Tag Archives: stay at home mom

Poetic License for Bloggers is called Bullshit

Posted on April 18, 2013 | 12 Comments

Poetic License – the distortion of fact or narrative to tell a story or evoke a feeling. It’s cool.

I mean, poetic license is cool when you are writing a poem. But blogging or a personal narrative? I call bullshit on “poetic license.” I call the stretching and fudging of truth and fact bullshit when you are telling a “true story.” And man… that is just too damn bad.

Sometimes when something happens to me I start to write a blog post in my mind. I ramble on in my own personal little stand-up routine. Occasionally I get to laughing and I realize that the “punch line,” the part that made something really, truly funny… it didn’t actually happen. And I am left with what could have been funny “if only…” But more often than not what makes it funny is if I stretch the truth about how I think or feel on a subject. A spider in my medicine cabinet can get really funny if I couple it with a crippling fear of spiders. But I am not scared of spiders. At all. It is kind of funny to realize that I am standing in my bedroom fresh from the shower and all the blinds are open if my neighbor moonlights as a cabana boy, not so much if it is the seven year old son of my best friend. You get the picture.

Today I tore open the top of a PowerGel with my teeth (because working out like such a bad mamajama that you require PowerGels means that you no longer use scissors! The brute force of your own teeth will work just fine, thankyouverymuch.) I squirted the Vanilla tasting snot-like substance in to my mouth, waiting for the promised immediate burst of energy and thought to myself:

PowerGels taste like shit. The horrific taste helps make me certain that it is entering my blood stream and getting shit done! Just like tossing back hard liquor – I wince and think good lord, that was heinous. And that is how I know for sure that it is going to fuck me up.

Only that last part is not true. At all. I might have been the only college undergrad that didn’t hate the taste of booze. Not even Scotch. Sure, I am not wild about the lowest of the low. The bottom-shelf, plastic bottle of rotgut and I are not fast friends – but I can guarantee you that it is not as horrible as a PowerGel.

But the trouble is the blog post that starts “So, I ate a PowerGel today and man, did I wish it was a mini bottle of vodka” isn’t very funny. Although, now that I have typed it out perhaps I am on to something. I can see how a quick shot of vodka midway through the bike portion of the sprint triathlon might actually kick my ass in to high gear. It would at least help me out in the fearlessness department. I have a moderate fear of riding my bike really fast downhill brought on by one too many late-night crash and burns in college. But I suspect once the shot wore off my run would certainly suffer – unless there was more booze and a pizza at the finish line. Again, I think I might be on to something.

I will be 37 in 19 days. 9 days before that I will swim 250 yards, bike 10 miles and then run 2 more. It’s no Ironman. Hell, it isn’t even an Olympic distance triathlon. But it’s further than I have moved my ass in a long, long time. And it is a first for me.

A few years ago at the bottom of a bottle of wine I confessed to Mike that I wanted to get married before I was 35 so we could try and get pregnant before I was an “elderly gravida,” a wickedly offensive term for a woman over 35 who is pregnant. We pulled it off. We got married 7 days before I turned 35 and I am fairly sure that we were pregnant by my birthday. Take a newlywed couple that has been living with their five year old daughter and give them a hotel room and an open bar and they can make a baby pronto. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

36 passed in a blur of breastfeeding and tears and sleeplessness and finding my groove. If 35 was the Year of the Newlywed and 36 was the Year of the New Stay At Home Mom, what I am calling 37? Beats me.

I can tell you this. 37 will not be the Year of the PowerGel because they taste like shit. I have a sneaking suspicion that in retrospect 37 will be phase one of Turn in to a Bad Mofo Before I Turn 40. I will continue to work on a catchier name. I have 384 days before it is over.

Sorry this wasn’t really very funny. Or insightful. Or poignant. Y’all seem to like the funny and the sad. You especially love the embarrassing. So, I offer you this. My pinhead is disguised by my widow’s peak ordinarily. I’m glad swimming caps are not required for all trips to the gym or my effort at picking up gym moms might be fruitless. I mean, would you go on a Mom Date with this girl?

