Pintrickster

The other day as I was butchering some too-good-to-be-true tutorial I found on Pinterest, I began to wonder if there was someone out there laughing at me.  There are so many websites dedicated to Pinterest fails that I'm starting to believe bloggers are making things up for either boosts in website traffic or for their own general amusement.  It's as if they have a bingo machine for ailments and another for household goods.  The first is spun, yellow ping-pong balls flutter and collide like boiling atoms, and out pops a little ball. "Foot fungus," it reads. The next machine spins around and around until it procures a "cure".  Wonderful!  Now they just need a graphic.  Enter stock photo and some bold lettering.

Perrrrfect. Now it's time to write some content.

A Pintrickster likes to give you well-defined steps to make their deception seem legitimate.  These steps often come in odd numbers or in clusters of 6, which is a strong indicator that you are about to embarrass yourself, and Satan will laugh at you.

1. The first step will always be to wash the afflicted area.  This tricks you, the reader, into thinking the bizarreness that's about to follow is somehow sanctioned medically, herbally, or scientifically.  Sanitizing people are analyzing people, amiright?
2. Next they will tell you where to put the afflicted area.  Place hand over sink.  Hold nose under faucet. Or in the case of my example: Place foot in large bucket or container.  This manipulates you into thinking the author is your friend because they care about the cleanliness of your abode.  How sweet!
3. Next they will give you a list of measurements, which is just another way to seem professional.  But when you see '2/3rds', run. 2x3=6 which is the devil's number. Measure out 2/3rds cup of sauce into mixing bowl.
4. Now they will spring an added ingredient on you.  Mix in 6 tablespoons of cough medicine. This does two things: First, it convinces you of the science behind the tutorial.  The ingredients in the cough medicine activates the anti-fungal properties in the herbs suspended in the anti-oxidant rich tomatoes. Sounds pretty good, no?  Second, it disperses the blame. The more ingredients, the greater the dispersal.  Soon, the Pintrickster is hidden behind a wall of personal doubts. This isn't working; did I purchase the right brand of sauce? Should I have bought the organic? Or the one with the little mushrooms? Fight fungal with fungal.  Pretty sure that's a saying.  Or was it the cough medicine?  I bought the overnight formula.  I knew I should have got Dayquil.  Cherry flavor?  Orange flavor?  Better get both next time to be safe. At this point, is hasn't even occurred to you to question the legitimacy of the author.
5. This is where some technique comes in.  This is like scam insurance.  When the ridiculous claim they made doesn't work, you will start to wonder if you followed the directions completely.  This may motivate you to repeat the process and even invite a witness to help you perform the procedure perfectly.  Pour sauce mixture over toes in a counterclockwise motion.  Now, use a paint brush to gentle sweep the crimson magic over the entire surface of your foot, concentrating on the toenails and using zigzagging motions.  At this point, even the angels are laughing at you.
6. This step is for the sole purpose of torturing you.  It is step 6 after all.  Stand with feet apart, pointed at a 66 degree angle, and knees touching. In this position, allow feet to soak in magical sauce tonic until toes are deeply pruney and smell like Italy.
7. Rinse feet. This step is a mercy step for those would walk around with pizza feet otherwise. (You know who you are.)  This just goes to show you that Pintricksters have a conscience, however small that may be.
8. This step is to hide that small conscience. Repeat every night until fungus disappears.
9. In this instance, this final step is mostly a token step just to end the tutorial with an odd number.  It's also subtle mockery.  Enjoy your new, fresh feet!

Take these tips to heart next time you are tempted to dye your hair with soy sauce, remove warts with pie dough, or douse your eye in wheatgrass juice. That's a Pintrickster at work.  You're welcome.

Not so great expectations

Do you ever completely dedicate yourself to something only to be disappointed with the results? I haven't been blogging lately because I've been working on a little project. At the end if June I was struck by the lightning of inspiration and flooded with ideas; unshakable ideas that seemed to come from another world, and they chose me to tell their story. So when I returned home from our eventful trip to Illinois I began to write. Every nap time and bedtime I plugged myself in to my laptop and watched chapter after chapter flow from my fingers until it filled my depleted body with life. I felt fulfilled, happy, and more like myself than I'd been in years. Parenting was more enjoyable, my husband was handsomer, and my house almost seemed to have a linen closet. Almost.

Then there was chapter 20, the climax, the pinnacle of prose, the summit of syntax, and I got stuck. Suddenly, the wave of ideas recessed and the low tide left a sandy graveyard of loop holes, questions and doubts. The more I forced myself to muscle through the feeling the more I began to hate all 55,000+ words I'd written. I stepped away from the project and prayed for perspective.

