Margarita Mama

More Happy than Sad

Wow, I finally did it. All three of my children in the same school, at the same time! Don't get me wrong, I feel some major tugs on the heart strings when I watch my little baby go off to kindergarten. But it really helps that she only goes for 2.5 hours. So she and I still get to spend the afternoon together. She's not really gone yet. Next year, maybe it'll be more difficult. I don't know. But I have to laugh, the woman who cuts my hair, Mandy, told me of her awful experience last week. She mistakenly started cheering to a client of hers about how the children would be back in school. Mandy said the woman became very pissed and said "How could you talk about your children that way? I MISS my children when they're at school." HA! Ok, when Rodrigo first went to first grade, I missed him a little, it was odd having him gone for so many hours. But after I got used to having them at school all day, when the end of summer comes, (sometimes when the end of a long weekend comes) I'm ready for them to be in the normal routine, and they are too, by the way.  My kids love school. Sylvia couldn't wait to go this morning. She was very disappointed that school was cancelled due to power outages on Friday.

I've had many crazy psychopaths ask me what I'm going to do with "all that time". Well, first of all, we usually walk to and from school. Even if I share the walking with neighbors; seriously parents, 2.5 extra hours in your day is nothing. Maybe half of what we need to start catching up on all that we're behind on I'd say. I always look at the idiots who ask me that question and say, "Don't worry, I have a list." I still haven't fully recovered or organized my life from the period when I was simultaneously working and moving. There are things to be done. Honestly, no thumb twiddling or bon-bon eating going on over here.

Embarrassing

We went out to dinner at Noodles the other evening and Clara kept complaining about how embarrassing Sylvia was. The way she was dancing was embarrassing, why is she walking that way? No longer is Sylvia the cute little baby doll for Clara to play with, she's officially graduated to annoying little sister. And boy does Sylvia play the part well. As soon as she caught wind that she was embarrassing Clara she began to dance wackier and talk louder. She knew she was being funny.

Clara and Rodrigo began talking about something that happened "before Sylvia was born" and Sylvia got this evil grin on her face and said at the top of her lungs, "So, how do you make a baby anyway?" I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by her comic timing. The mortified look on Clara's face was priceless. We've been talking about periods and reproduction, (just Clara and I) so she has an inkling of how it all works. Rodrigo (who knows the WHOLE story now) looked at me expectantly. I actually began to giggle. Looking back, I'm trying to figure out: how does Sylvia know that the topic of making babies is an embarrassing one?

Growing up too fast

I've recently finished a major overhaul of all three kids' rooms (for some reason, the rooms are still messy, go figure) And Clara and Rodrigo are 100% grown out of those cute "kiddie" hangers I used to buy at Target by the dozen to keep up with their ever expanding wardrobes. They have big people clothes on their bodies that are rapidly growing almost as tall as mine! I had kind of already switched over Rodrigo, but even he had a couple of things hanging on the itty bitty hangers.

It was just an odd milestone, removing the little hangers from their closets, admitting after kind of using both for the past year or two and constantly picking clothes off the floor  when they slid off the itty-bitty hangers.  Their coats I've been hangning on adult hangers for quite some time, but their closets have been stocked with the same red, white and blue plastic hangers that held their onesies. Sylvia can still use them, but um, I've got like 3 kids worth of plastic hangers in my house if anybody's interested?? I am on a MAJOR cleaning out rampage, so they won't last long.

Going To Hell in a Grocery Basket

After 9 days of unrelenting viruses, (3 different ones passed between 3 children) I had decided that although Rodrigo's fever was gone I was NOT sending the kid back to school for one last day before spring break, to bring home yet another illness to top it all off. He's still tired. He wasn't contagious though, so I took him out for a much needed haircut. Sylvia came with, as she was also enjoying her first fever free day in sometime. Clara, still feverish, we left in bed, with Miguel working at home.

It felt really GOOD to be out of the house. We stopped at the grocery store for Orange Juice and a man I had never seen before asked me to come check out in his line. Sylvia, like she does all the 800 other times per month we are at that exact same grocery store, had the gall to ask for a "sticker". You know, those orange "paid" Dominick's stickers they hand out so freely on any other occassion? Well, my daughter, who just got over the illness of the century asked him for a sticker and he looked at me and he said "The stickers only go on store products." This store happens to be located right next store to Sylvia's preschool. And being the scatter-brained mom of 3, I cannot pull it together enough to set foot in that store less than 4-5 per week. In the last 8 years that I have been bringing young children into said store; I have never, ever encountered such a policy.