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The Space to Breathe

Posted on April 11, 2013 | 4 Comments

Some days are just like every other day. You wake. You go about your routine. You look at the clock and the time ticks by, sometimes quickly, sometimes painfully slowly, but the day carries on and before you know it you are brushing your teeth and preparing to climb in to bed and do it all again tomorrow.

Yesterday was an odd one. I did things I don’t normally do. Some of those things were very small but when I stepped back from the day and sized it up they all added up. And this morning, I feel different.

I sat down yesterday morning with a newspaper. I did not open my laptop and have coffee. I sat down with the paper. A real, live newspaper. I fear Chapel Hill News is suffering if they are delivering their paper for free to neighboring towns. I can’t count on this paper sticking around in printed form if they have resorted to giving it away but I will enjoy it while it lasts. A newspaper and a cup of coffee. That was unusual.

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Later in the morning I met a new friend and her son and we walked and talked. I was late. I am never late. I cancel if I am going to be late. I was late. That is unlike me. And I did not take a single picture. I did not check my phone. Also not typical behavior. We walked and talked.

She mentioned the paralyzing freedom of having every day be so full of options. I’d not considered that fully before. The lack of structure that can be present in the life of the mother who chooses to stay at home – it can have an almost crippling presence. “But you can do whatever you want,” a friend might note. Not really. Somedays I do not do a damn thing that is “what I want.” And yet daily I am overcome with gratitude. I am all at once living the life that I have chosen, that I am deeply grateful for, and not actually very free at all some days.

Later in the evening I did another thing I rarely do.

I stopped and had two beers at a local bar in town. “Have a seat,” said a gentleman as he slid over and offered me a bar stool. It had been so long I almost said “Oh, no, no.” I couldn’t possibly sit down. I didn’t have that kind of time. I would just stand, drink a beer, and hightail it home before Lucy woke up or MQD called or … or what? I turned in to a pumpkin?

I slid in to a barstool and I felt my shoulders get lower. I felt my back get longer. I was relaxed, in my element. It had been too long. A man introduced himself, “I am Jerry, by the way.”

I smiled. “The ByTheWays, I know a lot of your people, a friendly bunch you are. I meet a ByTheWay almost everywhere I go.” He paused. And then he smiled. I apologized for my flip remark. “I spent a decade behind the bar and I have a canned response to everything, I am sorry. I haven’t been out in so damn long that that is all that’s coming to me now. Forgive me?”

We chatted about kids and our quaint little downtown. The fellow to my left interrupted me, eventually. “What are you now? Just a housewife?” I felt myself stand up straighter. “Yep. And it is fucking awesome.” I could see that he was disappointed. I think he’d been trying to rile me up and I didn’t bite. I threw him a bone. “You? What are you? Just an asshole? A prick? What name do you prefer?” He seemed pleased with himself, he’d gotten under my skin.

I smiled again and let him down easy. “I’m sorry… but you have got to be kidding me. “Just a housewife?” Come on, man, it is the 21st century. Cut the little woman some slack.” I turned to Mr. ByTheWay and said “It was really nice to meet you.” I turned back to my right and said “And you, watch your mouth,” flashing him a million dollar smile.

20130411-122721.jpgI joined my girlfriends outside and laughed some more. We talked about our kids. It was easy. It was awkward for me to realize that I actually enjoyed sitting at a table with a bunch of women having easy conversation just as much if not more than the jocular and sometimes acidic back and forth of strangers at a bar. While outside a friend mentioned a tattoo I’ve had for years. A devil-woman, nursing her baby. I got it ages ago to symbolize the union between the hell-raiser I had been and the mother I was becoming. A timely reminder that I do not have to choose. The comfort I feel at a table of women does not negate the entertainment of a seat at the bar.

It is good to do the things that we do not usually do. Read the newspaper. Turn your phone off. Go ahead and be late. Stop for a beer.

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This morning I went outside to water the flowers and said “C’mon, Goose, we need to hurry up.” Hurry. Towards what? The next task? I stopped. I poured some water on her feet and she laughed. I took a picture of the snapdragons quickly and then I put my phone inside. We sat on the deck. I don’t know for how long.

