I am proud to have veterans in my family. I am grateful for their service. My mother sent this picture of my grandfather’s plate at Arlington National Cemetery this morning.
Somewhere Pop-Pop Al is in his chair telling a story that we have all heard before. We are laughing as if it was the first time we’ve heard it.
Last year for Veteran’s day I wrote about the American Dream. I’m still living it. If you are, too, thank a veteran.
Posted in Parenting
Just a quick Public Service Announcement for you on a Sunday morning.
It is entirely possible that your baby is smarter than your dog. You can let that sink in. I’ll wait.
My dog is really quite bright. At nine years old he is wise and grey. He is patient and kind. Unless he wants to go outside and then he is less than patient. He will whine and bark and run in circles shouting “Hello, assholes!! Didn’t you hear?! Your dog wants to go OUTSIDE right NOW!”
Lucy didn’t say a word. She just waited until I went to the bathroom and hurled her little body at the screen door until it popped open. Fortunately kids are slobs and she didn’t shut the door behind her or I’d still be screaming her name and looking under the couch cushions.
The takeaway from this little tale – your baby might be smarter than your dog. And lock your screen door. You’re welcome. 
**Note to my readers (some of whom I formerly considered my friends) – Really? Do you not even pay attention?? A PUBIC Service Announcement? Note the title, kids. Killer typo. And not one of you gave me shit about this. No wonder my baby is running away, I am a MESS.
Big Time news, guys. Who knew my sarcasm and my stretch marks would be such a hit? Well, with Canadian clowns anyway.
Many thanks to Le Clown and his band of fools.
Posted in Parenting
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….
Tagged keep trash donate, motherhood, nonsense, SAHM, stay at home mom
Girls,
This morning we talked about the election results over breakfast. Emily, you asked me why I was glad that Obama had won and we talked about how you vote for the candidate that you think believes in the things that you feel are most important. We talked briefly about how candidates talk about their platforms and how we all try and make an informed decision.
“How old do you have to be to be president, Mom?” I answered you. I saw your eyes light up. “You could be the president, Mom, you are older than 35!”
I love that you said this.
I am watching the news this morning, Em. The 113th Congress will have at least 19 female Senators. How exciting!
Lucy, by the time you are old enough to talk about politics we just might be talking about what our President’s husband was wearing!
Girls, I don’t talk to you about politics a lot. But I want you to know that I am so very glad that you are being raised in a country that values your voice. It is hard to imagine that your voices will get louder, but they will. My girls, you will become women with loud, strong voices that are heard. I am grateful for this.
Someday when you have your own kids you will understand why Hope is huge. I Hope so big for you both. President Obama said in his speech last night “I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.”
I love that you will grow up to be American women. I hope I can lead you by example. Dream big, girls.
I love you,
Mom
Posted in Parenting
Tagged Dear Emily, Dear Lucy, election day, Letter to my girls, Obama, voting
Keep Trash Donate month has been brought to you by butts. And by boobs. What’s next? Gettin’ in my drawers, of course! My JUNK drawers!
This morning while I waited for the waffle iron to heat up I opened the dreaded junk drawer in the kitchen to see what kind of treasures I might find.
Keep – rainbow shoe laces. MQD went to Boston this summer for a wedding. Like a good husband and a good dad he brought back presents. Emily and I both received a pair of rainbow shoe laces. I am not sure what it means that we both got the same gift. Or that it was rainbow shoe laces but they were a gift and I am keeping them. Perhaps not in the kitchen drawer any longer, but I am keeping them nonetheless.
Trash – I remember the day that I grabbed a couple of condoms from my midwife’s office. In the bathroom in the waiting room there is a basket filled with condoms. Lucy was ten days old. I had an appointment to get an IUD already scheduled. Evidently I was afraid that the spirit would move us prior to that date. Clearly it did not. Expired condoms (or soon to be expired) hanging around are dangerous. In to the trash they go.
Donate – I have had this unopened package of letters in the drawer in the kitchen since I made MQD his Big Birthday Party Poster “Twenty-nine is so METAL!” I am well known for grabbing two packages of something when it is likely one will do. I did not want to run short on letters and I had yet to settle on a theme. On the off chance the theme of his birthday party had turned out to be alliteration brought to you by the letter Q I did not want to run out of letters. Hence, the two packages. Monday morning I will toss these in to Em’s backpack. Surely her teacher can make use of them.
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Belly full of waffles. Sun is shining. Lucy’s teeth have popped through and her fever has broken. Em is drawing quietly in her room. MQD is hiding in the bathroom (because that is what Dads do, it’s in the manual.) Shaping up to be a good Sunday.
Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting
Tagged condoms, junk drawer, keep trash donate, nonsense, shoelaces
Today’s episode of Keep Trash Donate is not sponsored by my ass. I will give you a moment to be sad.
