A Christmas Poem: Elf on the Damn Shelf

Elf on the Damn Shelf

There he sits that evil plastic Christmas elf
commercial demon made to sit on the shelf.
With mocking delight, he flashes me a smile
A smug, wicked grin that makes me revile,

that damned elf who I obviously forgot
to move last night to a new spying spot.
I sneak the short sucker under my night shirt.
Then find a new place for the spying pervert.
I drop him atop a new shelf without care
hoping he can terrorize kids from up there.
Nothing too fancy, I'm not Pinterest's whore
he can sit on the shelf and stare at the door.
Facebook's Mom of the Year, I'll never be
because I lack the time, will, or energy
to destroy my house in the name of the elf
who should have remained on Target's shiny shelf.

Raising Boys in the Time of #MeToo and Bully-Hunting

I am finding myself lost in a world of contradictions. I'm Alice eating the wrong side of the cake at the wrong time and growing too big and breaking the house or too small and drowning in a sea of confusion. Simply put - I don't always know how to parent in this modern age where bad people still get away with being bad but their actions punish the rest of us.

For example, I am raising two kind and thoughtful young boys who see girls as their equals. I am a Feminist mother using #MeToo as a cautionary tale to protect the future generations and guide my teaching practices. But I am raising two affectionate boys who still crawl into my lap and cuddle and kiss me on the nose or forehead as I ruffle their hair. A hug is a natural impulse to them. And I know they need to be educated to respect others who don't want to be hugged. But I also don't want to live in a world where they are hauled into the Principal's office for hugging a friend who was okay with the hug. What message does that send?

Doesn't it seem like the bad apples, the rotten fruit of our society who are really and truly guilty of rape, sexual harassment, and bullying have triggered a knee-jerk reaction to punish everyone?

Now don't get me wrong. I believe the wrongdoers need to be punished. MeToo is a real thing, and I carry my own shameful stories and fears as a woman and want this kind of demeaning "women as sexual objects" kind of culture to end.

But why is the pendulum swinging so far to the other side it knocks all the innocent parties down too?  We no longer live in a world of balance. There is no ying/yang harmony. Just a confusing red - like an angry siren that goes off on everyone. Yes, safety precautions are absolutely necessary. There is way too much abuse going on.

But there is also too much abuse of the system. My youngest son calls bullying when my oldest looks at him wrong. In fact, I've seen first grade girls manipulate the bully word to try to get another girl in trouble. All the while, a real bully picked on my oldest son for several months before my son lost it and hit him. The school ended up not punishing him because the teacher had documented the problem to the admin.

I don't know what the answer is. Rules are in place because we know the world is a dangerous place. But will we make it better if we also support everyone to call bully or take affection out of the world? How do we navigate these tricky waters as parents?

I want to educate and protect my sons from abuse on both sides of the spectrum. To look at a mad world through a rationale lens and ask what is appropriate for this situation. Not what is the blanket reaction to anything that steps its toes too close to a dangerous topic.

Parenting P.T.S.D.

Through the car's Bluetooth speaker, I could hear my friend's two-year-old son screaming in that inconsolable high-pitched, piercing tone that sends my shoulders up towards my ears as if they could cover them and make the sound go away. Not because I was annoyed by them. But because the sound thrust me back six years in time like a nasty flashback to the trenches of early parenting. To a similar scene and a similar shrill scream from my own two-year-old son who would not stop shrieking on the same stretch of the 91 freeway as we drove away from Disneyland, the unhappiest place on Earth as far as he and me were concerned due to our mutual resentment that the other person had ruined their experience.