If I am quiet in the coming weeks, do not be worried. I am going back to school.  I have enrolled in a self-taught, self-guided and intensive course on the Art of Relaxing. Wish me luck.

 

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Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting, Tattoos

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It’s not a Dirty Secret.

Posted on March 29, 2013 | 10 Comments

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It was an innocent question. “Do you post about it?”

“Eh, not really. I can’t become one of those facebooking stay at home moms that posts about the gym constantly.”

He went on to explain that he thinks it is motivating to people to see people taking care of themselves. He’s right. Intellectually, I know that he is right. And he knows where of he speaks. My friend Tony lost a gazillion pounds in the last few years going to Yoga. He looks just like the handsome devil he was at 20. He is so damn inspiring he was on Good Morning, America. The guy knows what inspiring looks like.

“I agree. I just think that my stay at home mom-ness makes some people have the “Of course she works out – what else is she doing?” reaction, yanno?”

It was the first time I had admitted that there is a certain level of shame that goes along with striving to be fit when I don’t have a “real job.” Somehow making time for myself when I worked 50+ hours a week was more admirable to me.

I let this all roll around in my head for a few days. And then I decided, fuck it. I work about 22 hours a day. That is 154 hours a week. And I find the time. Six days a week I say to someone, even if it just Lucy “Nope, I can’t do that. I am going to the gym.” And I go. Sometimes the only thing that drags me there is the knowledge that I can take a shower. Sometimes I go so that I can get out of my own head for a few minutes. Sometimes I go because I am so damn close to the Wedding Weight (the number on the scale when we got married, at the peak of the Wedding Diet. It shouldn’t matter. I know this. But man, alive, it feels good. My body doesn’t resemble the Wedding Day body. My boobs are still cartoonishly large due to nursing. My stomach is still weirdly stretchy. But the scale, the dreaded scale, is resembling a me that said “Hot damn, take my picture all day and make me your wife!”)

But more often than not I go because I am obsessed. Not with being fit in a general sense. Or dieting. Or zipping up my skinny jeans. Or how I will look in a bathing suit this summer. But because I have a new hobby.

Sprint Triathlons. On April 28th I will be one week shy of 37-years-old and I will be competing in my very first sprint triathlon. Swim 250 yards. Bike ten miles. Run two miles. And I can not wait. I am over the moon excited. I lie in bed and I wonder if I can get my socks on faster if I roll them up kinda like a donut. I go back and forth between putting on a baseball hat under my bike helmet or not. As absurd as the tri-suit bathing suits are they must have a purpose and I scour the Internet for one that is universally flattering and only marginally overpriced.

I am coming out of hiding! I am proudly telling you and the whole damn world that I am “one of those women.” I am one of those women that is showing her kids that it is important to take time to care for yourself. It is important to work for things that you believe in. It is okay to take pride in feeling strong. And it is even okay to be one of those women that hangs around in the lobby drinking a cup of coffee after Spin class like “she doesn’t have anything better to do.” Because my bathrooms will get cleaned. My groceries will get purchased. My laundry will get put away and some more board books will be read. And I just might do it all with a smile on my face because I had a ten minute conversation with an adult that was not about poop or Hello Kitty.

Ladies at the gym in your fancy workout clothes – I am sorry my 26 year old self sneered at you. I did not undertand why you had on a matchy matchy gym ensemble instead of a decade old fraternity t-shirt. I didn’t understand that gym clothes might be the only “getting dressed” you did all day and that it was important to feel put together. I am sorry that I thought it was lame that you were not in any kind of hurry to leave the gym. I am sorry that I thought taking your time meant you didn’t have anything “better to do.” I don’t really have an excuse. I was still lighting a cigarette as soon as I pulled out of the gym parking lot. Can we just agree that there were a lot of things I did not have figured out and forgive me?

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So, now that I spilled the beans you can expect to hear more.  Because when I get in to something I get really in to it.  I’ll be racing for a cause, Best for Babes.  You can expect to hear a lot more about that. No more time to gab.  I have a hot date with a treadmill.

