Tag Archives: motherhood

An Attitude of Gratitude

Posted on November 20, 2012 | 43 comments

I learned my life lessons from 80’s television.  If you tapped a cane on the floor right now I would stand up straight.  I would grab the back of a chair and lift my chin.  In my mind I would hear Debbie Allen saying  “You want fame? … Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying. With sweat.”

Some time in the early 1990s I decided that sweatshirts with the neck cut out were maybe not the very best look for me.  And I abandoned my dreams for Fame.  I hung up my legwarmers and decided Fame wasn’t for me.

A couple of days ago I contributed a picture to The Feminist Breeder’s Normalize Breastfeeding Campaign on Facebook.  I chose to send a picture of myself sitting down after an excellent day. Lucy was nursing and I was having a glass of wine.  It was the perfect image to reject the idea that nursing mothers have to spend their lives cooped up in a nursery, missing out.  Gina’s “offensive” picture featured a piece of bacon and a nursing baby.  I thought it was amusing to feature a glass of wine and a nursing baby because Facebook is clearly pro-pictures of people with a drink in their hand.

I have been blogging in my little corner of the Internet for almost three years. It has been a great way for me to hash out my feelings as my life progressed from single parent to a married mother of two.  It served as a record of my pregnancy and Emily growing from a teeny little thing to the 7 year old going on 17 that she is today.  I have been honest.  I have talked openly about my insecurities and my struggles with being a woman and received a lot of “Good for you!” and “Thanks for sharing” and pats on the back.

And then yesterday the picture posted of me having a glass of wine while nursing my baby and within an hour I had that icky “what have I done?” feeling.  Comments racked up and the great majority were negative it seemed.  These weren’t people that read here and support me.  These were strangers sharing misinformation (that breastfeeding and a glass of wine don’t mix) and saying that I was a lousy mother.  (My favorite being the woman that pointed out that I was ignoring my baby when I looked at the camera!)

Every day I aim to choose happiness.  I choose to see the good and the joy in the smallest moments.  It is part of who I am.  Yesterday was a test.  I kept waiting to feel my stomach flip flop and a tear escape my eyes as I read another comment from a stranger about how I was classless.  But it didn’t happen.  Because I didn’t need to look very hard to see that there were really only a handful of people shaming me.  And they were doing so from a place of lack of knowledge.  They really believed that you can’t nurse a baby and have a glass of wine.  Shame on them for judging me? Maybe.  But don’t we all just do the best we can with the information we’ve got?  And for every criticism there were more than a dozen women that said “this picture is great!” or that I looked so relaxed and happy.  Or that I had great eyeglasses.  (Special thanks to them because amidst a persecution of your character it is important to remind yourself that you are fashionable!)

This morning I am taking the opportunity not to speak to the judgement and the misinformation (largely because the inimitable Amy West has already done so.)  Instead I choose to thank my friends and the many strangers that responded on the Facebook thread or on Twitter.  So many of you spoke up to say “Hey, you are doing a great job, keep on keeping on.” And really? If I am honest – thank you to the folks that said you can’t have an alcoholic beverage and nurse a baby because it was an excellent platform for dispelling that widely believed myth.

My last thank you goes out to the women and men that spewed the kind of garbage that can only be done from behind the protection of your computer screen.  You probably didn’t mean to.  But you made this girl with her tiny little blog feel famous!  Because you aren’t Internet Famous unless somebody hates you.  I am going to have to wear a clean velour sweatsuit every time I leave the house if y’all keep this up.  I might even need to bust out that sweatshirt with the neck cut out and some legwarmers.  Rumor has it – Fame costs, but I can take it.

Even as a child I knew I had to suffer for my art!

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Posted in Nonsense, Parenting, Pregnancy

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Fast enough so you can fly away…

Posted on November 18, 2012 | 44 comments

Allow me to set the scene.

I was still wearing my velour sweatsuit as I sauntered past his side of the bed. Sometimes I like to amp up the funny before I bring the dead sexy. Funny goes a long way in our house.

There was a successful transfer of the baby in to the bed. She was out like a light. I woke him from the couch and he smiled. All signs pointed to Sexy Town. I had my fingers crossed and my knees, well, uncrossed. He was sitting up in bed when he asked me to grab the cord for his phone.

So, I was sauntering past the bed getting ready to bend over in my velour sweatsuit all Jessica Rabbit like when he said “You’re leaking.” I looked down at my shirt for the tell-tale spot of milk. I grabbed my chest the way only a nursing mother can. I wasn’t wet. “This?” I said, pointing at a spot on my shirt. “Nah, that’s old.”

