Queen of Spain Blog

Women’s Equality Day

August 26, 2007 by Queen of Spain 16 Comments

***updated-leave YOUR story in the comments!***

“I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” – Rebecca West, 1913.

“Because woman’s work is never done and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or repetitious and we’re the first to get fired and what we look like is more important than what we do and if we get raped it’s our fault and if we get beaten we must have provoked it and if we raise our voices we’re nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we’re nymphos and if we don’t we’re frigid and if we love women its because we can’t get a man and if we ask our doctor too many questions we’re neurotic and/or pushy and if we expect childcare we’re selfish and if we stand up for our rights we’re aggressive and unfeminine and if we don’t we’re typical weak females and if we want to get married we’re out to trap a man and if we don’t we’re unnatural and because we still can’t get a safe contraceptive but men can walk on the moon and if we can’t cope or don’t want a pregnancy we’re made to feel guilty about abortion and… for lots and lots of other reasons we are part of the women’s liberation movement”

and my personal favorite:

“Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”
– Rev. Pat Robertson

Happy Women’s Equality Day.

Queen of Spain

Filed Under: Feeling YaYa

RIP Castro (and Journalism)

August 25, 2007 by Queen of Spain 3 Comments

So help me if PerezHilton.com is right, and Castro is, in fact, DEAD…journalism in this country is officially dead as well.
Unless the Commie died while getting blown by Britney or something, every news director in this country should be slitting their collective wrists.

We’re beyond “new era of media” here. Hooray for community sites that take citizen tips, but SWEET BABY JESUS if this is true there is NO HOPE for traditional news.

None.

ZERO.

I’m disgusted, can you tell?

But here is where it gets fun-if there is no announcement, will those main stream media morons actually report on the FALSE report out of a celebrity gossip site? I say they do. I say they do just like two of my three local newscasts the other night lead with Lindsay Lohan’s plea deal.

I’m weeping. I am. I may go watch The Paper with Michael Keaton just to make myself feel better.

Send me your local/national news links sighting Perez. I’m anxious to see how this plays out.

Filed Under: kill me now

We Have Reason To Believe You May Be A Terrorist

August 24, 2007 by Queen of Spain 11 Comments

Stall. Stalling. Stalled. Staller.

How many times did my Mother yell “no more stalling, get to bed” and how many times did I lower my head and shuffle back down the hall?

The all-American bedtime stall is has begun in earnest around here and its kinda cute. Annoying, but cute. I only say its “cute” because a 4-year old can’t really trick me yet. For instance, if you get in your bed and I walk down the hall, there is NO WAY you have already fallen asleep and had a “bad dream” by the time I turn around. I mean, maybe you’ve fallen asleep in record time, but I’m guessing you haven’t had enough time to have any sort of thought other than “ok, I’m getting out of bed and telling her it was a bad dream.”

So yeah, the Count exiting his bed 1 full second after I’ve put him there is annoying, but rather hilarious that he thinks he’s pulling one over on me.

HRH Princess Peanut is much more slick. She’ll lay her wee head on my arm and pet me. All she says is “sleep Mamma? Sleep?” Which means, “crazy lady, lay down with me.”

They pull the usual need to go pee, need a drink of water, forgot my stuffed animal, etc. etc. etc. But I’m starting to like it when they run out of the regular excuses and try their hand and manipulation.

“Mom, you said 5 days ago that one day we would look at the stars and moon when its dark and we would make telescopes. So let’s GO! What do you mean NOT TONIGHT? But you SAID that…that ONE time…like a WEEK ago!”

“Mom I forgot to finish that game we were playing downstairs. And if I don’t finish it the game will never end. It will NEVER END, Mom. I have to go now and finish that game.”

But even better than the really lame excuses that don’t even make sense, are the reactions when I say “no.”

“Oh MOM this is my WORST NIGHT EVER. I have to go get that one puzzle piece to sleep with or this will be my WORST NIGHT EVER and I will NEVER SLEEP. I WILL NEVER SLEEP.”

I’ve been trying to remember what was so god-awful about going to bed. Why is it such torture? Obviously we all did this as kids. Its not like our children invented the bed-time stall. I think I used to fake sick. Or maybe need LOTS of water.

Whatever the reason I’m still trying to remember WHY I didn’t care to go to bed. Life was too exciting? I was way to busy? I had too many things to think about?

