One of my most favorite mommy bloggers is http://sarcasticmom.com/ and posted a “survey” that I found interesting and entertaining.  I have had an extreme bout of PMS since Saturday, and some writers (I know I don’t even like to type it) block sprinkled in between.  Sooooo, thanks to my lotus friend and an invite from her to join in,  I got a little unstuck, hope you enjoy!  And thank you to sarcastic mom for your help, it is much appreciated!

 

1. Which expensive electronic device do you most often let your older children abuse or your baby drool on?

 

Our kids are almost five and eight, but when they were younger, and I was desperate to get them to shut the hell up, or get in their car seat, it was always my phone.  Now, I just bribe our 5 yr. old daughter with candy.  The sugar tantrums are less of a liability in these financial times.  I can’t afford a new phone if she breaks it. Skittles are much cheaper.

 

2.  How many take-out restaurant numbers do you have programmed into your phone?

 

NONE.  I too hate to call and order.  And because I hate it so much, Tom will do it for us.  I also hate answering the door when the take-out is delivered.  I hate it so much, that Tom will do that also because he is awesome.  Thank you awesome Tom.  (Please don’t tell me to Fuck off and do it myself, I love and appreciate you!)

 

3.  How many hours of television do you so totally not let your kids watch a week?

 

I am a bad, bad, bad, Mother.  There are too many to count or not count.  I am rotting their brains, hour by hour, minute by minute.  It’s a miracle they are not walking around drooling with shit in their pants.

 

4. Do you think people who say “we don’t watch television” at play dates but really mean “we just watch DVDs” are lying liars from Liarville?

 

Yes.  And I think they are not only lying liars from liarville, but they are assing asses from Assholeville.  BUT, that’s ONLY if they say it in a pompous, arrogant, I am better than you, shit on the bottom of my shoe you stupid blond-kinda way.  Because I do have a friend that during the summer her and her kids “don’t watch TV”  but when she said that, she also included the caveat RIGHT AWAY that they watch dvds and the kids are allowed and hour a day on their DS video games.  All the while saying it nicely, not trying to make me feel like I suck as a Mother.

 

5.  How many miles have you driven with your child and not one device of electronic entertainment in a single car trip?

 

Long Distance?  ZERO.  I might be a bad Mother, but I didn’t say I was stupid.  I don’t drive around town with movies on or with video games glued to their hands.  But if it is over an hour drive you better believe there are electronics and Doritos involved.

 

 

6.  What’s your record for calls to the pediatrician or Ask-a-Nurse in a single day

 

I don’t think I can hold the ped. /nurse in a day record.  BUT, drum roll please!!!!!!!!!

I have called 911 twice by the time our daughter was just over four!  And twice called poison control for our son before he was 18 months.  Again, there is that Bad-Mom / Not Stupid-Mom thing again.

 

 

7.  What’s the sexiest thing your husband/partner could text you after a hard day?

 

I am pulling in the driveway, with takeout, booze, and a housekeeper. 

 

8.  What’s your favorite iPad joke?

 

I just started blogging in January, I just got a phone where you can txt with one letter instead of three about four months ago, (it doesn’t get internet but it does take pictures!) and ALL my girlfriends have a phone that has an APP for that. 

 

Is and iPad, a new super duper maxi-pad from Playtex or Tampax that is revolutionized to the point where it melds to your body like the sleep number bed?  OH, I mean the memory foam bed! Or pillow, or mattress cover.  It becomes one with your body, so comfortable; you don’t even know you’re wearing it.

 

9.  What’s the dumbest parenting tool, gear, gadget or device you ever bought?

 

Book:  What to Expect When You’re Expecting

 

I bought it as soon as we found out “we” were pregnant!  Ah, isn’t it cute?! How sweet!

 

No, it’s not fucking sweet at all.  It fucking sucked.  I started reading about the first thing I needed to do was “eat whole grains, and dark leafy greens…..”  What? Who wrote this shit?  Certainly not someone who had ever been pregnant, and vomiting.  It was no sooner I got through the page that told me I had to get enough calcium for me and our little one that I threw the book under my car tire and threw  my head and bulging out of their socket eye balls, in the toilet for the next 8 months til’ I gave birth.  Assholes.  

 

10. How many years will it take for your child to become more tech-savvy than you?

 

If you read the above about the iPad, you are probably assuming that they are past me already.  Pretty much.  Our son, soon to be 8, teaches me stuff that makes me feel more scared, I think, than more smart.  And our sassy 5yr. old daughter, well she doesn’t need to tackle technology to think she’s above and beyond me.

