Moms have an unending capacity for love and forgiveness. We are also completely enamoured with our babies. So much so that our raging anger at those babies’ wrongs can be melted away by a smile, a giggle or a sweet little kiss. Moms are just beautiful. There is no other way to say it. We are a little bit of everything all rolled into one and we do it all selflessly, without seeking reward and with hearts brimming over with love.

What is beautiful about me? Well that is all in the eye of the beholder. But occasionally, I think I ROCK. I am a Christian. I have been told I am funny and a good writer. I am a Cervical Cancer Survivor. I am a loving Mom, a good friend, a good wife and someone who is willing to help whomever she can whenever she can. I am grateful for what I have now, even if it is very little. I would gladly give up my life for my family’s survival.

***Please go vote for me in The People’s Choice Awards. Just go here and look for Shan http://LastShredsOfSanity.com, check the little circle next to my name, then scroll down and click the “vote” button. You’re done. Thank you so much!***

Bloggers And Tiaras, Mission #1: What Is “Mom Beauty”? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

My daughter , I think, is destined to become a hall monitor. She regularly opens the living room window and yells at the neighbor kids to get out of the street. She yells at people to stop honking their horns, a regular occurrence in our neck of the woods. For some reason, no one can get out of their cars and walk up to someone’s door. No, they must lay on the horn, sometimes for 10 minutes, until their intended target hears them. My normal response is, “Your horn blows, do you?” I try not to say it in her presence; honking horns drive me batty.

But I digress…

A couple weeks ago, we were all sitting on the patio enjoying a rare evening summer breeze, when The Diva ran over to see what the neighbors were doing. The next thing we knew, she was crying, yelling at one child to stop hitting the other with a stick. “Stop hitting my friend!” she cried. “You’re hurting him!” She did not understand that it was a game and the sticks were “swords”. She’s four. The boys explained it to her, she understood, then all of a sudden it was funny.

A couple of minutes later, she came running over to me, crying once again{real tears each time}, with a frightened look on her face. She began to tell me that “Big Alex” had been stabbed with a stick, was bleeding and had to go to the hospital. Shocked, I got up to see what was going on. It was another game boys play that she didn’t understand. I felt so sorry for her. She was visibly upset, but just as quickly as her tears came, the laughter did, too.

The Diva has an attitude {Shocking, I know!}. She knows what should be done and she is not afraid to tell you when you aren’t doing it. She also tells you not to do something with all the inflection and authority of a Mother cautioning her child, hand on her hip and finger wagging! Yes, this is my baby girl.

Does this make her a busy body, a concerned, sensitive child or a know-it-all? Will she outgrow it? Is it really just a phase all children go through? Or has she spent far too much time with only me and not enough with children her own age? I worry about what will happen when she starts school. Will the other children like her or will her “concern” with what everyone else is doing, or not doing, make them ostracize her? Does it simply mean that she desperately wants to belong, be social and have someone other than her parents pay attention to her?

I hope it all goes well. I pray that she can make new friends at school. She is a very social child, she is just not well versed in social graces/interactions with other children. I think that may be my fault, in a way, because she has not been around many others her age.

Funny how this article started out as a anecdotal tale of of my daughters quirks and ended as one about my fears of her not being accepted by her classmates. I guess you never can turn off the Mama thoughts, can you?

If it doesn’t all work out, my daughter may very well be The Diva Hall Monitor. But at least she will do it with style and flair, looking fabulous, while wearing ballerina shoes and a crown!

Sensitive Child Or Hall Monitor? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

My daughter , I think, is destined to become a hall monitor. She regularly opens the living room window and yells at the neighbor kids to get out of the street. She yells at people to stop honking their horns, a regular occurrence in our neck of the woods. For some reason, no one can get out of their cars and walk up to someone’s door. No, they must lay on the horn, sometimes for 10 minutes, until their intended target hears them. My normal response is, “Your horn blows, do you?” I try not to say it in her presence; honking horns drive me batty.

