
Sarcasm is my antidepressant and I will not apologize for it.
Ok so, I’m a mom of 4 genuinely amazing kids, 3 boys and a girl. Thank God I had my girl, for I fear, I’d have 16 kids until I had her. As a 42 year old woman who is close to her mom, as she was with her mom, it was necessary. I think that the bond between mother and daughter is one I wouldn’t want to complete my life without. I say this as a ”boy mom”.
I wanted 4 boys growing up. I told everyone that that was what I was going to have 4 boys from a pretty early age. I hung out with primarily boys, as a late teen, and young woman. I got men! They made sense to me. I had very special friendships with less than a handful of females though. They were also my ”rocks” and I depended on their love and support with all my heart. I love my sons just as deeply as my daughter. I just wanted you to know that. There is simply something uniquely beautiful about the mother/daughter bond I had with my own mother and even, with her mother. I felt it necessary to experience it and to treasure it, as well.
I was a dancer growing up. I did ballet, tap, jazz, acrobatics, gymnastics and modern dance. From the age of 3! I was the epitome of a tiny dancer. I was not the type you would look at and say, ”One day, she will rock as a boy mom!” I was prissy and accustomed to hanging with the women in my life, my mom, her mom and my cousins, all female. Yet, I longed to create a family filled with males. I didn’t know how this would play out but, I told myself it was my destiny.
And so it was….
My first two sons were born 11 months apart. Let that sink in for a moment. ELEVEN MONTHS BETWEEN MY FIRST AND SECOND SON. They even had the exact same due date. The only reason they don’t have the same birthday is because I ended up needing a c-section with my second boy. I’ll never forget the first time I went to the grocery store as a new mom of two sons, both under a year old. My first son could not walk yet. I called my mom from the parking lot of the grocery store crying, exclaiming that I’d never be able to leave the house for the rest of my life! I’ll leave out the minor details but, you can allow your imagination to go wild on how poorly that grocery trip turned out.
I shared this with you because I want you to grasp how totally unprepared I was for being this person, this woman, I had envisioned I would be someday. We often feel pulled towards things we think we desire without first, thinking these things through.
The good news is, I survived those first years. Having two toddlers underfoot while your husbands job has him away from the family home for 9 months a year can be a recipe for total pandemonium. I won’t lie to you when I tell you that there are literally brackets of time I can’t recall. I was so sleep-deprived that I was on autopilot. There was a lot of cussing in my house. I never cussed at people, of course. Just at things. “You fucking little LEGO’s! Trying to puncture a hole in my foot, aren’t you?”
I’ll never forget the day my second son, we will call him “Punker Dukin” because of his edible rolls of chubbiness. (He was a precious and delightful child who just wanted to be held and nursed 24/7)
Well, one day he looked up at me and said, “I hate wego’s too mama! They hurt mama! Bad wego’s! We should frow dem out!
I gently and ever so sweetly, kissed his pudgy cheeks and said, “Oh my baby, mommy is just venting on the legos. She will clean them up for you and hopefully they won’t be left out again for mommy to step on”. Later on, I went to use the restroom and the toilet was overflowing. Punker Dukin decided to rid our home of the offensive toys by flushing all of them down the toilet. Needless to say, I had my plumbers number on speed dial during this period. Punker Dukin is a “fixer” you see. He wanted to always help out in anyway he could if his mama was upset. The toilet seemed like a totally reasonable solution. In hindsight, I have to admire his ingenuity.
Years later, my oldest son was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. My Boo, I called him. This was a child who was basically an adult before he could walk. Road trips were a breeze with him. He only needed his fingers to play with. To him, they were planes or cabooses or minions or whatever his heart desired. He was very self sufficient. Being on the spectrum though, it made it difficult for him to fully express his needs and it was challenging at times. My second son was diagnosed with ADHD. He is also dyslexic. He was amazing at taking things apart and putting them back together. He was extremely tactile and loved pots and pans. I once panicked because I couldn’t find him. He had fallen asleep inside my kitchen cabinets. You see, that’s where I kept his “drums”, I mean pots and pans. 😂
Sarcasm has been my anchor really. It helps me cope with the chaos and the various freak outs that my kids would have.
Imagine waking up at 6am and feeling panicked because your baby usually woke at 4:30–5am and he wasn’t crying yet. I feared he might be ill and I stumbled quickly to his room. The boys shared a room, both cribs, side by side. I opened the door and before my eyes could grasp what was happening, my nose caught wind of something foul. My eyes began to sting and I locked into my youngest sons crib. He had taken his poopoo diaper off and was finger painting. Giggling and happy, he was delighted I had woken up in time to see his masterpiece. His older brother was sitting at the far end of his crib looking beyond pissed off! He’s an old soul I’m telling you. He was also utterly disgusted and looked at me like, “Listen woman, you need to get your shit together and take that kid outside and hose him off!”
Sorry, I know it’s gross but, this is one of the reasons women go coo coo. We have to develop coping skills to prevent that from happening and I am thankful for being able to depend on my sarcastic wit to power me through the “shitty” days.
I don’t regret wishing for a big family filled with mostly boys. In fact, I can’t imagine my life being any other way. Sure, I have outgrown my tutu and tend to wear gym clothes and sneakers instead of ballet slippers. But, it’s a beautiful life. Shit and all. It’s really how we make it. How we choose to view our circumstances that shapes how much we enjoy this life. My Tom boy daughter and my silly and serious and affectionately sarcastic sons have taught me to chill the fuck out. Stop and enjoy the mess sometimes. Play in the rain. Make that volcano experiment you saw online, even if it ends up melting all over your kitchen and splattering all over the blinds. Live in the moment with the people you treasure the most. Cry/laugh when you need to. Yes, that’s a thing. You start crying because you want to just run out the front door into eternity but, you see your little girl standing there with flour all over herself and dripping down the couch and you think, “This is what it’s all about. Fucking fantastic!”
Sarcasm has helped me through all of this and with two teens, one tween and a six year old now, I have a feeling she won’t be leaving me anytime soon.








