mind diet

This isn't my son's latest collection of crap but it is recent-ish. The current pile of boogers is drying out nicely atop his yellow bookshelves. Hopefully I will share its glory with you soon.

biting the hook

It turns out that screaming at children is bad for them, and for us, but a lot of us are doing it.

don't come in, mommy

Stella has a new habit. Is there any nutritional value in pencil erasers? Because there's nothing my daughter loves more than sneaking a couple pencils into her bedroom and chewing the tops off of them. "Don't come in Mommy," she says, which in our house can mean nothing but trouble.

shenpa

Whenever life is running smoothly and by smoothly I mean that I'm not throwing hissy hysterical tantrums when the kids don't follow my plans (obey my orders, however you want to put it), and life is still doing its crazy life dance but I'm centered and flowing and annoyingly upbeat, but then maybe because of or in spite of my pond-calmness, Hamish and Stella magically transform into doe-eyed vegetable eating cooperative huggy bears, which is good, obviously, but. Whenever I'm feeling confident, in control and thankful for all the abundance I am receiving a funny thing happens. I can't think of a thing to write about. Because, and I just realized this today, ding-ding! I've been working under the auspices that I have to bleed all over my keyboard in order to produce a piece of writing worth your time, which means mining my most odious characteristics and embarrassing foibles, since the human condition is a messy affair and I want to document it in all its gelatinous glory. To, you know, bring us closer together. But then I was all up in my own grill like, is that true? And I answered, no, Elise, it's ridiculous. And I was all, well no wonder I've been battling myself on the issue of writing, beating myself into, well, an emotional bloody pulp, wearing myself out over it.

real girl

In one of my former lifetimes waaaay before Bryan and Hamish and Stella I was a teen of the pointy-booted angsty variety, desperately worshipping almost every new wave band to come out of The U.K. Beneath my teased mess of dyed black hair whirred a brain hellbent on becoming the girlfriend of a pop-star. I strategized when I was supposed to be studying, fantasized when I might have been better off fulfilling my academic promise, and pined, yearned and lusted until the pain of my deprivation thickened into a mega-mix of sticky bong-fogged sob-fests. If anything could have made me feel worthy, the pop-star seal of approval was it. Or so I thought.

Last night I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands onstage again at The Trocadero here in Philadelphia. They rocked. And Richard Butler is just as dreamy today as he was twenty-five years ago the first time I saw The Psychedelic Furs when I was fifteen.

In honor of the girl I used to be and maybe to warn myself of what the kids' teenage years could possibly unleash, I give you an excerpt from one of my personal essays which the concert last night inspired me to revisit. I hope you enjoy.

mommy see mommy do

Above, Hamish and Stella hard at work keeping up with the times and emulating Mommy, who's been writing more than usual lately. Hamish's favorite these days is an arcade-style Wow! Wow! Wubzy! game, and I gotta admit, he's pretty good, and so is the game. He'd get more practice if Mommy weren't always hogging the computer. Tonight he warned me that I was wasting the battery by leaving the thing open on my desk. "But it's plugged in!" I protested, wondering how in such a short span of time we'd switched places. "The phone's ringing," he said in response, as if to say, get it together, woman. And I did. It was Bryan.

splat

Whilst gazing at the walls in a resplendent moment of quietude I remembered that once upon a lifetime I was an art major and that when we moved into this house almost two years ago I vowed to paint some big-ass canvases and deck the joint out with "abstract art" that would hopefully strike the pose of real-ish looking Work.

soldiering on

My son, like me, is of a dichotomous mind. In the photo above, he's running to retrieve a discarded grocery bag so we can throw it away. All his idea. In the current moment however, he is downstairs howling because Daddy and Mommy are not capitulating to his begging whining pleadings to help him clean up his room, which consists of picking up tiny trinkets, depositing them in jumbo yogurt containers and shoving the lot in his bottom dresser drawer. We know he is capable of doing this and until he cleans up, no TV.

smarties

Hamish continues to amass collections of discarded and sometimes disgusting detritus atop his paint-peeling bookshelves. I've finally named them even though Hame is the king of naming in our family. Currently he's naming his Bakugon collection, but the only name I can remember is "Radiation," for one of the hinged arms of his biggest transforming ball of plastic. Very esoteric around here. I haven't shown him these photos yet, because if I did, he might balk that I'm throwing the stuff away, or he might want to take over the project, but I like arranging his garbage bits, documenting them and sharing them here, and I'm not sure I'm willing to collaborate. Prices start at $250 for a print created using archival pigment inks on 100% cotton rag paper with a luster finish. Yes. I'm talking out of my A$$.

Disney Chase Visa (below) was created using feathers from a Room & Board sofa, a popped punching balloon (a recent gift from the Odland family), dried up bits of soy sausage, booger flecks, a dried leaf, and a cardboard promotional credit card.

school drools

It rained this summer.