I want to know this because I think I can reason with my kids. Its my downfall as a parent. I want to reason with them. As any of you know, you can’t reason with a temper tantrum throwing 2-year old any better than you can reason with your couch. Yet I try. As Sarah and Bush say, “we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” I only adopt that reasoning part of the time. I need to implement it ALL of the time.

Assume children are terrorists. Do NOT attempt to reason with them. Always be on the offensive. Maybe stop short of Gitmo, but think about barbed wire for beds.

Alright, that might not work for us either. Its not a huge problem at our house yet, but I can see those little wheels spinning in those little heads and I can tell they will be champion stallers before Christmas. There is no bedtime battle as of yet, I’m just trying to be a good dictator and avoid one. You know, fight them now so I don’t have to fight them later.

Or is it inevitable? Maybe I can just bomb the shit out of their bedroom, you know…f’ up their infrastructure a bit. Then walk away. NOW SLEEP! HAHA! I mean, that sends one hell of a message. I’m in charge. I can make your life hell. Don’t mess with me. Go to bed.

Or I can try reasoning with them.

Or not.

I don’t know. I do know I’m lazy and don’t really have the energy to fight them there so I don’t have to fight them here. In fact, for now maybe I’ll just be amused at their attempts. Silly little terrorists.

Filed Under: Count Waffles, kill me now, Princess Peanut

Inky Love

August 22, 2007 by Queen of Spain 21 Comments

I’m contemplating something huge. I have been for many years, but I’m on the brink of a decision. It may seem ridiculous to some of you. It may seem just plain stupid to others. For me, its a form of expression I haven’t used in quite awhile. Now, I’m going to say something and totally lose at least 20 of you right off the bat-but just stick with me here, k?

new tattoo.

Now hear me out. I know I’m 32-years old and I am married and I have two children. I REALIZE that. This is not some lame attempt to try and be cool. I have 5 of them already. I don’t get a new tattoo without thinking it over (ok, not counting the first one, but that was simply because I turned 18 and COULD) and really making sure its what I want.

Normally this would not be such a huge decision for me, were it not for the location of this new ink stain. You see, I’m contemplating covering my whole left foot. My mother just fell off her computer chair.

All of my other tats are pretty much hidden. That was on purpose. I never felt they needed to be “LOOK AT ME HERE I AM” all over my body and I certainly didn’t get them to show off to the rest of the world. They were for me.

This new one, its for me too but its location is also significant because it was part of my wedding. Being the kind of couple we are, the Kaiser and I did not have the most traditional of ceremonies. He wore his Chucks. I had bridal mehndi by a lovely Indian woman in Cerritos, CA who painstakingly spent about 6 hours on my feet.

I want a tattoo artist to recreate that mehndi on my left foot, incorporating my children’s names. Unless I walk around in socks or boots for the rest of my life, this new display of body art will be really, really noticeable. Forever.

I know I’ve touched on this subject before, but I really do worry how Ms. UpTight Teacher might take Mom with Tats. While I don’t care what people think of me, I don’t want to handicap my kids. Sure they will learn the lesson that Mom doesn’t care what other people think and neither should they, but I don’t want to ever be a burden for them.

Its amazing the decisions I make lately. None of them have to do with me, or what I want. All of them have to do with what is best for my kids. Such is parenthood. There are those small decisions that are selfish that I allow now, like a weekend away or the 4pm being the new 5pm for cocktail hour. But this one is different. I can’t think of how or why this would help me be a better mother. I’m not seeing the “pro” for my kids here, other than “mom is an individual.” At least with taking a weekend to myself I come back refreshed and a better Mom. Part of this whole tattoo thing just feel to TOTALLY selfish that I’m having a hard time justifying it.

Which is probably why it has taken me so long to really get my butt in gear to go do it. Setting aside that this is a tattoo decision, I think my whole dilemma here is a larger question we Moms ask ourselves all the time. How much do “I” matter anymore? How do I separate or incorporate the “me” in this whole motherhood thing.

I am Mom.

Or am I more than Mom? I am wife, I am friend, I am me..but really, I AM MOM. Its so dominating. Not a thought goes by without I AM MOM ringing in my head. Even when I try to separate a bit, I always come back to I AM MOM.