What followed was a couple months of the worst depression of my life as I realize this whole book thing was a metaphor for my experience with motherhood.

Please be gentle with your judgement.

When I was a little girl there were two things I wanted more than anything: to be a teacher, professionally, and to be a mom.  I looked forward to stroking my diploma from BYU, arranging my classroom, tutoring after school, and grading papers in the evenings while snuggled up in my little cottage with a fluffy dog sleeping on my feet. Then when I was old enough to be considered an old maid (by Utah standards) but not so old that I was infertile, I would marry a perfectly obnoxious salesman and quit my job to dedicate the remainder of my days to rearing children. It was a fantastic plan and I couldn't wait to make it happen.

Then life took an unexpected turn.  I got married young, took a hiatus from school, had some babies, and fast-tracked to the motherhood part of the plan with a significantly less obnoxious husband. It doesn't take much digging through the blog archives to see how painful it was for me to give up school and becoming a teacher.  Once Annie entered my life I knew my only option was to stay home till the day I die, never to write on a white board or attend staff meetings or argue with the lady in the copy room about the tests she forgot to copy. (Dramatic much?) However, a little piece of me was okay with making this sacrifice because I thought motherhood would automatically make me content and fill my whiteboard-marker, red-pen, teaching dreams with something as equally satisfying.

It did not. I definitely had good days, especially when it was just me and Annie, but as soon as Sam entered the picture it was like someone flipped a switch, and motherhood became torturous and stifling. You can imagine how much that bothered me. I began to ruminate and obsess and berate myself for not feeling like dancing on pink and blue pastel rainbows as I listened to hours of crying, got out of bed six times a night, and never really had a moment alone expect for the times I spent locked in my closet weeping. I wanted to be like those "normal" mothers who still felt like motherhood was the hardest and best thing to ever happen to them.  I just felt like it was the hardest.

But wait! This is what I've always wanted! This is what I spent my whole life preparing for! Why did I feel so disappointed?

On Sunday we had a lesson in Relief Society about the ten virgins. Five had oil in their lamps, but the other five didn't not. The ladies with oil couldn't share or they would run out themselves before the bridegroom arrived. While I sat in my cushioned chair, the Lord whispered to me, "You are out of oil."

I don't have date night with my husband. Paul works long hours and isn't home much. There are no Girl's Night Outs on my calendar. My children accompany me almost everywhere I go. Annie and Sam both have medical issues and personality quirks that make them high maintenance and exhausting. And I'm so afraid of being a burden on someone else that I can not ask for help.  So there is no one taking care of me, not even me. I'm completely out of oil. Heck, I can't even find my lamp in this mess.

Anyway, I want to start blogging again because I love to write (but not that stupid book; it makes me homicidal).  And I want to take on a few more little projects around the house to keep me busy.  Hopefully, I can conjure up some courage to take people up on babysitting offers too.  I want to enjoy my children again, like really bad. So if it takes a little more effort to make motherhood feel more effortless, then it's worth it.

Annie, Bear, and pixie dust

For Halloween this year Annie requested to be a cat again. When I shot down that idea she decided Tinkerbell would be a better option.  I'm telling you, the child must be inspired.  Beside her matching blond hair and blue eyes, Annie's personality is scarily similar to the hot headed pixie. I purchased a dress from the store, knowing full well I was a little too bogged down for a sewing project. But a green dress does not a Tinkerbell make. Annie needed the quintessential bun. Unfortunately, the three year old has less hair than some newborns. I had to figure out a way to clip one onto her head or something. Then I saw a crocheted hat on Pinterest that looked like cabbage patch kid hair.

(Picture from https://www.etsy.com/listing/104446678/cabbage-patch-kid-inspired-hat-crochet)

Perfect! If they could make hair out of yarn, so could I.  I called up the crochet wizard, Aunt Julie, who sat in my living room on a sunny afternoon and whipped up a little yellow hat. I looped strands of matching yarn into the holes in the front of the hat and tied them together to make bangs.  After I trimmed the excess ends, I cut the toe off a holey sock I found in Paul's dresser and rolled it into a sock bun. I wrapped the bun in more of the yellow yarn and glued it on top of the hat.  I added a couple bells so Annie would jingle as she skipped from house to house gathering cavity candy obesity bombs Halloween goodies from neighbors.

I think it turned out pretty good, but most importantly, Annie LOVED it.  She wanted to wear it constantly. I've had to hide it just to insure it doesn't get ruined before Halloween.

For her shoes we used a pair of silver flats she already owned.  She was pretty upset they weren't green like Tinkerbell's, but when I added the white pom pom glued to a hair elastic she forgave me.

