No. No, you wouldn’t.

See, if you were the answer to my son and some of his stranger and more challenging behaviors, well then, I suppose he would be your son, not mine.

But he’s mine.  And he came to me for a reason.

Sometimes I feel the green monster of jealousy rear its head as I observe your biddable children.  How it takes nothing but a stern word and they snap to it and walk the line.  How they amazingly walk themselves to time out and stay there without physical restraint.

Why won’t he do that? Why doesn’t that work for me? Why did you get these malleable, submissive children and I got this rock-hard, solidified soul of a child?

Then I remember…

Because he came to me for a reason.

I’ve tried to exert my will over his.  Goddamn it to hell, I’ve tried.  I tried so damn fucking hard a time or two that I was there, standing with him at the precipice of despair. One more push from me and he would have tumbled down the steep cliff and landed at the bottom, his spirit irreparably broken.

I shamelessly admit my will was the one that broke instead.

And this is why he came to me.

Because I’m the one who’s malleable – an essential characteristic God needs in a mother of a child with a old soul.

I’m the one who must bend and mold my perspective to see things in a new way…so that he may see things in a new way too.  I’m the one who must grow and stretch myself into someone I wasn’t before…so that my son may grow and stretch himself into someone he wasn’t before too.  I’m the one who must change…so that he can change the world.

So you see, he and I are perfect for each other. You could even call it ordained because God doesn’t make mistakes.

My love is his ocean - formless and flowing, always finding a way around the rocks. And he is the ship - solid and sailing, always sailing to new discoveries.

No, thank you, I don’t want you to straighten him out.

A ship that sails a straight line never discovers new land.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

On Wednesday last week, a girlfriend and I suddenly decided to load the family up and go stay in Gulf Shores where we spent many hours worshiping at the Church of Surf, genuflecting to the holy spirits of Corona and José Cuervo.

(insert here gorgeously staged pictures of corona bottles with ocean background and a tall margarita glass, sweating in the hot sun that, if I were a proper blogger, I would have thought about taking. But, being an improper blogger, I was too busy being in the moment to think of blog-staged pictures.)

Two cases of beer and entire fifth of Tequila later, here I am, feeling quite well for my age and the number of strawberry margaritas consumed. Except for my finger.

My god. My fucking bird finger.

Let me do you, dear reader, and the entire internet a huge favor right now and issue a warning against approaching the wood pilings on a beach house while you’re in a “I’m not drunk but damn I feeeeeeel gooooood!” state. You may wonder what could possibly happen when you’re actually in control of yourself but just happy and in love with the world?

You could get a splinter shoved up under your bird fingernail like me. UNDER your nail. As in hmmm, let me cut off almost half of my entire nail so I can possibly get it out with a needle and tweezers up under your fingernail.

How did I get through it without a trip to the ER and nice numbing shot? I have a special mantra I chant anytime I’m faced with pain, or even potential pain, like at the dentist…

A nine-and-a-half pound baby through your vagina with no meds.

A nine-and-a-half pound baby through your vagina with no meds.

A nine-and-a-half pound baby through your vagina with no meds.

Really, you’ll be amazed what you can physically stand when you have that frame of reference.  And if that doesn’t work, I go with a second mantra…

A ripped vagina stitched up with non-functioning meds.

A ripped vagina stitched up with non-functioning meds.

A ripped vagina stitched up with non-functioning meds.

Again, amazing what perspective does for you.

But still. It hurt. A lot.

Wally hovered over me in the bathroom while I attempted to dig out this splinter, and I could tell he was getting huffy and impatient with how long it was taking me, which in turn distracted me from my Painful Vagina Mantras.  So I sent him on an alcohol mercy mission with instructions to make me an extra-strength margarita.  I don’t know about you, but the first thing to go when I drink is feeling in my lips, the second, fingertips.

So he comes back and I swig, dig, swig, dig, swig, and dig some more.

Wally is still impatient with me.

“Would you just push the needle in and get it out?!” he finally said.

“I have an idea,” I replied.  “Give me your hand and let me shove a needle up underneath your nail.”  I held my hand out expectantly, waiting for his.

He walked out of the room without a word.

No wonder women are the ones who have to give birth.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

I had planned to share our experience on a week-by-week basis, embracing my philosophy of psychological nudity here on my blog. Being a Light-Bearer and all, I want other mothers like me to know all sides of this 18+ year path of raising a Way-Shower. But that weekly synopsis hasn’t happened for two reasons.

#1 We get home from therapy and I just want to drink. At 10:30 in the fucking morning.

