June 30, 2013

Sunday Blogaround - 6.30.13

Hello, lovely readers! And welcome to another edition of the blogaround!

Today, my brood and I are at Chicago's 44th Annual Pride Parade. As you can imagine, what with recent developments in the national news, it's kind of a big deal. This week, the girls and I made rainbow t-shirts for them to wear. They've never been to a Pride Parade. When we're in the middle of nowhere next week for Independence Day, they'll probably find whatever shenanigans the resort town on the lake produce to be... a tad underwhelming. We'll see.

On to the blogaround!



Suburban Rebel Mom"Pretty Little Potty Mouth" - Suburban Rebel Mom
I swear like a sailor. It took a lot of blushing and nervous "ums" before I really got good at it, and let me fucking tell you, I can goddam swear like I motherfucking badass. That said, I'm not looking forward to this in my house...


"An Open Letter to Paula Deen" - Afroculinaria
Wow. What a different perspective, a fascinating twist. Personally, I think this guy gives Paula Deen a little too much of the benefit of the doubt, especially considering the way she's come out to defend herself against "evil people," but wow. Just... wow.


"it was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini, that she wore for the first time today" - When Did I Get Like This?
This mom's daughter begins to deal with issues around her body. Specifically, how she looks in her two piece bathing suit. It's the last two lines in particular that are a dagger through your heart.


"When is Rape Okay?" - the rabbit and fox united
Obviously, the answer is NEVER. But that's not what this survey of high school students found. So if you want to get angry, read this. And then, if you want to get even angrier, read this as well.


Next Life No Kids"What if someone stole your words?" - Next Life, NO Kids
So... this post is sort of about me. And that is a little strange. But it's also unbelievably kind. This woman has made a sort of crusade over defending me. And I've never met her in my life. And that? That is what makes the blogosphere wonderful. We're all in this together, be it motherhood or writing or dealing with mental illness.. somehow, we're a team. And that means something.


"The Cuba Quarantine" - The Lively Morgue
If you're not familiar with this tumblr, you should be. Once upon a time, pictures were taken with film, printed on paper, and then painstakingly reproduced places like the New York Times. It's very technical. Unlike today, where there are photo-streams for every major story, most of the pictures never saw the light of day. They had notes scribbled on the back, and disappeared. The Lively Morgue is a project of the Times, they publish old photographs from the news as well as the notes on the back. Some of these photos are incredible. And with just a single editor's change of heart some, like this one, could have been the visual memory the country kept of major events.


"A Blessing On Your Head" - Our Simple Lives
So, I follow this blog because its author is an AMAZING photographer, with a seemingly unending list of things to take wonderful photographs of. Gorgeous kids, antiquing hobby, stunning neighborhood, interesting events... Aside from that, though, he's a gay minority dad of four adopted children, so his understated celebration at the SCOTUS rulings is... well... marvelous.


"The Zombie Date" - Something Clever 2.0
I just want to be this person's friend so badly. We could do the Thriller dance together. I can bring my own zombie costume!! TAKE ME WITH YOU!!!!!!


"Ann Arbor's flood-causing storms summarized in 10 short videos" - AnnArbor.com
My hometown is flooded. I mean, for real flooded. And the residents are dealing with it in typical Ann Arbor style, as shown by the last three videos. THIS is what Vine was made for.


"Same Mom But Different" - End The Mommy Wars
I love this. I often lament about how differently I treat my kids. And I don't just mean RH versus the twins, I mean DD and SI versus each other. They were born within five minutes of each other, and yet... I am not the same mom to each of them. And that is okay.


"I Went Out To Find A Friend" - Single Dad Laughing
Okay, first of all- kudos on the amazing Hyperbole and a Half homage here. Wow. I laughed my ass off at the illustrations alone. And then I got to thinking... yeah, I'm that guy, too. When I'm all bummed out I turn into a veritable black hole of self involvement. Thanks for the reminder to be that OTHER guy instead.

June 29, 2013

Every Fairy Tale Has Its Trolls

My friend Kate took this picture, that's her daughter in the orange shirt. She was in a minor bike accident, and started having debilitating migraines. Last week she suffered a stroke, and has been in the hospital ever since. I'm so happy to say she's continuing to progress back to health, but she will remain in the hospital for some weeks to come. Please keep her, her daughter, and her husband in your thoughts. Now, on to the post.


I don't generally write about writing. It feels weirdly meta. Like making a movie about being in a movie about making a movie.





