For some reason I’ve been very weepy the past few days? This is so out of nowhere too. I’ve been feeling pretty good. Nothing too major going on. Well there is the fact that school is starting soon. But that has me HAPPY not sad lol!!! I feel like I’m looking at things through a mirror….this is so backwards right now?!?!

Flood gates have been opened.

Blame the girls yesterday night for watching Mama Mia. Some scenes were just too touching, tears just rolled down my cheeks.

No, I’m kidding. I don’t blame them.

My day started with me weeping to the Ratatouille DVD that the host lent to me.

My brain was in such hyper state for the last couple of nights that I wished someone would just dose me with sedatives so that I can pass out.

I took my cold meds after my post at 330am this morning with very little success. I only managed to pass out after what seemed like eternity only to open my eyes to a brighter room after what felt like only like 10min.

945am.

I rolled around my bed for another 10min to see if I would have any luck of entering Slumberland again.

Nope. Don’t seem so.

I got up, washed up & popped in the DVD & promised myself to a busy day later on with my still hanging article on Singlehood, the bible study for PCM this Fri & the anticipation of another 1st work day tomorrow since my last one 3 years ago.

Boy. Am I psyched.

And then, as the show climaxed to the part where rat & man were reconciled as working buddies & the rat finally recognizing its own identity as a cook, I wept.

And wept.

And wept.

Even after the show ended, I had no idea why I was still weeping.

Thoughts. So many thoughts ran past me. So many emotions running past me that I couldn’t even grab them on in time & I just sat on my computer chair, allowing my tears to just roll.

Maybe it’s God’s way of clearing up my sinuses, because it seemed like it didn’t feel as clogged as it did the last 2 days. But then, I have successfully killed my voice today after triumphantly declaring a few days ago that ‘this time, only my nose is clogged.’

I had a really lovely time yesterday with the girls. The man & the kids came as a package.

But yes, I had a lovely time with the girls, mucking around in the kitchen, getting to know them better & envying what a lovely & loving family the hostess has.

“What is the father for? To embarrass the daughter la.”  

In jest, this statement was made by the man to his daughter & I almost wept buckets right there & then. It just hit me hard because I never had that even if I had 10 wishes put together to become 1 big wish, I would never be able to relish having that kind of relationship with a dad.

Grass is always greener on the other side, huh?

Being with this bunch of people feels different. A lot different than who I had been hanging out with. It is not a good or bad difference.

They feel like… family.

I may not be able to say it well but I would really like to hold on to them for as long as I can. I hope not to make the same stupid mistakes as I had & scare them away with my bluntness & my intensity.

Although they can never be really be my family, it’s nice to bask in the warmth of close friendship.

But first, I think I need God’s strength & courage so that I can discover who I really am & be courageous enough to accept that person & try not to be afraid of myself even if I am all ugly & selfish inside.

I can’t expect others to accept me if I reject myself, right?

Later.

Dooce has managed to capture all the emotions I experienced during my labor and couldn’t put to words. See here and here. I’m all sorts of weepy. In the most beautiful, wonderful way possible.

ANOTHER WEEK DOWN, many many more to go!  I pray allot to make sure little Shamrock is okay.  With each passing day I feel better.

Easter is on Sunday and our long awaited sonogram appointment is Monday @ 3:30….I wish we could just fast-forward this week.  I also gave up fast-food restaurants for lent.  I cannot wait to go to my favorite place….Taco Bell! Yes I have a real craving for a bean burrito they’re my favorite.

Ah but life is okay!  James is still on the road, but very supportive.  We are very excited about the great money and miles he is able to be very productive, which makes us both hopeful to have extra money when Shamrock comes.  I have had a few rounds of nausea, but no real results!  LOL!  I have the some serious smelling abilities!  This building I work in is very smelly.  If it is not a backed up bathroom, it is a lunch of micro waved fish!  Micro waving fish should be banned from all offices.  My face or should I say my forehead is breaking out.  I feel very bloated today.  All my clothes are lame.  I’m moody and weepy.  I cried this week because I felt very lonely….I think Shamrock is letting me know the HI I’M HERE!  So I’m trying to get out of my blaaa slump and consume myself with our Easter Festivities and work….more Easter than work.

Ugh…I’ve been so weepy this afternoon Not really crying…just getting all teary eyed. Over what??? TV shows (7th Heaven…come on!!!) commercials, and other blogs. Don’t get me wrong…I love 7th Heaven…it’s just not a show I’d normally cry over lol!! Sigh….it’s my hormones……I know. Tomorrow is my birthday. The best gift I could get would be a BFP!!! I’ll only be 9 DPO…but it’s still possible to get a positive that early.  Can ya tell I’m anxious??? lol!!

