Always Overboard

The Great American Mess

 
I have grown weary of being told that America is falling apart. How can it be that we have reached such a low? We need to "Make America great again!" Someone just told me that they are voting for Donald Trump for President because "he is the only one who can get us out of this mess."

Mess?

I am not inclined to debate the merits and timing of America's past greatness, nor do I intend to give a detailed accounting in support of or opposition to Obama's contribution to what either is or isn't American economic recovery post 2008. I will say that America currently faces challenges, as we always have. Period.

The real American "mess" I see, is that we have reached a point where we are perpetuating, embracing and even breaking out the pom pons for ignorance. Taking a "flyer" on a man like Donald Trump becuase he feels "different" - like a "breath of fresh air" - is an horrific concept. Fearing intellectualism and resorting to playground behavior (calling people ugly or weak, making fun of a disabled reporter, ending arguments with a lie with claiming to be right because he's smart and successful, saying that he doesn't need advisors because he will listen to his own "good brain", threatening to build a wall, and just flat out lying non-stop) is just reducing us all to the lowest common denominator.

 

Denouncing someone as a "career politician" completely discounts a lifetime of public service. It discounts the fact that to get through political gridlock, a President needs to have relationships and loyalties in place. We don't all need to know how the sausage is made. We just need it to get done. Donald has some relationships - all financial in nature and all with the wrong people. His lack of experience has more to do with the fact that he is so far removed from the game, he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. He said he wants more nukes and is in favor of defaulting on our debt. When I ask "what is wrong with you" for supporting him, these are only two of the things I am talking about.

 

Getting millions of dollars from his father to perpetuate a fortune is not admirable and doesn't offer any commonality for us with Trump. You may hate Hillary, but you can't ignore the fact that she is a child of a dirt poor orphan mother. She's scrappy and has withstood more scrutiny than anyone in the US political sphere.

 

When you applaud someone for saying the horrible things that "many people are thinking," perhaps it's time to challenege your thinking. I can't let my kids hear Trump speak. His words are disgusting and deplorable. And sad. But, if Trump understands anything, it's ratings. He knows how to get those, but he won't have a clue what to do with the job of President should we be ignorant enough to elect him.

 

It's no secret that Trump's supporters are largely situated in rural (rather than cosmopolitan) areas, lack college degrees and land in a different part of the labor force than people who do not support him. However, it's shocking to me that these people, either living close to the poverty line or part of an ever-shrinking middle class, would support a Reublican economic agenda.

 

Sadly, many of them do it out of fear because they are anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-muslim, anti-environment, anti-regulation, anti-everything except guns and Jesus and have a skewed understanding of things like how Obamacare impacts them. They engage in hyper-patriotism which, when perpetutated to the levels it has been lately, lead to that creepy Hitleresque feeling many of us get when Trump opens his mouth. Let's not forget the elderly demographic who thinks Dems are coming for their money, which simply isn't true. For example, few people above the age of 60 know that the death tax only applies to amounts over $5.45M per individual or $10.9M per couple, which applies to only .02% of the entire US population. Still, they cite it as a factor in determining who to vote for. The Republican party has sunk to the lowest of the lows in it's fear-based vote getting.

 

I didn't leave the Republican party. It left me. Our Republican poiticians and public servants publicly say that theories of the Big Bang and evolution are "straight from the pits of hell". They denounce human impact on Earth's environment. They work like devils to pass laws banning gay rights (not just marriage) and laws to make it very difficult for certain groups of people to vote. Their patform and agenda are laser focused at adding church back into the state - the separation of which lies at the foundation of our great country. If you let these things go - if you dismiss them as things you can live with as mere collateral damage - you are simply justifying your culpability in the perpetuation of ignorance.

 

So, I'm sorry if I sound ... well, however I sound to you. If you support Trump, then I am likely coming across as harsh or condescending, but I can hardly care anymore. This upcoming presidential election is incredibly important and it is appalling to me that anyone would vote for this man. As someone who has spent a great deal of time examining all sides of this situation, it becomes increasingly difficult for me to take you seriously, because the man you are about to vote for for President of the United States is one, humongous, sick joke.

Full disclosure - I vote in every election available to me from local to Federal. I do not vote any party line. I voted for every Republican presidential candidate available to me until Obama's second term, when I voted for him.

