Category Archives: disneyland

emptying my brain

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I just had a brilliant idea. I need to get my hands on more big boxes. Then the next time we get rained out of the park I can tell folks to come over with markers. I think that having an activity will be useful. The pack of wild children running and screaming can’t be a full time gig. We have this construction kit we were given for building with cardboard. I am totally sure I could come up with something awesome given who the biggest five kids are. Those girls are clever.

I started working on the childrens book while we were at Disneyland. We mailed all the Christmas cards to the home schoolers but I’m not done with my cards. I have emails I want to write but I really want to see Noah too. And we have a tea party today that I need to prepare for. Luckily Noah cleaned the house for me while we were gone. Now that is true love.

I feel like a terribly ungrateful person for having this sad track in my head but I don’t know how to turn it off. My life literally has all of the elements I ever said I wanted. Oh, except for a mother. Or a father. Or a sister. Or brothers. I wanted to have those relationships too. I wanted to have people who would actually learn about me and be able to help me. I wanted to have people who felt obligated to help me. I’ll say it. I don’t have anyone who feels obligated to help me. I have people who feel bad for me and help me when they can. It really is different. I’m fucking grateful for what I have.

I feel constantly sad that I was not good enough to deserve a family. Having children and a husband is different. I’m grateful for them. I want them. Please God let nothing take them from me. I need them so much. But it’s different. My children know a very small part of me. And that is how it needs to stay. That is really hard. I don’t feel like anyone knows me very well and it makes me so sad.

I feel so unimportant. It really feels like the death of who I was. My children will only know me Post-Rape. No one knew me before then.

It is very overwhelming feeling. Like I really have to kill who I was. Like it should become my shameful silent secret. Even though it still feels like it is happening in my body sometimes. I don’t know how to make it stop. I don’t know how to stop hearing them tell me over and over that I am worthless and stupid and bad.

So I look at my nice family, my good family. I feel like I am going to hurt them. I feel like I am going to poison them unless I find a way to wall off the toxic waste that is my body. Unless I can learn how to pretend that I never had a persona that was raped over and over and over then I have to try harder to be silent. Be silent. Be silent.

No one wants to hear that shit Kristine. Shut up. Shut up. No one fucking cares. Why are you so stupid?

Noah noticed that Calli had a ridiculous language jump during the trip. I think it was because I felt safer talking there. It’s ok to talk in Disneyland because I am describing physical objects the whole time and answering their questions. I’m on task and I can relax. I can’t spontaneously talk about what I am thinking almost ever in my life. I just can’t. I have to be extremely conscious about what I talk about. It is easier at Disneyland where I have a job in front of me. I am interpreting this world and giving them my view of it and explaining to them what I want them to get out of it. I don’t go to Disneyland with the same agenda as other families (sorry folks). Shanna likes to play. We find places to hang out and she recruits kids into games. I need her to be adaptive to a wide variety of people. I take her to a lot of different kinds of places.

We need to be able to negotiate crowds. Disneyland is a very low stakes place to practice this. We go when it is not busy and we rehearse how to act. We talk about how far apart to be. We specifically talk about how many steps you are allowed to have between you and Mommy. Count them off. How do you look around you and determine where is safe to run and where you must walk? I need them to be able to evaluate environments and figure out behavior.

Shanna knows my full and complete name and knows that if she gets lost she is to walk to a cast member and say “Excuse me but I seem to have lost my mother. Not to worry, I know her phone number.” She sings it. I taught it as a song. That makes it easier to remember.

I am not trying to raise compliant children. But I am trying to raise children who have habits I can stand. We can argue and bicker all day long–but you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head or I’m not talking to you. If I yell first I acknowledge that I started it and I apologize. I expect Shanna to do the same. We don’t need to yell at each other. We can just talk.

By the end of the trip Shanna said we should have brought the double stroller. Ha. I hated having a stroller. I really did. I felt boxed in and controlled. I was pissed off by having to remember it. I took to forcing one child at a time into it because that way I could follow the pace set by one kid at a time. I was not capable of following two kids with a damn stroller. I hated it. Oh man they used it. I hated it. Thank you D. I really appreciate the loan. I will get it back to you soon.