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Just call me Norm.

Posted on March 28, 2013 | 28 Comments

I remember when I used to have a bar. My bar. I went there almost every night. If I missed a night or even two I felt like it had been ages since I had been there. If I missed three days, forget it. I started to convince myself that there would be new regulars by the time I got there, a new bartender, even worse – a new doorman.

You guys are “my bar.” And this is my way of apologizing. Here. It’s my ID. I will show it to the doorman in an effort to say “Hey, I don’t expect you to know who I am anymore, I know it seems like I haven’t been here in weeks, but it has only been six days.”

What have I been doing? Umm. Nothing extraordinary. I have fallen in to a good routine. I have been to the gym every day. Even days that I did not want to go. At all.

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I have read board books until my eyes have crossed. I have passed these rhyming nonsensical books off to my seven year old and asked her to read them. We all read and read and read some more. I love that my sweet girls like books. I do. But so help me, a day without “Goodnight, Moon” would not be a day without sunshine.

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I made the most incredibly perfect sunny side up eggs. The yolks were golden and they required not even a pinch of salt. It has been well over a year since I have purchased an egg in a store.

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I get my eggs from a friend. This week I met that friend for lunch. I left with two dozen eggs from Heritage Acres Farm and some knowledge. After lunch we took a quick stroll around downtown and she clued me in to the fact that there is an unbelievable little vintage shop near the post office. Uniquitiques. I am a sucker for vintage aprons and linens. A rack of cute dresses that probably won’t fit a girl like me with a nursing rack. But there was a book case of vintage boots. Vintage. Cowgirl Boots. Oh, hello. A sweet lady said “Oh, you like the boots, follow me.” We followed her through her maze of a shop.

And then my eyes fell out of my head and I dropped to my knees.

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Row upon row upon row of boots, y’all. Rooms full of boots.  ROOMS.  They’re not cheap. But they don’t have to be. For the gal that wants an unbelievable pair of boots and wants to shrug and say “these old things?” when someone says “Good gawd, those are Gorgeous!” this is the promised land.

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I took Lucy in for her 12 month well visit. Two months late.  She is a-ok.  She is long and lean with a freakishly large noggin.

I took myself in to the doc for my annual reminder that I have allergies.  Some years my seasonal allergies rest in my sinus cavities and give me headaches that feel like dirty, dirty Mad Dog hangovers.  This year I am feeling lucky to have an ear infection. I skipped a swim workout and opted for extra cardio instead.  Lucy skipped a morning nap and we made up for late in the afternoon.  A couple of hours of shut eye and we are feeling pretty super.

 

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I have Easter lights up in my kitchen.  The Easter Bunny will be stuffing plastic eggs with jelly beans and chucking them around the yard this weekend.  No chocolate in the eggs this year, the weather is too outrageous.  It was in the 30s this week but it could be 70 by Sunday.

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So, that’s what you missed.  A whole lotta nothing.  I have fallen in to a good routine.  Just in time to hit the road for Spring Break and mess it all up, but that’s how it always works, right?  Get your kids and your house and your head in to a groove and then turn it on its head.

Speaking of heads.  There was a day this week, maybe even two, that I did not hate my hair.  I still long for my sock bun and I am sick and tired of sporting the “I am growing out my bangs, what’s YOUR problem?” face and accompanying barrettes. But just one day that I look in the mirror and think “Ok.  So, that kind of looks like it isn’t a wig or someone else’s head.” Yeah.  That’s not too bad.

How about you?  What’s shakin’? I haven’t seen you in forever.

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Day 89: Primal Scream

Posted on February 26, 2013 | 10 Comments

Day 89: Primal Scream – Get it out if your system. Go on. Let loose.

The way I understand things the primal scream is part of Arthur Janov’s primal therapy.  The theory states that neurosis is a product of repressed pain from childhood.  Releasing the primal scream greases the gears to eventually free the pain we have repressed, thereby processing it and integrating these painful childhood experiences into our adult selves.