Big Handsome

"Big Handsome" came into this world at 4500 grams - one ounce shy of ten pounds. He looked like an eight week-old baby on his second day. He even smiled. A lot.

In the beginning, he seemed to double in size every month. I would rock him to sleep, and the next morning, I could swear he looked like a different baby. These bathtime photos were taken in the first twelve weeks.

Same kid, same tub. This is Big Handsome at 5 days, 5 weeks, 8 weeks and 12 weeks. By his first birthday, he measured a whopping 32 inches and weighed 27 pounds.

This morning, I read Annie Renau's post on the subject of kids who don't look their age and I immediately identified. The author has a child who is quite small for her age, and she lists one compelling advantage to having a child look younger than they are - their abilities appear far more impressive.

The opposite can be true for children on the other end of the spectrum - the big-for-your-age kiddos. With Will, I sense a general failure-to-impress, until someone asks his age. Divulging his age is undoubtedly met with wide eyes and a resounding, "Oh. Wow. He's huge!"

Will is a big guy, but he's perfectly proportional and has crazy muscle tone and stealthy coordination and he just seems older.

Until he opens his mouth.

He has been speaking in full sentences and comprehending complexities since I can remember. But, he spoke his own language for some time. Mairin and Leighton frequently jump in to translate.

Nursing my little boy on an airplane or at Ravinia routinely drew double-takes. Even if people passed no judgment, I was conjuring images of Jamie Lynn Grumet on the cover of Time magazine. 

People would occasionally look at Will and say things like, "Wow. He doesn't talk much, does he? It's okay. Boys are slower." I would then have to say that he was only 11 months, or 14 months at that particular time. No need to make excuses for my babbling baby. 

Even now, two months away from turning two and a half, using big words and full sentences, he sounds like a toddler. But, at 3'4" and 39 lbs, he looks like he's at least four years old. 

I definitely got looks yesterday when he perpetually ascended the picnic table at the Renaissance Faire. "He's got a LOT of energy," said our picnic tablemates. The family seated next to us had a boy who looked to be about 5 and the same size as Lord William.

The Kindergartener peered at Will as if to say, "Why do you get to climb on the table?" Still, that boy sat and ate quietly while Will waited impatiently in the heat for his food, and I tried desperately to keep his butt on the bench.

I may sound hyper-sensitive, but I anticipate the world's high expectations for Will. He is my constant reminder to appreciate every kid I encounter. Children grow and change and learn at their own pace and no two are alike -even within a family. DNA does not replicate the same way every time and the differences bring welcome texture to the family dynamic.

I resist the urge to compare and contrast members of my own brood. It's fun to recount who did what when, and how tall they were and when they were potty trained or knew the ABCs or could sing or read. They are only little for so long and the first firsts are the most fun. 

If I'm being honest, my singular expectation for my three wonderful children, is that they seek out and do things that fulfill them. I don't really care what those are. I simply want to give them the tools to create rich and happy lives for themselves and the ability to sustain satisfaction.

That just might be the highest expectation of all.

Hashtag Fatigue

As my Facebook feed suggests, you might be weary or skeptical of #blacklivesmatter. You may just NOT want to discuss race. Or, you may be utterly outraged by the police shootings in Dallas. Or, you just don’t understand because “black people seem to be doing this to themselves."

You are probably white, because most of my Facebook friends are.

Of course, all lives matter. Of course the violence experienced in pockets of our country should evoke a feeling that “it’s a humanity thing” because we have a moral obligation to care about one another. We have a moral obligation to dig a little deeper, beyond any hashtag fatigue and try to understand why it's important for white people to talk about race and racism and what it means to be black in America today. 

Please realize that #blacklivesmatter is intentionally specific to black people. It is about society generally disregarding an entire group of people and what happens to them. In many instances, those people find themselves at the center of poverty, violence and barely-there education. Those people are black. It’s a black thing. And, if the idea of what it’s like to be black comes from your TV or what you read (it does for me, because I don’t have a bunch of African American friends or colleagues) then you might need to reevaluate the situation.

In Chicago, for example, our violent crime is an overwhelmingly (80%) black thing. There are policies that could help immediately, and white people make those policies. White people control the news we receive. White people control the police departments. While police violence is not the sole focus of #blacklivesmatter, recent events are making the situation significantly worse.

