Category Archives: Nonsense

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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Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting

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A Wild Hair

Posted on October 16, 2012 | 29 comments

There are moments in your life you need wisdom.  You need consolation.  You need white wine and M&Ms and flowers and entire pizzas. You call your mother and your girlfriends.  You rally the troops.

I got my hair cut. And I hate it. It’s just hair. It grows back.  An old friend reminded me that life is an adventure and growing your hair back is a wild one.  Let’s not forget how fun it is to watch other people react and say “Oh, wow!  You cut your hair…”

I didn’t mean to cut it all off so short.  But you can’t get a short hair cut fixed without cutting it shorter.  So, here I am.  Brand new Kelly.  Sheesh.

I feel like I am wearing a wig. A wig I don’t actually hate… but a wig.  Eh.  It’ll grow on me  Ha.  My sense of humor is intact.

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Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense

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Blue Moon

Posted on September 21, 2012 | 14 comments

Once in a blue moon Lucy falls asleep on the way out to dinner and actually stays asleep long enough for me to have a drink.

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Even less often than that she sleeps so long that I am able to eat my entire dinner without a baby in my lap.

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And on the rarest of occasions, on the bluest of moons, Mama gets another drink after dinner and baby girl keeps snoozing.  Tonight was a damn good night.  Thanks Lucy Goose.  And thank you so very much Blue Moon Brewing Company.

14 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Complicated

Posted on September 16, 2012 | 6 comments

I tend to make things complicated.  Overly complicated.

I woke up early this morning.  Lucy woke up early this morning.  Is 3:30 the morning?  Eventually we went back to sleep. Around 5:30.  I fear that may have been the morning nap.

On the weekends in the morning MQD and I have a date.  Sometimes on Saturday.  Sometimes on Sunday.  The kids goof around in the living room and we stay in bed for twenty minutes.  It is the sum total of our alone time for the week since Lucy has been born.  I treasure it.

This morning it was raining.  MQD was tired.  I have a sore throat.  This is not a recipe for a super weekend morning date.

I make things complicated. Is MQD tired because he is tired of me?  Did Lucy wake up at 3:30 because we are both getting sick?  Is my sore throat a bug I caught from Emily and the cesspool of germs that is the first grade?

No.  Today I decided to make things simple.  MQD is tired because he is tired.  He told me I can take a nap this afternoon so I let him sleep in.

I have a sore throat because my throat is sore.  A shot of booze  in my decaf coffee means I will have a fabulous afternoon nap.  And my throat doesn’t hurt anymore.

Lucy has ticklish armpits.  And she thinks this little joke I made up is incredibly funny.  Hey Lucy, your village called.  They want their Lucy back!!  To really drive it home you have to say Luuuucy in a crazed and loud voice.  See previous comment regarding a shot of liquor at 9:30 in the morning.  Not having any trouble with this.

Sometimes you have to simplify. Sunday is a great day.

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Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

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Observations

Posted on September 15, 2012 | 11 comments

It is a common refrain “It happens so fast! It’s amazing how much you forget!” Kids grow so quickly. They move from one stage to the next almost seamlessly and you somehow forget completely what was happening only last week.

I thought this rule about completely forgetting the details of portions of your life was specific to raising children. Somehow the lack of sleep combined with the excitement of reaching the next milestone contributes to the forgetting, I assumed.

Yesterday I went in to my office, to my old job. What do you call it when you have an office in a building but you don’t really go there anymore but you might again someday and no one has exactly replaced you because things are slow? In any case, Lucy and I headed in to the office around 8:15. As soon as I got to the end of the street I noticed something weird.

There were a lot of cars. A lot of cars. On the road heading to work were lots and lots of people. We live in a pretty rural area. I get out of our neighborhood several times a day utilizing the rolling stop and look both ways method. But this? All this… traffic… I didn’t know what to make of it at first.

“Damn. There’s a lot of cars all over the place, Goose.”

Somehow I had forgotten all about this morning “rush hour,” such as it is.

I continued on my way to work. Perhaps you recall my commute to work. I drive from my semi-rural neighborhood right smack dab in to the middle of nowhere. It’s not unusual to see a cow. A chicken. A horse. I slow down when I see a dog near the road. Even though I know they are likely not lost it is a habit.

I slowed down when I saw the first dog. A bigger black lab-ish looking dog. As I neared the dog he took on the tell-tale dog pooping posture and I giggled. Because I have the intellect of a twelve year old boy.

A hundred yards later I saw another dog. A smaller tan dog. I had barely recovered from the hilarity of seeing a dog poop when Blammo!! Another dog pooping. I had tears in my eyes by now.

I did not recall my drive to work being so hilarious.

I was almost to my office. I saw the third dog from a great distance. A husky sort of mixed breed. He circled a mailbox as dogs are apt to do.

And then (I am not sure I can resist the temptation to write “I shit you not”) he assumed the position.

Three. Three dogs pooping. It was crazy.  And an awful lot of cars. That’s what I saw on my way to work on Friday. I was not prepared for this.  I forgot a lot about what it’s like to drive to work in the last six months.

