The Motherhood

It's been a while since I have posted to this blog. Going back to college and getting my second degree, having another child, and starting a business have kept me a tad preoccupied. But it is a good kind of busy (most of the time). So what will I write about in my returning post? I will write about the most demanding role that I have, "mother".

Being a mother is not something I take lightly. For many years I struggled with infertility, then I had my son. After him I hit another dry spell and then we were blessed with our daughter.

 I used to joke, before having children, that there was a "motherHOOD". That women who were mothers were part of a secret society. Little did I know, I was right. I resented the thought of this group existing. I felt left out. I did not understand what it was all about.

I did not understand that there is a reason that mothers tend to lean into one another; they understand the common threads, and the unspeakable frustrations, of the job. My two children are the most amazing people I have ever met. They should be, right? I would assume that most parents feel that way about their children. They feel that they are the most wonderful, enigmatic, bright, and priceless creations on earth. It is our job to think that, otherwise our children would not get the best of what we have to offer.

My son is a spazz. He turns people off with his hyperactivity and constant need for interaction and attention. After exactly eight months in kindergarten I pulled him out to be homeschooled. He couldn't adapt to the requirements that come with a classroom with a student to teacher ratio of 24/1. He was regressing academically and his socialization was becoming negative to the point of ridiculousness. So I did what I thought I would NEVER do, I began to homeschool him. In addition to his most probable ADHD, he is clever and kind, athletic and exceptional. He is also rather moral and considerate when he isn't caught up in his own mind. He has a strangely acute sense of rhythm and is the type of kid who always has an idea to share. Some of them are great, and some are JUST NOT.

My daughter is the type of child who destroys any, and all, chances that I have at anonymous moments in public. She is cute, but not in a standard little girl way. She is really cute, and she knows it. She has her father's stunning eyes. I sometimes think I should have named her Latisse, as her eyelashes are just bananas. When she starts to wear mascara she will no undoubtedly glue her eyes shut.

My husband works hard and he is great at his job. I am proud of him, but I miss him. He deploys ever so often and is gone for periods of time that our children do not appreciate. Obsessed with her father, my daughter will occasionally put on her winter vest, some boots, and a backpack and stand by the door asking for him. She looks out, expectant. I get up, remove the knife that is twisting in my heart, and redirect her to another activity.

This is my life.

Mothering is the most difficult part of this life. It stretches me to the point of exhaustion and annoying self doubt. Of course, the next thing I must type is "but it is the most rewarding". I wish I didn't have to type that, as it is a bit overdone. However, it is true. It is "the most rewarding" because it has to be. It is logical that it would be. After all, why else would I do something so difficult if it wasn't rewarding? If I didn't find it rewarding I would have given up a long time ago during one of the most awesome moments.

Moments like when my son accidentally covered himself in poop and then decided to be proactive and wash it off. But, he didn't choose soap. NO, he used lotion. Then he got in the tub, a crappy oily kid in a tub. After filling the tub with some water he then shed some of his poopy oil coating off into the water. When I found him, sitting in a soup of oily poop-covered bath toys, I was perplexed. That was one of his not so great ideas. I am still not sure how I managed to clean that one up. I think I have blocked out the details as a form of self preservation.

Someone once told me that they were glad they didn't have children because they were too difficult. They then launched into a story about a terribly raunchy coworker and an unsympathetic boss. I listened and thought to myself, "Well at least no one rubbed shit on you". But then another thought came to my mind. She didn't love the people she worked for, or with. So there wasn't a huge positive to balance out the apparently large negative.

 So now when I am annoyed with my children I remember two things.

#1. I am the boss. They may terrorize me, but in the end, I am the boss.
#2. I actually love them, and if I had to put up with nastiness from other people I did not love, I would be even more frustrated that I am now.

 As you can probably tell, I am a stay at home mom most of the time. The rest of the time I run an at home business. But, I do also like to entertain the idea of employee rights in terms of motherhood. Then I chuckle to myself. I chuckle to myself, because my chuckle isn't really something I should be subjecting other people to. Ok I'll be honest, it is more of a guffaw. A donkey-like braying of laughter.