When a community no longer trusts the people there to protect and serve them, they take matters into their own hands. It's a complex problem for sure, but white people have to actually care about solving it or we can't get anywhere. Schools are closing and jobs are scarce. When people feel they have nothing to lose, we have violence. That's not helping anyone, back white or otherwise.

This year alone, we have 2070 shootings and 344 murders. 266 of those victims were black. 60 Hispanic and 17 white. Included in the shot-but-lived category, we have a 12 year olds with toy guns, toddlers shot in the face by a stray bullet holding dad’s hand, people shot through their living room windows, people at the store buying milk and funeral goers. These people are shot here at a rate of 1 every 2 minutes and someone is murdered every 13. You would never know it as a white person, because the chances of you finding yourself in one of the hyper-afflicted neighborhoods is slim to none.

The incidence of neighborhood violence is up 54% this year. And, it would seem much of that has to do with the severely damaged relationship between law enforcement and these communities. Police and medical response is two to three times longer than in other areas, and few witnesses to crimes are willing to testify for fear that the police will not and cannot protect them. Thusly, there are fewer arrests and convictions.

Add the last few killings at the hands of police and the dead officers in Dallas to the mix and the situation escalates quickly. Black people are three (3) times as likely to be killed by a police officer and fewer than 1 in 3 black people killed by police were suspected of a violent crime and allegedly armed. That is an alarming statistic. 

The more the police and the communities they serve fear each other, the easier it is to pull a trigger ... for everyone. I would never diminish the losses of the officers in Dallas (or anywhere else for that matter). What happened yesterday in Dallas is absolutely sickening. But it is apparent to me that Alton Sterling and Philando Castille would still be alive if they were white. Shooting someone at point blank range while in handcuffs, or while they are explaining to you that they have a concealed carry permit or while their child is in the backseat – so very, very unlikely to happen to a white person. The fear of being killed by a public servant during a traffic stop for a busted tail light is not a white person fear.

One African American woman (friend of a friend) wrote that she was deeply hurt by the comment “black people wouldn’t get killed if they behaved at a traffic a stop.” She said:             

“This behavior is not just. It's not. I am angry. And fearful. And I assume if you've never had a beer bottle thrown at you and called the n word or had a cop whisper in your ear "you'd better watch your back while you walk home". then I think it's hard to understand how this post is so hurtful. I am NOT anti-cop. At all. I'm anti trained, employed officials shooting people at point blank range. Those former incidents have happened to me in small and big cities and because of that, when things that happen like this, I am raw. Protect and serve. Not kill first, serve later. I don't understand. I don't.”

The empowered people need to effectively sponsor those without power. Sponsorship is effective. Take women in the workplace for example. We know that women cannot rise through the ranks to nab management positions and board seats without effective sponsorship from male colleagues and superiors. Sponsorship can start with something as simple as sending the signal that you care.

So, I choose to NOT get sick of the “this race or that race” conversation because that is exactly the conversation we need to be having. Besides, I can’t get sick of a cause that is simply asking me, a white woman, to care.

Heroes

I had a conversation with a friend today about how amazing it is to see my kids stick up for one another. As an only child, I never knew what that could be like. I relied entirely on my parents to have my back. 

And, they always did. My heroes.

As a parent, I believe (as my parents do) our kids need to trust that we know what's really important. And, that when it comes down to it, we are on their team. If internal justice must prevail, then it shall. If someone is to put us in our place, it should be someone who truly loves us - not a principal or teacher or coach, but someone who will take the time to explain why. 

Unless all of those happen to be the same person, which only happens on Girl Meets World - a top five favorite show these days. 

This may not make sense to some, but helping my kids to be secure, confident and able to express themselves is the most important gift I can give them. They are allowed to be creative, challenge the world, say "no" and communicate their feelings freely without fear.

The road leading to this brand of self-confidence may be a messy one at times. There are temper tantrums, testing of boundaries and lots of words that could have been said better. But, in my world, it's better to get it all out there and fine tune it later. You can argue with me, but you won't change my mind. 

I remember the time I got caught putting a nasty note I had written in the backpack of someone who had been mean to me. Nothing crazy, just your average second grade, Jodi-likes-me-better-than-you type shenanigans.   The teacher, Miss L, made me take the note home to have my mom sign it after I explained what I had done.

