I swear to CHRIST you better look at  that camera and smile or I will squeeze the very life from you!       

Hmmmmmm…I finally have some hair and they insist in sticking this totally stupid-looking bow thing on my head.  What trouble can I get into to punish them?

If I close my eyes and wish hard enough I will devise the perfect plan to aggravate and terrify my Mommy while also inflicting some kind of pain on my brother. Mwah hah hah….

No photos please, I refuse to sign a release…give me that camera you damn paparazzo!

I could eat fresh strawberries and bask in the sunlight streaming in through the window all day long, until, that is, my sister sneaks up behind me and bashes me in the head with some heavy object, scratches me with her freakishly long nails, runs over my feet with her push cart or ALL of the above! 

(All Mommas out there, HOLLAH.  Have you, like, been here a million times or what??)

OHJESUSCHRIST just forget the goddamn photo and get me a glass of Sangria already!

JESUS CHRIST I've missed you people!

I have to be honest, I never intended that suck-ass excuse for a post I wrote in February to be my last.

I swear!

I was going to be all, oh waaaa, I can't be a Mommy blogger, no time, blah blah blah (which I did) and then you would be all, No! We can tolerate your crazy stories and often eye-searingly poor grammar (which you did) and I'd be all, OH SHUCKS, okay. I'll keep writing!  (Which I did not.)

Holy fuck where does the time go?

Who's out there?  Has everyone deserted me to log on to Twitter and Facebook all day? 

Don't you want to hear how I cut my hair off? (Not, like, ALL of it.  I just decided to opt for the Mom Bob.)

What about the fact that BeBop STILL hasn't found a job?  And now I have to distinguish him (the au pair I'm married to) from the au pair we hired to move in with us and watch the twins? OH!  I now have an au pair!

How about updates from the Wild and Crazy World of Jackson and Parker? Huh?

WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES?  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE. Don't you care ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?

Hello?  Is this thing on?

I might be done. Blogging, that is.

I mean, I don't really WANT to stop blogging. I love it. Really, I do.

But I just don't seem to have the time to sit down and compose an even somewhat cogent piece.  After the holidays, I promised myself I would be a better, more frequent blogger. "It's not the quality," I told myself. (SNORT. Like that's ever been a concern of mine.)  "But the quantity!  I should post shorter items, but more often."

Well.  We all know how that's worked out.

Work is so busy I don't have the luxury I once had of sitting at my computer, pretending I'm being productive while really writing my silly posts and Googling that Napoleon Dynamite quote I just can't quite remember.

Those were the good old days. Now I'm busy all day and rush home to feed the twins and put them to bed.

Speaking of those babies, here's one of my (many) issues:  I can't seem to get into the groove of Mommy Blogging.  I was an okay IF blogger, and then a fine pregnant blogger.  But writing about the twins just seems…I don't know…like who cares?

Now you might be wondering: WHY in the fricking hell does Watson think we preferred her posts detailing what cycle day she was on, what her cervical mucous was looking like and what all those pesky areola hairs courtesy of the PCOS were up to over talk of her scrumptious wee li'l ones??

Good question.

And friends, I just don't have an answer for you. I just know I feel like the lamest blogger who ever blogged a blog.

So I'm thinking of just hanging the "I quit" sign on this site, but the thought makes me so sad. This community is so awesome and I've received so much support and guidance and moments of outrageous humor and true friendship that I just can't seem to pull the plug.

But, for example, how am I supposed to write about the OHIDON'TKNOW two months since I last sat my ass down to compose a post?!? 

So.Many.Boring.Detai…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…SEE!  I'm even boring myself!

But in no particular order whatsoever here's what's been going on Chez Watson:

*I am the suckiest, most sucktastic Mommy ever when it comes to the monthly letters I was going to write to the babies. My grandiose scheme was to settle in at the close of each month with my LL Bean slippers on, a cup of hot tea at the ready and compose the most sentimental, witty-yet-hauntingly earnest summation of what the last month had brought us.  Each new morsel of food that passed the lips of Jackson and Parker, each sigh, giggle, new word and activity was to be documented for posterity.

YEAH.

I think I managed that, what…once?  Maybe?

