The thing that almost ruined my marriage this summer...

Is this mother effing pool:

It was four weeks into summer, and not one person who owned a pool had invited us over. The kids were driving me crazy to go to the beach, but yuck! I loathe the salt and sand. Besides, 99% of the beachfront in Connecticut is privately owned, leaving the rest of us helpless saps to trip over each other on the remaining five feet of sand.

So anyway, I bought an Intex pool online at Walmart and picked it up that night. The reviews were good. The price was right (it was on sale for $99). Bam, done.

I dragged the box into the backyard with the help of some neighbors and waited for Chuck to get home from work. When he got out of the car — the poor man commutes an hour each way — he saw me standing there, pointing at the box, and tried to run into the house, but the kids and I each grabbed an arm and dragged him to the backyard, begging him to Please, please, please set this up tonight!

He took one look and said what I KNEW he would say: "We can't put this in the backyard. It's not level."

"But it is!" I argued nicely. (I'd had a few shots of vodka to prepare me for the smackdown.) "It's perfect back here. We can sit on the patio and watch the kids. I can see them from the kitchen window. It's private. It's perfect."

"It's not level."

"But it is!"

"It's not."

"It really is."

"It's really not."

Chuck took my hand and pulled me to our side yard and said, "See? This is level."

To be blunt, our side yard is like an exposed asscrack. Every house in the neighborhood and in the neighborhood behind ours can see our side yard. It's why my phone blows up when I shovel shit in my pajamas.

"Seventy-five children live in our neighborhood," I said. "If we put the pool here, we will never have a moment's peace. Do you want to kill me this summer?"

"It's level."

"It's a death wish."

And so on.

Our voices grew louder and louder, which attracted the attention of our young, fertile neighbors Bob and Claire, who wandered over to say hi — and, incidentally, proved my point about the lack of privacy in our asscrack side yard.

"Everything ok?" Bob asked.

"We're putting up a pool in the backyard."

"It's not level," Chuck yelled.

"But it is!"

Bob and Claire quickly left. 

I went to the backyard, ripped open the box and started assembling the pool myself. "If you won't put it here then I will!"

Chuck, because he is a stand-up guy, sighed heavily and told me to step aside. He said he'd put up the pool under one condition: If the frame bent or the filters didn't work because it wasn't level, it was my own problem to fix. I agreed.

For three weeks everything went swimmingly. Then — d'oh — the pool started to slope. The filters stopped working. The water turned yuck.

It turns out Chuck was right: The backyard isn't level. I swear I had no idea.

"Kids," I said, "we're going to drain the pool and move it to the side yard."

As luck would have it, Chuck got home from work just as we were moving it. He jumped out of his car and yelled, "Oh no! After everything we went through we are keeping that pool in the backyard! The grass is already ruined."

"But it's not level!" I said. 

"AGGGGGHHH" Chuck screamed. I swear I saw Bob and Claire pull down their window shades, just enough to keep them from view.

"Kids," I said, "your father is about to have a heart attack. Help me dig."

So we dug — sweating and sweating — piling the dirt up on a tarp and transporting it away.  

Chuck got his leveler and instructed us on where to dig. The kids moaned. I spurred them on. I moaned. Chuck told us to dig deeper! Faster! It was like a scene from the Colonies in the Handmaid's Tale — except that the overseer, Chuck, got so disgusted with our paltry shoveling skills that he joined in.

Deeper! Faster!

Finally Chuck got his leveler and gave us the thumb's up. We moved the pool back into place.

"Mom?" Junior said hesitantly. "The pool is filthy."

"Then we'll clean it," I shouted. "Get me a brush and the dish soap."

I climbed into the pool, got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the dirt, grime and slime off the pool liner. Hours later, it seemed, I emerged, covered head to toe in brown soap bubbles. I swear, Bob and Claire were still watching out the window.

"Rinse that bitch and fill it up," I yelled. "She's ready!"

So here we are, weeks after that:

The kids LOVE the pool. It's the best fucking money I ever spent. I highly, highly recommend it.* The kids swim for hours, snorkeling and making whirlpools. The water height reaches my toddler's chest. I can watch the kids from the privacy of the patio. No one can see us.

There's just one thing. Now that the dirt has, um, settled, and the weight of the water has really, um, pulled the pool around, it's kind of obvious that even with all of the shoveling the, um, backyard definitely has a serious slope.

