IF CHAGO WERE PRESIDENT

Okay, so in case you couldn't tell... This is the jumbotron "so the whole world can see me and listen to what I have to say." And this, naturally, is the speech bubble in which he is pushing his "everyone should love each other and no one should fight anymore" policy.  [Already the hypocritical little politician.] And just look at that cultish following.  I feel as if I have good reason to be afraid. Very very afraid.

HOW TO PLANT A GARDEN IN AN HOUR

"Ew, Mama!!  A grub!  A grub!!!"

And what do you know, it was a grub.  So, I scooped it up (oh yeah, I sure did) and held it out for them to see.

Chago was surprisingly way more squeamish than she was about it, but not because he doesn't like bugs -- it's just that it was dirty.  Clean bugs, they're cool.  Dirty bugs, not so much.

But they both at least made an effort to touch and hold, and then...SCHWING! off it went over the hedge.  Lost in transplantation.

And that was just the first 5 minutes of our gardening adventure today.

Strapped for time, but on the chalkboard as item #6 of our things that must get done today was "PLANT THE GARDEN".

Yeah.  Like, from scratch.

And no, I don't know what I was thinking.  Clearly, I'm losing brain cells by the second now.

But swayed by the springy weather and heavily influenced by the pushy, questionably intoxicated, cashier, I'd picked up 6 packets of seeds earlier in the week.  You know, just to have.  For later.  L.A.T.E.R.

But once they saw them lying on the counter, there was just no way out.  Then it was all when? when? when?  And at some point -- maybe drunk again -- I finally said we'd do it on Sunday.

And then Sunday came.  And we hadn't finished a whole slew of regular things yet, let alone attempting a new major project.  But there was no way I was getting out of it, and I was already feeling so weak from lack of chai and the pounding please! please! please! reverberating between my ears that I finally just gave up, and so it made it onto the board:

And off we went.  Bam! Bam! Bam!  One, two, and three all done before 9:45.

Got a little hung up at Starbucks (let's call that #3.5) before hitting the Target vortex, at which point, it of course felt like time stood still, only it was 3 hours later when we finally emerged.  Starving.

Home and a quickie crab pasta salad later, and the Now? Now? Now? began.

It was exactly 4:30 by the time I got all our gardening gear together, got everyone changed into longsleeves, and finally made it to little plot of yard we'd chosen as our victim.

Four-thirty!  How the hell was I ever going to get a quiche in the oven and dessert on the table by 6???

"Alright, troops!" I yelled.  "We have exactly one hour to get this thing cleaned out, dug up, seeds planted, and garden watered!"

"CAN. WE. DO. IT?!?!?" I shouted in my best Private Benjamin voice.

"Mom, who are you yelling at?" Saia says looking around.

"Oh, nevermind. Let's just get to work."

And in case you were wondering...


And yes, we used all the seeds in all five of the packets (despite my mother's warning).

And yes, that WAS only a 4 x 6 area we converted.

And clearly, I have gone completely insane. But won't it be funny in about 3-6 months?

Do you see the lengths to which I go just to keep you entertained?

You're welcome.

BRING ON THE SUN!!!

Yay!! Another blue card week. And really, thank God and all her santitos, because this week has really had its downer moments.

But lo and behold, they pulled it off, and so, as pinky-to-pinky-to-pinky-sworn last week, we would find a new park every Friday while the weather permitted to conquer and destroy. 

And (and here's the part where I must've been drunk) we would stay there as long as they wanted to. [But really, read: until the veins in Mama's temples are pulsating dangerously close to eruption or an hour before dinner time -- whichever comes first.]

So, determined to right all miscommunication, misunderstandings, and my perceived bad mama moments for the week in one fell swoop, I dutifully held up my end of the bargain and off we went.

Click PLAY button below for slideshow

Photo stills being uploaded into our GALLERY tab in the header.

And truly, it was just as peaceful and serene as it appears in the slideshow (except for the random but painfully frequent screeching of my own spawn), that I really could've just plopped myself down right there by the side of the lake with an iced chai in one hand and a great book en la otra (or my new must-have, a Kindle, better still!!!).  

Only one thing...

