Browsing Tag

Kids

Uncategorized

Our space is changing

March 2, 2021

The Christmas after Sloppy Joan was born, Santa brought a Step2 Up & Down Roller Coaster. It came in five parts that snapped together to create the perfect tricolor wave of exhilaration. The toy spanned a good portion of our basement, and was a hit with the chicks and their friends. I can still hear a three-year-old Spike: “Now me again, JoJo,” she’d say. “One, two, fwee … blast off!” JoJo was immediately more daring. An angel face with a daredevil spirit, she was going backward and standing on the canary yellow cart within weeks.

If I close my eyes I can still hear the echo of the wheels coasting down the track. The rhythmic roll of plastic on plastic, immediately followed by giggles and proclamations of who was next and how they were going to do it. It might as well have been the biggest coaster at any overpriced amusement park in America.

Over the years, the riders became more inventive and adventurous. Once those little stinkers learned that the coaster could be disassembled, nothing was off the table. They would take pieces of the track and use them as slides, ramps, obstacle course components and, well, a steeper roller coaster. One afternoon, after hearing the same familiar roll at an alarmingly faster cadence, followed by a bang, I came down to see the coaster on the steps. They aren’t stupid though, as JoJo pointed out. They put cushions against the wall at the bottom so they had something to run into.

Time passed, chicks grew, and I started to hear those wheels less and less often. A few months ago, Hank came into the room where I was working and said, “You know we should think about giving that roller coaster to my cousin. He’s got his little boy with one on the way. It would be perfect for them.” I agreed without much thought – our crew was well over the recommended weight limit after all – and we loaded the track and cart into the back of their SUV on a blustery winter morning.

A few hours later, Hank’s cousin’s wife sent me a video of their little boy laughing and smiling and chanting, “Again! Again!” Then those familiar wheels, plastic on plastic, rolling across the waves of color and off the other side. Pure joy.

Once the coaster was gone, we really started looking at the other things collecting dust in our basement. An adjustable toddler basketball hoop, a tiny workbench, fake food in every make and model. Slowly, we began purging the things that didn’t fit our family anymore. Artifacts of expired infancy. Kid stuff.

We were recently gifted a Peloton (yes, we joined the cult!) and decided to rearrange our basement to break up the space in a more meaningful way. Gym equipment on one side, entertainment area in the corner and desks at the bottom of the steps. The toy area, as it turned out, received the smallest piece of the plot.

Once it was all done, Hank casually said, “I noticed something down there. The kids’ area is pretty small. I guess we’re entering a new phase.”

And with that observation, it all came hurling back at me. The giggles, the rides on a 10-foot track that seemed to go on for miles, the picnics, the hours of pretend. Our world, once painted exclusively in primary colors, slowly changed to an entirely different palette when we weren’t looking.

I’m learning that being a mother means endless joy and endless mourning. Just when you’ve made friends with your grief about the passing of one chapter, another ends. If you aren’t quietly accepting that you’ll never look into your baby’s eyes during a 2 a.m. feeding again, you’re swallowing the pain of them walking into kindergarten or losing their endearing speech impediment. It’s a domino trail of sorrow and acceptance. Every new milestone means the loss of something you knew. Something you cherished. Something perhaps you took for granted.

These days I’m more likely to hear the familiar turtle shell and mushroom rewards from Mario Kart rising from the basement than anything else, and that’s OK. But I wish I would have realized how sweet the old sounds were when they came flooding up from beneath me that handful of years ago. The new phases are fine. They’re beautiful in their own ways, and obviously, necessary. It’s just startling how these tectonic plates shift under your feet when you’re busy doing all the other stuff.

Listen to the sounds coming from your basement. Your backyard. Your bath tubs. There’s a bittersweet echo if you can trap it and find a special place for it in your memory.

Kids

Different like everybody else

January 16, 2019

This morning, JoJo, my oldest daughter, walked out of the house wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, a navy and cornflower blue striped men’s tie, knotted loosely around her 9-year-old neck and a confident grin. Around 10 a.m. I got a message from my husband, who’d clearly been sitting on his concerns for the past three hours.

“I hope kids don’t pick on JoJo today. You know … because of her tie.”

I knew. I knew exactly where his heart was. I saw it on his face when I watched him tie the slick fabric at her request in our closet the night before. He brought it around behind her, under the baby hairs on the back of her neck, then came to his knees to fiddle with the knot’s intricacies, looking adoringly into her sparkling eyes every now and then. She was so excited, high on the proposition of making a personal fashion statement. Sporting something that was her dad’s no less!

But sadly, as parents, we know that allowing our little people do anything that could even be considered mildly different is like tying a bleeding cat to a concrete block in the middle of a meadow. It’s bully bait. It’s a healthy thing to do for them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still bully bait. And some kids just have better armor than others.

Every morning, when I watch my oldest girls trot up the sidewalk and take that first, unnecessarily massive step up onto the bus,  a handful of thoughts pass through my mind, like a ritual I’ve practiced a thousand times before. The first is, Dear Lord, please keep my babies safe and bring them back to me just as I left them. The second is, please protect their little hearts, followed close behind by please let them be kind to others’ hearts.

It’s no secret we’ve wrestled with confidence and emotional issues for a few years now with our JoJo, mostly a result of her finger sucking addiction. When she feels hurt, which happens quickly and often without warning, her response is to yell and say hurtful things. It ebbs and flows, but typically it feels like we’re storing an active volcano in the bedroom at the end of the hall. She’s also gotten disturbingly skilled at rolling her eyes, so that’s officially in the repertoire. It’s hard as the parent to see her reactions for what they are – a rusty shield she keeps at her side always – rather than just spite, but it’s gotten easier over the years.

But that’s at home. School is an entirely different island.

At school, her reflexes will get her labeled a “mean girl” and barred from social circles. At school, the triggers are peers and poor performances on tests and 8 million other tiny touchpoints. At school, the largest, and historically the most prominent pain point, is being different; acting different, saying something different, looking different. In any way. And thus we come back to the neck tie.

“Are there other girls in your class who are wearing ties, babe?” I asked this morning, as she ate her breakfast.

“Nah,” she shrugged.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, it looks really cool.”

“I know!” she lit up.

It’s just a tie, I told myself. Maybe the other kids will love it, and she’ll get compliments all day long and come home on Cloud Nine. Maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe if I build her up enough …  But, just like her father’s, my heart quickened as she pulled her coat on. Send in the concrete block.

I listened to a podcast recently where a physician said that we are all exactly who we are supposed to be, and we are so unconditionally accepted by God and the universe that it’s unimaginable. Our flaws are intentional. They are the nuances that make us uniquely beautiful. The only problem? None of us realize it. No one feels that way. Instead, we spend our energy agonizing over whether or not one little neck tie has the power to emotionally level our fragile daughters.