I did have to put a little duct tape to the bottom of her shoes to keep the elastic from slipping off, but once it was firmly adhered we didn't have any problems with the pom poms. Annie even wore them to church.

This little girl is pretty thrilled with the end result. So is Bear.

Now I just need to find where I hid her Halloween bucket. . . Mom of the year.

I hope your Halloween is magical!

The Vacation Series - Part 2

What happened next in our series of unfortunate events is actually quite difficult for me to relive, but I've written about as many details as I could while I sobbed here at the computer and Annie stroked my arm and begged me not to cry.  Forgive the particularly sloppy writing.

"Your body temperature is 100.7 degrees fahrenheit," the thermometer said aloud when I scanned Annie's forehead. The slight fever didn't worry me very much, though I did wonder if Sam was ill not from his shots but from something contagious the few days before we left.  I had brought some ibuprofen with me as a precautionary measure but I couldn't give it to my little sicky until Paul came back with the car and the puke bowl inside.  Ibuprofen always makes Annie throw up.  I situated her in bed and put on cartoons while we waited.  I sat on the bed beside her and watched some YouTube videos with my headphones on.  About a minute into my video I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned to see Annie's hands flailing in the air while the rest of her body seized and shook. I ripped off my headphones and ran to her side, screaming her name and instantly sobbing.  As irrational as it may seem, that pessimistic voice in my head kept repeating, "You're going to lose her. You're going to lose her."  Her eyes starred up at the ceiling, devoid of the spark that usually fills them, and I held her and cried as I grasped for my phone with one hand.  Alone and with no car, I dialed 911 and begged the dispatcher for help.  She sent an ambulance and stayed with me on the line.

The seizure ended and left Annie's body absolutely lifeless.  Her eyes stayed opened, still dead and staring off at nothing. She didn't answer to her name or my insistent cries, nor did she respond to my touch as I stroked her sweaty hair and told her to stay with me.  The dispatcher reassured me that her body was behaving as she would expect after such an episode, but I still checked her breathing every few seconds.

When the paramedics arrived I felt relieved and safe as they carried her out tenderly and placed an IV. Pale and limp, she screamed out at the initial poke but didn't even twitch.  I laid her bear beside her and called Paul who was finally out of church, and shortly after we arrived Paul did too.  Annie began to respond to me again and I felt overwhelming love and relief when I noticed the light return to body. I held her and cried some more as they poked and pricked and examined her over the next nine and a half hours.  She bore it bravely, and milked as many popsicles out of the nurses she could.  Paul and my dad gave her a priesthood blessing then my parents took Sam so we could focus on Annie.  Later, Paul let me leave for dinner so I could regroup.  Late that evening they discharged her without any answers, and we took her back to the hotel to rest.  Sam spent the night at my grandmother's house so Annie didn't have to face another night of pretending to sleep through his cries.  It didn't take her long to pass out from exhaustion.  I, on the other hand, laid in bed, staring at her, terrified she'd disappear like a pixie if I closed my eyes.  But eventually, I fell asleep on my tear soaked pillow.

The next day was quiet and uneventful.  Annie seemed perfectly normal.  Her mood was cheery, her temperature was normal, and if it weren't for the bruises up her arms, you wouldn't have guessed she'd spent the day before in the hospital.  Part of me hoped the rest of the week would go smoothly now, but the other part knew it would not.

The Vacation Series - Part 1

I looked at Paul then at the ginormous pile of luggage behind the couch.  Sam cried at my feet because for the third day in a row he sported a fever and refused to eat anything other than breast milk.  Annie began to sob uncontrollably because the Dramamine we gave her finally kicked in and she was instantly sleepy.  "I have a bad feeling, " I said aloud.  "I'm afraid that something bad is coming."  This is a pretty typical emotion for me.  I'm rarely caught off guard with a big trial I wasn't warned about.  Unfortunately, I often dismiss these warnings as the overgrown pessimism that has settled into my life.

We packed the kids into the car anyway because the feeling didn't instruct me to stay home though my self-preservation instinct was screaming run for the hills.  Once crammed like sardines into The Professor (our car's name) we got onto I80 and headed east toward Southern Illinois.  The land of my people.  I often think back on the last time we made this trek.  It was a turning point for me and my little family, and really bonded us in an unimaginable way.  This gave me hope for another great bonding experience because, after the big postpartum depression battle I've fought for the last year, I've been feeling a little disconnected from my children, husband, and about everyone else for that matter.  But the drive overnight was filled with crying-- so much crying-- that only a few hours into this trip I was ready to open the car door fling myself onto the highway at 80 miles an hour.  After surviving the grizzly night by spending a little time in my parents van for a much needed nap, I took a turn at the wheel and nearly knocked out Kansas.  During this time Annie had a bout of car sickness and puked in her little bowl. . . which she promptly spilled all over her lap.  I was prepared for such a moment with a jug of puke-rinsing water.  After the puke clean-up it was difficult to get Annie to eat or drink anything.  She was afraid of a repeat episode although I assured her she just needed a little more Dramamine.  And thanks to the good ol' motion sick meds she did not throw up again.