I totally forgot about our little deal as I was getting dressed this morning, as I find it terribly difficult to keep track of time and days since leaving my job back in DecemberNovember. But a promise is a promise.  

So, I did it all in THIS get up.   In 78-degree weather.   Yes, with THAT bi-ass lime green  purse on my arm.

And, in case you missed it, THESE on my little tootsies.

(Aren't they cute? Another fabulous Amy purchase.)

"He-he-he, you sure are brave to hike the trail in those," some scraggly old man jiggling as he jogged around the mountain thought it oh-so-important to impart.

"Did you see her shoes?" faux-whispered some designer sweatsuited women as they speed-walked (or is it sped-walked) past me...for the THIRD time.

And then my personal favorite from the toothless redneck with the bucket of fish and an duct-taped Igloo, "Hot enough for ya?!  Ay?" as I trekked back down the hill trying to tell myself that my face was just glistening, that the heels were making my calves ripple, and that it was just a cool breeze I felt rolling down between my breasts.

[pant. pant. glistening. pant.]

Yeah.  Heh-heh-heh.  Shutthefuckup.

Now, tell me I don't love my children more than my shoes life, dammit!!!

THE SAIA AND CHAGO SHOW - EPISODE 4 - JOBS @ SCHOOL

In which the monsters interview one another on the topic of jobs at school and, more specifically, on which are their most faves, least faves, and why.

Catch all episodes of The Saia & Chago Show by clicking on the tab up there in the header anytime, or take a peek at the latest episode by just clicking here:

View Episode 4 - Jobs @ School

I AM SUCH A WITCH

I honestly don't know that I can get through this post without breaking down, so you'll just have to bare with me if I ramble.  Or don't.  I don't care.  I'm feeling utterly ashamed and mortified already.  You can't do me much worse today.

For the last few weeks, Chago's behavior has significantly improved at school.  At home, though, it's been a completely different story.  He's been lashing out at his sister more than ever, ignoring or forgetting specific instructions (to pick this up or put that away), and rolling his eyes or making a series of increasingly disrespectful noises of exasperation when I catch and/or call him on either.

Typically, this leads to a timeout.  Huge infractions that result in, say, bleeding or bruising from a non-accidental whack, result in loss of privileges or favorite books or animals for a set period of time.

But the friggin' eye-rolling and the smart-mouthing has gotten really out of hand lately.  And I will admit, even my best positive-parenting efforts seem to devolve of late into a yelling and finger-wagging spectacle.

Recognizing yesterday, again, that that wasn't getting us anywhere, again, I tried to pull him aside, again, after we'd both calmed down, again, to have, yes, again, another talk.

So, I'm sitting on the floor cross-legged and I've got him in my lap with both my arms wrapped tightly around him and I whisper into his ear how special I think he is and how amazing he is and how everyday he surprises me with something new and fantastic that I didn't know about him.  And he smiles and his eyes fill with tears and he turns and wraps his scrawny little arms around my neck and squeezes with all his might.

"So what are we gonna do about this, bubba," I continue through teary eyes of my own.

And he pulls away and looks downward into his lap.

"What are we gonna do so that we don't end up in that place anymore?"

"I can try to listen when you tell me to do something the first time," he says.

"Sure, babe, but we've been here before, and you've said that before, and here we are again, so maybe we need to think of another way to solve this problem.  Because it really hurts me to be upset with you and to see you so upset with me.  So, what can I do to help us not get there that anymore?"

And this is when he breaks my heart.  Tears it into a million tiny pieces.  Drowns and dissolves it in a pool of my own salty tears.  And it's mostly because in this moment he is exactly like me.  He knows exactly what he needs to say.  He knows how powerful words are. He knows how to use them.  And, most painfully, he knows when.

"Mama," he begins, softly and timidly, but looking me right in the eye.  "Mama, it's that you remind me of a witch when you yell and it scares me so much that I don't know what I should be doing anymore."

And I can no longer breathe.

WELL-WORLD WEDNESDAY

So, for today's save-the-world tip, we WERE going to recommend boycotting Kleenex.

And why would we ever want to give up the softy soft on our tushy tushes, you ask?