I have to go in. Thank goodness this is a Godmama weekend. I can use some time off. I’m feeling very overwhelmed.

I’m doing it.

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I spend a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to appropriately talk about mental illness with children. I also feel compelled to figure out how to explain stuff to friend’s kids some day. I will get questions. Recently I was relaying the story of shooting my mom in the face with the kitchen faucet (one of those neat ones with a tube so you can rinse off the whole sink) because she was being nasty and a kid asked me what she said to me. I told him I would tell him when he is older. He didn’t like that.

My kids need to understand why I medicate. They need to understand why I keep them away from it. Bodies are different. People have different needs. I assume that diabetics explain to their children why they must never play with insulin.

Right now the explanation that in my head feels “age appropriate” is “I had a lot of very unusual life experiences. I felt scared a lot. My body forgot how to feel not-scared. The medication I take lets my body understand oh yeah–nothing bad is happening because my body gets confused. It’s very annoying and inconvenient. This is why we ensure that you don’t spend much time feeling scared. I don’t want you to need medications to correct problems in your body so we are going to try to avoid creating them. Medicines are extracted or created in a wide variety of ways. This plant releases its medicine best by burning. But any kind of smoke at all is very bad for your body–it’s an irritant. It is hurting me. Right now the balance of my life is such that I need the help in my brain enough to deal with the fact that I am hurting my body. It’s not forever. Your body is perfect still. Let’s keep it that way as long as possible. All medications should be prescribed by a doctor.”

That feels kid-appropriate to me.

Yesterday was nice. I had several moments of reflection throughout the day where I managed to shut off the hand-wringing-oh-no-I-can’t-do-this voice that lives in the back of my head. The voice that occasionally rises to a panicked frenzy and it is all I can do to not find a dark closet and hide in it and beat my head till I drown it out. I used to do that, before I had kids. Now I don’t really have time for that.

Now mostly I mutter “shut up” every so often and try to ignore it. But it is a loud voice. It counts as background noise in my hearing and makes it harder to follow conversations.

Shanna climbed in bed with us in the middle of the night. The thing I am looking forward to the most about our trip to Disneyland next week is sleeping with the girls in a large and comfortable bed. I really like sleeping with them. They make me feel good about myself because they love me so much. And they do not fear me.

Looking into Shanna’s face in the middle of the night is one of the only times the I can’t do it voice is silent. When I look at my sleeping daughter I think I’m doing it. She is so wonderful she takes my breath away. I do not understand how I was blessed this much. We have such a pleasant relationship. We are really nice to each other.

My kids want to be near me because being near me is a pleasant experience. That feels so good. My children do not flinch. We are all yellers–they don’t take it as threatening. We just happen to express ourselves with force.

I like to let Shanna run and run and run and run in a field until I can barely see her and then I scream, “Come back now” and she does. She turns on a dime. It is miraculous to me the way she knows how and when to push the boundaries with me. She only rarely is impulsive in inappropriate places. Mostly, because I over-explain everything, she knows what I want from her behavior in different environments.

“In Disneyland you don’t have to hold my hand the whole time–I know that irritates you–but you do need to be able to reach out your hand and touch me the whole time. That’s how you know how far away to be. It’s a big crowd and you could get pushed away from me easily.”

I’m starting to feel excited about the trip. We plan to spend most of the days in the pool at the water slide. Ha.

I like being forced to look at them. I probably won’t really carry my phone around. Unschooling is a way of life. I try really hard to not distract myself during the day. My job for the next fifteen years is to be available to them for help with learning.

I feel the most joy I have ever felt. I confess that I partially feel a bit cocky that I’m not trying to actively teach Shanna anything “academic” at this point but she’s learning it anyway. Oh wow! It works! She has mostly taught herself to read. I will give 2-5 minutes of feedback at her request once in a while and I think that’s only happened three or so times.

I want to find out who she will be. I’m really interested.

It’s really kind of funny how “gendered” behavior is working in my house. They both have “intensely male” interests and attitudes right along side their uberfemme girly stuff. I really like that the princesses are exploring outer space. With a sword. That pretty much exactly seems right to me. We aren’t so big on the guns. Hand to hand combat is much more fun.