 I once asked my husband who had yelled at him that day. He was confused. I asked him who pulled his hair, knocked over everything he was working on, and screamed in his face. He was still confused. He must have been having a slow day. I continued on and I asked him who rubbed poop on him, and spit in his face. Then the hamster woke up, and started to fumble on the wheel in his head, and he understood what I was getting at. Looking at me as if I was the biggest dork on earth, he said... "yeah I know. Kids are hard." No... kids aren't just hard. The equivalent of kids in the workplace setting would result in some serious talks with human resources.

That is why the motherhood must exist. We are each other's union and human resources. Now, we don't really have any rights, but we can pretend. If we did have rights there would be "mother protective services" (MPS) that cared when we took a kick to the face, or a strangely well aimed yank to the nipples. Seriously, I can't even find my nipples as fast as my toddler can. I swear every kid under the age of 3 has nipple radar.

So instead of having rights, we just share our horror stories. And, we look at each other knowingly when one of us is walking through a store, with a whining kid in tow, and a monkey-handed toddler in our arms. You know, the type of toddler that decides to reach out with a death grip and grab the rack of magazine as you walk past, pulling you backward and knocking you off balance. We know that moment. We have lived it, and we know what it does to morale.

We are members of the motherhood, a group that exists by default. A group of humans who know that the world expects us to be kinder and better, smarter and calmer, more mature and more patient than the people we care for and take strange abuse from at times.

We are members of the motherhood, initiated through literal blood, sweat and tears, most of which are not our own.

Oh,and don't forget the poop. There is always the poop.

Cultivation

The two weeks prior to my son turning two were busy for me. Not only was I executing the final plans for his birthday party, but I was also hunting for a part time (VERY part time) daycare. You see, children under two years old are considered infants at daycares, at least where we live. That means that providers can charge more for them by the hour because of their high need, but it also means that the spaces for this age group are limited by regulation. That being said, it is very difficult to find any place that will take an infant for part time care. Why fill up a regular infant slot with an irregular participant and loose the funds a full time baby would provide?

Knowing this was the case, I went on the search as soon as my kid moved from being a pricey infant to a regular kid. I finally settled upon Jack's current daycare and I began “Operation Regain and Retain Sanity”.

Prior to having my son I was married to my husband for over 7 years. During those seven years I spent 60-70% of the time alone while he travelled for work. Growing up as an annoying last child, I was used to being on my own and entertaining myself and I developed a great talent for self teaching. So, although I had moments of tears and loneliness and concern when my husband was deployed, I learned to embrace my alone time. It wasn't just that I liked it, I loved it, I was it, I embraced it whole heartedly. And I made the most of it. I learned piano, I studied foreign languages, went to college, did macrophotography, and I had the most amazing flower garden in the world (at least by my standards for a first time gardener).

Then we conceived our son, which was a completely amazing miracle. I remember one day prior to birthing my kid I laid in bed purposefully doing nothing and thinking nothing because I KNEW that these days would soon be over. In a matter of days/weeks I would rarely be alone or have time to do difficult errands or self improvement. You see, bed rest was a cruel bitch. I had two months of isolation and laziness for my social and interpersonal skills to atrophy. That was in preparation for becoming everything to a little needy, suckling, pooping, screaming human alarm clock. My giving muscles were about as underdeveloped as my triceps and glutes were. I knew that a lot of self sacrifice would be taking place, and it would be worth it. But, this chapter of my life would take huge mental adjustments.

I made it through those first two years, and having my son makes everything else I love more worthwhile. The house was somewhat clean, the laundry created lovely multicolored mountainous decorations in my home, my garden was an alarming and embarrassing stretch of death and weeds. My roses were eaten up by God knows what, a rabid rose consuming beaver of destruction? Every time I left my house I felt like low crawling to my car with my kid on my back to avoid having to look my neighbors in the eye. These were the men I had spent many springs and summers alongside mowing, edging, weedwacking, weeding and planting.

But this year will be different! I can walk outside of my house with my head held high, even if I have food smeared all over my shirt. You see, I now have some time for myself every Wednesday. I TAKE time for myself, and I would pay much more than the thirty five dollars I do pay to keep this one day a week set aside for doctor appointments, car repairs, hair appointments, lawn mowing, intense gardening, and important Lowes perusing. Basically, much like my garden, I need some tending to once in a while!!

We all know that I am not the only who benefits from my weekly vacation day from motherhood. Jack needs more friends than just his mom after all. Each week he gets to enjoy a different authority figure and other children his age, while learning the indispensable ability to sleep somewhere other than his own bed.