But I feel compelled to today.

You may remember a few months ago when I wrote a little letter to all the imperfect parents of the world.

I was pretty pleased with it when it was finished, and I went ahead and hit publish with it as it was. There were typos, a few messed up chunks of grammar, and an odd collection of pictures of me being less than perfect (or at least not normal) with my kids.

And then the Huffington Post came calling, and they picked it up. And that was amazing. Hundreds of comments on the HuffPo page, mostly full of compassion and support.

And then there were some radio hosts, off in Canada and Minnesota, and they read the letter on the air. and that was incredible.

And then things settled back down again, like they do.

I'd had the experience of writing something that went the tiniest bit viral before. It 's since dropped down in my all-time most popular posts, but it means the world to me. It was about taking my daughters to an anti-rape protest. And I highly recommend it, so long as you've got a box of kleenex handy. As teary eyed as I get any time I read anything even the slightest bit sentimental, that's the one that always has me dissolving into a pile of all the feelings. Shakesville picked it up, and suddenly I was getting more blog traffic than I'd ever imagined, all from people who wanted to share their stories with me, as well.

But here's the thing- the two experiences of going viral were are far from each other as you can imagine.

That first post that spread its wings and flew out into the internet- it was so intensely personal that I think it could not be separated from its author, me. Every single link to it was accredited, every person connected the author and the words.

But the second post? That was intended to be universal. To be something that every mom having a bad day, that every parent who isn't everything they'd hoped, could relate with. I wanted people to read "Dear Less-Than-Perfect Mom," and to know that, yes, I was talking to them. And no, I wasn't judging.

I've had that day. So many days. The day where I'm glassy eyed and snapping at my kids in the grocery store, and the thing is that people are judging and they just don't know. They don't know what day I've had, what week I've had, what life I've had. They click their tongues because I could really stand to calm down, but they don't know that I spent a whole sleepless night over a strange mole, or that my morning was spent scrubbing crayon off the floor, or that I'd spent half my day on the phone with a friend who's marriage was falling apart.

They don't know, and yet, they judge. And we all do it- we all see the less-than-perfect mom, and all we get is a snapshot. A tiny moment, where they might be just as bad as we think they are. But that's not a whole picture, it's not a whole story.

And so I wrote a letter to every parent, because we all have craptastic days where we want to crawl under a rock.

And people connected to it. They read it, and they felt it.

And then some of them took it, took my name off of it and put their own name onto it, and put it back into the world.

And the thing is, that's not okay. But it's hard to talk about why that's not okay. It's hard to say to somebody, "Hey, I know you're probably not at your very best right now, but can you please take your name off the thing I wrote about how you're not at your very best right now?"

As it turns out, I have an army. An army of friends and strangers and other bloggers who felt that I was talking to them, that for some strange reason I had the authority to forgive them for their bad days, and let them go on with trying to be the best they can be. And they took to the internet and started trying to track down every single plagiarizer and put an end to it.

For that, I am humbled beyond words.

I do want the credit. I want the credit because, well, I'm a writer. It's what I do. It's what I've always done. And yes, I am working on a book. And yes, I do want people to buy it. So I would LOVE if every time they saw, "Dear Less-Than-Perfect Mom," they said to themselves, Hey! That's Lea! I can't wait to buy her book!

But it's an impossible task. There's so little that we can do to stop this, but taking down the blog.

And just to be clear, I am not taking down this blog.

I love this blog. Not because it's filled with pretty things, or because it's a log of my early years as a mother, but because it's filled with you... my lovely readers.

The strangers and friends who stand in the shadows of the internet and offer words of support and encouragement and love.

Some days, this blog is the thing that drags me out of my own head and gives me the strength to change another diaper. I come back and I read through the comments of people saying, "Yup, I've been there," and "I love you!" and "Thank you..." and then I can go back to reading "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" for the fortieth time in a row.

So thank you all. For everything.

June 28, 2013

Ridiculously Awesome


I know we haven't, but I like to imagine that we've all been at that same special point in our lives.

You know, the one where your old fat jeans became your regular jeans, and you didn't really mind because they were your fat jeans when you were 22 and you hade made two babies with your body since then...

And then your new fat jeans became your regular jeans, and that wasn't such a big deal, because you were kind of busy making another baby anyway, so you could deal with that.

...and then one day, your latest fat jeans are so tight that as you sit in the driver's seat you can feel the horrific sensation of your back fat being squeezed up behind your shoulder blades and smooshed into the seat.