#2 I haven’t been drinking lately (I do recognize the point where I could possibly rely on it too much) so instead I come home and promptly fall into a comatose state until selective amnesia takes affect and I forget the entire 45-minute session.

Since I’m 4 sessions behind, let me give you a sort of Cliff Notes version to my memoir, working title - Self-Imposed Sobriety When I Really Deserve To Be Drunk.

Session 1: Info gathering session. Internally grin as if eating Whole Foods-quality shit when son tells SLP how bored he is at school. SLP looks at me and responds, “This is where his teachers should be challenging him.” I hastily don my choir robes and await the preaching.  Internally break apart as son sobs and sobs when they talk about how he’s been teased at P.E.

Session 2: Spend entire 45 minutes trying to convince son to even step into SLP room while he says he can’t take the stress of talking about being teased, stays in the hall and then runs away if we try to approach him. SLP suggests I motivate him with a prize, as if we’re dealing with a true eight-year-old and not a 30-year-old trapped in an 8-year-old body.  Play along with her idea, shout treat offer down the hall to him only to have son reply, “I know you’re trying to trick me, Mom!” SLP looks to me for an answer to the unanswerable question, “What motivates him?”  What motivates a mule bent on non-cooperation? A cattle prod?

Session 3: Son actually steps into room (yay!) but tells me I’m wasting my money. SLP tries to keep things light by discussing making friends instead of the trauma of being repeatedly teased.  This works for 15 minutes before son breaks down again crying, because he’s doing the things she is saying he should do and the kids are still mean to him, he doesn’t understand why. I manage to swallow huge lump in my throat as I hear this through the door.

(In between session 3 and 4: Witness son meeting a middle-school age boy at neighbor’s house where he initiates a typical social conversation, if typical means 8-year-old discusses ideas on same intellectual level as a middle school student. Okay, not exactly on the same intellectual level. A middle-schooler knows almost as much as son, but not quite.)

Session 4: Two words become one – CLUSTERFUCK. See also words: SNAFU, FUBAR, and BOHICA (bend over, here it comes again).

And that concludes the Cliff Notes of my memoir, new working title – Can I Buy Xanax in Bulk?

Is Payton right that I’m wasting our money? I’m beginning to think so. The trauma of the playground teasing is too close to the surface for him. Even I wasn’t aware of the extent of the gaping wound left on him by the taunts, the name-calling, the rejection.

I knew he had been hurt by it. Who wouldn’t be?  But these invisible wounds, how do you know how deep they go? Why didn’t he tell me sooner? How did this happen on my watch - me, the vigilant, protective mother.

I try not to should on myself but it’s hard. I should have been more vigilant. I knew the teasing had been an issue. I should have made SURE it ended.

But I asked him. Many times! Specifically about how P.E. was going. He didn’t tell me. I should have a better relationship with him. I should be the type of mother he would tell.

I should. I should. I should.

I still don’t know how deep this invisible hurt goes. I do know he’s not ready to talk about and relive this.

When he is, we’ll go from there.  Until then, it’s summer and, my god, the kid deserves to relax.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Well, I said it.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

What does this photo say to you?

Does it say….

A) Jesus, help me!

B) Are you the crazy one? Or am I? I’m just not sure!

C) Give me a drink!

D) What the fuck?

E)  I’m about to eat my weight in cheese-powdered snack mix.

If you guessed all of the above, you’re a winner!

You know how we parents joke about the mistakes we make with our kids and how they can send us the therapy bill when their older?

Pardon me, but I have some very French thoughts on that idea.

FUCK THAT SHIT.

You want to know who should be paying for whose future therapy bills?  Payton should pay for mine.

When I picked him up from school last week, there was yet another note from his teacher. I began to feel guilty for the destruction of all the rain forests, what with all of the notes Payton gets home from school.  That alone is probably responsible for the loss of 5 acres of rain forest somewhere in South America.

But don’t worry! I believe in going green so I’ll be repurposing these notes to use as wallpaper in MY PADDED CELL!

The note said Payton didn’t do much of any of his work.  Of course that’s what it said.  That’s what almost all of them say.

Payton usually tells on himself before I get the note.  His method of confession is, like himself, very unique.  His method is to run bat shit crazy, like a boy being chased by a pack of rabid hyenas, at the sight of me.  That’s how I know he’s gotten in trouble that day.   He comes out of the school doors, sees me waiting with his brother, and there he goes! Bat shit crazy run.