On my part, it was because I hadn't let him run freely through the park wherever the whim and mania led him but instead pushed through glaring throngs of people throwing apologies over my shoulder as I finally caught up to his surprisingly fast chubby legs before he threw himself onto the Dumbo ride. And I resented him for the stress and sweat pouring out of my exhausted and bent body as I held onto his squirming form and strapped him into the Ergo so I could make sure my five-year-old son was still standing in line with my friend and his two calm, angelic daughters.
Finally, physically and mentally done I pushed the double stroller on the long hike to the parking garage not wanting to deal with folding and dragging the stroller and two kids onto the tram as people watched, rolled their eyes, and commented under their breath instead of offering assistance. I ignored the aching pains in my shoulders, forearms, quads, and feet and just pushed on towards the freedom of the car.
Of course, in my irrational desire to leave, I hadn't figured on Orange and Riverside County traffic at four in the afternoon. Naturally, as soon as I was gridlocked on the freeway between a red river of brake lights going five miles an hour on a 100 mile journey back to the Coachella Valley, my two-year-old started howling for his life. He thrashed against his car seat restraints and knocked the peace offerings of juice and cookies and every other sugar and starch-laden goodies I could find in the snack bag. I tried playing a Wiggles DVD, sang songs to him, I think I even offered him a pony, a private jet, and a small island nation. Anything to quiet that angry squall smashing its way out of his cute little rosebud mouth. My body shook, my mind dashed for cover, only the automated lessons from driver's ed held fast as I cried with him. My five year old even joined in, first with complaints and later with his own frustrated tears as I finally pulled over at Tyler Mall in Riverside still an hour from home.
My little one calmed down, and we ate some dinner. I even let him run down the mall as his brother and I chased him hoping against hoping that he'd wear himself into a stupor. Finally, after an hour and a half with the realization that I could not live here and that my oldest and I really needed to get home and rest our frayed nerves, I got back in the car hoping the traffic had gone and that my little one would sleep. It was a futile hope because even at 8 o'clock at night, the traffic was still bad though maybe everyone was up to fifteen miles an hour and also because my youngest had only ever fallen asleep maybe three times in the car in his entire small life. In fact, he hated the car with a passion some religious zealots feel about the United States. He wanted to burn it to the ground and stomp on its image. He wanted to erase its existence from the Earth or his reality if possible. Even short trips to the grocery could be ordeals of torture for the both of us.
So as he began his now familiar scream, I steeled my nerves and locked my eyes dead ahead willing myself to drive from Point A to Point B but not before recording his unholy shriek on my phone so I could throw the evidence instead of my fist in the smug faces of the people who told me how much babies loved being in the car. Somehow, this one didn't. Fortunately, we made it home alive. He even fell asleep five miles before I entered my garage. I collapsed into a silent stream of tears against the steering wheel as my husband came out of the house and put both boys to bed.
As much as I would love to, I can never erase this memory and the dozens more like it from my youngest son's childhood. It reappears whenever I hear another child like my friend's toddler shrieking with a volume that belies their small lungs. I feel both empathy for the mother and a need to crawl into a small space and hide. My shoulders creep up, my spine tightens, even my abs brace for a punch. It reminds me of all the times I felt so helpless and worn out at the same time. Because I wanted to help my child and abandon it at the same time.
I want to the selfless mother, the one who is supposed to comfort and ease my child's problems, but I'm also the human woman unable to cope with yet another jarring and mentally exhausting experience. I can't bribe him, reason with him, nothing. I just have to accept it and go on. Because my efforts fall flat. Maybe that's the worst bit. I am powerless. This barrage of miserable, gut-wrenching noise and crying till he vomits will happen in spite of everything I try.
Even now, my youngest son still retains the power to reduce me to jelly. He was gifted or cursed with an all-encompassing, full-on emotive cry that embodies all the pain and helplessness of childhood. A few days ago at the waterpark, he began howling and holding his face as he screamed that it burned. I tried all my helpful mommy tricks in a quick succession as I felt myself retreating inwards away from the noise because I knew I wouldn't be able to solve his particular problem. Thankfully, the nice man at First Aid fixed it. Yet, there I was struggling to hold it together and not cry in front of my friends and strangers as once again my body reacted and retreated into a tightened and protective stance as I wished it all away. I love my son. More than anything in the world. But that scream, that terror will always shake me to my core and make me want to curl into a ball until it passes. His scream is my war memories, a time of helpless agony as a barrage of fear and pain rains down.

The Ramblings of an Insomniac

I'm yawning as I write this or attempting to complete a yawn as I can't even seem to accomplish the basic reflex necessary for channeling more oxygen into my body. So this may be a half-fueled ramble. Half-lacking oxygen, sleep, and a linear train of thought.

