Now you know I got a lot of answers because the world is full of questions. Today, I figured out a next level solution to teenage pregnancy. All SAHMs take notes, this is some powerful stuff. I said SAHMs because we tend to havew some flexibility in scheduling and can probably take on this project between the hours of 3-5 p.m. and I think if properly implemented, this could be revolution. Check this:

Invite a young sistah who’s smelling herself (as my grandmother would say…modern-day translation: Think she’s gotta goin’ on/thinks she’s a woman in physique, in mind, in deed) to spend some time with you, a little mentorship situation. Pick her up from school around 3 p.m. with the kids in the car and begin training with the 300,564th rendition of Eensy Weensy Spider (or your version might be Itsy Bitsy Spider…not important) blaring when she gets in the car. Of course, she would rather hear Chingy or T.I. (neither of whom I know, but I saw them on the BET award one year which means they must be cool, right?) but she is going to be polite and probably comment on how cute it is. Next, start your errands and leave her in the car with the kids, no snacks and no music. Now you could do this while in the store, but some kids know how to act in public, so she won’t get the full effect. After taking about 30-40 minutes in the grocery store, she’s probably ready to quit, but you ain’t done yet. Once you’re done shopping, take Ms. Thang and the kids back to your house and pretend your electricity is cut off–no TV, no microwave, no DVD, no music, no phone, no nothing except the video camera that you’ve been charging all day. I tell you that even if she is superbad, superstrong, is great with kids, by the time she has danced around with the baby while the other one is pulling on her leg wanting a story or while the two bigger kids are arguing over who ate the last fruit snack, she’s going down.

After today and I am a mama, I’m convinced that we need to stop taping all of these mushy, gushy stuff and get real! Start taping the Terrible Twos that start at 18 months. You remember…oh, you don’t…let me help you. BBB had to go to the Imani’s dentist appointment. I am at the dentist office, small waiting area and BBB knocked over 30 magazines off of various tables, threw blocks at all of his siblings along with a few choice employees, screamed at his brother for picking up the crayons that he had knocked all over the floor and threw a toy drum (of course, I had toys, books, snacks…and none of the sh#$ worked) on my leg. In just one hour. Of course, I had a revelation (trying to replace revelation with mental brekadown). What if I had taped this season instead of the first birthday or when my babies were sleeping or playing nicely with their siblings? What if? I dare to speculate, but I could probably guess at least I wouldn’t be crazy enough to schedule an hour long appointment and expect a toddler to act like…an 8 year old.

Alright, ladies, find your mentee and help her get understanding. They are only cute for a minute and if you ain’t get yourself together, it’s a dayum short minute!

Wow! I realize how much I have to share with you and how little time and space that I have to share. Why the pressure, the anxiety? Here’s the deal: I’m fired up and I feel…well, I feel bad because I’m great and something really sad happened to someone close to me.

I’ve been praying during my devotion plus I went to intercessory prayer and had a prayer conference call with my telephone Bible Study gurlfriends. In short, sistah is prayed up and I, right now at this moment, am so glad that I chose to turn to God and not let my mind jam me up. I turn to God for everything, but this request was rare. I needed the words to say to a young woman, younger than me, who has a child and desperately wants another child that everything is going to be okay, even though she just had her second miscarriage in 6 months. I’ve been praying for her family, for her strength, for her emotional and phsyical needs to be met and I believe. It looks like I’m believing enough for the both of us. In all of my pregnancies, never a miscarriage. I…I don’t want to sound like a Hallmark card. She looks to me for guidance. What can I say? I know God is able. I know His timing is perfect, but she doesn’t want to hear that.

I…I should listen (which I did) and as I heard her voice sound so, so without possibility, I realize how different we’ve become. I’ve been distracted from church (the institution), but I stayed connected to people who lifted me up, encouraged me. People who were concerned about doing street work (that’s the activist in me…I’m always looking to connect with hurt people and seeing how I can help them, which always helps get the fire in me hotter) and people who were about acting on His word, not just listening. They were some of my closest friends. She doesn’t have that. She just has me and I…I just listen. Read the rest of this entry »

No this isn’t about the recent terriorist attack.

Bag lady, you gon’ hurt your back
Draggin’ all them bags like that
I guess nobody ever told you
All you must hold on to is you, is you, is you-”Bag Lady”, Eryka Badu

I’m trying to hold on to me or better yet, uncover me. I now have to think about what I’ve avoided for a while-my desired lifestyle. And honestly, I’ve allowed the constraints, the reality to take away the dream, the vision. Then I wonder Did I ever have one? I’m often, well I should say always, put off by people who appear to have or to emphasize material gain when their character/when their persona needs development and growth. I think I’ve seen that too often and unconsciously, I’ve spent most of my life developing my character and given that I’m an activist at heart, I put a humble/restrictive/be grateful for whatever spin on my vision. But that’s not what I’ve really believed about my life. I’ve always expected to have a big house (because I expect my family in transition to come stay with me. That’s the servant in me) and I expected to have a lot of money (again, the servant. I expected to always have because I always give). I changed my expectations though and I’m not sure when, but I’m thinking it was somewhere around the birth of my second child. I can’t pinpoint it, but I’m thinking it was around there.