Yesterday I promised our kids a play date.  A play date across town.  A play date that I never confirmed. I KNOW!  Can you say “mucho stupeeto?”  What Mom with even a speck of brains in her head, gets her kids all pumped up to see friends, go for a swim, eat junk food, and then doesn’t talk to the other Mother once that day to confirm.  A stupid one that’s who.  A VERY stupid one.

So I call my girlfriend up, all proud of myself that she will have nothing to do, make zero effort, lift not one finger, because I am so desperate for this play date (we have been in the house all day long) that I will do all the work and commute an hour round trip, just to pop in her place for a little bit so the kids can play.   But here’s comes the kick in the balls:  It’s not that she can’t get together because, let’s say, her kids are exhausted from a big day walking around the humongous Naples zoo and they are a hot mess and won’t stop fighting and crying. 

I could work with that: “Oh come on, my kids will cheer them up, it’ll be a distraction!  It’ll be great.  I’ll bring that new game we got and they can sit quietly and play, swear, really works, our kids do it for reals, all the time.  And we’ll get time to chat.  I have some juicy gossip!”  (Gossip, it’ll get a girl every time, right?  We get curious, and then, it happens; screw the kids, Mommy needs her catnip.)  Expecting her to say, “Okay, get over here pronto!  And bring some wine.  Better yet, Patrone, it’s Saturday and he’s expecting sex.”

Nope, that’s not why.  Getting together wasn’t an option that had anything to do with them being sick; no sniffles, no puking.  Nada.  She couldn’t get together because, drum roll please……………..SHE DIDN’T FUCKING HAVE THEM.  That’s right.  You heard me.  She was home ALONE.  It went something like this:

Me:  “Hey, what’s up?  What are you doing?”

Her:  “Working on Husband’s anniversary present.”

Me:  “Oh great! (pretending to be intently interested and excited, but wanting to get to the damn point with out sounding rude)  “Ehem, do you mind if the kids and I stop over and let them play for a little.  And I will just let you work on the present and chat with you?”

Her:  “Oh, they’re not here.  I’m sorry! Jasman had a sleepover, and Hubby dropped Jason because I wasn’t home earlier.  Now I’m home alone.

Crickets.

Plan B. 

B stands for Bad.

So not to crush four year olds heart, and put up with  wrath of guilt ridden cries and tantruming, I offer up homemade cookies.  Again, asshole move numero DOS! It was just one of those days I wanted to be bludgeoned repeatedly with my very own ignorance. 

In my little itty bitty brain and world, there are people who bake, and there are people who don’t.  Guess which one I am?  Since everyone on the planet is smarter than me this weekend, you know that is a rhetorical question.  Here’s why I am not.  It’s too precise. I don’t have enough patience or  talent. And I am too much of a type A personality to be that precise and that patient and I don’t have the talent.  Thus I get my self all balled up and could have a thrombosis.   I am not good at baking.

I love to cook.  I love to be in the kitchen.  I love to serve up something yummy for family and friends.  I love that I can take a recipe, and swap out basil and put in garlic.  Or skip the celery and put in garlic.  Or if I can’t afford a snorts worth of saffron, I always have garlic.

If yeast is involved, I am f#*%king  f#*%ked.  Anyway, I realize I have to take the aggravation bullet for our children b/c it is the right thing to do, I got us in the sitch in the first place.  So awful baker mommy goes to the kitchen.  I have to tell you, what happens next, has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever done in my life.  (Except when I was little and put a tiny pack of snoopy crayons, that were donned in a little plastic suite case to boot, on top of a light bulb to see what would happen.  My dad saved the light bulb with the melted mess on top so he could show the man I was going to marry.  Seriously.  And he did, just ask Tom)

Step One:  Get choc-chips out, they have the recipe on them.  I use the Nestle Toll house if you are wondering.  My mom always did, and now I will do it with our kids.  Nostalgia.  Love it!

Step Two:  Follow Directions

Step Two:  Dump all ingredients in one bowl and try to combine with electric mixer.

Step 3: Think to self, “What in the hell is going on?  This is a mess?  Why isn’t everything blending together?  Smoothly?  Why is the butter sticking to the mixer like that?  All up in there and stuck and clumpy?  Hey, where did the eggs go?  I know I put them in, they disappeared! How come the flour and brown sugar will blend together, but they won’t blend with the butter?  This is weird.  Ah, my arm and wrist are starting to hurt, this is hard.  I think I have carpal tunnel.”  By now I have scrapped the butter out of the beaters three or four times already.   There’s more.  I hope you are laughing.  Please don’t make this experience be for nothing.  I beg of you.  It’s funny, right? Please?!  The thought of a thirty five year old college graduate, mother of two, a grown woman with a husband of almost ten years, is now fighting with cookie batter?  It gets even better.  I know, how could it? (For all of you who know I am from NJ-and have seen “Jersey Shore”- PLEASE, I beg of you please! DO NOT JUDGE!  I have not lived there since I was 18, thank you in advance. I do have a brain in my head, I am just having a Mommy moment.)   I continue to do this for almost fifteen minutes!    Shocking isn’t it?  How does this go on? You might ask. We’ll the shithead part of me took ten minutes to figure out what I had done wrong.  And then the resilient and persevering business woman in me, messed with it for another minute or two to see if it could be saved.  Again, shithead.  Throw away, start over, read directions.

