Holy Molars!

We are cutting teeth over here at F-Bomb and Mom, premolars to be exact, and the world is a squirming, wiggling, wailing, sleepless mofo right now. Being my third child, Grady has the benefit of my years of experiments - oops! I meant experience - with his older sibs. So basically that means I realize "this too shall pass" but that somehow doesn't make it suck much less.

Actually, cry, fuss and scream as they did while cutting teeth, neither Gwendolyn or Fletcher had the misfortune to be cutting four freaking premolars at once, as is baby Grady. His poor pink little gums, top and bottom, are knotted with marble-sized lumps of ouchy painful bastard teeth, just barely poking pearly tips through. At night he "rests" in fitful half-slumber, rolling, wallering and whimpering even though he has been adequately dosed with baby Tylenol. During daylight hours, he roams the house fretfully, wild strings of Anbesol-laced drool soaking his shirt like a geezer gumming a pork chop.

He doesn't want a Popsicle or a teething toy. Occasionally he half-heartedly bites me but it seems like it takes too much effort. Mostly he brings me board books and wants to snuggle down under the covers on my big bed and read or watch Yo Gabba Gabba (which is kind of starting to get on my nerves, since it's his favorite show and we watch it A LOT).

Basically I am not getting much of anything at all accomplished, but that's okay. Years of living with children has taught me that not only will this pass, it will pass so quickly that 10 years from now it will seem like five minutes ago and I will be crying on Matt's shoulder wondering how my baby got so big so quickly. And he'll laugh at my grey hair.

In the meantime, we have gone back to school. I say "we" because with all the hustle, bustle and responsibility that comes with having a first grader and a freaking junior, it feels like "we" are all involved! Gwendolyn did not allow a first-day-of-school photograph this year, but here is a picture of lovely first-grade Fletcher, in all his mowhawked cuteness in the car on the way to his big first day:


Hope all your adventures are memorable, Mahalo for reading!

And now we are 14 months old

My beautiful Tator Tot is 14 months old today. I feel immensely blessed for the honor of being his, Gwendolyn and Fletcher's mother.

Extreme naked cuteness

Grady James!

This is a picture of my belly just days before giving birth to lovely Grady James. I can't believe how time flies! Love you, Grady! Love you, family!

Addendum

So baby Grady was "helping" me clean off a book shelf - he basically just threw everything on the floor in his helpful baby way - and in the clean-up I discovered an old folder from college. Within the folder was - ta da! - the poem I was referring to in my second-to-last post that horrified classmates in my poetry seminar class. I thought I'd like to share it with you here.

Please note that that this poem was written 10-11 years ago, and I currently enjoy a much closer relationship to my then-husband than I did previously. He has graciously given his nod of approval to the publication of said-poem, realizing that he was my inspiration but I mean him no ill-will.

Also, Matthew was relating a story to me in which he was reading my blog at work *ahem* and a co-worker read my poem over his shoulder and said, "Oh my, I don't think I could ever even write words like that." And that is my point. I have a certain audience. You may not be in it. But I write for the people who cannot say these things aloud. I write for the people who want to say "fuck you" but can't. There are so many people who are so nice they don't speak their mind. I am not one of them. So these poems are for them.

Here is my poem. Mahalo for listening.

Hellraiser

It's 3 a.m. and I'm staring at him
naked and fragile and
with the comforter stripped away
looking like a small, killed thing.
He is dreaming of someplace better
where kinder women live and frolic.
He is kicking his leg like a tired old dog.
I
I am waiting to gut him
slice him
hurt him
with my Cenobite grapple hook finger nails
if he rolls the wrong way
or snores.

I am the woman
he says
who can skin a man with words,
invasively inhabit a mind
better than Pin Head.
My mind
he says
is the puzzle box
and even though there's no easy solution
to find the last button
is so irresistible
that he'll surely die trying.
Loving em is sudden death,
or perhaps eternity as
CD head.

It delights something naughty
inside me
to feel his futile struggling
even in dreams
to grasp who I am.
I sense the onset
of his soul departing
even as he sleeps.
My icy hook nails
scritch-scratch his throat
and cloying death scent
blooms from his open mouth.

