Snupus Day

April 19, 2012 By Queen of Spain

You may look at this election cycle and see nothing but hate.

You may look at this election cycle and see nothing but greed.

Racism.

Socialism.

Communism.

Mud slinging.

Lack of compromise.

Lack of compassion.

Lack of understanding.

You may look at this election cycle and see no hope for bipartisan answers, an end to stalemates, an end to this hostility and violent, sexist, nasty rhetoric that has taken over the media, some candidates, and the discourse in our great nation.

I look and see something totally different happening…and it’s starting with a horrible disease, two very different families, and a box of snails.

…and all of Erin’s readers cock their heads sideways and go ‘huh’ simultaneously…

On Saturday, somewhere around 3pm-4pm Pacific I’m going to pop my moon-face, ravaged with steroids and the side effects of battling Lupus into a chat with WTIC NewsTalk 1080′s Jim Vicevich.

He’s one of those conservatives I complain about all day and night.

He’s also a fellow foot solider in the battle against Lupus, and we fight together.

Jim is raising money to build the first ever Lupus Center for excellence in Connecticut. A treatment center that will help everyone – from raging liberal, to conservative, to those who don’t give a flying flip about politics, to children who have been affected by this horrendous disorder that has turned our lives upside down. Yes, I said OUR lives…Jim has Lupus too.

Now I don’t live anywhere near Connecticut. I live in Los Angeles. But nothing, and I mean nothing, would please me more than to be there when Jim breaks ground on this center that I KNOW will help those like us who need it- because Lupus knows no political party and certainly does not discriminate between Republican or Democrat.

And that’s where the snails come in. My children have declared Saturday ‘Snupus’ Day… because tonight, as I took my very sore body onto the patio to try my best to pretend to NOT be in pain while they play, they found a snail family. A Mamma, a Daddy, and two baby snails. My seven-year old daughter declared the Mamma snail must have Lupus too…and she MUST be getting better because LOOK! She climbed up the SIDE of the bug house and drank some water.

This was a clear sign Lupus was being beaten back by every mother and every father…snail or human…progressive or conservative.

I need to make my daughter’s dream come true. I have lost 13 inches of my colon, my gall bladder, my cervix, my uterus, my ovaries, have suffered a stroke, a T.I.A., and continue to battle this disorder to KEEP the rest of my organs so my son and my daughter can find many, many more snail families on our patio and name them and learn about them and then set them free so happily ever after can occur.

Jim and I need your help to do that. We need your help in Connecticut and in Los Angeles. In my hometown in Michigan where I was raised and in Florida where my parents now try to make enough of a living to buy plane tickets to fly out to help as much as possible. And even in the wilds of West Virginia where my in-laws educate their friends and family about what Lupus has done to their daughter-in-law, how it has affected their son and their grandchildren, and how Lupus does not care where you were born, who you married, how much money you have, or how you vote.

Lupus takes a toll on spouses, children, caregivers, friends and family who love you and have to watch you go through something so horrible and yet that is about all they can do: WATCH.

Jim has found a way, in Connecticut, to do more than WATCH. So I am behind him 110% despite his totally ridiculous political leanings. (oh come on…giggle with me a little…) Because Lupus is NON PARTISAN, and when it comes to fighting Lupus…we are ALL NON PARTISAN.

And maybe, just maybe, if we can start with Lupus…we can move on to other things. Today Lupus, tomorrow the economy, health care reform, and beyond.

Yes, that’s the progressive dreamer in me showing up. But I’m not willing to give up on any of those dreams, and I expect you to honor them by at the very least honoring what my children have dubbed ‘Snupus’ Day.

Join the fight. Say hello to me via our video chat on Saturday. Go ahead and ask me anything from Lupus related to questions to politics, I don’t mind, so long as you donate to help make our Non-partisan dream come true.

Let’s find a cure for Lupus together.

