Infrequently Asked Questions

Yesterday, my blogger buddy Brandyn Blaze of Life, Motherhood and the Pursuit of Happiness tagged me in a Q&A waterfall, and even though I sort of feel like my third grade self passing on a chain letter, I decided to take the bait. The questions posed to me were as follows:

1. What made you decide to get into blogging?

People were getting really tired of the novellas I would write as Facebook status updates.

2. How has it impacted your life?

I'm a little insane in the membrane. Blogging can be a great outlet, and a way to wrestle with the myriad questions and concerns that plague me from day to day, from the existential to the mundane. (Incidentally, check out this post on Time.com, "I'm a Mommy Blogger and Proud Of It.") On the other hand, it definitely gives me performance anxiety (I'm at my least funny when I'm trying to be funny), and sometimes it feels like an obligation more than anything else. An obligation to whom, I'm not sure, because I usually feel like, aside from DM and my cousin F and my friend Claire, I am mostly just talking to the air.

3. How do you manage to work blogging into your schedule?

Generally when a seed for a blog post pops into the soggy soil of my brain matter, I feel like I have to write about it RIGHT NOW. I spend a lot of my commute to and from work formulating what I am going to say, and then I usually just barf it out into Blogger in one fell swoop during a bout of insomnia or when the food truck is taking its sweet ass time growing the organic, fair-trade quinoa for my "anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, but may make you a bigger a-hole" salad. Then I sit on it for a few days, set it to auto-post, and notice five typos the second after it's published.

4. What's your favorite non-blogging "me-time" activity?

Reading in bed. Well, preferably on a beach in the sun with a frosty adult beverage within arm's reach but in bed is a close, and more easily attainable second.

5. If you could be anything in the world, what would you be? (Could be a profession, an inanimate object, an animal...sky's the limit!)

A baby hedgehog. So hot right now. Preferably not one used for animal testing, or given to Chucky as a Christmas present.

***

So there you have it, Ms. Brandyn B ;) You are one of the few bloggy folks I actually interact with on occasion, so this is kind of a stab in the dark, but I'm going to tag Ashley of Pink Sky Serendipity, Julie of Next Life No Kids, Annie of Swirleytime, and Diane of Chaos in Motion. No pressure. You certainly don't have to make a whole blog post about it, but I am a sucker for a good survey a la Myspace circa 2004. If anyone else is feeling inspired, please feel free to chime in, in the comments, or on Facebook or Twitter, or you could write me a letter. As my little bro used to say, "Pick do you choose?" Here's the next set of questions. I'll go first.

1. If you had to listen to a song on repeat all day today, which would you choose?

I was going to say Budapest by George Ezra but then I listened to it on repeat while I wrote this and it started to bother me so now I'm revising. Between the Bars by Elliot Smith, because we just watched some movie where they mentioned it which led to a personal Elliot Smith renaissance of sorts. I love/hate questions like this because I have a new favorite every other day, which is why I narrowed the applicable time frame.

2. If you wrote a book on parenting (that evil genre), what would the title be?

"Downward Facing Dong" (Copyright, Trademark, All Rights Reserved). Could also be a budget yoga porn flick. (Is there any other kind?)

3. What is your spirit animal?

That or a grilled cheese sandwich.

4. What are three of your favorite words?

Haberdashery. Persnickety. Rapscallion.

5. Disneyland - Yay or Nay?

Hell to the freakin' Yes. Just don't tell my kids I went without them.