I think someday soon
I'll know what it's like
to miss him.
Maybe I should have been
better.
Maybe tomorrow,
I'll sprout a heart.

Military Man (In flagrante delicto)

This is what happens when you leave your toy, affectionately dubbed "Military Man" on the bathroom sink in a house full of smartasses.

My literary opinion and poetry with bad words

I felt it was time to address something extremely important to me: the freedom to write what moves you - the real you - not censored propaganda for public consumption. I did it for years, you know, writing for newspapers. The things that get left out - that's the heart of the real news. That is what is chopped from the story, that is where the art is. And I am all about the art. I have felt the sting of censure as a young and giddy reporter, telling the entire truth and paying for it. The gleaming kernel of fact removed by an adroit editor felt like an amputation. It hated it. Writing the news sucks ass.

That is why I love to write poetry. Because to me, poetry is all about the feeling: the feeling of words formed and written first on brain, the roll of the tongue, the weight of pen in hand, the exact pressure of finger on keyboard. My poetry is not usually kind or sweet. Tho I love to read sweet lolly poetry from other people (Yeats comes to mind, with his bean-rows on the Lake Isle of Innisfree) I am loathe to write that way.

I am a poet of guttural hatred and unbridled fury. I write about what pisses me off, depresses me, makes me withdraw from society. Sometimes it's all happiness. Wait, no, that never happens. The verbal vomiting is my way of soul-purging. I can write terrible things so I don't have to DO terrible things. This is what art is, yes? I have a feeling I'll never receive accolades while I am still breathing. But that's okay. Someday someone will study me and think wow, she was really pissed off.

Here's the thing: It takes incredible courage and moxy to say what you really mean in poetry just like it does in real life. While I am never one to shy away from confrontation, I have been guilted into keeping my trap capped for fear of alienating my audience. The thought of losing those of you that read my blog scares me, but being artistically dishonest scares me more.

In college I had many, many poetry writing seminar classes. I think these classes suck and if I ever taught poetry writing, I would not ever approach it in the way it was taught to me. Apologies to my previous teachers. Oh wait, no, I meant to say suck it. The writing of the rosy lines, the xeroxing of the many pages, then the ultimate betrayal: sharing your rough cut diamond in a 'peer group' setting. Fuck the peer group. What the hell do they know that you don't?

I remember a particular session with a particular peer group. Of course my poem was 'about' watching my ex-husband sleep (we were still married at the time) and wanting to murder him. One of my peers read some hippy-esque dream of Pablo Neruda making love to her, another poet shared a tale of swimming in Lake Michigan and being in tune with nature. And so on and so on and then there was, to me, the worst of the worst: A rosy-cheeked teaching major reading her poem 'about' apple picking with her rosy-cheeked family and the ensuing pie making, etc. I wanted to slit her wrists for her. And I said that. Out loud. Because that's the way I rolled back then.

I try not to roll over someone else's work these days; I am largely supportive of anyone writing anywhere at any time. This shit is hard!!!! Writing is soul-wrenching, hair pulling agony! Or it is easy as apple picking and pie baking. But I digress. The purpose of this post is to share, honestly, a poem I wrote a few days ago because it is the way I felt at that moment in time. It has lots of bad words. It is not 'about' you, or you. It is not in any way real, or something that ever will or ever did happen. Because it is a poem. With bad words. Because that's the kind of poet I am, more often than not. And poems aren't right or wrong per say, but they can have a right or wrong audience. So I am feeling you out.

Fuck You Michelle

Fuck you
and fuck me
and fuck the world.
I will fuck you up,
murder your children
knife your grandma
fuck your grandpa
then stab out his eyes
with a stainless steel fork.

I will rape your husband,
slice your belly,
shatter every window in
your windowless house
you bitch.

I'd fuck the moon
if it pissed you off
then slit its throat and laugh
as burble-bubble-grunt-and-moan
moon beams spill
from dead neck hole
a milky silver pussy death.

Fuck you all
but fuck you the most.
I fucking hate you.
~
Mahalo for listening! ~Amy

Hey, it's me again!