Fundamental to Janov’s theory is the idea that we have three levels to our conscious and unconscious mind.  We have our survival mind.  We have our feeling mind.  And lastly we have our thinking mind.

I don’t think I would be a good candidate for Primal Therapy.  To begin with, I do not think there is any division between my feeling and thinking mind.  And second – I am just not big on screaming anymore.  Years ago I struggled with this.  Emily tried my patience.  I read Unconditional Parenting and I worked my ass off to stay committed to a path of gentle discipline.  But toddlers are wicked little creatures.  And I had so much anger in me.  So, I yelled.

Don't let the sweet face fool you. She was maddening.

Don’t let the sweet face fool you. She was maddening.

I did not yell all of the time.  But I yelled more than I wanted to. As my life straightened out and I let go of the anger that had been holding me back, I stopped yelling.  It didn’t hurt that Emily grew up a little and left the incendiary behavior of toddlerhood behind.

Today I let out a few screams for the sake of the challenge.

I guess it remains to be seen if I can blame all of my yelling on misplaced aggression and pain  or if it was really just the torturous toddler years taking their toll on me. As great as it may have felt today to let my primal self holler – it feels better to keep a lid on my volume.   I have every reason to believe that Lucy will drive me bonkers, too, over the next couple of years.  And if I survive her toddlerhood without going apeshit I will have a teenager right around the corner.    Here’s hoping my screaming ship has sailed. Breathe in.  Breathe out.

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Hey you guys!!!

Posted on January 26, 2013 | 32 Comments

It’s not my best look. I call it “just rolled out of bed not even wearing my cute glasses wearing my favorite sweater and only two sips in to a cup of coffee” chic.

Photo on 1-26-13 at 8.09 AM #2

I just wanted to sit down this morning and say Hey you guys! Yesterday afternoon yours truly was Freshly Pressed and with that comes scads (gobs? hordes? what shall I call you?)  of new readers that deserve a little shout out.

It didn’t seem right to get all fancied up and try and be something I am not and dazzle you.  So. Here I am.  This is where I usually am.  In my chair with the kiddo on the boob.  This morning is cold so I am enjoying one of the four (four!) cowl neck scarves I have recently crocheted.  Yeah.  I am a woman that crochets, guys.  I don’t know how it happened.  Sometime this winter when I realized I had watched everything on my DVR and every single series on Hulu I decided I needed to find something else to do while Lucy slept in my lap.  So, yeah, I crochet.  And I am impatient.  Cowl neck scarf – the four hour project – we are pals.  Stick around and maybe I will send you one if your neck looks particularly cold.

I wish I had more time this morning but I am trying to get out the door.

You know when you do something that you kind of think is awesome but you aren’t sure if it is totally absurd.  You’re not embarrassed exactly, but you’re not sure if people that know you would think “Oh, that is strange.  You don’t really do that, do you?”  When I was fourteen I bought a hot pink swing dress and purple polka-dotted tights to wear to my boyfriend’s graduation.  (It was 1991, it was a hot look.) Previously I had been seen in my overalls.  Pretty much every day.  I thought the dress was cute.  I thought it was kind of adorably Molly Ringwald-ish, actually. But I wondered if it was “me.”

I don’t work hard to stay in my “me” box.  But I think we all have a type.  Not long ago I was horrified when I realized I had Mom-hair but I owned it.  In fact, I declared myself to be the Samue L. Jackson of Motherhood and decided that in spite of my hair I was a bad motherfucker.

So, I am yammering on because I am not sure I can admit this.  I like to work out.  It keeps me from being totally mental.  I run.  I actually love p90x.  I am not afraid of the weight room and I don’t really wear “cute outfits” to the gym.  I like to get sweaty.  But this morning I am going to do something I have been talking about doing forever.  And I might get hysterical and get kicked out but I am going for it.  I am going to Zumba, guys.   Zumba bills itself as a sexy Jazzercise.  Take a minute to chew on that.  Sexy.  Jazzercise.  I hope they serve margaritas.  I am going to need one.  Or four.