I thought I’d move on to another part of me that gets no attention. Well, they get a lot of attention but mostly from my nine month old. Lucy is getting teeth this week which means I have a boob out about 20 hours a day. Oddly a single boob is even less than 50% as sexy as a pair of boobs. I will leave that to the mathematicians among us to figure out.
Donate – I am getting rid of a terribly cute dress. It’s purple. And purple is cute. It is a “nursing dress” which means it has two secret mysterious spots to stick a boob out. And it is designed to hide the extra chub one is likely to be carrying after having a baby. I wore it the day I went to have my colposcopy after Lucy was born. (How dare I bring up women’s health issues during Movember?! Jeez, can’t men have just one month!?) Staring in to my closet this morning I realized I haven’t worn it since that day. That was almost eight months ago. I get my boobs out about ten times a day. 10 times 30 days times almost 8 months? 2400 times I have pulled a boob out and that dress didn’t scream “Wear me!” from my closet so it is outta here.
Trash – In to the trash will go a t-shirt I have had since Emily was six weeks old. It’s a pretty spectacular t-shirt really. It has the whole I am one shirt masquerading as two t-shirts thing going on. I enjoy that. A lifetime ago I was a skinny mini and could have appeared in public in nine layered shirts. A couple of kids and a whole lot of pints of ice cream later, not so much. Now I walk that fine line of searching for the ideal coverage. Not skin tight, because nobody needs to see that, but not so loose that it looks like I am hiding something far worse even than reality. Consequently the I am really one shirt but I look like two shirtst-shirt is a great choice. Even better this t-shirt is another item in my nursing clothes repertoire. You can lift up the top layer and pull a boob out of the gigantic underneath arm holes. Gelatinous stomach is covered, boob is exposed. Win win.
So, why am I throwing it out? I was carrying Lucy when I smelled it. Poop. I pulled it off, sprayed a little laundry schmutz on it and I went to throw it in the washing machine when I saw another tan-ish stain on the arm. It had been on there for years. About seven years, actually. This shirt has always had a tan stain on the forearm. I just ignored it. It was a comfy shirt, nursing mom or not. In that moment I knew I had been wearing a shirt with a shit stain on it for seven years. I don’t actually know that tan stain was shit. But I feel it in my bones. I am not ever gonna wear that shirt again. Trash. Day three.
Keep? I don’t mind if I do. I donated a nursing friendly dress. I trashed a nursing t-shirt. What am I keeping? Is it a nursing friendly tank top or a fun sweater that buttons up the front? Nope. Is that because I don’t plan to nurse Lucy as long as I nursed Em? Nope. I just don’t plan to wear nursing dresses and t-shirts for the next four years so I will be keeping these shoes. They are gorgeous. Most recently they were the crown jewel in my Halloween costume. 1983’s A Christmas Story. The Leg Lamp. “Only one thing in the world could’ve dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.”
Day three. Keep Trash Donate. Some day I will be standing just over six feet and two inches tall at a cocktail party and my kids will be at home with a babysitter. I will be making wonderfully amusing small talk in a beautiful pair of heels. I will not be wearing a purple nursing dress shaped like a tent or a t-shirt with shit on the sleeve. Or a lampshade.
Mark my words.
Posted in Parenting
Tagged Breastfeeding, DIY, Halloween, nablopomo, nursing clothes. a christmas story
It’s no mystical secret that life is a careful balancing act. Every single decent therapist I have ever spoken to has said within twenty minutes “Well, Kelly, it sounds like you need to find some balance and I can’t tell you how to do that.” Well, I am not forking out $125 an hour for you to ask me questions.
Balance. I have spent my entire adult life looking for it. Work and play time. Ambition and relaxation. Exercise and diet. Save money for your future but live in the moment.
Looking crazed, I thought I’d be gone for hours!! Free as a bird!!
I work really hard to keep balance in my life currently. Take care of everyone else and take care of me. It isn’t easy. I left the house this afternoon with the intention of staying gone for a few hours. I have never been away from Lucy for more than about 90 minutes but MQD and Emily were both home. She had a full belly. She had just had a nap. She would be fine and I needed to get out. Bad.
MQD is pretty good about not crying wolf. I wasn’t gone 45 minutes before he sent the first text “We have a very sad baby.” I was getting my nails done. Yup. I am that shallow. Once a month I take an hour for myself and that is what I choose to do. Judge me, if you like. It makes me feel pretty. I sent him one back “Bring her to me, I can’t leave just yet.” He got things calmed down on the homefront and ultimately I was even able to stop and get milk on the way home. That’s right. I went to the grocery store. Party on, Wayne.
I could have stayed out longer. But I wanted to be home. Walking through stores window shopping or sitting somewhere drinking a cup of coffee wishing I was at home would not make me happy. I took my perfectly manicured fingernails home and strapped on an apron. Emily and I sat on the floor in the kitchen and we grated six zucchinis while Lucy took out every single piece of tupperware we own. And I was happy.