Maybe I’ll just have I AM MOM tattooed on my forehead. As if the whiny kids tagging along behind me aren’t advertising enough. So I send the questions in my head out into the great, global community-where do you draw the line?Where does Mom begin and where do you end? Can you draw the line? Are there any lines? And more importantly, do I draw some permanent lines all over my feet?

Filed Under: Queenie Backup, Stepford Crazies

Mind Games

August 17, 2007 by Queen of Spain 14 Comments

There are days when it’s painfully obvious to me I no longer take Paxil. You may not notice. My family may not notice. The UPS guy I flirt with may not notice, but in my head there is really good cage match going on between happy fun thoughts and utterly ridiculous anxiety.

I’d like to think I just have a very active imagination. I tell my kids all day long to use theirs-I am simply a shining example of how to really, really imagine fun scenarios like husband dies in car wreck on way home from work, and the classic home invasion/kidnapping of kids party in my head.

Before the medication these thoughts were rampant and kept me awake at night and dictated if and when I went anywhere. While on the medication these thoughts were few and far between. Now, off the medication, the little scenarios play out in my head from time to time, but I can usually recognize them, shake them off, and move on to happier thoughts like sex with my UPS guy.

Its important to note I’ve also been diagnosed with some mild post traumatic stress. Before I gave birth, I was a news reporter. Unfortunately, I was a really good news reporter and had a knack for arriving on horrific scenes before emergency responders. That means I saw parents trying to pull burning children from homes on fire. I saw hostage situations unfold before my eyes, before I was pushed away by yellow tape. I heard gunshots, saw little figures come out in body bags, and generally spent my days flitting from interviews with Tom Hanks to murder suicides.

There was a period of time after I had the kids in which I tried to NOT pay attention to the news. I found it unacceptable. I MUST be informed on what’s going on in the world, even if its horrific. I’ve learned to temper my news obsession with mindless fun. I’ve learned to tune out certain stories, or only read the headline and then walk away. However its much more difficult when you’re PART of that story.

Two earthquakes here in SoCal lately. One yesterday. One massive earthquake in Peru. 1-foot tsunami. Tomorrow we will pack up the kids and head to the beach-to sleep. Why does all this matter?

Welcome back my old friend anxiety.

The odds of a large earthquake off the coast of central California causing a major tsunami that wipes out my family tent and all its occupants may be small-but the hell if I haven’t thought about it for the past 48 hours.

With images of the horrible 2004 Christmas disaster spawned by a quake in the Indian Ocean fresh in my head, I’m playing out ridiculous and horrifying scenes in my active imagination.

We’re peacefully sleeping when we hear screaming, waves engulf us as I try and grab the kids…I’m holding onto both for dear life as we try and tread the salty ocean water.

We’re warned a tsunami is coming and we rush to our car, throwing things in as we flee. Its California and people are in a panic, so naturally we’re stuck in traffic. Which way to we go? Are we far enough east? Can we climb that nearby mountain with those waves on our heels?

We’ve in our tent when the water comes rushing in. The tent is closed, we can’t reach the zipper. The kids are screaming and crying, I can’t reach my daughter. I can’t reach my son.

I don’t know why I feel the need to play out these little vignettes in my head. Part of me thinks I need a plan. If this situation occurs, I want to know what to do. I want to be prepared. I need a dry run. Part of me wonders if I just half expect something like this to occur in my lifetime. I’m simply aware of each situation and what could occur. Better that then to be caught off guard.

I’m packing for our little trip as I type this. My 4-year old really wants to sleep in a tent under the stars. I really want him to sleep in a tent under the stars. While I’m certainly no camper, the beach sounds like fun. Spending my wedding anniversary in a tent with my husband and kids while I imagine terrifying tragedies-not my ideal way to spend a weekend, but its that or stay indoors. Do nothing, go nowhere and pretend all is safe and well.

I know better. I know I need to get out there and bat away mosquitoes while I roast marshmallows. I know I need to push my fears aside and NOT freak out when I hear waves crash on the shore.

So I will continue to pack. I will NOT visit the earthquake monitoring homepage today and I will NOT pay too much attention to CNN. I’m going take a deep breathe and pitch a tent. Of course I won’t really know how to make it sturdy, but I’ll watch Kaiser use his fine Boy Scout skills. I’ll build sandcastles and make a big deal out of sleeping bags and flashlights.

I might even quiet my mind long enough to enjoy myself and have a nice UPS guy fantasy.
See you Monday campers.