This physician’s point was that, if we could all get to a point of internalizing that acceptance, all of the fear and anger and the destructive, selfish actions that come from that family of feelings would dissolve. The anxiety of finding our place would dissipate entirely, leaving room for the good stuff, like joy and love.

So the question then becomes, how do I make my JoJo, and her sisters as well, feel unconditionally accepted in a world where we’re all working with overactive label makers? For that matter, how do I get myself to open a gift that powerful? How do we drop that first pebble in the pond to start the ripple of peace and approval, both with ourselves and others, so we’re all on the same page, in the same mindset? So that we’re all living on the same island.

Different like everybody else

I don’t have an answer for that; Only a feeling that the implications of imparting those beliefs onto the next generation could turn some serious things right around for the somewhat sad state of this planet. For now, I’m going to keep telling my daughter that her accessories are fierce, but her confidence is fiercer. I’m going to keep saying my prayers as she skips up the sidewalk and steps up onto the bus. I’m going to tell her that we’re all different. That we’re all beautifully, expertly tailored to be different. Then I’m going to bend down and pick up another pebble.

JoJo Just Said, So Says Sloppy Joan, Spike Speak

Sisters say what? (vol. 7)

September 11, 2018

“Dad, you have to tell me when we turn. Turns have consequences.” – Sloppy Joan, holding a box of donuts in the car

“You know, it’s like, this is good but I can’t eat anymore because it’s disgusting and I might puke.” – Spike

“I had a dream I was invited to Donald Trump’s birthday party.” – Spike
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and I was like, I would not go to that party. I would go to Broccoli Bama’s, but not Donald Trump’s.”

“I literally love my mouth, because I love talking.” – Spike

I’m doing this from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

“I bet Aunt Kel felt the love I put in those cookies cause I put in so, so much.” – Spike

“I took my shirt off so I can be a tank topper!” – Sloppy Joan

“I wish I had bright yellow hair like yours.” – Spike
“Well, you can color it when you’re older.”
“But that would be like lying about who I am.”

“I’m your baby. My name is Tiny. All the babies are named Tiny.” – Sloppy Joan

“How long has peanut butter been around?” – JoJo
“A long time.”
“Like since the 1980s?!”

“Was Jesus’ last name really ‘Christ’?” – Spike

“How can we see so much things when are eyes are so tiny?” – Spike

“I think all the stars are pieces of God.” – Spike

“I love all the family. Special my sisters. Special you. And a special Dad.” – Sloppy Joan

“It’s like I’m trying to shut off a factory of laughing!” – Spike

“Yam! I said ‘yam’ because that’s my jam and it’s yummy. And I kind of messed up.” – Spike

“Look how much it’s still snowing. I told God to get it cozy.” – Spike

“I was going to put my $10 in for the fundraiser, but then I remembered I’m saving for college.” – JoJo

“You have these two tubes above your hips and when you eat something and then it goes through your body there are leftovers that go through those tubes. And that’s what poop is.” – Spike

Sucker from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

“Sally said f-u-c-k today” – Spike
“What?!”
“Yeah. I know that’s a really bad word.”
“Very bad!”
“I know! But I did say fuck in my head. But I just mind said it.”

“I want some chap lipstick.” – Sloppy Joan

“Can I have a Christmas braid?” – Sloppy Joan
“Yeah, but it’s not Christmas.”
“Mom! All braids are just Christmas braids!”

“I’d rather sleep and get my body well. I’m too weak to clean.” – Spike

“Dad! Put your thing away and come get Mom!” – Spike, yelling at Hank in the shower after I twisted my ankle and fell in the garage

“He said it hurt on his pockets. But you know, it wasn’t really his pockets. It was his butt.” – Spike

“Maybe I need a mentor.” – JoJo
“Who did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know … What is a mentor?”

Kids

From trigger to tantrum: The 3 stages of parent-child confrontation

August 1, 2018

When our JoJo started popping her top back in 2015, we chalked it up to the age. It’s just a phase, we thought. All kids develop a short fuse during that challenging transition window between toddler and child. But the tantrum tide hasn’t rolled back out to sea. The triggers can be anything from a sister getting too much attention (a spark one might categorize as irrational) to a container of 25,000 rainbow loom loops flipping and raining multicolored chaos out across a patterned bedspread (warranted).

While the tantrums once rumbled in like a summer storm you could spot 50 miles away, now they’re more like an F4 tornado that seems to drop down out of nowhere and elicit mass destruction for all in its path. We go from 0 to fury in 5.2 seconds, and no one is safe from her wrath. I once looked on in horror as she reprimanded a baby – a baby! – for stupidly sucking on her pretend smartphone. It was then I questioned how those nurses ever let me take a human being home from the hospital.

We’ve tried some things to remedy the rage. But in the end, the tantrum cycle always comes back to the same three phases. Picture a bell curve with a crescendo of contempt right at the top.

Level 1: Psychospeak

I love me some Brene Brown, I do. I worship the woman like a Vegas bride worships Elvis. After I read her gospel, “The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting,” I thought I had it. I got cocky. I was going to stop leading my children and instead embark on a journey of growth and discovery beside them. We would learn together, always with love and truth at the heart of our endeavors and conversations. I was going to be a different kind of mom. I even printed her parenting manifesto and framed it. It’s on my dresser. I’m looking at it right now.

My thing with Brene isn’t exclusive. I like to toss in a little Gabriel Bernstein, John O’Leary, Glennon Doyle, Shauna Niequest, Shonda Rhimes, Dalai Lama, Oprah and Tony Robbins for extra flavor. You might say I’m a bit of a self-help junkie. I like to hit the bong of Super Soul Kool-Aid on the regular. And perhaps that’s all to say that my mind’s a little restless, but also, I have an insatiable hunger for perfection and happiness, whatever that means.

When Hurricane JoJo comes ashore, I always reach for my favorite reference guides first. I attempt to tackle the tantrum through reason and empathy. This begins with a simple question:

“What’s wrong, honey?”

Now, where this goes wrong is that it’s rooted in the assumption that a reasonable question will elicit a reasonable response. In reality, it’s met with such sentiments as:

“Spike said I’m writing my 9s backward!”

“She called me a ‘geck’.”
“What’s a geck?”
“I don’t know! But it’s bad!”

“I was the teacher and then she said it was her turn to be the teacher and then I tried to show her how to grade the papers but she said she didn’t want to draw stars and then she took my pink marker and told me I had to be the nurse, not the student, and no one is listening to me and Sloppy Joan always gets everything she wants always because she’s the baby and everybody hates me because I like green jello!”