***
Tag! You're it.

Little did you know this was an application for friendship. The position is still open ;)

seven years of college down the drain

Okay, so, a while back, Jen of People I Want to Punch in the Throat had an open submission for her next anthology, letters of advice to your children as they leave the nest. One of my cousins, who has always been a big cheerleader of mine, insisted that I enter. And I did. But my submissions were not chosen. I can't really blame Ms. PIWTPITT. They weren't my best work. It's much harder for me to respond to an external prompt, to write because I feel like I "should," as opposed to writing because I have a bee in my bonnet about one thing or another. This particular prompt was a challenge as my kids are 2 and 4 and I'm thinking more about how to get them to eat anything other than reconstituted chicken butts and how to make my bathroom not smell eternally of urine. I didn't get my hopes up too much, especially after DM proofread them and said "I like them. You're probably not going to win or anything, but they're pretty good." But, anyway, I got two free blog posts out of the deal. Here's the first one, to my best boy. It's long, I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear ;)

J$ - My sonny honey…

I just got you to sleep, finally, in the top bunk, with your super hero blankie and your lovey du jour. We read about astronauts and “Ironing man” and princesses (your sister’s choice, but you never protest too heartily.) You have taken your last sip from your Darth Vader water bottle, and you’ve gone pee twice (impressively depositing at least 74% of the urine into the toilet). I have vanquished all gnats, moths, and other terrifying winged monsters of the night. I sang 'Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder' to you over the monitor. You love the part about the doormats, bed slats and democrats. My dog and pony show is done, for today.

This letter is meant to impart some meaningful advice as you leave the nest and head off on whatever adventure life has in store (read: college). You’re four, so you might wonder why I’m writing this now, and not fourteen years from now. Well, first of all, you know me. I must have been a girl scout in a past life because I am nothing if not prepared. But really it goes a little deeper than that. As you know, I lost my mom and stepdad (your grandma and grandpa) less than three weeks after I left home. I had already learned so much from them, but in the whirlwind of “getting ready for college by ransacking Target,” I never had a chance to sit down with them and talk, face-to-face, as an (almost) adult. To hear the stories they had never told and the lessons they had yet to share. I figured I’d have a lifetime for that. Turns out I didn’t.

More than anything else, that experience… well, it made me a stage IV worry wart. So you can blame them for that! But it also made me appreciate how fleeting and impermanent life is. It’s like trying to catch a ray of sunshine in your hand. It’s there, but if you try to grab hold of it, it’s gone. I know better than most that you can’t take tomorrow for granted. So take that trip. Tell so-and-so what you’ve been meaning to say. Send grandma that card. If you have kids, WRITE A DAMN WILL. Wear your fancy pants. Crack open a bottle of the good stuff. What are you waiting for???

And this is why I’m writing a “leaving the nest” letter while you’re in preschool. I hope and pray that when the time comes I will be there to tell you this in person, and revise my advice for certain advances in technology and musical tastes. But just in case I’m not, I want my words written down for the record.

So, here goes. First of all, I apologize in advance, but when you actually do leave for college, there is a 97% chance I am going to be one hot mess of a mom. Milestones make me a bit sappy, from your first word to your big boy underpants, and I still sort of want to cry when I see your tiny little butt clad in teenage mutant ninja turtle boxer briefs. I cannot even fathom how my mother dropped me off at college without shedding a tear. My only hope is to go Rainman on your dorm room and allow the calming waves of OCD transport me to my happy place as I alphabetize your toiletries and arrange your socks by color.

Right now, you can’t wait to grow up and do grown up things. And sometimes, being done with the supper skirmishes and the bedtime battles and the wake-up warfare sounds quite nice. But I know that when the time comes, I will not be ready. How can anyone ever be ready, really? I know that at the moment you're walking out the door, I would give anything for one more epic toddler tantrum, if only because we would make up afterwards and you would curl your sweaty little boy body into my lap, say "I have super-much loves for you, Mama," and absentmindedly pet my head.

Did you know I’ve actually been keeping an advice journal since you were six months old? I saw some punk kids picking on a boy outside a middle school, and I swore then and there to do everything in my power to not raise A-holes. So that’s step one: Don’t be an A-hole.

To that end, when it comes to romantic relationships – be kind. You are a sweet soul and I’m not too worried, but it has to be said. Run your actions through the following filter: What would I do if someone did this to my little sister? If you still feel okay about it then, by all means, carry on.

