Princess Ninja

Jun9

When the ultrasound tech looked at me and told me I was having a boy I could have shit myself in excitement. One of my biggest fears when I first found out I was pregnant was that I would have a girl.

Camping I know about. Getting dirty I know about. Superheroes I know about.

Getting dressed up although I crave it confuses me. Tiaras upset me. Fashion makes me want to vomit.

Girly things are no good in my book. Unless of course you’re turning it into a slutty Halloween costume. To me it was always about the slutty Halloween costume, not the everyday dog and pony show most women put on. If I could go without a bra and not serious injure those around me I would. If I could shave my head and not find myself suddenly single, I would. If I could live in a yurt, go with dirt under my finger nails, play with army men, and build tree forts every day of my life…..I would. I love my tom boy self and all the stereotypes that come with it. I was made to have boys.

Granted I like to dress up every now and then, and I have a hard time leaving the house without some form of makeup slathering my face, but it’s all usually short lived. Within an hour of wearing a pretty dress I’m sitting with my legs wide open and fishing for a runaway boob in my bra. My make-up goes on at 6:45 in the morning. That’s it. I don’t touch it up throughout the day with the exception of lipstick and usually come home looking eerily similar to how I did at 6:44 that morning. And I’m ok with all this. And I’m ok with having a boy. He gets me. He puts on fairy wings to amuse me and promptly takes them off to go wipe out the enemy forces he previously lined up in the corner of the playroom. He’s cool. We connect.

When the ultrasound tech looked at me and told me I was having a girl back in 2008 I cheered knowing this would be the last stint of up-all-nights and vomit stained clothes I’d have to endure, but inside I was in a panic. I wanted to hide under the table or rock in a corner knowing soon everything I knew was right in this world would soon come to a crashing halt. Soon there would be princess things in my house. Soon I would have to coo the words “you’re so pretty” every 5 minutes. Cute hair cuts, pretty dresses, and glitter would soon consume me. I was sure of this. God help me, I was having a girl and I had absolutely no idea on how to raise one.

It was just my luck she was born with long hair(for a baby) and required hair ties and bows almost immediately. Everything was pink, including the skull prints. There were flowers and bunnies everywhere and princess castles marked almost every blankie that came into the house. I tried to battle the princess prints with brown and green hues but lost every time. Even as she got older pink infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. Even my son couldn’t escape the waves of pink and glitter that made its way through the barricades. We were helpless, but we battled on.

Slowly we overcame and the color pink diminished slightly. We started to see more swords and nerf guns enter the house, and after 20 years on tv the Power Rangers became a prominent staple in the playroom. For her birthday my daughter asked for a dinosaur, squeals gleefully and she’s now convinced she’s a ninja. Granted her ninja persona often incorporates beaded necklaces and a princess crown, but her mismatched socks are still pulled up to her knees with only one shoe on and a rubber sword shoved down the back of her shirt. It is safe to say we have reached a truce in the battle of male vs female. That is of course until she comes to me for princess fashion advice with big puppy dog eyes and asks, “Mommy does a princess wear dresses like this?” Then all I can do is smile and say, “Yes sweetie, princesses wear dressed like that all the time.”

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What Happened To Imagination?

May23

-Two hard plastic kiddie pools
-Two plastic lawn chairs
-One slide shaped like an elephant
-One toddler swing set with a slide
-Three five gallon buckets
-One broken plastic flower pot
-About 100 puka shells scattered about
-Three bikes
-One tow behind for a bike…..without wheels
-One garden hose
-64oz of liquid bubble bath
-Four tree stumps
-Enough sticks to shake a stick at
-One easel
-One oversized rubber ducky
-One broken bird feeder
-One beach umbrella
-And numerous other little items for tinkering

These are the items in my back yard. When I was a kid all this stuff would have entertained me for days! I would have had forts built everywhere forming my own little city. My imaginary friends would play with my and my real life friends. Out the door we would head after breakfast to our own little world. Normally I would be out there with a bucket of nails and my father’s hammer to continue my own version of urban sprawl.
If I wasn’t in the mood to govern the people of my back yard I would take a couple blankets and pillows and trudge my way to the center of pucker brush and lay down for hours watching the clouds roll by as I sang to myself. On hotter days I would fill a basket with paint and head out to the stream where I had put an old board down as a bridge. There I would paint my landscapes and pretend to jump into them like in Mary Poppins and have an adventure….where I would more than likely end up soaked from splashing in the stream.
That’s what I did as a kid growing up in Maine. My imagination was more powerful than any high speed computer and my little world was more wonderful than any animated movie. And this is the dream I had for my kids. This is why my backyard is full of odds and ends. And they do great with it….for the most part. But the influence of modern society with video games, air conditioning, HD movies, and tablets has delayed their experience as real children. I want them to end their day dirty. I want them to have scrapes on their knees. Want them to know how to swing a hammer by the time they’re 7. I want them to explore under rocks and behind trees. I want them to feel the joy of watching clouds. I want them to find the imaginary things.