That might have been enough Balance for the day. But enough is never enough for me.
After I whipped up some ridiculously good zucchini bread (slammed full of vegetables and almonds for protein power!) I sat back and thought “I’m not cooking another god damned thing today!”
For breakfast tomorrow my family will have delicious zucchini bread made with love and natural sweeteners. For dinner tonight? I taught Emily how to line up Scoops Tostitos chips and place a loving dollop of canned hot dog chili in each one. Then we put some cheese on those bad boys and slid them in the oven.
Because it is all about balance. Em had a fever this weekend and was under the weather. I told her she could have anything she wanted for lunch, anything at all. She picked salad. SALAD.
My girls will grow up loving vegetables. But some day, many years from now, I hope they will both stumble through a 24 hour grocery store after the bars close and grab some Tostito Scoops, a 79 cent can of chili made with godknowswhat and some cheese. Her friends will encourage her to just put them in the microwave (or cook them with their space-aged cell phones) and she’ll say “No way, man, my mom made these when we were kids and you have to take your time and line up the chips and cook them in the oven.”
If it sounds like I hope my kids grow up to occasionally stumble drunkenly through a grocery store and eat food that is one step above low level dog food, yes, I do. They will also probably buy their vegetables from the farmer’s market and recycle like their life depends on it. And that, friends, is Balance.
It’s not hard to picture her drunkenly stumbling around, actually.
I love you so much I can’t stand it. I even love it when you look at me like “Damn, you love me so much I can’t stand it.” xo
On our anniversary I write MQD a list of things I love about him. Well, I usually do.
I can picture the look on MQD’s face and the face he will make this year. He will read my post and say “I don’t get a list this year? Four years and you are out of things to say?”
Depending upon my state of mind I might laugh and say “Nope, I only love 1,018 things about you. That’s it. 365 things for the first first two years and 288 things last year. I shorted you 77 things last year.” Or maybe I will get all misty eyed and say “Are you kidding? Did you even read what I wrote?” and he will hug me in the kitchen and do that thing where he sways his hips but doesn’t move his feet with his arms around my waist. I believe he thinks it is dancing.
On October 27, 2008 I went on my very last first date. A few days after that we went to a Halloween party and we danced (with feet moving, slow dancing in the kitchen is its own private art form.) Four years ago.
On our first anniversary I wrote him a list. 365 things I love about him. It made him cry. I was moved because he didn’t do things like that, cry. On our second anniversary I did it again. Again, he cried. The following year my list was 77 items short because I was short on time and we were moving and I was so pregnant I just couldn’t make myself stay up late to finish it the night before. He forgave me. I was carrying his child after all.
This year I had ample time to get my list started early. Every time I have sat down to write it I have come up short. In front of the keyboard weeping I can’t write a single line. When you write Reason # 1 – This Life how do you write a Reason #2.
Michael,
Our first year together you gave me Hope.
Our second year together you gave me Love.
Our third year together you gave me a Family.
In our fourth year together you have given me This Life.
Today is the start of our fourth year. Our baby, our Lucy, started walking this week. And I was not at work. I was at home. I saw her first step. And her second. And her third. She sleeps in my lap for her naps. Because I have nothing but Time.
My dreams are coming true. You did this. I was so afraid to speak them, to admit that my wildest dreams were at home with my family. But I did. And you made them come true. A clever list about how you make perfect pancakes and you look adorable in a bow tie is not enough to demonstrate my love for you. Not this year.
Our relationship has shared much of the last year with Lucy. Having a baby can definitely put romance in the backseat (and not in a romantic, teenage car sex way.) It is only fitting that our anniversary is shared with Lucy, too.
A pregnancy is 40 weeks long. Today Lucy has been on the outside for 40 weeks and 1 day. She has officially been on the outside longer than she was on the inside. And I didn’t miss a minute of it. Because of you.
Four years ago we stepped inside my front door and you followed me. I spun around to kiss you and I have been dizzy ever since. You took my hand and we walked down the aisle after we were married to Tommy Roe’s Dizzy. I was dizzy that day, too.
Today. Four years after our first date and 40 weeks and 1 day after Lucy was born I am still dizzy. I think it’s Love. But I am open to the possibility that I might just be really tired. I’ll just have to check and see if I am still dizzy next year.
I love you. More every day. Hope. Love. A Family. The Life I’ve always dreamed of. I can’t imagine what you’ve got up your sleeve for year number five. Good thing you’ve got a year to think about it. Now come on over here. I’ve got a slow dance in the kitchen with your name on it.
Yours,
Kel
Posted in Family, Parenting, Wedding Planning
Tagged Anniversary, Life, Love, Marriage, MQD
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.
Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting
Tagged hair, haircut, mom hair, motherhood, SAHM, sexuality, stay at home mom
Excitement on the side 