*comments are OFF on this post…let’s not argue about politics, let’s cure Lupus

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus

Hey Chick-fil-A: Not EVERYONE Has A Mom

April 17, 2012 By Queen of Spain 18 Comments

Lightheartedly I shared what I thought was a hilarious Chick-fil-A parody video the other day on Facebook. In case you are unaware of the back story here, basically Chick-fil-A makes nummy food, but they are owned and operated by bigots.

Yes, I said bigots. It’s ok. You don’t have to agree. However I believe that anyone who is willing to deny equal rights to others is a bigot. I find it rather clear-cut. You may not.

Chick-fil-A has sunk a ton of money into making sure all families have a mother, a father, and children. Not two fathers. Not two mothers.

While we go back and forth about this issue in our house because their sandwiches are so damn good, it is really hard to explain to the kids why we’d even eat some place that really do not want people we love to be able to have the same rights as everyone else.

The kids don’t understand.

We don’t understand.

Yet sometimes, we cave, and bring home a kid’s meal or two for the little ones on a busy day.

While I totally understand Chick-fil-A does what it can to get its message across by making sure they are closed on Sundays and by giving money to organizations that make me cringe…I wasn’t expecting them to try to get into my kids’ head via the toy in their primary colored baggies:

Now at first glance you might not think this is a big deal. But let’s just pretend, for a second, that you are one of the millions of American children WITHOUT A MOTHER.

Maybe you have two fathers, which apparently makes Chick-fil-A’s baby Jesus cry…but maybe your Mom died of cancer. Maybe your grandparents are raising you because your parents died in a car accident. Maybe, just maybe, your Mom left your family. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe…there are thousands of maybes and thousands upon thousands of families who are not a Mom, a Dad, and kids.

Maybe Chick-fil-A just made millions of children without mothers CRY with their chicken nuggets because they can’t seem to fathom a family comes in all shapes and sizes and every shape and size is STILL a FAMILY.

Every so often we’d shake off Chick-fil-A’s corporate policy in order to eat their yummy food. Not anymore. At least, I am not taking my kids there or giving Chick-fil-A another dime. Ever.

The truth of the matter is my children very well could be without a mother and had you stuffed that in their kids’ meal and told them to have a nice day I’d be up in your heaven sending down lightening bolts and making sure to smite the hell out of you for hurting my kids. Hurting them right in their heart. Hurting them where no one should ever hurt a child.

And for those families who do not have mothers, and who might have two fathers… how DARE YOU make these kids feel as though there is ANYTHING wrong with their family?

No, Chick-fil-A, it’s not a joke anymore. We’re done with you. See that questionnaire you have up above in the photo? The one you shoved in my kids’ faces? We’re checking the box that says ‘stamping out hate and bigotry by never buying Chick-fil-A again.’

Filed Under: #suckit, #SUCKITLupus

Hey Ann Romney & Conservative Women- THANK a Feminist

April 14, 2012 By Queen of Spain 8 Comments

I’ve had treatment the past two weeks and have largely not had the energy to fight this RIDICULOUS ‘Mommy Wars’ battle going on with the Hilary Rosen/Ann Romney remarks.

Oh I’ve had plenty to say, believe me…but when you’ve had an iv in your arm for a few days AND you have to fight with your disability company (wait, they are not my disability company YET…they simply took money out of my paycheck for years…but now that I need them we shall see if they are TRULY my disability company) AND raise two children while your husband works long hours…the absolute STUPIDITY on tv and radio has to wait.

But now that I’ve had some time to rest and the kids are off for the weekend and my husband is home, let me jump into the deep end: Ann Romney’s husband’s record on ‘women’s issues’ SUCKS and I have been a stay at home Mom AND a work out of the home Mom. Hilary Rosen has a very valid point when she questions if the Romney’s understand the average family:

Now let’s be clear on one thing. I have no judgements about women who work outside the home vs. women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full-time. I even envy them sometimes. It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is NOT a choice that most women have in America today.

Why does this even matter? It matters purely because Mitt Romney put the issue of his wife’s views squarely on the table.