So, here I sit at a Starbucks watching the 20 somethings look for any signs of interest or attention from anyone else, while seething with apathy. One is smoking a pipe... a pipe. In the corner is the only other laptop user inundated with paperwork, manuals, a calculator and a very tightly buttoned long sleeve polo shirt.

During a conversation where the husband and I were contemplating how to decrease our outgoing funds and increase our incoming funds James suggested that I stop sending Jack to daycare once a week. It was a luxury that we could cut out. Those are some big words coming from a man who is slighted to leave for most of the coming year. Understandably I informed him of my ability to eat only rice and spam every day so that I could trim some fat from the food budget to place into the daycare budget. The insatiable money-munching hamster in his brain thrusted it's wheel into overdrive as he mentally calculated the benefits of limiting our food budget AND eliminating daycare. The food budget was my back pocket ace, dammit. I have always been too reactive to excel at any skills that require strategy, like bartering.

I'll admit, it is sometimes tempting to ask myself why I am paying to do this each week. Why would I give someone else money so that I can sit here sipping coffee and acting the fool with my hipster coffee shop computer usage?

But I know why, and you know why. It is because we all need time to be unneeded. I don't have any appointments today, I have no where I HAVE to be, and I have no one I HAVE to take care of. It's exactly what my mind and body need each week. I have no doubt that the time I am taking for myself will cultivate not only a great vegetable garden this year, but also a more sane and patient mother. Besides, all those vegetables will go quite nicely with all the rice and the spam I may end up consuming.

Internal Soundtracks

I was hanging out at a friend's house the other day and her husband and her both informed me that I sing to myself a lot. He said that I whistle to myself, which I denied. I just can't admit that one since I hate the sound of whistling.

I figured the singing was a side effect of having a kid that responds so well to it (he has me trained, right?). But they both agreed that, no, I have done this for a long time. I also did not want to believe that. Who sings to themselves all the time?

Apparently I do. See, the thing is, I wake up every morning with a different song in my head. Usually it is just part of a song. I am ok with it when it is a song from my playlist on itunes, or from the current CD in my car. But when it is a song from elementary school musicals, that I didn't even like back then, I find it a bit unnerving. Who wants to wake up with "stirring and stirring and stirring my brew.. woo hoo, woo hoo" in their heads?

This morning I woke up to the words "the first time that you introduced me to your friends, and you could tell that I was nervous, so you held my hand" from a Lily Allen song. That would be one from my CD in my car, so I am ok with that. Except that the same lines kept running over and over in my head.

Later on in the shower the song changed to Frere Jacque. Heaven help me.

So, as I usually do, I decided to over think my habit of self singing. First off, it is a bit embarrassing to think that I am betraying my inner soundtrack so unknowingly. What if I was singing Vanilla Ice in my head? Oh the horror.

But, in all reality, I already have moments where my inner dialogue is compromised by my untrustworthy mouth. I do, however, feel much worse for the victim of my machine gun thoughts. The one-sided dialogue is usually a painful pros and cons argument that does nothing but makes me look like a fickle flip flopper of sorts (damn you gifted program who forced me into divergent thinking and devalued the beauty of concise convergent thought).

So, here is the real point of this post. I would love to know what is playing on my friends internal soundtracks. If you read this and you have an answer, I would love it if you would post it. Now, be honest. If you are really hearing "I Wear My Sunglasses At Night" we won't judge you. In fact, you will just infect us all. Great.. that one is going to run through my head all day.

So, in closing, I suppose I will admit that I am a self singer and yes, a self whistler. I hear music all day in my head. I listen to it constantly. I also write it, and adore it. Certain albums have brought light to my darkest hours and still stand as solid revelatory soundtracks for times in my life that seemed to have no direction or meaning.

There is beauty in being able to identify with music. It frees us from the bondage of defining our thoughts, ideas and feelings, and then narrowing them down to just words. I suppose we just have to be aware that if we sing them aloud, someone may be listening.

You're Telling Me?

Rarely do I encounter a celebrity quote that I agree with. It is even more rare that that quote would come from Kid Rock. But, if he did indeed say the following words, I am in agreement.