Once I got my head out of my ass, things started to look up a bit.  Although, I can’t say I will be baking any time soon.  And I will keep my mug shut about any plans  until we are in the car on the way to our awesome adventure. Who knew my Saturday afternoon could be so annoying and gifted  by ONLY, yours truly, Moi, Mir, Me.  I’m fucking PMSing.

This is my entry for the 100 word challange hosted by Velvet Verbosity  This weeks word is Thirty.  Hope you enjoy!

Thirty: so wrong, on so many levels

When you’re twenty, thirty seems old.  When you’re twenty five you may start worrying about turning thirty. A woman not married=spinster. However, a woman who is twenty nine, married, with young children, is less worried about turning thirty.  And more concerned about getting through the grocery store without her toddler knocking over thirty cans of soup.

 Or getting thirty minutes of sleep. 

Or thirty minutes alone.

 Or thirty minutes to shower, brush teeth, dry hair, and get dressed.

 Or thirty minutes of silence in her head.

 Any mother/wife with young children usually repeats herself AT LEAST THIRTY TIMES A DAY!

Dear Friends, Women, Mothers, and Wives,

When you are pregnant, no one, I mean NO ONE, wants to be the bearer of bad news.  Or be the “Debbie Downer.”  I love the saying, “don’t kill the messenger!”  When we grow up with ‘Sound of Music’ and ‘Jerry Maguire’ love story movies, and Hollywood tells us, “Yes that is what life is like.  You will meet the man of your dreams.  Have the perfect wedding.  Make babies.  And it’s fun.  So, so, fun!”  I just have to say, “Um, Hollywood, this is Elaine Brosnan calling, BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!  Pregnancy is a curse, infants NEVER EVER EVER, did I say NEVER?, sleep, and spouses turn on each other.  Why don’t you write and produce a movie about that? Huh? Huh?”  Oh, I forgot, some one already did that.  It’s called ‘Super Nanny’ and it’s on TV starring Jo, with whatever real life family she is trying to save next.  Well, may I introduce….?

My best friend, my Husband, the Father of our two children (soon to be 5 & 8), THE  author, Tom.  Tom, creator of calm, peace, and happy days.  What he knows NOW…  The top ten things couples fight about with young children.  It’s almost an ode’ to those parents.  Helping the Fathers, AND the Mothers.  Directions:  Print it, Read it, Pass it on.  Lather & repeat!  Can be served, undercooked or while intoxicated, but not recommended. Spread the knowledge.  Save a marriage!

Since the writing is too long for my blog, you can find it at the link below, in our fun reading section at  www.cardinalcardz.com website hope you enjoy!

direct link:

 http://www.cardinalcardz.com/fun-reading

TWEET TWEET- BLOG BLOG- RIBBIT RIBBIT

 

            It is a new year, a new decade, a time for new beginnings.  Women of this generation practically have the world at their finger tips.  Women Entrepreneurs are on the rise now more than any other time in history, almost at lightening speed.  Blogging appears to be getting bigger by the second.  And the internet seems to have more and more uses for Mom’s than ever before.  We can talk with friends, via email, or Facebook, we can get recipes for dinner, directions to a fancy park, interesting facts for a school project, or movie times for whatever Disney flick is coming out next that we have to take six kids, another Mommy friend, and eat an entire bucket of butter slathered popcorn. 

            It directs me to thinking about all the fun names and internet places we visit, and leaves me wondering, “What the hell?”  I mean really, what is a blog?  I will tell you.  It is an online diary, that’s what it is.  It is also short for weblog.  Seriously?  It had to be shortened?  Are we that lazy?  No.  We are not.  I will defend!  Here is my theory:  Weblog also (we)blog, get it?  Is a community.  It is much more fun, funny, humorous, hysterical, et cetera, to say “Do you blog?  Are you a blogger?  I’m a blogger, do you want to blog?  I’d love to read your blog.  I’ll show you my blog if you show me your blog.”  Try it, it’s fun.  But, it’s not as fun if you insert weblog.  Try it again.  It’s kinda a buzz kill right?  So, as we continue to be on the web and log our personal diaries, I continue to support the awesomeness of the nickname, BLOG, BLOGGER, and it’s close cousin booger.  Although not awesome, we have young kids and I spend lots of time with them too.