Well, because according to the Greenpeace email I received, Kimberly-Clark, Kleenex’s parent company, "clears ancient forests, essential in fighting climate change and providing a home to wildlife like caribou, wolves, eagles and bears, to make disposable products that are used once and then thrown away."

Clearly, anything that outright harms the wolves and eagles is a no-no in our house.  And that is that, as far as Chago is concerned.  For Amy, Saia, and I, though, well, we've got a little bit of an issue with scraping our noses and tushies with sandpaper.  

And I know some people will argue that it's a small price to pay to help the environment.  But, you know what, there's got to be a better way, and it's NOT such a small price, people.

Greenpeace further recommends purchasing products from companies like Green Forest, Natural Value and Seventh Generation, but suggests shoppers avoid products made from Charmin, Angel Soft and Kimberly–Clark. 

They've even provided a handy-dandy little cheatsheet you can cut out and keep with you for when you go shopping to help you determine for yourself how much your pocket book can absorb to help save the planet.  And wasn't that helpful?

But how am I gonna pay for the recommended paper on which to print the handy-dandy little cheatsheet, let alone purchase the Greenpeace-approved products when they easily cost twice as much, if not more than (when you take into consideration sales and coupons) the oh-so-evil-brand-not-be-mentioned-again-lest-we-appear-to-be-promoting-it? 

And yes, I do understand, logically, why organic products and products that are better and safer and healthier for the world and all its occupants must cost more to make (sorta), but THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS MAKING IT SO HARD FOR THE REST OF US TO HOP ON THAT BANDWAGON!!  It's not that we don't want to contribute to the sustainability and energy conservation movement.  It's that it's gonna break us to do so.

So, trying to do my due diligence, I read among a host of statistics on the Kimberly-Clark website that:

By 2009 we anticipate that our use of
fiber from Canada’s Boreal forest will be
reduced by nearly 70 percent from 2007
levels. This substantial reduction is the
result, in large part, of our stated preference
for fiber from Forest Stewardship Council
(FSC) certified suppliers.

So, WTF?? I mean, it's bad enough that choosing those obviously good-for-you products with little green trees or the "all natural" or "organic" stamped all over it already has me bending over at the cash register.  But is it even necessary anymore? 

Are the EPA and watchdog organizations like Greenpeace not doing a good enough job monitoring these big guys that we can now begin to trust that they too are making reasonable efforts to conserve their planet? And even if we don't believe that they're making changes for our sakes and the sake of our children's children, can't we at least recognize that the changes ARE INDEED happening?  That sustainability is now one of most major company's corporate objectives?  That it has become beyond necessary for a company to remain competitive in this market that they MUST include traceable, quantifiable, and significant efforts towards energy and planet conservation?  Or, hell, that they just can't afford the negative publicity and just don't want to be boycotted anymore?

And if they ARE trying to do better, and have shown significant improvement over the years, should we continue to punish them by only buying earthy-crunchy stuff at Whole Paycheck Foods?  I mean, where does positive reinforcement come into play?

So, I guess my central thorn here is that I'm just not sure anymore what I should be doing.  And it irritates me that someone is always lying about something just to one-up someone else.  And yes, I realize this a capitalistic society, but protecting the planet has become a moral imperative.  I mean, HASN'T IT, for f*ck's sake?!?!?

Shouldn't we all be working together right now to educate and advise the global population of the best course of action for our own sustainability (as a whole) regardless of who gets the biggest profit?  Can't we call a competitive truce for 5-7 years?  Develop some sort of Earth Consortium with representatives from all major corporations who agree to a price-freeze for a given period of time?

Alright, I know, nevermind.  Clearly I've gone over the edge.

But my point is, what the hell am I going to shop for on Saturday that's good for my family, helps our environment, and still fits within our dwindling budget?  Where's THAT cheatsheet?  And who's compost do I have to sort through to get to it?

A WHORES IS A WHORES, OF COURSE, OF COURSE

Pardon the really bad play on words, but I could not stop it from looping in my head until I wrote it down.  So, there.  It's out.  Thank you for being there for me.  I owe you a KrispyKreme.