We arrived in Southern Illinois late in the evening and tried to immediately put our grumpy children and our tired butts to bed.  If you remember I haven't slept in at least four days due to sick Sam and now the all night car ride, so my brain and body were both screaming, "Girl, get me some sleep!"  However, the hotel room was modestly sized and the only spot we could find for the crib was right next to our bed.  I snuggled and nursed my tired baby while Paul read and snuggled the three year old.  Soon Sam was ready to be put down, but being able to reach out and touch his daddy and see his mommy's "sleeping" silhouette beside him angered the small lad.  He did not want to be put down and he would not have it.  He cried off and on all night long, and after a few cat naps and lots of tears I gave up on the whole idea of sleep and just pulled him out of his bed around 5:30.  Annie was awake too, so I got them both a little snack.

I sobbed my way through getting ready and yelled at everything in my path.  My blow dryer got an earful about how tired I was.  My flat iron listened to my rants about going straight home.  And Paul, dear sweet Paul, laid in bed dozing like the sleep wizard he is.  I stood for a long moment at the foot of his bed, staring at the plethora of pillows heaped beside him.  How easy it would have been to hold one over his face while screaming, "SO YOU LIKE SLEEP, DO YA? WELL HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ETERNAL SLEEP?!?!?!"  I knew right then I was losing my mind and nigh unto delirious.  So I packed up my hysterically exhausted demon spawn in the car and abandoned the sleeping devil at the hotel.  I drove to my grandmothers house and burst through the doors like the wicked witch of the west.  I looked at their smiling, rested faces and began crying again while I demanded to stay there so I had a room to escape to while my son fell asleep.  I could not calm down foreseeing a weeks worth of nights like the previous.  I cried all morning and contemplated going right back home.  Paul keep calling my phone and I ignored him for a couple hours until it was almost time for church.  When that wonderful man heard how delusional I'd become he insisted I take a nap.  Annie, who was equally inconsolable, and I stayed at the hotel together and napped while everyone else went to church.  Three and a half blissful hours later we awoke.  I was feeling a bit better, but Annie was running a fever.

Brochure in the lobby of our hotel.... Pretty much summed up the majority of this vacation.

Sleeping together

If you know me very well you may know I have a problem sleeping with my husband.  This was so embarrassing to me as I newlywed I often searched for newlyweds with a similar issue.  Miserly loves company and all that.  I just couldn't accept that I was alone in my suffering.  Several times, however, I was greeted with odd stares and nervous giggles as I tried to explain how little sleep you get when you're married.  My anguish was often attributed to some kind of extended foreplay or infinitely long pillow talks.  Little did they know it was neither of those typical marital perks that were the cause of my insomnia.

I learned within hours of making vows, cutting cake, and stealing a secret first dance in the hall at our reception that I could not sleep with my husband.  On our first night home we cuddled up under the covers, and I listened to Paul drift off within minutes.  I admired his sweet wheezes and smiled at the wedding band on his left ring finger.  I could feel the exhaustion from the excitement and activities of the day weighing down my body, so I took one last glance at my new husband and laid my head against his chest.  I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to take me.  It did not.  Instead of sleep, I was educated by the sandman.

In the next two hours I learned I couldn't not breathe if my head was on his chest because I would subconsciously try to sync my own breath with his asthmatic puffs.  I discovered I had an irrational fear of waking my extremely deep-sleeping husband which made shifting to get comfortable out of the question.  I noticed that my husband was cuddly and came to the unfortunate conclusion that I could not sleep while being touched.  I mean, like, at all.  On the off chance I managed to escape all of these undesirables, I was instead accosted by hot morning breath or the smell of Axe deodorant, which let me know strong smells wake me up.  Fantastic.

For months I struggled, cuddled, and fought my general fatigue until a glorious night in Disneyland brought me some relief.  The giant king size bed was better than any roller coaster or attraction because there, in the expanse of mattress, I escaped my husband's grasps and found some much needed rest.  The dawn brought a perky Kayla and a disgruntled Paul.  When I expressed my infatuation for the bed he muttered about it being too big and not being able to find me.  Before I could stop it, a smile spread across my face.  Perfect.