            Tweet, tweet.  Not just for birdies anymore.  I am on twitter.  I don’t know the first thing about it, but it tells me I follow people and I am being followed.  I have even tweeted once.  Is that the proper way to say it?  Or I have twitted?  Or twatted?  No that’s not it.  My spell check even knows better.  But millions of people are doing it, the twitter thing.  Twitting about peanut butter sandwiches, their last bowel movement, “I have an eyelash in my eye, yeah it’s Friday!”, no shit idiot,  “I just had bad sex, no you didn’t there is no such thing – it’s like Pizza, getting it is better than nothing,” that’s a guy tweeting for ya.  Again, I ask, is it twitting or tweeting.  I am confused.  One thing I know for sure, Teenagers are a step ahead.  I am just getting used to Facebook.

            Another name that makes no sense, but it is catchy!  Face, I will give it that.  My mug is up on my page quite a bit, and the mugs of our awesome kids, and my awesome best friend of eleven plus years.  My husband I are Facebook friends, yet neither of us are writing a book on our page.  Nor is anyone else I know.  We write kinda like the twitters.  “I just stubbed my toe.”  And someone reply’s to that thread, “You shit head.  Hope you were drunk.”  And then what’s even cooler, you get one hundred and forty nine emails that are reply’s to that “thread” in your in box, from people you have no idea who they are, saying things like, “Oh honey!  I hate it when that happens.  Are you okay?  Put some ice on it, that should help. I’ll bake you some cookies.  It’s been too long.  How are you?  The kids?  Miss you! Xoxo, Me!”  And “Yeah, hope you were hopped up on Hennessy dude.  What a douche.” Or “You up for poker Thursday?”  And, “Tell all your beautiful girls Hi and I miss and love them!  Everyone looks great!”  SERIOUSLY?  Like I want to read all this.

I have to say there are some things I love about Facebook.  The speed at which I can say hello to friends.  Just jump on their page, be a voyeur for a minute, and send a quick note.  Cause honestly, that whole email thing with clicking on compose and then going through my address book, WAY TOO LONG of a process.  Don’t you think?  And what’s more, you can poke people on FB.  So when you are really pressed for time, you can just poke someone to let them know you are thinking of them.  I want them to put in a “flick em” feature.  This way when you are mad at someone, and you don’t want to talk to them, but you want them to know it, you can just flick em.  Wouldn’t that be fun?  Especially after the holidays!  Get in a fight with your brother or sister?  Get on FB and flick away!  Doesn’t that feel good.  It could give an entire new dimension to getting back at those High School bullies.  Especially if you were the ugly duckling so to speak and now have turned into a total hottie!  You could say, “Ha ha, look at me now sucka.  Jealous?”  I’m just saying.  For once we could be ahead of those damn teenagers when it comes to technology.

I love my computer and all its capabilities.  I asked Tom to fact find something for me yesterday, I needed to know the exact date of Labor Day weekend in 1998.  I know I exaggerate a lot.  But this you can trust, because it comes from him.  It took him 9 seconds.  Amazing!  When we were kids that wasn’t possible.  You couldn’t find the date of Labor Day weekend from eleven and a half years ago in nine seconds. (Literally from the time I realized I needed it, he walked up stairs and called me within one hundred and twenty seconds. Not bad.)  I once had a teacher-friend two years ago say “Isn’t it cool how you can Google something and find what ever you are looking for in four and a half minutes?”  Hmm.  Google, what a funny sounding word.  Okay, I won’t get started on that.  But yes, I do think it is amazing, that it is true, you can find almost anything you have a question on. Google it.  Two years ago, four minutes.  Yesterday, nine seconds.  Can you imagine what technology will be like when our children go to college?

Did you ever come down to the breakfast table starting out your day wanting to serve your children a big warm glass of shut the hell up?  Well, that is how I started my day today with our little princess.  The whining, the stomping, and more whining and cranking the pitch higher so dolphins could communicate with her. Noises that grate on me like nothing else in this entire world can.  Not even more than passive aggressive comments.  And I really despise those.  Especially the good jabbers about the cleanliness, or lack of cleanliness of our home, from my mother.  Good times. 