Bag lady you gon’ miss your bus
You can’t hurry up ‘cos you’ve got too much stuff
When they see you coming they just take off running
From you, it’s true, oh yes they do–”Bag Lady”,Eryka Badu

I got a lot of stuff that I’m carrying around, a lot. And I need to hurry and drop off some stuff because although people aren’t running yet, a lot of baggage scares people. For real, it scares me because in order to live in my world, I had to swallow my pride (not a bad thing, but sometimes you need your pride) and allowed myself to shrink back so that those around me could feel comfortable. Now, my children, especially my oldest daughter, need what I have. They need determination. They need a conquering spirit. They need the guts that it took for me to take over a newspaper that was started by someone else and make it award-winning in less than a year of my involvement. They need the heart it took for me to give my new jacket, worn only once, to that boy they teased and pushed in the mud at my elementary school. They need the fearlessness and the humility of that woman who kicked a cohort off a political campaign for her indiscretion and who tolerated being bullied while working for…should I say it? Ugghh. Let’s say a well-known male civil rights advocate who ran for President. (Go with that.) She got swallowed up, oh (sarcastic snarl) I just laugh because the people closest to me are often the ones who forget the essence of who I am…I let ‘em, so it’s not their fault. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing like a good dose of reality when you come home from vacation to a shut off telephone (got the money/forgot the bill), an almost cancelled auto insurance policy (same scenario) and a household office that could be mistaken for a demolition site. You just gotta love my overflowing life.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, my husband missplaced (ok, lost) his driver’s license (which was a Missouri license with no record of a Maryland address, so the chances of it being returned to us are nil to mull), so he now has to get a Maryland license. Of course, to get a driver’s license, you have to have a social secuirty card and a birth certificate. Well, in a normal household where the household manager is organized and committed to accessible and convenient record keeping, this would be as easy as the fire proof safety deposit box, but in this case, Carol Brady doesn’t live here. I just don’t have it together like that. Not yet.

I admit it. The fact that I share with you some periodic wisdom from the trenches doesn’t mean that I don’t have issues. Big ones. Organization or the lack thereof is one of my really, REALLY big ones. Now even though it’s my husband’s license, you do understand I take total responsibility for not making this process as easy as getting in the car and heading to the DMV. Why, you ask? Because I neglected, rejected the idea of household administrator for a LONG time. I have the gift of administration, but I didn’t want to have to work at home like it was a job or a business. Pure laziness, idealism,feminism,delusions of grandeur…whatever you call it, I didn’t think being a wife and a mother was so much WORK!

I am so mad that I just didn’t adjust quickly or, better yet, that I didn’t adjust without a ton of emotions. Emotions. The brunt of my struggle. I’m just too doggone emotional which is why I sat down to write this post. I gotta pull myself together because my husband is not acting half as crazy as I am and it’s his license. I guess this is one commercial for why people need to be married and in complementing relationships, huh?

When stuff isn’t perfect (ok, perfect is my goal, but I’ll save that for another post…let’s just say “out of workable order” to be nice), I feel this twinge in the pit of my stomach and my head begins to pound. All I can hear are the voices that love to point out how absolutely ridiculous it is to try to have a smooth running, sane, safe household AND a personal life separate from husband and children. “There you go again. Living in that dream world. All of that big, positive thinking is nothing but horseradish.” (this is a family blog…I try not to swear unless it’s absolutely necessary, but you know bullshit would have fit so much better than horseradish).

Anyway, I don’t know why I beat up on myself so bad. It’s not like my house has ever been perfect and it has improved since I’ve accepted my role in administering and directing the flow of the Spence machine. I guess I go back to how I was successful and productive in an office for a paycheck and at home, I am frustrated, frazzled and not even sure if I’m having a nightmare or is it really 9 p.m. and I’m locked up in the bathroom trying to hide from the screaming baby or the nagging “I’m hungry” kids. Could I have taken a class on household managment or is therapy and prayer my only release?

Whew…I feel better just by venting with you, but I didn’t have time to write one post, let alone, two today. My husband has to order his birth certificate and it will take a minimum of 7 days to process the order. I have to get him off to work, keep the kids cool on an almost 100 degree day/no central air in the house, and since I started writing this post, the baby has been bathed, made to look so cute and is now playing in the toilet.

Gotta go.

Thanks for listening to me rant in the midst of Mini Breakdown #43 (yes, I’m crazy enough to count them, but I’m not sure if the number is totally accurate since I try not to count the ones that happen in the car, at the park, over the phone, while shopping…oh, forget it, the number is closer to 20043, but who’s counting?)

Finally, it is here. Yes, The Parenting Post is up and running and you can check it out right now. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out myself and the four other great bloggers. PLEASE leave comments so that they can know that people are reading it and want them to keep it. I will be posting new material on Wednesdays, so make sure that you check in often. And if you found your way here from The Parenting Post…Woo-whoo…welcome to a place where you can “read and think a little, laugh a lot and cry just enough to know you’re human.” Grab a chai tea, a lemonade or a glass of White Zin, complement whatever you got with some chocolate and have a good time. In the words of the Beverly Hillbillies, “Yall come back now ya here!”