However, we had to leave the bed behind in sunny Anaheim, and I was back to my sleepless routine.  Rarely a night passed that I was not awakened to an elbow in the eye, an arm around my waste or, heaven forbid, a deep sleep sigh of caustic fumes blown in my direction.  I hoped, prayed, pleaded, and assumed that time would heal me of my nightly torment.  Eventually I just had to start sleeping through it, right?





Fast forward to the present day, five years later:

After my children are tucked in their beds for the night I like to collapse on my squeaky mattress, nestle my face into my cool pillow, and adjust my limbs until I find that sweet, sweet spot of incomparable comfort.  You know what I'm talking about.  The one position of ecstasy that pulls you rapidly into dreamland.  However, it is usually that very moment that my lips remind me they are a gazelle in the Sahara Desert, and just out of my reach is a chapstick waterhole.  I then find myself at a crossroads.  Down one path is greasy, appeased lips and a risk of undoing all the effort put into finding that perfect, perfect spot.  Down the other path is comfort, sleep, and waking up with lips that appear to have gotten in a bat'leth fight with an enraged Klingon.  The path I usually choose is the later because at the end of a long day, full-body comfort is my one true desire.  That and sleep, of course.

Then, after finishing an episode of Sherlock, in shuffles the man in all his nerdy glory.  He now knows I cannot sleep whilst being touched so he gives me a quick peck on the cheek before settling in on the opposite side of the bed.  He is consciously thoughtful but subconsciously deviant.  In a matter of minutes sleep takes him, and he begins his trek across the mattress in search of a warm body.  Soon he finds me in that sweet, sweet melted position, and he rolls over to face me.  The smell of sleeping breath brings me out of a heavenly dream to a dark and stinky reality.  I am at a new crossroads.  Hold down the fort and maintain my position while I lying awake in olfactory torment, or lose that perfect comfort with a possibility of more zzzZZZzzzs.  I die a little inside as I roll away from the man in my bed and my warm outline in the sheets.  Since I've already been forced to move I think, might as well put on that chapstick.

Maybe in ten years we can afford a king size mattress.  Until then, I will remain coverless and sleepless with my pillow on my nightstand.

The beast

There's a beast in my house.  She is angry, mean, unsympathetic, and I think she smells a little bit like tacos, and we all know that's a smell that is only appetizing on food.  She follows me around everywhere I go, perched on my shoulder like a bird.  Only, she not a delicate dove.  This beast is more like an ostrich, invading every inch of my personal space with gangly legs wrapped around my chest, squeezing away my breath.  Her enormous body weighs down my slumping shoulders, and there is not a moment of the day when I'm not acutely aware of the heaviness. My beast of burden. She's only visible to my eyes and a load only I can bear.

Some days this corpulent monster overpowers me, and I open my mouth to scream for help.  However, when my lips part, feathers fill the cavity and I begin to suffocate a little.  I fight for air and a savior to destroy this leech, but I just know somehow that if I was really able to express the thoughts. . . the feelings this beast drills into my mind, I would be misunderstood and judged.  After all, no one can see her but me.  This is a demon I must face alone.

So, trapped in a cage of solitude, I wrestle the beast.  Some days I fight with passion and perseverance in the name of family and motherhood.  But mostly I feel devoid of passion and tired of battle.  This creature has been ignored, conversed with, pushed, screamed at, and probably fallen asleep on because exhaustion dictates my life.  I've even coddled it, afraid of who I might be without the ghastly harpy.  You see, it's been so long since I've seen just myself in the mirror that I've all but forgotten what I look like.  And who I am.  None of these tactics, however, have made the beast any smaller.  She's actually growing.

She's a jealous thing, to add to her list of deplorable qualities, and it affects my relationships.  I struggle to feel joy or compassion and often feel so hallow I can't connect with people like I once did effortlessly.  When my husband comes home from work and all I want is to smother him in love and good food, the beast tightens her grip and almost forces the curtness that comes spewing from my mouth.  Annie and Sam also fall victim to my uncontrollable moods.  Whether it is staring at them blankly or locking myself in my room so I can scream in a pillow while that horrid monster pecks at my skull, they watch with horrified and confused glances.  And for my sweet Sam, this is the only mother he's ever known.  That thought is painful to the point of nauseam. No matter how hard I try to smile at his bright eyes and pretend that I'm enjoying the task of care-giving, deep inside that tiny body is the baby sensor which warns him of my disconnect.  However, in fleeting moments he stares past me, and I think he may actually be able to see this invisible beast.  After all, she was born on the same day as he.

And her name is Postpartum Depression.