            Anyway,  it started because Princess wanted cookies in her snack, and Daddy should have crawled up her ass and read her mind.  This particular trait, lucky for him, is generational.  Hereditary.  Contagious.  Plagued to all females who will be birthed with any ounce of Polish/Scottish/Matoska/McFarlane Genes.  These are very powerful puppies.  I warned Tom I was a pain in the ass when were dating.  His reply, “Bring it.”  I am pretty sure he regrets that comment fully to this day.  My brother’s speech to us at our wedding, and I quote, he calls Tommy the “Messiah.”

            Anyway, to say the very least, she is stubborn.  And like most children her age, when tired, or wanting something sweet, SHE is a complete pain in the ass.  So when I tell her she doesn’t get anything by whining and I won’t concede to the cookie request, guess what happens next?  Yup, she gets even more pissed.  Great.  “Bay, stop it.  Stop this behavior.  You will not get a cookie this way.”  I try to say as calm and soothing as possible, yet seething inside, feeling as if my brain is boiling.  Looking like one of those mad scientist beakers with smoldering fluid inside overflowing with clouds of dry ice.  Oh it hurts.  My brain, my eye balls, my teeth, they all hurt.  Make it stop.  Nope, no can do Mommasita.  Princess replies, “But I can’t stooopppp, I just caaaaan’t!”  I try not to yell at her, so I practically spit the words out, “Okay, go TURN ON THE TV, sit down and try and calm down.”

            I go in the other room to put my sneakers on, thinking this will help me calm down.  Distance, distance is good.  Sit in a room, with no kid stuff, no clutter.  Realizing, it’s not just her, it’s me.  Because, no matter how hard I try, she gets me EVERY SINGLE TIME. No matter what.  No matter how calm I stay, and no matter how many times I think I say the right thing, there is just no hiding my anxiety.  Not the kind of first time Mom anxiety where you second guess a bunch of stuff and you don’t know which end is up.  The kind of anxiety where you have that fight or flight response. Fight:  I have the energy and adrenalin to take a Clydesdale, you know the pretty kind featured in one of those Budweiser commercials that air in the beginning of winter where the horses dash through virgin snow making it all look so pretty and fun to go on a sleigh ride, yeah I could take one of them and throw that horse right through my sliding glass doors.  Flight: I could get in my car and drive 180 miles an hour across the country only stopping for gas to get to New Port Beach and stay in the Ritz for two weeks and eat cheese burgers and drink martinis the entire time.

            I’m just saying.  It was one of those mornings.  She wouldn’t shut off the TV when I asked, but if I came with in a foot to do it myself, she was going to throw a fit.  She wouldn’t put on her jacket, wouldn’t pick up her bag, get in the car, strap her belt, and stop complaining she was cold, or whining about wanting that cookie!  How do we as mothers keep from loosing our shit before the clock strikes 8:01am.  It’s a great day to fill my breakfast plate with carbs, watch junk TV, and cuddle up in bed with my favorite magazines.  Recharge my mommy battery.  How does a child half my size get to be so bossy and exhaust me in under seven minutes?  Some days I feel like it is so hard to parent well and I wonder why.  Anyone else?

Below is a letter to our almost five year old daughter.  I am planning to give it to her on her 13^th Birthday.  That’s the naiveté in me that wants to hold onto the idea that she will be shielded from our society’s sexual maturity, or inappropriateness, for that long.  Although, the realist, or commonsense, in me knows (because I have been educated by friends with children facing these issues at VERY young ages) that it will be a letter for her 11^th or 12^th Birthday.  (Ugh.)  As much as it gives me a stomach ache at this moment, I know it will give me peace of mind when it comes time to give it to her.  Peace of mind when it comes time to talk about things that are important.  Her body, her confidence, her self-esteem.  And what it all means and how it all flows together.  Because,  I can give her a soft place to fall when girlfriends can’t.  Because they too, are clueless.  Just like I was clueless.  I could definitely have used, “the talk.”  I want to give Bay the tools that I was lacking as a child.  I look at 14 year olds today and think, “HOLY SHIT!  Your just babies!”  With this letter, this introduction, I can give her a place to come when she has questions and she needs to get truthful answers.  And she can go back into the world and speak to her peers with authority, not uncertainty.  She can make choices, and not be persuaded to do anything.  Bay will not be confused.  She will know with out a doubt that your life course can change forever in an instant, based on one very simple decision.  Because I will “have the talk.”  No matter how uncomfortable.  Because, this is a love letter.  A love letter to our daughter.  Our daughter who is a gift from God.

My Dearest Bay Grace,

You are growing up so fast.  Not only physically, but emotionally too.  And if it’s not enough to have our days fly by, to make things jet speed, society and the media want you to grow up even quicker.  The clothes, the hair, the makeup.  The phones, the music…the madness!  Mom-Madness.  Madness because I dreamed of you even before you got in my belly.  OH, and when you were in there, I dreamed of  pink dresses, and pink nail polish, and pink hair bows,  and going to lunch, and watching girlie movies, what your wedding day will be like!  I never dreamed that it all would go this fast.  Although, my relationship with you is a dream come true.