So, a big fat “hello” and “happy to meet you” and “what took you so long let’s be best friends!” to the new readers.  I gotta jet.  Get my sweat on.  Oh, and shake my moneymaker. Because apparently when I am not busy being a bad motherfucker or crocheting I go to Zumba.  Sigh.  The latter half of my third decade is going to be weird.  I can feel it.

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I’m so complicated. Really. I am.

Posted on November 26, 2012 | 28 Comments

I can’t recall who started it. It was trending not just in my twitter feed and on facebook. It was in my house, too. Em didn’t want to go back to school after her long break. MQD was not particularly interested in going back to work. It seemed like no one wanted to “go back.”

I have adopted a silence when people start hemming and hawing on Sunday in the late afternoon about “going back to work.” When you stay home you don’t have much to add to that conversation. Either you crack a joke at your own expense quickly or you start pointing out that you don’t get days off at all.

I usually just fall quiet. I am not trying to get pelted with bon bons from the stay at home mom crowd for saying this out loud. But staying home with my kids is so far the best job I have ever had. I make my own hours. I love the people that I work for. And I wear whatever I want. The same things that make it awful are the things that make it wonderful. I spend all my time with my co-workers. All of it.

This particular Monday I had a tougher time falling back in to the swing of things. My house is clean. My refrigerator is full of left overs. My laundry is done. A long weekend with family and  I had plenty of extra hands on deck. Christmas is more than a month away. I am not ready to start that. So, what exactly am I to do?

Lucy and I had a lazy morning. We stayed in our pajamas. We did some yoga. We chatted with a friend when she stopped by with our eggs. Late morning became afternoon and before I knew it Emily’s bus was going to be home and we weren’t even dressed. For all intents and purposes I did not “go to work” today. Sure, I kept the kiddo alive and happy all day. And on a good day that is enough for me. She is my “primary job.” But on the days when I sit back and watch her and I disengage and I wonder if “this” is “enough” – it makes my heart hurt.

Sitting on the floor in our bedroom by the window I could feel the lonely settling down in to my bones. I was trying to be light hearted when I called him. “Every one is back to work and school and I am just here. It’s so quiet. It’s like I don’t know what to do.”

He was joking.    ”You should clean something.”

I wanted to hang up.  I wanted to not cry.  I wanted to not make mountains out of molehills and rail against the Universe that cleaning things is a waste of time when it will all be a mess again tomorrow.  He was kidding.

But damn that man of mine.  Even his jokes can see through me.  Surely he could hear the blue.  I don’t wear it well.

 

Not even ten minutes had passed before I ripped the covers off of the couch and put them in the washing machine.  He might have been joking, but I feel pretty fantastic. Sometimes I do need to feel like I “did” something.  And by sometimes I mean all of the time.  The washing machine will be done in four minutes.  In a little over an hour I will pull clean cushion covers out of my dryer and wrestle them back on to the couch.  And I will feel like I conquered the world.  Or at the very least I will feel like I beat back the blue for yet another day.

But it is not just because I cleaned something.  I can’t have you or MQD thinking my life is really that simple.

I also put on lipstick.  And in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due I must thank my mother (presumably) for losing a lipstick in my couch.  Because apparently it takes more than just a shower and a completed chore to make my heart sing.  It takes lipstick, y’all.

 

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In my kitchen, again.

Posted on November 17, 2012 | 20 Comments

No matter how happy you are, no matter how much you live the life you believe in your heart that you want, there are moments that you look at the door and think “I could just walk out. Right now I would like to just walk right out the door.”

Not forever.  Just for the morning.  And not because you aren’t happy, just because occasionally it feels like you live in the movie Groundhog Day  –  ”Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.” I walked in to the kitchen this morning wearing my winter uniform (velour jogging suit and a tank top) just as I did the day before.  And likely just as I will tomorrow.

“I am not making breakfast.  I feel like all I ever do is cook food and clean it up.  All day.”

If you live across the street from your best friend than you can put on a baseball hat, grab a cup of coffee and walk out the door.  Thirty seconds later I was standing in a different kitchen with only one of my children, drinking coffee and bullshitting about absolutely  nothing in the way that only women can.