While I was busy giving myself a breast exam he bent down and grabbed his own phone cord.

“You ruined it,” I said. “I was gonna bend down and get it for you.” I was smiling. But I might have been starting to pout. We had already turned down a street that didn’t head to SexyTown. Might as well pout.

Incredulously he smiled back at me. “I ruined it? You! Talking about your OLD stain! That ruined it!!” By now I had snuggled up against him on the side of the bed. Between the two of us we had about a foot and a half. Lucy and the dog took up all the rest of the room. And like kids we started to laugh. I kept trying to get the words “you mean this old stain?” out of my mouth in feigned breathy sexiness but I couldn’t do it through the giggles. The more I tried to stop the laughter the funnier it was.

The Internet is abuzz this week with breastfeeding pictures. Should we post them on Facebook? Should we nurse in public? Or is it a private thing? You can guess how I feel about nursing a baby in public. Feed your babies, ladies. Cover up or don’t.  Just feed your babies.  Anywhere you want, preferably before they are super mad. I find hungry, crying babies really troublesome, a little exposed boob here and there, not so much.

But I can tell you where breastfeeding doesn’t belong. It doesn’t belong in my bedroom while I am in a fast car on the road to SexyTown. Because evidently “old stains” can send that car careening towards Laughter and there is no turning that car around. (Note: you need to say “old stains” with your hands up making the “I  don’t know what all the ruckus is about” face for the full effect.)

This post is dedicated to the fools that think nursing a baby in public is disgusting and attention seeking.  I will give you disgusting and attention seeking, how about this wet tshirt contest winning picture? And to the new mothers that think they will never, ever get to SexyTown again.  You will.  I promise.  It seems like you won’t.  But keep visiting that little village called Laughter, it will carry you and your marriage right on through.

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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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Posted in Bad Mood, Parenting

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“Punctuation, is? fun!”

Posted on November 15, 2012 | 9 comments

Keep

What’s that saying “the bloom is off the rose?” It means that the thrill is gone.  The newness has worn off.  There is no longer new car smell.

Lucy still smells like a baby.  At least once a week as I close my eyes to fall asleep there are tears on  my cheeks.  My nose is pressed against the top of her head, inhaling.  And at least once a month MQD will ask “Are you okay?”

Always my answer is the same.  “She’s getting so big.”  She just walked by me now with the television remote control in her hand.  Great. I can add Lucy to the reasons I can never find it.

My baby is almost ten months old.  Ten months. For ten months she has slept next to me at night.  She has napped in my lap in “our chair.”  She nurses on demand and she is not shy in her demanding.  She will not take a bottle.  And I haven’t really tried all that hard to convince her.  This is exactly what I had hoped for when I made the decision to stay at home with her.

I do not long for nights out on the town.  I am not craving an evening alone with my husband.  We carve out time.  It works for us.  She will be little for such a short time.

She used to nap for an hour a few times a day.  I needed the rest, too.  It was Lucy Enforced down time for me.  As she nears a year old her naps are growing less frequent. But they are growing longer.  I’d like very much to put her down for one of them.  I have tears on my keyboard while I type that.  Jeez, I am not shipping her off to boarding school.  I am just considering putting her down while she takes a nap.  I’m not even talking the “It’s 10 am, put the baby in the crib and close the door until 11” naptime.  I am thinking maybe we both lie down on the floor in the living room so that when she falls asleep I can roll away from her and stand up and empty the dishwasher without “help.”  (I like to dream big, remember.)

The baby smell is not gone.  But perhaps the bloom is off the rose. I am not sure if I am holding on to her for me or for her.  And when I start to feel like I am making choices for my children based on my needs and not theirs it is time to examine those choices.   She is my last baby.  Remember when you came home with a newborn and they slept on your chest?  I don’t want to let that go.

Em came in to our bedroom the other night with a wicked cough. I got her some cough medicine and checked her for a temperature.  I was preparing to make her a spot in our bed when she said “I can just sleep on the couch with Fisher, Mom.”

“Are you sure?  I mean, you have a cough,” I said.  I could hear how ridiculous it sounded when it came out of my mouth.  It was a cough.  Not meningitis.  She slept that night on the couch.  And soon Lucy will take a nap without my boob in her face.  And she will be just fine.  But I don’t have to like it.

