Thanksgiving 2016

We're all sick, so we're skipping the family gatherings this year to stay home and try to recuperate together. We've been to Kroger twice today - Jimi went out this morning for meds and some miscellaneous fixin's to help us create a mini-Thanksgiving dinner, and within 2 hours I was back for pie plates (totally thought I had one) and convenience foods because, well, sick + toddlers = we need easy stuff. So far the menu for tonight is: Bacon Spam, Dressing, Mac & Cheese, Ve...getable Soup, Corn on the Cob, Salad with Olive Garden Dressing (that is an important detail if you want the toddlers to actually eat the salad)...

(We were originally going to have chicken breasts, but dammit, I love bacon spam, and it's way easier than thawing and dealing with raw chicken, so eff it, guess what's the main course tonight? Go on. Judge me.)

Also, I'm baking a Derby pie, because I love pecan pie + chocolate chips. We don't need it, but I'm going to eat it anyhow, and without guilt. Same with those TGIFriday's tater skins I bought.

I'm thankful that our sickness is temporary and mild. I'm thankful for my husband whose good humor and self control holds our family together when the females in the house start to lose their minds. I'm thankful for my little girls, who are miracles by whom I will never stop being amazed. I'm thankful for a warm home and plentiful food. I'm thankful for amazing family and friends. I'm thankful for my new work home, and the happiness that comes from a job and coworkers you genuinely enjoy.

2016 has been so awful outside of the walls of our humble little home - there is so much anger and fear and cruelty. I'm thankful for the privilege that has kept us mostly insulated from most of the awful - we are so fortunate to be in a position to literally decide we just don't want to see it anymore, and we can turn it off and walk away and pretend it doesn't even exist. I try hard to remember to be thankful, and to look for the good - there is so much good.

I hope your day and weekend is full of love. I hope you have people tell you they love you, and I hope you have people to say it to. I hope you get good strong hugs that make you feel safe. I hope there's warm delicious food to eat. I hope you have a comfortable place to sit while you eat your meal, and afterward, I hope the dessert is sweet and the coffee strong. I hope the conversation flows easily and is sprinkled with laughter. I hope you're able to find time to do whatever it is that recharges you and makes you feel awesome. I hope this Thanksgiving is the best Thanksgiving ever for you and yours.

I love you.

So yeah. Happy Thanksgiving, yo.

WTFUSA?

I went to bed at 10 o'clock.  I felt sick, full of nervousness and fear.  I woke up several times throughout the night, but didn't peek at my phone until sometime after 3.  I don't think I actually went back to sleep after that. 

I had to be at work early - I had meetings with 4 customers today.  All of whom were positively giddy over the election results.  I sat in a room with three men while they laughingly discussed how their small children asked "Is she going to jail now?", and how they just hoped they held off on convicting her until after Obama is out of office, so he can't pardon her.  It took every ounce of my professionalism and self-restraint to not walk out of the room, or worse.   

I listened to yesterday's Moth podcast episode - do you listen to Moth podcasts?  You should.  This one was a story about a family's voting legacy - one that began with literacy tests.  I cried. 

I still feel like I need to just let it go and have a good cry.  I got myself going this morning by repeatedly reminding myself to not stress over things I cannot control, to focus on the immediate things in my life that I can do something about - like calming G down because she hates these white socks and wanted the pink socks.  I remind myself that I voted for them, for the ideas I have about the world I want them to grow up in.  I read Facebook and Instagram and most of you are hurting today in the same way I am; you're scared like me; you're worried what this all means. 

So, for now, I'm just going to keep on keeping on.  I'm going to teach my little girls to treat others as they want to be treated. I'm going to surround them with this amazing village of ours, full of brilliant and compassionate people who aren't scared.

I'm going to try to learn to be less scared, too. 

I can't believe how depressed I am over this shit.  I feel like someone died. 

I hope.  I hope.  I hope. 

Ugh.

I just want to take a nap and wake up when it's all over. So much nervous excitement! I woke up a few times throughout the night, excited and scared and nervous and anxious...all of the feels. Like that tweet said, Christmas Eve and the night before a life-endangering surgery.