Sitting at her kitchen table I can just sit.  I don’t have to fold her laundry, though I have. I don’t have to let her dogs in and out ten times, though I can yell at them for barking.   Somehow her kids and their incredible loudness is funny to me, almost entertaining.  It’s a change of scenery and sometimes that is all I need.  I don’t long for a new life, I just want to live it in a different kitchen for an hour.

I walked back in the house feeling good.  ”I emptied the dishwasher and I washed out the casserole pan from last night,” sad MQD.  A good man picks up your slack.  I could have thanked him.  Or given him shit for reporting to me like he was a kid deserving of a gold star.

Instead I just smiled and said “That’s it?”

There is a changing of the guard that takes place between parents.  I had been “off duty” and I was clocking back in, I could feel it.  I was getting the full report of the status of things and he was checking out.  When you take away a man’s man cave and make it in to a guest room/baby room you can expect him to lock himself in the bathroom for an hour on Saturday morning.

We listen to Spotify all day from the desktop in the kitchen.  There is always music in our house.  Always.  I was on the couch in the living room, laptop perched on my knees, coffee just out of reach of the little one.  ”I found a new artist you might like.  You should listen to them.  When you get your ass back in to the kitchen,” he said.  That smirk of his is going to save his ass a thousand times over.

This morning I had a moment when I thought it was hell on earth to relive the same day over and over again. Two hours later and I am smiling ear to ear.  Bring it on, Winter.  I am going to wear this velour sweatsuit every day.  I am going to wear this hat every day.  I am going to stand in my kitchen and think about what we are going to eat next only moments after cleaning up from the previous meal.  And I am digging the ever-loving shit out of it, yes, I am.

Life isn’t that complicated. Living the same day over and over again gives you the chance to get it right, eventually.  It’s not even 11 o’clock in the morning and I feel like I have this day by the balls.  What’s up, Saturday? Wanna feel my sweat suit? This is what Happy feels like.  Sorry about the coffee breath, you’ll get used to it.

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Keep: This grey hat that will henceforth be known as The Hat I Wore All Winter While I Grew Out That Shitty Haircut

Trash: A handful of stretched out rubber bands and nasty bobby pins from the bottom of the hair accoutrements  catch all drawer in the bathroom.

Donate: A pile of headbands to Emily June, because this Winter is the Winter of the Hat not the Headband.  I have decided.

 

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Mommy dates

Posted on November 7, 2012 | 10 Comments

All month I have looked around my house with my What can I get rid of and declutter lens. This morning I am looking at my house with my Holy Shit, I have a Mommy Date microscope.

When I was very young and dating and someone would stop by my dorm room or I would try and look at my place from a young man’s point of view. This was pretty easy. I didn’t have to clean anything. I made sure there was beer in my refrigerator and that there wasn’t a pair of men’s boxers on my bedside table or a proverbial pair of boots under my bed. I had beer and I wasn’t taken. We were good to go.

When I was older and a single mom dating it was more confusing. MQD came to pick me up for our first date and I can remember looking around my place and hoping that the mini-kitchen in my living room wouldn’t freak him out. I had Pottery Barn curtains. What if I was too far gone in to the land of Grown Up to interest him? I hoped that my futon would make it clear that my 20′s weren;t too far behind me.

This morning I have a Mom Date. We met at a local children’s museum. She blew my mind when she asked me for my number. And then she won my heart with a late night call freaking out about an email she thought she had sent to the wrong person. We email. We text. I even called her the day I got a shitty haircut and slugged back way too many glasses of wine on my front porch. She’s funny. I think she might even like-like me.

But now she is coming to my house. To let her child crawl around on my floor. I have to vacuum. Like Vacuum with a capital V. What if her kid finds that leaf I missed and he chokes? My bathroom is clean. But it doesn’t smell like bleach.

Donate: this frog. Please ignore the dog hair on my couch!!! Please!

Should I offer to make her lunch? Oh man. That’s too complicated. Coffee? Should I apologize for my oh so not green and environment-friendly love of the Keurig cups? Hopefully my offer of real sugar or Truvia made from stevia and not cancer-causing Equal will win me favor.

