Another Manic Monday, someone call the Bangles.

Hello, world.
It's "Mommy Monday" and I had the theme of today's post planned out yesterday, but never got around to sitting down and writing.

Soon I'll have a nice shiny domain or something. I don't know. Here we go.

Yesterday I was pretty sick, running a fever and the like. Now, I don't know about you, but when I run a fever I have super vivid, detailed dreams. I suppose because of his birthday being so recent, I dreamed I was about 6 and sitting on the couch with my dad. Now, the thing that struck me as crazy was that we were just sitting there together. We were watching something insignificant on TV, I had my head on his chest. I would occasionally make commentary and he would reply. He was present. He wasn't on Facebook or reddit, he wasn't reposting Memes or replying to one of 10 conversations that most present adults have going in their messenger, he wasn't checking the views on his blog post or replying to comments on whatever. He was just there, hanging out with his kid. And sure, I imagine my dad had a million things going through his head, but he wasn't actively engaging in distracting behavior.
I woke up and realized I couldn't remember a time when I was just sitting with my children with no phone or tablet distracting me from the moment. From the moments my kids will maybe one day have fever dreams back to and instead of just sitting with their mom they were sitting with her and her phone.

Fuck, that's so depressing to even type. But my fever dreams and subsequent realization really hurt. Like, I'm very upfront and honest about my addiction to social media. I can't get enough, but even I know I need time to decompress and leave the digital world behind. But maybe that isn't enough. I don't blame my depression on Facebook, my depression is my own and has nothing to do with the internet or social media, but I am realizing they are the major reasons I can't find happiness in simple moments.

A little later J & T, my two oldest, came into my room and put their heads on my chest, wrapped their arms around my waist and laid with me for a few minutes. We talked about me being sick and cuddled. And it was just what I needed. I can't remember being happier in recent memory. And I didn't need my phone in my hand or validation from "friends" on social media.

I just needed a moment with my kid's heads on my chest and our arms all wrapped around each other. I'm not a perfect mom, person, adult, sister, daughter, spouse, lover, etc.. But I am capable of realizing perfect moments, they are just easier to recognize without a phone in front of my face.

Here's to less distractions and more perfect moments this year!

It's Friday, Friday...

A bit of a tradition, that my kiddos absolutely cannot stand, is playing Rebecca Black's Friday on the way to school, sometimes I will play it loudly (like today) from the TV in the living room while annoyingly tapping on the older boy's door repeatedly. I am all sorts of levels of obnoxious in the mornings and I get it from my dad. My favorite thing my dad ever did was wake my sister and I up mornings by belting out "You are my Sunshine" as he came into our rooms to wake us up. So you see, I get it pretty honestly. The man cannot carry a tune in a bucket, people. It felt like torture at the time to hear it almost every morning and I can remember more than one occasion begging him to stop, my sister joining in the request with me.

But those are fucking memories! Those are great memories! Hearing my sister screaming from her room, him in the hallway still singing at the top of his lungs with, definitely with a smile on his face. And now I get to do this shit to my kids? Its the little things you have to really relish.

Also, as I'm writing this on Thursday to post tomorrow, I'm thinking about my dad, it's his birthday! (Yesterday was. Today is just the 13th. FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH!)

Feel good Fridays, guys. I was gonna ramble about my rabbit because he makes me feel good and, literally, feels good. (So soft, so fluffy. Omg. I die!) But instead I will talk about how great it is to have a dad like mine.

My dad has always been on a different level than most parents. He's never sweated the small stuff and was never weird about things. He raised two teenage girls as a single parent and, in my totally biased opinion, nailed that shit. I'm sure if I picked apart my childhood I could find something negative to say about him, but I won't ever do that. My dad is, without exaggerating, the best man I think I'll ever know.

I sometimes refer to people as "next level people," which comes from reading a book by Edgar Cayce in which he describes reincarnation as a way to, basically, level your soul up enough to return to Heaven. (I don't believe in this theory, but I do really, really love it.) My dad would be one of the people towards the end of leveling up, closer than the rest of us to Heaven. I've met like a handful of people like this in my life and, you'll know them, goodness and care seem to shine out of them. My dad is next level. From teaching us to give to the less fortunate, to always having a joke prepared, for loving people who did/do not always deserve it, for being supportive when he doesn't necessarily agree, to being totally honest when necessary...

I know for certain that without him a lot of people would be lost. It's impossible to not love the man. I know I'm horribly biased, but it's also true.

He adopted many teens with terrible home lives, he never made himself unapproachable, the man stayed up every night waiting for my sister and I to get home safely. The only thing I would change is my own inability to fully appreciate him until I was firmly into parenthood myself. I'll never cease to be amazed at the lengths my dad goes to for not only his daughters/grandchildren, but everyone he can possibly help.

So my dad is amazing and I love him. My sister is cooking dinner and I'm baking some cakes/bringing a salad for his birthday celebration on Saturday. We gave him his birthday to go out drinking, because why wouldn't a man in his sixties go out and get lit on his birthday??