Trash

This afternoon I made the decision to Keep the flowers on my kitchen table and to Donate a few of those crummy vases from the florist that you keep stashed behind your wine glasses.  And for the Trash?

Just like I can’t figure out a way to make my baby stay a baby – I also can’t seem to figure out how to get an orchid to bloom again.  In the coming weeks while I adjust to the idea that Lucy needs to start napping on her own I am going to pretend I am crying over this orchid.  Yup.  I sure am.  Because what is more sad than an orchid without a single bloom?

*Can you name the novel the title for this post comes from?!  Bonus points if you saw this play with me a hundred years ago.

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A Pubic Service Announcement

Posted on November 11, 2012 | 27 comments

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.  20121110-153712.jpg

 

**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.

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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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It’s in my genes…

Posted on November 2, 2012 | 14 comments

MQD took the day off of work today “to spend some time with the family.”  I am not sure this is what he had in mind.

“I’m glad you’re gonna be home.  We need to get Halloween put back up in the attic and I am going to clean out the upstairs closet.   And since you’re home will you take a picture of my butt in all of these jeans?” I point at the big pile of jeans on my bed.

Instead of raising an eyebrow and asking me “Is this what you do all day while I am at work?” He kicked back on the bed  in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajamas and waited for me to drop my pants.  That sounds like Sexy Time right there, no?

Yesterday I decided to Keep, Trash and Donate one item every day for the month of November. I shall call today day one and day two since I am keeping, trashing and donating more than a few pairs. I am keeping 13, tossing 2 and donating 9 pairs.

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The Keep Pile

I shall spare you all the details and just deliver the highlights of what I learned today.

1.  Turns out I had only 24 pairs of jeans total.  I am a gross exaggerator with zero credibility now.  I do not have 30 pairs of jeans after all, not of the too small or the too big variety.

2.  What I do have are lots of hugely unflattering jeans in various sizes for various reasons all stemming from the fact that I have had two children and I never throw out  a pair of jeans.   Exhibit A.  Let me present to you I Have The Same Jeans in Three Different Sizes. Here they are in descending size.

I pulled off the jeans in the top picture and said “These are obviously too big and make me have a totally flat ass.” MQD agreed. It stung a little.

This was the first pair I tried on and I was starting to doubt the wisdom of asking him to help me with this task. But he didn’t just stop there.  “Yeah, it’s like you stuck a cutting board in your pants.”  A FUCKING CUTTING BOARD.  Moving on…

3.  When you have a baby and you plan to breastfeed that baby willy nilly all around the town you make peace with the fact that people will see your knockers. You (if you are me) never really love the fact that people will see your stretchmarks and your gelatinous gut.  You like to save that for showing the entire Interwebz.  So you purchase an assortment of strangely high-waisted jeans that give you SADDLE BAGS.

This was a discovery I just made this morning.  Three of these four pairs will be donated.  The fourth will be going in the trash as the bottoms are terribly frayed.  I know, I should upcycle them and make a purse and a coozie and a lampshade but it isn’t called Keep Donate and Make Some Ugly Shit You Found a Tutorial For On Pinterest.  Exhibit B: Mom Jeans – More Unsightly Than I Knew

To the people of North Carolina,  I may force you to see my stomach while I nurse my baby but I will no longer subject you to the saddle bags created by my Mom Jeans that pretend they are not Mom Jeans just because they are Lucky or some other decent brand.

4.  I am a really lucky girl and I am in a way better head space than I even knew.  My husband nodded in agreement while I said “these look awful on me” and I did not throw something at him.  Perhaps just because he was hiding behind the baby. But I’m calling it progress.

 

Stay tuned to see what I Keep Trash and Donate tomorrow.  I can’t promise more ass pictures.  Not until I get myself a new pair of jeans anyway.

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Posted in Family, Nonsense

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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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Posted in Bad Mood, Nonsense, Parenting

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Birthday

Posted on September 19, 2012 | 9 comments

Dear Emily June,

Seven.  I remember being seven.  My best friend when I was seven is still one of my best friends.  Seven is kind of a big deal.

I asked you last night while we ate your birthday dinner (pizza from I Love NY Pizza) what you would tell someone if they were turning six.  Your advice for all those about to be six “You’re gonna have a great time.  You will love school!” You are a happy girl.  You’re emotional and dramatic like your mother but for the most part you are joyous.

I worried when you were little.  I was not in the best place in my head and heart and you were a screamy baby.  I worried that your screaminess was my fault.  You and I were always together and I feared you would absorb my sensitive nature and my general state of unhappiness.