But I digress…

A couple weeks ago, we were all sitting on the patio enjoying a rare evening summer breeze, when The Diva ran over to see what the neighbors were doing. The next thing we knew, she was crying, yelling at one child to stop hitting the other with a stick. “Stop hitting my friend!” she cried. “You’re hurting him!” She did not understand that it was a game and the sticks were “swords”. She’s four. The boys explained it to her, she understood, then all of a sudden it was funny.

A couple of minutes later, she came running over to me, crying once again{real tears each time}, with a frightened look on her face. She began to tell me that “Big Alex” had been stabbed with a stick, was bleeding and had to go to the hospital. Shocked, I got up to see what was going on. It was another game boys play that she didn’t understand. I felt so sorry for her. She was visibly upset, but just as quickly as her tears came, the laughter did, too.

The Diva has an attitude {Shocking, I know!}. She knows what should be done and she is not afraid to tell you when you aren’t doing it. She also tells you not to do something with all the inflection and authority of a Mother cautioning her child, hand on her hip and finger wagging! Yes, this is my baby girl.

Does this make her a busy body, a concerned, sensitive child or a know-it-all? Will she outgrow it? Is it really just a phase all children go through? Or has she spent far too much time with only me and not enough with children her own age? I worry about what will happen when she starts school. Will the other children like her or will her “concern” with what everyone else is doing, or not doing, make them ostracize her? Does it simply mean that she desperately wants to belong, be social and have someone other than her parents pay attention to her?

I hope it all goes well. I pray that she can make new friends at school. She is a very social child, she is just not well versed in social graces/interactions with other children. I think that may be my fault, in a way, because she has not been around many others her age.

Funny how this article started out as a anecdotal tale of of my daughters quirks and ended as one about my fears of her not being accepted by her classmates. I guess you never can turn off the Mama thoughts, can you?

If it doesn’t all work out, my daughter may very well be The Diva Hall Monitor. But at least she will do it with style and flair, looking fabulous, while wearing ballerina shoes and a crown!

Sensitive Child Or Hall Monitor? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Way before I got pregnant, I had some ideas, actually they were Bohemian fantasies, of how I would be as a Mother. I dreamed of sweet smelling little babies, perfectly decorated nurseries, extreme, Martha Stewart~like organization, a perfect pregnancy, easy delivery, a happy, joyful infant and angels singing lullabies with faeries and butterflies flitting around. My Husband and I had already decided that we were going to be smart parents. That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one! I was going to nurse him or her for at least the first year. No formula for this baby, no siree! I was going to be Earth Mother incarnate.

Now I wasn’t going all cloth diapers and hemp clothing, I do have limits, but I was going to be a good Mama. No candy. No soda. Only limited television and that would have to be PBS shows and Baby Einstein only. He or she was going to get organic baby food and toys without all the lights and sounds. No super electronics for our baby. He or she would have “learning toys”, wooden blocks, soft teething rings. Nothing of those toys that make kids want to sit and play video games all day. Then reality set in: I got pregnant.

I had major morning sickness {this little “ailment” was obviously named by a man…} that lasted all freaking day, boobs that hurt like they were beaten with a cat-o-nine tails and swelled to Pamela Anderson proportions. Finding maternity clothes that both fit and were stylish was a Herculean feat. And I won’t even talk about finding a decent, comfortable bra! It was not fun. At. All. I did not get the perfectly decorated nursery or the uber~organization that I desired. Nor did I get the easy, sweet baby. I got The Diva. I love her more than my own life. She is also so utterly frustrating some days that I fear I am going to lose what little of my mind I have left!

As some of you may know, at 11 weeks pregnant, I was diagnosed with the HPV virus and cervical lesions that could not be treated until after I gave birth and ultimately turned out to be cancerous {you can read more about it here}. I also had two Grand Mal seizures at 17 weeks whose cause was never quite figured out. I was exhausted and scared. I watched all the dreams I had of how pregnancy and Motherhood would be dissipate into the ether. It was not at all what I expected to be. Fortunately, after my two “incidents” were over, my pregnancy was relatively normal. I did have to endure 12 weeks of non-stress tests 3 times/week for my whole last trimester, but other than that it was pretty good.