And so, as anyone would, I pause and consider what to do with such weighty tribulations. I remind myself that, to her, this is a big deal. It is upsetting. It is a reasonable excuse to completely lose her shit and scream-cry and throw things and slam doors. I remind myself that her tantrum is valid, because her feelings are valid, because she is a little human.

Depending on the day, the weather, the circumstances, I might be able to remind myself of these things several times. I might be able to recall Jo Frost, the SuperNanny, the Godmother of meltdowns, and remember I need to invite my daughter to share her feelings, not project my own onto her. I might even share a story from my youth. Perhaps a time when someone didn’t like the same flavor of jello as me and it resulted in emotional distress. Perhaps I’ll sit with her on a pillow of patience and we’ll sort through the whole misunderstanding peacefully, Brene and all her friends smiling over my shoulder.

This is the stage in the game when I redirect. When I send JoJo to her room to collect herself – “an emotional timeout” I call it – which looks like bracelet making or reading or meditating. Hypothetically, this is when her heart rate comes down and she regains composure and we establish resolution.

Hypothetically.

Level 2: Detonation

I try. Really, I do.

But when someone is howling within a sealed enclosure for more than 10 minutes, it can be difficult to keep your cool. I’ll confess that I’m a yeller. It’s not something that I’m proud of. But in my defense, the voice that I was born with – the pitch, the volume, the tenor – doesn’t seem to resonate with my oldest unless I turn it way the hell up. At least not when she’s in full conniption mode.

These fits always reach a pitch where inevitably I need to turn up the dial to be an active participant in the conversation. It just works out that way. In the moment it feels like a necessary element for communication, though one might argue as an observer that, from their perspective, it looks a lot like an adult tantrum.

This was an honest-to-goodness exchange I had with my daughter last week.

“What is wrong? Huh? Tell me, please,” – me, yelling.
“I’m tired!” – JoJo, crying and yelling.
“Then go to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed.”
“Then stop crying.”
“But I’m tired.”
“Then go to bed!”
“I don’t want to go to bed!”

To read it now, it seems like a riddle. A joke, at least. And maybe that’s the humor in it. The fact that afterward you can recognize the absurdity of a 35-year-old woman and a 9-year-old girl screaming at each other to stop screaming at each other.

And where is my tribe in these moments, huh? I don’t see Oprah or Tony anywhere in this steaming pile of mess.

This is often the stage in which I resort to threats.

“Do you want to go to Sophie’s party on Saturday?”
“Do you want to go swimming tomorrow?”
“Do you want to start American Ninja Warrior classes?”
“Do you want to make it to 10?”

[Of course she does.]

“Then get it together and knock it off!”

These threats can range from a few hours in her bedroom to a canceled family vacation. Of course, as punishers, we know that the higher the threat, the less likely it will actually be executed, but sometimes you have to go big for effect.

I’m not proud of the things that happen in the Detonation period. I’m just not. Often, it concludes with me slamming her door, which, coincidentally, I likely just yelled at her for doing a few minutes before I jerked the brass knob myself (I know, that sounds dirty).

Level 3: Repentance

It usually hits me like the rancid air 2 miles outside a hog farm. Regret. Lots of it.

Once I’ve walked away, I realize that that was where I went wrong. I turned my back. The instant replay in my mind starts when I hit the steps and turns into a full blown highlight reel of my failures by the time I reach the kitchen. She needed someone and I dropped the ball.

I blew it.

I missed the mark.

I’m worse than a person who kicks puppies.

I let down Brene and Jo and all of the people who tried to coach me to avoid this exact parental calamity.

I breathe on it for a bit, collect my thoughts and go back to her room to apologize. Dr. Dave, a dear friend who specializes in mindfulness, talks about how important it is for us to ask for forgiveness, even from our children. Sometimes especially from our children. But I struggle with the “but”.

My apologies typically sound something like:

“JoJo, I’m sorry I just yelled at you, but you have to understand …” or “Honey, I shouldn’t have raised my voice, and I want to apologize for my behavior. But when you lose it like that …”

Nothing matters after the “but”, we all know that. My 9-year-old knows that. And yet, I can’t break away from the “but”.

The saving grace is that resilience is the ingredient that distinguishes young souls from the middle aged ones. I will feel the aftershocks of a good tantrum for at least 24 hours, while JoJo will be asking for chocolate ice cream after 1. For me, it has to mean something. It has to be a smoke signal that there is trouble in her heart, and we must form a five-part plan to help her channel her aggression immediately. But really, the longer these go on, the more I think she just gets pissed and wants everyone to know. She’s onto the next episode of Little Lunch before I’ve metabolized the emotional post mortem.

And perhaps the most defeating facet of the tantrum cycle, is the inescapable certainty that it will all happen again at any moment. There’s a whole world full of triggers out there, and we’re just waiting to hear the first shot.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe I’ll be better. Maybe it’s just a phase.

Thoughts

Calling a Code Brown

July 26, 2018

Last week, I ran into my sweet new friend in the parking lot at preschool.

“Hey! Did you get a new car?” I asked her.
“No, I got in an accident.”
“Oh my gosh! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I’m not that person. I don’t like to be Debbie Downer.”
“But, I don’t care if you’re Debbie Downer. You got in an accident?”
“I’m just not having a good week. I screamed at the kids yesterday for no reason, and I’m cranky, and …”

I was watching a very familiar ball of yarn – one I personally keep in my nightstand, next to the melatonin and emergency candy bars – unravel.

She’d taken a mental health day from work, she went on to say, because things were just piling up. Between yelling at her boys and being annoyed with her husband and questioning all of those pesky major life questions, she was mentally depleted and in need of a mindless, indulgent Netflix binge. As I stood there, an unforgiving morning wind intruding in our conversation, I listened as this strong woman, who I deeply care for, talked herself down into a hole. It was a ritual I’d practiced myself and with almost all of my girlfriends, my sister, and my own mother. I waited for an opening.

“Listen, I know exactly how you feel. All moms feel that way. We all have those lows and days where we feel totally defeated, and it’s OK! I promise. I was standing with my toes to the edge last week. And now you’re up. We all just take turns.”

I think we can all agree it’s time to call it good on the charade. Being a mom in any capacity on any day that ends in “y” is a crazy occupation. Crazy! Anyone ambitious enough to think they’re going to climb that ladder has another thing comin’. Between the demand and the clients and the hours, mere survival is considered an above par performance on the job. There are two kinds of days: The days you have enough milk for their cereal, and the days you have to go out into the garage and grab a new gallon. The days you catch the bus, and the days you chase it down and get reprimanded by the driver. The days you make it to work without incident and the days you hit the bump and spill coffee down your white button-down blouse sleeve.

