Well, you know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words. I could probably just post the picture and leave it at that. But no, that just won’t do – not for long-winded ME!

My oldest child is driving me to drink. And I’m seriously on the fence, teetering between “she’s a teenager; she’s supposed to be apathetic, dishonest, overly dramatic, and hate school” and “how in the hell will she ever function in society OMG she’s going to be living here when she’s 30 years old and end up working at Del Taco.”

It’s a tough road we’re on right now. Without overstepping the boundaries of privacy too much, I’ll simply state that she’s been struggling with some depression. I recognize it. I understand it. Hell, I LIVE it. I know exactly what it’s like. And I’ve told her that. The thing is, you can’t rely on the excuse of depression as a free pass for getting out of everything you don’t want to do. Like, homework. I know she doesn’t care about school, and I get that. School is a big fat drag when you’re fourteen. And how often do you really use algebra once you’re out of school? I fully recognize that she is only there for the social aspect. But I just can’t make her GET IT that she still has to DO THE WORK. It’s that whole fake-it-till-you-make-it thing. You might not care about it, but you still have to DO it. Even if you struggle with depression, you still have to fulfill certain responsibilities. That’s life, y’know?

Ugh. It’s nice that I have my husband to talk me down from the ledge. He’s already raised two teenagers, and he’s sooooo easygoing about all of this. I know that there are plenty of folks out there who didn’t give a shit about high school, and they aren’t homeless or anything like that as adults. But still, it’s so completely frustrating when I can’t find ANY passion in my child whatsoever. She’s looking forward to seeing her friends at lunch tomorrow, and she’s happy to know that she’s not going to die in the near future. And that’s IT. There is nothing else that she cares about. Nothing. It just feels beyond the normal teenage bullshit to me. And like I said, I’m wavering. Part of me is scared to death for my child, and worried about her future and completely stressed about her mental wellbeing. The other part of me is like, “Eh.” Almost everyone I know with a kid in high school is telling me a similar tale. Her issues are just not that unique, really.

I’m praying hard that she straightens out and realizes that life is awesome and that there is true joy to be found in it. I know being a teenager sucks. I remember. I’m banking on the notion that by the time my other four kids are teens and putting me through hell, my oldest will be well-adjusted and content with her life, so she can help knock some sense into her siblings. I think that’s my only hope. And maybe in years to come, I’ll mellow out a bit, too.

Today marks a year that we’ve lived in our “new” house. I’ve decided that I should officially stop calling it our new house, hence the quotation marks. I’m fighting an awful cold, as are a couple of my children, and we spent much of today on the sofa. As I flipped through the channels, I kept thinking back to a year ago, and contrasting what a different day today was than last December 27th! Four huge truckloads of stuff, and the last one wasn’t unloaded until nearly midnight. The kids were on Christmas break, and the weeks that followed were downright chaotic. It’s hard having bored kids underfoot while trying to unpack. It was nice to look around my cozy house today – even littered with new toys from Christmas, it’s a much different scene than it was a year ago.

Two thousand and nine was a tough year in a lot of ways. It was such a year of change for our family, with the new house and new schools. Even when change is for the better, it’s so difficult to go through it. And unfortunately for myself, I spent much of the year feeling like I wasn’t changing for the better. So many times, I felt like I couldn’t find my way. I wanted our house to instantly feel like home to me, to feel like the sanctuary our old home was, and to feel uniquely ours, the way our old home did. Of course, that can’t happen immediately – it takes time to make something your own. It takes time for people to get to know you. It takes time for children to stop being “the new kids” at school. And it takes a hell of a lot of time to go through a house and put your own special touch in every room.

I should point out that I am not an organized person by nature. (My husband is, thank God, or our lives would be falling down around us.) Between my messy tendencies and my unfortunate propensity for feeling guilty about my many flaws, I dealt with a massive amount of anxiety this past year. It’s only been in recent weeks that I’ve started recognizing the role depression has played in my inability to get shit done. Last year, right around this time, I stopped taking the antidepressant I’d been taking for years. I was going through a period of health concerns and serious headaches, and I was trying to pinpoint exactly what was causing my headaches. I decided to wean myself off the antidepressants to see if my headaches went away. They did! And I seemed to be doing okay, so I never refilled my prescription after our move.

I’m realizing now that I made such a dumb decision in doing that. For me, depression manifests itself not in sadness, but in anxiety and in feelings of being so overwhelmed that I can’t figure out how to tackle a situation. And I don’t really understand why it’s so hard to take my own advice – I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve told girlfriends of mine not to be afraid or ashamed to take antidepressants, because depression doesn’t just go away on its own. When it comes to my own health or my own psyche, it’s like I’m a total dumbass, though.

That’s one thing I intend to do differently in 2010. I work so hard to take care of my family, but think nothing of putting myself last – like I just don’t have it in me to think about my own needs. I heard someone recently compare it to putting on your own oxygen mask on an airplane before helping someone else. How can I really be supermom if I super-suck at taking care of myself? I started taking my meds again a few weeks ago, and already I’m feeling better. Now if I could just shake this stupid cold!