*I work all day and then head home to two, hungry, tired babies.  If you were to, say, drop by unexpectedly one night around 5:30-5:45 PM, you might get the door slammed in your face. But if you came equipped with a nice bottle of alcohol I might let you in and you'd see me in the same disgusting yoga pants I wear every night, hair pulled into a disheveled ponytail, trying to step over the baby-gate from the living room into the kitchen.  Leaving two distraught, baying creatures on the other side.  The gate is so high (actually I'm so short) that it grazes the lady parts in an uncomfortable way which makes me 1) nervous; 2) fearful I'm going to break something else and 3) grateful I'm not planning on having anymore kids.

My extremely ungraceful leap over the gate is greeted with a sound that is virtually inhuman. THE SCREAMING, people, DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN THE SCREAMING. The babies act as if I've hopped on a raft made from palm fronds and left them behind on a deserted island with only a disgusting volleyball for companionship.

They wail and fling themselves on to the floor and I (being the calm, loving Mom that I am) usually scream "HOLD ON!!!  I AM COMING. I AM TRYING MAKE YOUR DINNER!"  or perhaps this old chestnut, "GAWD YOUR WHINING IS MAKING MOMMY WANT TO PUNCTURE HER OWN EARDRUMS WITH A MOLDY CHOPSTICK!!

And then I usually let them into the kitchen where Parker tries to eat the dog's food and Jackson opens and slams the antique wooden door to my deceased grandmother's corner cabinet that's been in the family since the early 1800s.

And then?

Then when the milk is warm (don't even GET ME STARTED on SippyGate when we transitioned from bottles to cups.  JE-SUS. Parker went on a milk strike and cried so hard she acted as if I was trying to coax her into drinking a plastic cup full of dish washing liquid for fuck's sake) and the little bites of turkey meatballs have been readied, I attempt to place two whining, squirming toddlers into their highchairs.

Oh what?  What's that?  I'm tricking you into sitting on a torture device that will soon tighten its 'safety' straps around you and squeeze the very breath from your body while shooting poison darts through your appendages?  Is THAT why you're screaming and flailing about like a ferret trying to free himself from a rusty trap?  Well. THAT explains it.

You might then see Jackson SLAM his head into the back of the high chair. SLAM SLAM SLAM. And there's a good chance you would also hear me yell, "Don't DO THAT!  Your head is already flat from you sleeping funny as a baby so KNOCKITOFF!!!"

And you would also see the twins eat for about 10 minutes before deciding that flinging each morsel of food on to the dog's head is SO much more fun than eating it.  

This presents more problems that can you imagine.  Bosco is a rescue dog and was undoubtedly treated very poorly in his previous home. And this dog has issues. Any object that comes at him from above, even a perfectly good bite of turkey meatball, is seen as a threat.  So while two babies try to fling their food (and cups of water and the dreaded sippy cups and their new plastic, brightly-colored sporks) onto the ground, Bosco is weaving and diving and retreating and crawling and backing up and back and forth and back and forth as fast as he possibly can.  He looks like a soldier trying to avoid being hit with shrapnel for crissakes.

It would not be the most relaxing place you've been in, that's for sure.

*The babies are both finally walking, thank Goodness.  Jackson usually walks with his little arms outstretched like FrankenBaby and Parkie likes to hold her arms in, focusing on her core (I guess) with her little hands tucked in by her chest. She toddles  back and forth and looks remarkably like Charlie Chaplin. She's a total dare devil and while Jax might be sitting quietly in the corner 'reading' a book, she's probably getting up on the couch (her new trick), crawling gleefully across the giant sectional cushions to the end and then propelling herself, head first, on to the Glider rocking chair we have next to the couch.  And because this thrill got old fast, man, she now tries to stand up on the chair and rock it back and forth, perilously close to flying off said chair onto the hardwood floor.

*I am finally making headway on my quest to lose the Baby Toddler Weight From Hell. I started a whole new (and crazy, natch) program and I've lost about 15 pounds. No humiliating, death camp jump rope torture in sight, thank God. No Blond Mom Gang to conjure up the traumatic devastation known as Middle School P.E. Class.

*I finally decided to join Facebook. GAWD.  How boring! Not to be all snotty but geez, someone (someone who, incidentally, 'friended' me recently, someone I knew about 25 years ago from a summer in DC and can't remember for the freaking life of me thanks to a Greek
restaurant on the outskirts of Georgetown that would serve us wine coolers) tagged me for some list of 25 Interesting Things About Me.