I can tell you, within 10 minutes of my children waking, what kind of day lies ahead of me. I can feel it. Like the air before a tornado – Mother Nature’s hot breath. But we don’t show the sweat on our faces, no. We smile and we press on and we push all the shit way down deep because we think it makes us less of a mom or less of a wife or less of a woman if we aren’t acing all the things, all the time. Well, guess what … that’s bullshit.

I always say, God makes ‘em cute so you don’t kill ‘em. In my case, he doubled up just to be sure and made them funny, too.

On one particularly trying morning, I slipped and let the truth serum seep in. When Cheri in my office asked how my morning was, I said, “Oh, I’m fine, thanks, other than the fact that I want to go on strike against my entire family for a few days.” A spark flickered in her eyes. “You know,” she said, like a kid at confession, “once when the kids were little, I told my husband he had to take them and I checked myself into a hotel for the weekend. I just watched TV, did a little shopping, ate.” We laughed like idiots, and I thought about how many other times I should have put out the invitation for other mothers to share their tales from the trenches.

In the parking lot that morning, if I squinted really hard, I could see the little armies waging battle inside my girlfriend. One side was fighting in the name of vulnerability and transparency and saying all of the depressing shit she was really feeling, while the opposition was willing to die on that hill for the sake of smoothing it all over with a laugh and a shrug. I’m familiar with that war, that struggle. How much to share, when to share it, how to sugarcoat it, which parts of the day’s failures I should censor for fear of how it will poison the perception of my otherwise “tidy” life.

We women, we are an efficient bunch. We are anticipatory. We are prepared and organized and concerned. We shoot ourselves in both feet day after day after day by getting everyone up and dressed and fed and out the door. We sign permission slips and send notes about doctor’s appointments and talk to the sitter at length about the quality and quantity of the baby’s bowel movements. We do it because somebody has to do it. But sometimes, being the somebody who does it just chews you up and spits you out.

In holistic nursing, there’s something called a Code Lavender. When the code is called for a caregiver, he or she is given a purple bracelet to wear, signifying they are in emotional distress. People might be a little kinder, a little more understanding, a little quicker to forgive minor oversights. Well, I’d say it’s time for moms to get a code of their own. Code Yellow, maybe? Code Brown? (Signifying we’re in deep shit.) That way, we can offer hugs, or cocktails, or comforting cuss words to our fellow comrades who are momentarily flailing.

If you have a perfect household with a perfect spouse and perfect children and everything is all Marie Kondo perfect everywhere, that is incredible. But, for the rest of us, it’s really easy to feel lonely sometimes. We think we’re alone in thinking our kids are assholes on occasion. We think we’re the only one who wants to stop for a drink after work on Thursdays instead of sitting in the carpool pickup line. We think there’s a conspiracy that our neighbor’s house is always suspiciously clean while ours is reproducing dust at a mind-boggling rate. We hide our secret Lucky Charms addiction and exchange kale salad recipes.

But the Code Brown could revolutionize our sorority.

For example – and this is entirely hypothetical – if I saw you pulling into the local watering hole on a Monday afternoon and we locked eyes, and you just happened to flash your poo-colored wristband, I might offer to pick up your kids and keep them busy for an hour, no questions asked. And you would return the favor two days later, when it was me sporting the bracelet. If you saw me carrying a snot-covered, entirely hysterical child out of the grocery store and glanced down to find a doo-doo-hued decoration south of my fingers, you would know to say a silent prayer for my sanity (and my child). And I would do the same for you that Friday when you replicated the scene in the McDonald’s playdome. It’s an emotional exchange program, rooted in support and understanding.

So, who’s in? Who’s comin’ with me here?

Let’s remove the stigma staining our struggles and choose, instead, to help a sister out. Friends, I do not mind having your children over to play for a bit, no strings or expectations attached. It does not inconvenience me to listen to your recount of just how irrational your daughter got over al dente noodles last night. No one can hear a mother’s cries and gripes like another mother. I say it can’t count as a true failure if you speak it aloud and set it free.

I’m here. And I know you are, too.

This post was featured on

Scary Mommy
Thoughts

How the strep stole Christmas

December 29, 2017

We have been positively drowning in holiday cheer over here. Well, holiday cheer and the white-hot throat daggers of strep. Both, equally and with the exact same amount of dedication. With just 5 days till Christmas, my true loves gave to me …

4 sweats and shivers,
3 blades to gargle,
2 swollen lymph nodes
And a bug that left me feeling shitty.

But it came in tasteful, shiny wrapping paper, so, ya know …

Being sick this time of year is such a treat, because there are so many sophisticated films to take in (i.e. the Christmas Prince) (But, for real though, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and a brutal fever is the perfect way to sweat out some of those Christmas confections you’ve been stuffing into your mouth hole.

As the mother, finding yourself bedridden for two days before the jolliest weekend of the year is not unlike playing Ebenezer Scrooge in a local church production of A Christmas Carol. You’re a ghost, looking in as your spouse carries on dutifully in your absence. This is what baths would be like if you weren’t around. This is what the dinner rush would be. This is how laundry would be folded. It would all march on without you; Slowly. Wrinkly. Whiney.

The chicks passed the ick like a filthy baton. Spike kicked it off strong, followed by JoJo, who was trailed, not far behind, by Sloppy Joan and myself, simultaneously. But it’s interesting how the sickness materialized, festered and then vacated each of their little bodies. I have found, in my eight years of mothering, that, when under the weather, my girls often fall into one of the following personas:

The Walter White.
This is the kid who leaves for school in the morning smiling and talking about weekend plans and how wonderful their cinnamon toast is and comes back to you an hour later entirely deteriorated, a completely different person. This is the scenario that always brings the most passive aggressive school nurse shaming. You just know she’s wondering why you sent your kiddo off in such bad shape. Little does she know she was so good just 3 hours earlier.

The Jo March.
This is the kid who gets crazy emotional and affectionate when she’s sick. She talks about what a wonderful mom you are, how you should go and enjoy frozen yogurt without her, and how sad she is to be missing the opportunity to play with her sisters whilst she’s ill. Always with giant cartoon teardrops in the corners of her eyes and an endearing redness in her cheeks.

The Katniss Everdeen.
This is the kid who comes down with the ick, goes to your bed and sleeps for 48 hours, waking only for medicine and a drop of water. She goes into a self-induced coma to recoup and reemerges like a true badass. Classic Katniss.

The Sixth Sense.
This is the kid who, after just 24 hours, makes a miraculous recovery. She’s running around the house and jumping off the coffee table so you send her back to school. Three days later she comes home with a 103 temp and hot tamale tonsils. You just don’t see it coming!