If they had an elementary track team, Payton would be their #1 star because all they’d have to do to get him to run fast as hell is to tell him he’s getting a note sent home from school and then point to me in the stands.

Honest to God, the people at school must think I beat him at home when he does things like this. Except he’s been known to run bat shit crazy from teachers like that too, so yay! I’m not the only child abuser.

As we were driving home, we were talking about the note and Payton was very mad. He flipped his lid that the teacher wrote he didn’t do much of any of his schoolwork.  He said he did some and he wanted to know why he wasn’t getting credit for the work he did do.

“Payton, teachers expect students to do all of their school work, not just some.  That’s their expectation.”

“What about Japanese?” he asked, as if we were discussing what to have for dinner.

Wait for it…

What the hell?  What does Japanese have to do with not completing his work?

I saw the mountain of school work that came home incomplete, and I tried to talk to him about what was going on, but then he spoke in what I swear is Tongues because his sentences made absolutely no sense to me.

This boy doesn’t come and say, “Mom, I’m hungry. Can I have a snack?”

He blasts into the room, acting as if he’s dying and says, “I HAVE LOW BLOOD SUGAR!”  Because, stupid me, I took the time to explain to him how food converts to sugar in our blood and if we get too hungry, blood sugar gets too low it can cause headaches, stress, etc.  And, oh my god, once you give that kid a scientific explanation you can forget ever hearing laymen terms again.

When he’s around my mind is in constant interpretation mode, trying to fit pieces of a Japanese puzzle together, rearranging his sentences so they make sense in the English structure of speech, and deciphering his scientific meaning.

And this is where the payment owed for Weight Watchers comes in.  I’m an emotional eater.  I get stressed or upset and, goddamn it,I need chocolate!  And wine!  And salty stuff!  And anything with cheese powdered coating should legally be considered crack.  Doritos, cheese Pringles, cheese Chex mix.  It’s all crack and I eat it like a crack whore in rehab.

And now the Wii Fit is going to give me hell about it tomorrow morning.  I’m adding that to my list of things to discuss with my future therapist.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

I’ll be honest with you, I hesitate to even write about my labia because, believe it or not, I do have a line I draw over what I will and won’t share on my blog.

While I’ve hemmed and hawed over whether to tell the story of my labia, it became apparent a lot of people (read: 3) wanted to hear the story. Once I realized that, I decided enough of this free blog shit.  If you want to know about my labia, you’re going to have to fork out some Presidents for it.  Preferably some Ben Franklins.

When I get all of that settled, I’ll let you know how to throw your money at me.

But I am a giver, so while I continue to set up labia Paypal, I’m going to talk about my boobs instead.  I hope you will prepare a shrine to my breasts because in the past a big blogger got over 520 comments on her boobs. My god, you’d think she had ripped Dolly Parton’s boobs off her chest and claimed them for her very own with all the freaking opinions on her boobs.

And after this I may post pictures of my bathroom since another big blogger got over 467 comments on her half-ass bathroom remodel with mismatched tile. I don’t know that I’ll ever understand what makes people comment. We’re all fucking nuts.

But knowing someone got over 500 comments on her boobs caused my mammary glands such stress and performance anxiety that last night I had a dreamed I babysat some stranger’s kid and SHAZAM! I started lactating out of the clear blue Playtex sky.

So I breastfed the baby because, duh, I’m such a giver. Wally was kind of freaked out about it, but I yelled at him, “WELL YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THAT GODDAMN VASECTOMY!”

Not that I still resent his decision or anything or get jealous when women in his office get pregnant.

When it comes to this post about my boobs, I want you to know right up front that I totally expect everyone to take my side.  If you try to take Wally’s side, I’ll just spam your comment. That would sound more omnipotent if Wally wasn’t the backend master on my blog.

Wally and I had a recent debate over my boobs. Wally is under the impression that I slyly & maliciously use them to turn him on. As if my evil plans for world domination aren’t full enough. I’m busy sharpening my diabolical mind by memorizing people’s phone number instead of using speed dial, clearly giving me an intellectual edge over the rest of the population who are communication-less if they lose their cell phone. I don’t have time to think about my boobs, I have 11 digits to dial.

We were in the kitchen together and it’s important that you know it is a one-butt kitchen. While I know you have the impression that I lead a glamorous and easy life as a housewife, I actually have a humble kitchen. You get two people together in there and there will be the culinary tango going on simply over the lack of space for two asses.

So we were in the kitchen, and I brushed up against Wally, apparently with my boobs. At least that’s what he said and when I said I wasn’t aware my boobs touched him, he accused me of lying.