Stella, above, at her father's first ultimate frisbee game in years. If you can't bring Muhammed to Brooklyn Ultimate, bring Brooklyn Ultimate to Muhammed.

drain drain go away

The week before he started swimming lessons Hamish was finally putting his whole body, head and all, under water. Bryan and I puffed with pride. But when swimming lessons started, his newfound skill was nothing particularly special. Other kids in his class could do the same and more, and more was being asked of my son, which is of course how things go. The class was chaotic and as the session progressed, Hamish got more and more anxious, finally abandoning his beginners' class to be "teacher's helper" in Stella's Aquatot class. This was a coup as Hamish loves being in charge, directing others and feeling special. He learned the backstroke. He learned to push off the wall. He went down the water slide, no problem.

interlude

One of the Miller women is not so stuck when it comes to her writing. Below, a story by Stella, which may or may not offer a fresh angle on a certain mother's current chaotic state of mind:

The Robot Princess Pink Pig

It was, but then, a Mommy Robot Princess Pink Pig and then a robot Mommy and then a robot Mommy Princess Pink Pig and then a daddy pig had his clothes on and then something happened I don’t know and ummmmmmmm.... a pig come that wasn’t a robot, that was a robot that wasn’t a robot Princess Pink Pig, it was the three little pigs! The three little pigs on Dora and uh the Robot Princess Pink Pig and then it sssss....... got there and then Dora got there quick and Boots! That’s the end of the story! The! End! And um. Robot Princess Pink Pig got there quick and then the big bad wolf come there and was nice to the three little pigs the end! The End that’s the end Mommy that’s the end. Mommy that’s the end.

epilogue

I love that my last post got a few juicy fired-up comments so soon. My pain and rage got people talking. Thanks readers and commenters.

I have been told so many times if a pose ever hurts, back off. I did not back off. I hurt myself in that fated yin class all by myself because I thought I could stretch through the pain and come out on the other side, whole, healed and holy. I thought I could go into the pose as Elise and come out of it as someone else as that's been my not-so-secret longing borne of a lack of self-esteem for many many years.

gutted

My back, either despite or because of all this yoga, has grown tight and ornery and rebels against backbends, against releasing. I'm re-reading Dr. Sarno's book, because I believe it rocks and is worth reviewing, and reminiscing about the cupping, acupuncture and physical therapy I tried a couple years ago, all to no avail.

eyes on the sky

Have I mentioned that my ultimate goal is enlightenment? My inner self-hater says, ugh really, you are so lofty, Elise, what about making a million bucks? My inner self-hater says, Elise, you are so arrogant to even think you can attain enlightenment, although my inner self-hater also scoffs at the word "attain." But it is. My inner self-lover (not sure how I feel about that term as it smells of sexual things, but maybe that's okay?) says, why the hell not? What better goal is there? And my therapist says, Why not Elise? Sounds good to me. And it's this kind of official (the woman's got a PhD) external validation that keeps me from doubting myself too much. Her seal of approval also brings up my need for validation, which is another item on my lengthy THINGS TO TRANSCEND list, and the very thing that brought me here today to share with you.

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.

the other other other side

The pic above was taken by our latest budding photog Stella, again she's looking for a way out. Love the perspective of a three-year old. 

In therapy today, by the way I'm in therapy again, and as a stay-at-home mom I can think of nothing more luxurious than sitting in a childless room for fifty minutes talking about myself to someone who is enraptured by my every syllable even if she is paid.

jesus doesn't love us

I started this blog when I was still in my thirties. I will be in my thirties for another hour. I know better at this age than to judge myself or anyone else on the basis of age, but well, call me shallow, say I'm missing the point, and I don't mean that you should ever really do that, but I am freaking out a little about turning forty. The mortality of it all.

I didn't so much freak when I was hitting thirty. Thirty-five smarted, but at thirty, I still thought I had a decent shot at turning into Madonna, or at least into Madonna Junior, back in the day. What a child I still was, but in an endearing way. Which reminds me of one of my recent self-improvement goals, to overcome my tendency to flagellate myself into a bruised pulp. So far my efforts bear fruit. I'm easing my internal dialogue into a kind of maternal tough love. I call it my inner bitch-warrior.

hummus

Mommy and Daddy had a rocky afternoon. I can't get enough me-time and Daddy doesn't get any. Kids are sensitive creatures. They pick up on tensions, even when they involve hurled frozen veggie-burgers (Daddy) and hurled angry curse words (Mommy). It was subtle, yes, but kids are receptive. Like little sponges.

holding forth

Stella turned three this week. Happy birthday Angel-cake. My daughter's age is finally catching up with her height and precocious manner. Now I won't get that smug thrill anymore when people ask how old she is and I say, "Two," and they can't get over it, because she seems older than her tender years. So I'm into showing off about my kids. Apparently. Meanwhile, Hamish refuses to eat anything pink, so he got an ice cream cone. Meanwhile again, I should have saved myself the time and few bucks for the cake mix and just served Stella a can of pink icing. Kids.