My dad has always had an extensive music collection.  I grew up listening to all the classics of the 70’s.   I am sure he would have loved me to share his interest in music, like my sister Sarah does but one day something happened that forever made that impossible.  The 80’s.   Nothing will shake my love of 80’s music.  I have passed this love on to my kids, much like my dad probably intended with me.  When I would take the girls to work, we would listen to the 80’s station and I would quiz them on the song and artist.  Eventually it stuck…as their ring tones prove.

When I heard that Michael Jackson passed away today, I was filled with disbelief.  He can’t be dead.  (It’s funny how you get older and 50 seems to young to die.)   I was struck with a sudden sadness and wasn’t quite sure where it came from exactly.  Then I was a little freaked out since I have had PYT stuck in my head for three days and haven’t even heard the song in years.  Just out of the blue…pretty young thing.  I liked Michael’s music…alot when I was a kid.  But he has long passed the Michael I loved and knew.

Then I went to take a much needed shower after a long day of frustration.  It was there that the tears started and eventually turned to full sobbing.  I really want to blame this on hormones as I am not recovering well from pregnancy.  But the truth of it is, it all started with Michael.  he took my music virginity.

When I was very young, my mom gave me a small yellow hand-held am radio.  This has always been my most favorite gift to date.  I listened to that thing endlessly.  It was on this radio that I first heard Michael Jackson.  (I am sure I have written about this before.  I thought he was a white guy.  Turns out he was, lol.)  I would listen all day so I could hear him sing.  I would hide under the covers and listen at night.  Me, my radio and Michael Jackson.  He was my start to a life long love of all things 80’s.  He paved the way.   I eventually moved on to other artists like Madonna, but he started it all.

So when I was in the shower sobbing uncontrollable, some of it was hormones.  But mostly, it was a happy memory that I mourned.  It was a small piece of my childhood.  It was the shaping of my love of music.  It was my Michael.

Rest in peace Michael.  You will be missed.

I literally argued with my mom in a resturant yesterday.  She said my birthday was today and I am like “geeze mom its not tomorrow, don’t you know when your own kid was born”.  But low and behold it really is today.   I just had my days screwed up.  Those things happen when you don’t get enough sleep.

So I am forced to acknowledge this day.  It’s depressing.  The dirt in my garden is younger than me.  Feel free to cheer me up with cupcakes.  Or giftcards.  Or money even.  I am not picky. I will even settle for a comment since I am pretty sure NO ONE reads this blog anymore.  Guess that happens when you don’t blog.  Go figure.

I am going to go cuddle with the present Mark gave me.  She is so cute.

Ten years ago tonight, I got in my car and drove to the gas station.  I was a few minutes early so I went inside and got some gum.  As I was talking to the cashier, he drove up.  I peeked out the window to check him out before walking back outside.  After all, it is our first date and I haven’t met him in person, only talked online.  I was very happy with what I saw.  I stood there wishing I had worn something different…maybe reapplied my make up after work.  I finally swallowed the lump in my throat and walked out into the sunshine.   I introduced myself and we decided maybe bowling would be a fun place to start.  We went to the bowling alley, ordered up some beers and picked out a lane.  We hit it off immediately, staying long after the bowling alley closed.  Just sitting in the car talking.   He was so beautiful, I never wanted to leave him.

A month or two later, we were talking marriage.  Marriage was a thought that never appealed to me.  I pretty much resolved that I would never find someone I loved enough…someone right enough…to actually marry.  Until Mark.  I would have married him that night.  He is absolutely perfect.  I couldn’t wait until the next minute when I would see him again.  I couldn’t stop thinking about him, talking about him.  Someone actually said to me if I put him on such a high pedestal that one day he will fall off.   I just said, it will be ok because I will catch him.  He will never fall off.  He saved me.  For myself.  From the world.

In one year, he went from a single guy without a care in the world to being married to woman with three small kids and due any day with his twins.  He shouldn’t have fell off, but instead jumped off and ran like hell.  But he didn’t.  He embraced it.  He became the best dad and husband and I am not sure what I ever did before him.

He has held my hair while I puked  and hugged me while I screamed in a hormonal rage during pregnancy. He stroked my hair as I gave birth to our three children.  He sat on the porch with me and drank Corona’s and talked about the future.  He walked with me across the stage when we graduated college.   He held me as I cried when I fought with the teenagers. He drove my son to the hospital when he was run over and bleeding.  He takes the damn garbage out, unclogs the toilet, kills the spiders, buys me tampons, drives the kids to work, and always saves the last pepsi for me.

He has put up with more than his fair share of shit from me.  And for that he will forever me my hero, my husband, and the only man in the world that I will love and trust fully and unconditionally.

Ten years.  It seems like a long time but it really is only the beginning.

