here we go loop-de-loo

My children. They look innocent. Like maybe they're fun to be around for ten hours straight every single day. That's what you'd think looking at them idyllically swinging on Daddy's homemade tree swing. It's like a frigging health insurance commercial.

You know, I've upped the ante on my yoga intake. I'm eating the stuff for breakfast and meditating on it at night and still it's not being the magic pill of non-violent thoughts toward my children that I thought I was promised in the brochure.

I'm checking out Ayurveda, because it relates to yoga, in hopes that it will bring me some relief from all my churning issues—the bubbling anger, the self-flagellation. Of course it turns out that I'm mostly pitta (that's my type, or dosha, and who doesn't like a good quiz to size us up now and then?). Pitta is based on the element of fire, which means hello, I'm prone to anger and irritability which means that I'm doomed unless I grow gills and move into a nice freshwater lake. Until that day I'm busy eliminating chili peppers from my diet so they don't aggravate my dosha and in turn so I don't throw my family out a window, and bonus, I get to sound nutty when I talk now. I love holistic healing!!! But I miss hot salsa.

I feel compelled to use the word "frothy" to describe my anger these days but I use the term so much in this blog that I think it's time for "frothy" to lie down in shavasana for a few minutes. Breathe deep frothy. Breathe deep.

Did I mention that my kids are still awake and it's ten to ten? Did I tell you I fed them milkshakes and cookies and this very delicious farmers' market apple pie bread for dinner? Can you say self-sabotage? Stella just wouldn't touch the hot dog. What else was I supposed to do? Give her a salad? Ho ho ho. No seriously. She does like to eat leaves now and then. Romaine, cilantro, parsley, boxwood hedge... Oh and sand! She loves sand. Straight from the playground. YUM. She eats it in this really dainty way, just a pinch at a time between her little om mudra fingers, but with the pinky finger in the air. Classy. But no.
Really. If I get her at a good time, when she's awake, say, and in a curious, helpful mood, and not in earshot of her processed white foods loving brother who snubs his nose at anything leafy, maybe if I get her at those times, she'll eat anything I put in front of her. But that doesn't happen often these days.

These days she's more likely throwing a fit because you flushed the toilet when she wanted to. Or you gave her a striped straw instead of a solid-color straw. Or maybe her brother got to the car before she did. Or he brushed his teeth first, or she didn't get the black plastic bowl with the thin, flat edge, but instead got the black ceramic bowl with the thick, rounded edge. Or maybe her purple dress, the one with the metallic threads that makes her feel like a real princess, was in the hamper. Or maybe she remembered her red sparkle shoes, the ones we gave to her smaller-footed friend over a month ago, and now she wants them back even though they're two sizes too small. Maybe you told her she couldn't watch fourteen straight hours of television, or that she can't have a lollipop for dinner, or play on your computer unsupervised, or play with your makeup unsupervised, or you told her to not to stand on the dishwasher door, you know, when it's open, or you told her not to swing on the refrigerator door, you know, when it's open, or you know, something like that. Just a couple examples. This is what I'm working so very very hard not to lose my shit over every minute of every single sacred, blessed day. Namaste my little guru. Sleep well. When you finally fall asleep.