I was going to say you should probably work on that morbid fear of winged insects and utter inability to pee in the toilet bowl, but judging from your father’s lack of prowess in these areas, I guess they are not prerequisites to earning your "man card."

Change your sheets. I recently read some study that said that the average single male changes his sheets 4 times a year. That is fucking disgusting. (I can say "fuck" now, right? You're a big boy.) I decided I do not want to know how often your father changed his sheets when we first met. I want to scour my brain with a Brill-o pad just thinking about it. This is definitely one of those “ignorance is bliss” situations. Seriously though, I can't have you dying of MRSA the minute you're off my watch. There will be a bed check when I come visit and if it is not up to snuff, I will be making bi-weekly  house calls for very public and embarrassing linen changes. This is not an idle threat. We survived lice in elementary school, and so help me God, we will not be doing bedbugs.

Oh, second piece of advice, directly related to the first: Hoard quarters. Then again, by the time you’re in college, you’ll probably just have a bank account bar code inserted under your fingernail, or the Laundromat will just do a retinal scan and deduct the total from your soul.

Take care of yourself. Eat vegetables, even if they’re buried at the bottom of a California burrito. Hydrate (especially when you’re drinking alcohol, you know, when you’re 21, *wink wink*). Exercise. Brush your teeth. And I've never known this to be a problem for college kids, but, get plenty of sleep. Your body is a temple, and it is at the height of its glory. In the not-too-distant future, the façade begins to crumble, the support beams begin to sag, and it takes more and more work to keep the temple in good working order. Take advantage of that strength and energy and metabolism while you have it!

Don't get a tattoo where a judge can see it. And if you do get a tattoo, think long and hard about what it is you want to get, and why, because take it from me, you will spend the rest of your life explaining it to people. Your uncle is still mad at me for discouraging him from getting a Snoopy tattoo when we was 17, and hey, I guess if he still wants it, more power to him. But personally, I wouldn't want to be a brand ambassador for Peanuts for the rest of my life. Get something original. Get something that has lasting meaning for you. Also, make it cool.

Attend class from time to time. Especially the first day when they hand out the syllabus, and any other days that look important. Make sure you know when the exams are, and show up! Professors are less than sympathetic to the hangover excuse. Surprisingly, however, I did successfully use the “dog ate my homework” line and it totally worked. (Probably because the dog literally ate my homework. I brought in the few shreds that remained as proof and offered to bring in the rest once they “resurfaced.” The prof graciously demurred.)

Those first days and weeks, choose your friends wisely, but beware, what you see is not what you get. Everyone has escaped the social confines of high school. They are no longer stuck in those cloying boxes: jock, nerd, drama queen (or whatever it is nowadays - hipster? emo? hello kitty?) Everybody is trying on different personalities to see what fits. Take it all with a grain of salt, and trust your gut. I can’t speak for most, but the friends I made my first semester in college are my best friends 15 years later, and my social trajectory would have been much different if I hadn’t found them, or rather, if they hadn’t found me. Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Everybody’s doing it.

A corollary: Nobody knows anything. (I’m sorry to report, this includes you.) Don’t trust anyone who pretends they do. Right now, in preschool, you have a little friend named Connor who likes to tell some whoppers. It’s pretty hilarious. It’s gotten to be such a thing that whenever you say something outlandish, your little sister asks skeptically, “Did Connow tell you dat?” Well. Those guys still exist in college, and in life in general, and it is best to steer clear of them, or at least, take their advice at a severely discounted rate.

There’s a reason for all those clichés: older and wiser; if I’d only known then what I know now; the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know, etc. I learn more about the world every single day, and I still don’t have this shit figured out. When I was younger, I thought at some point I would officially be a “grown up.” Like, one day I would just know all of the things and have all of the tools and that would be it. Here’s the secret though: the older I get, the more I realize that everybody is making it up as they go along.