Unlike a lot of pregnant women, I did not get uncomfortable and really “want this baby out already” until she was 3 days overdue. By that time I was just done. My OBGYN set up a time for me to be induced, but that didn’t happen because I was already in labor by then and they found my baby was in distress. The Diva was born by emergency C~section exactly one week past her due date. She had meconium aspiration {a bowel movement in utero which she inhaled} and was in the NICU for 18 days. Boy was that an adventure!

OK, I need to back up just a bit here, I already knew it wasn’t going according to plan when I ended up with the emergency C~section, but what made it both worse and comical was the “Lithium Nurse” who talked to me not 5 minutes after I woke up from the anesthesia. The birth hospital did not have a NICU, so my baby had to be transferred to another one that did. I was not amused. I asked to be transferred along with my newborn, but it was a no go. Then “Lithium Nurse” says this to me, “Your baby has to be transferred to another hospital with a NICU. We do not have the facilities to care for her here. But we will have our own NICU within a year and be able to take care of all the babies then. It will be state~of~the~art, staffed with the best Neo~Natal doctors.” She said all this with a huge smile, a lilt in her voice and the speed of a crack whore. My response was “And exactly how does this help me and my baby out now?” The shocked look on her face was classic. Even in my groggy state, I could still unleash a zinger! HA! But I digress…

I had read all the books. Studied all the articles. I was prepared, damn it! Yeah, no I wasn’t. Nothing truly prepares you for Motherhood. The books and articles lied like a rug. Motherhood was not all sweetness and light. I was exhausted. My already large boobs were now Franken~huge because my milk came in. And my nipples were about to fall off. On top of this, I was alone with my alien spawn beautiful baby girl all day while my husband was at work. I felt like the Human Milk Cow. Not stinking was a distant memory. Along with sleep, peace, quiet, eating a meal and coherent thoughts. At 8 weeks old, she went through a growth spurt that made her want to nurse and cry incessantly. For 5 days straight. This was the second time reality smacked me upside the head. I. Was. In. Hell.

I started to think that I was not cut out for being a Mother. I was in a “New Moms” group through the hospital and found myself envious of all the other Moms. They took showers. They got to places on time. They got their babies to nurse easily. Growth spurts didn’t drive them to the brink of insanity. While I was a hot mess. I felt so inadequate. I was eventually diagnosed with Postpartum Depression. No, it wasn‘t the kind where I needed to be put in a rubber room. No, I didn’t want to hurt myself or my child. Although I did want to smack my Husband upside the head a few times! No, I had a little known form of it called Postpartum Anxiety Disorder, which just made me sketch out like I was an addict in search of a fix. I couldn’t even get the “normal” kind of PPD! Sometimes my uniqueness is a curse. But again, I digress…

This was not the Mommyhood I had envisioned, nor was it anything close to what I had read about in those stupid books! I did not hear angels singing. She did not smell like a freshly bathed baby or baby powder and lotion all the time. In fact, sometimes she was down right dry heave inducing rank! The Diaper Genie didn’t even contain the smell! All I did for the first six months was nurse her, change her rock her, pray that she would take a nap so I could have some peace and get unsolicited advice on how I wasn’t doing it right and what I should be doing. A family member even told me to eat while I was nursing The Diva. Yeah, ummm, how was I supposed to do that? I had to hold the baby with one hand and my boob with another, lest I smother my precious infant with Giganta~Tit. What, exactly, was I supposed to feed myself with? This family member had never breastfed a baby before and here she was telling me how to do it! OY!!

I bless the day that she could finally hold her own bottle! That’s the day I heard the angels sing! She was just a little over 6 months old at the time. I could finally eat a meal while she was being fed. It was life changing. Literally! At the same time this wonderful skill emerged, The Diva was saying her first word {Mama}, pulling herself up to stand, crawling {sort of} and already had 3 teeth. Teething…now that is a veritable Carnival of Fun! Cranky, crying, slobbering baby. Good times, Good times!

