Confession: I’m not the Mom you Think I am April 12, 2012

Somehow, unintentionally, I have given some people the impression that I have it all together. I appreciate the compliments – I truly do. But, I feel a little hypocritical in accepting them.
Let me tell you why.
I washed all of our bed sheets on Saturday. I finally put ours on our bed this morning (today is Thursday). We’ve been what we call “camping out” all week. That really just means we’ve been sleeping on sheetless beds on top of and under whatever covers we can scrounge up that are actually clean.
I have done an additional four loads of laundry this week, and all of the clean clothes are piled on a couch unsorted, unfolded, and un-anything else that is responsible and motherly.

We have eaten out every night this week – not because we love eating out but because I never made it to the grocery store to buy ingredients for proper dinners. We also are down to the last roll of toilet paper. I really need to get to the store.
My son’s favorite meal is macaroni and cheese from a can. Most people don’t even realize macaroni can be bought in a can. I actually feed it to my child.
I forget to feed the dog sometimes.

My poor husband had to dry off with a hand towel after his shower this morning.
The kids’ rooms look like disaster zones. I only care when I go in them. And I only go in them to tuck them in or to put their laundry away (obviously, a rarity).
The thing is, nothing is perfect around here. Actually, nothing is even remotely close to perfect. I feel like I never have it together. If I get the house cleaned up, the outside is a wreck. If I get outside presentable, then my car is a mess. I don’t think I’ve ever had it all done, and I don’t think I ever will.
I am a working mom. I have to remind myself constantly that I leave my house between 7-7:30 in the mornings, depending on the day of the week, and I get home sometime after 6 and usually before 7. When I get home, I have the family and animals to feed, laundry to do, a house to clean…I could go on naming the mundane tasks that keep a household running, but I won’t. More importantly, I have a family to love and take care of. I have projects to start and try to finish. I have a garden. A tree house. Bunnies. And a dog.
I am so blessed to have a husband who doesn’t demand a spotless house and meals on the table when he gets home. I have a man who doesn’t mind helping me search through the mountains of clean clothes and maybe the drier too to find two matching socks to wear to work. We decided together that we can’t have everything perfect and still have time for our kids, our projects, and fun. So, we compromise. We keep things presentable, but not perfect. When they start to get out of hand, we all work together to get it decent again.
I’d so much rather drop my kids off at the garden on the way home so they can play in the tree house. I’d rather go inside and take off the uncomfortably professional attire I have to wear to work and put on my holey jeans and my Crocs so I can go join them.
I’ll get to the laundry eventually. It can wait.
My family shouldn’t have to.

What’s for Dinner? March 19, 2012

Here’s another recycled incident from when the kids were a little younger…

My children are truly wonderful and well-behaved. They are clever, funny, and sweet. They constantly surprise me with things they know, say, and do. I am about as proud as a mother can be without positively bursting at the seams. I love them and my family is my world.
But, let’s be honest. Who wants to read a mother’s gushings about her little angels? I mean, really!
So, with that in mind (you know, the fact that they really are good kids), I just have to get this off my chest.
I picked Kendra up from her second day of kindergarten today then went and picked up Maxwell. Things were going well, so I thought we’d stop by Ingles on the way home to pick up a few things for dinner and tomorrow’s lunch.
When I pulled in the parking lot and saw the front “mothers with children” parking slot vacant, I thought it was going to be a fantastic trip to the market.