The Three Stooges: it’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

(Pyongyang) Last night’s speech to Congress by Dear Leader B. Hussein Obomber was received with tears of gratitude by the devoted American people, from San Francisco to Berkeley, from FDR Drive to Columbus Avenue, and everywhere in between. Seated upstairs in the gallery was the First Dragqueen, elegantly attired for this formal occasion in a sleeveless magenta mumu from Ross; her satellite-dish hips and flailing man-hands swirled and waved a funky shout-out to her powdered, depilated spouse below, busily mugging for the MSDNC cameras.

On the podium behind the Dear Leader stood Nates Pilosae (D-Sodom), Loudspeaker of the House, her puffy paunch and sagging breasts stylishly accented by a puke-green hoodie from Old Navy. Pilosae grasped the Louspeaker’s nutcracker with a firm knobby talon, banging it lustily to announce, through her whittled-down nose, Obomber’s arrival, though her constipated, fangy smile did little to dispel rumors she bites the heads off bats in her lunch hour.

Next to Pilosae sat Windy Joe Blow Biden (D-Amtrakstop), Vice-President and Minister for Asspinching; his hairplugs had never looked so luxuriant, nor his great gleaming dentures so radiant, and the Vice-President did not burp or break wind even once, though he’d just finished a groaning platter of corned beef and cabbage and three Seagram’s and Sevens at dinner.

These high dignitaries were preceded into the chamber by the Dear Leader’s learned cabinet (or what’s left of it after the various tax cheats and influence peddlers got run out of Dodge): Jamit Napolitano, unibrowed former Governor of Arizona and crypto-carpetmuncher; Timothy Geithner, tax cheat at Treasury whose non-plans made the markets nosedive; Hilda Solis, former Brown Power radical, whose graceless scrambles to bestow big, vulgar hugs on every penny-ante staffer she’d never met were repeatedly stymied by her stubby legs and cheap-stitched skirt, so that she kept plunging bad hair and weepy face into stomachs and crotches instead.

Most impressive of all was the Dear Leader himself, his McGovernite ideas fresh, his tautologies soothing because purred in a faux-baritone. By confiscating prudent, thrifty Americans’ incomes to shower cash on greedy proles who won’t even pick up their $800,000 yards, the Dear Leader’s stimulus bill will soon kickstart the manufacturing and small business sectors – have not the wise grad-school dropouts at MSDNC, the New York Times and HuffPo affirmed it is so?

Contrary to disloyal lies by running revisionist right-wingers, the Dear Leader – may he rule forever! or at least till Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal kick his ass – is NOT just a glorified pimp, a glib, grinning, shit-talking, America-hating white liberal (never mind the traveling Kenyan babydaddy) who’d kill us if he dared, though mercifully he’d have to fall down a well to have a deep thought. The Dear Leader loves his children, black, yellow, brown, red and white (in that order, thank you), and his proposals to socialize heath care and dump money on the NEA and its surly lesbians will hurt him more than they hurt you – except in your back pocket, of course, where they’ll hurt you more, like a Coke bottle in the rectum.

What on earth is going on with me these past few days?  I just feel so tenderhearted; every little thing hits me like a Hallmark card commercial and makes me cry.  Lots. And. Lots.  Pass the Puffs Plus, please!

On Tuesday morning I went to a meeting of new volunteers at MD Anderson.  I have been wanting to volunteer there since this past April when I first received my diagnosis.  Throughout my hospital stay and all through the outpatient treatments, I have been ministered to there in a way that has touched my spirit and my heart like little else I can compared it to, and now that the cancer is much more stabilized, I rushed to sign up for volunteer service orientation.  I had to wait over 2 months for the big day, and I was absolutely joyful to begin giving back after having received so much.

As I wandered through the halls of the 11th floor (that place is BIG!), I was eventually greeted by a friendly woman who recognized me as a volunteer and rescued me from my lost state and welcomed me into the conference room.  I was delighted to see so many others in the room, and I sat among them chatting a bit and drinking coffee before the orientation began.  As with everything they do at MDA, there was a welcoming feeling, plenty of comforting details – coffee and tea, all sorts of nut breads and steamy breakfast burritos in a pretty chafing dish with a dancing flame underneath keeping them warm and the cheese gooey. It almost felt like a little party.  After each of us stood and introduced ourselves and offered our unique reasons for wanting to volunteer, the meeting hosts showed us some films about the work volunteers do and what it means to the cancer patients.  This is when the waterworks began.  Fortunately the room was dark, but I literally thought I’d have to excuse myself from the meeting that I had so looked forward to, and go home embarrassed that I couldn’t pull myself together.  Have you ever felt so tenderhearted and emotionally raw that you actually prayed that the Lord would help you pull yourself together?  That was me.  All through the meeting.  I was absolutely incapable of holding it together without the Lord’s help.