I hope I'm as cool as my dad one day and if my boys love me even half as much as I love him, I'll know I was a great mom.

Hump Day Hype!

I love Wednesdays, they mean I've nearly made it through the week and soon I'll be able to hang out with the kids and play video games. Or on the trampoline that Santa brought. That was a great idea on Santas part!

My dad actually came over around 10pm and spent 3 hours helping I & myself put it together. My dad was super drunk and smelled like straight up liquor, but he was singing, joking and laughing with us. That was so refreshing as my dad has been under a lot of stress due to my grandparents failing health and things just haven't been the way they were before my mother passed away.

BUT, less sentimental and sad and more snarky. I don't have a prepared or well thought out entry, so I'm going to wing it and just focus on something that set me off directly before I deactivated Facebook for a 7-day break. ("Why not just get rid of Facebook if you feel like you need a break? HuH? Duh." Because I'm addicted to social media, but even I know when enough is enough and I need to step back.
I'm going to try harder to not get so involved with Facebook, but damn, you guys got so much drama and stuff going on and if I don't have the app open I might miss one of those times when some guy's wife posts on his wall about his cheating and stuff.  I mean, this is really important plot points I'm missing out on for the sake of my mental health here.

Anyway. One of the things that sets me off, quickly, while (stalking people) Facebooking is the massive amount of uninformed opinions being slapped over an image and taken as fact. With zero research you have thousands of people sharing some stupid picture that is totally inaccurate. Thousands of shares. Thousands of people who think it's correct.
What the fuck happened to critical thinking? I am on Facebook all damn day and I have used it to not only gather truthful information, but to keep myself apprised of opinions that conflict with my own. ( I mean, nothing beats actual research on any topic, which you should do before you post any type of fucking image, guys.)  But typically, on the most outlandish and dumb posts, the second or third comment is usually the one speaking the truth. Bonus points to the poster if they provide links to back up their information.

But it's not fucking hard to have an informed opinion and make yourself aware of other opinions on whatever topic. It literally will take ten minutes of your day and then you have, not only gained factual information, but you've hopefully expanded your own opinion and are now aware/understanding of other people's.

I am right a lot. I am right a lot because I do not speak about subjects I haven't put effort into learning quite a bit about. I think it is very immature to have an attitude in which you think you cannot be taught something new. My children have humbled me and taught me more new things than any teacher I've ever had.

Why do we close ourselves off from knowledge? It's really sad to me that people would rather be "Right" than informed. Life isn't black and white, there's a fuck ton of grey area.. I should know, it's where I hang out the most.

The world would be a better place if you worried less about being right and more about being informed.

A serious case of the Mondays.

Seriously, that's frost on the scooter handle. I like cold weather, it makes me feel better and I hate sweating. So much. But it was really really cold this morning and it took me forever to get going. I let my kids have hot chocolate for breakfast because I'm gunning for Mother of the Year 2017.

And it's Mommy Monday! So I thought I'd take a moment to talk about my really cool kids. I figure these posts will center around my kids/funny things they do/say or whatever I'm dealing with as a mom lately.

Today was the first day back to school for them.. Which I know a lot of moms look forward to, but I'd rather hang out with my kids than any adults I know, so I'm a little sad. They, of course, didn't want to go back, but what can you do? Send them to school after vacation with a belly full of hot chocolate, that's what you do!

My oldest, J, will be ten soon. Which is totally unacceptable, I shouldn't have a kid in double digits, I'm barely an adult! (It feels anyway..) J is a really cool kid. He's smart, a smart ass and pretty funny. He's also an avid gamer and understands concepts that are way above where he should be. He also has really lovely hair that he's growing out.

My second oldest, T, is eight. This kid is going places, if we can ever get him to focus. He's all energy and affection. Definitely the most cuddly of my kids and also the most interested in mechanical things. He's really different from the rest of us, but he does also love video games. He'd rather be watching videos about fast/expensive cars, though. He's also super smart, but I think he's the most insecure about it.

B is my six year old! He's the only one that looks anything like me, but the one who acts the least like me. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and can be a handful. He's also very kind and super sweet when he feels the urge. He does great in school and loves to read aloud, which is the best because he has a slight speech impediment and reading aloud to his brothers has been helping his confidence.

E is my final spawn and he is evil incarnate. ... Kidding, ha .. ha. No really, he's definitely the most out of hand of all the boys. He's also three, so I pick and choose my battles. You want to wear pink slippers and an iron man mask to the store? Sure, but you're sitting in that buggy the right way today, mister. This one has no fear of anything and is so strong willed I'm afraid he might break ME, this tried and true Mommy veteran. It's frightening. He's also got the most beautiful smile and loves to make up songs about anything and everything.


I'm trying not to write a novel about my kids, but I do love talking about them. I'm just so thrilled that they're all their own little people. I know I've got a lot of no so great things I'll have to deal with, J is already giving everyone pre-pubescent attitude. So I'm sure a house full of teenage boys will just be the tits.... No really, I can't wait. Every stage of my children's lives has been my favorite and I get excited, scared and a little sad to think of them growing up, but I am so glad I'll get to watch it all. They're the most interesting people I'll ever know.