Chuck! I'M SORRY. Don't leave me! I love you! We can make it work!

*I also highly recommend the pool cover, pool chemicals, floating chlorine dispense and extra filters.

Free to be Wonder Woman

Awhile ago, my husband Chuck took the kids to ComiCONN (basically it's a convention for comic book enthusiasts). By kids I mean the two older boys. Cam, our toddler, stayed home with me. We're at that point: Chuck and I are old and tired —so very old and soooo very tired — and whenever an event comes up that the older boys want to go to, Chuck and I look at each other and say, "Do you feel like chasing Cam/dealing with Cam's meltdown/leaving if Cam needs a nap?"

Invariably the answer is no, and off one of us goes with Junior and Everett.

ComiCONN isn't really my thing, so I was happy to stay home with Cam. Everett must have thought I felt left out though because he came home and dangled a trinket in front of me.

"You're Wonder Woman, Mom!"

Apparently, he'd insisted Chuck buy me the necklace.

"Put it on! Put it on!" he hollered.

I did.

"It's awesome!" I said. "It'll go great with my Wonder Woman coffee mug, t-shirt, shot glass, pin, Christmas ornament and Lego figurine!"
 
It's true. It will. I've gotten many Wonder Woman gifts over the years (as well as Princess Leia). When you're the only woman living in a house of boys and those boys are into superheroes and Star Wars, it only makes sense that you're the default female character.

Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe instead of lamenting the fact that I'm always Wonder Woman and Princess Leia (for Christmas I got the figurine in my stocking), I should be thanking my lucky stars the kids aren't showering me with Rockman and Jabba the Hut gifts instead. I have been known to look like this before my morning coffee:

Anyway. On the back of the pendant it said this: 

What I do I do freely and with a clear conscience.

When I read it, I laughed out loud. I laughed so hard my sides ached and tears ran down my face. I was a huge Wonder Woman fan growing up, and yet I'd never heard this line before.

"What is it?" the kids wanted to know.

"Nothing," I said. How could I explain to them that I could not for the life of me think of another line that was in such direct opposition to how I feel as a mother?

I read it again:

What I do I do freely and with a clear conscience.

What I do I do freely? HAH!! More like "What I do I NEVER do freely." Poop? Shower? Chew my food? Read a sentence of a book? Brush my teeth? Check work email? Try on clothes?

Nothing free about doing any of those things with three kids underfoot. Nosiree.

How about ""What I do I do...with a clear conscience?" Another tear-inducing belly roll. Thanks to mom guilt, I won't have a clear conscience about doing things freely — leaving the kids to go swim-up bar hopping for months? Traveling the world instead of washing their clothes? Using our savings for a new BMW cherry red station wagon instead of saving for college? — until the kids are grown and out of the house, and even that's debatable.

"Do you like it?" Everett had asked me later that night.

"I love it," I had answered. And I did. The pendant reminds me of how I want to feel again someday: free to do things freely. The conscience part? Meh. I've had so much mom guilt, I figure I'm due a bank robbery freebie or two.

When your sons play with your childhood Barbies

They make a man cave.

Ken has everything he needs: food on his lap, his beer fridge, his recycling dumpster, a hamburger, a camera — I hope he's not taking pictures of himself because I'm not sure he's wearing pants under that pink throw — and a space to recline. Of course, his hands are below deck.

When I asked Ken if Barbie could drop by he said, "I only want one person at my place and that's me, Sugar."

Typical!

The last time these Barbies made an appearance (besides in my actual childhood) was in 2010, when my father dropped them off at my house. Junior played with them as Chuck twitched in the background. Now, eight years later, Chuck just steps over them — the Barbies and the three kids — and sighs.

But it's ok, honey. See that monster truck in the background? There's a varied plate of entertainment at our sons' fingertips. Kind of like the one resting comfortably on Ken's lap — the one he won't share with Barbie because he's a selfish loaf.

I can see my work is cut out for me.

Summer BBQs from the outskirts...could someone bring me a beer already?

Every summer we go to the same BBQ at Denise and Matt's house for the fourth of July.

We've done it since Junior was a baby and yet, even though I've met and re-met all of their friends for the last 10 years, I've never been able to click with anyone...besides Chuck.