"I truly believe that people like myself, who are in a position of entertainers in the limelight, should keep their mouths shut on politics. Because at the end of the day, let me tell you what I'm good at: I'm good at writing songs and singing. What I'm not educated in is the field of political science. And so for me to be sharing my views and influencing people of who I think they should be voting for ... I think would be very irresponsible on my part."

Ok, so I don't agree with him being good at writing songs and singing necessarily, but I find this tidbit refreshing. The amount of celebrity influence over people's political decisions is out of control. I find it a bit astounding that celebrities feel that their opinions are important on these types of matters.

Today I watched a documentary (that's a very loose term used to mask my VH1 veiwing shame) about the amount of money celebrities spend on their clothes, purses, jewelry, tanning, waxing, facials, massages, snake venom injections, shoes, hair, makeup, stylists, "posh" squads and other idiotic things to get ready to walk the red carpet.

These are the people that think their opinion on politics matter? Here is my favorite. Madonna. Let me warn you, I am about to rant.

Two things I saw today really irritated me about this silly woman. First off, she apparently has a crew of people who follow her down the red carpet adjusting her makeup, and her hair, as she is walking. Let's imagine to ourselves how much that would cost. Can you imagine what it would cost to go one day a week to have your hair done? How about every day? How about every minute? And don't forget the people doing your hair aren't from costcutters or the local mall salon. How much would that cost? This show estimated that each celebrity spends upward of 20,000 just to get ready for these events. That does not include having a personal entourage of nitpickers to groom you every five seconds.

In the course of all thoughts one word comes to mind- EXCESS.

However, there are celebrities who I feel are playing the game pretty intelligently. Take Angelina Jolie for instance. She makes her money from her image. She has to maintain a level of secrecy, mystery and desirability in order to keep her value. She does this, and in turn, she uses her money for quite a few charitable outlets. If she stopped being so enigmatic and stopped playing the high dollar hollywood game, her value would drop and she would not have the same resources to pull from in order to fund her philanthropy. I get that.

But Madonna?

Here is what has turned my crusty eye in her direction:

http://perezhilton.com/tv/?videoid=0c07084d64e47

I am sure that this clip is more about who Madonna thinks you should vote for, but that isn't why I am irritated with it. She can promote whoever she wants. The entire video depicts Madonna as someone who actually cares about such things as rabid consumerism, or depletion of natural resources. Give me a break.

The thing that cracks me up the most is that she is showed this video during her concerts. Imagine the amount of money that she is raking in for her performances. What is she doing with it all? How much is spent on the renting of the venues, the fuel she spends moving her crap around during the tour, the sheer manpower it takes to run a tour, the electricity it takes for lighting etc.?

Am I big environmentalist? Not really. But I am a bit of a "common sense-alist". I can see hypocrisy when it is dancing like cheap stripper in front of me. Especially when it is posing amidst portraits of starving children. The only message I received from all this was a huge sense of disgust and irritation. Idealism has it's place- in the minds of the unknowing and innocent. Otherwise it would be realistic instead of idealistic, and therefore plausible.

It's too bad Madonna didn't listen to Kid Rock. She cheapened all the realities of the troubles this world has with her ridiculous antics. What an irresponsible thing to do.

So, we shouldn't be excessive, warmongering, selfish, gluttonous pigs? I'll remember that when I am paying $10.00 for my haircut and struggling to find the cheapest possible pajamas for my ever growing child. I am glad that Madonna shared her message she believes in and lives with such integrity.

We should be more giving and care more about our world. You're telling me Madonna? Ok, that makes perfect sense.

Breathing Sand

Embarrassment is an amazing feeling. It's tenacity is what intrigues me the most. I suppose that when it is coupled with shame its ability to stick is the strongest, like a strange form of emotional epoxy. I have found, quite frequently, that most people open enough to admit it still hold kernels of embarrassment/shame in their minds. For myself, I find that I most often forget about these little tidbits of fun until something reminds me of them, or triggers them.

One of these moments for me was when I made fun of a Bon Jovi song with my siblings when I was about ten. My father was in the room and mistook what I was saying as something ridiculously crass and beyond my comprehension of sexuality. Yeah, so he shamed me. I had no idea what I said that was wrong, but I knew that I should be embarrassed. I was. For about fifteen years, every time I heard that stupid song I would feel that shiver of chagrin course through me. It wasn't until I was about 26 that I realized how I was really feeling, why and how pointless it was. Now I can listen to "I'll Be There For You" freely and openly as Bon Jovi intended. Hardy har har.