The thing I think is the most important about our relationship is how I influence you and your choices.  How you view the world and yourself.  As you make new friends and  as you face new challenges I want you to always remember our family values.  To stay true to yourself and don’t change who you are.  You are a smart, strong, beautiful girl.  You are not defined by your waist size, or the clothes you are wearing.  You are funny, caring, and generous.  You do not let someone else make you feel the brand of clothes you wear make you a better person, or the type you don’t wear make you less of a person.  You don’t  allow anyone to build their own self-confidence by making you feel inadequate or anything less than the extraordinary girl that you are.

  Your body is sacred to you and belongs only to you.  And any one who doesn’t understand that and agree can go else where.  When the time comes when you feel you are mature enough, and someone has earned the right to touch you, please come to me first.  I am confident he will be intelligent, have a great sense of humor, respect women, respect family, and respect your  values.  At this young age, boys don’t have the mind and emotional power  to figure out how important and special your body is.  You have the intelligence to make sound decisions and  you are more than capable of standing up for yourself.  Baylee, Mom is here for you and I want you to know you can trust me.  I know that I am not  one of your girlfriends, and I am not trying to be.  But I am your Mom, and I have had some life experience and have learned some things along the way.  As you move on into different stages in your life, your entire family is here to support you.  Your Dad and I love you more than anything in the universe and want only the best things for you.  All I want is for you to be happy and make good choices.  And if there is anything I can ever do to help you accomplish that, all you have to do is ask.  I love you with all my heart, Mom.

Okay, input anyone?  Is there anyone out there that has received or given the talk, and it was effective?

I just HAD a birthday approximately six weeks ago. Also, our daughter is going to HAVE a birthday IN about six weeks.  Nothing monumental, for either one of us.  She can’t drive, or drink legally.  I can’t collect social security, or join AARP.  Although, something about this year is different.  I can’t quite put my finger on it for me.  Maybe I need to blog about it?  But when it comes to our kids, it’s SO obvious.  As “Moms” I think some of us can tend to freak out a bit regarding how fast our kids can grow up.  Or at least I certainly can.

Just taking one quick look at them, and I could down a bottle of Strawberry Boones Farm to try and calm my nerves.  It starts like this:  They say something cute or funny, “MoooOOOmMM!” (In that tone that all kids universally know how to do) “Don’t you know dat you found soooo reedickuwus?  Of course I’m going to wook bof ways when I cwoss da street, I’m smart, member?  Duh?”   And I think the comment is so cute, I don’t even care the sassy four and three quarter year old was just rude and disrespectful to me.  And then she’s off, after a quick kiss on the lips, with a strut that makes Paris Hilton look demure.

I am left there, alone, wondering, “Where did the time go?”  And how come I sound like my Mother?  Ahhhh!  Okay, more important, where did the time go?  Wasn’t I just miserable with a screaming two year old.  Wishing and willing the clock to tick five so it could be time to drink some thing that wasn’t caffeinated?  Weren’t my girlfriends and I just bitching about how life sucked most of the time?  And now I’m grieving it?  What?  This makes NO SENSE.  I MAKE NO SENSE. 

And if I want to make any sense out of it, I suppose really what I want is for time to stand still a little bit.  I know it is cliché.  But they really do grow up so freakin’ fast.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any of the shitty parts back.  You know, when they fall on the floor in the middle of the grocery store and scream like you are stabbing them in the eyes with fondue skewers and every single old person stops and gives you a look that could kill you because you are the worst mother on the planet and there is no one more evil because the most evil mother and worst mother is you.  No, I don’t want that.  I just want to freeze them right now.  I don’t have to change diapers anymore, or strap them in their seats, or get the stroller in and out and in and out and in and out of the car.  I don’t have to worry about choking hazards, (as much) or naps, or nukers.  I just have to worry that I’ll blink and they’ll be all grown up.  Anyone else?