Sp this summer I’m pushing for imaginations to run wild! I pushing for dirty children! I’m pushing for less tv and more quality time! I know our kids can’t live the lives we did, for obvious reasons, but they can live a wonderful, fun, and new one with us enjoying it with them. So get out there with your kids. Plant a garden, build sandcastles and fairy houses, go hiking, camp in a tent, and paint rocks. This summer enjoy being the kid you once were while your kids enjoy being the kids they can be.
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Silver Spoons and Summer People

May16

This is actually a re-post of a guest post I did last year for one of my favorite fellow bloggers, Daddy Runs A Lot. With summer quickly approaching us it seemed fitting to put it back out there.

The town where I come from isn’t for everyone. It’s the coast of Maine but it’s not the little vacation town you might think of. The houses aren’t little cottages nestled in the trees along the water and the beaches sandy.
It’s here where the roads are quiet and rush hour consists of 10 pickup trucks headed to the old gas station on their way home from a day on the water.
The locals look nothing like anyone you’ve seen in a Hollywood movie. Here the boy I had a crush on in junior high is still wearing the same basketball t-shirt he wore under is gown at the high school graduation.
The mullet is alive and well in these parts. All forms of it. It peaks out from the backs of salty ball caps and gets combed into a perfect quaf for those hot dates down at the lobster pound.
It’s here where the women don’t care how much money the men make, all they care about is how loud the pickup truck is as it comes down the road. It’s prefered the engine be a diesel so as to produce the perfect rumble of a mating call.
Bottle redemption centers run by men with like Cupcake and Spiderman nestle up against local art galleries run by women with names like Kat and Misty. And the tourists flock here for these very reasons. They want their taste of redneck as they file into town one by one in their SUV’s and minivans.
Come July Chancey and Tansy from Connecticut are digging in the sand with “That bastard’s” son and “Man Hand’s” daughter. And like many summer people around here, Chancey ends up marrying “Man Hand’s” daughter and a whole new wave locals and tourists washes ashore.
My days as a kid were spent watching these little silver spooned children fall in love with the mullet clad locals. I hoped and prayed I too would fall in love with some kid from away and share in the glory of the confused families. Alas, that was not my fate in my home town. My path lead me to become one of the summer people instead. I now travel with my little mixed family from Connecticut all the way to Maine every summer and watch as my urbanized minions interact with the son of the local garage own and the daughter of the lady who drives the heating oil truck, and it makes me smile.
I may now call an entirely different state home now, but I still get to enjoy the uniqueness of the summertime interactions here in Maine. I don’t know if I myself will ever move back to the area but there is always hope my kids will one day fall in love with a local and find themselves raising a family here much like my parents did with me.
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Being a Mom Means…

May9

Being a mom means:

Being a Lego master and a fortune-teller.

A doctor and a wash maid.

A Mario expert and a cab driver.

A story-teller and a magician.

A human tissue and a dance party dj.

Being a mom means:

Staying up late on ‘date night’ only to get  up before the sun for couch cuddles.

Learning how to make pasta with butter 6 different ways to stimulate your senses but trick your kids.

Remembering to bathe your eczema ridden child BEFORE she starts to smell.

Making the grey areas come as close to black or white for your linear child.

Removing the make-up from your purse to make room for crayons.

Being a mom means:

Having sex in the bathroom because the bedroom is too obvious.

Having a locked box for your sex toys and porn.

Being able to make any sex position look like “mommy is just stretching”.

Putting an all new meaning to the term ‘quickie’.

Being a mom means:

Nighttime kisses.

Lullabies.

Morning snuggles.

After school hugs.

Couch cuddles.

I love you’s.

Being a mom means:

Watching what you thought were your best years fade into what you know are going to be your best years.

Loving little people with your heart and soul as they become big people.

Being you and letting them be them.