Will you forgive me for being gone so long if I tell you a secret? Please? Okay *gulp* truth is I've been a little nuts. Like feeling crazy. Like it has been a really long time since I've written because I've been a little bit not okay. Too much stuff has happened to roll out the dough and cookie-cut a story for you, but suffice it to say there were good times, bad times, and some really depressing times.

Like my dear sweet mother had cancer (she is well now, thank you) and I spent a month back home caring for her early this summer, which meant I had a nice break from being "mom" non-stop but also meant I missed an entire month (the 8th one) of my baby's life. As in when I came back home, he wouldn't come to me. For about a week. He screamed every time Matt left, since he took care of him when I was away and I felt like the shittiest shit-head to have ever breathed.

And while I was home, my mother's best-friend of 30 years, her soul sister, passed away. Suddenly and unexpected are two words that fit the situation; tragic and life-altering also work. Nobody will ever be the same after the loss of this dear auntie.

Two weeks after I came home, my uncle, mom's brother, and my life-long best friend died. Also totally unexpectedly. That was May 18, a very bad day. He was only 10 years older than me, more like a brother all my life. We shared the same birthday, April 19. We went to college together, and when I lived back home we spent every weekend together. After I moved away we talked on the phone almost every single day. He was wonky and weird and perfect and I will never be that close to anyone again, ever.

It is still hard to breathe most days and I don't know how I will ever get over this. I have some of my sweet uncle Baboo's "cremains" in a sweet little urn necklace that I will wear on my neck every single day of my life as soon as my baby boy stops trying to rip necklaces off me every time I put one on. It is hard for me to even look at one of the dozens of photos I have of Baboo, though I see his face in my mind almost constantly. You can read his obituary here: http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/519290.html?nav=5004 Don't know what else to say about that.

Other than that, my plans for taking my two little boys to Michigan for the summer were derailed by my two back-to-back emergency trips back home and the subsequent financial drain that came alone with that. I am still an at-home mom for now so we are relying on Matthew's hard work to pull through and it is tough going sometimes indeed. But we survive. And when I look at the faces of my happy little ones I think yeah, this is what it's all about. Not Disney World or a new Wii or whatever the heck it is we think we're missing out on. Life is about this, this beautiful family.

And this morning at 3:30 a.m. when Grady decided he was up for the day and I reluctantly agreed, he took my hand and led me to the kitchen, where there is always a nightlight on and a radio always set to a rock station and there is always a fresh bunch of bananas for him to choose from. He wandered around munching a banana while I scrambled a couple eggs. I watched him dancing and eating to the Toadies "Possum Kingdom" and I was struck by just how incredibly cool this almost-14-month-old person is and how much I have to be grateful for and how it's time to get back to sharing it all with you, dear reader.

So here I am and I promise, I am making the commitment, to updating here at least once a week for as long as, well, as long as is possible. Till my fingers fall off and my brain doesn't work anymore. On what day you say? Ha! That's a surprise! (means I don't know and refuse to be pinned down!) So, welcome back to me. And to you. Please drop me a line some time, I'd love to hear from you!

The Food Stamp Foodie

So lately I've had a major case of Velcro Baby, otherwise known as Baby Who Never Wants To Be Put Down, which makes it hard to write. I posted a pic of this sweet little Velcro dumpling this morning one-handed as he held fast to my hair with both fists and chewed my cheek. Ah, motherhood. I have never enjoyed it so much in all its precious fleeting glory. As Dear Daughter is turning 16 next month, the F-Bomber is now 6 and tiny boy is the last of the fleet I feel, I don't know, exhausted, happy, confused, lonely already. The other night the two older children were gone with friends and baby was napping. Hubby and I actually had dinner together, neither of us juggling a grabby, crabby tot or refilling milk glasses or cutting meat, etc. It was WEIRD I tell you! Strange and outlandish! I felt my mortal clock ticking loudly as I was reminded: Good God woman, this is what old age will be like. Just you and Matt. Listening to each other chew. And my GOD did he always eat like that or is this a special night because no kids are around? The noise was unholy!