Your screamy days passed as the winter turned to spring but you were still so very serious.  You were kind of an intense little person.  I took a series  of headshots of you once in an effort to get a picture of your elusive smile.  Someday you will appreciate how much they resembled Nick Nolte’s famous mug shot.

It didn’t take long before your seriousness faded.  Once you could walk (at a precocious  ten months) you started to dance.  And once you could dance you never stopped.  You were in constant motion.  Your teeny little bird frame became a toddler’s body and your smile was overwhelming.

You became a tiny little lady, my sidekick, my playmate.  The time between your first and third birthdays was hard for me.  You gave me strength.  And so very many laughs.

And now you are seven.  Seven going on seventeen, they say.  But like so many trite sayings I fear it may be true.  I tried to get your picture yesterday morning. You were smiling at me and then assumed the position of “fed up pre-teen” as soon as I pointed the camera your way.

I had hoped to say something clever to you on your birthday.  True to form I had no plan as I ran up the stairs to your bedroom yesterday morning.  Something would come to me.

I opened your bedroom door expecting to see you getting dressed.  Your light was already on.  You were crouched on the floor by your Legos.  “Whatcha doing?” I asked you.

“Playing.”

I knelt down next to you and took you in my arms.  And the tears came.  “Just playing, huh? Happy birthday, baby girl.  You can be my baby for one more year, right?”

Ever indulgent, you hugged me tight. “When I am not a baby anymore, Mom, Lucy will still be your baby.”

I didn’t answer you.  I do my level best not to pick fights with you in the morning before school.  But make no mistake, kiddo.  You will always, always be my baby girl.

Happy birthday, sweetheart.  Keep smiling.

Love,

Mom

 

 

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I can’t. I have kids.

Posted on September 6, 2012 | 12 comments

Maybe you know someone that rowed crew in high school and you have seen the tshirt.  “I can’t.” it says on the front.  “I have crew.” on the back.  I have seen similar tshirts for kids that are big in to drama in high school, too.  “I can’t.  I have rehearsal.” I was always a bigger fan of  “Thespians do it on stage” myself.  But that is neither here nor there.

Once you have a baby you get really good at saying “I can’t, we would love to but…” and you look at your kid and you shrug and you say “8 o’clock bedtime” or “She doesn’t take a bottle” or “We don’t have a sitter.” If your friends have kids they understand.  You might get an eyeroll from your friends that don’t do things just the same way you do, but they understand.

At first it might embarrass you.  You might worry that by the time you are ready to hit the town there won’t be anywhere to go or you won’t have any friends any more.  But the second kid?  I know that there will be plenty of fun waiting for me. I’ll be almost forty and chances are I will be home and snug as a bug by midnight but I’ll be sweaty and my calves will hurt from dancing with the dirty kids up front.  I’ll be a cheap date again for a while until I get my sea legs back under me.

And I am okay with all of this.

But this morning I had to do something awful.  I almost took a conversation to private message on the Bookface because I was ashamed of the truth.  A dear friend from the beach reminded me that we had planned on having dinner before the Perpetual Groove show in town.  At the time we initially discussed it I knew that the show would be hit or miss but surely a dinner would be a go, even if I had the kiddos in tow.  He is a perfect addition to a messy dinner with kids.  He has no judgement, kids of his own and is a lively conversationalist full of stories that could amuse even the almost seven year old ears.

I had to renege on our plans.

BECAUSE I HAVE A PTA MEETING.  If you are out of the loop the PTA is the Parent Teacher Association.

I can’t go to a killer show because I have to go to a meeting with a lot of amped up mothers and fathers and talk fundraisers and wrapping paper sales and lunch menus and school resources.  I will eat Domino’s pizza and drink lemonade from a paper cup.  And actually… I don’t have to.  I want to.

I want to meet some of the parents at Em’s school.  I want to meet her friend’s parents.  I want to know the teachers and the administrators.

I used to walk in to a bar and breeze past the doorman with a kiss on the cheek. I’d get a drink without ordering.   I imagined the gossipy girl at a corner table saying “Who does she think she is?” and the waitress would say “Kelly! She is here all of the time.  You’d love her! No, really!!”

And now I have to start all over.  Only in my dreams I can walk in to an elementary school and breeze past the Make Your Own ID machine.  “Just dropping off these cupcakes.”  Oh man, if they let me use the copy machine I will know I have hit the big time.

Just a girl in a bar, circa 1997. In suspenders. Of course.

 

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