Tacos and soup

I have two stories to share today.

I watched the twins at my house last night. I'm pretty sure I've written about this previously, but I can't sleep when they're at my house.

They slept good last night. According to my FitBit, I slept one hour and one minute.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep when they're at my house.

Anyway, because I didn't sleep last night, I spent most of the day today catching up. I had a dream this afternoon that I had to make 400 tacos by tomorrow. If you care, half were ground beef and half were to be chicken.

I was stressed out about it, because that's a shitload of tacos to make.

Here's the real problem, though. Why am I dreaming about tacos?

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Putting the twins to bed last night was a fairly easy process. It was also funny.

We took baths, did nails, watched Doo Doo (Scooby Doo) and then read some stories. We said our prayers, then I tucked them in and kissed them goodnight.

And then the requests came.

I want a drink.

I have to potty.

Where Daddy at?

I have to potty.

Where Mommy at?

I have to potty.

Another story (book).

Where Gamma at?

I'm thirsty.

Where Papa at?

I have to potty.

There was a straw that eventually broke the camel's back and made me leave the room for good, laughing on the way out.

The request came from my curly-haired niece.

I want mader soup.

Maders are tomatoes. My smart, brilliant, funny 2.5-year-old niece asked me for tomato soup at 11 p.m. to put off going to bed.

Well played, kid. Well played. The answer is no, though, but you do get some brownie points for the effort you put into prolonging bedtime.

Night night!

Forever

Appropriate caption for this photo: I will protect you from clowns, ghosts, monsters, and whatever else scares you in life.

Forever.

Not a political post

I am not discussing politics this year.

On Facebook, one of my friends pointed out that both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton have cheated on their wife/wives more than once.

Someone replied with a comment: "I don't really like a spouse being blamed for infidelity."

I agree.

Ghostbusters!

I dropped some art supplies off at my Mom's house for the twins.

The curly-haired twin acted really scared, and told me there was a ghost in the kitchen. I hate it when there are ghosts in the kitchen!

I asked her if she wanted me to beat the ghost up.

She said yes.

I walked over to a corner in the kitchen, where the ghost was hiding, near the fridge. I kicked the ghost several times to get it to disappear.

After kicking it, I walked over to my niece and told her that I saw the ghost fly out of the house.

I kicked that ghost's butt, guys.

People at work asked me how my days off were babysitting them. I told them that I kicked a ghost. In toddler world, that's totally normal.

In normal adult world, it's kind of weird and got me some odd looks.

I'm going to put "beating up a ghost" as a skill on my resume.

I'm actually quite proud of myself.

:)

Not wired that way

I had a wonderful conversation with someone last week.

After I confessed that I was an introvert at a meeting, someone came up to me and gave me a pat on the back. She told me I did a good job for being an introvert.

I'll take whatever compliment I can get.

I told her that it's not a fear or dislike of public speaking that I have. I just plain don't like being around or in front of people on a regular basis and speaking at the same time.

She told me she understood. Your body just isn't wired that way, she told me.

See? Some people get it. 

I'm capable of speaking in front of a crowd, I told her, but it's not something that I like. (Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Jumping off a cliff comes to mind. I kept that thought to myself, but it did go through my head.)

Let me start the story from the beginning. 

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I went to a meeting last week out of town for my job. We were split up into groups, given an assignment, and one person in each group got to present their assignment the next day to the entire group.

My group included someone who couldn't make the meeting, someone who barely had a voice, and two other people who were pretty new to the company.

I immediately knew that I would be the one presenting in my group. I spent about five minutes internally dreading it, but then I put my adult pants on and decided to accept it. 

At dinner that night, someone asked me if I had an introduction planned. 

Oh, don't worry, I told them. I know exactly what to say.

The next day, a few minutes after 8 a.m., I volunteered to present first. 

Here's my line of thinking: If I don't go first, I'm not going to listen to any of the other presentations. I'm going to sit there silently and worry about my own presentation.

The anticipation is always the worst part of anxiety. (In somewhat related news, I had a dental appointment this week. I had nightmares about it for a week. How many cavities do I have? ZERO. Anxiety is stupid.)

So, I might as well go first and get it over with. I took my laptop to the podium and looked at the group of faces looking at me.