Today I’m packing. And cleaning. I have to get the whole house picked up and prepared because Noah is going to steam clean the carpets while we are gone. I feel very weird that my instant impulsive follow to that statement is, “I’m a lucky bitch” What in the hell has happened to me? Ok. Yeah. I’m kind of a freak now.

If you aren’t a parent–strongly consider whether you want to be deeply grateful for carpet cleaning. If that seems icki–don’t have kids. Heh.

Calli is past potty training. We haven’t had an accident on the floor in months. Oh man.

I’m going to have a more difficult relationship with Calli because she resents the fuck out of sharing me with Shanna. She doesn’t ever seem to feel like she gets enough of me. I do give her one on one time every day but I can’t get rid of my older child. There has been a rough bump around language acquisition. She gets so frustrated with having Shanna nearby and when she is trying to talk and Shanna talks over her… woo boy. I remember being the baby.

The dynamics here are interesting. We have specific dogma around behaviors in order to smooth things out. I hear lots of screaming recitals of “Moms rules” when I’m not in the room. Uhm, well it’s a process.

Shanna’s favorite is, “We are a sharing family.” She has a hard time with the fact that this doesn’t mean she gets to eat her share and my share and Noah’s share and Calli’s share. We should share with her after she finishes eating the fastest–right?

The flip side is she will hand her bowl over to someone if they ask before she has bolted the food down. She isn’t attached. She’s just ravenous. It is really interesting to watch them share. They share food with joy. I like it.

Toys… well they will have a long life of working out conflicts. We are working on doing so without hitting, biting, kicking, screaming, pinching, spitting, pushing, or intimidating someone. You have to be persuasive. Make your case. Oh, and no whining. Or pestering. Asking more than three times is pestering and then you get an automatic no for the day.

I’m firm but not mean. I think. I am really controlling. I feel very weird about that. But I’m very controlling about how they treat me. I have to believe this is healthy. You can’t hit me. You can’t kick me. You can’t spit on me. You can’t scream in my ear because it causes blinding headaches that last for days. etc and so on.

I believe with every part of me that if I want my kids to be nice to me I have to show them what it is like. I have to let them know that I feel frustrated with them sometimes and that’s ok and they will frustrated with me sometimes and that’s ok too. Even when we feel frustrated that is no cause to go being mean to someone you like as much as we like each other.

I’ve had several what I think of as Zen moments lately. All the bad tapes stopped playing for a few minutes. I felt really good about what I was doing. The kids and I were working on something together and I felt actively instructive in the good ways and they were thrilled I was paying attention to them and teaching them and I felt so fucking lucky that I get to have this life. I get to find out what a happy childhood looks like. That is not lost to me. I don’t get to have it–that is past. But I can see it. I was told that people like me couldn’t create one.

I’m doing it. 

Can’t sleep. Captain Hook will get me.

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I can’t sleep. I should have brought sleeping pills. I read somewhere that if you take sleeping pills you are five times more likely to die. I’ve been trying to not take them. See, I didn’t even pack any. Obviously I don’t want to take them. But I fell asleep at nine and I woke up at midnight and I’ve been awake for an hour fretting and I don’t feel the least bit tired. I feel amped and anxious. I feel like my heart is about to jump out of my chest.

I’m thinking about self-mutilation. I think I am writing the intro for that chapter in my head right now instead of sleeping. (I honestly don’t want to really write it tonight–sleeeeeeeeeep.) Self-mutilation is a big topic. It’s cutting and burning and banging your head and all sorts of other fun ways to spend an afternoon. Everyone self-mutilates in slightly different ways for slightly different reasons.

Personally I like cutting the best because I like seeing blood. I think I don’t have scars from cutting because of my “personal style”. I like to do tiny cuts that are just barely deep enough to break blood vessels and then I will do dozens or hundreds of those until I have enough visual sensation of blood. Other people like going deeper because they like the pain of cutting muscle. That kind of pain doesn’t give me the focus or control I want. It makes me feel triggered and frantic. Everyone is different.

Bad coping methods. They truly are better than nothing. If nothing will get you dead do something bad instead.