But Denise and Matt are Chuck's favorite friends, and he wants to talk to them. And Chuck is a social butterfly who sees me all of the time, so he doesn't feel like "clicking" with me at the BBQ. Unless it's horizontally — which, considering the gaggles of children running around, would be really inappropriate.

Besides the sort of unfriendly/slightly off crowd and the running children there are also goats, ducks, dogs, cats and rabbits. When I'm not following Chuck around like a lost puppy, I am reminding my kids to watch out for poop droppings from multiple species of animals.

Or I'm reminding my kids to slide down Denise and Matt's playscape slide ON A TOWEL PLEASE, otherwise, their shorts act like a paper towel and soak up the years of grime that's embedded in the slide, and they end up looking like they have track marks up their backs.

By the time we get to the fireworks a few hours later, which send all of the kids and animals into a frenzy — can you picture it? All of the shrieking, baaaing, quacking, barking, meowing and squeaking while the inebriated adults holler? — my nerves are shot.

If you can't tell, I really dread this BBQ.

My one saving grace has been my children. For the first two years we went, after I made nicey nice with all the fellow guests, I followed Junior around the BBQ. Toddlers never sit down, and neither did I, which meant my small talk consisted of "Ooops, there he goes again!"

When Junior was three and ready to run off and play with other kids, I followed Everett around the BBQ. Then, when Everett was three and ready to run off and play with other kids, I got to follow Cam around the BBQ.

So that's where I was this year: following Cam as he said hello to the livestock. As he inspected the trees in the yard for worms — "WOHMS"— and bugs — "Is it dead? Can I touch it? Can I see it? Is it fywin'? Is it jumpin'?" As he played with trucks in the yard.

Along the perimeter of the property, he and I were quiet onlookers. I sat in the grass with him. I was content. He was content.

If I had been sitting alone, Chuck would have given me "the look" and I would have felt guilty (sort of) and tried to make lame conversation with another mother about fruit snacks or cavities or sleep regression — all those stupid parenting conversations. But it's rude to sit alone for hours at a party. I get it. Unless you're drunk and conversing with the trees. Or ants. Then it's okay.

But there, alongside Cam, I wasn't rude. I was a diligent parent. I thought about how, for those of us who are on the shy side or don't click easily with people, a young child can be a blessing in disguise: guilt-free permission to avoid small talk or a reason to leave a dying conversation. Permission to remain on the outskirts.

I wondered about next year, when Cam is four and eager to play on his own more. I wondered about Denise and Matt's BBQ and about all the functions ahead, when I won't have a trusty sidekick with whom to sit in the grass and look for bugs. When I won't have my guaranteed "friend." I'm not ready to let it go and yet I don't really have a choice. It's the progression of parenting. They slowly learn how to walk and then they slowly walk away. Or they run, depending on their dexterity.

I need a tissue! This growing up shit is hard.

So is picking goat turds out of the grooves in my flipflops.

But I'll keep doing it.

The Kind Of Post — except the part where I don't "kind of" have 3 kids

I've been thinking about going back to work full-time instead of cobbling together my income with 7+ freelance jobs, part-time work and curating the Crazy House, aka our loving homestead.

Now that Cam is three and in preschool part-time and the older boys are in school all day, it kind of makes sense (except the part where it's, um, summer). Plus, I kind of have co-worker envy. Like, when I see people in suits having lunch and talking shop, it makes me nostalgic for my Mulletville Corp days. Kind of. 

When I mentioned my feelings to a friend, she said she knew of an opening at a small ad agency a few towns away. I immediately took this as A SIGN and took my business suit to the drycleaners (it's been sitting in a closet since 2003 and yes, it kind of fits).

I sent off my resume and got a call for an interview.

Chuck and I spent hours pre-gaming it. What would the salary have to be for us to afford more childcare? What about my freelance clients? Would we have a million people in our home, like before? Who would keep the dog and cat company during the day?

HOURS. It's fun adulting!

A few days later, I arrived at the interview. The interviewer—let's call him Mr. Gray—was in a meeting, so I sat on a dinky couch in the hallway and waited patiently. The waistband of my suit was cutting into my stomach and causing gas pains, but I sat there smiling anyway.

Finally, Mr. Gray called me into his office. It was decorated starkly in red and black. The tall windows were screaming for curtains, blinds, bamboo shoots—anything!—but I got it: He was aging and trying to project a minimalistic, masculine vibe.

"Mrs. Mullet!" he said joyfully. "Come, sit."