HA!  That's like so 2006!  Us bloggers did a list of ONE HUNDRED things like three years ago.  Take that.  That would be the FACE in Facebook, loser.  (Okay, that actually was snotty, wasn't it?) Anyway, I don't love hearing how one friend is having Earl Grey tea with honey and another is looking forward to watching the Grammys and how another  friend isn't sore after skiing for the first time all season and having people write on my wall. I guess I'm just a late adopter.  And unusually cranky. But maybe I'll get the hang of it (she says doubtfully).

*Work, although busy, is fine for me.  For BeBop? Not so much.  He just found out yesterday he's getting laid off.

*HOLY. SHIT. Laid off?!?  In this time of global economic crisis the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1930s?!?

WHERE ARE YOU PEOPLE WITH THAT WINE?!?!?

*Anyway. I'll close now by saying I just don't know what to do with this blog. Any suggestions are most welcome. And so is Merlot.

Merlot = VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.

CHAIR OF DEATH:

Parker:  Me likey stab Mommy with half-eaten pretzel

Jackson:  Do de do de do…me no see sister threaten to puncture Mommy's carotid artery with pretzel. Mmmmmm…pretzel…wheee!!!

I have barely recovered from all the election hype. 

On Wednesday the 5th I was so happy and thrilled and hopped up on carbs and sugar from our post-election pizza party (which included copious amounts of Yes We Can Fruit Punch. Don't ask) but also so terribly heartbroken over the passage of Proposition 8.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything (quite possibly a dead horse because he or she just couldn't face life alone on the farm because he or she was prohibited from marrying his or her same-sex horsey partner!) but really, is this the best we can do?

IS IT?

It is not.

We can do better.  And we should do better. If you care, you can head over here and take a looksy.

I was going to take the babies to a march last weekend but then the sad realization that I cannot march – or walk, for that matter – dawned on me.

I am still firmly ensconced in this goddamn walking boot. And I am so over it.  A friend referred to it as my Iron Man boot which made me feel cool for about five seconds and then I just went back to complaining about how hard it is to be clomping around with this thing on all day, all out of balance, in every sense of the word.

I feel like I am in the weeds. 

And since I wasn't sure what that meant exactly, I decided to look it up on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn it might be diner lingo. DINER LINGO!  Honestly, besides a stiff drink and a cheap hooker WHAT IS BETTER THAN DINER LINGO?!

Why…legal gay marriage, Watson.

Good one.

Okay, BESIDES legal gay marriage what is better than diner lingo?

[crickets]

Thought so.

Anyhoo, 'in the weeds' could refer to "a waitress/cook that can't keep up with the tables."  Well, that's somewhat vague and confusing I thought.  And then I read on: "Refers back to
chefs' military roots, where being in the weeds would cause your army
to be slaughtered."

Hmmmmmm…slaughtered?  That's a bit melodramatic even for ME and I'm known for histrionics.

So perhaps I'm not exactly in the weeds, but I'm not in a great place at the moment.

I'm so tired of hobbling around everywhere and not being able to carry the babies from one room to another. When I feed them dinner, I'm forced to implement a complicated strategy that includes retrieving the single stroller from the garage, placing Baby 1 in said stroller and bringing him/her to the kitchen, to his/her highchair, and strapping him/her into said highchair while he/she screams bloody murder.  Then, it's pushing the empty stroller back out to the living room where Baby 2 is in the process of licking the dog's toy or possibly the sole of BeBop's shoe which he left out for the 17th trillion time.  Baby 2 then goes into single stroller and being the daring Momma that I am, I DON'T EVEN STRAP HIM/HER IN.  (Fuck yeah!)  Then Baby 2 gets strolled into the kitchen while Baby 1 is in the process of gnawing his/her arm off because it's taking me so long to get Baby 2 into his/her highchair.

And the clomping. 

SWEET MOTHER OF CHRIST THE CLOMPING.

Back and forth, clomp clomp clomp.  From the kitchen back to the highchairs again and again. Ooops, forgot the 12th spoon because the little brats darlings have thrown 11 over the side onto the dog's head.  Ooops, forgot the water.  Ooops, forgot the second water.  Ooops, time for yogurt and applesauce.  Ooops, time for the warm washcloth which must be WARMED with WARM WATER or Baby 1 and Baby 2 will howl when I'm trying to wash the dried food off their hands and faces. Howl like a howling Howler Monkey being eaten alive by a liger AND a vicious, bloodthirsty Unicorn and believe you me, that's NOT a sound you want to hear.

