The Telegraph

The Telegraph has a little blurb about The Simplest of Acts.

Apparently, I should be a little more careful about joking that I write to keep myself sane in a house of three children.

I am not Italian

But my daughter has taken to calling me in dramatic, arms in the air, her body collapsing against my legs, fashion: Mama Mia!

She has also seemingly begun to take stock of this whole baby brother thing. For the first month, she had been my rock, acting nearly unfazed by the addition of a baby to our household. If anything, she was helpful and enamored, wanting to kiss the babies knees, elbows, toes, eyes.

More recently now though, she goes between wanting to help and wanting to be helped. Perfectly normal, acceptable, fine.

What I'm having trouble with is that she has also developed a Cartman-esque (a la South Park) sounding baby talk. My daughter, who was speaking in full, clear, sentences at a year old, is now regressing to nasal gibberish.

Thankfully, she snaps out of it quickly. It only takes a disapproving look, or us questioning "what's that, Lila? I don't understand when you do baby-talk," and she'll stop.

And sure, there are times when I send mixed signals and find myself laughing at her, thus encouraging the behavior. But what's a mom to do when she's in the doctor's office with her three little ones, stripped from the waist down and wrapped in a sheet, when her little girl gets out of her chair and makes a point to walk all the way around the exam table to peek at her behind and say, in baby gibberish, "That your bum, mama?"

*Yawn*

I dreamt about work today. Work, work - not writing or raising my children. The boring, sit in a cubicle sort of work. And I realized that I hate it.

Ok, hate is a strong word. And the job itself is not terrible. It's the fact that I need it that makes me loathe it. I can't be free of it, should I decide that I just don't want to do it anymore. I'm carrying the health insurance for our family, not to mention that our bank account is in constant need of its own bail out.

Still, I can't help but feel like I was made for something more than the monotony of answering questions regarding 401K plans. And for that reason, my return to office life is looming overhead, reminding me that my life is not my own.

Give-Away

See my other blog for details on an author interview with little 'ol me, and also a chance to win a copy of The Simplest of Acts.

New

At the risk of posting an identical post here as I did over on my "writing" blog - I've gone out and made a non-blog site to have a more professional appearance on the web. I've been putting it off, because financially I didn't think it was the best investment at this time. But, I randomly clicked on a link to visit this site, that offers free websites and inexpensive domain name ownership.

So, I spent the better part of this beautiful day, attempting to make an author site. Here it is - what do you think?

Simply Saturday

The Brink

I can count on one hand the number of times that my mother let me down. The number of times she over-reacted, spoke too harshly, cursed, scared me into obedience. One. Hand.

Today, I had to apologize to my four year-old son, because I'm exhausted. Because my patience only wears so thin. Because, even if he doesn't understand why I said I was sorry, I know that I let myself down. Because...he deliberately pooped in his pants and then looked at me with moon-eyes and told me it was an accident.

And, even though I know that it has to be a reaction to suddenly being a big brother to two siblings, a reaction to suddenly not being the only son, to being my errand boy, to the pressure of being big and reliable - all the time. Knowing all this - with an infant crying and his sister squirting glitter glue all over the kitchen table, her fingers, her arms, her cheeks - I simply could not deal with being lied to, or, worst of all, the warm, stinky, poop in his underwear on my bathroom floor.

I. Snapped.

Into the shower he went - because I know the shower terrifies him. And as he cried and begged to be let out, I went on a verbal rampage. No cursing, but if those were the sort of words that were somewhere in the default of my arsenal, they would've come out, I'm sure. I was blinded by exhaustion and rage and that awful smell - and I just lost it.

It was the sort of anger that happens rarely, and when it does, I know better than to do any disciplining. It's "go to your room for a few minutes while Mommy calms down" sort of anger. Unfortunately, when your child is standing before you with smears of feces on his skin, there's no option but to deal with the situation in hand - anger and all.

And I failed.

My mom assures me that she had these exact moments when I was four. That she sat me on the couch and screamed that if I wanted to leave, I could just leave. That she too had been to the brink and wondered if she'd crossed it. And, you turned out ok, didn't you? She asks.

Did I?

Of course, I did. Of course.

This too shall pass.