I’m still waiting to feel like a grown up. I actually think, for me, the peak of my know-it-all-ness was sixteen. It’s been a downhill slide ever since. I'll have to show you this letter I wrote to one of my teachers in high school. The assignment was to write a letter about where we thought we would be in 5 years, and then he’d mail it back to us at that time. When I received my letter, I nearly died of mortification. Sweet Jesus, I was such an unbelievable ass. It is almost unbearable to read. Let’s hope, for my sake, there is a bell curve of dickery and it peaks at 16.

Of course I can’t recount the entire excruciating episode here, but a few gems: I started the letter with Al principio, just to set the tone. I go on to say that I was basically God’s gift to drama class, high school, and the universe, and as such, it was hard to find any “intellectual equals.” I told the teacher it was okay he had to take a leave of absence because – “no offense" – I could have done it without him. Oh and these: “I'll probably be paying off debts for a long time before I ever get rich and world renowned, but hey, I want to have to work to get to the top." [Stilllllll workin']. And of course "Losers quit when they're tired, winners quit when they've won." Pfffftttt. Man. I really missed my calling as motivational speaker and leader of the douche bonnet guild!

So anyway. The lesson here is, don’t do that.

Learn what makes you happy. Over the course of your childhood thus far, you have often fallen into the role of the wingman. You play the part flawlessly, and look, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, one might argue your dad has built an entire life and career being the best Number Two around. But make sure your desires aren’t subsumed by Numero Uno’s. You can’t live in the shadows forever. You are an original, and the world deserves to see the one true you. If nothing else, this is the time to find out what you want and who you are. This is an integral first stop on the endless journey into adulthood.

Be real. That might sound like some flimsy platitude, but I’ll give you a little anecdote. When I was in college, “some friends” decided to do mushrooms. However, the trusty dealer apparently sold them Portobello instead of Psilocybin. Most everyone accepted their sober fate with stoic resignation. Just think of it as an overpriced, (literally) shitty-tasting appetizer. But one guy – my boyfriend, actually, at the time – spent the next few hours acting like he’d either taken LSD, or was having a hallucinogenic reaction to Italian mushrooms. Don’t be that guy.

So, go. Do. Be you out in the big bold world. Take advantage of opportunities that are presented to you. You’re like your mama. You like your habits and your routines and your favorite pillow that is fluffed just so. But you are a brave, strong boy and I’m so glad you’ve ventured from the nest. The best way to learn your place on this wild and crazy planet is to see more of it. Life is going to kick your ass and blow your mind. It is a roller coaster ride with ups and downs… but the most important thing is to enjoy the ride (while trying not to puke or pee your pants). I hope this is the first of a lifetime of adventures for you.

Last but not least, come home. Not to get all Debbie Downer on you, but, my parents died within weeks of me leaving for college and after that I never really had a “home” to be homesick for. To this day, I long for a place to return to that feels like “home.” And maybe we all do. Maybe the notion of home is transformed by the act of leaving. What’s that Maya Angelou quote? “You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s alright.” We may turn your bedroom into that man cave I’ve been promising your father for 20 years. Hell, we might even move to Fiji. But as long as your pops and I are on this earth, we are your home, and we will always be waiting for you.

Love you indigo blue,

Your dear old mama

“There’s a time and a place for everything, and that’s college.” – Southpark

fraidy cat

When I was little.. I don't even remember how little, I think I was probably 8 or so... we were on our way to Tahoe but we had to stop by my step-dad's work so he could pick something up. It was dark out. We parked right by the back door of the building. Being the independent whatever-year-old I was, I wanted to stay in the car. (I know this would be frowned upon in this day and age, but this was totally normal in 1988. Maybe leaving me in the dark was ill-advised, but nothing CPS-worthy.) My parents said it would just be a minute. They took my little sister in with them. I have no idea how long they were in there. I can't imagine it was very long. I'd say thirty minutes at the absolute outside. It was probably closer to twenty-five or who knows, maybe even fifteen. In any event, it was enough time for me to nearly lose my mind.

