuptials. In my darker moments I used to think we didn't make a big deal out of it because there was nothing to celebrate. Getting hitched while 7 1/2 months pregnant with our dogs as bridesmaid and best man just never sat right with me. So try as I might this day has always just been about the mother gig for me. 

Funny thing is that it was on Mother's Day three years ago when I realized that I might be divorced but that I still cared. Matt took me out for breakfast, I can't remember where the kids were, and after a couple of mimosas I realized that I still loved talking with him more than just about any other person in the universe. We talked and talked. The more we talked, the better his voice sounded and the more I wondered just why I had divorced him. That day marked the beginning of our reconciliation for me.

Tonight, three years and another child later, I found a Mother's Day card on my pillow. All of them had signed it, even wee Devon. Aside from the Cass drama, it has actually been a lovely day. I slept in until 9:20 and Matt made me breakfast. We all went to Loren's soccer game, why there was a soccer game on Mother's Day I will never understand. Then the kids and I spent the afternoon with my folks while Matt went to visit his other love, the river, to fly fish. I doubt I will bring up the anniversary gone by aspect to anybody else. Afterall, is there a 10th anniversay, 3 years of divorce, 2 years of living in sin plus a bastard child gift? Maybe the folks at Jerry Springer could advise us on that one.

There are some days, usually mornings, when my mothering skills just don't shine. Perhaps it is the time of day or the lack of sufficient amounts of caffeine to lend mobility to my limbs, or maybe the cold hard truth is that I am no good at this. When I have these times I fear that the Mother of the Year award will never ever be mine to covet. I start to suspect that when the awards are held not only will I not receive an invitation, but that my name will be on the shoot-to-kill list, if sighted within three quare miles of the event, with all the other lame ass moms.

Yesterday was a day long shit fest of my lack of mothering skills. I spent most of the morning fighting the urge to lock Cassidy in a closet under a pile of dirty diapers. She refused to come downstairs because she could not locate the skirt she wanted to wear or the tights to match. She would not eat breakfast, pack up her lunch. Nothing. When finally my fury bubbled over enough that I hurtled over the baby gate and went stomping upsatirs, she locked herself in the bathroom. She muttered through the door that perhaps she could invite somebody else to her Mother's Day Tea, being held at her school on Monday afternoon. I told her to go scour the town looking for a willing victim. When she left for school I felt the most amazing sense of relief I have known in ages.

Cass returned home from school yesterday afternoon in tears. She had fallen from the tire swing and had a nasty bit of road rash on her head and cheek. I gave her the Medi-bear from the freezer, held her on my lap and then told her to go lie down. Big mistake on my part. Apparently she wanted to be cuddled all afternoon because after that the Thursday Evening Drama Show began. She would not eat the bagel I made for her, instead deciding that the only thing she could possibly ingest was a peice of pizza from the restaurant down the street. So plaguing was her need that all she could do was wail at the top of her lungs as she dragged herself from one end of the house to the other, but always just out of my arm reach. When her pizza request was denied, her bellows increased to screams until I grabbed a sweater and went over to the park in order to breathe and supress the urge to wrap her in dirty diapers.

When Matt came home I poked my head in the door, updated him on the drama and said I would be spending the rest of the afternoon and evening at my mother's house. I left him there in the kitchen, Cassidy draped over his shoulder and weeping about how mean I was. Loren was too engrossed in his computer game to utter more than a grunt of a good-bye, so I scooped up Devon and  made my escape. While at my mother's I received a near hourly phone call from Cass reminding me of her woes and implying their origins -me.

With a blunder of this size so close to Mother's Day I doubt I will receive that ever elusive M.O.T.Y. trophy. Maybe I could just get a lobotomy instead.

It's 6:54 a.m. This means the big kids will be up in another 6 minutes. The milk is out of date, which means no coffee until I drag my ass to the store. Things are nice with just Devon and me, he on the couch snuggling in all his softy blankets. The big kids will come down the stairs squabbling and demanding socks, breakfast, juice….

 I can't do it today. My head is still exploding from yesterdy's migraine. No. Can. Do.

A dear friend of mine suggested I write a list of the things I really and truly want from life. I am not so great with lists, so in an effort to commit to one I am going to do it here. It's not always easy to actually pipe up and say, "This is what I want, dammit." But here goes:

• A home where my kids can be themselves without criticism. Sometimes kids go through weird and annoying stages. To allow them to grow through these without hurting their feelings or making them uncomfortable in their own skin would be a gift to them.
• A place where it is acceptable to display emotions.
• Conversation. About anything.
• Empathy.
• Friends at the dinner table. Social contact.
• A decent monthly budget.
• Security -be it financial, emotional.
• Support -again, applicable to all aspects of functioning.
• Collaboration on home projects. Painting the walls, planting summer flowers.
• Stuff for me. Selfish, pehaps. but I want to go shopping for me sometimes. I want to go away for the weekend without the kids. A dinner out or a movie would be nice.
• I want my daughter to be respectful of me.
• I want my older two kids to love each other like they did when they were younger.
• I want my car back.
• I want a home with a yard, in my dreams I want one of these.