Like most women, I had a “vision” of what I thought Motherhood was going to be like for me.  Eight years ago, I was six months pregnant and waddling around San Diego, knocking on doctors doors, making friends with their nurses, and bringing them all lunch.  It was a great job, being in pharmaceutical sales.  I set my own schedule, studied stimulating topics on health and the heart, and occasionally dealt with the arrogant asshole physician.  For the most part, life was good.  I was sick my entire pregnancy, so that took up a lot of my time, with my head in the toilet and all.  I remember one day Tom asked me if I would clip some coupons.  My reply, “What are you crazy?  I don’t have time for that.  Have you seen what I have been up to lately?  I spend most of my time puking, more than Super Models starve themselves.  If morning sickness was an Olympic Sport, I’d get the Gold, I do it ALL DAY LONG.  No I am not clipping stupid coupons.”  Stupid.  What was even more stupid was my next response.  “When I am a stay-at-home Mom, and I have time, I will do it then,” replied the crazy lady.  What?  Who says that?  Now, for all you Mom’s out there, working, part-time, at home, whatever; isn’t that the dumbest thing you have ever read in your life?  I worked out of our house as a pharmaceutical rep, and I thought I would have more time on my hands when I stopped that job, and birthed an infant.  I not only laugh when I think about it, I laugh at myself so hard I could have an aneurism.           

  One daydream I would constantly fantasize about was having a month off with nothing to do before the baby came.  I was so sick, I was being put on disability.  I was so excited about the thought of being able to sleep in, fix the nursery, get pedicures, shop and go to lunch with friends.  I would catch up on all the current and best movies,  read junk magazines, and talk on the phone. Every thing I couldn’t do when I was working. Day one, I watched T.V. all day, it was wonderful!  Day two, MY WATER BROKE.  And being the crazy lady that I was, that same day I had forced my husband to go to a bachelor party in Vegas.  “Go, you have to, it’s going to be a while before you’re going to get the chance again.  We’re having a baby in a month.”  Or, in a few hours.  That’s what I get for being crazy AND stupid.  Luckily, he made it back for the delivery! 

              It’s true what you read, “You forget about the pain of child birth.”  Oh, and for me I forgot how miserable the gestation period was too.  And post-partum.  And the terrible twos.  You don’t realize that your life will be reduced to an infinite series of five minute mindless tasks that have to be done, and take all day.  Load the dishwasher, unload the dishwasher, fill the sippy cup, put clothes in dryer, take clothes out, fold clothes, drop kids off, pick kids up, make food, clean up food, make food, clean up food, make food, clean up food, get band aid, make crying stop, fill sippy cup, change the diaper, change the diaper, change the diaper, fill sippy cup, get band aid, make crying stop, stop your own crying. 

I am not saying being a Mom is not the most amazing thing to happen in my entire life.  Because it is.  It is better than I ever could have dreamed.  It is true you love your children more every day.  I just find it interesting and funny, that I thought that immediately out of the womb I was going to be baking every thing from scratch, our kids would behave, and I would be in control of every thing.  Not only do I serve preservatives and chemicals, our kids act out, and I can’t control much, but each time I say “I would never!”  With out a doubt, our kids make a liar out of me.  Any one else?

Like the rest of the country, believe it, right now in south west Florida it is actually  cold.  Similar to other parents, we are at odds with what to do with our kids to keep them happy and entertained.  Since we saw every single movie appropriate for a four and seven year old while they were off for seventeen days, yes 17, one-seven, SEVENTEEN DAYS of winter break, we are now reduced to have to go to the mall.  I know, just the mention of it can make a parent get a headache on contact.  But, I try to be an eternal optimist, Tom and I both; the kids are thrilled, and what could be more fun on a cold day than some junk food, a run around the play area, and some retail therapy?  Turns out, LOTS.

The plan is to meet my close friend Sheryl, her sweet Husband, and her two cute kids around 1pm.  We’ll get a bite to eat, let them play in the fake tree with the slide, jump off a bug or two, and hit the shops for a bit.  Sounds like a nice afternoon.  While Tom parks, I enter with Holden and Bay and decide on pizza and breadsticks for lunch, unanimous, great, awesome start.  My blood pressure rises a bit when I see how mobbed it is, and get cut off by Betty and Fred as they are yelling at each other about their version of the “Mall Madness.”.  Fred snarls, “I don’t care what the hell I have for lunch, I am trying to find a table for crying out loud, can’t you see?”  But she can’t see because she can’t find her glasses in her purse, and she can’t hear for that matter because she forgot her miracle ear at home and she just keeps asking, “Fred, do you want the chicken parm, or a slice?  Which one?”  In this whiny north east accent, that grates on me and reminds me of bad childhood memories in N.J.

We find a nice table among our cohorts, other young children and families, sitting at the small tables with the miniature chairs.  As the kids steal my Stromboli, I try to get some of their pizza so I don’t go hungry, and enjoy some people watching.  We move on to the play area and I try not to look at all the disgusting shoes and socks piled up as they shove theirs’ in a cubby.  I am still shocked as I sit here this morning, thinking about the amount of kids, running, jumping, kicking, and karate chopping, that there weren’t more 911 calls.  I have to say it was impressive.  Snotty, dirty, gross, ass-crack-showing revolting, but impressive.