Now, we've already established that I'm a bit of a head-case so I can't speak for the psychological normality of my reaction. But here's what happened. After a few minutes, I started to get worried. It was dark. We were downtown. There were dark figures walking by. At some point, a hoodie-cloaked homeless dude pushing a cart knocked on the window of the car, which freaked me the f*ck out.

At this juncture I started watching the time click by and became more and more agitated with every passing minute. For some reason, I got it in my head that they had forgotten me and that I was basically going to have to live in my mom's car. I finally worked up enough courage to dash out of the car, running the gauntlet of murky mysterious people lurking nearby, to the back door of the building. I knocked. No one answered. I waited. I knocked again. I rang what looked like a bell but did not hear any sound, and still no answer. So I ran back to the car. I waited a little longer. I was so upset and my mind was just going on all these literally insane tangents, so I started counting to calm myself. When that no longer worked, I ran back to the door and started frantically pounding on it. Finally someone came to the door. I tried to hold back my tears. Even at such a young age, I knew the importance of trying not to seem crazy to strangers. I said I was looking for my mom and my stepdad. I told her my stepdad worked there, and that he and my mom and my little sister had entered that door a little while ago to get something he needed from his desk. I gave my stepdad's name. The woman said she didn't know anyone by that name. I repeated his name again, and again. She looked at me helplessly and shook her head. I began to cry. She asked if I wanted to come in and try to call him, but I didn't know his work number by heart, and this was (way) before cell phones. Something told me not to go into this building with this strange woman, even though she seemed perfectly nice. What if my parents came back to the car and I wasn't there and they just left without me?

So I went back to the car. I locked all the doors, and proceeded to have what I can only describe as a psychotic episode. I sat huddled between the front seats, rocking back and forth, blasting the music and frenetically flipping the radio station. I counted some more, cried, SCREAMED. I remember the feeling SO keenly. It is still buried in there, raw under all those layers. I was one hundred percent convinced that from that point forward, I was going to have to live in my mom's beemer for the rest of my natural life, panhandle for my dinner and ingratiate myself in the downtown Sacramento homeless community at the tender age of 7. I know that sounds crazy and, for that moment, I really was.


that first part doesn't sound half bad.

When my parents came back, I LEAPED out of the car and JUMPED into my moms arms. Then I pushed her away from me and started screaming at her (not unlike my reaction to my husband after he leaves me alone with the kids for the weekend). I yelled "I THOUGHT YOU LEFT ME! I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONE FOREVER! I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO HAVE TO BE HOMELESS!" My mom was not one for emotional outbursts and basically told me (as nicely as possible) to calm the f*ck down, but I was just SO upset I could not pull it together. I think I cried the entire way to Tahoe.

Again. Maybe I was/am more mentally unstable that I thought. But this was one of those major "moments." For the next several years, my life was ruled by fear. I had to sleep with the light on for the first time ever. I wouldn't even sit in the car alone while my mom ran in to the grocery store for milk. I remember writing in my journal that my parents all told me that I would get over it, and by the time I was 10 (those mythical double digits) I wouldn't be so scared anymore. "BUT I WILL ALWAYS BE SCARED," I wrote.

I can't even convey to you the depth and breadth and WEIGHT of that fear. It was so big and so real to me. When I think about it now, I have an actual physical cringing of my soul. But I did, eventually, outgrow this fear. So it's easy to lose track of old feeling, on a day to day basis, when I'm (mostly) not afraid of the dark or any other things (except sharks, seaweed, and gray pubic hair). I forget how hard and sharp your fears can be, especially when you're young, and you don't have as much empirical evidence with which to talk yourself out of the certainty that you are going to have to spend the rest of your life living in a (bmw) van down by the river, or that the boogeyman is going to get you in the night. And even if you do have "evidence" - fear is not rational. Fear does not respond to logical arguments. I cannot prove to my son that moths do not, in fact, turn into vampires when he sleeps. Fear - whatever you feel - is real. It's real to the person who's feeling it.

