I Love Kids

My husband Don and I had a big talk about whether or not to have children and we decided that we weren't cut out to be parents. The only problem is we probably should have had this discussion twenty three years ago before Andrew was born. There is also our thirteen year old and our five year old to consider, but we have decided, no kids for us. I have to admit I thought it was a good idea once. They all look so cute when they are little and everyone tells you that what they are going through is "just a stage". Crying all night- "just a stage", terrible twos- "just a stage", absolutely mind numbing threes and fours- "just a stage". I finally got it, once you are done with one stage you move right into an equally terrifying if not worse stage. This whole "just a stage" thing is a huge trick to get you to keep them. It's like in AA when they tell me not to drink one day at a time. I'm onto them!! That means I never get another martini and with all these stages my children are going through I could really use one.

Children are not pleasant people. They are rarely appreciative and expect you to do everything for them. They can't even raise themselves. They are cunning little creatures that are always one step ahead of you. Once you have them figured out they mutate like a virus and you have to start all over again. I think if you want to have these alien creatures from hell you should do it when you are young and too stupid to realize that they will control your brain. You need the energy and the optimism of youth to believe everything will turn out o.k. Having a five year old when your fifty is just plain stupid. I don't really want to do kindergarten again with the other parents that could easily be my children.

I have to admit , however, watching my husband try to help Addie with her kindergarden homework at his advanced age is very entertaining. You would think he would have it down by now, but he doesn't. Don yells that he can't find the crayons, the scissors and glue are missing and that the instructions are unintelligible. Don graduated summa cum laude from a prestigious southern university. Which part of color, cut, paste don't you get?

I can't blame him really. We have lost too many brain cells just getting Sofie to thirteen and apparently we are going to lose more because it is going to get even harder. Parenting sucks.

I realize I am supposed to end this post with something nice like, "In conclusion I really really really love them and it is all worth it." Ha!! I am not going to say that because I don't know yet if it was worth it. What if they turn out to be serial killers? Andrew turned out to be a wonderful young man, but he is an actor. Who is going to give me a medal for turning out yet another actor? At least he is only hurting himself.

In conclusion, we wanted kids and we got them and now we have to raise them...... shit. I do actually love them and I certainly wouldn't want to be in a world without them. I would, however, really really really like to be in a hotel room without them once in awhile and I would love Don to join me just as soon as he finishes Addie's homework.

Throwing in the Towel

Today, after six years of sobriety I almost had a drink because my daughter wouldn't fold the towels in her bathroom the way I wanted her to. I was trying to show her the way everybody with good taste should fold their towels when she told me she didn't want them that way. What??? So I told her to shut up and then she told me to shut up and then I told her no, you shut up and then I yelled at her for not cleaning the litter box and she said she didn't know how and I said that was ridiculous because I had shown her a million times and then I decided I needed vodka. I told my husband I wanted to go to an AA meeting but when I got in the car I seriously debated going to a bar instead. But, I had sweat pants on and I didn't want to go to a bar because I never drank in bars so I decided to go to the meeting and then if I still wanted a drink I would get a bottle on the way home. Good choice. When I arrived at the meeting Veronica* asked me if I would give her a cake for 27 years sober. It made me feel better, but I still thought I was pretty justified in my desire to drink. I was imaging the conversation my friends would have tomorrow:

Karen: Did you hear DeAnne was drinking again?

Peggy: Oh no, what happened?

Karen: Sofie wouldn't fold the towels the way she wanted her to.

Other Karen (with Tennessee accent): Well, can you blame her?

Then they would all shake their heads and feel sorry for me that I have to put up with such insubordination in my own home. About that time I was awakened from my day dream as someone began to share about just getting out of rehab and having to use a walker for a month while she detoxed and that she couldn't hold her head still to wash her hair. She had been sober nine years before she went out. Went out is the term we drunks use to describe drinking again. I started to think that maybe Sofie wasn't so horrible and that it would be pretty unglamorous to begin drinking again over towels. The truth is Sofie wants to do things her own way now and it pisses me off. Teenage girls are difficult, sober Mom's entering menopause are difficult, but not as difficult as drinking Mom's entering menopause. So no vodka for me.

It was so easy to parent my son. If I had told him to fold the towels a certain way he would have said, "What towels?" Exactly. Just the way I like it. He never yelled back at me and he always did what I said. I can't believe I wasted all my drinking years while parenting him. He was so easy. Wait, maybe he was easy because I was drinking.....shit now I am confused.

Alcoholic or not parenting a teen age girl seems to be about knowing when to give up control. She is a good kid and I guess if she wants to live with poorly folded towels that should be her choice. Perhaps someday when she is an adult on her own she will call me and say," Mom you were right! Your method is a much better way to fold towels!" Or maybe not. But, I might sneak into her house and refold every towel in every bathroom and even the ones in her kitchen. Ha! that'll show her.