Ahhh sweet Miss L. That teacher hated me. If there was anyone bullying me in second grade, it was Miss L. And, my parents were keen to it.

I forged my mom's signature, as horribly as any eight year-old would, and didn't think too much about the incident again for several weeks. When it came time for parent-teacher conferences, Miss L drew the letter from her desk drawer with a sly confidence. She said to my mom with a smirk, "I have been meaning to ask you - is this your signature?" 

I sat there frozen. But, my mother, as calm as I have ever seen her, said without even blinking, "Yes. Yes it is. I signed it on the dash of the car when I dropped Jenny off that morning." She locked eyes with Miss L. "Sorry if it's a little sloppy," she said. 

I can't even remember getting in real trouble, but there is NO WAY I didn't. In the car on the way home, I remember my mom saying, "Don't ever do that again. She's got it in for you. Don't give her a reason. I mean it. That will disappoint me more than you forging my signature on a note, which I know you will never do again either."

And that was that.

My dad, on the other hand, was a little more colorful when defending his daughter. There are a good handful of examples, but this one sticks out in my mind just slightly more than the debachle at the DMV. Another time perhaps.

I was in 4^th grade and softball had just started. I attended practice at a park about a mile or so from my house. Coach assigned me the role of catcher. Oh yay. A bit of a right field daisy picker, I really only cared about hitting the ball. There was glory in crushing a bulky softball over the outfielder's head - watching the pitcher wave them back a few yards when I stepped up to the plate. Catching was thankless work in 4th grade.

As this was a Catholic school with a somewhat spare budget for sports equipment, the elastic on the ill-fitting mask coach gave me, was as loose as the waist band on my maternity underpants. The foam-padded, metal cage kept falling in my eyes. I couldn't see a damn thing.

To grab a tipped ball right in front of me, I pulled the mask up for a second. At precisely the same moment, the batter stepped back and drew the bat up behind her.

Tink.

A piece of my beautiful (and relatively new) front tooth went flying. The remaining snaggle-tooth lacerated my lip and in an instant, I was a bloody, whimpering, ten year-old mess.

Coach said, “Don't worry. See. I have a chipped tooth too.” He pointed to his cockeyed, busted, piano keys and I cried even louder. He gave me a quarter and sent me about 120 yards to the pavilion to call my dad.

It was a loooooooong walk. I couldn't even figure out how to explain what had happened. Would I be in trouble? Half of one front tooth was clutched so hard in my left hand I could barely get the quarter into the pay phone slot.

This is the part of the story that will require explanation when I read this back to my kids later tonight. "What's a pay phone?"

"Daaaaad." That was all I could manage. My father, in typical fashion, responded to me through my sobs, “Calm down. What happened? Tell me again? Let me talk to the coach. Where is he? He said WHAAAAAT?”

I was still reliving my tale of woe (apparently to a dangling telephone) when I heard tires screech. By time I rounded the corner, I saw our car running in the middle of the road with the door open and my dad already three quarters of the way up the field to the coach.

I ran back toward my team to witness what was about to become something of a scene.

Dad walked square up to the coach and introduced himself. "I'm Rich, Jenny's dad," he said in a manner to suggest that coach might be thanked for loaning me that quarter. I will never forget the group expression of surprise and confusion when my dad flicked a handful of what I can only guess to be roughly five or so quarters into the coach’s face. 

Phhhfing.

In a low and terrifying tone he said, “If you ever make a crying, injured child walk the length of a football field alone, again to call for help. I will break the rest of your fucking teeth. You have my word.”

And that was that.

Sort of.

Dad's heroism didn't end there. He also had to straighten mom out when we got home. She was sobbing uncontrollably when we walked in the front door. She dropped to her knees and (well, this is how I remembered it anyway) wailed loudly, "My baaaaby's peeeeerfect teeeeeeeth."

Dad gave her this you-cannot-be-serious look and said, "Shut the fuck up, dear. You're going to give her a complex. It's a tooth. It can be fixed. Call the dentist."

And that was that. 

Seasons

I noticed the sun setting a bit earlier last night. Summer is winding down.  

That's how it happens. A split second of awareness kicks off the mental changeover for those of us who are lucky enough to experience four seasons every year. Logically, seasons should change over time, but on an emotional front, it happens in an instant.