The last few months have been crazy.  While the kids are pretty sure I have lost my mind and am going to kill them in their sleep just for breathing, it has been very much the opposite.  Yes, I have been very difficult to live with.  I admit my hormones were raging.  Ironically, both reminding me what it feels like to have raging hormones like a teenagers and at the same time giving the teenagers a glimpse at what they look like when they aren’t looking in the mirror.

Anyway, when I say I am not going to kill them in their sleep…contrary to the steam coming out my ears, what I mean is…I have really really enjoyed watching these kids the last few months.  They have changed and grown so much. I don’t mean physically, although Braden is getting to the point where it won’t be long before he can just rest his head on mine. So this is a kid update post. You don’t have to read it.  I just want to write it.

Reagan: This kid is smart.  She hasn’t found one thing she can’t excel at.  Her ISAT’s are through the roof.  She has been in advance classes all year.  She is so full of energy.  So alive.  She just awes me.  She got an award the other day for not missing a single day of school.  I am so proud of her!

Riyan: I think she has changed and grown the most.  She used to be painfully shy. I can write an entire book on how we tried to bust her out of her shell.  Then two months ago, she did.  All on her own….a beautiful butterfly.  She went from this shy kid to a VERY outgoing one, literally overnight.  Now she sings and dances and…and really there are no words.  It’s a total transformation.  One that blows my mind.

Braden:  Oh what a funny guy this is.  Turning 13 changed him as well.  A couple weeks ago, I saw a cut on his face.  He had tried to shave.  There is only peach fuzz, not even that but he tried to shave it off.  I laughed so hard inside but did have Mark take him fishing to talk man to man.  I am clueless about this stuff.  I also happen to know he had his first kiss.  Awwww.

Tia:  Oh my sweet Tia.  It has been a rough few months for her.  I am happy to say she is completely back to normal.  And by normal, I mean bratty teenager.  Which really is a good thing.  We still fight like crazy but that is because we are two peas in a pod.  It’s not easy living with yourself.  But I am happy to see her normal and happy again.

Sam:  This is amazing.  She is going to be 18 this fall.  For the last few years, she has this punk/emo style going on and although it is very strong still, I am seeing signs that she is finally growing out of it and into her own.  I am trying not to jump up and down.  The crazy make up is disappearing and she is going back to her natural hair color.  It’s really neat to see her preparing for her own life and trying to shed the crazy days of teendom.  Even if she does walk around in a tutu with a four foot snake around her neck still.

and finally…

Kinsley:  Tomorow is her birthday.  Just writing it makes me all teary.  I can’t wait to see what joy she will add to this family.  The kids are so excited, I think they are going to burst.  We can’t wait to meet her!

I was looking at the back of my hands.  They look like they have millions of puckered little stars on them.  There is no taunt silky smooth beauty there anymore.  They are old hands.  And I have age spots popping up all over my body.  And wrinkles.  And grey hair.  And my boobs sag six inches.  I measured.  I might even have a bunion.  I am not sure though…I will have to google it first.    It took two years to get this baby because my uterus uses a cane.

So why, WHY do people think I am a teenager?

I am not sure what you would call it.  It’s not ageism.  I am not discriminated against for my age,  just for the age I look.

I really shouldn’t bitch about it either since there are worse things in the world to be plagued with.  But honestly I think I am just sick and tired of it.  I mean come on.  I will be 37 in a month.  Have I not earned the right to look haggard yet?  Everyone says, you are so lucky to look so young.

Tell that to the clerk that watches you like you are going to shoplift because you are in the store with three other teenagers WHO happen to be your own children.  Tell that to the bank teller who denies me AGAIN of cashing Tia’s check because she thinks I am her bff and not her mother.  Tell that to the ER earlier this week, that asked Sam right in front of me, where her mom was to sign the admit papers.  Tell that to their teachers, who at parent teacher conference, ask where their mom is when I am standing right there.  Or the cashier who denies me because my ID is “fake”.

Its not a case of being lucky.  It’s really a pain in the ass.  No one takes you seriously.  No one shows you respect.  To them you are another teenager in a sea of juvenile delinquents.

I honestly wonder just how old I have to be before I am finally…well…old.  The oldest I have ever been was “24″.  As my girls get older, they have dragged that down just by association.  I couldn’t wait to be 30 thinking that would be the golden number.  Surely people will take me seriously then.  Now I am hoping 40 will do the trick.

I know not many people are  sympathetic of my problem.   It’s  like when I say to a flat chested person that big boobs are not a good thing.  Or when you tell a poor person that money doesn’t buy happiness.  Everyone would love to have your “problem”.

I guess I should be thankful.  And I guess I would be if my body felt as young as people think it is.

I am some twisted Benjamin Button.

I became the neighbor this weekend.  This will teach me to brag about my perfect relationship with my husband.

