Sundays with Stretchy Pants

I love my life. I’m doing exactly what I always wanted to do. I love my husband. I love my kids. I love staying home with them and I especially love homeschooling. I loved breastfeeding long enough for the weaning stories to include lines like, “Your milk’s all gone, Mama. It went down the drain in your nipple.” I love co-sleeping and I love gentle discipline. However, I’m fully aware that in doing all of these attach-y type things, it is part of an effort to re-do my childhood. I was raised by people who didn’t have very good childhoods. I believe both of my parents have attachment disorders. I believe I have an attachment disorder. And I believe I didn’t know what love was until that first day that I walked out of the hospital and left Lena and Liberty there because they were too premature to come home with me. I further believe that if I hadn’t co-slept and breastfed these girls on demand, I would not have been able to take that fierce mama love and translate it into attachment. I believe my parents love me, but attachment is a whole different thing.

Anyway, I’m putting this out there because, while I would not trade my life for anything, sometimes it’s hard. It’s hard. And sometimes I write about it with a derisive style and I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. I don’t tell my kids that I think they are black holes of need. That would be mean. I try to meet their needs and then I meet my needs by drinking. Just kidding! I try to meet their needs and it is impossible. Because they’re children. This impossibility and my inadequacy as a mother weigh on me and I deal with it, like I deal with most things, with sarcasm. Self-preservation can be ugly. I’m just trying to make it a little bit funny. The end.

I voted for Obama and most of Ohio didn’t. I was truly undecided on the issues, so what it really came down to was the fact that his father was a goat herder. Seriously. And now a goat herder’s son is running for president of the United States of golldurned America? That’s some crazy shit, yo. That, and the fact that his kids are about the same age as my kids made me feel like he would be more in touch with me and my family. My dad could’ve been a goat herder. You don’t know.

Here’s a nifty little article that shows each candidate’s net worth. Obama is barely a millionaire. Just like us! We’re barely thousandaires. He feels our pain.

*sigh* Anyway, I’ll totally be on board if Hillary is the candidate. She gave that speech tonight in Columbus right next to Bryan’s building and he called me while he was walking to work from his parking lot several blocks away to tell me about all of the news trucks and whatnot all around. I had to work hard to restrain myself from waking the girls up and speeding down there just to be in it, you know? I got choked up when she talked about hearing from a mom with daughters who were 2 and 4. The mom sent her $10 and told her that she and her daughters cheer and chant for Hillary and, I don’t know, it just choked me up. I mean, she’s a woman. I’m a woman. My daughters will most likely be women. I hate to reduce it to gender, but my goodness it does feel special.