Hoping you are doing as good of a job as your mother did.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my fellow mothers and mothers-to-be. Hug your children every day because it’s the best gift you could ever give each other.
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My Sexual Assault Story

May5

I don’t know what prompted me to sit down and write about this today. I just sat down at the table….and started writing. I’ve told plenty of people about my sexual past, the good and the bad, but I’ve never actually sat down and wrote about it. I think I was scared if I wrote it down it would become more real; that I would relapse. Thankfully I didn’t, and to tell you the truth I feel better. Still scared, but better. Sexual assault is a scary thing to go through even for years after. This is only part of my story. It continues on in long spiraling stories that could take up an entire book, but I wanted to tell you where it all began. I hope you can take something positive away from this as I did. Thank you for reading.

I’m what most would call….unique. Always have been. Growing up I was bullied by the “cool” kids and was left looking for attention in other ways. In grade school I started to change physically. Almost over night I had boobs. The boys in the bus started asking me to sit with them. It wasn’t long before they started trying to cop-a-feel. I’d sit there as still as possible as their wandering hands moved around under my shirt. They would eventually start moving their hands to my pants. Most days it was just one of them. He always had me sit close to the window as he turned his back to the isle. His friends would sit in the seat behind us and look over and watch as he would pull my shirt out so they could see. Sometimes he would have one of them sit with us so they could cop a feel as well. I hated those days the most. The ones where 2 sets of hands wandered over my body as the boys made silent gestures at each other and whispered things to their friends.

But I wanted the attention. I craved it. My bus rides from school were the only times other kids actually WANTED to be around me. They WANTED me around. To them I wasn’t a weirdo.

I was exciting, and after years of being bullied in the hallways and cast aside on the playground I was finally WANTED.

Summers meant a break from wandering hands but I still craved the attention. By the end of August I found myself wishing summer would end so I could ride the bus home from school and feel those wandering hands once again. But when school started again those hands weren’t there. The back of the bus was now empty. At the age of 14 I found myself feeling really alone for the first time. School was still filled with all the harsh words from my peers as they spread rumors about me losing my virginity and being the school slut. The days were endless. The rumors spread to other schools. Suddenly there seemed to be huge arguments over which school had the biggest sluts. In 3 years I had gone from being the girl who was afraid to have her first kiss to the girl to go to for an easy feel.

By the end of my 8th grade year I had felt like I had to give in to temptation. Shortly after summer vacation began I found myself getting drunk on peppermint schnapps with my friend Sarah and calling some boys from our class. After much encouragement I told one of them,, Tim, how I wanted to feel him inside me and how sure I was he would feel amazing. A few drinks in we found ourselves riding our bikes in the dark to meet the boys at the school playground. Once we were all there we played on the swings and went down the slide as kids normally would do. And for a brief moment I felt the way I had always wanted to feel around other kids my age. We were laughing and having fun. I was hoping they too were having as much fun as I was and that maybe it had made them forget everything I had said on the phone. I didn’t want to have sex. Not yet. I was too young. That much I was sure of. But just like that Tim and I were standing alone in the middle of the sandbox. He handed me a beer and the rest up until we were naked was a blur.

Naked in the sandbox with nothing under us but a coat, I could feel Tim poking my thigh over and over again. “Is it in?” he would ask. “I don’t think so,” I would say. And then it happened. There was stabbing pain between my legs as he let out a gasp. He was in. A few thrusts later he pulled out quickly as I found myself covered in hot goo and sand. Between my legs still hurt and all I wanted to do was cry. He lay there in the sand next to me for a moment, both of us unsure of what to do next. I don’t remember the bike ride home or much of the next day. All I remember was how much everything still hurt and how humiliated I was to have finally given into temptation. Tim never called me that summer, and I pretty much tried to avoid every possible scenario where I might run into him. I didn’t want to have to do it again. I didn’t want to have to think about it.

A good month went by before I could do much of anything around anyone without feeling as if everyone’s eyes were on me knowing what I had done in the playground. I was positive word had gotten around our small town and it would only be a matter of time before someone else would want the same from me. Sure enough it happened. My friend Amber called me one day asking me if she could come over. Scott, a local drug dealer she had introduced me to, was interested in me. He had heard I put out and was willing to give us free pot if he could “hang out” with me. She knew my parents were going away for the weekend so she told him yes before I could even say no. I didn’t want to have sex again, especially not like this, but she had already told him yes so there was nothing I could do. That night we went into my parent’s liquor cabinet and grabbed the furthest thing from peppermint schnapps I could think of, whiskey.

By the time Scott got to the house I could hardly stand up, but that didn’t matter to him. He still liked what he saw. First he took me down into the basement and sat me on one of the large freezers. He started kissing my next and telling me how beautiful I was. His hands moved up my shirt and he pulled me closer as I reached for the bottle of whiskey. I wanted to get away. I wanted to close my eyes and wake up somewhere else. So I did. I closed my eyes and took a big drink from the bottle.

