bloop

Ew! I've become that blogger who abandons their readers for too long... and then I get enveloped in this battle of how to re-emerge into your lives, how to update you on our hectic scene. Clearly I'm at a loss. My camera has been found, but now I'm battling technology with a 5 year old computer and a hatred for "backing up" files on disc and deleting them. If I upload 200 photos to this thing it might explode... but I'm dying for the freedom to inundate this fucking blog with my new pics.

The girls have grown again - all three of them. I continually ask myself who these creatures are that I've created... and how did I bring them into the world? Each one so different. They surprise me daily with their observations - particularly the twins with their commentary on gender:

"I don't think Boppy (a.k.a. grandpa) likes unicorns very much. Does he? Maybe we could draw him a boy unicorn with a beard."

Wait, do I have two four year old daughters who can already draw unicorns and rainbows? How the hell did this happen? And Penny! Holy shit what a fucking handful of squishy insanity! She's constantly on the move and into mischief... making car and truck sounds, falling down, climbing stairs, opening and closing EVERYTHING, insisting on using her own utensils at meals, saying, "yeah" when you ask her a question. And eating more blueberries than necessary... which brings me to the title of this blog.

To those of you who have kids and who have fed them blueberries (or anything round that has a "skin" on it) you know what I mean. The poopy diaper is not filled with just plain poop. It's BLOOP. And it leaves their cute little butt crack in a baboon-like situation. Same thing for feeding them strawberries and oranges... if you aren't careful you can give your child's ass a citric acid burn. And those raisins you fed your kid... re-hydrated on the other end they are grapes. Oh and corn... CORN! A corn filled diaper is a disaster. The bulk is completely overwhelming and you wonder if there's really any nutritional value to corn in the first place. (I know, actually, corn has no nutritional value. Corn is corrupt. But nowhere is it more evident than in your child's diaper. Or on your muffin top.)

So we have been blueberry picking, we have been pond swimming, we repeatedly go to farmers' market, we hop on our neighbors trampoline. I do a lot of cleaning up, feeding, shuttling, yelling, scolding, apologizing, tickling. When I have a second to myself I can be found emailing, checking my facebook page or watching So You Think You Can Dance and the new Project Runway.

Facebook has actually made me feel like a sad old housewife - looking at some sweet shots of my hectic youth posted by high school friends hurts in ways I never imagined possible. (Which leads me to think, how do you feel when you are 65?) But I could sit and obsess about how svelte I used to be, how stoned, how carefree, how clueless or I could take a deep breath and realize how much I've learned in the last 15 years... the greatest enlightenment arriving with motherhood. (ugh. I said motherhood. Isn't that the name of a maternity clothing store? Makes me think of unflattering nursing bras and cheesy floral print acrylic "blouses" ...) So I've had almost 5 years with my new persona... and please fellow mommies, agree with me here that YOU become a new person when you bring a child into the world... and I finally feel comfortable both mourning the old Ms. Nelson and cultivating the new one.

For the moment my girls are asleep, I've fed and bathed all 3 of them, I've settled into my couch corner, and I am alone in this house in the woods, listening cautiously to the noises outside (and no, I don't like that branch-breaking sound I just heard) and feeling fortunate to have a husband who spends a couple nights a week at the hospital. (In the immortal words of Brian Fellow on Safari Planet: "Get him away from me!")

Don't get me wrong - this quasi-single mom gig is tough - but it reminds me that I'm capable of anything. And in what seems like 2 minutes, my kids are older and more independent, and my glory days have yet to come.