*Not her real name.**

** Yes it is.

A Very Scary Halloween

Halloween in our new neighborhood is fabulous. We live on a dark hill, so we only had one trick or treater. Compared to the 2,000 or so that demanded candy or "else" from us in Toluca Lake, it is a most welcome change. The other good part is, a few blocks away there is a street blocked off to traffic where everyone who is anyone trick or treats. Sofie decided she wanted to go back to the Toluca Lake madness for the night, so we sent her off in her borderline slutty Red Queen costume to join her old friends. Don and I took the cutest witch in the world down to the big Halloween street for some free stuff. Addie was a little shy at first, but when I told her we would go home and not get candy if she didn't say thank you, she suddenly became the Chinese embassador to the U.N. She asked if they had Halloween in China, and when we told her no she chalked that up to one more in the plus column for the US. It was such a great time. I felt like I was really a part of a neighborhood. It felt safe, wholesome, fun and I was proud we brought Addie here and that she was an American citizen. Then something really scary happened. It was in a front yard about half way down the street, semi-hidden in the light. I couldn't make it out at first. It was a sign with some words on it... and then it came into focus: TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK 2010. Usually a sign like that would make me angry, or I would ignore it, but then I actually started to cry. Take our country back from whom? Me? Others who believe like me? Anyone who doesn't believe like you? Does that mean when you get it back, and you probably will make great strides in that direction today, it isn't mine anymore? You see, even when people were in control of our government that I didn't agree with, in fact loathed and dispised, I never though it wasn't my country, I didn't assume it belonged to those in power. I thought that through the democratic process those people had been elected and were doing their jobs to the best of their ability, even if I thought they sucked. So stop it, please. I am so tired of this divisiveness, of this hate and fear and name calling. This country belongs to all of us and if we can't find a way to work together we do not deserve to live here. I do think this is the greatest country in the world. When our plane touched down on the tarmac at LAX from China, Addie instantly became an American citizen. I'm proud of that. I was not so happy that George Bush was president at the time and it's his signature on the citizenship papers, but nevertheless, it doesn't matter who signed the papers, the outcome is the same. Get it?

So, I am off to vote now. Yes, I still get to vote and I will even still be able to vote if you GET YOUR COUNTRY BACK. Because that is how we do it here. Now let's try to play nice with each other no matter what the outcome. o.k? If not, I may have to take my family and move to China.

Boyfriends

I read my first post today and what was I thinking when I was seven? What parents who let their first grader stay up and watch The Smother's Brothers would vote for Nixon? Please. I myself never voted for a winning president until Bill Clinton. I was on my way to vote for Jimmy Carter in my first Presidential election when I heard him concede the election on the radio. I voted anyway, but it took a little of the fun out of it. The democrats in Hawaii probably just stayed home. But, back to The Smother's Brothers because I really need to confess something. Tommy Smothers was my first boyfriend. I was madly in love with him. Sadly for Tommy it didn't last long before Tom Jones stole my heart. That voice and that accent was more than an eight year old could handle. In between Tommy and Tom there were week ends with Bobby Sherman, Michael Nesmith and David Cassidy, but they never really meant much to me. They were just sort of flings. It was rather late in life, thirteen, that I met the man who was destined to change me forever, Clark Gable. I had read Gone With the Wind so I was really excited when my mother took me to see the movie at the Fox Theater in Anaheim. The first time you see Clark is the barbeque at Twelve Oaks. The camera pans down the stairs and there he is grinning up at you. I gasped out loud and my thirteen year old body slipped down the chair almost on to the floor. My mother just reached over and picked me back up without saying a word. I sat there silently sobbing tears of joy that I had finally found my soul mate. Sorry Tommy, Tom, Bobby, Michael, and David, I have left you for Clark Gable. I realized, of course, that he was dead, but it didn't matter to me, not even the grave could keep us apart. My relationship with Clark ended up being one of the longest of my life (including my first marriage). I don't remember how it ended. What twisted act of fate made me lose interest? It was not sudden, it was gradual and pretty heartless on my part. Actually, thinking back, I was pretty cruel to all of them. I would profess love one day and then casually move on and not even tell them I was leaving. I hope they have forgiven me and have learned to cope with the loss. Hopefully, I have softened through the years and when I break up with Steve Martin I can be a bit more kind.

Vote For Nixon

I am embarrassed to blog. I thought I was embarrassed because I didn't want people to think I was so arrogant I thought they should read what I have to say. But, the truth of it is, I am embarrassed because I am so arrogant I think people should read what I have to say. I probably always have been. All that pontificating I did in the first grade when I tried to get my democratic family to vote for Nixon should have been the first clue. I have never publicly admitted to anyone that I tried to get my mother to vote for Nixon (very loudly in the voting booth) until now . My family has never mentioned it again except for my Grammy Lu who referred to it as, "The Unfortunate Incident". Actually, I really wanted Pat Paulson to win, which segues perfectly into explaining the title of my blog. If you know who Pat Paulson is you were watching the Smother's Brothers in the late 60's. Which means you are over fifty or pretty darn close. Well, I am pretty darn close. I thought that by fifty I would be successful, have raised my kids, and could now travel and read alot. At 49 1/2 I have only finished raising one kid, I have a thirteen year old and a five year old at home. I am not successful by societal measures, but my husband is, which makes me successful by default. I do read a lot, but lately I seem to be playing a lot of Sneezies on my IPad ( a game an infant can play) and the only travel I am doing is driving south on I-5 to Disneyland. Fifty doesn't look anything like I thought it would when I was thirty. Thank God. I am happy and the reason, at least for today, is I have learned I can do anything I want and what I want is what I am doing. Go figure. Me, former shortest showgirl in the world, Disney Princess, and Equity Dinner Theater Star would throw up if I had to go on stage again. I like it in the audience. I like watching my kid on the stage and I have passed the torch. Oh, but what a glorious torch it was! I am very much hoping for another fifty years and I have little to no regrets about the first fifty, except, of course, for "the unfortunate incident" in the voting booth in 1968. All in all, not bad.