One of the things I really love about my husband is how I always feel safe with him. He’s a big dude, and can be intimidating if he wants to be. It’s like the best of both worlds, really: he’s such a super nice guy, and people so often seem relieved to discover that he’s not some aggressive badass, they fall all over themselves being accommodating. I love that we can go anywhere, any time, and nobody EVER gives us a hard time or talks shit to him. It’s downright delightful.

And I feel like sort of an authority on being messed with, because I used to be married to a guy who was NOT the least bit intimidating. He was a fairly small guy, not the least bit confrontational, and people obviously picked up on that vibe, because they messed with us all the time! So often, we’d be at a show or a bar or restaurant, and some drunk asshole would start hassling us. And it was always ME having to resolve the situation. I hated that! I’m very pleased that I’ve left behind that whole phase of my life. What can I say: I like my man to be the man, y’know?

Today, I was having lunch out with my daughters and I overheard a couple of guys a table away from us. They were 30ish, dressed business casual, and totally engaged in their conversation about…TWILIGHT. They were talking about seeing New Moon over the weekend with their wives, and actually discussing the differences between the book and the movie. It was like listening to my teenage daughter and her best friend going on about who is hotter, Jacob or Edward.

I can understand guys going to see Twilight with their wives; I drag my husband to see movies I pick out all the time. But if he started talking about Twilight with his buddies, they’d probably threaten to punch him in the vagina. Come on, guys – we let you have Transformers. Leave Twilight for the girls!

That’s a Snoop Dogg lyric, did you know that? Betcha didn’t. I don’t imagine Big Snoopy D-O-double-G was considering the plight of the stay-at-home-mother when he wrote it, but I can sure relate to it.

Things are swell. Things are great! Things are a train wreck and a half! I keep thinking that if I just embrace it and own it and realize once and for all that this is our normal, I’ll deal with things better. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m just going to write about it so it all makes sense for me, because I really think it’s scariest when it’s inside my own head. Once I get it out in the open, it’s like, eh. No biggie.

My oldest child is seriously struggling in school. We’re almost mid-way through freshman year, and thing’s aren’t going well. She’s so painfully unmotivated, and it’s something we’ve been dealing with for the past four years now. I can’t even begin to list all the many ways we’ve tried to light a fire under her ass. She’s just so damned apathetic, and it’s something I see over and over with kids her age. We want so badly for our kids to have what we didn’t have, and to not have to struggle or go without, and because of it, they value NOTHING. My husband grew up poor, and actually was homeless several times as a child. He’s mentioned many times that he wishes our kids could go through a safer version of what he went through, just so they’d know what it’s like to not have electricity or to have to sleep in the car. I don’t know that we need to go THAT far with it, but I sure wish there was a way to boot these kids in the ass a little, and make them realize that the world doesn’t revolve around them and their skinny jeans. I think I’m going to start dragging my daughter out on Saturday mornings to volunteer in a soup kitchen or something.

Besides the drama with the teenager, I feel like I’m losing my mind a little in this crazy house. Or my hearing, anyway. I’ve never been around such LOUD children before. From the time they wake up until the time they snuggle up and fall asleep at night, they are SHOUTING at one another. I’m sure it’s at least partially genetic, since I’m married to the loudest man on the planet. Normally, I’m not bothered by it at all, but it seems like they’ve cranked it up to eleven this week. We need to start a marathon round of The Quiet Game.

And when I left my house today, it was CLEAN. It even smelled good. Every bed was made, every inch of carpet vacuumed. Within an hour of returning home with four monkeys, the house looked like I hadn’t touched it. I found toys, shoes, books, and clothing on the floor in five different rooms before dinnertime. Erma Bombeck once said that trying to clean house when you have small children is like shoveling while it’s still snowing. I can’t think of a better comparison! Still, I’m thankful that I have my five monsters, and we have a roof over our heads. Things could definitely be worse.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to take myself out for sushi.

I don’t have any Thanksgiving decorations. I always see them in Walmart (around, uh, AUGUST or so) and think to myself, “I really need a wreath made out of fake orange leaves.” And then I talk myself out of it, because I know I’d take it down the day after Thanksgiving and promptly lose it. I KNOW where the Halloween stuff is, and I KNOW where the Christmas stuff is: stuffed into about thirty boxes in the rafters of my garage! One little wreath just doesn’t have a home, y’know? I’d lose it, and then be all angry and bitter the next November, when I couldn’t find it. So I don’t.

And then I find myself in this no-man’s-land between Halloween and Christmas. I still have about nine boxes of Halloween costumes and decor, neatly stacked up in the living room, just waiting to make their way back out to the garage. I can’t drag the tree in until that stuff is GONE. And, since this is our first year in this house, I’m excited and can’t wait to decorate. Hurry up, husband! Put away the Halloween stuff so I can break out the Christmas stuff! (Translation: move your motorcycle out of the way so I can get to the ladder.)
The kids and I were talking about Christmas yesterday, and came to the realization that it’s a mere six weeks from right now! I think we should get that tree up THIS WEEKEND. Seriously. I’m going to be worn out from cooking all day on Thanksgiving, and probably won’t be in the mood to do it then. Why not now? I missed having a tree up last year, since we moved over Christmas weekend – I should get to make up for lost time.

The only thing bringing me down is that damned Dora Christmas CD the kids keep listening to. It might get lost soon, I’m thinking.