You caught that, right? This is NOT a choice that most women have in America today. And she is RIGHT. I’m fighting like all hell for my disability because we NEED MY PAYCHECK. I do not have the luxury of being a stay at home mom right now, like I did when my son was first-born. And what of the women who do choose to work because they WANT to? The right attacked them as well:

What Hilary Rosen has exposed is a psychological fault line that separates those women who simply oppose unfair gender-based barriers in education or employment or elsewhere from other women who actually despise and disrespect those females who choose to be full-time wives and mothers, instead of entering the workforce.

These “anti-gender” women have it in for anyone who embraces her femininity, maternal instincts and capacity to nurture as their highest priority — postponing or passing up other laudable opportunities to work at, say, a law firm or as a marketing executive. They despise the notion that some women may indeed be drawn — instinctively and happily — toward creating special and loving environments in which to raise their children, while spending all their available time sustaining and enriching those environments and those children.

Apparently Dr. Asshat, I mean Dr. Ablow, doesn’t realize that Rosen, and myself, were both stay at home moms at one point. And that we both aspired to raise our children and climb the corporate ladder. Something our male counterparts do daily yet no one blinks an eye. We do not DESPISE women who are drawn to be mothers full-time. WE HAVE STAYED HOME TOO, BY CHOICE.

Why is it when Rick Santorum suspends his campaign to actually be a father, the press fawns all over him as though no man has ever put his career before fatherhood before? Why is it that no one has asked Mitt Romney or Barack Obama why they didn’t choose to stay at home and raise their children instead of running for office and spending so much time away from their families?

And why is it that the same side exploding to defend Ann Romney didn’t say a word when Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann made the opposite choice, and chose work over being that Mom who stays home?

I’ll tell you why…because it’s just fine for conservative women to discover feminism and all the wonders it has given them, but a progressive woman is totally not allowed to discuss this on national tv- let alone live it- hence the holier than thou Right shall smite her down to where she belongs! Which is, apparently, the kitchen or starching Mitt’s really stiff looking shirts. Apparently only conservative women can be trusted to make the choice to work or stay home to raise kids, because only they are smart enough (guided by their husbands and God) to choose wisely. We feminists can’t be trusted with such a big choice, because heaven forbid we actually aspire to do something amazing like cure a disease or follow our dreams, and that might mean we don’t have kids or, even worse, we don’t get married.

Yup, those conservatives can’t possibly trust us smart women to do anything without a man…why, that might lead to the downfall of society! Or worse, them having to make their own damn sandwich.

Frankly the Right has a helluva lot of nerve to attack Rosen’s comments when they are waging an all out war on women and attempting to turn us all into Mrs. Romney. And please, spare me the ‘there is no real war on women’ crap because we females have been allowed to attend school and learn now for some time and we’re capable of calling bullshit when we see it.

We’re also capable of THANKING the feminists who came before us, giving us the CHOICE to be whatever we want to be- from a mother to a scientist to an elected official.

Maybe that is something conservative women should try, instead of fighting us. THANK your feminist sisters. Thank them for allowing you to take that job outside the home when your husband gets laid off. Thank them for allowing you to pick up that part-time job while you home school your kids.Thank them for helping to push through legislation that will get them equal pay for equal work, and legislation that will support their needs while they attempt to juggle parenthood and having a career. And when you are done thanking them, take a step back and realize how different they all are.

Some are choosing to have children later in life, so they can see their dreams of becoming a teacher or farmer or doctor realized first. Others are choosing to have children as they attend school, and then go after their dream career while their partner stays home to raise the kids. And still others are choosing to remain childfree, instead focusing their lives on the many other things they have dreamt of forever.

Hilary Rosen and I have both been raising our children and working in politics, huh…sounds rather similar to Ann Romney who is on my tv right now, stumping for her husband.

Imagine that.

I wonder if she has thanked a feminist?

Filed Under: #suckit, Obama2012

Messes I Keep Close

April 11, 2012 By Queen of Spain 10 Comments

When I don’t know what to do, I usually make a huge mess. I also tend to revert to the only things I know.

It’s a throwback to how I was raised and all the superstitions that came with a Catholic upbringing.