As I gave him the look of disbelief and considered what the hell to say in response, Sylvia said to me "Mom, why won't that man give me a sticker?" And, I stood there and I said in a really loud voice "Because that man is an asshole" And she stopped blinking back her tears and just blinked a few times in surprise, looked at Rodrigo, who smiled and shrugged, and then we walked away. I didn't look at the guy again.

Maybe it was too early for us to go back out in public.

Home Sweet Home

Ah, I always find it best leave a good solid 6 weeks between posts. Anymore and I'd just be talking about myself too much, eh?

So I left my job at the end of October and you wouldn't know it by the looks of this blog. Or my house. Or my body. So what gives? Ok, I'll give myself credit for giving Clara a beautiful new bedroom that fucking kicks Pottery Barn's ass. It's gorgeous. I'll have to take a photo and post it tomorrow. There are some shelves left to hang. But it's otherwise officially decorated. Also, all Christmas shopping is done and has been for a few days. Oh and we re-organized the basement in a major way.

On top of my resolution to use this time to put my house and life back together, I also resolved to spend these last fleeting moments of innocence with my children. Sylvia's last few years as a pre-schooler; Clara and Rodrigo's last months before they hit the whole tween scene hard. Rodrigo will be 10 in 3 months. That was difficult to type. Clara is mature beyond her years and will be a full-blown tween long before she's 10.

I've been trying to get back into the habit of cooking. To save money, to have more family meals together, and to eat more healthfully. And to make use of the kick ass kitchen in my kick ass house. Found a wonderful recipe for peppermint bark that I'll be serving at all holiday functions this month. Miguel and I plan to sit down tonight and figure out just when those functions will be. I've been cleaning alot, to make up for the months of neglect. And cleaning puts me in a party mood, because honestly; I only really clean when company's coming.

I have a cd called Winter Solstice that I always remember to get out at the first snow. Some songs are holiday-ish. But it's just a lovely instrumental cd to play when you're all warm inside and it's cold as a penguin's ass outside. I popped that in the kitchen cd player while making dinner Friday night. I was making curried chicken in the crock pot and the smell was intoxicating. I was filled with a sense of well-being and satisfaction that I haven't felt in years.

It's difficult for me to reconcile being a modern woman with the complete satisfaction that I feel being a shit-ass-ho-motherfucker. (Stay-at-home-mom) I believe in a woman's right/obligation to choose her path in life. And what works best for me and my family for now is that I continue doing the home-making. I've always hated the term homemaker. But I've determined that for me, it's my primary occupation right now. Why? Because I need it. It's good for my family, but for me, it's a need. I'm not 100% sure that we can continue living in the current style and have me "homemaking" forever. But I doubt I will need it to be this way forever.

The only relationship I have with my own family is exchanging occasional email with an uncle of mine. That is it. I have no family outside of what I have created here in my home for myself. And being with them is comforting and healing. And it builds me up in a way that I didn't get as a child. I'm still reveling in the warm security of it all. And I have a secret fear that if I step away from it for too long; it'll disappear.

I have other dreams and interests. I have no doubt that I will pursue them someday. It is also quite possible that I will need to find a "job" that doesn't involve my passions in the future. Possibly in the near future. All of these things are fine with me. And I'll tackle those things as they come. I just don't want them right now. For now my goal is to stop explaining my choices to people. Like I just felt the need to explain it to myself and the 4 people who read this blog and already know these things about me anyway. But hey, it's my fucking blog and I'll use it for repetitive self-introspection if I want to.

Here are some fun things I've done in the past 6 weeks that have made me enjoy being a mom again: Kicked Rodrigo's ass at Monopoly. Had my ass kicked by Rodrigo at Shooters. Started a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle with Clara. Went on a class field trip with Sylvia. Took the kids and one friend for each of them to Cosely Zoo for an afternoon just because the weather was nice. Read "The Tale of Despereaux" to the kids over Thanksgiving break. Watched "Finding Nemo" with the kids on our new HDTV (Miguel's Christmas gift for the next 3 years!) instead of cleaning up the kitchen like I was going to.

Birth Control

We had a little visitor this weekend. Charlie came for a sleepover while his mommy and daddy had to go out of town. He's a great little baby and he even slept through the night! Sylvia and Clara would not get out of his face, they kept him so entertained. And when Rodrigo came home from his sleepover Sunday morning, he spent a good half an hour laying on the floor with Charlie, checking out all his great toys. When I fed him, I remembered the sweetness of cuddling up on the sofa and drifting off to sleep together.