I know there are reasons that I could legitimately blame for this tenderness.  The film was personally moving because I’m not just a volunteer – I’m also a patient.  It could’ve been me featured in that film, sharing everything the volunteers had meant to me during my treatment – and even now.  But I also know that this weepiness is not just explainable – there’s something a little “off” about it.  It’s too much.  It was as if my mind was disconnected from all the emotion that was going on.  I had split into two women – Rational Rhonda and Weepy Wanda!  All I could think, as I sat there crying and praying that the Lord would help me pull it together, was, “Well, this is new!”  Not good.  Just new.

So I suppose I need to explore the reasons for all this emotionalism because a girl can’t just go around crying about everything.  People will start to talk.

Another example:  I had to tackle a little problem over the phone yesterday, and boohooed with every person I was transferred to!  I have to say that the customer service reps seemed more sympathetic and eager to help me when I started blubbering, but I’m not a person who finds that a go-to tactic.  It might work for getting out of a traffic ticket – (I know some women who have made that work for them,) but for me . . . well, I just felt goofy and weak.  Weepy Wanda has got to go!

Is it a side effect of the meds?  Probably.  This awful forced menopause?  Undoubtedly.  But between “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” on the radio, all the schmaltzy Christmas movies on the Lifetime and Hallmark channels every night, the sentimental greeting cards that are starting to show up in the mailbox, and this strange reaction, I think I’m going to need to stock up on Kleenex and Visine at the wholesale club store! 

I’ll tell you this, I wrote and addressed my Christmas cards tonight and had to use a couple of Brawny paper towels because I had gone through the last of my Puffs Plus.  And, while they may be the ”quicker picker-upper,” they’re just not going to cut it! 

My friend Alex looked like he was about to cry all through lunch. This was the first time in ever that he actually cared about something, he’s been so apathetic. It was over his girlfriend who was mad at him for being friends with Brice. I don’t know, but seeing Alex like that really got to me.

There have been lions, books, ingrish, and who knows what else I felt like saying to confuse him. But now I can’t just not say anything because I dug the hole too deep. And its not going to be cool. Nothing will be cool again and I should have kept my fucking mouth shut. I don’t know what the consequences will be but I guess I must face this goddamn music. I’m sorry about it okay, but its going to go away the second I tell you so maybe it will be cool and nothing will be lost. I’m hoping anyways.

Weepy is what Maru calls it. I guess I’m a bit weepy. Only a bit. Nothing too crazy. Its like the butterflies that aren’t happy. Moths. There are moths in my tummy, indesicive and so worried. I hate being worried. I hate dreading and this is the first time its mattered so much.

I will watch TV. I need some of it, hopefully Spongebob. I need some Spongebob.

And to the one person that read this, don’t worry, I will tell you. I’m just going to go watch TV right now and I may not be back tonight.

A picture

There is something especially satisfying about a great show staying great.  Tonight’s season premiere included all of the best classic elements from The Office–Michael being inappropriate, Dwight giving outlandish orders, Angela treating people like shit, Kelly being ridiculously vain and much more.

Spoilers follow…

Having Pam head off to New York could have been a really easy way for the writers to keep making us wait for the moment we were anticipating through all of season four.  I’m so glad they didn’t.  Instead, we got a genuinely touching moment between Jim and Pam in the most unlikely of proposal locations.  I’m dually ashamed and elated to tell you I was actually surprised by the moment.  Despite my penchant for guessing the outcomes of most shows I watch, sometimes I get lost in the experience and I turn off the deduction part of my brain and just enjoy.  What I’m not ashamed to tell you is that I got quite weepy at the moment Jim proposed.  Not tears-rolling-down-the-face weepy, but definitely blurry-vision-wipe-the-eyes weepy.

Now, on the to the SAHM vs. working moms debate. This is what REALLY got me…

So, of course, I was looking forward to seeing what was going to be said about SAHM’s, and I was absoultely infuriated by the the time the show was over. First off, the entire audience was composed of mothers, and it was supposed to be half working moms, and half SAHM’s. In actuality there was about 75% working moms and 25% SAHM’s, which was the first thing that disappointed me because Tyra made a point of noting that the audience was supposed to be 50-50.