So I’m sitting here, tears streaming down my face, with a mess in front of me that I have no clue what to do with. There’s a worry stone, given to me by a friend of my husband’s… she had picked it up in Tibet and it was to help me get through my first pregnancy which was very difficult.

It wasn’t supposed to be difficult. I was supposed to be one of those women who worked until she gave birth and glowed and life went on as normal while I incubated our son.

I was supposed to be a lot of things.

Of course back then we had no idea I had Lupus, and we had no idea that premature labor would land me on bed rest for months, causing horrible strain on my husband and the rest of my family. I could do nothing to make the situation better except lay down and hope our child was healthy. During that time, that smooth worry stone was a like a hug of peace around me.

Yes, I know that sounds corny. But when you have no control, you’ll take a worry stone from Tibet and rub it with your thumbs even if everyone laughs.

Life went on, and our son was followed by our daughter and then my health began to deteriorate. Always with me as the cause of everyone’s strain. And always with me having zero control over the illness that was causing it all.

I remember lighting candles at the Catholic church in Santa Monica close to my husband’s work at the time. Why? Because I didn’t know what else to do. I had no control and everything practical we could try had been done.

I remember standing in my back yard in the dead of night, hopped up on 80mg of prednisone (steroid) and incapable of sleeping. I sat on the cold brick edge in our yard and talked to the full moon. Legends tell me the moon is a woman and if she can pull those beautiful ocean waves into the sandy shore…surely she could cure me of this terrible pain in my body and the terrible pain it has caused those around me.

More recently I took the kids with me to light a candle and the church was closed. While my husband and I laughed this off, inside it was like a punch in the gut. I NEEDED to light a candle, and the CHURCH WAS CLOSED.

Again I find myself having one of those days where I am in need of something and am at a loss. Do I light a candle? Rub the stone? Talk to the rain steadily tapping my patio?

No. None of those were right. So I dug into my bag of magic I keep close to me always.

My favorite Aunt died not too long ago, so the pain is still very sharp. This morning after I dropped the kids off at school I rummaged through my purse…The stone from Tibet is in there. The necklace from my wedding must always be close, along with the first jewelry the kids bought me from those school ‘shops’ during the holidays. You know the ones where they turn to rust before you haven worn them a week but you must keep them forever.

After deciding I needed my Aunt’s special, Pope blessed rosary, I pulled it out of its case and began hysterically sobbing.

It was broken. Just like the church doors were closed. Just like each pregnancy was supposed to be perfect. Just like my life was supposed to be ME helping OTHERS not the other way around, my very special rosary was broken. It’s circle was incomplete.

My dead Aunt’s rosary was laying across my chubby hand, in two pieces instead of one. The irony was nearly too much for me to handle.

Not being one to just accept the broken rosary, I sprang into action. Admittedly rather unthought out, rushed action. Typical of me.

One of the links was unlinked so I scrambled and rummaged through my husband’s tools to find something to smush it back together and make it whole again. It had to be whole again. Everything had to be whole again. Now. RIGHT NOW.

My therapist laughs and shakes her head at my patience issues. This is a perfect example.

Standing in the garage, looking at a box of tools I never use and barely understand, I realized I was dealing with a very delicate piece of wire where the rosary had broken. If I pushed it too tight with the pliers, it would snap. If I didn’t push hard enough, the circle would remain broken. The rosary incomplete or destroyed. These were my options.

But it’s really hard to try and hold my swollen hands steady and see through tears and fear and pain. But I grabbed the best tool I could find and fumbled and dropped it to the ground almost as quickly as I picked it up.

I did the best I could to gently push together the link so it would stay. And as I was pushing I realized there was a third option and the one I always need to look for when feeling as though I must act or I must fix or I must somehow make up for the illness that is not my fault yet has fucked up everyone’s lives.

So instead of forcing the rosary to be perfect and whole, I very simply put it where it needed to be and gently pushed the wires. But not before letting out my anger that it was broke, yelling at it being my stupid luck it would be broke in the first place, and forcing and pushing and being totally angry with it in my overszealous and impatient way, making it 40 times worse than when I started.

