I'm sure you didn't hear it here first...

It’s all sunshine and shit till someone gets hurt…

You all know how a 3 year old can go from laughing joyfully to the end of the world-snot-bubbling-cry in about .03 seconds?

Well, I don’t always get upset when he does that…sometimes… JUST SOMETIMES... I freaking GET it dude.

Shit sucks. Sometimes.

And crying feels like the RIGHT thing to do. Sometimes.

And when you are three, not only does someone else still wipe your ass, but you are ALLOWED to break down for 3 minutes over not getting the RIGHT kind of sprinkles on your donut. It’s just ok. No one looks at you like you’re crazy. No one says, “Shit, bitch… relax”.  No one says ‘why are YOU so upset?’  It’s not even JUST ok for a preschooler... it’s almost expected. Kinda like, “Oh, there he goes being a baby asshat again….but it’s cool... he will get over it in a minute…literally”   And they DO bounce back…every single damn time, with big ol belly laughs almost immediately after the breakdown. Man, being three is freaking AWEsome!

A lil over a year ago, I was homeless.  February 1, 2012 to be exact. Another one of those lovely side effects from not receiving any child support for many years and a VERY bad time to lose my great job…sigh. Yep, no roof. No bed of my own. None of my pots and pans or towels or doohickeys or happy crap. ALL my crap was firmly… VERY FIRMLY, squeezed into a 10 X 10 storage room. It was a VERY bleak few weeks for me. My girls had to go live with their father in his mothers’ one bedroom apartment. My son and I went to live at another house.  I cannot count the ways in which this very well MIGHT have been the hardest month and a half of my life.  Well I could count then, and list them even... but I’m TRYING to stay positive here dudes… just take my word for it… it was B. A. D.  

I’ve been thru some very rough crap. Someday I may share that here… but hey, no matter what bad crap I have been thru… there are other awesome peeps out there that suffer worse. I hate to be a whiner.

I was in a place where I didn’t feel like I could be myself… I couldn’t parent my son like I would normally parent him.  ALL my ‘norms’  were just gone. I had to suck it up and play by someone else rules. Rules that I not only didn’t agree with, but didn’t even KNOW of usually. Like surprise shit rules that I wouldn’t even KNOW I did wrong till AFTER I did it and got yelled at for it. Sigh.  I had to go days without seeing my girls.  I had to pretty much just sit and cry inside daily.

But I didn’t sit on my ass. Oh no baby. I got out there, I got rides, I got help and I FOUND a place to live again. I managed to get into an apartment on March 17^th, 2012…less than two months of that crap and i couldnt have been happier to get back on my own feet~! I was able to have ALL my kids back under MY roof. 

I have NEVER lived my life in such an unstable way before. It was horrible in every way. I wanted to cry almost every second I was in that situation.

But I did my feelings like a 3 year old…except I kept it to myself.  I broke down in the shower for 5 minutes.... I would take a walk around the block and cry…I would text/call/see my kids every chance I got. I refused to let the fact that NOTHING was going right change the fact that I was and always will be a rock for my kids.

And THIS year, when the year-iversary of those dates rolled around, I did a lil mental happy dance… cause I got thru THAT shit man! I will, and have, had more shit thrown in my path… but I will get thru THAT shit too. That’s what I do. I get thru shit… and come out smelling... at least decent afterwards.

They say (and don’t get me started on who exactly is this ‘they’ that always SAY this shit..) that being grateful for the small things in life makes a BIG difference in ones attitude and ability to face challenges. And I have to admit ‘they’ are right. Some days I am just grateful I have clean clothes… and during THOSE dark days, I was FOREVER grateful that my kids had a roof, and they had a way to get to school...even if that DID mean getting up at 5am to take a 1.5 hour train ride… and I had my health.  I mean, shit…one can ALWAYS find something to be grateful for.

And honestly, if my kids grow up not having the latest crap that the other little spoiled brats…I mean... err... children… can’t live without, and are STILL grateful for the crap they DO have…then I will consider my job done well.  

And not only did Oprah say it… but I think Dr Oz and Jerry Springer too… THAT must make it fact. But either way, being grateful rocks. Really…

 Trust me… or don’t.

 But I’m right.

Soooo…

as of NOW, you officially have my permission to throw a full on tantrum snot bubbling fit for five minutes when you damn well FEEL like it... 

Trust me.

And BE grateful. 

All About Me

My back story, in case anyone actually comes here that DOESN'T already know me.

I have kids. I have a LOT of kids. Ok, well, maybe not “a lot by” some standards… but by MY standards, I have a fuck load of kids.

I was 19 when I had my first bouncing baby girl.  Yeah, I may have been young, but she was a life saver in disguise of an adorable fat lil round baby girl.

She was everything I could have wanted and more. I was perfectly happy being her mommy. I married her father when she was 6 months old. Ahhhh…young love.