Anyway. I've been told Blogger is the less blogging platform, so I'll be moving to Wordpress and my own nice fancy new domain name. Which is great because blogger done pissed me off today anyway.

Byeee.

Ideas... I have them.

I really need to get this set up better, but I also really don't want to sit down and put in the effort to do that. One day...

I have a few ideas of things I want to do, segments for a vlog I intend to start, but for now I will do the segments here as was suggested to me, and then maybe turn them into standard MWF vlog posts as well.

Mondays are Mommy Mondays, exclusive posting and talking about my family/kiddos/pets. I don't want this blog to be solely about my kids, but I'm a mom, there will be carry over as my kids are pretty much my life and, well, all other interests take a back seat. Mondays are dedicated mommy time, though expect a lot of spill over into every other day.
Wednesdays will be for my whining/whinging/complaining/snarky ass comment compilations of the week. I have a real tendency to be negative and sometimes judgy and harsh, I want to limit myself to just one day of unfiltered bitching about whatever has driven me crazy that week. (I'm really gonna try to limit it to just Wednesdays, so I'm sure that will be a nice long entry and I'll have an unending supply of shit to post.)
And finally, feel good Fridays, because I dunno about you, but I like to end my week on a high note and I need to give my attitude a kick in the pants on occasion. Fridays are for that. I will probably post a lot of pictures of my bunny on Fridays. (You're welcome, because HunBun is fucking adorable.)

So that's what I've got kicking around. This will be the third official post with a couple of drafts already in the works. Tomorrow, Mommy Monday, I will get the other social media aspects up and going and post a nice blog about my kids. Ideally while my youngest, E, takes a nap so I am only thinking happy loving thoughts, instead of wondering why I thought 4 kids was ever a good idea. Whew.

But seriously, it's a lot of kids.

What's up with me.

I've been all over the place lately, you know, in between fighting with E about wearing underwear. I get that he's 3 and doesn't understand societal norms like underwear, but this is a battle of wills at this point, and I cannot cave. So that's what I do most of the day, it's fun.

I'm also really obsessed with this stupid mobile game called Summoners War. It's really cool (shout out) because two of my best friends are possibly more obsessed and it gives us a never ending supply of junk to talk about. All. Day. Long.

But it's awesome. I also downloaded this dumb vlogging game so I can beat J, my eldest. It's going to happen, I'm on a mission.

I fucking love video games, y'all. The biggest problem I have with motherhood/adulthood is that my responsibilities and "extras*" take up my personal time and I can't really play anything that requires even high school relationship levels of dedication.
But- New year, New me. I've managed to (mostly) get back on top of things around this place, so I think we're gonna start up WoW again.
Which is a mixed bag for me. I know the older two boys will love it and be good at it- but WoW has never really kept my attention. I'm hopeful that with the boys playing too I'll remain interested longer than a month. (My lack of attention span might be a recurring theme.)

I have a better post in my drafts, but I need to sit down when everyone's preoccupied and work on it. I promise it'll be better/funnier/whatever. I'm still finding my groove, I just wanted to keep posting.

Peace.

New year, new me .... Or something.

Here we go!

Welcome, the handful of you who followed me here from Facebook.

This is where my thoughts will go to die.
Or hopefully, reach a larger audience and I can be all "Whoo hoo, it started because five people on Facebook told me I should really consider writing a book! but I was like 'nah because i am lazy and books take years, I'm lucky if I focus on something longer than ten minutes.' so I made a blog, which i can dedicate like a month to and forget about like every other blog i've ever made in my entire life"

Just kidding. I'm really excited for this endeavor and will be pumping out content as often as I can, so welcome!

To start I figured I'd mention a little about myself and family.
I've been divorced and married, once. I had two pretty awesome boys with my ex, J & B. I met my SO about five years ago, I. He had a son from his previous marriage, T. And together we've had our own son, E. We are a mixed-race-blended family. At least, that's what the internet told me to refer to us as. To me we're just us and it's chaos all the time.
We have too many animals, too little time and, in my opinion, a lot of fun. I'm always starting something new or trying out new things with my brats or animals..


ANYWAY. This is just my starting point, if I gain enough traction/a big enough audience I have plans for a more inclusive website/forum for "normal" moms, I have a ton of ideas for that but, as I am often distracted, I don't want to invest into something that will require a level of dedication I don't yet have.

I would like, before ending this, because I'm best in short bursts, explain my choosing of
                     Meta-mom-phosis. 

I was pretty set on a website/handle/username that implied change or growth, because personally, I feel that is exactly what motherhood/womanhood/adulthood is about.
And I'm a fucking adult and I will change and I will grow and I never, ever, ever want to become stagnant. But since I'm a mom, love a good play on words and may or may not read Kafka on the regular, there you go. (If you heard the dad from My Big Fat Greek Wedding saying "there you go," add me right now. We are destined to be friends.)

I'm out. More to come. No promises.