The instant I ...

... buy school supplies, close the pool, pack away sundresses, DVR the new lineup, harvest tomatoes, can pears, decorate for Halloween, brine the turkey, wrap Christmas presents, wrestle with snow suits, plan the birthday parties, swap snow boots for rain boots, plan vacation, clear the yard, plant the garden, sign up for camp, pick out bathing suits, hit the farmers market ...

... another school year comes to an end.

Kids move swiftly through their seasons too - newborn, baby, toddler, little kid, preschooler, kindergartner, first grader and then - somewhere down the line - big kid, teenager and undergrad.

Please. Just stop it.

People with big kids warn me and I hate to hear it, but it's true. It goes by so fast. Sure. It takes roughly eighteen years, but it can feel like eighteen months in retrospect.

I remember when my kids were little and it was the best time. I loved it.

My littles are six, four and seventeen months and I would like to temporarily freeze them in this current state. It is undeniably satisfying to see them grow and change and discover new things, but equally painful to watch them lose interest in the things they once loved and leave them behind. In kid terms babyish is synonymous with irrelevant. 

My six year-old daughter is on the verge - off to first grade in two weeks. Little sis wants to be like big sis, so four is on an accelerated path with preschool starting in September.

Finally, our littlest is ... well ... not so little. We call him Big Handsome because he is easily mistaken for an adorable three year-old. He's nearly three feet tall and has been walking since eight months old. The insane physical ability of a little kid is tempered by the judgement of a toddler. It's terrifying. And, it's a good thing he's proving to be quite intelligent, or I'd insist he wear a bike helmet most of the day.

My littles are still little, but the infant toys, tubs and teethers are as gone as the intoxicatingly sweet smell of baby. We tend to define squad progress by the first time the oldest does something and the last time the youngest does something.

No wonder middle children feel slighted. 

Moving out of diapers is a victory, but you usher an instant change of season the day you put those last few spare diapers in the drawer, give away the little potty, donate the board books, toss the straw cups and ditch the training wheels. It's liberating to rid the house of all that stuff cluttering it up. Still, that clutter deserves the awwww moment you certainly give it when it's time to move on.

And, the clothes. 

Kid clothes are daily reminders of growth. They are tied to size and season and when these articles no longer fit or are weather appropriate it can be so hard to give them up. The sight of those shorts or that bathing suit can bring back months of memories in an instant. 

Thank you Rubbermaid for building a storage empire on our emotional attachment to baby clothes.

Even with all of the purging I've been doing lately, my littles are still little. As Mommy, I currently occupy the space right beside them, smack dab in the center of the universe. It is an excellent place to be.

This is where my daily commitment, to live in the moment and NOT take my life or my people for granted, comes in handy. Seasons just keep changing and there's nothing I can do to stop it. It's all so fleeting.  I fear (and this fear is well-founded) that these little kids will eventually dethrone me from my place of excellence. Hanging out with me will seem babyish and, worse yet, I will become largely irrelevant. 

Seriously. Stop it.

Spendy Spenderelli

I obviously do not understand the spirit of the word budget. According to Merriam Webster, a budget is "an estimate of income and expenditure for a set period of time." For me, what comes in is what comes in, and what we spend, is the amount it takes to enjoy life over a particular period of time. In my world, the budget is the result, not something to be defined at the outset of an endeavor.

Scary, I know. But, the cliches ring true for me - you only live once and you can't take it with you. I'm also starting to believe that the conventional definition of the word no is lost on me, as well.

There are clear areas of potential improvement for this over-spender. For example, when I discover something interesting or want to try a new project, I don't just dabble. I dive headlong into this new thing, abandoning anything deemed "extra" or "unnecessary" like showers, laundry or other aspects of home organization. And, I need to have every tool or material that this thing requires. This hyper-focused fascination can last days as the Amazon boxes pile up and the bin of stuff begins to petrify on the dining room table.

I could try to tone this down a bit. The bigger drawback here is not so much the financial expense as it is my craftiness at the expense of others like my husband and our nanny who deplore such periods of creativity, especially when everyone has to eat on the couch because there is no room left at the table.