Even though we got a baby who was already roly-poly, laughing and cute, and most importantly, on a schedule; I couldn't help but remember all the reasons why we decided to stop at three.

The all important schedule. Having to be home for naps, cause you don't want to deal with the baby who hasn't had a nap. With Charlie, it was no big deal, 24 hours. A beautiful summer weekend, and most importantly, school was out and I had children at home. Not being chauffeured all over the place, and HOME to entertain the baby. This is not our normal life. Just the 2 blissful weeks between summer activities and the start of school.

I promised myself, 3 1/2 years ago, when I was schlepping baby Sylvia in and out of her snowsuit for 6th time one day (pre-school, kindergarten, hitting the gym, dance classes, etc); that I'd write it down in my mind this time, just how difficult it really is to raise another child. That amnesia is not only for labor. In the past I've found myself quickly forgetting the sleeplessness, the struggle to get them down for naps, the drudgery, the toddler tantrums.

Watching Sylvia turn into the big girl that she is now was downright painful. But I managed to emblazon somewhere in the back of my mind, the promise I made to myself, to move on. It wasn't easy to resist when 11 people I knew well decided to up and get pregnant, all within the same year. I was buying cute little baby boy sweaters in bulk (9 of them are boys)

But I did it. I made it through baby-mania, unpregnant. I feel like having sweet little Charlie come by was a nice test, a temptation. He's at one of the best baby stages, 2 naps a day, sleeping through the night, but still small, sweetie and cuddly (and unable to talk back). But at the end of the weekend, I felt satisfied. Happy to have had my baby fix and ready to hand him back over. I passed my test with flying colors.

The Simple Life

I've always suspected that my children were spoiled brats, but now I have irrefutable proof. Our dishwasher broke last Wednesday and we just got it fixed today, as in 7 long days later. We had to wait for the authorized "Kitchen Aid dealer" to touch it, or the warranty would be void. I have not been without a dishwasher since it was just the two of us, living in Chicago, working all day, and usually eating whatever food they served at the bar we were hanging out in. When I did attempt to cook, half of the taco meat would end up in the sink because I was too drunk on margaritas to keep the lid on tight. Needless to say, there weren't many dishes to wash. Those were the days.....Hmmm

Oh, back to me, 3 kids and no dishwasher for a week. I'd reached a breaking point on the dishes and I knew Miguel had too. We were arguing each evening over who had done more dishes. I had taken to eating things directly out of their containers to avoid making another dish to wash.

So Rodrigo and Clara said something like "What are we going to do now?" And I said that while their father and I go outside and install brackets for hanging baskets, I expected them to go into the kitchen and do all those dishes. Their faces lit up, and they said "REALLY?" It only took me a second to jump all over that opportunity. I showed them the basics. Rodrigo washed and Clara dried. It reminded me so much of my brother and myself (about a year or two older) bickering each night over the hated chore of washing the dishes. They laughed and chatted as we went outside with the drill and the step stool. I was smugly certain that they would be arguing about who was going too slow or too fast by the time we came back in.

It never happened. We came back in, they were still joking and giggling and enjoying themselves like they were at a party. They did the entire fucking pile. The majority of the dishes were actually clean and dry. I know it would be different if they were responsible for washing and drying the dishes every evening, that this was novel for them. But they joy with which they approached the task, it disturbed me.

I kept thinking about Paris Hilton and how much fun she had flipping burgers and writing obscene messages with the letters on the sign outside the fast food restaurant. I haven't been the best at assigning and enforcing chores. We're always so busy, and I don't set a good example. My two main motivations for cleaning are shame and disgust. Either someone is coming over, or the house is so junky and dusty I just can't take it anymore. There is no schedule, we are just that busy. And because they are so busy with dance and all the dozen other things Rodrigo has signed up for at school, I feel like they are already hard workers (they are both FANTASTIC students), but now I'm not sure. Am I doing the right thing by letting them still have some "kid" time, despite the fact that they dance so many days a week they can now dance circles around Fred and Ginger? Or am I raising the next generation of Paris Hiltons?

When I Grow Up

My youngest child is turning 4 tomorrow. Is it too late to do all 3 children's baby books?

I used to think it was smart of me to hold onto the idea that someday I would get my shit together and my house and my life would be organized and things would run more smoothly around here. Now I know that fantasy was just a cruel joke. Having a bigger house means more corners to stack unsorted piles of papers in.