I am an insomniac. Have been since puberty struck me at 14 forgetting to give me my moms big boobs but over-compensating with acne, menstrual cramps, and an overwhelming sense of worry and an over-active mind. When I was younger and stupider, I used to think saying I had insomnia made me sound cool. Like I was a dark and brooding writer like Jack Kerouac and couldn't sleep for all the deep, angsty thoughts running with scissors in my head.

Nowadays, as a parent to two hyper boys, insomnia is just a pain in the butt. A thief. It robs me of energy and even the will to play. Plus, it runs even more rampant albeit with safety scissors as I've added a layer of mommy guilt on top of all my other anxieties like a rich layer cake. There are dark chocolate layers baked with my desire to write more or even better or even just something stuck between my vanilla concerns for my kids to have friends, healthy diets, good grades, and some semblance of a well-balanced life that doesn't resemble mine.

During summer, the insomnia I've managed to tame into a benign monster that allows me some precious sleep so I can wake up early and nag other people out of sleep returns to its fierce and fiendish self. It lays awake until past midnight with the excuse that it is claiming "me time". But more often than not the monster and I lay in bed flipping through Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu for a half hour with the inability to find anything to watch or settling on some random comedy series or lesser known BBC adaptation of an obscure Dicken's novel and pretending to watch it while scanning Facebook for something to wake up the brain cells or give meaning to existence. Eyes heavy, brain slack-jawed, the monster cons me into thinking I am ready for sleep. But the instant I turn off the television and my side lamp and adjust my pillow, it gnaws on my thoughts. Not even deep thoughts. Sometimes just thoughts repetitively saying over and over, "why can't I sleep".

So I sleep in the next morning when I can but wake up with a drunken grogginess at 9 a.m. having achieved periods of unconsciousness in small bursts from 3 a.m. onwards when the room wasn't too stuffy or the pillow too lumpy or my neck too crooked. Sometimes I nap the next day stealing the time I had set aside for creativity or connecting with my kids which consequently forces me to stay up late again in a gambit to play a board game past bedtime or attempt to write something more than incoherent phrases that play out in a stream of consciousness so tumbled down and varied they are more ragging rapids than stream.

Sometimes with the help of my go-getter, energizer bunny friends, I can fake a vivacious personality. Even without their help I have moments of hyper focus and energy like a pinball thrust forward with the goal of hitting every light only to fall back into a place of waiting.

Pills do not help. I am immune to Melatonine and every prescription sleep aid. Nothing short of hitting myself over the head results in complete unconsciousness. And it's not all anxiety related. A lot of the time it is that the room is too hot, too cold, too stuffy, the sheet to scratchy, the wind too loud, my body too stiff, too sore, too soft, or too full. I once stayed up for over a day because I couldn't sleep sitting up on my flight from Phoenix to London and then was too overtired to sleep so took a tour of the city from the front window of a double decker bus that I can only remember as one long, jumble of postcard images.

And do not tell me to exercise myself into sleep. Any good insomniac knows that the body can be completely and physically exhausted but the mind still warbles on like that chatty girl on a long bus trip who can't read body language or the veiled hints that you'd like to close your eyes now and go to sleep.

Then adding more insult to injury, I find my best writing ideas come to be as I waver into REM sleep leaving me with the option to drag my tired body out of bed and hope the muse hasn't scampered away into the dark night with a cute vampire or lay there hoping I will remember the idea in the morning. Except with the latter, I only wake with the evaporating image of something wonderful but too far gone to know exactly what it resembled.

Even now I forced myself from a nap because the words were marching across my mind and demanding an audience. I just hope they reformed here in neat, orderly rows that make sense. A call of collective commiseration with my fellow insomniacs.

Litte Kindnesses, Large Impact

As I grow older, I am learning that the little kindnesses I have received in my life have enriched me in more way than all the big gifts. Not that I am not grateful for the big gifts. It's just that those small acts of help I have been the beneficiary of sit in my heart, even make it grow ten times bigger like the Grinch though hopefully not from such a small starting place. So I am going to share some stories of Little Kindnesses and their Large Impact on my life.