One of my friends and I will share these humiliating moments with each other casually from time to time, knowing deep inside that the other will rescue us from the feelings of embarrassment. We simply validate each other about the moment, or just help the other laugh at themselves and let it go.

I have read in several of my "how to be happy" books (I am a sucker for a good self help book) that when we are mistreated by someone, especially as children, and that someone does not accept the shame of their action we take it on ourselves. Children who are abused most often carried loads of this toxic shame throughout their lives. Most often they are not even aware, that as adults, they have formed their opinions of what is "appropriate", "acceptable", "responsible", or "right" by the interactions they had as a child. Many of these interactions were negative and therefore seared these concepts deeply into their minds. Because they were taught to feel less than, or ashamed, of their weaknesses they feel entitled to cause others to feel this way too.

Now, the real reason for this post is this. I think that the first step to eradicating unneeded shame and embarrassment is to just accept that we are going to make mistakes. And, to ask ourselves if the punishment we put ourselves through is really equal to the crime. Most importantly, realizing that the crime is irrelevant to the punishment. Feeling stupid doesn't erase anything or fix anything from the past.

I have a firm belief that the moment we give people the right to make mistakes we move closer toward forgiveness. This concept includes how we perceive ourselves. In all reality, we really don't have the ability to make choices in this life if we are not also granted the right to fail. Failure doesn't have to automatically give birth to embarrassment.

So, if you are carrying those moments of humiliation just ask yourself. Do I want to know more tomorrow? Do I want to be more mature in two years? If we expect ourselves to be more educated and have more self mastery in the future, than we have to accept that we will have been less educated and less disciplined in the past. It is the natural course of things. Therefore stupidity will happen every day and we learn from it and are smarter the next day.

If I am going to be smarter tomorrow, then I must have been stupider yesterday. There is no shame in that. I try to boycott shame from my life, but for lack of a better word...

The real shame is not in growing through mistake making; but in refusing to work through the embarrassments, to accept your faults, learn from them and move on. Keeping our heads in the sand might hide our heads, but it brings quite a bit of attention to the rest of us. It's better to just relive it, work through it and hold our heads up high.*

*Those self help books are really starting to warp my vernacular.

Is Ranting in Season?

Most of the thoughts that I deem blogworthy are born out of long involved conversations I have with one my closest friends via telephone. Today we had a discussion concerning relationships and their relevance during various seasons of life.

I told myself that I would avoid bringing up Barbara Kingsolver again in my blog, simply because I didn't want to appear to be an overly devoted fiend. But, she makes some really great points in her books.

I am particularly fond of the concepts in Kingsolver's book (A.V.M) concerning the irrelevance of seasons in the American culture in terms of food consumption. Her book focuses on eating only locally produced food and those who choose to do this, "locavores". But that isn't the idea that struck me.

The concept that struck me is that it seems that part of being an American is being shown how to expect to be able to procure whatever we deem necessary at any time. It starts with goods such as tomatoes in December (even though most of them are not that delicious) and moves toward such imports as the Tahitian vanilla in my pantry. Side note: I am not a locavore, I am more of a fancy imported food whore. Just being honest here.

But I think this mentality has also spread itself into our lack of respect for seasons in most things. Teenagers seem to be a common indicator of the direction our culture takes since they tend to charactature the good and bad so poignantly. And who expresses more feeling of entitlement than teenagers? Ok, more than celebrities? Ok, more than celebrity teenagers?

Anyway, you can google teenagers and their feelings of entitlement and you'll get quite the response since this seems to be on most people's minds as they struggle to understand it's source. I am sure there is also a term used to define our current crop of teenagers and their respective generation with some kind of letter, like Generation A or Generation B. I'll go with Generation Give Me What I Want or I'll Sic Social Services On You. But, my point here is that it isn't too difficult to figure out why our youth are so impatient and expect privilege without responsibility or hard work.

It seems to me that the American Dream has been perverted into the American Fantasy. Less accountability, more belongings, more pleasure and yes... more entitlement.

So, how does this apply to relationships? How realistic are most people's expectations of their spouses or their marriages? How tolerant are we really when it comes to the seasons of our lives and how they interact with those of our loved ones?