So I stopped. I just STOPPED. The circle is now whole, but it’s not right. And that’s ok. And I’m telling myself that it is ok it’s not perfect. Nothing is going to be perfect with Lupus in the picture, but it can, at least, still be.

I’m setting down the rosary. Putting it back in the bag next to the stone from Tibet. I’m doing my best not to put too much faith in my new voodoo doll that is supposed to ward off bad luck and evil spirits.

Instead I am cherishing the wedding necklace. The special jewelry from my kids. The watch my husband gave me. The locket also given with so much love. And the key worn around my neck, with a similar one worn around my daughter’s neck…carried by my son on his backpack, and carried by my husband.

While I may be getting better, Lupus leaves a strain on families that can not be described. The strain and pain can not be fixed by candles, rosaries, or worry stones- no matter how hard I wish them to, or try and force them with shaking hands in a cold garage on a rainy day.

Patience. Love. More patience, and hard work are the only way to go. It hurts like hell…like no hell I have ever known. And it’s a hell worse than any surgery or any treatment or any hospital stay that this evil disorder has put me through. But I refuse to let it win.

But I need to remember I am winning the battle it has waged against my body. It has been slow and it has taken what feels like forever but I AM WINNING. So you damn well better believe I will also win the battle it is waging against my life and the lives of those around me.

I’m slowly learning how to win that battle, and my weapons will not be rosaries or candles…but humility, understanding, trust, and patience. And learning how to shift the focus from myself and the illness to everyone else and their needs.

When your life is nothing but doctors and ivs and lab work, that is harder than you might think.

But I will find the faith in myself to do this, just like I have found the faith in myself to fight and keep fighting. Because no matter how hard it gets, I know I am never fighting this alone.

Lupus made one hell of a mess and it’s time to start cleaning it up…cleaning it ALL up.

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus, Feeling YaYa

Ashley Judd, THANK YOU

April 9, 2012 By Queen of Spain 52 Comments

I’ve been on and off prednisone for about two years now. It has taken me from feeling sexy and slim and hawt to feeling puffy and moon-faced and anything but hawt.

It has saved my life.

But, like many women before me, I have been struggling greatly with the puffy and, as my kids say, ‘squishy’ frame these steroids have given me.

In fact, struggling is probably the really polite way of saying I FUCKING HATE MY PUFFY FACE AND MY PUFFY BODY BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS STARING AT ME AND JUDGING ME AND IT MAKES ME FEEL UGLY.

I’m a smart, educated woman who knows better. I KNOW damn well that beauty is within and that we live in a society so obsessed with weight and glamor and looking good that it creeps into the back of my otherwise sane mind and pushes me to think insane thoughts.

While fighting Lupus I have turned down television gigs for fear my puffy face and body would detract from my political message.

While fighting Lupus I have turned down events (when healthy and able) because of my puffy face and body for fear those meeting me for the first time would think this is how I normally look and would judge me on my appearance.

…and I know better.

Today, actress and activist Ashley Judd destroyed the media for daring to speak about her recent puffy face…which turns out is puffy for reasons similar to mine- she was sick for more than a month and had to endure several rounds of steroids:

Consequently, I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle. The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about.

She goes on to write about how the media went after her puffy look, and has gone after her ‘flawless’ look and then claimed she had work done. Judd, however, steals my heart and makes me sit up straight with this reminder:

When I have gained weight, going from my usual size two/four to a six/eight after a lazy six months of not exercising, and that weight gain shows in my face and arms, I am a “cow” and a “pig” and I “better watch out” because my husband “is looking for his second wife.” (Did you catch how this one engenders competition and fear between women? How it also suggests that my husband values me based only on my physical appearance? Classic sexism. We won’t even address how extraordinary it is that a size eight would be heckled as “fat.”)

Not only does the patriarchy (which she also discusses) teach us to only value our beauty, but in times where we dare step outside their idea of beauty, we are to fear that our husbands or partners will no longer love us. We are to fear they will leave us. We are to fear our friends will mock us. We are to fear the world will talk about us. We are to fear…we are to fear…we are to fear…

…fuck fear.