We shook off the strep just in time for the major festivities. Unfortunately, the burning little bitch gave way to a barky, brutal cough that left all three chicks barfing in their sugar cookie-filled pie holes. Nothing says Merry Christmas quite like hacking over Grammy’s hamballs.

But we’re coming out on the other side now. I’m almost 90 percent sure of it. I took some time off, which I used almost exclusively to find homes for all the new shit we had stacked in our living room. This, of course, was only made possible by throwing away all of last year’s new shit. The thing that truly scares me is that year by year, gift by gift, all of these treasures are finding a nook and a cranny in my home. But my home isn’t exactly getting bigger, right? So eventually I feel like I’m just going to wake up in FAO Schwarz. My house is slowly morphing into the apartment from Big. The toys are taking over and their army is mounting by the minute.

Anyway, with all the Amoxicillin flying around I didn’t get a chance to really wish all of you who spend 10 minutes a week with me on here a warm and Instagram-worthy holiday. I hope it was filled with warm cinnamon rolls and cocoa, lots of smiles around the tree and at least one thing you truly wanted for yourself.

Much like the strep, I’m ready to shake 2017 off like a labrador comin’ out of a car wash. Let’s rally and kick some ass in the new year.

Kids

Little JoJo in the jungle: a tale of survival

December 8, 2017

My oldest daughter – my JoJo – is the second coming of both my face and my fits. And she is struggling to find her place among the elementary elite.

It started when … well it started getting really bad with the arrival of a solution to an 8-year-old dilemma, the Nipit. The Nipit is a genius product my mom discovered through the power of Amazon that’s worn on the elbow and prevents a child from bending their arm enough to get their respective digits to their mouth to suck. While it lacks in discretion – it’s bright, primary colors with loud velcro straps – holy heck it works. I’ve seen my girl with her fingers in her mouth once in the last three months. For a girl who was getting her suck on in the womb, that is nothing short of miraculous.

But, as is the case with most red and blue arm braces, it didn’t take long for the kids at school to take note. It’s different, which means she’s different, which means she’s “weird”, which means she has a giant red target right in the center of her tiny little back. Thus, the bullying began.

I’ve thought about this a lot in the last few weeks, and I’ve come to some clarity. I think the issue is, when we look into our child’s eyes, we see someone different. We see an unborn baby that got hiccups every night during our 9 o’clock show. We see the little human who turned everything upside down in the best, scariest way possible, and made us a mother or a father. We see a toddler whose hair grew in from the back forward and stuck straight up while she watched cartoons on lazy weekend mornings. We see her first birthday and her tricycle. We hear the crinkle of her diaper between thick, wobbly legs coming down the hall and her first words … “dada” of course.

When I look at my daughter, I feel her letting go of my hand on the first day of preschool and her pleading eyes when big change came. I feel cuddles from the best spooner on the planet and hear her telling me, at 4, that she was heading off to college just like Steve from Blue’s Clues. I hear her laugh. I see her crooked, gappy smile and pure, well-intentioned heart. I see a thousand tiny little pieces of myself, with her daddy’s build, walking out the door every single morning.

But that’s what I see. And I am her mother.

What kids see is another little second grader in a sea of 7, 8, 9 year olds, crowding the playground and trying not to do anything odd enough to get noticed. They don’t find her to be special in any of the ways that really count. They aren’t looking for that. They’re looking for different. They’re looking for a crack, an opening. They’re waiting for her to get comfortable enough that she shows something they view as a weakness or an eccentricity. If it lends itself to a nickname or a chant, all the better.

When the tiny opening presents itself, they put their toe in first, maybe a snide comment or whisper to a friend. Then they put in their leg, then torso, and eventually their whole body busts down that door, lashing out with hateful, belittling words that feel so good to them, so empowering. Because kids know no consequence. They know instant gratification and survival of the shittiest. It’s jungle rules out there and everyone is potential prey.

In his book, “Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen”, Christopher McDougall wrote: “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

I send my little girl out the door every morning as this special ball of memories and potential, and the second she steps off the porch she’s reduced to bait. And do I blame the kids being unkind? Hell no! They’re just relieved they aren’t the girl with the brace on her elbow. And I totally get it.

Because no one wants to be that girl. Growing up, I had spacey, jagged teeth and a swoopy, horrible set of bangs for a good few years. I had girls pass notes to my BFFs saying they shouldn’t play with me anymore. I had days where I curled up in my mom’s arms, as she rubbed my back in her mustard yellow fabric covered rocking chair with the melodic squeak. Ask any adult and they can name their bully. If they can’t, they were the bully. It’s a rite of passage in some ways. Unfortunately. Stupidly.

It all came to a head recently, as one particular girl turned up the torment on my babe. We’ll call her Delores for the sake of anonymity and movie trivia. Delores has a girl gang. They think JoJo’s a big baby for sucking her fingers (predictable, easy), and they make sure she knows it on a daily basis. We’d been doing the usual coaching behind the scenes … Don’t fight hate with hate … The meaner they are, the kinder you should be … If you feel sad, tell a teacher … Just ignore her … Maybe she was having a bad day or she’s sad about something. Nevertheless, it persisted.

It persisted until earlier this week when JoJo decided to express herself about it. In a drawing. On the back of her homework. Where she’s throwing a bat at Delores’ head. And it’s labeled “JoJo’ and “Delores”. Needless to say, her teacher wasn’t thrilled.

Spike was waiting by the door for me that evening. “Mom, I’m not going to tell you what’s going on, but I will tell you that JoJo got in trouble and she has to go see the counselor tomorrow and if the counselor wants to, she can send JoJo to the principal’s office.” I walked into the living room to find my little criminal, sitting on the couch, red streaks from old tears subtle on her pale cheeks.

“You’ve taken a situation where someone was bullying you,” I explained, “and turned it around so that you are now the one doing the bullying. Do you see why this is wrong?” She nodded, her bottom lip curving down like a fat, grumpy fist in an animated feature. JoJo is certainly my creative chick, and this devilish doodle was, I’m certain, just a way for her to express her frustration, but regardless, it’s not how we roll.

Her teacher referred her to the school counselor, which, to be honest, I was a little relieved about. Finally! A professional can step in here! Somebody equipped with a degree and Inside Out dolls.

The day she was scheduled to meet with the counselor, JoJo was pacing the kitchen, whining. “I don’t want to go to the counselor’s office, Mama. I’m scared. What if I get in trouble?” I challenged her to be brave, and to be honest. I challenged her to step up to all the feelings of anger and sadness and loneliness she’s been feeling and share them with a grownup who could help. (And who she’d listen to more than her own mother.)

And then, I watched her step off the porch and go back out into that dark, vast jungle. Exposed and vulnerable and wearing her Nipit like a juicy, raw steak around her neck on the grasslands. A giant piece of my heart went right onto the bus with her and drove away.