It's easy to forget this, sometimes. With things like swimming, riding a bike, peeing in the potty, sleeping without their room lit up like a Christmas tree... things you KNOW your kids could do. You sometimes just want to push them over the edge to prove to them that they can fly. But i'm learning, slowly but surely, that pushing them causes the fear to snowball. Now they don't trust you or themselves. They'll do it when they're ready, and not a moment sooner.

Also, things are just scary sometimes. Like, we just got a puppy and she's sort of enormous. We're trying to teach her not to nip and jump up on the kids, and I keep getting frustrated because when she does these things, the kids just screech and run and jump around and wave enticing things in the air so Feta's like, "ERMAHGERD, THEY WANT TO PLAY WITH ME!" But DM kindly pointed out that our children are approximately three feet tall, so the dog running at them is equivalent of a small horse galloping toward my person at 40 mph and if that happened I would probably scream and pee my pants as well.

The other day, a (real) friend posted this link from my imaginary BFF Glennon Melton of Momastery.com titled "This is What Brave Means." I really like it. It's a good reminder that, contrary to common parlance, being brave doesn't (or shouldn't) have to mean doing something you're afraid to do. It means doing what your heart tells you to do, even when everyone else is telling you otherwise. I definitely fall into this trap sometimes. For example, saying to my son, "C'mon! your little sister's doing it!" or, "It's a flipping GNAT, kid. Pull yourself together," with the unspoken addendum, "ya pansy!" And that's just not cool. We need to trust and respect and listen to our little ones ... even when their inner voice is telling them that gnats turn into bloodsucking velociraptors when they lie their little heads down to sleep.

"15 Bogeymen From Around The World"
on listverse.com
I like Finland's bogey(wo)man. She just looks like a fat Barney.

How it feels coming up from the basement after turning off all the lights behind you.
(imgur)
 

diamonds = love

i recently had to tell my husband that he was hereafter prohibited from purchasing jewelry for me without first seeking guidance from a select few friends. and that reminded me that this (below) happened and it made me LOL (well, more like, CQTM (chuckle quietly to myself)).

one of my most favorite friends wrote this email to my husband:

don't ask why i am perusing the tiffany and co website at 7:30am... i swear i was on nytimes reading about something important like libya and there was an ad and i clicked on it... anyway, your wife (one of my favorite people in this world) would really love this ring... ya know, if you were looking for a $1400 present for a random monday.... [link to tiffany ring was included here]

his reply:

I call shenanigans.  Here are my guesses as to what's really going on here:

1) 55% probability:  Mack linked to this, or mentioned something about it randomly on facebook, pinterest, instagram, or some other website I know nothing about. You saw it, and are trying to be a good friend because she has also mentioned that my present buying over the last few years has fallen short of expectations (I admit, it has).

2) 35% probability:  Mack specifically asked you to email and me and "casually mention" this ring.

3) 9% probability:  Your smartphone fell down and accidentally typed this email out.

4) 0.9% probability:  You were actually on tiffany.com purposefully for your own reasons and, despite your bleeding heart, Peace Corps, Haiti-friendly beliefs, "diamonds = love" is hard-wired into every female's DNA.

5)  0.1% probability:  What you say happened happened (you just found yourself on tiffany.com randomly).

That said, I am certainly appreciative of the suggestion.  I would love to get her something she would love. I feel like I haven't successfully accomplished that in forever. Maybe they will let me buy this ring in parts :)

*** 

She forwarded it to me and said, "will you please tell him it really was the 0.1%?!"

haha. he can be kinda funny sometimes. but don't tell him i said so ;)

a very spooky tale

I have a scary story for you, since it was just Halloween and all...