I have faced death in the face and won. I have nearly lost EVERYTHING and here I sit with a roof over my head, two amazing children, and a husband who has stood by my side and felt every IV, every test result, and every pound as the ‘puffy’ moved into our lives.

…fuck fear.

It’s time to take my life back. And to give back the lives of those around me who have done nothing but sacrificed so I can still be here. If that means there is more of me to love in an unconventional beauty way, then so be it. Because I’m done letting Lupus rule my life.

I am reclaiming my independence.

It never even occurred to me that this message of what is beautiful had been continuously bombarded into the depths of my brain over and over and over and over again that I have been mostly miserable with my chronic illness not because of the constant pain or the horrible surgeries or the possibility of death…but because I was made to believe I lost what was most valued in this culture.

What a horribly sad and pathetic culture to have done this to me since I was a small girl. What a horribly sad and pathetic woman I am to have believed it for too many years.

Yes, I take much of the blame. I am a strong woman. I am a feminist and would tell everyone I know who I truly find beautiful it is because of their heart and mind, never once thinking of their physical features. Yet when it comes to myself, it crept in slowly. So slowly I didn’t realize it had taken over my head until just recently.

I’m ashamed I let it get this far. I am ashamed I let the hump on my neck (a side effect of prednisone) stop me from wearing my hair up. I’m ashamed I avoided buying new clothes, staying in pj pants for doctor’s appointments, because I couldn’t handle going into a plus sized store.

But none of that matters any longer. I’m taking back the old, independent, strong woman who recently has only been alive inside my mind. She doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about her. She will go on CNN and with a puffy face to debate any issue and not think twice about the haters who have no substantial argument so they will prefer to make fun of her size.

And she will no longer refuse to avoid events or dinners or lunches or parties (when her doctor says she can go) because to hell what you all think of my puffy face and body. These steroids saved my life and mean I AM HERE to hold my husband’s hand and take my kids to school and LIVE.

We’ve lived in Los Angeles a long time now and I have never been one to be impressed by actors/celebrities. I’ve interviewed many and don’t get star struck and certainly could care less that they are worshiped around here.

However, I am officially impressed with Ashley Judd and wish to say a very heartfelt ‘thank you.’ As an actress she is certainly under more scrutiny than I could ever imagine, and she most certainly has to deal with people noticing if she leaves the house in her pj bottoms for a doctor’s appointment, puffy faced and not feeling well from whatever ailment has her on steroids.

But she is doing it, right along with me, and giving the middle finger to anyone who dares question her beauty or what they think is a lack there of.

She certainly has said ‘fuck fear’ simply by writing and encouraging all of us to have a conversation about this culture that has sick women actually worried more about how they look than if they are getting healthy.

Thank you, Ms. Judd, for reminding me that misogyny is everywhere and as you said “…It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings.”

This human being is officially encouraging others to join the conversation so we can change how it affects us, and more importantly, how it affects our daughters and sons. I do not want them to go through this, and at the very least, I want the culture to have improved and evolved by the time they do.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy and live and continue to get well. I’m going to radiate the beauty within so it’s contagious and hopefully my son, daughter, and husband feel it every moment of every day.

(

photo by Megan Hook Photography

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus, Feeling YaYa

Thanks But No Thanks John Derbyshire, the Mommybloggers Don’t Want You

April 7, 2012 By Queen of Spain 39 Comments

Mommyblogging can be a tough business.

What with our many views on how to raise children from breast or bottle to co-sleeping or crying it out.

From time to time other bloggers seem to think they can get in on the act and try their hand at writing about parenting. Perhaps they are envious of the ad dollars our demographic brings to the table. Perhaps they have heard we get a lot of swag and want in on the action. Other times they seem to just want to spout off about the latest parenting technique to capture that big ‘Mommyblogging’ part of the internet.

Normally I encourage such behavior in the political blogosphere. I’ve always said politics is personal and part of why I write with such passion…actually ALL of why I write with such passion on political issues…comes from making sure my country is the best it can be for my family.