I thought about her all day. I waited for the phone to ring. Maybe the principal would call and say she was suspended for the drawing. A black blemish on her spotless record. Maybe the counselor would call and tell me what a bad mother I was for waiting so long to alert them to the situation. Maybe her emotions would swallow her whole and I’d have to come get her.

But the phone never rang, and soon it was 5 o’clock.

I can always read the general temperature of our household within seconds. When something is wrong with one of the kiddos, it’s like walking into a room carrying balloons and a birthday cake after everyone else was just told someone died. So on this day, I was very tentative coming in from the garage.

“Hi, Mama!” JoJo greeted me. My whole body unclenched.
“Hi, JoJo!”
“Mom, I met with the counselor today and it was great. I didn’t get in trouble for the drawing and she told me I should tell Delores that what she’s doing is hurting my feelings.”
“Right. That’s great, JoJo!”
“Yeah, I feel so much better! Can I call Dad and tell him?”
“Of course.”

And just like that, progress. A touch of healing for a wounded little soul. She would live to roam the prairie another day.

I, of course, immediately sat down to type a teary note of appreciation to the school counselor, positive she had no clue how thankful I was for her 5-minute pep talk with my daughter. Positive I was being a little over emotional and positive I didn’t care a lick.

And the rest of this week has been better, though I know it’s not the last we’ll hear of Delores and her girl gang. The oldest child is such an experiment. They bring this stuff home to you, and you never know whether they’re being transparent or dramatic. You don’t know what’s normal and what’s a five-alarm fire. All you have to go on is your instinct and your own experiences as a child. (I mean, aren’t we all just projecting our childhood onto our own kids anyway?)

You just want to scream from the top of the school gymnasium, [in the voice of an Indian chief] “This is my daughter, JoJo! She is strong and funny and would be a really great friend! I am proud of her! And if you screw with her, I will squash your milk carton in your tiny horrible face.” But that’s not considered acceptable grownup behavior.

It will always be hard to hear. I’m the one who carries her stories, and because of that, I know what a treasure she is. I have the backstory. I’m invested, mostly because I grew her.

I’m the one who knows she called penguins “herbies” for years, even though everyone thought she was saying “herpes”. I’m the one who put her hair in long, flowing pigtails and cut the feet out of her penguin jammies so she could wear them a few months longer. I am in this thing for the long haul.

And I could sell her good points like popsicles on the Fourth of July. She likes to climb really tricky trees and eat Nutella straight from the jar and she can sing every word to every song from Descendents 2. She dabs like a boss. She’s a talented artist and can turn any strawberry into a rose too beautiful to eat. She always wears two layers of clothing, even in the summer, and changes into her pajamas within an hour of getting home from school. She did hygge before hygge was a thing. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be friends with that girl?

There aren’t a lot of choices here. She has to keep going to school and I have to keep watching her step off our porch, bait though she may be. I can’t change the dichotomy of children, the hunters and the hunted. I can’t make my daughter’s skin thicker, no matter what I feed her at home. The only thing I can do is rock her when she wants me to and keep track of her stories, so she always has someone to remind her just how special she is. Someone who’s invested. Someone who isn’t going anywhere. Someone who, after all the deep lessons have been offered and her worries put to rest, will turn away from tiny ears and say the thing that everyone really wants to say.

“Ah, screw Delores!”

JoJo Just Said, So Says Sloppy Joan, Spike Speak

Sisters say what? (Vol. 6)

November 15, 2017

These sister sayings have been piling up in the notes app on my phone and it was time for a massive dump. In recent months, Sloppy Joan has started calling babies “hunnies” (which is super cute when we see baby bunnies) and Spike has become obsessed with all things private parts and Mother Nature. From our house, to yours … Enjoy!

He’s Indian. No, like his DNA is Indian. – JoJo

I’m gonna volcano in your tub! – Sloppy Joan
You’re gonna what?
Volcano, mama! In there!
You mean cannonball?
Yeah!

Shakin sisters from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

I jugged that whole water so hard. – Spike

You know when I was little, I thought a plank was like a diving board, but now I know it’s like a pirate thing. – Spike

It said “B-I-T-C-H, please” in that wooden ship on the playground. So, “bitch, please”. – Spike

[Doing Zumba]
“Whoa, what does sexy mean , anyway?” – JoJo
“Um …”
“Is it a kind of dancing or exercise?”
“No! Don’t go to school and tell you friends we did sexy last night.”

“I’m going to miss being 5, but I think I can get through it.” – Spike

I like the pink shorties [underwear] but not the kitty shorties, because the kitty shorties are flaking and get into my butt. – Spike

What are those things called … chicas? – Spike
They’re called boobs. – her cousin

She probably didn’t recognize you because you have glasses now. – Hank
Yeah, maybe. But I have the same face and skin. – Spike

I know what that thing is – Spike
What thing? – Hank
That thing that you and Ryan have.
Oh?
It’s called a penis.
Really?
Yes, boys have a penis and girls have a private.
Actually, do you know what a woman’s private is called?
What?
It’s called a vagina.
Ew.

I don’t like jeans. – Spike
No? Why? – Hank
You know how sometimes your butt has like a crack in it? Like there’s a bump and then a crack?
Uh. Huh.
Well, the jeans get into that crack. That’s why I don’t like jeans.

Dad, I pooped in my underwear upstairs. Why don’t you check it out. – Sloppy Joan

G’night Sugar Lips! – Sloppy Joan

Diarrhea from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

“What are those bras called?” – Spike
“What honey?” – Hank
“You know, the bras.”
“Um, there-a, well,”
“The hairs that hang in your face.”
“Oh, bangs! Bangs! You mean bangs.”

It’s a dob bobblin … I mean a sob dobblin … I mean a nob shobblin – Spike
It was a hob gobblin – Hank

You know how you get a tickle in your throat? Well, I do not like to be tickled in my mouth. – Spike

Jack, you’re going to love the lake. They make the best watermelon there. – Spike

I saw firebees! – Sloppy Joan, chasing lightning bugs

Do you pick one out or you just have one come out? – Spike asking about babies

Oh, her name is Mary Berry? I thought it was madame Blueberry – JoJo

I was drawing on the sidechalk – Sloppy Joan

Owls are nocturtle – Spike

What do you want to eat? – Me
I want something that’s like too bad for night and too good for the day. Like not too treaty but not too dinnery. – Spike

Hey! Sloppy Joan has something to say! All you hunnies get off my mom! – Sloppy Joan

Do we have bath-is tonight, or no or yes? – Sloppy Joan, every night at dinner

Oop! I’m sorry – Spike
For what? – Me
I’m sorry I … kicked you, you know … in the penis.
Honey, I don’t have a penis.