He believes women, like men, are constantly aware of our breasts and what we do with them, where they touch.

I said to him, “I’m not lying. Surely men aren’t in constant awareness of your testicles. Boobs are the same way for women.”

“Um, we always aware of our testicles.”

Well that fucking explains why they constantly touch them. But you don’t see women constantly touching their boobs.

Please, reader, tell Wally, and really, all the men in the world, that women are not constantly aware of our breasts nor do we spend our time scheming how to accidentally on purpose rub them on men while claiming ignorance.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone calls to make, which you’ll understand takes a lot of my time since I actually dial out numbers instead of holding down 4.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Plus 3 cats

Plus 2 kids

Minus 1 cat

Plus 1 cat

5 years go by…

Plus 3 stray cats

Minus 2 cats placed

Plus 4 foster kittens

Plus 4  SURPRISE foster kittens and mama cat

Minus 3 original cats who are pissed and stay outside, only coming in to shit in inappropriate places.

Plus 4 out of 4 surprise foster kittens get HORRIBLE illness, some on the brink of DYING.

Equals Heather playing a veterinarian but in actuality is an escapee from General Hospital’s Psych Ward.

Equals Heather paying for repeated vet visits for kittens she won’t end up keeping, unless they start shitting gold nuggets instead of the liquid mustard that is constantly coming out of their tiny 5 week old asses now.

Minus first 4 foster kitties due to HORRIBLE CONTAGIOUS illness.

Minus hard core drugs for Heather

Plus bottle of cheap fruity wine.

Minus one kitten from the brink of death, possibly. It’s iffy.

Plus one kitten taking a bad turn overnight and possibly on brink of death now.

Equals an alternative ending to the Harry Potter books where both Hermione and Ginny die with Luna as a possible 3rd. But don’t worry because Harry of course is totally fine now.

Plus Heather administering tiny drops of water to dehydrated kittens every 15 minutes.

Plus Heather giving medicine to kittens four times a day.

Plus a megaton of hand soap used.

Minus healthy meals for family.

Minus my nose’s ability to smell anything but cat diarrhea and vomit.

Plus one email from President Obama encouraging citizens to participate in United We Serve, a campaign to get involved in volunteer work.

Equals Heather one step ahead of the President.

Equals Heather not understanding how Jon & Kate had time to fight with each other AND have affairs because, OH MY GOD, I’m only caring for kittens, not 8 children, and who the hell has time for a lover and fighting?

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Since it’s hotter than the crack in Lucifer’s ass right now, there isn’t much the boys and I can do outside. We’re stuck inside all day and, I don’t know, after an hour or two, okay 15 minutes, I get fed up being assigned the role of referee in their FAVORITE sport - Annoy the Shit Out of Your Brother.

It’s only June. We aren’t supposed to be confined to inside until late July/August. It’s going to be a LONG summer. But what an opportunity to expose my children to classic literature through OnDemand movies!

We watched The Secret Garden, and at the beginning of the movie the narrator talks of how Mary’s parents think only of themselves and give her no attention.  Payton watched that scene and said…

“Wow, they’re even meaner than you, Mom.”

What the hell?

Wally asked me to make banana pudding for Father’s Day. Now, I hate banana pudding (where’s the chocolate?) but I made it for him because I’m a domestic martyr like that.

I don’t know what it is but almost every dessert I touch turns into the legendary pot of gold under the rainbow. I hated banana pudding until yesterday. But now that I’ve laid my magic baking hands to the dessert I could eat it every day until I die the death of a bloated beluga whale.

Why can’t I have that kind of culinary leprechaun magic when it comes to preparing something low-fat, like tofu and grass clippings, so that one day I might fit into my size 8 jeans again?

Someone wrote and asked if there’s a polite way to tell a friend, hey, I’m not doctor but I sure think your kid is autistic!

Well, is there? Let’s find out over here.

(Any of your advice on the autism question would best be heard over at The Mouthy Housewives site since my mind is already made up on the subject. I don’t know that the person who asked will come over to my site so it would be most helpful over there.)

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

I spit on you and then curse you with my two fingers, doing that crooked finger thing you do to curse people.

Honestly, this is a situation where I could say ‘ZOMG’ if I didn’t find the Z so annoying. Instead I’ll just say…

FSMN! (FUCKING SHOOT ME NOW)

It wouldn’t be so bad, really. Unless you ask my 3 older cats who have sentenced themselves outdoors the entire day (with 100+ temps) rather than degrade themselves by sharing the cool, air-conditioned inside with these kittens.