Let’s recap with a conversation I had with my mom this morning…

Mom:   Hi Honey, just calling to get a pregnancy update.

Me:  Yesterday I was possessed by the devil.  I am hormonal and homicidal.  I wanted to kill Mark.

Mom:  What did he do?

Me:  He went fishing.

Mom: HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

So not funny.

True my husband doesn’t beat me.   He doesn’t drink.   He doesn’t watch porn.

No.  He fishes.

So yesterday his friend comes over and Mark comes in all giddy…mind if I go fishing he asks.

Actually yes I do.  I didn’t sleep all night because I was up with a migraine, my shoulder feels like I have been shot and I am soooo tired from it all.  I really need a nap but the kids have all this shit going on today that I need to take them back and forth to…..

He tells me he is sorry about my headache, kisses me and LEAVES.

Oh no he didn’t.

This is the part where I go all homicidal and shit.

I spent the entire day dragging my ass.  For those of you not currently pregnant and of advanced maternal age…it is fucking tiring.  Top it off without sleeping for 24-36 hours and you turn into a psycho bitch from hell.

I was literally hallucinating, dehydrated, and my skin was crawling from not sleeping. And crying. I did ALOT of crying.  Coupled with the fact, that I can not walk for more than five feet without feeling like I am being rammed in the crotch with a steel bar…and you got one resentful pregnant woman.

I spent the entire day calculating how I was going to make my husband pay for the hell I was going through.  I just wanted one freaking hour to sleep.  One hour.

In the end, I didn’t do anything but yell and scream and make him feel like shit.  All with the windows open for the entire neighborhood to hear.  I felt like such a hypocrite slamming the front door and storming to the car.

My mom says that couples normally do fight once in awhile.  We just aren’t normal.

I guess if my biggest complaint is not getting a nap, then yeah..we are not normal.  I like not being normal.  I am not used to my husband being selfish and inconsiderate.  I like perfection.  And I like my naps.

I don’t like the my husband slept on the couch so he wouldn’t get wounded.  I don’t like that I was GLAD he slept on the couch.  I don’t like that I felt like a complete ass this morning and my husband looked like a puppy who just got scolded for peeing on the floor.

It was a pretty sucky day.

And the fucker didn’t even catch a fish!

My neighbor texts me last night asking if her husband is home.  I text her back that he isn’t and continue watching a movie with my family.  An hour later, she texts again.  I ask her if she is locked out or something.  No, she replies, they are just fighting and could I let her know if he comes home.

That makes me a little uncomfortable.  I am way past enjoying drama at this point in my life.  So I go to bed.  I get up to pee around two and out of curiousity check and he is home but she isn’t.

At six this morning, she is texting me again, asking if he is home.  I tell her, yeah and ask if I am picking up her son as usual for school (since he is with her).  She said she will let me know.

She comes home.  I pick up her son.  They are both at the house missing work.

And I am at home airing their dirty laundry on the internet.

But that’s not the point.

My question is:  Is this how marriage is for most people?  Monthly fights that the whole neighborhood hears about.  Kids in the middle.  Staying away all night.  Missing work to fight some more.

I know I am blessed with an unusually easy marriage.  If shit hits the fan, its usually my fault because I am being a total bitch and taking it out on Mark.  Those are not the words of a battered woman taking blame.  I know my personality. I am stubborn and difficult.

My husband is the most tolerant, loving man I know.

Or dumb.  I would have left me years ago.  But then again, I am good in the sack so I do have some saving grace.

But never in a million years, would I stay away all night.  Nor would he.  I know that we have never had anything happen to warrant such extreme anger so I guess to say that would be premature.  I just can’t imagine being that mad at him.  I can’t imagine avoiding him. Our biggest fight involved how many outlets were in the spare bedroom.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with Tia the other day.  She was going to break up with her boyfriend.  She was just not feeling it anymore.  I told her, as I always do, that relationships at this age are just practice.  It’s how you find out what you like and what you don’t.  Her boyfriend is a very good guy but Tia is just not ready for that serious relationship yet. He is a few years too early.

She said she just doesn’t miss him when they are apart.  So I told her how I feel when Mark and I are apart.  I crave him.  After a several hours, I start to feel my body get tense and antsy.  I yearn to touch him, smell him.  To quote Edward Cullen, he is my own personal heroin.  My drug.

So another question:  Is that normal?

It seems obsessive when you write it all out.  But it doesn’t feel like it.  It feels like one person.  I can separate myself from the kids.  I can see them as their own entities.  And I am not sure if it’s because they will grow up and start their own lives one day.  But Mark, its different.  He is my life.  He is part of me.  Like an arm or a leg.  And somedays, a nasty pimple (like today when I am looking at my half painted nursery and getting all grouchy that I can’t set up the crib yet).

The point is, our marriage is one.  We are two people apart, but one together.