Gag.

I was young, I was stupid and I made mistakes.  I chalk it up to being human.

But it wasn’t ALL bad.  Or else I wouldn’t have had number 2, 3 and 4!

My marriage was rocky. We were young. Things weren’t sunshine and cupcakes everyday…or even most days.

I had my last daughter when I was 26. I was then a SAHM to four girls.  I just couldn’t WAIT to turn thirty. I didn’t really care, but hey, maybe being more “mature” would help me to stop getting those looks… you know the ones… those judgmental  lil ol' lady types at the store who raise an eye brow and ask if they were “ALL” mine?  To which the thought pattern in my head was…Fuck yeah they are all mine… do you think I would volunteer to take some other persons matching blonde haired blue eyed devils to the grocery store with me for FUN?? Jokes on YOU ol' judgmental lady... i aint THAT dumb! 

Don’t get me wrong, my kids were never the type to run thru the store, grab shit off the shelves or scream randomly… but they still managed to bug the crap outta me on most trips. Still do actually.... hmmm. 

I digress.

SO about the same time I turned 30, and finally started to think about me for a change… my husband and I split. And while I was ok with this decision, actually I had made the decision (and I’m going to TRY to not talk bad about him here). I have never once regretted deciding to move on with my life without him. We were not happy, and my family was suffering.  He became a MUCH better father after we split, and if nothing else, I am grateful for that.  It was the right choice.

But here I was, alone with four kids… ages 11, 9, 7, and 4… no income and no real marketable skills. What the hell had I been thinking???

Hmmmmm

But hey, I found a job. I was in school. I made it work.  And I enjoyed being single too.

I dated. I had fun. I enjoyed my life.  I met another man and I had a beautiful baby boy with him when I was 36 (WOAH! Now... let’s just take a moment to acknowledge the difference between having a baby at 19 and having one at 36….OMFG. Night and day…)

Right now I am just trying to figure out my future.  My job sucks. My crappy lil apartment in the ghetto sucks. And overall, I don’t have much to be happy about. But damn it… I decide daily that I AM going to be happy. I just don’t have time to waste by hating on my own life.  Some days are harder than others, but some days are fucking great…so ill hold on to those great days and continue to work at getting my feet nailed solidly on the ground.

I currently have a simply incredible 19 year old sophomore in college, a sassy as fuck 17 year old high school senior, an almost TOO sweet 15 year old high school freshman, a snippy 12 year old pre-teen in 7^th grade, and to round it all off … a fucking genius 3 year old preschooler.   They rock my world.  They say and do crazy shit. I never thought it was possible to laugh and want to kill one person at the same time… but somehow these kids manage to show me new ways almost daily.

You sure you wanna come along for this ride with me?

Ohhh… come on now… I DARE ya! ;) 

What’s in a name?

( This isnt MY photo..I got it here http://cozyhomechronicles.blogspot.com/2011/08/mr-sun-sun-mr-golden-sun.html) 

I sat here thinking….for a few weeks (we will learn that I am a master at procrastination) and mulled over wanting to blog. I just want to write. I got shit to say man!  I have my doubts that anyone else wants to read my crap...but hey... I don’t really care so much about that… yet!

But this darn blogger asks me to NAME my blog. Well, shit… all the GOOD names are taken.

I so went thru my mental list…

My fav movies… “Top Gun Mom” … “Full Metal Mom”…  “Mom's Platoon”…but hey, I’m not a military mom, and while I would have been one in a heartbeat, and have the utmost respect for those that serve and those that love them… heaven knows I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression…Besides, those just sound dumb.

But I AM a mom. To five heathens...er I mean…little sweet darlings. Well, not even so little anymore… they range from 19 – 3 years old… don’t judge yet!

And while they ARE the biggest focus in my life, for now… I don’t want to confine myself to a title that says read here ONLY if you’re a mom and want to see how badly another mom screws things up…sooooo I kept thinking…

And I thought, well…people love happy shit…I know I love happy shit…. but lo and behold the title “Happy Shit” is taken… go figure…so I had to add some more happy 'shitisms' to it.

Who doesn’t love cupcakes, sunshine and other happy crap?  And even if you got something against those pretty darn awesome things, I bet my wit and lovely way with the word will keep ringing in your head throughout the day…much like a jackhammer outside your bedroom window at 6 am on a Sunday.  I’m just brave enough to say EVERYONE likes SOME kind of happy crap at SOME point in their bleak dark day. Maybe even some of MY crap will float your boat. Then again, maybe not…

I cuss like a sailor.  I try to always see the good in anything and anyone.  And, hey man…I am stuck in my house all day… I spend 80% of that on the computer and I have a LOT of shit to say.  Can’t think of a better place to do that then here.

You have been warned.

And WELCOMED!