----

"Mama?" he begins last night just as our goodnight ritual is over and I'm about to walk out of the room. [Of course.]

"Yes, son?" I ask from the doorway.

"Mama, can I ask you something?"  Which always means, come a little closer, please, this is serious.

"Of course, son," I monotone, "You can always ask me anything."  [Trying to plant those seeds, baby.]

And as I sidle up to him on the bed and brush the wisps from his face, he makes that look, like he's trying to remember something, which usually means he's been stewing over something for a few days, or weeks, or even months.  And I begin to realize very quickly that I'm not getting out of here anytime soon.

"Mama, what's a concubine?"

[Cut to background info while I stop my head from spinning around.]

Months and months ago, they received Mulan 2.  Maybe it was Christmas.  I really can't keep track anymore.

And somewhere pretty early on in the movie, the 3 guards are singing about "A Girl Worth Fighting For."  Okay, you with me?  Just scene setting here.

And then sometime later when the guys and Mulan are back at the Emperor's palace, all dressed up and disguised as geishas in order to get past the Huns, and right here in the middle of the movie, in a place I still can't believe I missed, given that our obsessive compulsive children have watched it at least -- AT LEAST -- 4500 times in the last 3 months, there, apparently, is a part where one of the guards, successfully tempted by the disguised heroes, says something, like, "Ooooh, concubines!"

CON. CU. BINES!!!!

Disney.  Children's Movies.  Rated less than G for "Gee, you don't really need to worry about anything here 'cause we won't put anything racy in our movies that will require you to, say, have to explain to your 6-year-old child what a morally loose woman is and why that's enticing enough to be used as a tool to lure the men from their posts and save the day."

So, I think I muttered something about that being a specific type of job, set in a specific place and time, that essentially entailed doing whatever they needed to do to make the men happy, and left it at that.

F*ck!!

What would you have said?

BELATED TAHOE PICS POSTING

Totally forgot to post the Tahoe pics from, like, two weeks ago.

For future reference, you can always find recent pics updated under the MORE PICS tab in the header of the blog.

But here's a little taste to tide you over.  

Lots of snow.  Lots of fun.  Lots of sun. 

No vomitous episodes, from either child, from either parent, from neither end.  No cuts, no scrapes, no profuse bleeding traumas.  No broken bones.  No flat tires.  No freezing rain and soaked clothing.  

= a grand time

Amazing how your definition of "success" completely changes once you've got children.

Click here to see the rest of the pics:  Tahoe Trip Slideshow

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR SAIA

Went to the park on Friday afternoon as a reward for another pretty decent week at school.   

FOUR. HOURS. LATER. and with no wireless anywhere to be found, I was just about ready to pull my hair out.  All of it.  From anywhere.  And I'm Mexican, for crissakes -- I'm covered in it!!! 

And, honestly, I mean, no offense to new moms or moms of toddlers 'cause, Lord knows, I was there -- squared, but it was truly a revelation for me to realize that I no longer have that kind of patience.  Or maybe it's that I have a different kind of patience now.  Like maybe your level of tolerance recalibrates with every new developmental milestone?  It must.  IT MUST!!!  Because right now, I can barely stand 5-to-6-year-olds, let alone the sniveling screaming meamies who, for some karmic reason, were magnetically attracted to me and all my shiny things (Mac, iPhone, camera, keys) all friggin' afternoon.

So, finally, finally, the gods of time let enough of the minutes pass that, hanging on to my very last nervelet, I was able to screech like a demonic banshee holler through gritted teeth that we were leaving in 5 minutes.  And then also informed my kids.

He went running for the slide for one last run.  She ran for the climbing rock.  

And right there, in the last minute-and-a-half of my time in preschool purgatory, the whole damn afternoon proved totally worth the trouble.

Totally.  What an awesome little chickie we've got.

TAKE A LITTLE OFF THE TOP, WOULD YA?

Came across another interesting topic on the Momversation site, this one regarding the always controversial To Cut or Not To Cut debate over circumcision.

I was really disturbed by the harsh words many of the anti-circ camp flung at the pro-circs.  And yes, as you may have already guessed, chose to respond.  

Here's mine:

"And the Sneetches on beaches had no stars upon thars."