I don’t carry sleeping pills with me because I am always afraid I will have a bad day and be done. It feels like having them with me is too big of a risk. In my house I can handle having A Dose but I don’t trust myself outside of my house. I have worked up a ritual and an approach and a way of managing myself at home. It’s different everywhere else. My resources are spread differently. It’s harder to have the self control to take a dose. I’m just so freaked out that I want to sleep and I’ll do anything. Including taking way too many pills. Because today it feels like nothing could possibly be strong enough to make me sleep. My brain is cycling around too fast and all I want to do is sleep. I don’t think I would be able to take one dose. I would take one and five minutes later another and five minutes later another until I fell asleep.

That’s kind of bad. So I don’t do that.

Instead I write an email to an old friend telling him that even though I am generally speaking a judgmental asshole and I’m really mean I don’t think I clearly told him that I think he could be a good parent. I need to say that. I need to say it without other things right next to it so the message isn’t lost.

I think about Jimmy. I think about Tommy. I think about that little fucker at Lakeside who broke my arm because Tommy wanted him to.

I may end up finding a dispensary down here. If I am going to go buy drugs to help me calm down it is probably a better idea to prioritize being more stoned over taking more sleeping pills. I don’t want to smoke at Disneyland so I’m limited to the other methods I had on hand. It’s a very scant week’s supply. I certainly don’t have enough to also take it to help me sleep. That’s probably a bad choice right this minute. In fact as I am sitting here typing it occurs to me: I do have medication that will make me sleep tonight. I’m not taking it because I’m trying to ration it. But I can buy more. I’m one of those asshole privileged people. I don’t have to deal with this feeling all night long so that I am a nightmare tomorrow.

Thinking! I can do it! The awesome part is how fast that is to implement. Done.

The funny part is I won’t feel it for a really long time. So I’m still going to be up for a while. Just knowing that I’ve already started solving the problem is relaxing. I won’t be awake all night. Ok, so I’ll probably be awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night. I hear that it is fairly normal for my species. It’s only going to be 2-3 hours because I medicated. Otherwise I would watch the sun come up.

I can’t do everything. Sometimes it feels like I can do very little. I can not-die today. I will touch people who love me and let them touch me–even when it is hard. When I read about attachment theory it makes me very sad. I can’t let people touch me very often. I don’t feel very “attached”. I feel like I am free floating. Only G-d knows where I will land.

Brain dump + Bonus question.

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Occasionally someone will say something to me along the lines of them being worried about Noah being supportive enough.

I just yelled at Noah for almost two hours straight about how mad I am at all men and how angry I am about the current ways of dealing with rape in larger society and I said a lot of thinly veiled mildly implicating things that were quite harsh about all men. One time he slapped the arms of his chair and had a sharp intake of breath and he stood up and took two steps around in a circle then set his face in stern lines and settled in for more listening.

And over and over he patiently explained all the flawed results of my incoherent half-plans. He wasn’t dismissive but he was insistent. I’m just not looking at the whole picture. He’s right. He wasn’t even slightly demeaning. He was measured and careful in his tone. His facial expression was carefully monitored.

And when I cried in frustration and said I don’t know what to do he shook his head and sadly said he doesn’t either.

Noah has limited capacity to support me because he is a human being. I can consciously see how he is working as hard as he can to be supportive. It’s not his fault I have this hole in my life that is supposed to be filled by other people. I can’t do anything about that either.

Shanna told me yesterday that she wants to see the Eiffel Tower some day and she doesn’t care that I don’t like Paris I will have to go with her and she will make sure I have fun. I bet you she would be right.

I don’t run in Fremont again before the marathon. I am supposed to walk nine miles in the next five days. We leave for Disneyland Tuesday morning. Piece of cake. The marathon is pretty much exactly seven days away. Nearly to the minute.

I feel disembodied and empty. Drained.

One thing Noah promised to do for me (we’ll see) is set up a website and a mailing list. I’m going to start writing again soon. I have two very specific book ideas I’m playing with and I’m having trouble deciding which to write next.

My relationship with Tom will be a book by itself. It will be incredibly graphic and highly sexual.

The other book is one that Noah is encouraging me towards: Outrunning Suicide: A Harm Reduction Approach to Life. I already have the starts of the table of contents and multiple chapters partially written. I’ll be going through and examining all the ways I distract myself from killing myself. I think it is an interesting topic and so does Noah.

What do other people think?

Stupidly defensive.