As I said before, we did not want to use the T.V. as a babysitter for our child. But you know what? It ain’t so bad. Yes, I know all the theme songs to every show on Noggin, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George, Little Einsteins and Charlie and Lola but it entertains her {sometimes} long enough to let me have a bit of peace or 5 minutes to myself. And the shows we let her watch are not mindless, they do have things to teach her.

All the experts tell you that if you don’t get it just right, you will scar your child for life. That is because they want you to follow their rules. But in the end, you need to find what works best for you and your child. She is still not allowed to have candy or soda. She eats fruits, vegetables, milk and some organic juice. She loves fresh spinach salads and raw mushrooms. She eats good food. I am very proud of that fact. How many 4 year olds do you know that like vegetables? My Mom let me have Coca~Cola with breakfast when I was 5 years old! I am so not going there with my own child.

The Diva will undoubtedly blame me for ruining her life at some point. I will make mistakes. I don’t always know exactly what to do in every situation and I was a Psych Nurse in a former life! For example, a few months ago, The Diva swallowed a penny. My nursing instincts kicked into gear, I swept her mouth with my finger and then performed the Heimlich Maneuver. The penny came out, along with some red stuff that I feared was esophageal blood. It turned out to be ketchup. After I was sure she was alright, I sat on the couch and visibly shook for 20 minutes. Had it been someone else’s child, I wouldn’t have been so upset, but it is a whole other ballgame when it is your kid.

My daughter has an attitude that rivals my own and makes me want to run away and hide on a near daily basis. She is creative, intelligent, funny, entertaining and sanity robbing all at the same time. No, I didn’t achieve “Earth Mother” status, I am more in the Slacker Mom category. I hate cleaning and laundry but wish for a white glove clean and organized house. I will never be a Soccer Mom. I will also never expect my child to meet unattainable goals. I want her to be who she is, but I would like to have a child that actually listens to me when I tell her to “stop” or “don’t do that” or “could you go play quietly while Mommy works?” or “please go use the potty” or anything else that parents tell their children.

And I want to be a better Mom to my daughter than my Mom was to me and my Big Bro. Oh, at some point, and you will never see this one coming, you will open your mouth to say something to your child and WHAM! you will hear your own Mother speaking. It is both frightening and funny when this happens. And trust me, it will happen.

Man, reality can be a real bitch sometimes!

What Kind Of Mom Did You Think You Would Be? When Did Reality Finally Set In? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

My First Interview…Well Sort Of… is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

My Father~In~Law (who isn’t always as bad as the rest of the In~Laws & had actually been pretty good to me up to now ) called last night to let us know that the MIL was going in today for some minor surgery (a new “port” is being grafted into her arm for her Dialysis). He then proceeded to tell me that he is bringing my Mother (The CRAZY, alcoholic one) out in January to live with him & my MIL to help take care of their house! OY!! OY!! OY!!

I wanted to reach through the phone & bitch slap him (D’OH!!)!! I understand his need to have someone help him out at the house. With all the extra responsibilities he now has associated with the care & feeding of my MIL, he is stretched pretty thin. But my Mother is not the best choice. Not even close.

Did I mention that I am in the process of getting her into a very nice Senior Apartment Complex where her rent would be almost nothing & utilities will be included? Did I also mention that I have been working on this since the middle of June? Thanks for appreciating all my hard work, Mom.

My Mom & I have a contentious relationship, and that’s putting it mildly. My brother won’t even speak to her anymore. You see my Mom is a Bi~Polar, Alcoholic, Anorexic, Manipulative, Stuck on the Cross, Prescription Drug Addict, Control Freak. Yep, that’s an apt description of her. I deal with her better when she is 3000 miles away in Virginia. Not 30 miles away at my In~Laws’ house.

I tried to explain to my well intentioned, but extremely naive & misguided FIL, that this is all going to go to hell in a hand basket very quickly, to no avail. He seems to think that he can “cure” my Mom of her alcoholism by keeping a good eye on her & reigning her in with rules & distractions. I told him that she does not follow anyone’s rules, but does expect you to follow hers. To the letter.

This is going to be bad. Real bad.