After the baby is born, we are getting wedding bands tattoo’s.  I can just hear the comments (not blog comments,lol) now that I have let that one out of the bag.  What if you get divorced?

We won’t.  It’s that simple.  After ten years, I couldn’t be more sure.  I feel absolutely like I hit the lottery. He is a great dad, a great husband and puts my needs before his.  Isn’t that what you are supposed to do?  Put the other first in marriage?

I think my neighbors will get divorced eventually.  Their love is a bad habit, not an addiction.   They don’t get it.  Don’t get marriage at all.  Or maybe I don’t.  Maybe I don’t understand how its so hard for others yet so natural for us.  Maybe we are just lucky.

We have spent the better part of two days painting Kinsley’s nursery (pale orange and coral pink if you are wondering).   So picture if you will, me very pregnant,  with paint all over my skin and clothes.  That alone makes me sexy.  I am my own painted house if you will.

So last night, I was walking down the dark hall to go to bed.  I had forgotten that in the hall was the actual door of the room we were painting.  So naturally I catch my little toe on it.  I swear I have the worst luck when it comes to this stupid toe.  Once you break one of those puppies, you will spend your entire life rebreaking it and rebreaking it.

I scream in agony.  Mark comes running.  I stumble into the bedroom, flip on the light and look down.  Blood.  That’s when I hit the floor.  I don’t do so well with blood.  One time when Tia was oneish, she was sitting in one of those stupid metal/mesh folding lawn chairs….worse invention ever.  It closed up on her and her face hit the cement.  Blood squirting out her lip that she had just bit a chunk of off.  Not dripped.  Squirted. Like several feet in front of her.  It is the only time I froze when my kids were hurt.   Luckily, family moved in and took over.  Point is…I don’t do blood well.

So now I am a fat, painted, bleeding house.

Mark comes in and is like shit I think you need stitches because you split your toe.  I don’t need stitches silly.  See I was trying to be macho.  I mean my husband was in a construction accident last week that kept him from working, not from fishing, but from working for almost two days.  There was no way a little toe was going to cause so much commotion next to my big strong man.

He gets the first aid kit and pulls out the gauze.  Grabs the neo and puts it on.  But we are out of medical tape.  So I have him go get the pretty painters blue tape.  My foot is all sexy with blue painters tape.  I have him put a sock over it because let’s face it…I can not reach my feet and am not going to try.  Except everytime he pulls it up, I scream in pain.

Sexy=  One woman, fifty months pregnant, laying in bed, covered in paint and blood, foot bandaged in painters tape with one multi colored sock flopping half on-half off her foot.

I swear Mark wanted to tap that right then.

Then he is so sweet.  He is telling me how tough I am because now I have six toes on one foot.  Me: I don’t think so dude.  You had a full sheet of plywood fall off a roof of a house and slid down your shin before coming to a rest on your foot AT THE SAME TIME, a metal sheet fell off the ladder and crush your fingers.  Him: No, you are tough.  You had c-sections.  Me: So?  Him: *Unmedicated.

Ok I win.  One tough sexy bitch I am.

*Not entirely true.  I am allergic to pain meds so pretty much left to my own devices after the anesthesia wears off.  So the first 12-24 really are medicated.

I just watched my BFF graduate from college!  When I heard her name,  I started crying and jumping up and down.  I am just so proud of her.

Ang,

I know it has been a long journey but I am so proud of you!  It’s not easy going to school, working and raising those two beautiful boys but you did it!  You accomplished your dreams when so many thought you wouldn’t.  I wish for you a lifetime of success and happiness.  You deserve it!    Congratulation Cupcake!  I love you!

Atleast that’s what he says.  It’s his 13th birthday.

I am going to let him think he is all man now because honestly…the kid has four sisters and another sister on the way.

I will let him fluff out his chest, fart and make grunting noises because he has earned that right.

I will praise the wispy little hairs growing on his upper lip and do cartwheels at the three arm pits hairs he brags about.

I will not make fun of him because his voice is changing so much and right now he sounds stoned all the time.  Dude….

I will roll my eyes however when he says he has to wear his pants so low because he needs the extra room for his enormously large penis.

Yeah.  According to him, it’s so big he has to wrap it down his leg and back up again.  What a burden for him.

This makes me a mother to three teenagers.   Surprisingly, I am unmedicated.

Actually, its hard raising teenagers.  But there is something about it…something magical.   Its fun watching them learn and grow.  Just like watching them learn to crawl or use a spoon for the first time, its amazing watching their faces light up when I teach them to pump gas or use a debit card.  Grown up stuff like that.  Things we do a million times and think nothing about it but if you give a teenager 20 dollars and say you have to budget, shop, purchase and cook dinner for the family and they think they just got a new bike or something.

So yeah.  13.  Sigh.

Where does the time go?