When I opened  them we were back in the living room as he was handing Amber a dime bag and leading me up the stairs. Not where I wanted to be. I closed my eyes again.

Eyes open. That stabbing feeling between my legs was back, but worse. Still not where I wanted to be. I quickly closed my eyes.

Eyes open. I’m on my back with my arms pinned down over my head. My wrists ache as Scott’s body seems to slam into me. I want to scream but his mouth is on mine. The bedroom door flies open and its Amber laughing. I feel my body go limp as I close my eyes again.

Eyes open. The sun is shinning through the curtains. It was all a dream. I sit up and stretch. When I look down I notice I’m naked and covered in vomit. I start to notice my wrists hurting and the growing pain between my legs. There is blood on sheets. It wasn’t a dream at all. It was a nightmare. When I finally make it downstairs Amber is asleep on the couch and Scott is no where to be found. The empty bottle of whiskey is on the counter next to a half smoked joint and an ash tray full of cigarettes. I never heard from Scott again. No apology for leaving me in a pool of blood and vomit. No request for a second “date”.

This is how I was introduced to sex. This is what I had to base it on for the rest of my life. The next 15 years was spent trying to feel “wanted” again and waiting for the guy who would call me the next day. I let myself be used by dozens of men and in turn used dozens more. I was called a slut and moral gear. But people “wanted” to be with me. I was “wanted” all the time. A flash of my tits and a shake of my ass and I’d have the man of my dreams for just one night. They never stayed for long, and if they did, they left me for something fresh and new. Most of my relationships ended in the words, “There’s someone else,” or “I cheated so I obviously don’t love you the way I should.” It was the same story over and over.

It took a long time to get past the demons from grade school, but I finally did it. It wasn’t until after I had my kids that I started to realize my true worth, but even then it was hard. I had to get myself away from the mental abuse I surrounded myself with and I had to stop dishing the same abuse back. I had to get out without running away as I usually did. 19 years later I finally have my feet on the ground with my sights set forward. I have promise and hope in my life. I have amazing children. I have a wonderful boyfriend who brought along wonderful kids. But those demons still rear their ugly heads from time to time bringing me to my knees as I flash back to wondering hands and drunken nights. I know no matter how far away from the past I get it will still haunt me in some way. Abuse has a way of doing that. But those of us who have been through it and survive find a way to drive on and find the good in life. We have to or it will eat us alive.

If you or someone you know has been or is being sexually abused get help. No one should have to go through this, but if they do they don’t have to go through it alone. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-HOPE(4673) For more information on sex abuse visit the RAINN website. Be active and help stop sexual assault.

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Hell Tacos

Apr29

I can’t tell you why the donor ever decided to get double box springs for the Queen sized bed he purchased back in the summer of 2006. It was a Queen sized bed. A Queen. Not a King. Not a California King. A Queen. We weren’t sleeping in some vast luxury bed needing the latest in bed frame technology so as to give you the best night’s sleep possible. It was a simple Queen sized bed, a cheap one at that. After 6 months of use it formed a large mountain in the middle thankfully causing the donor to sleep on one side and me on the other. Much to his dismay, no amount of turning the mattress would remedy the ever-increasing mountain in the center of the mattress.

I vaguely remember the day the mattress was delivered to his small apartment in south Jersey. I’m pretty sure my pregnancy hormones got the best of me as I questioned him up and down about why on earth he would order a double box spring for such a small bed. I’m sure his explanation had something to do with being easy to move or being on sale or both, but I have since forgotten. All I know is that I still curse the day those damn box springs showed up. For a while I was convinced I didn’t like them at first because I wasn’t a huge fan of the donor at the time of the purchase. Maybe there was some sort of karma thingy clinging to the wood a fabric just to spite my petty feelings of him at the time. Although the whole karma thingy may still be partially to blame for the hell these box springs have put me through, I am now mostly convinced it’s just double box springs are unnecessary for such a small bed and flat-out suck. If I were ever buy a king sized, or bigger, bed I would be more inclined to take out an entire wall of my bedroom before buying double box springs again.