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I feel strangely guilty for liking Disneyland as much as I do. I really do. I’m not alone. This is a grand passion that many people share. But I feel vaguely ashamed of being part of the cult. I’m even part of the time share. Cue jokes about lame people.

When I go down for the marathon I am getting an annual pass with Shanna. This is the last year Calli is free. Shanna and I will go four times if I get my way. I think I will. With an annual pass and a time share the only unusual expense is gas. And I have a fund for that. It’s less than $100 round trip in the blue car. I put about $40 extra every month into a fund for Disneyland travel. I don’t feel too guilty.

Disneyland is pretty much the only place I feel like I can trust people to be really nice to me. I spend my life on edge waiting for people to snap at me. That’s part of why Disneyland Paris is so awful. You go there expecting, you know… Disneyland and instead you get France. Fuck yourself very much.

I haven’t had an annual pass since before my parents divorced. I had one when I was three. That’s not true! I have the vague memory of buying one on the Christmas Day I spent there with friends after Tom and I broke up. I didn’t actually make it back to Disneyland that year–unsurprising I was busy figuring out being a teacher–but I bought one as a self-comfort thing. This time I have three sets of reservations so far. The fourth will be easy.

I am going to be there for the anniversary of my father’s suicide. I’ll be there on my father’s birthday (missing my mom’s birthday by three days). I will be there for Shanna’s birthday and I think I will go again for the fourth trip for my birthday. I have given other people trips to Disneyland for their birthday but I haven’t been for my birthday… ever. I really should stop giving other people things I want. People always leave me. Then I get to remember that I will go through great effort for other people and it’s not reciprocated. Fuck them. I should save my energy for me.

All told that will be nineteen days of travel. Noah will be there for the marathon and I suspect he will come down for my birthday. The other two trips I will be alone with my little girls. I can’t wait. I like traveling with them. I pare down my needs until we can move at the same pace. It’s a lot of fun. Watching Shanna and Calli navigate new situations and people are some of my greatest joys in life. Seeing them exist makes me feel very good about the world. See, I did make it a better place.

I like watching their joy and eagerness. I like watching Shanna run until she is so tired she can’t walk any more and she must be carried. I like watching Calli be brave and fearless… as long as she is standing behind me. Otherwise she is cautious around new people. I like watching my solemn, intense little girl light up like a roman candle when I walk into sight. I like being loved. I like watching how my children believe that love is absolutely limitless. Shanna goes back and forth between which kid she is going to grow up and marry. So far she is not picky between boys and girls. Sometimes she talks frankly about how she is going to have a wedding with one person and a hand fasting with someone else. (Thanks to Grandpa J, his wife C and his hand-fasted partner D.)

Shanna likes people of all races and physical abilities. If you will sit still and talk to her she likes you. Sometimes she seems to disconcert the large black men on BART. I beam benignly from behind her. The conversations are great. “Does your mother know you are talking to me?” “Yes.” “She doesn’t mind?” “Why would she? Are you a bad person I shouldn’t be talking to?” Then they blink in kind of confused/bemused horror. Then they just talk to her. It’s great.

I used to think Shanna was extremely physical. It turns out I was a first time mom who had never been around a baby. Who knew? From birth Shanna was obviously trying to pattern off of me. She wants to be like me. Calli wants to be like Shanna. Only she’s hitting milestones a lot faster than Shanna. If it weren’t for the difference in leg length I don’t think Shanna could catch Calli. Calli is starting to get mad if I don’t let her practice running with the group. “Me hurry!” Of course with emphatic scowl and pointing to the ground. Yes ma’am.

That’s one of the things that I think makes the biggest difference in how my kids speak on a regular basis. I say “Yes ma’am” to things. I use a lot of weird speech patterns, basically on purpose. I like playing with accents. It makes me happy. I use funny accents because then I consciously think about what I am saying and how I am saying it. Then I don’t snap. I’m not nasty. I use a lot of polite words in theatrical, emphatic ways.

I’ve never understood why other people think I am as rude as they seem to. I try. I really do.

I think people who are on the fence shouldn’t have kids. It’s a huge commitment. It’s a lot of work. If I didn’t feel like I was alive for this very purpose I don’t think I could do this. I would hate them and hate my life. But this is the life I want. So I’m trying to figure out how it goes.