We sat smiling awkwardly at each other. Then Mr. Gray casually informed me that the position I was interviewing for no longer existed and asked if I would be interested in a special part-time position.

D'oh!

I was about to ask what happened to the full-time position when he asked why I was currently freelancing and working part-time. I explained that it provided a certain amount of flexibility.

"I have children," I said, "but with all three in school in some capacity or another..."

"Three?" he winced.

"Yes, three. I have reliable childcare and..."

Mr. Gray smiled and shook his head knowingly. "Mothers are a special group," he said.

This is where it got strange.  

He picked up the black office phone and pretended to take a phone call.

"Hello?" he said to no one. "Oh dear, yes, I'll be right there."

He hung up and smiled. "You see, when a mother gets a phone call, it could be anyone. It could be a sick child. A sick husband. A grandmother. A doctor. A babysitter. A dog walker. A school. A dentist. And so we have to be careful about what we ask of mothers. Because so many people are relying on them."

A dentist? 

I mean, how would that phone call even go? "Mrs. Mullet! It's Dental Dick. Even though you're at work and your children are all at school, I randomly looked at an xray from 2002 and discovered all three of your children are missing their second mandibular axis points! Can you leave work right now and pick up your three children and be at the dentist's office in three minutes? It's a matter of life or death! You defintely should not be working full-time!"

But back to Mr. Gray...


"You have wonderful experience," he said. "I'd like to offer you a part-time position, Mrs. Mullet. But before that I need to ask, are you able to take phone calls at 7 o'clock at night. Because sometimes I need to call people at 7 o'clock at night and I know that that must be dinnertime...which I imagine is quite hectic."

What was happening?

Was Mr. Gray brothers with the archaic ear doctor I'd visited years before? Did people really still live with such antiquated ideas?

"Before I make you a firm offer," he said, "I need you to submit a writing sample. I'll email you the details."

He rose.

"Best!"

My jaw was still on the floor as I left. I should have told him where to stick his writing sample. I should have asked him, What if my dentist and you both call at 7 o'clock at night?? How will my overburdened little Mom brain handle it?

Instead I'm sitting here blogging about it. Because I'm kind of better at after-the-fact comebacks. And because I'd kind of rather spend my time blogging than submitting a writing sample for a company I'd never want to work for.

A dentist?

Man! There are a lot of holes in my neighborhood

Our young neighbors Bob and Claire are wonderful —which is a fricken relief because we basically share a yard. A flat, treeless yard. When my kids are drawing with chalk in our driveway or playing with the hose, Bob and Claire can watch us from their dining room window until they die of boredom. Likewise, when Bob and Claire grill on their porch or prune their hostas, we can watch them 'till the cows come home.

And we do — we watch each other. It's a running joke. "I saw you with your groceries. Too bad your watermelon fell and cracked in the driveway. I would have eaten some." And "I saw you mowing your lawn and sneezing and coughing. I didn't mean to laugh, but I did."

We're like cats watching cat TV — it's hard to look away. It's lame, but it's a slow neighborhood.  

Neither of us can plant trees or put up a fence because of an easement with the property. I've done my best with decorative plants and shrubs but yah, none of them are high enough to hide their house from plain view.

Usually it doesn't bother me. Our friendship with Bob and Claire is straight out of "We Have The Best Neighbors Ever." They watch our dog when we go away, even if she smells like skunk. We watch their dog and one-eyed cat. If I lock myself out of my house, Bob leaves his in-town job and lets me in with his extra key. This happens more than I'd like to admit.

And, to be honest, they're kind of like movie stars. They have a million friends. When Bob mows the lawn shirtless, half the neighborhood peers out the window. Ditto for when Claire sunbaths in her bikini.

But then sometimes, like the first summer I had my third son, Cam, I wished I could erect a 50-foot brick wall to hide from them because you know, it's kind of hard to look like you have your shit together when you have three kids — and one of them is a baby.

There Bob and Claire would be, grilling and laughing with their friends, and I'd be rocking Cam in his stroller in the driveway, praying he'd take a nap — for awhile it was the only way he'd sleep — and I would be sweaty and exhausted and starving and lactating, and Junior and Everett would yell from the kitchen window, "MOM! What's for dinner? MOM! We're starving!" and Cam would start screaming again and then I'd want to scream "Just eat your fingers for Pete's sake!!"