When I spoke to my Big Bro about this last night, he laughed his ass off. He lives in yet another state & will now be even further away from Mom. Thanks, Kev! He also told me to just detach & let this situation unfold on it’s own. The phrase he used was “grab a lawn chair, crack a beer, watch the fireworks, laugh my ass off & say ‘I told you so’.” Good advice, if I was dealing with normal people. I’m not.

I do not want my baby girl around that woman, not now anyway. She has not cleaned up her act & I will not expose my angel girl to her brand of crap. No one understands how I feel about this or why, except my brother (who heard it all), my best friend, my husband (sort of) & my Aunt Mary (the best woman on the planet, as far as my Bro & I are concerned). The “others” think I am overreacting, that I should just get over myself & deal with it. I have been told, “it won’t be as bad as you think.” Easy for them to say…

As far back as I can remember, my Mom told me everyday of my life that I was a “spoiled rotten little bitch who couldn’t do anything right & everything I did do was half~assed.” Nice, Mom. Thanks for that. She, of course, denies ever saying anything like that to me. Isn’t selective amnesia convenient? She also told me that “she was going to take my brother & leave my Father, but then she found out she was pregnant (with me, obviously), & had to stay with the SOB.” Thanks, again, Mom.

I got the SIL~From~Hell in the family gift exchange (for more on this go here & here) & my FIL is bringing my nuttier~than~a~fruitcake Mother to live with him. He has truly lost his damn mind! And I may lose what little of mine I have left! Why don’t people ever stop to think about what consequences their choices/actions will have for the people around them?

Maybe I should just get them all frontal lobotomies for Christmas. That might fix the problem. I hear you can purchase gift certificates for those online…

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More From The Free Range Stupid…In~Laws, That Is! is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

Yesterday we went to visit the dreaded In-Laws. My Mother-In-Law is very ill with complications from diabetes, so we are visiting more often for that reason only. This is not something I truly look forward to, considering the bad blood between my Mother-In-Law, Sister-In-Law & myself. My crime? I fell in love with her son/her brother & I do not take everything they say as the gospel truth or cow-tow to them & (Surprise!!) I have my own opinions. Yep, I’m a horrible person/daughter-in-law/sister-in-law. There is some interesting history there. I have been with my husband for 20 years now (it took him half of those 20 years to finally marry me!) I will get to some back story later. Right now, I will tell you what happened yesterday that made my blood BOIL!

My daughter, as you know, if you are a regular reader, is a spitfire. She is pretty wild. She is constantly testing her boundaries & learning new things. This is all normal for a 3 1/2 year old, right? Well, not according to my In-Laws. In their view, Miss Ro has some form of Autism or Asperger Syndrome! Yes apparently they all recently got M.D.’s, Ph.D.‘s & M.F.C.C. licenses, because they just know this is true. They conveniently forgot that I am a Psychiatric Nurse who knows her profession quite well.

To bring you up to speed, one of my SIL’s daughters has Asperger Syndrome & the other has a mild form of Autism. This is where the In-Laws are basing their diagnosis. They are painting my daughter with the same brush as the two older granddaughters & no matter how we tried, my husband & I could not convince them that Ro’s behavior was completely normal for her age & abilities. They had a retort for everything. I said “No problems like that exist on either mine or my husband’s sides of the family“. I was countered with “there has been a 35% increase in all forms of Autism in families with no history whatsoever.” To which I countered “Yes, well a lot of doctors, not knowing what to do & having a parent yell & insist to them that there is something wrong with their child because he/she misbehaves or is a little different & he/she must need medication, are in fact just saying ‘OK, It’s Autism Spectrum Disorder or ADHD or Asperger Syndrome, here is a prescription.’ just to appease the parent. I have personally seen this happen. They are making it a default diagnosis, the same way they did with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.” Nothing. No response.