I’m struggling with finding the last granules of patience I have left in me for a baby. Calli is still a baby. She gets a while longer. I told her that milk will be all gone on Tuesday on her birthday. Even though she is potty trained, even though I can’t handle nursing her any more… she really does still feel like a baby. It’s funny, when Shanna was that age I marveled at how kid-like she felt. Now that I have a kid I look at two and think, “Baby!”

I’m basing this intense belief on different developmental stuff I’ve read about. Kids’ brains work one way before three. It’s a large developmental stage. Then three to six is another big period. I’m not going to get into it. If you are interested there is a lot of research.

I’m thinking about pacing of the day and learning activities, that may not be obvious. I have a hard time with baby-pace. I don’t like it much. But I follow it. It’s not like I run my home like a daycare or anything like that but I consciously think about what kinds of interactions and reactions are appropriate. I can say things to Shanna I just can’t say to Calli yet. I feel like it requires intense concentration in my mind to censor things to an appropriate baby-place.

I am a volatile person. It has been very difficult for me to be mostly level and calm and happy for more than four years running with my babies. I freak out on the internet because this is the only place I have to put those feelings, those words, that part of my existence. People who watch me interact with my children who do not read my writing have no idea that I am depressed and suicidal unless I tell them. When I have told people (seriously, I think part of the way I am handling my mental illness is building up the responsibility to my community to not die) they are shocked and surprised. They never would have guessed! I think people aren’t very observant.

Everyone is motivated by different things. Part of what I like about staying at the Disney time share is the way it will push the kids into a foreign environment and they will get to find out which parts of their lives and routine is place dependent and which things are all-the-time-required. Like brushing your teeth. You do that no matter where you sleep. You have to eat no matter what. But things like clean clothes? Well… it varies. How you wash. If you wash. How dirty you get. There is a lot of variation possible in life. How do you roll with differences? How do you learn how to observe local customs and adapt to be like the natives? Even things like how do you learn how to use different versions of what you have–like a dishwasher.

When we are alone and going at their pace my kids can do at least half and sometimes all of the work to feed themselves. They can deal with a lot of minor cooking stuff (ok, Calli isn’t there yet–Shanna makes enough for two) and it’s easy to get them to do other cleaning stuff if everything is kept simple and slow. Calli sets the table while Shanna makes food. I think about how I learned to do things. I think about what it is they need to learn.

I think my kids will know how to cook more at five than I knew how to cook at eighteen. That is really kind of weird to me. I knew how to make ramen. I could open cans and microwave things. I could follow the directions on the back of a tv dinner. You can hand Shanna a (small) pile of vegetables and she’ll fucking make you soup. It feels weird to me that these things are so important to me. My kids will know how to handle food. My kids will know how to make a meal plan and go to the grocery store and come back with ingredients instead of boxes and make food. I learned it slowly over time as an adult. It’s been hard. It’s been embarrassing.

I have weird issues around food. If that’s not obvious by now. I feel very differently about what I/we eat when Noah is home than I do when he isn’t home. Taking his preferences into account messes me up. I have to think a lot harder about food and process because I’m trying to take a lot of different things into account.

When I’m alone with the kids I let Shanna do the best she can for as long as she can. She generally finishes enough for her and Calli. Sometimes I finish Calli’s share. Then I do mine. I don’t have to think about mine. It’s automatic and easy. I get territorial about feeding Noah. And if I have to take the time to do two adult portions it is a lot faster and easier for me to do basically three adult portions and call it a day rather than let Shanna slowly and ponderously do everything she wants to do. (cutting, cleaning veggies, breaking things up, assembling plates, whatever food task) Calli helps as she can. Mostly she sets the table and yells “Me do!” without being able to figure out which side of the plastic knife is sharp. It’s a process.

I’m looking forward to being alone with the girls for a few days. I’m looking forward to sleeping with them in the big hotel bed. I’m looking forward to simple foods Shanna and Calli can get on their own. I won’t bother too cook meat while we are gone. I may not cook much at all. We like fruit and raw vegetables with dip and bread and cheese and lunch meat and cereal. That sounds like a vacation to me. A glorious vacation. If I put a bowl of fruit on the table my kids would eat it. No matter how big the bowl was.