The panel was two SAHM’s, and two working moms, and I can only remember one of the fours womens names, because she was the most vocal, and the biggest letdown for SAHM’s, Stephanie. She started out well, talking about how she loved staying home with her sons, and how she kept them active with playdates, but then she started to break down and cry when Tyra asked why she made the decision to stay home. She said, while crying profusely, that she wanted to stay home with her kids because her mother wasn’t around as much as she would have liked her to be, it affected her adversely, and she didn’t want to do that to her kids. From then on, all of her defenses against the working moms were whiny and weak.

The other SAHM (whose name I cannot remember) talked about how her sons had playdates and how she always wanted to stay home with her kids. Tyra then begins to interview her husband who was sitting in the audience, and he says that he thinks she has the easy life, that all she does is go to the pool and do fun stuff all day, that she doesn’t clean up or do anything else, and that he is the one who cooks and cleans up. He said that he thinks she should go to work, and he stay home with their sons because she has it too easy. She promptly shuts up, and doesn’t speak for the rest of the show.

Damn! So that’s what we get Tyra, a woman who is ALREADY perceived as weak for her decision to stay home breaking down and crying, then whining the rest of the show, and a woman whose husband doesn’t even support her decision to stay at home with their children??? The case for working mothers was looking really good in opposition to these women, and if I was a young single woman watching the show or in that audience, based on what I saw, I would have had an extremely low opinion of SAHM’s and what they do.

What’s more is that the Black working mother said that she tried staying home with her kids for a while, and was bored beyond belief because all she did was sit around and wait for the next tv show to come on and find the next thing she could eat in the refrigerator. She not only said that, but was at the same time inferring that that’s the way all SAHM’s are, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I know for myself, I ALWAYS have something to do (taking care of my son, cleaning, laundry, running errands, getting groceries, making meals, etc), AND I make sure that my son and I are both doing activities that are fun, and get us out and around other people.

I know that at times I can be defensive about being a SAHM. It’s because being a mother has become so devalued in our culture, and people can treat you like you are a complete failure if you make the decision to stay home. I, for one, have two degrees, worked (and hated it, like MOST people), had a mom who worked, and had lots of examples of working women (most of whom were single, and unhappy) who had children. As I said in my post, F*ck that, i’m a Mother, the expectation was that I would be a working mom, and when I chose to stay home with my son, my decision was frowned upon by many close to me. So, what I was truly disappointed in was the weak and inadequate representation of stay-at-home mothers.

Sometimes I feel like I try too hard to combat all of these negative and incorrect perceptions that people have about what I do and what type of woman I am, but when other people see women like Stephanie, they lump us all together, and I have to remind people, I AM NOT THAT WOMAN! I would have liked to have seen two women who were strong and secure in their decision to stay home and raise their children, and not a reinforcement of the “bored housewife/soccer mom” stereotype. I am very lucky to have a husband that is incredible, and I wish that both of those ladies had husbands who were as supportive and fiercely protective of me and what I do for our family.

So, to all my sisters out there who have made the decision to stay home, we must continue to be resolute in informing others of the importance of what we do. Keep showing people that you are committed to what you are doing for your family, and be a positive and uplifting representation of what a stay-at-home mother is. PEACE!

I was watching Tyra last week, and she had a show on mothers, and the topics were about extended breastfeeding and stay-at-home moms vs. working moms, and the eternal mommy wars. Who does their job better? I was so incredibly disappointed in this show because it was not at all objective, and it made me have a little less respect for Tyra and her producers, because they allowed an incredible amount of bias against the mothers who were still breastfeeding and stay-at-home moms (SAHMs for the rest of this post).

I was so mad, it took me this long to write about it. I actually wrote the show and left two comments that were not posted on the website, which I am incredibly disappointed about, but hey, they have the right to pick and choose what comments they want, right? I popped in a little late, and so I didn’t see the very first segment of the show, but I came in where a woman named Veronika (who i’d actually heard about before on Youtube) was talking about how she was still breastfeeding her two daughters, one of whom is 8.5 years old.

Now, i’m not mad at her for continuing to breastfeed her children at that age because I know it’s benefits (antibodies, cognitive development, oxytocin, bonding, etc), and it even pushes the limits of my comfort levels, but who am I, or anyone to say that she is a horrible person for it? Well, most of the women in the audience felt that they needed to tell her how disgusting it was, how she was self centered and has issues with “letting her children go”, and it was even suggested (by the so-called “psychotherapist no less) that she has intimacy issues that she needs to seek help for.