Good Question

We have a 6 cd changer in the mini-van, and the one cd I always have in there is Grease. It just always peps me up and the kids love the songs ever since their father did Greased Lightnin' for the Dancing Dads number, the first year Rodrigo joined the team.

As we were pulling into the garage yesterday, I turned off the radio and continued on, in my best Stockard Channing imitation "I could stay home, every night. Wait around for Mr. Right" And Sylvia says to me "Who's that?"

I love it. I love the things 3 year old's say, everything is just so new and fascinating to them. And simple. Like when you try and say, "sorry we can't buy that, we're out of money" and they get all excited, like they have just figured out world peace and say "I know mommy, you can go to the bank and get some more at the cash station." All 3 of my children have tried that one with me. I regret not writing down more of their 3 year old observations. I know I have a couple of precious ones for both Clara and Rodrigo, but for Sylvia, I am actually keeping a file of her best questions. Hopefully this will make up for the fact that she has several hundred fewer baby pictures of her than Rodrigo has.

My son is turning 9 tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow night, my first born child will enter the 10th year of his life. We looked through some of his first photo albums last night and he was laughing at all the photos we had of him, in the same outfit, with almost the same pose. We couldn't part with any of them, because in one he is smiling, another he is winking, and look at this one, it looks like he's giving us a thumb's up. I'm going to turn into a stinky old demented lady who sits around the house looking at photos, and I'll have plenty to keep me occupied through a nice long retirement.

Speaking of feeling older. I was at the convenient care clinic with Clara last Saturday (because she couldn't tell me she had an ear infection on the day her doctor's office is actually open) and a woman with a 7 month old baby girl was giving her insurance info at the desk. When asked her husband's birthday, she said x/xx/80. as in, my husband, the father of this baby was born in 1980. I almost laughed out loud because I thought she had made a mistake. Nobody's daddy was born in the 80's. Oh, 26, that would make him two years older than I was when I had Rodrigo. And then I realized, Holy Fuck, I'm not the youngest parent in the room anymore! I'm so used to people rolling their eyes when I tell them how old I am.

I'm getting older, the grey is getting more and more difficult to cover up with drug store hair color. (My mother started going gray when I was about 8, and she had me when she was 17, so I'm dealing with that issue way earlier then most might have to). I can't get really drunk on a rare night out and still manage to muddle through the next day with kids, like I could when we were all younger. I have retirement savings and participate in carpools regularly. I often don't make it through the night without getting up once to pee. I don't even know where this post is coming from, I thought I was just going to sit down and write something funny Sylvia said. Guess I'm having some anxiety about my kids getting older.

We are all definitely entering a new era. I will miss my babies and toddlers immensely, but I'm ready for the changes. To relax a little, to be more flexible. I dropped off one of Clara's friends after dance, and Clara ended up going in with her, staying for dinner and then spending the night. I like living without a schedule, if it is only on weekends and holidays.

Moving On Up!

No, I haven't moved yet, but as this is supposed to be some sort of journal of mine, it might be wise to comment on the single most gigantic thing to happen to me in the past 7 years (outside of the birth of our 3rd and final child, Sylvia, {yeah, I know I just cursed my self by calling her my final child, but it's true, that's it I'm done, and cool, parentheses within parentheses})

So we're moving to a bigger home, leaving our first home. The home we fell in love with when we weren't even looking for a home. The home when we went to "just looK for the hell of it", I walked into the lovely, landscaped backyard and said to myself "I have to live here". That's first time homeownership for you; Fuck what's inside of the house, Fuck the fact that it's 80+ years old and your husband has never picked up a hammer in his life, Fuck that it's a corner lot with a HUGE backyard and your husband's from Portugal and has never operated a lawn mower in his life (they just don't do grass there.) Fuck it all, the house was cute, charming, all brick and had a wonderful fenced in yard for my children to play in. It could have been pretty bad, considering how little we knew about home ownership and gardening. But it turned out wonderfully, and we have loved this place like it was a fourth child. But it's not. And we don't fit here anymore. We haven't fit here for about 2 years. The house hasn't been clean for 2 years, because there simply isn't a place to put everything.  I knew something was definitely wrong last year when I began to dread Christmas instead of looking forward to it. Where would we put the tree, and most importantly, where the hell would be put the new fucking toys???

We searched all summer and finally at the end of the summer (and the worst possible time to be putting our home on the market), a house in our neighborhood that we loved came on the market. We love the house, we are moving in on Saturday. We close on Friday.