• When I was 14, my mom and I were flying back from Washington D.C. to Phoenix via a layover in Dallas. My cousin who worked for America West Airlines had kindly given us buddy passes so we could afford to see our relatives back East. The only catch was we had to fly stand-by. Now as we boarded the plane, the airline attendant separated my mom and I and no one would let us sit together. It was full flight and because it was going to Dallas, there was a sea of expensive Stetsons and suits worn by the successful Texas businessmen flying back home. A shy, introverted 14-year-old, I started to cry, my mom was upset and about to get off the plane so we could wait for another flight. Then a kind voice with a Texas drawl said to the flight attendant, "Let the little girl sit up in first class." I turned around as one of the tall Texas businessmen smiled at me and  gestured with his long-fingered, manicured hand towards the seat next to him in first class. For some reason, the attendant acquiesced and let me sit there. The older gentleman was very sweet and grandfatherly and slowly got me to talking about my trip. Yes, I missed my mom, but the attention I received in first class and the gentleman's easy and friendly nature eased my anxieties, and my mom even walked over to talk to me when the plane was at cruising altitude. We both thanked the man for his kindness always remembered him.

• A couple years ago, I house sat for a friend in San Diego. Which again was a kindness in itself. My sons and I had enjoyed a fun day at the beach with some friends frolicking in the surf. However, my oldest didn't heed my warning to reapply sunscreen and got sunburned. Later, that night he began wheezing, his asthma flaring up. Of course, I had forgotten his nebulizer back home in the desert, a two and half hour drive away.  By midnight, he was feverish, hallucinating, and his asthma was worse. In a panic, I grabbed my youngest out of bed, forgetting his shoes and pants and packed both boys in the car and then tried to remember where the hospital was in Mission Hills. I carried my youngest and supported my oldest on my shoulder as we walked into the ER. I looked harried and was on the verge of tears. In seconds, the doctors took my oldest son into their care, someone got up and gave me their seat, while another lady wrapped a blanket around my youngest who was still barefoot and just wearing a t-shirt and undies. Strangers asked if I was okay and needed anything else. Some handed me a glass of water. I felt blanketed by their kindness, a warmth enveloping me and easing my panic. Both medical professionals and strangers took care of us as if we were their own. I am and will always be eternally grateful to them.

• Last night, I drove home from Universal  Studios with my two sons. We were exhausted after two days of traveling from the desert first on Tuesday for a beach trip and then Wednesday to Universal Studios. Now I hate driving in L.A. and that surrounding mess of cities. I white knuckle the steering wheel of my mini-van cursing the traffic and other cars that are either at   standstill going there or weaving in and out of the lanes at 100 miles per hour going home. It makes me a nervous wreck, my eyes popped open and glued to the veering cars ahead of me who speed then suddenly brake at the last second. So by 10 o'clock at night, hungry and not familiar with where the food exits were I stumbled upon a pizza place. I rushed the boys inside and ordered three individual pizzas just as the restaurant was about to close. While the extremely nice lady made the food, I babbled about driving back to the Palm Spring area between fielding questions and complaints from the boys. I am sure I looked tired and harried, my hair frizzed up from two days of humid weather, my eyes carrying their own purple luggage, and my voice taking on the almost drunken slur of the exhausted. I was just telling my boys to drink their waters when they got back in the car when she handed me three complimentary cups for the soda fountain. When the pizzas were ready, I approached the cash register to pay. But she waved me away with a smile. A warm fuzzy overwhelmed me and pricked the back of my eyes. I smiled and thanked her and walked to my car with three delicious pizzas. Moreover, her kindness gave me the energy to drive the two hours back home, not just from the food but the renewed knowledge that there are so many good people in the world. 
• You see, the news - the cruel acts of school shootings and kids being separated from their parents as well as all the nastiness flying through social media has weighed me down lately. I've felt like I've been wearing a ship's anchor tied to my heart. The world has colored itself black. But this small act and all the others, plus  all my good friends who I am blessed with, relieves the pressure and brings the colors back. 
• Now I feel empowered to pay it forward. Those small acts of kindness are huge memories for me, ones that never dim but inspire me to be a better person.