They’re building it with an instruction truck. – Spike

Mom, you know the best part about dying? You turn into angel after you dust. – Spike

Mama, is it fun to be enormous? – Sloppy Joan

Don’t you dare look back from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

I decided I like being more brown because Pocahontas was pretty brown. – Spike

When I like to learn about nature is when it’s beautiful. When it’s not pretty, I don’t really care to learn about it. – Spike

She leaned back and kissed the bologna star, I mean the Blarney stone. And then the leprechauns came and they started making messes. – Spike

Jimmy said I don’t matter and I said you don’t care about God’s creation. – Spike

I have a friend and their grandma is 100! Yeah, I think she knew Jesus. – Spike

I stronging! – Sloppy Joan, lifting weights

Damn it, I left my coat at the farm! – JoJo, makin’ mama proud

Oh. My. Gosh. from Courtney Leach on Vimeo.

See: Sisters say what? (Vol. 5) and Sisters say what? (Vol. 4)

Wellness

Livin la Vida Vegan Day 13 (cheese heaven and carbonara crap)

September 29, 2017

Despite our temporary vegan insanity, somehow, miraculously, the world in our house keeps turning. For instance, all the chicks have a cough, Spike lost her second tooth yesterday and, perhaps most notable, the pen pal saga continues. I thought we were past it, but then I got this in my notebook from JoJo this morning:

Dear Mom,
I Don’t know why But I still Don’t want you and Spikey to Be Pen pals. I mean Spike still eats her snot And sneaks food and never is around to Play. She even punched you once and she fuses a lot!!!!!!!

Secret: I can Do a Back Pull over!!!! What do you think? Hey mayBe we should start sending secrets right?

Love,
JoJo

How to heal this wound? How … how … how? These are the special things you run into as a mother and just smile up at the heavens for placing such adorable dilemmas in your lap.

Then you have Spike, whose note simply read:

Dear mom,
Do you know that ALL are LOVE is Like Coming in My Haret more LOVE and More LOVE Thank you for ALL the ClEning Up DOn AFter the [SOMETHING]. Thank you for you anD DAD

That girl has a very special soul. They all do. I cherish the gift of peering into their little hearts. And then you have Sloppy Joan, who stood in nothing but her Pull Up at 6:30 this morning screaming at Spike, who was perched on the pot, “I–have–to–POOP!!!!!” She, too, is a delicate flower. Perhaps the most delicate of the whole bouquet.

7:30 a.m.
Don’t fall over, but I managed to leave the crack creamer out of my coffee this morning, saving myself 6g of sug. I added only a splash of cashew milk. I felt very grownup about the whole thing. Again, working to get my sugar (satan’s juice) stats down, I left the banana out of my smoothie this morning as well, opting simply for: 1.5 teaspoons spirulina, a handful of spinach, turmeric, 1 scoop chocolate protein powder, 1 teaspoon hemp seeds, cinnamon, 1 tablespoon plain coconut yogurt and cashew milk. It was tasty. Turquoise and tasty.

I’m trying to pound the water today in preparation for the race Saturday. It’s go-time for hydration. Do you guys follow Heidi Powell at all? She’s Chris Powell’s wife (Extreme Transformation), and she offers up some really helpful fitness and nutrition tips here and there. Anyway, I read this post on her blog … or maybe it was a caption on Instagram … that suggested taking 10 gulps of water every time you bring it to your lips. It helps you hit your fluid goals a little easier. I even say, “chug, chug, chug,” to myself in my head while I do it, so I feel like a girl of 19 again.

Noon
Ohhhhhhhh, you guys. I did something really bad that was so, so good at lunch today. I couldn’t do a salad today. I just couldn’t. It’s a little cool here and I found myself craving a grilled cheese sandwich. Now, I’ve had several of you mention that you aren’t necessarily interested in a vegan lifestyle, but you are going dairy free. Well, you are going to be happy you opened this post today.

I have found THE CHEESE. It’s the Chao Original Creamy dairy free cheese and it is freaking outstanding. True to its name, it’s so creamy and indulgent, making it both a miracle and the birth of a very dangerous union.

For today’s episode of “I shouldn’t have, but I did” I took two pieces of sugar-free whole wheat bread, put vegan shortening on one side and kite hill cream cheese on the other side of just one of the slices. I then added a slice of heaven (the Chao) and a generous handful of spinach. I was drunk on sodium and thoughts of the dairy of yesteryear and it was all just too perfect. I nearly ate the whole damn thing before I snapped a picture. My hand was in serious danger here.

Sensing my mistake (that I’ll never apologize for), I panicked and threw some things in a blender a la Rich Roll to try and right the wrong. I grabbed a cup of kale, a small cooked beet (mistake), ¼ cup blueberries, one chuck frozen mango, 2 tablespoons coconut yogurt (plain), ½ cup coconut water, and 1 tablespoon chia and flax mix with cocoa and coconut. It was … earthy, which is a common term around here these days. It was like licking an entire garden.

The whole thing tallied up to 755 calories, so dinner will be lettuce wraps, with lettuce filling and water sauce. I make the BEST water sauce.

5:30 p.m.
Opened these. Had a mouthgasm.

6:30 p.m.
Vegan Tempeh Carbonara. What we have here, folks, is a common case of something looking, smelling and operating under the facade of something delicious, when in fact, it is not quite … good. I should preface this by saying that I don’t like pasta IRL. I am not the person who goes face first into a giant plate of spaghetti or has a sauce recipe to hand down to my children.

Nope, I like my mom’s lasagna, my friend Nissa’s manicotti and other than that, I’m good without the stuff. So, vegan pasta didn’t really stand much of a chance.

I used edamame pasta from Costco, which might be good with stir fried veggies or something, and my new best enemy flax tempeh, and followed the recipe other than that. The first bite was promising, but much like last night, it got worse as it sat. The cashew cheese sauce had a nice flavor but the consistency totally grossed me out once I took it off the stove. I’m beginning to think that the vegan community paid the Pinterest and cookbook communities a ton of cash for some false advertising and I’m buying it up like a housewife at Tuesday Morning. I feel duped.

I did have some killer white nectarines for dessert. Thank you, fruit, for always being true to your breed. Apples taste like apples, peaches like peaches, watermelon like watermelon, berries like berries … At least a gal stumbling through a vegan no man’s land can count on something.

P.s. Hank just told me there’s Parmesan in pesto, and I put that on our sandwiches this weekend, so this whole thing just became a giant lie and I feel the need to confess to you, 300 people who are invested, because I am just as big of a fraud as those bait-and-switch images on Pinterest.

7:30 p.m.
This also happened today. I’m thinkin’ I’m into it.

