A Mom's Life

I was flipping channels on the radio today and came across the Christmas channel. It's that time of year, again, a time filled with egg nog and cookies and tinsel and stressful shopping and depression, and a general sad nostalgia for a time in your life that is no longer or never was. Yeah! Along with all that fun stuff, it's also a time for holiday cards. Even with facebook, some people still go old school and send a cute card, perhaps with photos of themselves dressed in nice green and red and white sweaters, holding their kids, or their cat, or their dog, or their saxophone, in their lap. You can stick their smiling faces on your fridge or in a little basket on your counter and feel stress that you, too, need to coordinate a photo sesh with your family, wearing matching sweaters and smiles, and your youngest clutching little Fluffy until little Fluffy nearly suffocates in her overly exited, Christmas-spirited hands. The icing on the Christmas card cake, however, is the lett...

The next few months are stressful for me. It starts tomorrow. American holidays are the epitome of conspicuous consumption. Tomorrow night, my little elves will dress up like Bat Girl and Spider Girl and tromp around town, with pillow cases cluthched in their hands,collecting insane amounts of candy. They will fall asleep in the car ride home, their mouths smeared with chocolate. They will eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for several days. I will stress out about hyperactivity and cavities until I stress-eat a significant pile of chocolate from their stashes. Then it will be all gone and we will forget about candy consumption for another year. Simple solution: I ate my problem. Just a few, short months later, conspicuous consumption rears its ugly head again. As the Christmas holiday nears I will perform my own annual ritual; a sign of the season. I call it the toy cleanse. I perform this ritual at least twice a year, usually before the girls' birthdays and before Chri...

Char is in a phase. It's been a long phase. It started when she was born.In her honor, I drafted up a few little poems. ONE My little Charlotte, with a twinkle in your eyes, and horns on your head. TWO Are you three years old? Where did you learn all those words? No four letters, please! THREE You are the second, Birth order rules apply, here. Wild child, yes! FOUR Keep me on my toes, Wish I had extra eye balls. Always in trouble. FIVE Look away one sec, And you appear with a knife and your sweet smile. SIX Pull on the dog's tail. "He likes it, Mom," you tell me. A dog's best friend. Not. SEVEN The little sister, Are you a friend or a foe? Little protector. EIGHT Up at 5 a.m. You ask, What should we do now? Go the F*7^k to sleep! NINE,p> Char, you make me laugh. Charlotte, you make me cry, too. Full of pride, and tears. TEN Kids don't challenge you. Kids are so easy to raise, Said no one, ever. LAST Who...

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."-Henry Davidson Thoreau Nonconformists have long celebrated these words from Henry Davidson Thoreau. Weirdos around the world applaud the notion that is it a-ok not be just like everybody else, especially if you just can't be like everybody else. Thank goodness for that. When I first read these words in high school I too, applauded. At 15, I considered myself a true nonconformist. I listened to Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. I wrote introspective poetry on the walls of my bedroom. I dyed my hair purple. I shopped at second hand stores. I was so different, so, so different from everyone else. It was hard. Like Thoreau, I felt like I should go live in the woods, away from others, to better understand nature and to reflect on society. Instead I chose to watch Singles and wear combat boots and develop...

There are a few topics that I try to avoid in my blog- politics, religion, work, and sex, to name the top few. It's very hard for me to have practiced restraint in these areas, because, if you know me, I like to discuss politics, religion, work, and sex quite a bit. As a matter of fact, after talking about Andy and the kids, this is pretty much all I talk about. (Oh, besides running. I could talk about running ALL day.) I'm really proud of myself for keeping my blog clean. I'm never worried about anyone reading it or re-posting it. I've never been concerned that what I write is going to come back to haunt me. That's quite the feat for me given the fact that, when speaking, I stick my foot in my mouth all of the time. Stupid things flow furiously out of my mouth like a river after a hurricane. You'd think I'd learn after 35 years but no, I don't, and now I'm going to write about one of the topics on my taboo list. I promise I won't use the word (...

Fall is a time for change. It's always exciting and heart breaking to hear and read about the little ones heading off to school. Whether it is Pre-K, K, or college, fall is the season for letting go and allowing our children to embark on great adventures- without us. Every summer, it has been a tradition for me (well, I may have just done it last year, but let's now call it a tradition) to recap my summer with my two little beans and reflect on stay-at-home parenting. This summer for me was different. It was my sixth summer full-time momming-it and honestly, it was the best and it was the worst. I could write a Dickens novel about this summer. It was good because we have a groove. I am a big schedule person and being unscheduled causes me major anxiety. After many years, we finally have a really nice, unscheduled schedule. I've (uh, sorta) figured out the perfect mix of TV/crafting/adventure time/quiet time that allows the kids to be engaged yet not overstimulated, and f...

I am an explorer. I am Jane Goodall. For twelve years I have lived side-by-side with a strange and foreign creature. I have immersed myself in the daily life of this creature so that I am able to fully understand the creature's similarities and differences. It's been a hard experiment and some days I've wanted to give up. I've found living with the creature to be stressful at times, maybe even dangerous, in certain situations. My weakest moments have been when I've found that I'm acting more like the creature than myself. Then, I go organize something, throw a ton of stuff away, and do some serious labeling, and I know the real me is still there. Emotionally, Andy and I are night and day. There's a reason for the success of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. I'm most certain that Andy is from another planet. Often, he speaks another language, and his inability to understand most of what I'm saying is no doubt an indication that he does not ...