Anyhow, as per the title of this post, I am now embarking on a sideways kind of mini-feature of F-Bomb and Mom: a periodic posting that will ponder the issues of feeding one's family while feeling poverty's pinch at the supermarket but still feeling the keen desire to eat well. In this mini-blog, blog-ette or bloglet, as it were, we shall examine issues such as: Is it ethical to purchase luxury items such as brie, balsamic vinegar or toaster strudel with food stamps? (Uh, probably not); How can I feed my family of five on pennies a day (and still make them feel that they are still enjoying their favorite meals, with each food group represented); and cheap food product reviews. The latter I will tackle today in my first Food Stamp Foodie post. And please, if anyone out there is offended by the name of this post, please feel free to ream me a new one. I do realize that people are struggling and hungry and trying really hard to make ends meet. Rest assured, I feel you. I am you.

So. Lets talk ramen. Yes, these starchy turds in cellophane have been a staple of the broke for, I don't know, centuries? When I was a kid we once lived in a rented duplex alongside a very motivated, interesting and mainly non-English speaking Korean family who ran a home sewing business. The children, first generation Americans, were wonderful playmates. Their daughter, Ami (pronounced Ah-Me) and I were instant best friends. We even started our own neighborhood newspaper which is remarkable, since I was only in first grade and she in second and it was hand-printed in both English and Korean. My pen name was Jade Snow and we covered the north side of Escanaba like pros. Anyhow, I digress.

The neighbor children, which included Ami and her two young brothers, introduced me to ramen for the first time. It was their favorite after-school snack and I saw them eat it often. They were eager to share and after an initial period of doubt I gave in and tried. Salty. Weird. Starchy. What's really weird? They didn't cook it. Ami and her brothers would sit on the back stoop, peel back the crinkly wrapper, extract the silvery little seasoning packet, rip it open with their teeth and sprinkle it over the hard crispy noodles. Chomp and repeat, crispy white bits flying everwhere, the tiny curls collecting on their clothes for later, I guess. I didn't know that ramen was eaten cooked until high school, when it became a dietary staple after a night of, um, 'recreational smoking' with my friends.

The other night I was discussing ramen on the phone with my mother. Ramen is poor food, but it is a nourishing, hot meal that, for about .19 cents a package, fills up your tummy and your cupboard for a very reasonable price. But what about when company comes over and you're pinched for an entree? Enter the cup 'o ramen complete with freeze dried veggies and shrimp or TVP. Fancy! Still cheap! Same quick cook time, but clean up is even more of a breeze because it cooks and is served in the same container! Woo Hoo! My mother thinks I'm hilarious. And for about .48 cents a serving, your guests will be full, satisfied, and impressed that you stepped up your game for them.

But what about date night, you ask? What happens when you're still on a ramen budget but you have a special someone coming over? Not to worry. I have recently discovered the Holy Grail of ramen, the defacto champion of cheap noodles, nay, the GOD of all ramen: Nissin chow mien. Can I get an Amen?

My dear uncle Baboo turned me on to these sweet eats and I am eternally grateful. At about .78 cents a pack for these tasty num-nums, they reign as the most expensive ramen, but as you can imagine, the most delicious. They require more cooking time; five minutes compared to the standard three. Instead of one spice pack to open there are three to fumble with and they do not exhibit the curliness of regular ramen but by God, these are the most fantastic cheap noodles you will ever imbibe! I swear, they are WAY better than the noodles at my favorite Chinese buffet and an ocean apart from any other ramen, ever. The terriyaki beef is by far my favorite - it comes with a little veggie pack, seasoning pack and flavored oil. Yumm-O.

According to the Nissin website, there are 15 flavors, though locally I can only source three, the beef, chicken and shrimp varieties. I have had all three and all are delicious. Since I have discovered Nissin noodles, I have eaten them for lunch every day; I am sure my doctor would be so proud of me (not so hot on the sodium content, like all ramen)! So try them, for real, you will thank me, your date will thank me, your wallet will thank me, your doctor, not so much. And that's it for this post. I am tired and it's late. Over and out.