My introduction pointed out that I was the biggest introvert in the room and I was the one in my group presenting.

Everyone laughed.

I looked around the room, and I lightened up a little.

And then they laughed some more.

It turned out fine. 

It wasn't so bad after all. Life's a lot more fun when you can laugh at yourself and get through it. 

I also spoke briefly in front of a different crowd that night at another event. 

I had another thought: Is God picking on me?

I went to church this weekend, just to get on His good side. 

-----

That's kind of the story of my life. It usually ends up being okay in the end.

From the mouths of babes

My 2-year-old niece came up to me the other day.

"Monta," she started out. (Her way of saying Monica)

Yes, child, I responded. What's up? What's shaking?

She finished her thought: "I like you."

Then she walked away.

Well, what a coincidence, kid. I like you too.

A sensitive topic

One of my favorite things in the world is to sit around a table with strong women and talk about life.

We can talk about politics, about wine, or about books, I really don't care. To me, it's rare to find independent women. When I find them, I want to latch on and never let them go.

I want to soak up every bit of knowledge they have, and I want to learn from them.

I want to be that strong, independent woman for my nieces.

(Rant: When they're older, I want them to think of me and say, "Damn, Monica didn't let anybody walk all over her. She knows what she wants, and she works pretty damn hard until she gets it.")

What does that mean, an independent woman?

An independent woman can be married or unmarried. She can be divorced. She can be single. She can be in a relationship.

To me, an independent woman has a job in her field, a degree, and a career.

This is a sore topic for me. This morning, I woke up to some pretty disturbing political headlines.

It's not okay to try to have sex with a married person. It's not okay to grab women "by the pussy." Good God, what kind of world are we living in?

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I wrote the following a few days ago. I wasn't going to post it, but after reading today's headlines, I feel like I have to post it. It rambles. I wish I could sit down and make it coherent, but I can't. I had a night of sleeplessness recently over this. This is as put-together as I can possibly get on this topic.

I am in my 30s.

I am not in a relationship.

I have no kids.

What I do have is a college degree, a house that I bought on my own, three Pug dogs, a good job in my chosen field, and a pretty cool family, including three of the most adorable little girls 2 and under that you'll ever meet.

But I don't have a man. I don't have kids. I think that's all some people think about when they talk to me.

In their eyes, there must be something wrong with me.  I must be broken, people think.


When people find out I have no kids, they tell me that I could adopt.

I know people who have adopted kids. I would love to adopt one day, and yes, after I'm married. It's always been something that I've wanted to do.

I was so upset about this, I couldn't sleep the other night.

I went into a store recently in my hometown. The owner gave me an update about her daughter, who is older than me.

She has no kids and is not in a relationship, the store owner told me. Since when did that become the norm during a conversation?

It seems as though women are damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

If you have kids too early, as a teenager, everyone gossips and wonders what happened to birth control, and why she's not on it.

The same people who slut-shame you for having sex are the same people who criticize you for not having kids.

-----

I didn't have a say when my last relationship ended.

I'm single because I was in a competition with another woman, and the prize was someone who cheated on both of us.

I picked the wrong person. That's why I'm single, guys. I'm not broken or hopeless or anything else people apparently think single women in their 30s are.

I'm single because I screwed up and trusted the wrong person.

I'm hardly the first person in the world to have done that.

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I wasn't aware that I needed to issue a press release about my personal life to the world. Perhaps I should.

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I find myself doing the same thing to them as those people are doing to me.

My friend pointed this out to me. You're just repeating the same cycle that you're complaining about, she basically told me.

Holy shit.

She's right.

------

So what's the answer to people talking about me behind my back?

There is no answer. There isn't an answer because there's nothing wrong with me.

I am not broken.

I am not in need of fixing.

I don't need to be saved.

I'm doing pretty damn good on my own.

And I'm going to keep doing this life thing on my own until I find someone whose presence is sweeter than my solitude.

I'm the biggest introvert alive, guys. I don't mind my life at the moment.

I kind of like it.

Teef

I wish my teeth were as pretty as hers.

Favorite

From my favorite book of all time:

“It might seem strange to start a story with an ending. But all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.” 

-Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Ha!

"What? All of a sudden I have a baby and I can't talk to serial killers anymore?"

-Law & Order SVU