Abrupt topic switch: Noah timing stuff and my complaints about losing a year. I was told that bit was unclear. A while ago Noah and I sat down and fleshed out what he would like to do career wise over the next few years. Where would he like to end up. What is our plan for retirement (says she who doesn’t work)? If you are going to be my provider forever then we need a god damn plan because things don’t always work out just for hoping. If you want to get somewhere it’s probably a good idea to make sure you take steps in that direction.

For all that I am so rebellious and anti-authoritarian… I do have a high school diploma (this was complicated to get and I am the only one of my siblings with one–I am the youngest of four), BA, and teaching credential. I failed the MA, but I can jump through hoops. I usually don’t want to.

What path are we on? Where is this hand basket going and who is driving? So we made a plan. Then Noah had someone bring up an interesting idea. But it takes a year away from me. And leaves me standing with a year left in the baby stage and only a couple of drips of patience left and my husband about to make me a work widow. Apparently my response to this is, “Fuck you then I’m running away to Disneyland.” It’s ok. I’ll come back. I think it will be fun.

I think I will slowly replace my memories of my mother in Disneyland with memories of my daughters. It will be good. I will get to share my good memories. Shanna asks me a lot if I used to do ___________ with my mom when we are doing stuff. I try to answer simply and honestly without a lot of detail when it is bad. “No, doing this with my mom wasn’t a lot of fun. She didn’t have patience left by the time she got to me so it was hard to learn. I got in trouble every time I did anything even slightly wrong. I hope you feel like this is going better.” Said after Shanna had dropped about 1/2 a cup of flour on the counter, step stool, and floor. My mother raged. My mother screamed at me and told me I was a disgusting brat.

When Shanna has mastered a skill I feel a relief of fear. I no longer feel tensed up waiting for a blow. I feel like I am waiting for her to grow up without being abused before I can really trust that it can happen at all. I’m waiting for the abuser to show up. I’m waiting to get in trouble for her mistakes. I’m waiting to be told that obviously my daughter is a loser like me. Only it isn’t coming. I got us away. We can hide away and do things at her pace and move slowly and feel safe. It’s really nice. We can learn things at the pace we learn them instead of trying to hurry up or slow down on someone else’s agenda.

I think this last year of babyhood will be the last year that Calli is less capable than Shanna physically. I think that when her proportions lengthen out she will be a force to be reckoned with. I’m looking forward to it. I want them to run with me. I want them to challenge me to work harder. I want to learn how to run from joy instead of fear. I have spent my whole life running away. I don’t want to run away any more. I want to stay here. Except for trips to Disneyland. That’s just going home for a few days (as they like to say–it’s awesome).

My kids have to learn how to stand in line politely. They have to learn how to look at a barrage of options and make a choice. We live in the world we live in. Disneyland is not the world. But it’s a very safe testing ground of a lot of basic skills for very young children. I can relax and not worry about the assholes who feel inconvenienced by me having young children out in public.  Shanna’s friendliness bothers people sometimes. They chew her (and me) out for it. I think she needs to learn how to deal with those assholes, yes, but man it will be nice to be in Disneyland. It really will be magical for my kids. I can. Why not? Why do I feel defensive? Because I don’t approve of all of the everything associated with the Cult of Disney™? I’m not even sure. I know it is wasteful of resources. It’s clearly a first world evasion of stress.

I don’t live in poverty any more. Why do I feel so ashamed of that? Why do I feel bad about being secure and having things? I feel absolutely required to believe that my preferences are wrong and bad. What other people want is more important. More relevant. More… just more. I don’t know. I am less. I should shut up. I should stay home and not spend money. Between the annual passes and gas Disneyland is going to be ~ $1,000 for the year of going. (Uhm, on top of paying the time share. Musn’t Forget That. It will probably not be fully paid off this year. It almost certainly will be paid off next year.) I get $100/month to spend on anything I want. We also have a $100/month “entertainment” fund. And Shanna’s spending money comes from her allowance. She has been saving up. She’s really proud of herself. I can afford this. It is within my means as a hobby. Why does it feel so much more extravagant than other things? I don’t know but it’s silly. I have small children. It’s a fucking great hobby.

Whatever. I should go start breakfast.