In the end, we chose not.

Weighed heavily the health and hygiene aspects. Considered briefly the locker room mocking. Have no father to match his member to. By definition, is elective mutilation, and had no medical or religious reason at the time for doing so. And ultimately were swayed most by the removal of his right to choose.

If he decides later that cosmetic surgery is necessary for his own reasons, then we'll revisit that, and likely this list of amazingly helpful advice, if/when that time comes.

But do I judge you for choosing to circumcise your own child? How could I?

I don't want to be judged for not being actively religious, for being gay, for choosing to raise children in a gay family, or for choosing to have children at all when there are so many that need to be adopted and the world is overpopulated as it is, or for not dressing my age, or for breastfeeding my twins til they were two -- in public sometimes, or for putting our kids in a private school, or for choosing not to slather their cupcakes with frosting, or for not volunteering in my community, or for not raising my children in a proper bilingual Spanish household, or for sometimes yelling at my kids, or for sometimes yelling at my partner in front of my kids, or for allowing them to still bathe together at 6, or for co-sleeping for the first 3 months of their lives and realizing I hated it, or for moving across the country to be as far away from my family as possible, or for soy versus 2%, or for brown eggs vs white, or organic vs affordable, or for carnivores vs vegetarians...

So, I guess what it came down to for me was just this:

My Sneetch. His Star. Our Business.

So, what's your feeling on this one?  I mean, besides the fact that we've now got the added future expense of the therapy sessions it's going to take to console the boy about the fact that the whole world now knows more about Chago's jalapeno than he does.

THE CHAGO & SAIA SHOW - EP 3 - BIRTHDAY

In which the monsters attempt to discuss what they liked most about their birthday this week.

WHEN IS IT OK TO LIE TO YOUR KIDS?

"Do you lie to your kids?" ask the Momversation site this week.

Well, I think we should first take off the table from the get-go the "little white lies" we tell to spare someone's feelings -- like "you always look beautiful" or "of course I can tell that chicken scratch is a loving portrait of our family" or "no, the little bits of green in there are herbs, not spinach, now just eat your pot pie please".

I think we all have versions of the little white lie that we use in our daily lives, some maybe more than others, some maybe not so little, but for the most part, they can't really be considered lies as much as they are buffers to the truth.

Potato, potahto, I know, but there you go.

The rest of the lies we allow ourselves to tell our children seem to me to fall into 3 big buckets.

1) To avoid conversations that make US uncomfortable (sad, awkward, hurtful) -- maybe about death, divorce, transvestite hookers, for instance.

Being a lesbian latina couple born and bred into fairly traditional Mexican Catholic families, we made a concerted decision very early on to not lie to our kids about real-life situations. Too much of our own lives were affected so negatively by "well-intentioned" lies in the past for us to justify the hypocrisy and perpetuate unnecessary pain. It's not always been easy, for certain. And we have to remind each other often that the truth is really okay to say out loud. But children are surprisingly accepting of the world as it is, of people as they are, because truly they don't come with those predefined social filters built in. Those are inherited.

Depending on their age and understanding of the concept, though, we will provide more or less detail about a certain topic. Do they need to understand what HIV and AIDS are? Sure. It's so prevalent in our society today that they are bound to hear about it from one medium or another, from a child at school, or because they know someone or are someone who is infected. But do they need to know what sharing drug needles and having unprotected sex actually entails? God, no. At least, not yet. They're only 6. But we will have to be ready. Which leads me to #2.

2) To protect our children from things they're just not ready for developmentally. This one's a little harder to judge, I think, because very often parents will put lies that actually belong in bucket #1 into bucket #2, at which point I do think it's doing more harm than good because now the parents are actually lying to themselves, too.

That our children's moms have chosen to spend their lives together as a family has nothing to do with sex. Therefore, explaining homosexuality to children is no different than responding to, "Mom, why is Karl's skin so much darker than mine?" Because that's the way they were born, and this is the way I was born, and everyone's different, and that's what makes the world such an amazing place.

And finally...