It did not matter that we explained that Baby Roca had not had a nap. That when she is poopy, she runs wild & that’s how you know (once she is changed, she is much, much calmer). They even had the unmitigated gall to compare my daughter’s love of all things ballerina & her choosing to wear her tutu above all other clothing to her cousin Mak’s Autism caused obsession with the color red & not liking to wear clothes!! We could not win with these people! What’s worse, this was all said in my daughter’s presence! She hears. She listens. She was being told she is damaged in some way just because of who she is!

We reiterated that her pediatrician has found no problems whatsoever with her cognitive or social development. She has even surpassed what is considered normal at every check up! It did not matter that a failure to properly socialize is a major symptom of both Autism & Asperger Syndrome, something my baby has no problems with in any way. No, our doctor is incompetent for not seeing this neurological/behavioral defect. Yes the hand-picked, Rutgers University Magna Cum Laude graduate, head of the Pediatric Epidemiology Department (the study of childhood diseases) of The CDC in Atlanta for 9 years, doctor who cares for our child is incompetent!!! Can you believe this crap????

I do not know what to do. I will not have my daughter labeled defective by her own blood! I see this, in a way, as an attack on my parenting skills. They are trying to get to the interloper (me) through my baby girl & I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!! My husband’s nieces problems have been blamed as coming from their Daddy’s side of the family, so my daughter’s perceived problems must be from my unsavory genes as well. Nothing wrong with their genes. No way.

My husband thinks I am overreacting & making it all about me. I reminded him of the history: they were deeply offended that they were told to wash their hands before they touched the baby (it was doctor’s orders because of her illness & near death at birth, but attributed to me just being an overprotective “B”. Did I tell you that my SIL, who works in a doctor’s office, as a receptionist with no formal education in the medical field, said she knows of no doctor who would order hand washing before touching a baby (I asked if she had ever asked a pediatrician that question & got no response) & my husband’s brother did not even acknowledge Baby Roca’s existence for the first 3 years of her life because of this; CPS was called & told that my 3 month old daughter was underfed, underweight & possibly abused. While we can’t prove it, we believe it was my SIL (my hub’s own sister) who did it (the allegations were deemed unfounded by CPS & the case was closed); his family has no respect whatsoever for us as parents & they know everything about raising kids. We apparently know nothing & are completely useless as parents.

He still thinks I need to let it go. I think his family needs a full dressing down & told they will not see Miss Ro again if they don’t stop this bull****. I don’t understand why he isn’t more riled up about this; he thinks I am too riled up. He says he knows they are completely narrow minded & that is why he can let it go. I say they are ignorant, mean, vindictive & dangerous to our daughter’s sense of self-worth.

Who’s right? Let me know what you think. I need all the opinions I can get on this one.

And please, please, do not take this as a sleight against children with these disorders. If my baby truly had this, we would treat it & move forward. I am angry about my angel being labeled by my husband’s family as having a disorder when she does not. My best friend’s boys have disabilities & I love them like they were my own. I do not treat children with disabilities any differently & neither should anyone else.


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My In-Laws Are Driving Me INSANE!!! is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog

First, let me say that I love my daughter more than my own life. I am awed by her every day. She is truly a miracle. I was supposed to be infertile (obviously not!) and had almost given up on ever being a mother to anyone or anything except my Demon Possessed Cat (more on him later). But God had other plans & gave my husband & I this beautiful gift.

BUT…

Why does everybody talk about the terrible twos as if, once they turn 3, it is smooth sailing? The age of 3 is WAY worse than 2. I am almost praying for her to be 2 again. What is it they say, “40 is the new 20?” Well, the ‘triple threat threes’ are the new ‘terrible twos’! I am, in fact, going to lose my damn mind! Sooner rather than later, I am sure.

This is all part & parcel of being a parent and will pass; or so I have been told. Not that I agree with this unfortunate fact, because I am not entirely sure that I will survive her childhood with my sanity intact. My hair is turning grayer with each passing day — I can’t blame this entirely on my daughter, my husband has had a lot to do with it, too. Salon visits are expensive…so I am hoping they stop this crap quickly.

Grey hair is not a good look on me.

Is It Wrong To Want To Tranquilize Your Child? is a post from: Last Shreds Of Sanity | Blog Designer | California Mom Blog