I might expand on this list, but this where it begins.

Whenever I go to the grocery store I encounter at least eight people I know quite well. A routine trip for a carton of milk can take anywhere from 20 mintues to almost an hour. I should have kept this fact in mind when I popped in this afternoon for a few things. Today I mainly needed to visit the first aid aisle. I don't know what the problem is with me right now, perhaps I am not drinking enough water, maybe I don't eat enough fiber, but whatever the case my lower end is reaching emergency status and I needed to tend to things.

I surveyed all the products and settled on a small box, 8 tablets. I rarely have this problem, in fact only when I am pregnant, so I didn't think I needed to buy an economy size.  (And, no I am NOT pregnant.) After grabbing the box, I pushed Devon (we had walked and he was strapped down in the Jogger) on to the fruit aisle in search of some ruffage. Unfortunately I ran into about five people between the two aisles. There I was  the small package clutched in one hand while I pushed the stroller with the other. As I chatted I completely forgot about my original intention for being in the store and the package in my hand. After about the fourth conversation I kept noticing the other person staring down at my hand. It wasn't until I found Matt in line and went to put my item in the cart that I realized what the people were noticing. That box in my hand with the giant letters spelling out EX LAX. 

Surely people must have better things to do than discuss my bowel routines. Surely. Thing is, if I ran into somebody in the store who was oblivious of a pack of laxatives she was holding for all the world to see, I would pass it on. Petty? Yes. Small? That's me. Sometimes karma kisses you in oddest of ways. 

A few days ago I was channel surfing when I happened upon True Hollywood Story: Chris Farley. I have a fairly high tolerance for smut and trash so I almost always enjoy this show. I was never really a huge Chris Farley fan. I will laugh for a half hour at Jim Carrey's talking butt cheeks but Chris Farley pitching into a coffee table, I don't get that. The show documented Farley's early years as a devoted Catholic and an overweight kid clowning around to get friends. It then went on to chronicle his rise to fame, his addictions and his death. Truly a sad story and one that has haunted me since I saw the show. Normally I wouldn't be so wrapped up in a show, but this story is so painfully similar, minus the financial success, fame and death parts, to that of my brother's.

About three years ago I had to finally sever most ties with my sibling. Summer always seems to be a difficult time for his problems. We spent a weekend in Denver celebrating Loren's 10th birthday at Elitch's Sixx Flags and a Denver Rapids soccer game. My brother, D., came along for the fun. During the afternoon of the Elitch's trip I knew things were on a downward spiral when he began to disrobe to get in the wave pool. He was probably far over 300 pounds at the time and none of us could ever remember seeing him shirtless. I also knew, from his various tales, that the more far gone he is the more his love of nudity.

As far as I could tell he was the only one in the park packing multiple flasks of Jack Daniels. He was the only one who nearly drowned my six year-old daughter in the wave pool and, later in the afternoon, he was the only person I could see passed out on a park bench. Loren was a little too young to grasp the whole thing, but I think Cass understood some of it when she was gasping for breath while being dragged under six feet of water by a slurring 300 pound man.

Later that same summer D. watched our townhome while Matt and the kids and I went to Utah for a weekend visit. I returned home to find smashed glass all over the floors, bloody hand prints on the walls and my brother passed out in Loren's bed. His face was covered in scabs, dried blood and bruises. While the children were brushing their teeth, their uncle stumbled into the bathroom and attempted to talk to them. He stank and slurred a stunningly lame tale about self pity and how hard his life was. I was passing by the bathroom and I happened to catch the look of confusion and horror on the children's faces as I glimpsed them in the miroor.

That was it. That was the defining moment. Sadly it was not the near demise of Cassidy or the ruin of Loren's birthday. It was watching the two of them lose a bit of their innocence. That image of Loren and Cassidy brushing their teeth with my beaten and bloodied brother drunkenly swaying in the background will forever stay with me. 

The heartbreak of addiction is horrible. My brother has not overdosed yet. He has confided to me that he has many times come close. But the life he leads to feed his addictions is filled with anger and violence and it will not surprise me when I someday will likely be on the receiving end of a very sad phone call.

I will sometimes go months without thinking of my brother. But since that THS episode I have been thinking about him constantly. I picked up the phone and called him today. Save for his heavy Xanax prescription he claims to be clean and sober right now. It was a good chat.

For about three years when Loren was a baby D. was clean and sober. I will forever miss that part of my brother. There might be some afternoons like today when he is clear headed and sober. And I will always hope for more.