For the first time in a long time my post has no related picture. You’re welcome.

(Sidenote: I told MQD this amazing tale over coffee this morning. He was not sufficiently impressed. When he failed to recognize the overwhelming amusement in this turn of events I declared I was leaving our breakfast date to share this fine story with the interwebz.  So he is to blame for my wasting the last three to five  minutes of your life.) 

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I can’t describe the feeling when I’m in my bed asleep…

Posted on September 12, 2012 | 19 comments

Co-sleeping with a crawling baby is an adventure.  Snuggling up with your tiny newborn is easy to imagine.  Even someone that is not an advocate of co-sleeping has likely fallen asleep with a newborn on their chest so they can understand the powers of the sleeping baby.

But the sleep arrangements now that the goose is loose? It’s a whole new game.  A bedrail helps to contain her.  I am teaching her how to get off the bed, dangling her little legs off the side until they hit the floor instead of diving head first.  You get used to waking up with a little person sitting on your arm.  Or your face.  Or standing on your pillow.

Lots of people that co-sleep with their newborn begin to transition him/her in to a crib around this time.  If you’re not wild about having fingers in your nose or getting kicked in the groin it could be the wisest choice.  Unless, of course, you ever want to get any sleep.  As a newborn Lucy slept like a rock.  She woke to nurse once, maybe twice, in a night.  Since she has started crawling everywhere, cruising along the furniture and battling with the dog for his new bone she doesn’t have the time to devote to eating during the day.  She will nurse a handful of times during the day but it is a quick snack.  She does the bulk of her eating at night, when there is nothing better to do.  I can’t blame her.

If I want to get any sleep at all and she wants to marathon nurse all night I do not see an end to our current sleeping arrangements anytime soon.

People love to ask “So, how is she sleeping?” and ordinarily I say “Great!” or my all time favorite “Like a baby!” because any answer at all only invites advice.  And for the most part unless you are a been there done that co-sleeper/breastfeeder/baby led wean-er (ha! Baby led weaning is the term for skipping pureed food and letting your baby eat solid food when they are ready.  Baby led weiners – I have no idea what that entails) than even well-meaning advice falls on deaf ears.

I slept poorly throughout my pregnancy.  Lucy is nearly eight months old.  So, it is fair to say I have not “slept through the night” in well over a year.  I am used to it.  And while it is no secret that I am vehemently opposed to sleep-training an infant I am dangerously close to letting myself cry it out.  Me.  I might cry it out. Face down on the floor while Goose climbs on the dog.  Fish can look after her for an hour, right?

Because I am tired, guys. Nursing a baby takes a lot out of you.  And not just sleep.  Water.  I drink at least a gallon of water a day.   I am pretty good at getting myself a glass of water.  I went in the kitchen to get a glass of water just now.

Yup.  A bowl of water.  Sigh.  I’m tired, y’all.

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Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

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My kid is Frank the Tank

Posted on September 5, 2012 | 10 comments

I have written plenty about Emily’s love of organizing.  From a very young age she liked things neat.  She puts away her toys.  She lines up her shoes.  She completely empties her backpack and makes sure there are no stray apple cores or bits of papers every day.  She is a neatnik and I am thrilled.  She makes it easy for me to be in Pick Up Clutter Free Overdrive.

Yesterday evening MQD asked me where his flip flops were.  “I don’t know, if I saw them I put them in your closet, but Em cleaned up the living room… so…” They were in the basket ordinarily reserved for dog toys.  Of course.  She has a tendency to stash things in odd places, but I can live with this.  No matter how many times I may think it as I look for something that I am certain was just right here it will not pass my lips “Dang, Em… would you stop with the damn cleaning up all of the time!?!”

So, with a solid four years (Em didn’t really maximize her cleaning skills until about three years of age) of a tidy house behind me I embarked on having Baby Number Two.  It will be a piece of cake, I thought.  I have one kid.  Two will be a breeze.

If Emily is high tea and elbow length gloves on the veranda then Lucy is a fraternity party in a wet basement.

It seems like just last week I had a baby.  She was sweet.  She pooped on me on occasion and I routinely sleep in a pile of wet drool, breastmilk, sweat from my ever changing hormones.  But Lucy was a baby. She can’t help the constant flow of liquids.  She was sweet.  And she smelled good.

A few weeks ago Lucy started crawling.  Last week she started picking up speed.  And yesterday she morphed from my sweet baby to a benevolent college freshman, drunk on cheap beer and loud music.

I took a shower.  We were chatting.  She was sitting next to the tub.  I could hear her little hands slapping against the side of the tub, the shower curtain swaying back and forth.  And then I didn’t hear her hands.  And the shower curtain stopped moving.  When I got out of the shower I was happy that no one in my house replaces a roll of toilet paper until it is totally and completely empty.

It didn’t stop there.  We went in to the kitchen to make dinner.  She sat in the middle of the floor with her plastic spatula and a spoon.  I turned my back for a second. I know better.