I hated it. I didn't want to let my neighbors hear Cam cry. I didn't want them to hear Junior and Everett yelling.

I couldn't let them see I was losing it.

I started parking the car closer to the kitchen window so I could hide behind it and rock Cam and keep an ear out for Junior and Everett. I'd cry a little. Sometimes I'd cry a lot. Meeting the needs of so many people is overwhelming. Doing it while listening to your buff, childless neighbors laugh and drink wine only exacerbates matters. 

But life is funny. 

Cam is three now; his driveway napping days are over. Junior and Everett are older and can actually get themselves a snack if they're hungry. I no longer approach dinnertime like Rocky going into the 15th round. In short, it doesn't make me burst into tears.

Bob and Claire now have a one year old, and they just found out they have another on the way. They'll have a toddler and a newborn at the same time. 

Sleep deprived, stressed and trying to handle Claire's morning sickness, I overheard Bob whisper to Chuck this weekend, "How do you survive it?"

Chuck shook his head and said, "You just do." 

I realized how far I've come. We've come. We've crawled out of the hole. Ok, maybe not out of the hole but we are a hell of a lot closer to the top than we were before. Or, if parenthood were a series of holes, we've climbed out of some of them. Unless we have a puker, we sleep through the night. Bam, there's one hole. We can leave the house without a diaper bag. Bam! There's another hole. We don't use sippy cups anymore. Bam! I only wipe one other person's ass besides my own. Bam! That's a huge hole.

Yup. Now we'll be the ones listening to their kids scream — maybe over the sizzle of the grill and the clink of wine glasses. And maybe, just maybe, a few more shrubs.

We all have our vices. Mine are just...bulkier

I've been away from this blog for awhile. I know.

But see, we are trying to move. Just thinking about moving is hard, but actually trying to move is even harder. I guess, logically, moving from trying to move to moving itself is the hardest — say what?— but we're not there yet. We're in the purging and painting stage.

And in the disagreeing about where to move to stage.

But that's another blog post.

As part of our "Look! Our small, over-crowded house has more room" plan, Chuck cleared out one half of our unfinished basement. I helped but truth be told, half of the mess down there were wires and cables he's brought home. It's an odd thing to hoard, but he's in the IT field and we all have our thing. Mine is rugs. Mostly floral.

And blankets.  Mostly (again) floral.

I wish I felt the urge to hoard something smaller, like thimbles, but alas, I'm drawn to large squares of fabric. Jute, cotton, wool, fleece. I can't help myself.

Chuck braved the dank, spider-ridden crevices of the basement. He vacuumed. He cleaned the cement walls. He hung curtains and bought rug squares (I'll never let them go!). He even set up desks and lights. Then the older boys — 10 year old Junior and 7 year old Everett — brought all of their Legos and video games down to the newly created Small Man Cave and eagerly closed the door behind them.

That left me and Cam, standing in the now almost vacant den. It was eerily quiet.

 "Hello?" I jokingly called out.

"Yah Mom?" Junior and Everett yelled through the floor.

"Are you gone, just like that?" I called.

 "We'll be back up for dinner!"

I had the strange feeling that they'd left for college. Of course they were right downstairs, in the basement, but the packing up and moving part wouldn't leave my mind. It all happened so fast. And I was left with such a mess of Lego parts and quiet.

I remember when Junior was one. I wrote a post about him growing up. It seems unbelievable that he'll be 11, but what is more unbelievable is how your older children accelerate the growing up process of their siblings. As if the oldest grabs the hand of the younger child, and so on, and they form a chain and zip through time. All you can do is stand in a fuzzy haze and watch. Thanks to Junior, Everett is as smooth and cool as a tweenager. And Cam. The kid is three going on 21.

Back in 2008 — gawd this blog is old — I wrote about Junior: "... I kept thinking, I am pouring my soul into this child and every day letting him go and it is enough to burst and break my heart at the same time."

I still feel that way. Times three.

OUCH.

Personalized quilts with their faces. That's how I'll manage I guess. I'll get quilts and more quilts beaming with my children's faces, and Chuck can cuddle his wires and I'll cuddle my blankets and hopefully we won't strangle ourselves in quilts and cords when no one's home to see it.

Sniff, sniff. The nerve of those kids! Leaving us all alone to fend for ourselves!

Someone hand me a rug square?