However, in the case of National Review Online blogger John Derbyshire, I would recommend he immediately quit Mommyblogging.

It seems he took a crack at it the other day, and as a professional Mommyblogger I’d like to nominate we not only not let him into the club, but we pretty much ban him from ever coming near our part of the internet again. Derbyshire wrote a piece about having a “talk” with his children, as many of us have, after the shooting of Trayvon Martin:

Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b)Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.

Now if only I actually had the power to make sure Derbyshire truly couldn’t join the Mommyblogging club…sadly, I don’t. His political writing, in crossing into the parentsphere, is nothing but a racist rant. Not really how you want to make your Mommyblogging debut. Clearly Derbyshire took my “politics is personal” mantra to heart, talking with his children about a very heated, and currently very political topic…he just sucks at it.

I hope Derbyshire doesn’t take my critique of his Mommyblogging too personally. Many have tried and failed. Blogging about parenting is not for everyone, and considering the “talk” this man had with his children, it seems parenting is not for everyone either.

Filed Under: Feeling YaYa, Obama2012

March Madness

March 27, 2012 By Queen of Spain 3 Comments

My husband and I not only share the same name, but we also share very close birthdays. Granted he’s two years older than I am, so he will always be my old man…but since meeting nearly two decades ago we’ve usually combined our birthday fun.

As fate would have it, our children are also two years apart in age and share very close birthdays. Luckily they still are the best of friends and want their birthdays to be celebrated together. So on an unsuspecting weekend day in March we have tended to unleash hoards of boys and girls upon our home and cul de sac where giggling and squealing can be heard from blocks away. Being unable to leave anyone out, and always justifying to myself it is the nice thing to do, we have invited each child’s entire class to join us for the fun.

Yes, I am stupid.

Yes, I know. I know.

But regardless of when that chaos-filled Saturday or Sunday has fallen on the calendar, I have always found myself a little bit more sensitive during those six days between when my eldest turns a year older and my youngest turns a year older. Spending those days thinking about when I was pregnant, when we brought each of them home from the hospital…you get the idea.

Having had our double-birthday insanity this past weekend, where it seems both of my children were exposed to the puking flu, my kids are home, snuggling in bed with me despite having grown older and more independent in just the past few days.

My son having just turned nine on Saturday, my daughter getting ready to turn seven on Friday…and here we are cuddling as though time is standing still on a Tuesday night. Tucked away in our bed, legs and arms tangled between towels and wet wash cloths, stuffed animals and nerf guns.

Both of them want me. Both of them need me. Both of them are stuck to me like velcro as they battle a bug and beg their Mamma to rub their back or lay ‘just a little closer’ as they doze off clutching me with one hand and ice chips with another.

My six days of contemplation, where I get misty over where all the time went, and how they won’t need me soon, have turned into something entirely different this year. I couldn’t be wanted more. I couldn’t be needed more.

During one of my daughter’s puke sessions this morning she asked me to promise to always be there to help pull her hair back. As my son fell into a nap shortly after lunch he asked me who took care of all the kids who had to stay home from school sick if their Moms didn’t have Lupus.

Dads, grandparents, babysitters, uncles…all sorts of people.

I’m not glad you have Lupus Mom, but I’m glad you have it today because you are home with me when I’m sick.

The funny thing is…my Mom left Sunday night after having stayed awhile taking care of me. The past 18 months I can honestly say I want two people when I am sick ( in other words-all the time)- I want my husband and I want my Mom.

So as I spend the last few days thinking about how badly I want for these children of ours to stay children, for them to always need me and want me, I know deep down they won’t ever really stop needing their Mamma…just like I haven’t stopped needing mine.

Filed Under: #SUCKITLupus, Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Princess Peanut, Stepford Crazies

When A White Boy Wears A Hoodie

March 22, 2012 By Queen of Spain 50 Comments

My son wears a hoodie every single day to school. He covers his head faithfully and rarely hears friends say hello as we walk inside or adults saying good morning as he tends to be lost in his own world, muffled by the hoodie around his ears.