We also all know that moment when
you realize that some days  "lunch"
is five twizzlers, a third of a  banana,
and twelve blueberries... right?
And then, you cry. Oh, how you cry. And you go out and get a new HIGH IMPACT SPORTS BRA OF DOOM and you relegate an hour every morning to getting yourself in shape.

But, it's easier said than done when you have three very very little people leaving half eaten bowls of goldfish crackers all over your house, and any attempt at a workout routine becomes "jump on mommy or howl in misery" time.

And then, you come up with the brilliant idea to DANCE!

So, you dance and dance and dance with your kids, hoping that this will magically whittle your waistline and you can give those fat jeans that made you cry the finger.

But it doesn't work so well, because while dancing with mommy starts out as being a good hour of cardio a day, it becomes mommy dead lifting thirty five pounds and then spinning in circles with a weight on her shoulder for half an hour, followed by another half hour of vaguely nauseated tottering to a beat.

Yes, we've all been there.

And so I began wondering, what do we do now? When we're still angry at our not-fat-day-but-regular-day jeans, when our workout routine has fizzled, and when we have just as little freedom to leave our homes and go to gyms or zumba classes as ever before?

That's right, folks, workout videos.

I began my hunt for the perfect workout video. It had to be dance based, to fool the kids. They would think we were still having dance parties, but we would just be having them with the movie.

I picked out the one I wanted. It was the P90X guy, so I figured it would work.

But I kept not buying it.

I kept going to the website, and hovering my cursor over the "checkout" button, and just not clicking, and I couldn't figure out why.

I asked M, "Do you think this is a good idea?" and he said, "I dunno... looks kind of sleazy..."

No. Just... no.
And that was it. He had hit the nail on the head. I couldn't bring myself to buy a video to watch with my kids with the goal being "sexiness," filled with testimonies of girls who finally felt "hot" in bikinis, with the never-ending rhetoric around looking like... well... the the people on the video.

I didn't want to send that message to my daughters. I didn't want to let them think that I was losing weight to look sexy, to look like somebody else's ideal. I didn't want them to think that there was a right way to look, and that was it.

Let's face it, they're my kids. They're going to have hips, and breasts, cuves everywhere. And if they're lucky and they've got some of Mike's shape to them as well, they'll also have AWESOME butts and maybe broad shoulders.

They certainly won't look like Jillian Michaels.

I wanted to lose some weight so I could feel good. So I could feel happy in my clothes, in my skin. So I could take a walk without feeling the telltale jiggle of having made three children in the lumps over my butt.

Gross, right? Exactly.

I wanted to feel good, and I know if I feel good about myself, I feel pretty much perfectly happy with the way I look. No matter what number is on the scale.

So, none of those "hot body" workout videos.

A few friends suggested specific dance workouts. Belly dancing, for example. I decided that we had to stick with something that my kids would recognize as dance- and keep in mind, they have learned from me that "dance" means "pseudo-rhythmic flailing, the occasionally hopping or kicking, and the intermittent jazz hands."

You know, this:



So no, it couldn't be African Dance for Beginners.

No, I needed a workout video that just kind of looked like dancing, with music that the kids could just distract themselves with and dance to without paying attention. Something with people who aren't all gussied up in greasepaint makeup and exposed, rock hard tummies. Something a little bit ridiculous.

And then... it hit me. Like a bolt of lightning. The perfect workout routine.


That's right... we're Sweatin' to the Oldies.

It took me ten seconds to find a GREAT deal on a box set of DVDs, and less than two days to have it in my hands. (Thanks, Amazon Prime!) But it took me more than a month of staring at it to put it on. Why?

Because it was utterly humiliating. I mean, Richard Simmons? REALLY? Could I look at myself in the mirror without shame? I mean, the man is the biggest running joke in... almost anything.

Really.
And then I told myself to suck it up and go sweat to some oldies with Richard Simmons, because if I just laughed through feeling ridiculous and dated and weird, then the kids would laugh too, and they would think that exercise was something fun and goofy that we all did together.

And really, that was the whole point.

And so, lovely readers, the kids and I have been doin' the pony with Richard Simmons for several weeks now.

And you know what?

It's kind of awesome.

First of all, the music is totally perfect. I mean, perfect.

Second of all, by the end of it the sweat is pouring off of me. Which feels pretty awesome.

I'm sore all the time. I also shower more regularly.