Women said things like, if they’re old enough to ask for it, you shouldn’t be breastfeeding them, that it was the most disgusting thing they’d ever heard, that she probably had no sex life because (it was automatically assumed) her husband couldn’t possibly be attracted to her. She said it was quite the opposite, that her husband was more turned on by her because of what she was doing for their girls.

I was absolutely appalled at what I was hearing from these women. Then I had to remember how uniformed women are in this country about their bodies, and particularly their breasts. In America, breast have become synonymous with sex, when their primary use is to FEED OUR CHILDREN. In other countries, it is not unheard of for women to breastfeed their children until they are 7 or 8 years old, in fact, it’s only here and the UK that women routinely breastfeed for 6 months or less, or not at all (even though the World Health Organization recommends 2 years AND BEYOND http://www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/topics/prevention_care/child/nutrition/

breastfeeding/en/index.html).

In fact, a while ago, Anthony and I heard about a story of a 7 year old Indian boy who was at school sick, and his mom came to the school to nurse him, and he started to feel better. Don’t get me wrong, 8 years old definitely tests my comfort levels, but that woman should have a choice on whether or not she wants to feed her girls, and she should not be ridiculed and looked at as a freak because she does. Women don’t realize how detrimental it is to give a child formula, and if they did, they wouldn’t give it to their children. (I’ll talk A LOT more about breastfeeding vs. formula in later posts)

Now, on the to the SAHM vs. working moms debate. This is what REALLY got me…

너를.. 사랑하지만..

우리.. 사랑하지만..

I have an inability to recognize when I am overly stressed.  I have always had this inability.  I will break down and wonder why.  Only then will I take stock of what is going on and realize why I lost it.  I will snap, be irritable, be moody and not recognize the genesis.  Well, kids, we’re here.  I am to a limit.  I have been at my limit off and on for the past few months and it’s no fun, the crying the snappishness, the acne.  I’m ready for it to be done these stressors in my life.  I know they will be replaced by others and in the grand scheme of things many, many people go through much worse and handle it much better.

Things have gotten better but it’s still somewhat of an easy push to reach the limit.  And the end, it is in sight, at least for this round.  I am very fortunate to have the love and support of so many people.  They are always there for me when I reach my limit.  They are always there to point out the load I have when I am unable to allow myself to think it’s really that much.  Maybe I can’t handle a lot but it is mine and I react how I do.  I can take what I am able.

Things will lighten up.  Tomorrow, after some sleep and a cup of coffee I will feel better.  I will.

I’m getting weepy in my old age. When I was younger I never cried. I could watch the schmaltziest of Lifetime movies and not a tear would be shed. The exception, of course, was animal movies. I always cried in animal movies and so began my avoidance of all movies with an animal as a main character. I know their game, at some point the poor little feller will get hurt or die or be told to, “just go away. I don’t love you anymore.” With tears rolling down Timmy’s cheek as he shoves his beloved dog away. Nope. No animal movies for me. They’re so manipulative. But I digress.

I never cried during movies or in real life all that much. I cried out of frustration more than sadness or happiness, real or of the silver screen variety. But now, Dear lord, now I cry at commercials. Oh and forget it if there’s a death scene involving a poignant moment between a husband and wife – I’m a goner. My throat is tightening up just thinking about it. I watched Bicentennial Man last night. Okay I know this movie sucks and Asimov is rolling over in his grave at the mere mention of it but I’m ridiculously addicted to this movie. It started in 2001 when I was out of work and began watching TV at all hours of the night. I think I saw this Robin Williams vehicle four times in two days. Well, I watched the end of it yesterday and teared up at the end, just like every single time I’ve seen it. I tried very hard to hide my emotions from my husband because, seriously, crying at a Robin Williams movie, not something to necessarily be proud of (unless of course you’re talking about Awakenings and then I’ll cut you some slack).

I won’t even get into scenes of some magnitude between parent and child. Again, I’m a goner if that happens. A death scene or a one-of-us-is-so-misunderstood-but-I’m-going-stand-by-your-side scene, bawling. What happened to me? I used to be such a tough girl, I was a rock, I was an island. No more. Dear lord you just have to say “ice sculpture” and I get choked up. I guess I’ve thrown off the callousness of youth and am entering the soft underbelly of middle age.