I sent the boys off for the weekend. It was almost physically painful for me to let Graham go, and not just because I’m still breastfeeding (OW) but more because that baby is like drugs. And not shitty cheap highschooler drugs either; he’s like the nice fancy drugs that rich senators use. More than once I’ve been caught trying to snort my baby with no straw or anything, just straight up my nose because he is that fucking cute and cool.

I’m not going to write about him though, because it’s rare for me to have a quiet house and a clear mind where I can focus on anything else. I’m not going to write about Nicolaus either, and how he has incredible scary dreams about these like obnoxious animals folding him up in a complicated machine because they want to make him die.

I’m going to write about me.

No really… any second now.

It’s easy to see how women lose themselves when they have kids. For me at least, the idea of me as an individual is gone. The old me feels like a different person. It’s okay though – I don’t miss the old me. What the hell did she contribute to the world? A bunch of flow charts and some funny songs about boyfriends, performed badly at coffee shops. The songs I mean. Obviously I didn’t go to coffee shop open mic nights and take an overhead projecter and make fucking flowcharts for people. Because oh man! If that had been a career option, I might have never even had kids because I’d still be living the high life on the road, being the rock and roll star of THAT.

The old me was skinny and wore tights and skirts and contact lenses. She was scared of driving and thunderstorms and the dark, she was easily overwhelmed, she was scatterbrained and late almost all the time but once she got wherever she was going – school or work or wherever, she was intently focused and driven. She wore makeup. She had a hard time making decisions. She ate out almost every single day. She had dreams about tornadoes coming, where no one would listen when she begged everyone to rush to safety. She started lots of art projects, and watched a lot of television and pretended her dog was a little person, which he kind of was. She was happy, more or less, but always felt unfinished. Like on the verge of something.

I’m still a lot of those things, except not. A lot of women feel weighed down by children, but I’m lucky: I feel lighter. I’ve shed most of the things that used to make me feel nervous or guilty or ashamed or anxious because I don’t have time to worry about wearing the right thing with the right other thing, or to stress about doing or being whatever other people expect. I don’t have time for drama. Ask Nicolaus… even Graham gets told to give me a break when he kicks and cries because I won’t let him play with the can opener. I definitely can’t make time for adults who act that way. You know what? You’re a grownup. Drive to Target and buy yourself a fucking can opener. LEAVE MINE ALONE.

So I have a lot fewer friends now. And even though they warned me – you’re going to lose all your friends if you keep on this way! They said it like it was a bad thing. Weird, right?

My body image is very different – I’m still best described as gangly, or quangle-wangly, but now I also have flabby arms and boobs and a gut that passes as a pregnant belly if I slouch and pat it lovingly. My hairstyle is low maintenance (or “dirty” as those in the business call it), I never fool with contacts anymore, and uncomfortable shoes? Can go fuck themselves. Screw you, Kenneth Cole and your goddamned cute shoe foot-hurting awesomeness. Same goes for J.Jill and all her beautiful dry-clean only linen skirts that look lovely with her choking-hazard shell necklaces. None of that stuff makes any sense anymore.

Now I wear: Cotton. Only. Ever.

My routine for getting myself ready to go: wash face, put on lipstick, make sure that nothing I’m wearing has stains that look like they might have come out of me. Ready to rock!

And yet, I don’t feel hideous. Between finding Nicolaus’ shoes and wrangling pants onto Graham – who feels strongly that we should move to a nudist colony – I don’t have time to feel hideous. Besides, who is really going to look at me when I’m walking around with kids who are shining beacons of cuteness? People without souls, that’s who. So at age 32, I have finally learned what Kevin has known forever because he is brilliant and wise: Life is too short to spend time dressing up for people without souls.

The biggest thing I’ve let go of is fear. All of my little fears that have overwhelmed me since I was little and was afraid of towels and cabinets (yes, really) – I’ve shed all of those burdens and replaced them all with one big fear: What if something happens to them?

That’s one hell of a fucking fear, but it’s like debt consolodation: life is much simpler when there’s only one big scary thing instead of a million little scary things.

So I’ve shed a lot. I’m also trying to work on improving the things I can fix without too much stress – I can try to be on time, I can try to be a better friend, I can try to eat healthier and be more organized. At the same time, I’m allowing myself to suck at some stuff: I’ll never be able to focus on only one thing. I’d be miserable if I had to be super organized. I’m not ever going to learn how to tie the garbage bag thing the right way, or remember to listen to messages, or get out the door with everything that a reasonable human would put in their diaper bag. And that’s good enough. I reject the burden of feeling inadequate. Screw you, garbage bag thing, fuck you for making me feel stupid. Screw you, phone messages. At the sound of the tone, please hang up and send me an email. Screw you, um – baby wipes. Crap, I really wish I could ever remember to bring baby wipes.

So there. That’s me, right now. Without all those weights off of me, I’m giving myself permission to make art and to play with my babies and to have purple hair even though how tacky can you get? And it feels amazing.

So now you:
If you have kids, how have you changed? Do you resent the changes, or have they been good for you?
If you don’t have kids, do you feel like your friends transform into different people once they have kids?

Why isn’t there a place you can go with individual enclosed trampolines for your kids? Like it could be a restaurant and when you walked in, they’d ask “Would you like a high chair, a booster, or a trampoline?”

And I’d say, “High chair for the little one. Trampoline for him.” And I’d point to the little boy who has been jumping on the living room furniture non stop for the last 30 minutes and squealing “Welcommmmmme toooooo the JUMPING ZOOOOOOOOO!!!”