I got out of the car and went to the passenger’s side to get the kids.
Those of you who know Ingles, know that it is a rare occurance for that valued front space to be open, and that it would only be open if the parking lot were relatively empty. Such was the case today. Parking spaces galore.
That didn’t stop an old bat driving a classy oversized luxury car from wanting the slot adjacent to mine, even though I was clearly standing there with the doors open trying to put my daughter’s sneakers on her feet.
She inched her way into the slot, eyeballing me the whole time, so I courteously closed the door enough for her to park.
The lady could clearly see what I was doing. Last time I checked, it only takes a matter of minutes to put shoes on a child. She obviously didn’t have a minute because she threw her car in park and immediately tried to open her door though my door was blocking the way.
I was courteous once. This was too much. I gathered my kids, and quickly zapped the impatient lady with my laser-vision-I-reserve-for-the-most-annoying-of-individuals and walked my children into the store.
Little did I know, my problems would not end there.
I got a buggy to put my purchases in and Max immediately jumped on the prime spot on the front so he wouldn’t have to walk through the store. Kendra (who I feel compelled to say is very overtired both physically and emotionally from starting school this week), instantly broke down crying and whining/screaming that it was not fair for Max to get to ride. Her feet hurt. Sneakers make her feet hot. Blah, blah, blah, wah, wah, wah. You get the idea.
Well, in the process of trying to stop her from shattering the glass windows in Ingles with her shrill, piercing screams, I guess I may have maneuvered that buggy a bit too enthusiatically and, well, I threw my son off.
He landed on the floor and of course screamed louder than his older sister was.
Lovely.
Once again, those of you who know my son, know his unique talent of being able to vomit on command. Since Kendra’s screams were still louder than his, he pulled out the big guns and barfed all over me and himself.
Yep.
I took those two little buggers to the restroom, cleaned them up, chewed them out a bit, then gave up on the whole grocery shopping endeavor for the night.
When we were leaving the store, Max shirtless and both of them afriad to cry anymore, I had to step over an ever-so-small spot of vomit in the deli department (and that, incidentally, is why you should never eat off the floor in public places). I sincerely hoped that my new dear friend from the parking lot wouldn’t be so unfortunate as to step in it.
We got in the car, with no incident this time, and left.
I still don’t know what we are going to eat for dinner.

Very Fa!-nny, Dad! March 6, 2012

Last weekend, my dad performed an exaggerated Heimlich on me while I was brushing my teeth.

Well, first I should say that staying in a hotel with my family is usually a very silly experience.  Ronnie, the kids, and I had a room adjoining my parents’, and the craziness didn’t stop.

I think it all started with Ronnie playing the air guitar.  Kendra grabbed the guitar (yes, I know that’s an impossibility), and he fell backwards, landed on his back, walked his feet on the wall, and did a strange, convoluted back flip, only to jump up and decide to teach the kids how to do a running front flip on to the bed.  It was a very nice addition to their usual hotel room game of “jumping bed to bed”.

I went to brush my teeth and left the door open.  I coughed in the process, and next thing I knew, my dad came running through the wall (as Max described our connecting door) yelling “Emergency!” and started such an exaggerated Heimlich that he was actually lifting me off the floor that I laughed so hard with my mouth full of toothpaste that I probably was indeed in danger of choking.

Then, I heard a knock at the door.  I went to answer it and no one was there.  I stepped out a little into the hallway just to make sure absolutely no one was there, and next thing I knew, my dad shoved me out of the hotel room to lock me out in the hall.

This kind of thing is very standard in our father/daughter relationship.  Let’s see, once in high school, one of his pranks nearly landed me in the emergency room when I couldn’t dislodge the green peanut M&M he shoved up my nose.  Last time we went out for pizza, I asked for the red pepper shaker and turned my head.  When I looked at my plate, the (much-handled, disgusting) pepper shaker was sitting squarely on top of my once-delicious slice of cheese pizza.  That’s just how it is.  My dad loves to make me laugh.

The funniest time I can remember, though, was a time we went grocery shopping amped up on a little too much espresso.  We were in the soap and shampoo aisle, and my dad told me to smell a new soft soap called Fa!.  He held the bottle, and I took an exaggerated inhale…

Right as he squeezed the bottle!  My sinuses filled with Fa!.  It was the most terrible burning sensation, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  There was absolutely nothing I could do about the pain other than trying to blow the soap out.  We were literally laughing so hard that we were wallowing on the Bi-Lo floor.

What kind of dad would do that to his daughter?

Mine.

And I’m so glad that he does.  Well, honestly, I could do without chocolate or soap up my nose or being rescued while I’m brushing my teeth, but I’m so glad to have a dad who loves to make me laugh.  My dad is my friend.