But the best part is, I have no choice but to keep going. Because now every morning begins with SI putting her nose in my face and saying, "Wake up, mommy! It's time for exercise!"

She doesn't care if I was up until after midnight watching roving hordes of Chicagoans take to the streets to celebrate winning the Stanley Cup.

She doesn't care if I was up until two in the morning reading all of "Bossypants" in one sitting and had idiotically started after she went to bed.

She doesn't care if I just ache all over and don't want to do it just this one morning please please please?

Photo from Nina Falcone
Best personal trainer ever. Instead of shouting at me that I'm fat and lazy and that I need to PUSH or
STRETCH or COMMIT- she just cries that she wants to do exercises with me. Please oh please oh please.

And so yeah, I drag myself out of bed, put on my HIGH IMPACT SPORTS BRA OF DOOM (of which there are now two), and do a million freakin' knee lifts.

And after about five minutes, the girls lose interest in exercising and instead sit on the couch, watch me, and quiz me on the weight lost by the rainbow of people, in an amazing variety of shapes and sizes, sweating along with Richard Simmons.

They squeal in delight whenever the fattest fat lady is standing next to him. "She has a plump tummy! She has a plump tummy!" they yell, and I say, "Yes! And she's exercising to be healthy!"

And they list all the people they know with plump tummies. The list always includes Poppa. "When we see Poppa in Greenbush, we will tell him he needs to exercise to make his tummy smaller!"

"Good idea! We can bring our movie, and you and me and Poppa can all exercise TOGETHER!"

"Yeah! And SI!" contributes DD.

"And SI," I huff through my unceasing kicks and the tune of "Mr. Personality."

Thanks, guy.
"And Grandmommy!" she adds again.

"Yeah," I wheeze out, remembering to breathe slowly despite my impulses to gasp for every particle of oxygen in the room, marveling at how hard it can be to balance on one foot with your arms straight out to the sides, despite being in motion.

DD always jumps in when it's "It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To." SI always does the cool down. We always smile and laugh and they constantly show me "new exercises" they've invented. Usually, it's some sort of bridge.

The hour that we're exercising together flies by. Every morning.

But the best part, the absolute icing on the cake, is this...

We've recently acquired a teenager. She's staying with us for a chunk of the summer, a friend of a friend of sorts.

Anyway, she's started joining me in Sweatin' to the Oldies.

And that kid? She can't keep up.

Every day I am outclassing a fifteen year old in my workout routine.

And that feels more amazing than looking at my reflection and not being grossed out by it.

Lunch: cherries, toast with goat cheese and a fried egg,
and cucumber/cantaloupe/parsley juice. That's better.
I also pulled my old juicer out, and began replacing meals (or those seven hour windows where I skipped meals) with fresh juice. My go-to breakfast these days is a beet, three carrots, and two grapefruit. In liquid form. I cut out most of the sugar, carbs, and cow-dairy in my diet. I switched to almond milk and goat cheese, and spent a few weeks taking pictures of every single thing I ate, that shamed me into making way better choices, and the habit of looking at something and thinking, "Do I REALLY want a picture of me eating this?" made a pretty big difference.

That said, I still took the kids out to Kilwin's for ice cream cones yesterday, and totally had a scoop of toasted coconut in a waffle cone. The whole point is to enjoy life, right?

In less than a month, I've lost about ten pounds, and I feel great. I'm trying to lose another twenty (I keep upping my goal) before I move forward on a breast reduction. I am definitely looking to go down to something in the first half of the alphabet in the cup size.

And the kids know it's not about how I look. To them, I'll always look the same. Like mommy.

It's about how I feel.

And I feel pretty damn great.
"Hey everybody! Come see how good I look!"

June 26, 2013

A little trip in the Way Back Machine...

Me and M, Halloween '06
(I'm Countess Elisabeth Bathory, he's Col. Mustard)
I've been doing a lot of digging around my old stuff... old writing, old photos...

At any rate, I found this little gem of ancient history. It's a poem.

I wrote it for M, and never told him that I wrote it for him. It was before we started dating, when we were emailing each other constantly, in that state of nervous excitement that comes before you actually make a move,but you know that when you do it's going to go well.

I think you probably know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, this was a love poem I wrote for my husband, eight and a half years ago.