Just one day to go! Viva la Vida Vegan, baby!

Wellness

Livin la Vida Vegan Day 11 (pissy pants and sizzling seitan)

September 27, 2017

I need to take a pause from the vegan diet updates for just a sec to talk about something very troubling. It’s pee. Piss. Urine. Golden streams. Or yellow puddles. In my regular routine, I come into contact with pee – not my own – no less than three times a week. Whether it’s my kid, or another kid, or a dog or a frog, there is a No. 1 situation flowing right through my day, at some point in my day, every day.

It’s like running a kennel for special puppies with small bladders. Yesterday, when I got home from work, JoJo’s sheets were in the laundry room. One of the kiddos who comes to our house during the day had an accident during nap. It happens. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we basically live in a giant urinal. Well, my eldest was having nothing to do with it. She funneled her fury – which was only further fueled by her discovery that Spike and I might also start a pen pal exchange, similar to the one JoJo and I have – into a very strongly worded letter.

It read as follows:

Dear Mom,
Tomorrow I’m giving MeeMee (the sitter) a piece of my mind about my bed!!! I’m ganna say that no more kids in my room and no kids sleeping in there! And you and Spikey canot be pen pals! Focus on you and my Because I’d crie to my death.

[Illustration of JoJo with a happy heart (“Mom and JoJo pen pals”) and then a messy stick figure with the caption “me cring. heart Broken.” just below that.]

Love, JoJo

But oh how the mighty do fall. At 4 o’clock this morning, I woke to the gentle whispers of our oldest daughter, confessing that she herself had an accident on our floor. Why she was on our floor, right next to the hairy, nasty dog bed, and not in her sister’s cozy queen size bed? I don’t know. I never know. This is an every night thing in our house. Does anyone else know?

Hank threw a towel over it, cleaned her up and moved both her and Spike (who was spooned up next to her on the ground) back down the hall so we could go “back to sleep”. Of course, we’re never really back to sleep, are we? Parents. Anything past the REM cycle is considered a luxury at this point in life. Right up there with solo time on the toilet and sitting. I guess that’s just what this chapter looks like … tired souls with urine on their hands.

7:30 a.m.
I put a full teaspoon of spirulina into my smoothie today, and backed down a bit on the powdered peanut butter, which has more sugar than I’d like. The algae flavor was slightly more noticeable, but not enough to tickle the ole gag reflex, so on we go. I’m thinking phase 2 is cutting the creamer from my coffee. It’s a liquid sugar bomb, and it’s got too tight of a hold on my heart.

I had a text from my bud Ryan:

I mean it’s not hard, because that’s really what this is. It’s totally doable, but also an insane life choice that’s making everything ten thousand times harder. It’s natural and against my human nature. It feels healing and like all my weaknesses are exposed. It’s funny because it’s really just food, but the change is making me a bit of a kook. And kooky people are freaking hilarious.

Noon
Earth Fare run for seitan and tempeh at lunch. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d type.

I came home to throw together a taco salad with my leftovers, but something was wrong. Terribly wrong. There, on the counter in the kitchen, sat a box with a dozen cookies from my favorite local bakery. Come inside my sick mind for a sec, k …

“What … the truck … is that? Why are those there? Who put those there? Is someone messing with me. Someone’s messing with me. Is there a camera in here? Who would do this? What kind of sick, twisted person would do this?! [Find card.] The car dealership?! Why in the hell is the car dealership sending us cookies?! It was a gosh dang trade in for crying out loud! Those bastards. Those car-selling bastards, with their sweet treats and good customer service. OK, I’m just going to lift the lid. [Lift lid, stick nose into sugar cloud. Close eyes.] Oh, shit. Alright, what’s my end game here? Should I throw them away? Just throw them away. My God, you can’t throw these away! You’ll be arrested. I’m a grownup, just set them out for the kids. But they won’t appreciate them the way I would. Maybe we can freeze them. Yeah, I’ll freeze them. We’ll just pull out our favorites and freeze those, give the rest to the kids. But I love them all. I’m going to put them down in this cabinet until Hank gets home. He’ll know what to do.”

And then I put the box of cookies down low, behind my slow cooker, and walked away; unable to discard them and unable to give them up. This, brothers and sisters, is how you know you are ill.

I assembled my salad: leftover taco “meat”, guacamole, crushed up tortilla chips, a dollop of coconut yogurt and salsa. It was bomb. I stood, leaning against the cabinet door where my cookies were sleeping and enjoyed every single bite.

“Goodnight, sweet cookies. I’ll see you again soon.” I whispered.

3 p.m.
What I really want is chocolate and popcorn, so what I’m having is the rest of my suja organic ginger kombucha. Really hoping that quenches the craving.

6 p.m.
Made it! Tonight, we’re cookin’ up some Crispy Orange Seitan from the Vegan for Everybody cookbook. Oh my gosh … you don’t know what seitan is? How do you not know what seitan is, you silly, carnivorous fool. Psych! I don’t know what the hell it is, either. And I looked at the ingredients, so that makes it extra scary. From what I gathered, it’s like globs of gluten or something? They call it “wheat meat”. So there ya go.

The toughest thing about these recipes is making sure you have all of the ingredients on hand. “It looks like you emptied out your cabinets,” our sitter said, as she watched me assemble the handfuls of sauce components. But once I had it all in there, this one came together pretty fast. The nice thing about cooking with these fake meats – tempeh, tofu, seitan, veggie crumbles – is they cook up fast as Rizzo. It’s a big time saver.

I used bagged cauli rice from Costco for a side, along with some peanut butter + celery courtesy of my sous chefs and chopped up plum, mango and blueberries for dessert. (I’d like for it to be known that I did NOT have a cookie tonight.)

This was pretty darn good, I gotta say. The cauliflower needed a little more flavoring, but the seitan was a pleasant surprise, as seitans go. Hank dubbed it “fine” which, if you speak Hank, you know translates to, “not exceptional, but good”. I would make it again.

This is my 6-year-old on seitan:

7:30 p.m.
I knocked out my last training run before the race Saturday; A snail-like 3 miles with lots of sweat. I notice on this diet, I don’t cramp as much and I can steady my breath a little easier during the run. Could be the training or it could be some vegan magic. Either way, by the time I was done, I knew my body needed something. I slammed a handful of walnuts, dried blueberries and pumpkin seeds.

JoJo was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. She found the notebook I gave Spike so we, too, could be pen pals. She told me I broke her heart. That she wanted to be special. That Spikey could never write messages as special as hers would be. It felt like the emotional climax of a Nicholas Sparks novel. I think I got her down off the ledge enough to sleep tonight, but we’ll see. There could be tears. Or pee. Maybe pee.