Splash!  Fisher’s water bowl hits the floor.  And she is off to the races, slipping and sliding like college kids in  a long hallway coated in laundry detergent. Things were just getting good.

Remember the first time you had a party at your apartment and That Guy showed up? That guy that was the life of the party.  He was funny and loud and had a tendency to get naked.  You were glad he was there because it meant your party was going to be awesome but somewhere beyond your desire to have your party look like a deleted scene from Animal House you kept thinking “oh shit, man, please don’t break anything…”

My second child, my sweet little Lucy… she is That Guy.  She is up for anything.  I am in so much trouble.

 

 

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Ups and Downs

Posted on August 23, 2012 | 3 comments

It has been a long time since I sat in the driveway thinking “How in the fuck did I manage to do that?” Perhaps you remember the morning I put my car in the ditch.   Maybe you even remember that I couldn’t figure what to do while I waited for AAA because it was so cold outside.  My patient husband suggested I go INSIDE the house.

So, today while I sat in the driveway wondering how in the hell I managed to lock myself and two kids out of the house I kept thinking fuck it, we can just go inside and wait.   Yeah.  No, I can’t.

We cleaned out the car.  We organized my purse, suspiciously devoid of keys.  We took funny pictures.  And we waited for Dad.

Eventually the funny picture taking began to wear thin and I started to sweat.  I do not care so much for sweating unless that is an activity I have planned on.  I love to get sweaty.  Exercise and get sweaty.  Go to the beach and get sweaty.  Get it on and get sweaty.  Sweaty is an integral part of many activities I love.  Sit in the driveway and get sweaty.  It wasn’t doing it for me.

I started to get annoyed.  “Emily, today might be a shitty day.  I might swear a lot today.  A lot, like more than normal.  I need you to just hang tough.”

Eventually we got our keys.  We headed to the museum for the afternoon.  We ate ice cream BEFORE our lunch.  I was trying to rally.  Really, I was.  But I had showered.  I had on cute shoes.  And now I was fucking sweaty.

We ran our errands.  We checked the teacher lists at school.  Em got a haircut and the teacher she wanted. Things were looking up.  But it’s not easy for me to turn a day around.

So when the nice woman with the baby said “How old is she?” I could  feel myself start to sigh inside.  I can be aloof.  I know it is hard to imagine but I can.  “Just shy of seven months.” I thought I was making the “Don’t talk to me, I was fucking sweating today, god dammit!!” face.  But I must have misfired.

“He is, too.  And she is six months and she is eight.”  I have no idea how it happened.  Have you ever walked in to a bar with a royal hangover  in your flannel pants just to get your credit card that you left there the night before and forty minutes later you are smashed and getting hit on and it is the middle of the day?  No?  That was just me?

All of a sudden I was sitting on the floor with one, two, three other mothers and FOUR babies and it was … fun.  And one of them took my phone number!! And we were Facebook friends within twenty minutes of her leaving.  These people had ruined my bad mood.

And I don’t think I ever said anything about “my job.”  The job I don’t really have anymore.   I just said “Yeah, I will have tons of time when Em starts school next week.”  And I didn’t apologize.  Or explain that I am terribly busy Mod Podging my shoes (I am still so in love with my freakin’ shoes!!!!) and making homemade granola bars and becoming Queen of the PTA.  I just said “Yeah, here’s my number.”

And it felt good.

So, today kind of Sucked.  But then it turned Awesome.

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Where’s Waldo?

Posted on August 19, 2012 | 9 comments

There might be fifty shades of Grey but there are only four shades of Kelly.

1. Being hilarious
2. Laughing about hilarious I just was
3. Trying to pull it together and get a grip on my aforementioned hilarity
4. Reenacting my hilarity for my own amusement
I was in the middle of step four when the unsuspecting woman walked in to the bathroom to see my husband in his bowtie snapping pictures on his phone.  Flustered she said quickly something to the effect of  ”I can come back later!”
Excitedly we tried to explain that my dress matched the wallpaper.  It was a photo op we could not pass up.  She walked past us and entered a stall as I tried to excuse our behavior “We have a seven month old!  We haven’t left our house in a year!”
But we did last night.  And we had fun.  And both kids lived to tell the tale.  We should try it again.  In a few months.  No need to rush in to anything.
We are now accepting social invitations for the holiday season. With advance notice I will dress to match the wallpaper in your bathroom.  Your guests will have a chance to play live action Where’s Waldo?  Now that is a good time.  Take my word for it.

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New things are #scary

Posted on August 13, 2012 | 10 comments

And even worse when you are all alone.

I’m tweeting, y’all.  #IhavenoideawhatthefuckIamdoing

It was three months ago that my Twitter naivete was actually blog fodder.  I will even cop to being a little bit proud of myself when I said “I don’t tweet.”  But times are rolling on and I felt like it was time to get with ’em.  So, follow me.  Or whatever the hell you do.  And I will follow you.  And you can tweet back at me #thatwasashittytweet and I’ll be all #whatthefuckever.

So.  That’s what’s up.  It’s Monday.

//

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