Re-buying something I already have, because I can't find the one I already bought, is another place to trim the fat. This is deplorable and remedied by employing simple organizational tactics. It goes hand in hand with NOT returning unneeded items in a timely manner. When one does all of her shopping online, one tends to overbuy as the size or quality may not be spot on. There is always a pile of boxes awaiting return - at least a few hundred dollars on any given day. Also of similar shame, is the fact that I am so far behind on my work expenses. I can hardly think about it. Numbers make me nervous, but I vow at this moment to do better.

The last potential quick win, relates to any bills that cannot be paid automatically. There are a few credit cards with perks that do not allow for auto-withdrawl, as is the case with the mortgage on the condo. If I slip, there is a late fee involved. It infuriates me, but I don't always get to these on time. I ask, how hard is it for a f@cking financial institution to offer auto-pay?

Last I checked Bank of America, you were profitable. Please make "offer auto-pay" an action item.

One place I don't see us changing it up is the spending-on-experience factor. Growing up, my parents spent most of their hard-earned money on me - tuition, clothes, classes and so on. Anything "extra" went in the Christmas Club fund. We didn't take family vacations and we didn't blow it out when heading out to dinner. I'll have a glass of wine when we get home. I can get a whole bottle for the cost of one glass here. 

Like normal people, they allowed one treat at the festival/amusement park/museum and it had to be something good. That light up wand is a piece of junk. Pick something more memorable.

In retrospect, it has always been a house divided on this front, my mother is all for trinkets and souvenirs. My dad is the tougher sell. My mom (like my eldest daughter) can happily spend hours in the gift shop. Dad ... not so much. Lots of watch-checking. 

Growing up, the three of us went to the Milwaukee Museum often as a family and never missed the gift shop on the way out. I managed to amass a robust, rainbow assortment of rabbit foot key chains. So gross upon reflection, but I loved those.

I always wanted the junk. It held the promise of lasting fun from little things you can only find at that one place selling them at that moment. Somehow, the junk lends itself to the ceremoniousness of the occasion. And so, we end up with the $15 snow cone with commemorative cup at Disney on Ice and the strobe-flashing rings at Ravinia - you know, the kind that melt your retinas and send epileptics into seizure.

We are those people. It's not a total budget buster for one kid, but with three, a trip to the Renaissance Faire costs a small fortune. More than the junk that goes with it, the journey is the great part and being able to travel with kids is important to us.

There are the trips to see family and people or places very different from home. And then, there's Disney World ... that type of trip is in a class all its own. If it were up to me, we would go every year until the kids are too big to enjoy it. The pictures, meltdowns and lasting memories are all worth it. Our next trip is Colonial Williamsburg, and we can hardly wait.

For now, I will do my best to tackle the areas with the most potential for immediate success. I am not going to address the experience factor, nor am I going to discuss the over-the-top birthday parties at this juncture. Birthday season is almost as fun for me as Christmas with all three kids' big days a few weeks apart. 

I will work on an organized home, retail returns, timely expenses and paying random bills on time. For now, I will suppress the urge to order several new skeins of yarn and give knitting another go. For now, writing is my project - no bin or table space required.

And, just maybe, writing will help me balance the budget.

Prime Time

I am in charge of household procurement. It may sound like a fancy name for "buying stuff" - a task routinely handled by the head of household. But, making sure that three kids, a dog, a husband and Mary Poppins have everything they need to pull off their week - EVERY WEEK - is no small charge. Add class sign ups, doctor appointments and all other financial and planning responsibilities and we are living on the verge of one big, hot mess.

Somewhere in there, I have to take care of myself, as well.

According to my account profile, I have been an Amazon Prime member since 2011. I was born a Prime member to-be. Let's just say I have been doing all of my clothes, shoes and gifts shopping online since we kicked off Y2K. Back then, people thought I was crazy, buying things I couldn't touch and trusting the Netscape interweb Googlemachine with my credit card information.

Silly me.

I'll admit, the ultra-convenience of the Prime membership feeds my "overboard" tendencies and has created a few absurd situations over the years.

For instance, I kept forgetting to buy a can opener. I meant to add one to the cart every time I skipped Peapod and ran to Sunset for mish mash and milk and ... okay, you got me ... a cabernet. Two weeks of cursing my forgetfulness and several bottles of red later, I honestly bought a $2.97 can opener on Amazon. Free shipping for Prime Members and it arrived the next day.