I am excited I have a gift card and take a few minutes for myself to walk down to one of the department stores.  The bummer is, I have to travel “far.”  It’s all relative, because the mall isn’t that big, I can easily walk four miles with some great music and the motivation to lose five LBS.  However, it is Saturday, and I will have to pass ninety four kiosks, ONE WAY, and then assuming I live, I will have to do the same thing on my walk back.  “Mam, Mam!  Can I flat iron your hair!?”  What?  No you can’t touch my hair.  What are you fucking crazy?  And my name is not “Maam.”  What am I eighty?  “Miss, would you like to try a smokeless cigarette?”  No thank you, I don’t smoke.  That was better; at least he called me Miss.  “HEY, would you like to…?”   Ahhhh!  No thank you!  Why do they have to jump out and scare the ever livin’ out of you?  It’s like a damn haunted house.  Oh, I have such a headache.

By the time I get to the store, I don’t have the will to shop anymore and now I have to go to the bathroom.  Great.  This is getting better by the SECOND!  As I walk in, three out of the five stalls are taken, and another woman and I are simultaneously walking into the last two.  We both walk right back out.  “The door doesn’t lock,” she says kindly to me with disappointment.  “The toilet is REALLY dirty,”  I reply with some disgust.  So we wait, and wait, until she takes the next available.  As I wait some more, two more women walk in and stand in line behind me, then two more pile in.  I can hear the last two mumble, “I think there is another upstairs, let’s go there.  Waa Waa Waa, whining whining whining!”  As the three of us wait we hear, flushing, and more flushing.  I can feel these women staring at me, almost as if they were directing a hot laser beam at the side of my face.  Now all I am doing is thinking, “What is my response going to be?”  More staring, more flushing, more hot lasers.  Finally, from both of the bitches at the same time, “Um, ah, are you like waiting in line, cuz there are like, uh, duh, uh, like two stalls open?!”  Their faces all contorted and ugly and confused looking.  I calmly tilt my head and almost in a whisper, to make their shouting at me more exaggerated, “Yes I am waiting.  The first one… the door doesn’t lock.  And the second one, that one has shit all over the seat.  But you are more than welcome to go first, knock yourself out.”  I smile sweetly, turn around, and what do you know, it’s now finally my turn, and I lost my shit.  Literally, I didn’t have to go anymore, and was constipated the rest of the day.

I made it back to the play area with out having been attacked by any kiosk men.  I had forgotten my cell phone in my coat, but I just made my hand into one, ya know, the thumb and the pinky look, like you do with your kids when you’re calling Santa, “Hello Santa?  Yes, Bay is not being a good listener, I think she might need to move to the naughty list.”  And either the dumb asses really thought I was on the phone, or they were too scared to talk to the “crazy lady with the hand phone.”  Either, way I won.

So now I am back to relieve Tom, literally, because he hasn’t been to the restroom yet and the poor guy has been stranded.  Quickly he walks, trying not to run, or get his eye poked out by an eighth of a cheese steak or some rubbery orange peel Chinese chicken on a toothpick.  Finally after making it through Istanbul, Asia, China, Orange Julius, India, Italy, and past the cookies the size of a nine year old, he’s at the Men’s room, conveniently blocked off after lunch for cleaning.  Genius!  What a great freaking idea.  Eat a plate of Chinese food with extra hot sauce, and then the poor guy can’t get in the bathroom.  Oh thank goodness, there is one family bathroom open.  Oh you’re kidding, the door won’t lock!  He has to take his chances, he won’t make it across the mall.  Women can lose their shit and get constipated; while Men, well, they just shit their pants.  Tom uses the restroom as quickly as possible, and wouldn’t you know it, as he exits the bathroom, (alone, he’s not a family, he’s a grown man, over six feet, two hundred pounds) next in line for the family bathroom?  A family.  A mom, with two little, cute girls, holding their coochies in agony moaning, “I have to go so bad, what is taking so long?”  The guilt is layered, if he could pull Fabreeze out his ass at that exact moment, he most certainly would. 

As we all group together as a family, to protect each other from the dangers of the Mall, the kids are now begging to go home.  “I’m tired, I’m thirsty!” They bitch, they moan, and complain as if we have just tortured them and made them clean the place instead of play in it.  “Yes we can go. Can you ask nicely?”  Duration of the visit, approximately two hours.  Duration of fun, I’m going to guess, six minutes.  Duration before we return:  12 mind numbing months.  We went home and ordered  the Wii.