I suggested we take a walk if it isn’t freezing. Does that make me sound like a fitness freakazoid? I am obsessed. A little. But I don’t care if she is. I should probably not drop a line like “Hey, some of my best friends are totally lazy!”

I’m guessing I should probably not say “So, I guess you read my post…” even though she has read here in the past. I mean it is asinine to assume that she checks back every hour on the hour and she is coming over practically any minute… Gah.

Keep. The viking helmet on our bookshelf in the kitchen because it was a wedding gift and it makes me happy. Who would not want to be friends with a gal with a viking helmet?

Donate. A metal polka dot frog because while it matched the beach-y decor of my downstairs bathroom ten years ago it has no place in my life now. And there is no reason for it to hang out in my living room junk drawer.

Trash. A handful of receipts I had stashed in the catch-all tray in my living room. No one ever returns peanut M&Ms or Diet Coke and let’s face it, that’s what I buy on the regular.

Wish me luck. I brushed my teeth. I am wearing yoga pants. But I might change. Jeans? Oh man, this is so confusing. How do you make sure you look like a good Mom friend but not too Mom-ish?

Maybe we should have mimosas….

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One Bad Mamajama

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 19 Comments

Sometimes there is a deep, dark truth that can only be set free if I speak it out loud.

No matter how happy my marriage, no matter how strong my sense of self, I want to be seen as a sexually viable woman. I want to be seen as a Woman. And for me that includes being seen as a sexual creature.

Nothing makes me feel more invisible than being a Mother.  The thing that makes me the most proud, that defines me in many respects, it also makes me feel like no one can see me at all.

I don’t want to be hit on by everyone I walk by. I just want to be a player in the game. That silent game that only the very drunk or the very crass admit to playing. If s/he was  the last wo/man on earth would I or wouldn’t I? I am not the only person that does that, right? It is human. Or so I tell myself so I don’t feel like a dirtball while I quietly eyeball the creeps at the gas station and everyone else I walk by.

There is only one man. If you rule out children and men old enough to be my  father, there’s just one man that can speak his mind without bruising my ego. Because I never factored in to his silent game of would I or wouldn’t I?

My brother.

I hope you have a brother. If you get a Mom haircut only your brother can tell you as much and live to see another day.

I am facing my fears today.

I have a mom haircut. I am saying it out loud before someone else has the chance (aside from my brother, of course, who never fails to shoot it to me straight.)

So there. I have Mom hair. P.S. – I have two kids and I probably have puke on my shirt, too. And I own it. I might even attempt to work it. Because it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense that being a mother takes me out of the game. You’re all aware of what I did to end up a parent in the first place, right?

Motherhood really shouldn’t make you un-sexy.  I kind of think keeping humans alive, making three meals a day, having clean underwear on and keeping a smile on my face makes me one bad motherfucker.  And what’s hotter than a bad motherfucker?  (I realize that is a weird choice of words there, but that’s how I feel. Like the Samuel L Jackson of motherhood.)

Last night Emily and I had “the talk.” She was fed up with the vague explanation of part of a woman’s body and part of a man’s body joining together and magically making a baby. So, I asked her. “Do you want me to tell you exactly what happens? Because I will. I will always be honest with you.”

I explained it. Pretty simply. She knew where a baby came from. She damn near saw Lucy being born so it didn’t take a lot of explaining to get the rest of it figured it out. “Do you have any questions? That’s pretty much how babies are made, Em.”

She was quiet for a bit. “But I don’t understand. You and dad had a baby and you don’t ever do that?” I laughed.

“Well, not in front of you.” She just shook her head and smiled, embarrassed .

Last night I told my seven year old that I do the deed. And today I thought I’d tell the rest of you. Me and my Mom hair? We totally have this shit going ON. It’s gonna take more than Mom hair and a nursing bra to knock me out of the game. Justin Timberlake brought sexy back. Tyler Perry told us how Stella got her groove back. Me? Shit, girl, I ain’t never lost it.  It’s gonna take more than mom hair to knock me down.

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