And then it's time for Operation Single Stroller to commence again, as I try to get both babies into their room for bedtime.

Operation Bedtime has degenerated into Operation Just Kill Me Now because the babies have decided that in order to be ready for when I sell them to the traveling carnival, they must practice their skills for hours upon hours.

What skills, you ask? Nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills?

Errrrr, well, no.  More like their juggling skills.  They totally think sweet juggling skills will come in handy once they're on the circuit. You know! The traveling carnival circuit.

If you were to peer into their room at about 7:00 PM on any given night, you'd just see a blur of fast moving arms and things flying out of the crib faster than I put them back in.  It's just a giant dust cloud of pacifiers and arms and loveys and other loveys and arms and then the monkey and then the elephant and then more arms and then ME trying to catch things as they hit the floor and roll under the cribs or fly into the dirty clothes basket (which is Parkie's favorite target) and more things just FLYING ALL THROUGH THE AIR. 

God, I'm tired just thinking about it.

I'm going to find myself a diner and order me up some dough well done with cow to cover to start with and then have two cows, make them cry, walk 'em through the garden if you please. Burn 'em both, add wax and don't forget the fries, on a rail!

And bring me a Creep. Or twenty.

It will be hard to choose between a bucket of cold mud and a white cow for dessert or an order of Eve with a moldy lid and a cup of mud so maybe I'll just order all of it.

Care to join? 

I know, my mood is so STELLAR these days, but really?  I could use the company.

http://www.mydearwatson.me/i-have-barely-recovered-from-all-the-election-hype-on-wednesday-the-5th-i-was-so-happy-and-thrilled-and-hopped-up-on-carbs-a/

Dear Readers,

We are posting for Mommy today because she seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown, even more than usual.  She's absolutely beside herself with anxiety about tomorrow. Not only because we're electing a new President, but also because a very important proposition (Prop 8) is on the California ballot. 

If this proposition passes, boys will not be able to grow up and marry other boys and girls will not be able to grow up and marry other girls.

We don't know what the big deal is, really. If two people love each other and want to get married, who cares if they're boys or girls, right?  We think it would be cool to grow up in a society that honored such tolerance and that it would be neat to read books in school about two princes getting married, because by the time we're grownups it wouldn't be such a big deal at all!

But Mommy gets very worked up over things like this.

In order to distract herself, she went and volunteered a lot this weekend at the local Obama campaign headquarters.  And she ate all of our Halloween candy.  And don't even get us started on the drinking. She made us wear our Obama t-shirts and she tried to teach Parker to say 'O-BAM-AH' because she's apparently the more verbal of the two of us.  She also tried to teach us the fist-bump but that's a little beyond our skill set at the moment. 

And also?  She dressed us up for Halloween as a monkey and a lion, and took a crapload of pictures.

Dear Parker,

You are 47 weeks old.  And you are my sweet baby angel.  Now, don't get me wrong, your brother Jackson is pretty cool, too.  But I am writing this letter to you.  Because as a little baby girl who will grow into a woman, this is an incredibly important time in history.  Hopefully, you are too young to  understand (or repeat) the vile words that often come tumbling out of my mouth when I'm watching the news these days. But I do want you to know, one day, what I was thinking and feeling and hoping.

Usually, I use this space to write about you and Jax and share my thoughts on thought-provoking topics such as toenails, my spirit-crushing experience in exercise class and the latest wacky alternative treatment your grandmother is trying.  Or making me try, such as the 'laser' she routinely fires up and places next to my broken left foot.  (And no, I don't really know what it is.  It's a battery-operated machine that looks like a large remote control with flashing lights and she claims it has magical healing powers.  One day you'll learn sometimes it's just easier to go with it, just sigh, let her place the crazy thing next to your foot, turn on the tv and just go with it.)

But I digress.

As I was saying, this is not a place where I would normally write about anything too serious.  (Although, truly, what's NOT serious about the The Awning, I mean RUHLLY.)  But this is an incredible time in our history and you are witness to it, even if you don't know it yet.

When we held the Baby Blessing for you and your brother, part of the ceremony was a poem I read on Zee's fabulous blog and a portion of it is here:

May God bless you with
anger at injustice, oppression, and

exploitation of
people, so that you may wish for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with
enough foolishness

to believe that you
can make a difference in this world,

so that you can do
what others claim cannot be done.