About two years Shortly after BF came into my life I decided I actually liked sleeping net to someone and thought maybe it were in my our best interest to get a new mattress, one that actually allowed us to *gasp* cuddle after sex. I had a bonus from work come through and I bought us an early Christmas present. Brand new top of the line Queen sized mattress…and that was the end of the mattress budget, a new box spring would have to wait. After wrestling the old beast down the stairs and out the front door and cursing our way back up the stairs with what we were sure to view as heaven. And it was. So soft was the pillow top as it engulfed us both in its fluffy embrace. We both smiled as we envisioned joyful mornings after sleeping in heaven all night. As we crawled into bed that night we gave it a test run, a good one. So far the new mattress was perfect. By morning it was a different story. I was exhausted and things are still a bit hazy in the memory department but I’m pretty sure flames were shooting from BF’s eyes as he asked me what happened during the night.

We had woken up in what was nothing like the soft embrace we had felt the afternoon prior. Instead it was as if Satan had come in during the night and folded us in a hell taco that resembled our new mattress. The middle had sunken in beyond what one would consider normal. After we calmed down we decided to give it another try, but the next morning it was the exact same thing. Our backs hurt. Our limbs hurt. We had been folded into Satan’s hell taco once again. What on Earth was going on? Then it hit me. The donor’s fucking double box springs! The overall weight of the new mattress was just enough to not cause the mountain as with the last one, but a hell taco/sagging middle. I cursed into the air swearing if the donor still lived down the street I would have driven to his house and shoved one box spring down his throat and the other up his ass, and then sell my first-born so I would have the money to go buy a new box spring. Alas, he no longer lived down the street and I do have quite a growing affection for my first-born despite the screams coming from my house every morning before school.

There we were, BF and I, stuck with the double box springs and a hell taco. So we came up with a plane, BF was pretty sure there was a large piece of plywood at work he could bring home to hopefully keep Satan at bay. That night we slid the plywood between the mattress and box springs, because it was not as big as BF had thought, crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. the next morning the hell taco wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been but we could still feel the tug of Satan from the hell fires below. That night BF brought home 3 very long 2×4′s to stick under the box springs. All of his tools were at a side job so we didn’t have a saw to trim the boards to the appropriate length. Naturally the double box spring and mattress sat 2 inches above the bed frame for almost 6 months but at least we no longer woke up in a hell taco.

A few weeks ago a saw made its way into our house and sat silently in the laundry room on top of a box of Borax and some extension cords. It wasn’t until we decided to clean out our room that we decided to go ahead and cut the 3 boards jetting out at shin height so that they would set nicely into the bed frame as nature had intended. BF grinned from ear to ear as he cut each board covering the floor in saw dust. Saw dust we could handle. Hell tacos we could not. As we had hoped, each board fit nicely in the frame as did the box springs and mattress. That night we climbed in patting ourselves on the back for finally finishing this project. As we both put our weight onto the mattress there was a deafening noise! WTF was that? We shifted our body weight to try to glance under us where the noise was coming from. There is was again! It was almost as if the bed were yelling at us. Yelling at us in a blood curdling scream.

We held as still as possible figuring the noise was the wood rubbing on the metal frame. We could deal with this for a night. But we were horny. So now what? Do we go back downstairs to the couch for a quick romp or just stay in bed and test it out. Naturally we stayed in bed. It was horrible. I couldn’t concentrate on my rhythm. All I heard was that damn noise. Frustrated we tried another position. And another. And another. Fail. Fail. Fail. Somehow we managed to finish but it was by no means as enjoyable as our earlier elation should have resulted in. The next night it was the same thing. There had to be some way to make it stop. There had to be!

My parents had planned on coming to visit the next weekend. They were planning on staying in a hotel and we were sure to find a way to silence the noise before then anyway. The day before they came I was informed they had changed their minds, they were going to stay with us. Shit. We hadn’t done anything to fix the bed. Now what? So I cut up and old sweater to place between the boards and the bed frame. BF had since done some investigating into the noise and informed me it wasn’t the wood making the noise, it was the bed frame itself. I didn’t care. I had to put the sweater pieces in there just to make myself feel better. Maybe he was wrong doubtful. Maybe it would at least help.

But no. No, it didn’t. Maybe it was paranoia but I think it made it worse. This was Satan’s way of getting back at us for nixing the hell taco. He and the donor must have been in contact with each other about the double box spring and this is how they were getting back at me. The entire weekend was spent trying to move as little as possible in bed so my slumbering parents below wouldn’t think we were having endless sex marathons all weekend. We move and the sound wakes us up. We sneeze and the sound shoots us out of bed. Tonight I may actually rub butter all over the bed frame in a last resort attempt at getting the noise to stop. If it doesn’t work I’m convinced we may never be able to have se in our bed again.
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