Radical Honesty

I want convention.
Tattooed, homemade, anarchic, paint splattered,
tattered, shredded and stained,
I want stereotypicy.
I want a house in the woods
two point five kids and a dog,
Hubby off to win bread by day
while I sew buttons and mend shirts
I want a garden and stained glass
Family trips to my inlaws
Bedtime stories and lullabies
PTA and car pools
Apple slices after school
and gingerbread at Thanksgiving.
In my inky skinned rebellion
In my determined questioning of authority,
In my polyamorous promiscuity,
I long for the normalcy of the American Dream.





Who could have known I would get what I wanted?

<3 div="">

June 24, 2013

Rockin' The Bump (Again!)


Way back in the day, I linked up with Shell for Rockin' the Bump, where I showed off my killer twin bump.

Well, let's do a side by side comparison between my first bump and my second!

I ROCKED IT!!!!

BOTH TIMES!!!!


Don't act like you're not impressed. :)



6 weeks pregnant w/ DD and SI
6 weeks pregnant w/ RH
3 months with DD and SI
3 months with RH
5 months with DD and SI
5 months with RH
6 months with DD and SI
6 months with RH
28 weeks w/ DD and SI
28 week w/ RH
30 weeks w/ DD and SI

30 weeks w/ RH
32 weeks w/ DD and SI
32 weeks w/ RH (and for REAL anemic!)
34 weeks w/ DD and SI
34 weeks w/ RH
35 weeks w/ DD and SI
35 weeks w/ RH
40 weeks w/ DD and SI (and The General)
40 weeks w/ RH
42 weeks w/ DD and SI
42 weeks w/ RH
43+ weeks w/ DD and SI

43+ weeks w/ RH

Piggy Party

Piggies for all!
For RH's first birthday, things were more laid back than at any of the girls' parties to date.

First of all, it's a first birthday. She won't remember or care.

Second of all, I am EXHAUSTED from the million other things I'm doing.

So I didn't plan anything, theme-wise.

The piggy has a curly little tail
But one day, DD and SI and I were talking birthdays. They were telling me all about what they wanted for their birthday party, when I reminded them that it was a LONG way away, and the next birthday party would be for RH.

"What kind of birthday is SHE having?" they asked me.

"I don't know! What kind of party SHOULD she have?"

And without hesitation, DD answered, "A piggy party!"

"A piggy party?"

"Yeah! With a piggy cake! And lots of little piggies!"

Well, done, and done.

I made a piggy cake, and 1.5 dozen little piggies. Er, cupcakes.

Noses and ears
And let me tell you, they were awesome. I started with a recipe for a novelty hedgehog cake, and instead of covering it in chocolate buttercream and sticking in chocolate shards for spikes, I covered it in a special frosting I've discovered. It looks almost exactly like fondant, but it doesn't act like fondant. It's still soft and easy to cut/chew once it's made and on the cake.

This is the basic recipe I used, but I'll warn you, I needed a full two cups of additional powdered sugar!

It's delicious. And NOT fondant- there's a reason they suggested using it for cupcakes, it did NOT hold together as I tried to move the flattened frosting onto the cake. However, it sculpted together well on the cake.

So then I had this extra frosting that looked like fondant, and I had a frosted cake, and I was concerned because it was a really small cake and we were expecting about 20 people. So I did what anybody would do when they don't think they'll have enough cake. I whipped up some cupcakes. (Yes, from a box.) I used the leftover fondant frosting to make the noses and ears, whipped up another batch of pink regular buttercream frosting, and added some sugar eyes I'd picked up from the store on a whim.

(To make a nose, cut out a tiny circle- about the size of a penny. Use food coloring to draw two little lines for nostrils. BAM! Piggy snout!)

(The ears are just triangles.)

Emergency backup piggy
I think the emergency backup cupcakes might even have been cuter than the big piggy!

This was lucky, because the fondant style frosting? Didn't do well in larger 3D shapes.

As it turned out (and is totally typical for parties around here) half of the RSVPs didn't show, meaning... well.. the cupcakes were totally unnecessary. But adorable. And there's nothing wrong with having some piggy cupcakes in your freezer!

I did one last thing to make it a piggy party. I made bacon wrapped dates (and not bacon wrapped dates).

Pretty much everybody left happy.

As for the rest of the party?

The kids rocked out with Uncle Robot while I manned the grill
After some dinner and singing, DD and SI helped RH blow out her candle
She accepted her boar's head graciously
She demolished it with gusto
She hung out some more with friends and family
She opened her presents with patience and determination
And she thoroughly enjoyed all her gifts.

Happy birthday, little one! You are the light of my life.

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