The reality is that the divorce rate is ridiculous and people are terrified of marriage because their expectations are unrealistic. I think that if eyes were set on reality, the expectations wouldn't kick us in the butt. Recognizing how little we really are entitled to, how much we need to really work for what we want, and how much it really is worth it, starts with granting nature its rights to run its course.

Trying to get our relationships to spontaneously bring forth the products (produce) we think during the wrong season of life and then resenting it for not being unnaturally accommodating to our unrealistic expectations is pretty fruitless (Warning: Metaphor Overkill Now In Progress).

Needless to say, I feel that there is a time and season for all things, not just tomatoes. After all, how can we truly appreciate the sweetness this life has during seasons of plenty if we haven't accepted the bitterness of going without during seasons of drought? Now, where did I put that vanilla? I want to make some exotic cupcakes.

Filling the Tool Belt

When Jack was born I had a cesarean section and one of the side effects of this surgery was having air in my body cavity. It was quite painful, and it was wonderfully temporary. But there was an upside to this pain. For the last seven years I have intermittently had strange pain throughout my entire body cavity that felt essentially the same. I was actually thankful for the experience I had following my surgery because I finally had a descriptor for these strange pains. It was difficult to explain what I was feeling to doctors and I was starting to feel like a crackpot.

After thoughtful consideration I found that anxiety was correlated with the aches. Therefore, they became the catalyst to me making some interesting realizations concerning the connection between my body and my mind.

"Thinking is the process that goes on in the part of the brain known as the neocortex. Feeling, or emotion, related to physiological sensations experienced primarily in or through the internal organs and glands. Feeling is the direct, lawful result of the specific thinking that is done... Located within the neocortex is the portion of the brain known as the limbic system. Its function is the control or regulation of the automatic nervous system. The automatic nervous system in turn regulates and controls the functioning of the internal organs and glands." according to Stevan Lars Neilsen, my professor for a course in self concept theory that I took.

So basically, we get info, we process it in our brain, and then we experience the consequence of that assessment as emotions and, at times, throughout our bodies. Life would happen, I would evaluate it in an unhealthy way, and it would produce various emotions (anxiety) and feelings (stomachaches) within my body- pretty crappy ones at that.

After some oh-so-fun honest self evaluation I came to realize that there were three causes to this anxiety. I had some bad thinking habits and I didn't have the tools to fix the broken parts of my thinking.

1. Catastrophizing

2. Shoulding myself

and

3. Becoming overwhelmed by my responsibilities.

I call these errors respectively the "what ifs?", "being bullied" (by myself or others), and the big "t0-dos". I am sure that if I look up the lists of all the cognitive distortions defined by cognitive behavioral therapists, these items would already have a nice tidy name and description.

Acknowledging, and then accepting these cognitive mistakes is great and all, but the best part is when solutions are found. So what were my solutions or tools? For catastrophizing, I do an actual risk assessment. I could spend an eternity hypothesizing about all the possible, terrible outcomes for every situation. But the reality is that these terrible scenarios aren't likely. By making educated guesses based on actual facts I am able to combat this thinking mistake that was so common in my childhood nuclear family.

A few years ago I was sitting at church listening to a musical number performed by very happy-faced, idealized singers. I remember feeling nauseated by what appeared to be a complete production of what a good mormon "should be". My response was to lean over and use my well adapted sardonic defense mechanism to banter with my neighbor. Later, still annoyed by forced cheesiness of the performance, I called a friend to vent and scorn the singers. I spewed my cynicism out, depicting the singers with plentiful adjectives and the assertion that they were up there "shoulding" all over us. The reality was that they represented all that I felt I "should" be and was not able to be, and I resented them.

Now when I catch myself shoulding all over myself, I consider where my real responsibilities lie and what boundaries I need to be employ. I have heard it said that the distance between your expectations and reality establishes the level of your disappointments. I consider my reality and accept it. If I can change it, then I do so. Yet another tool in the tool belt for mental well being. Yee haw!

The third blunder that I discovered myself making involved becoming unnecessarily overwhelmed with tasks I was responsible to accomplish. But I found that making plans and organizing baby steps helped me to overcome this issue.

Now whenever I feel this pain it is an appreciated indicator to me that I am having anxiety and therefore my thinking must be off. But the cool thing is that I am able to figure out how I am flubbing up and cognitions need to be fixed.

Thankfully, I now have a fuller tool belt.