Filed Under: Stepford Crazies

Summer Sting

August 15, 2007 by Queen of Spain 13 Comments

In about 20 minutes I’m going to tell my 4-year old he can’t play outside today. I don’t think I’ll have to duck my head to avoid projectile matchbox cars, but he’s not going to be happy.

With the heat and house being smack in the middle of a valley-I welcome our first Dangerous Air Quality day of the summer. I have no energy to pack up these kids and head to the coast, and I really don’t want to see yet another animated feature.

The homemade playdough is so two weeks ago and there are not enough Spongebob’s in a day to keep us sane. My next best idea was the zoo-but as it turns out Griffith Park is on fire.

I’m not kidding.

It can be exhausting to live in Los Angeles. Maybe we can all don oxygen masks and go in the pool? How about a nice space helmet? With fire retardant PJ’s, of course.

Help.

Filed Under: Stepford Crazies

Healthy Teeth, Hold the Whine

August 13, 2007 by Queen of Spain 13 Comments

I’m not sure which was worse, seeing my son in a vegetative state-eyes open, mouth agape, carried by a doctor–or walking into a room where my baby boy was laid on a chair-tubes in his nose, iv in his arm, EKG monitors on his chest.

We had to put Count Waffles under general anesthesia for dental work on Friday and my mind is still playing tricks on me. I lost my shit at the dentist office, to say the least. He was given a shot to get him *mostly* sedated before they inserted the iv and really knocked him out, and it left him looking like he was in a coma. It was horrible. The doctor told us his eyes would remain open but he would be asleep. I was not prepared for what he would look like. Mouth open, eyes open, pale, but totally out of it. The doctor grabbed him from my husband’s arms and I was SURE he was still awake. I was SURE he was scared some strange man was grabbing him from us and that he was TERRIFIED yet unable to talk or scream or cry.

That’s when I started to lose it. They ushered us into the waiting room where I sat and not so silently freaked out. I Twittered. I read magazine articles on things like planting a fall soup garden and how to buy the best bathingsuit. I imagined the doctor coming out to tell me there was a problem. I imagined paramedics rushing in. I imagined things I can’t even type.

46 minutes later our dentist emerged to tell us all was going well and it would be awhile longer. It was like I didn’t believe him. I felt better, but not convinced my son was ok.

63 minutes after that, I was summoned to the back so I would be the first face my son saw when he awoke. He was asleep, oxygen in his nose, red marks from the tape and the heart monitors. Things were beeping. The doctor was talking to me but I couldn’t hear him. I must have gone white at the site of my son on that chair. I was told if I couldn’t handle seeing him this way I could leave. The look on my face showed my answer as I turned my head at the doctor and he quickly and shamefully turned away.

Count Waffles awoke and did, what I am told, only 10% of kids do in this situation. He did NOT just groggily fall into my arms and sleep it off. He did NOT do the drunken, happy, I’m all doped up thing. No. He GOT PISSED and tried to WALK HOME.

My husband had to carry him to the car, as I was not strong enough to handle his flailing. He then spent a good hour on our living room couch freaking out. His world was spinning. It was his “worst day ever” and he was miserable.

An hour after that he was sound asleep in my bed.

I realize my son is lucky. We are lucky. He doesn’t have a life threatening illness or disease. We don’t have to go through this on any sort of regular basis. However, just those visual of him…the coma-like state, the tubes…I can’t get them out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know how to make those images go away. I want them wiped from my mind forever.

I also want to apologize. I get on my kids for whining, yet as it turns out, I’m the biggest whiner of them all. I use the blog to bitch and moan about how the kids drive me crazy and how I want to escape from it all. The truth is…I would die without them. Die.

Had anything happened at the dentist office, I’d die. DIE.

While the blogging community gives me a great feeling of “you are not alone” when I complain about being a Mom, I’m going to try not to FOCUS so much on the more difficult aspects of motherhood. I invite you to do the same.

Sure, we all need to vent here and there…but lately I vent more than I praise. I bitch more than I thank. GOD I forget HOW LUCKY I AM and how I’d die without these kids. I’d throw myself off the nearest bridge. I’d crash my car into a tree. I’d without question be killed by the heartache.

So I’m going to try and curb the whine. Yes, motherhood is hard. Yes, bad days are frequent. But just like I tell the kids…no whining.