If it was an upscale restaurant, the trampoline enclosure would also need to be soundproof.

This morning Nicolaus and I made a deal: If he would try really hard to mind and not to throw huge fits, I would try really hard not to be a bitchy whore of a mom. We both made a sincere effort and it seems to have made a difference.

The house is messy but not impossibly so, we survived a grocery trip and made a post office run, and I managed to feed and bathe both kids and get them to sleep by nine. I mean, they’re both asleep in the living room – I’m not even sure why we still have beds in their room – but hey. I’m calling it a win.

I love the way Nicolaus talks when he’s working extra hard to not be an asshole. When he whines a request I often say, “Okay. Now how would Johnny Cash ask for that?”

He lowers his voice into this hilarious deep drawl: “Mama. Can I have some juice pwease?”

“Absolutely,” I say, “That’s much better.”

I know, I know. It’s wrong. But I don’t cope well with whining. It makes me want to… want to what? I don’t even know. Grit my teeth and drive off bridges and demolish buildings with a bulldozer just to drown out the noise. Making him talk like a drugged-out country singer might not be great for his future job prospects, but I have two children under the age of four. It’s all about short-term solutions around here.

So the day bumped along and turned out pretty great. A couple of times he started to flip out, so I offered to throw away his keychain-fan-flashlight – he suddenly remembered our bargain and calmed down. He’s a cool kid and all but we are living in a material world, and he is a material kid, and he will completely freak his shit on anyone who takes away his toys. The 99 cent keychain-fan-flashlight means the world to him. They have a very special bond. You could remake PeeWee’s big adventure with a keychain-fan-flashlight instead of a bike and that would be Nicolaus. And you could do the scene with Francis dressed up like the devil burning the keychainfanflashlight going HaHAA! And that would be me.

Crap, I talked about the devil. Sorry mom. I was only kidding! I love you! And my new shirt you got me from Anthropologie!

We spent a lot of today pretending that the house was the inside of a blimp. Then we drew blimps and Nicolaus decorated them with pink glitter. So if you ordered ABC cards and the box arrives with pink glitter on it, um congratulations! You win a free blimp!*

If it isn’t clear by now, I’m exhausted after a long day and I’m only writing this to procrastinate getting in there and doing the rest of the dishes. I tried to do them while Graham was awake, but he kept grabbing things out of the dishwasher. I’m pretty sure he said “knife”. It’s always cool when your brain goes in two directions at once:

1. Wow, did you say knife? That’s RIGHT. I didn’t know you knew that! Very gooood, Graham!
2. Holy fuck, the baby’s grabbing a knife.

Okay, I’m getting up now before the dishes multiply in there.

*Offer not valid where prohibited. Blimp is invisible and possesses no physical properties. Not redeemable for cash.

I swear I was just about to wrap a big bow around my kid and go put him on the neighbor’s doorstep with a note pinned to his shirt that said, “Please take good care of my baby. Or half-ass it. Whatever.”

Nicolaus is insane this week. Running and spitting and yelling and throwing two-year-old tantrums with four-year-old gusto. And a danged eight-year-old vocabulary… Mama I’m not impressed with the terrible way you are treating everyone today! It’s not very nice and I’m really UPSET.

Messes. Naughtiness. Taking off his clothes. Total maniac.

So I was writing out the note and looking for a safety pin when he came over to me with a flashlight. He put it on my head and held it there. He had a whistle in his mouth, which wow Kevin is awesome for carving a recorder for his son out of a bamboo shoot. I mean that. Awesome. I am in actual AWE, of both his craftsmanship and talent, and also of how much he obviously hates me.

Nicolaus blew the whistle – loud – and held the flashlight on my head.

“What. What – What’re ya doing?” I’m trying really extra special hard today to not let on that I’m totally about to give him to the neighbor. Why part on ugly terms?

“Oh. I’m just bein’ nice.”

“Ooohkay. Well can you like, not blow that in my ear? Please.”

“Well I’m being nice and really you should say thank you, Mama. I thought you might like to try being a police car – like for a few minutes.”

He spun the flashlight around on my head, and I’ll be durned. I did like it.

Thanks to the lovely Miss Julie Wonderfulpants and a groovy spot on Mighty Goods, we’ve spent the last week or so rocking and rolling with ABC card orders. I have something like 40 orders to ship out over the next couple of days. Yay, orders! And also, holy shit. Orders! Kevin makes the boxes by hand – because he is the very best kind of crazy – so we stayed up late last night after the kids went to bed chatting while he put a bunch of boxes together. Not that Graham ever, technically, goes to bed since we got that certified letter from Amnesty International demanding that we cease all unreasonable usage of the crib, but he was passed out on the couch. Close enough.

Also this week, I’m working on:
1. An illustration for the horrifyingly talented and amazing children’s photographer Jinky

2. A series of giant canvas panels for a little girl’s room. Horses! Birds! Flowers! FUN.

3. Finishing the official nerdiest geekiest children’s book EVER on the planet. It’s based on the classic “Pat the Bunny”. It’s called Pat Schrodinger’s Kitty. If four people in the world think it’s funny and buy this book, I’ll be all woooooo! I’m king of the world! Lucky thing I’m on a totally unsinkable boat and I’m dating someone who would of course share her piece of floating debris with me or at least take turns or something so I won’t die in the frozen depths of the sea if that should ever come up for any reason even though I’m on a totally unsinkable boat!!