3) To perpetuate fairy tales we may recall from our own childhood that hold fond memories or warm places in our hearts still. I think Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny all kind of fall into this one. I don't think it's such a big deal either. I do agree with fostering children's imaginations (to a point). Completely disagreed, for instance, when the kids wanted to build a leprechaun trap this week so that they could take his gold. But not because I didn't think it was ok for them to believe in little green men who bring luck and good fortune to the world -- just don't really condone the whole theft and abduction scheme.

But I also agree with the method some moms have alluded to of turning it back around on the children, so that they do determine on their own when it no longer makes sense for them to believe in these imaginary characters. Having been in their shoes, I think most of us can agree that at some point, we do grow out of it. But storytelling and the employment of metaphors and analogies to respond to questions about why the sky is blue, where rainbows come from, how the seasons change, why the wind blows, how the stars got into the sky, or any other infinite number of "why, why, whys" has been a part of most cultures since the beginning of time. They're traditions, customs, rituals. And while I'll concede that they're not always necessarily educational, they're certainly not hurtful. I would insist, however, that they could be more informational, and that we as parents could probably do a better job of providing more background information about the origin of "retail holidays" so that they're not stripped entirely of their true meaning and commercialized just for the sake of commercialization (ala "Festivus" from Seinfeld).

Cultural variations of these myths and fairy tales exist all over the world. Maybe it would be a fun family project to research the way another culture celebrates or recognizes a particular holiday and incorporate some of those customs into our own to create a holiday that isn't just a distant echo of something real, but something new and real that we've created together?

So, lying to our kids? Eh, to each his own, I guess. All I know is I'm not gonna be the one to tell them their birthday wish isn't gonna come true this year. And I'm okay with that.

What do you think?

WELL-WORLD WEDNESDAY

Easy, peasy, lemonade squeezy.

• microwaves and BBQ grills use less energy than stoves and don't heat up your home when you're trying to stay cool
• try not to buy products with excessive or unnecessary packaging and buy products in the largest size practical so as to reduce the product:packaging ratio. 
• try to put off shopping whenever possible -- you may find that you didn't really need it, and you make less trips to the store
  

BUT WHAT IF I DON'T WANT THEM TO GROW UP

I'm overwhelmed today with sadness.  Don't want them to grow up.  Am thinking this is probably what got Nadya Suleman into trouble, though, and need to stop thinking these thoughts.

But six is just so old.  There's just no way to pretend they're still babies now.  At least not any legal way.  

They make their beds every morning (and I use all of those words very loosely), pick out their clothes, dress themselves, brush their own hair and teeth (and sometimes even manage to keep the toothpaste in their mouth and out of their hair).  

They feed and water the dogs, bring the garbage in and out, help put away the laundry and the groceries (under threat of nakedness and starvation, sure, but still).

They're reading and writing and arithmeticking.  Giving presentations, going on field trips, and putting on plays (ok, it was one very lonnnnng act at home, but it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, so it counts).

They're recognizing bullies and mean girls from 20-feet-away now and are arming themselves every single day with more and more witty comebacks and brilliant sarcastic retorts like, "Nu-uh," and "I know you are, but what am I?"

And, of course, I want to see what they're going to be like in 10 years.  Hell, I can't imagine the changes they're going to go through this summer alone.  But the babies they were.  I can't help but miss that.  The way they felt in my belly (all 209 lbs of us at 40 weeks). 

The first time they nursed.  Their furry (and you'll understand this if you're Mexican), round, roly-poly bodies.  The way their tummies jiggled when they laughed.  Their monkey fingers and toes curled around any and every thing within reach.  

The way they smelled in the crooks of the necks.  (And as I write that, my nose crinkles at the thought of my smelly little monsters today.  Sweat and lint and...gunk trapped in crevices and corners and follicles and pores that no amount of bathing or wet wipes seem to be able to alleviate.)  But back to the happy place...

And the quiet peace on their faces as they slept (for that whole two hours at a time).

But mostly today I guess I just feel blessed.  By something, someone greater than myself.  That I could create and grow something -- two somethings -- so magnificent, so perfect, without an instruction manual or survival guide.  And that despite all of my mistakes along the way (feel free to search this site for "another bad mama moment"), and no matter how far they flee as soon as they're able, they still and will always be my babies.