Your father and I took these words very seriously.  I want you and Jackson to notice injustice and oppression and bigotry and not only wish for equality and justice but work for it too.  And I want you to believe that you can make a difference, even in a tiny little way. To make the world a better place.

We are in the middle of a crazy time, with many different things happening all at once.  There's an economic crisis the likes of which none of us have ever seen and we're less than two weeks away from a truly historic election.

But there are a couple of really crazy things happening now, things that are propelling Mommy into the kitchen night after night, to scour the cupboards for remnants of  crackers or Toll House chocolate chips that might have fallen out of the package and then to crack open all those bottles of Chardonnay as she watches countless hours of CNN.

One of these things is that there is a woman, her name is Sarah Palin, and she's the candidate for the Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket.  (And no, if they are elected, she will NOT be in charge of the U.S. Senate, she will not really "get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes." Because, and hopefully you will learn this in a Civics class one day, the only power a vice president has, according to a little document known as the Constitution, is to preside over the U.S. Senate. And maybe cast a vote here and there, in case of a
tie.) 

But anyhoo, having her run as the VP candidate on the ticket is very confusing for Mommy.  On the one hand, Hurray! A woman ran a fantastic campaign during the primaries and was almost the Democratic party presidential nominee.  And then Hurray! The Republican nominee went and chose a woman.  What strides we're making!  What a different world you'll grow up in! 

But then it was like, Hurray!  Hur–what?  Wait, what did she say?  Hold on.  What's wrong with this picture? 

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

She sneers at her opponent's community organizing work during her first big speech on a national stage?  That's mean.  And for those of us who have worked in the not for profit sector, downright insulting.  And she likes to hunt and kill animals?  FROM A HELICOPTER?  And she wants to drastically curb your reproductive rights (Greetings! I'm your Understatement Of The Day!) as well as your access to open and honest sex education.  And she wants to amend the Constitution of the United States to ban marriage between two women or two men?  And when serving as Mayor, inquired about the possibility of removing certain "objectionable books" from the library?

And she openly calls her opponent
anti-American and accuses him, at campaign rallies in front of
thousands of people, of "palling around with terrorists"? And seems to think certain parts of this country are more American than others.

And she calls herself an Every Woman Hockey Mom You Betcha but then spends an assload of money on expensive designer clothing and hair and make-up. She claims to be able to do it all, to put down the Blackberry and pick up the breast pump. As if the rest of us working moms should be doing the same.  Except she actually makes a good enough living,  good enough that her husband doesn't have to work full time outside the home, and when she travels for business her kids get to tag along. And she has tons of family members who pitch in to help, and she could bring her tiny baby to work with her and stash her under the desk while she conducted business. She didn't seem to need paid time off after the babies were born, daycare, or a nanny. Or Lexapro.

She hasn't spoken much about family leave or the need to have high quality, affordable childcare options for working mothers, because I guess she really COULD do it all. 

 IT'S ALL JUST TOO MUCH FOR MOMMY.

What is a Mom with a baby girl to do?

Is she a role model to young girls? Despite the fact that I am diametrically opposed to every single thing she stands for and to be honest, those frame-less glasses just don't really do it for me either, should I respect the fact that she's clearly motivated and has made great strides in the political realm?

Do I consider her a feminist because she calls herself one, even though in the same sentence she mentions how she fished and hunted with her brothers as a young girl and THAT'S what makes her one?

Is she causing more cracks in the glass ceiling or actually putting duct tape over the cracks that other women have made?

Is she saying that a woman really can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan? While totally pulling off the Sexy Librarian look? Or is she saying that a woman should kill the pig herself (from a helicopter, to make it more fun), bring it home to a large family, fry it up in a pan while Blackberrying co-workers and breastfeeding a newborn? 

IT'S ALL JUST TOO MUCH FOR MOMMY.

I want you to grow up believing you can do great things, and I want you to find amazing role models who can serve as examples for you. I want strong, powerful women to help light your path through the world. But suddenly the definition of 'role model' isn't so clear.

I want you to see things in the world that you want to change, and I want you to have the power to change them. I don't want you to have such convoluted, confusing images of what a strong, feminist woman looks like. 

But how we're going to get there is anybody's guess. 

I'm off to crack open another bottle of wine, hunt for a stale cracker or two and hope for the best.

With all my love,

Mommy