Now, I order something as soon as I think of it and most things we need are delivered to the house more quickly than if I had planned a trip to the store. It eliminates whining for things like, "Mom, did you remember to get my new ballet shoes?" And, as an added bonus, I am on a first name basis with my UPS and FedEx guys.

I plan for parties in advance and order everything I need a few days beforehand. This past birthday season, I ordered new tables, linens, decorations, Command hooks, ribbons, plates, gifts, gift wrap - you name it. 

Last December, I was in charge of buying Christmas gifts for a family in need - something we do every year for work. I didn't have a chance to get to the store over the weekend, was headed to Miami Monday-Thursday for a client and the gifts had to be wrapped and dropped off for the family by noon on Friday. I ordered all the gifts for a family of seven while sitting in a meeting and they were waiting for me when I got home.

It doesn't get better than this for people who routinely over-commit themselves.

Or take last week, for example: The girls and I decided it was time to make our annual Camp Freeman tie-dyes. Hours after that decision was made, dye, bottles, rubber bands and tee shirts were in our hands, we were tying and dying by 11am and we hadn't even left the house.

I suspect that Amazon Prime is a big draw with the agoraphobic crowd.

I would feel guilty about the shipping, but this stuff would be on a truck headed to wherever regardless. And, delivery trucks are out making the rounds regardless. And, Amazon has a ginormous distribution compound thirty miles up the road. And, the boxes get recycled. And, I no longer have to spend weeks repeatedly forgetting to buy a can opener. 

According to my account profile, I have placed 124 orders in the past six months. That's 21 orders per month. This is as ridiculous as it is impressive, but I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

To Begin Again

It's been months since my last entry for The Daily Fuss. I am dying to get back to it. I need to write. I miss it.

Don't get me wrong. I need to go for a run too. It's similar feeling - my brain and my body - both over-stuffed. Thoughts and calories accumulating faster than I can possibly burn them. My Fitbit shows only 4,125 steps for the day. But right now, writing is more important.

I need to get out of my own head. It's stifling in here.

It may sound counter-intuitive, as the process of writing has so much to do with self-examination - dissecting feelings, finding perspectives and challenging beliefs. It's a labor of love. And, once my thoughts are tidied up and the words are out, the lesson reveals itself and the whole world makes just that much more sense.

A few weeks ago, I sat down at my laptop, ready to dive back in. 

I clicked to pull up The Daily Fuss. Where would I start? So much has happened. So much has changed. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to determine a re-starting point just then. I was forced to spend the next few minutes unraveling a mini-mystery.

The Daily Fuss was gone.

And this   is what I found where The Daily Fuss used to be.

No more Fuss. No more little birdie. Just this cheesy sham website with a series of underwhelming stock photos of an average little man in a cheap, white shirt.

Within the span of sixty seconds, I managed to completely freak out, check Typepad, sigh with relief, research the domain registration and determine the precise point of failure.

The good news is, my content is intact. WHEW. The bad news is that my credit card used to hold my domain had expired in June. The moment that happened, some jackass snatched thedailyfuss.com right up. 

So, that day, instead of clearing out space in my head with a much-needed writing session, I purchased dailyfussblog.com and transferred my content over. I spent hours re-reading old pieces and reliving moments in more detail than I could have recalled on my own.

I loved it. I loved it so much, I poured a glass of wine and put my jammies on early to cozy up with my words.

I'm so glad I have this chronicle. In retrospect, it has much to do with growing up and becoming a parent and suffering the perpetual identity crisis that felt so specific to those things that consumed me at the time.

I am still immersed in motherhood and raising my kids. Family time is absolutely the most important time for the Freemans. But, it's equally important for me to focus on the me of me, while working to maintain the we of me.

To that end, The Daily Fuss may continue - just not today. Always Overboard is a new project, meant to dig a little deeper than Instagram snapshots, potty training tales and Pinterest triumphs. 

The truth is, the identity crisis doesn't really end when the kids are old enough to fend for themselves. (Silly me. I thought maybe it would.) I've come to terms with this. Constant disruption and searching helps me keep my edge. 

Fear of stagnation will always drive me to frolic and detour from my day-to-day. I know that much.

I started Always Overboard to help me sort through the ongoing crisis, and challenge me to understand why I work so desperately to make the world a more vivid and interesting place for the people I love.