These kittens are temporary. In fact, I was to only have them two weeks because they’re older than I was told. We can totally do it because we did it with the other two for 8 weeks and it was so easy.  EASY. Plus, look at their faces…

Grayson

Cookie

Callie

Blueberry

So cute, aren’t they? I mean, how could you NOT help adorable little faces like that?

So we said, yes, yes, we’ll foster them!

Only two days after we committed to fostering, guess what showed up on my doorstep…

Harry Potter and Ginny

Near identical twins, I swear; Luna and Hermoine

Tiny, STARVING 3-4 week old kittens, plus their mama.

I’m not even kidding.  Another stray in our neighborhood brought her kittens to me.  There must be a sign at the public litter box in the neighborhood that says “For free food and pre-/postnatal care, see this house!”

That’s nine kittens, people. NINE! (I still have the baby girl left from the 1st litter since she can’t be adopted until 12 wks per shelter rules.)

Do you know how many times a day I have to clean litter boxes? I won’t even tell you because you’ll probably go into septic shock.

What’s worse is the little baby kitties are sick, so I have to keep everyone separated, which means the little ones and mama stay in my garage until it gets too hot, and how great we’re having the worst heat wave in June EVER. By 11 am, these cats have to come into my bathroom where they scatter litter every where and the mama cat thinks, hey a bathroom, let me leave skid marks all over the floor because I have a funked up ass!

Every night when we put them back in the garage, Wally or I have to mop our bathroom floor. EVERY. NIGHT.

Have I mentioned how many times a day I have to scoop litter boxes?

When the tiny babies first showed up, I asked the rescue shelter if they could help me place them in homes.  They said sure, as long as I covered the vet bills for them, including the spay/neutering for all five (mama and babies), plus the girl I already have. Then they said they had the adoption dates wrong and I’d have the 4 other kittens another week.

*thud*

There was more I planned to tell you, like how I keep reminding myself this is a wonderful teaching moment for my boys - all the compassion and kindness I’m ingraining in them. Since I’m raising a conservationist anyway, WHAT A LESSON.

I would tell you all of that and more, but I have to go scoop litter boxes again. And then make a trip to the liquor store.

You people don’t have to worry AT ALL that I’ll end up with a house full of cats.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Or am I a work-at-home mom? I do have a part-time job that is done from home for 4.5 years now, though I still identify myself as a SAHM for some reason. But that’s neither here nor there because I still have it easy. Comparatively.

(pause)

Sorry. I had to stop and eat a few bonbons, swallow some Xanax for shits and giggles (because what do I know of stress? I don’t commute!) and then Twitter from the iPhone I don’t need since I don’t have a “real” job that pays the bills.

(my job provides fun money, if you call saving for everyone’s birthdays fun.)

Recently there was a vlog by a mom blogger group site I won’t link because I’m a bitch like that who only does easy (and I don’t want to send traffic.) But this interview-style vlog was about how hard working moms have it and apparently didn’t have a proper demographic representation of all working mothers. It was just work-at-home elite mom bloggers who, if you didn’t know, have it easier than work-out-of-home moms. Or so I’ve heard.

This caused a couple of other bloggers to write posts on the topic, but again, I’m a bitch who likes it easy and looking up and hyperlinking other places isn’t all that easy.  It takes like a whole extra four clicks.

But I’m going summarize for you.  You may be like me and like the easy life, so I’m going to break the hierarchy down for you to make it easy.

SAHM – EASY, not a real job because it doesn’t pay bills, which is the definition of a real job.

WAHM – HARDER, a real job since it pays bills but still not as hard because there’s no commute and you get to spend more than 30 minutes a day with your children. Flexibility negates the screaming children in the background of a conference call.

WOHM – HARDEST!  Gone from children all day long, must leave when child is sick. Bosses. Deadlines. Papers. HARD!

I’m going to give it to WOHMs and say yes, they probably have it hardest. I know and have known many WOHMs and have seen how it goes. Do you know what it means to be a WOHM? It means you’re a SAHM with an outside job because, unless you’re married to an exceptional man, the woman is still required to take care of the vast majority of housework and family obligations while doing her outside job too.

That fucking sucks ass. And the inequality of it pisses me off.

Do you ever wonder why that it is? Why the division of home life is still unevenly divvied up to the woman, even if she works 40+ hours a week too?

If the role of a SAHM is “easy,” why in the hell would anyone, husbands included, think managing the home life deserves the respect of equality?

Let’s keeping shooting ourselves in our own fucking foot.

©2009 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.