I held my almost-2-year-old as I stood in line this morning to cast my ballot. We've been through three elections in this home, at this polling place, and we've never stood in line. We had to par...k outside the gates because the lot was full. I fought back the misty tears that threatened to spill over. Jimi held our 3 year old's hand. I thought of what this day is going to mean for them. More mist.

I filled in that bubble that wavered in and out of focus because of my emotional tear ducts, surrounded by the usual chaos of life with toddlers, urging Geneva not to shake the polling booths as I cast my ballot, trying to keep Cora from dive-bombing out of my arms onto the floor. This significant, historic moment, rolled up and mingled with all the normal day-to-day.

I voted for them. I voted for their future. Because, I gotta be honest, this election cycle has brought out a lot of feelings of guilt for this shit show we've brought them into. I'm hoping that tonight will remind me of the inherent good in the world; that most people genuinely do want to do what's best for their fellow human.

#ImWithHer

Just two hours ago.

I'm disgusted.  I hope I wake up and the tide has turned. 

I'm so scared.

Election Eve

It's almost over.  YAY! 

I have a feeling I'll drink a few tomorrow night.  Hopefully in celebration and not despair.  I'm meeting clients for breakfast Wednesday, so at least I'll be able to feed a hangover if necessary.  Though I don't think I will be able to take any gloating...

I hope we have a clear winner this time tomorrow.  I hope it doesn't drag on and on and on. 

I hope it's a motherfucking landslide.

I'm With Her. 

Forward, not backward. 

Love, not hate.

Hope, not fear.

Go Vote. 

I miss sleep.

We've had a rough week.  Well, not really, but we've not slept much.  Maybe it's Halloween, the changing season, the unseasonably warm weather - for whatever reason, the girls have had a hard time going to bed, and then they've woken around midnight every night, and again at 3 - it's been rough.  Jimi and I are both operating on very low levels of rest, so we're grouchy and exhausted and a little delirious at times. 

Our girls have never been great sleepers.  Maybe for a night or two when they were itty bitty.  Mostly, they've gotten up at least once or twice (or five times) a night for their entire lives.  When you consider that I also was waking several times a night beginning at about month 5 of my pregnancy with Geneva, that's 4 solid years of shitty sleep for me.  I'm so fucking tired. 

I blame myself.  Of course I do.  I'm their mom, it's obviously my fault that something about them is not ideal.  Right?  Seriously, I think it's because I've nursed them on demand for so long, because I've never sleep trained them, I've never consistently made them stay in their beds and cry themselves to sleep - so of course Geneva runs into my bedroom at 2 a.m. and demands I go lay down with her, because "3 year olds are very little and need their mommies!" (as she tearfully explains).  Of course Cora wakes at 3:35 every morning and refuses to even pretend to attempt to go back to sleep until her diaper has been changed and her belly has been filled with milkies. 

Cora turns two on the 15th of this month.  I'm done.  I'm cutting them off.  It's so far beyond time to end this sweet period in our lives that it's no longer sweet - it's a sour burden that I dread and resent and man, that's not how it's supposed to be. 

I don't know how we're going to do this just yet.  I've started taking to them about how mommies only have milkies when the babies are little and need the milkies, and now that they're both such big girls, mommy isn't going to have milkies anymore, that the milkies will go away.  Geneva understood this to mean: "Your milkies are going to go away because we're big.  Then you'll have little nipples like me."  So we've got some more talking to do, but I think she mostly gets the idea.

I'm just so tired.  If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to start sleeping on a blowup mattress upstairs.  They wouldn't think to look for me upstairs.  And I bet after a few nights of mommy not responding to their middle-of-the-night wake-ups, I bet they'd cut that shit right out.  We found an article recently that talked about how it's been scientifically proven that children behave worse in front of their mothers than in front of any other adult; I'm so glad it's not just true in my home.  My girls aren't bad, they are very sweet and wonderful - they're just manipulative as fuck when it comes to me and I'm a sucker.

So that's where we are in the Fowler home at 7:26 this lovely Saturday morning in November.  I don't know if it's actually a lovely Saturday or not - it's still dark outside.  We turn the clocks back tonight, so it can be dark when we get to work and dark when we get home for a few months, to challenge our society's mental health status. 

I'm a ray of sunshine this morning.  I should probably take a nap...