My son would do anything for his little sister and happily get her candy. He would even question any adult questioning him for no reason- as we have taught him to stand up for himself, speak out for what is right, and question authority. He would run from strangers. He would, however, feel safe with a police office.

I think.

My son, however, can do all of these things without fear. He is white. He ‘belongs’ in that suburb. He looks like every other white kid in the area and a ‘neighborhood watch captain’ would easily dismiss his walking down the street as a normal, every day occurrence. As would a police officer. As would the community.

As a white mother to a white son, I’ve never had to explain to him what he should and should not do when confronted by police. I’ve never had to talk with him about how the world views him or prayed he wouldn’t be next.

Yet we live in a world where people deny racial issues still exist. They do not even understand white privilege. They actively cry ‘reverse racism’ as if they are the victim. They even have the nerve to call those who fight for racial equality ‘race baiters,’ ’racers’ and have attempted to spin and twist and re-write history as if THEY have lost out because Americans owned slaves and those slaves were oppressed for generations, after which they were then oppressed under Jim Crow and then under the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate our culture today.

Yet these NON ‘of color’ victims’ have started a very dangerous trend, a very risky trend, a very uninformed and downright stupid trend that has them looking like very scared white folk, realizing their hold over the majority-and power-is slipping.

You see, as ‘one of you’ I get to hear all about it from family and friends and neighbors and others who seem to think that just because I am white I ‘understand’ what they mean when they say ‘our neighborhood is changing’ and ‘that school has too many kids who don’t speak like our kids’ or ‘you know the high school only recruited him because he can play ball.’

Then there are the comments on blogs and national media calling the NAACP racist, the United Negro College Fund racist, and those who support our President racist because we have the nerve to notice these overwhelmingly white people are angry and saying things and doing things they would NEVER do if the man occupying the oval office were caucasian.

They say all these things while innocent children, carrying candy in a suburb, are shot for walking down the street while black. As Jackie Summers writes,

“This isn’t some fresh new hell; it’s torn open old wounds most would prefer to believe have healed.

The concept that you are suspicious.
The concept that you have to justify where you are and what you’re doing.
The concept that there are people who are so afraid of you, they feel they’re protecting themselves and others, by killing you, even if you’re unarmed.
The concept that those charged with law can show up, knowing exactly what happened, and choose not to uphold it.
The concept that it requires a national outrage to incite justice.
The concept that there are those who would vociferously defend the murderer out of one corner of their mouths, and accuse the murdered from the other.

For no other reason than the color of your skin.”

Yet if you were to read a Right Wing blog today, you would think THEY were the victim or horrible racial attacks. The last I checked, white children like mine, even in hoodies, even walking in a suburb with candy, were not being shot for walking while white.

It is far from time for the white, right-wing to drop this act of victimhood in the American stories of racial inequality. It is embarrassing. It is ignorant. It is offensive.

Trayvon is not the first black child to die, he will not be the last. We owe it to every child to move the discussion on race FORWARD. Forward means NOT back to eras that have long past and have long ago put an indelible mark of hatred and evil on our nation that some on the right seem to think have been made up for, erased, or should be at the very least whitewashed, refusing to feel guilt for something they had nothing to do with. I don’t feel guilt as a white liberal, I feel anger. I feel anger that some conservatives say they see no color, claim to operate on an even playing field, and refuse to even discuss racial implications in any debate for fear they will have to be honest with themselves, our history, and the glaringly obvious fact we have NOT come as far as we would like to think.

We owe it to children of color to know the world MY children have grown up knowing. Where they don’t need to be told that they have to make allowances for other people’s racism because …’That’s part of the burden of being black. We can be defiant and dead or smart and alive.”

It is time to change the conversation, and it starts with the adults. I have no right to send my son to school tomorrow morning in his hoodie without fear, when so many other mothers will be sending their sons off wondering if they will ever come home.

Filed Under: Count Waffles, Feeling YaYa, Royal Decree, Stepford Crazies

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