This past weekend... my husband... left me alone... with the kids... for two-and-a-half-days.

Honestly I DO NOT understand how all you single ladies (and gents) do it. Maybe, maybe, if mothering was the ONLY thing I had to do, I could be pretty decent at it. But add to that lawyering, wife-ing, having sex and grown-up conversations on occasion, bills, chores, dry-cleaning, grocery shopping, trying to complete basic daily tasks like keeping everyone fed and bathed and de-loused and up-to-date on their shots, as well as maintaining a habitable abode that does not alert CPS and the like... Not to mention my kids' particular requirements like Nightly Moth Massacre, Grape Peeling, Anticipating-What-Effing-Color-Of-Cup-You-Want-Today-Right-This-Very-Second (Hint: it's NOT that one), Perfect-Pasta-Buttering, Bite-Sized-Lettuce-Chopping, Sock-Seam-Eradication, Five-Point-Harness-Latching-WAIT-NO-TAKE-IT-OFF-I-WANNA-DO-IT-MYSELF (EVEN THOUGH I CANNOT, PHYSICALLY, DO IT MYSELF), Hide-and-Seek-in-the-Same-Location-Forty-Seven-Times, Feigning Surprise Forty Seven Times, Doing The Thing and Not Doing The Thing Simultaneously (e.g. Braiding The Hair Without Touching The Hair), Drawing Baths of Exactly 99.2 Eegrees Fahrenheit, Magical Laundering of Favorite Shirts and Blankies Before They Are Missed, Cleaning Pee Off ALL OF THE THINGS (seriously, how did you even get pee there?) ALL OF THE TIME (I can't decide who's worse - 4 year old boy or 4 month old puppy), Making Things Happen With My Mind (like new episodes of Wally Kazam on demand), Performing Dramatic Musical Numbers/Open Mic/Freestyle Rapping/Various Circus Acts Upon Request... and so on and so forth.

I know people do this ALL THE TIME. But I can't do it alone. I just can't. My mind is seriously BOGGLED by single parents, military wives/husbands, etc. BLOWN AWAY. I may have mentioned before this phenomenon my cousin once pointed out, about how we become so reliant on our significant other in the daily dance of parenting, but when we are forced to fly solo we get these superpowers and just handle shit like a boss, because, hey, these grapes ain't peelin' themselves. Well, this is still true. For like 8 hours, max. After that it's the point of diminishing returns. It's good to know you have the ability to lock it up when you need to, but it's so much nicer to know that if/when you can't, there's someone there to pick up the slack.

It's not all terrible, of course. Sometimes I look at my children and think, "What lovely laughing little miracles they are, how lucky am I to be their mother?" And other times I think "Is immaculate conception with the devil a thing?" This weekend was more of the latter. The kids have been sick for three weeks. I've been sick for two weeks and 6 days. The dog doesn't like to walk on grass, and uses the carpet as grass instead. In addition, she has consumed $200 of footwear in the past 72 hours. I don't know how to work the television, and, apparently, my son does not like my face and would like to have a mother that is not me. Let's just say it was a rough weekend.

There were a couple of bright spots, like our time at the Children's Museum - a glorious two hour cease fire of the incessant screaming, fighting, whining and crying. And the sweetest/saddest moment where Colby insisted on bringing a photo of our old Blue on a hike with the new pup Feta "so Bwue won't get sad we went wifout her." (She's actually insisted on sleeping with pics of Blue the last couple of nights, too! *Tears.*)

Colby, Jack, and "Our Dog That is Not Dead," Feta
Not Pictured: Photograph of "Our Dog That is Dead," Blue

But the rest of the time? Goodnight Irene, as my grandmother would say. We all felt like shit. I dosed the kids with baby Tylenol and I was popping these babies like Tic Tacs:

"Back Pain-Off," with NSAIDs, Acetaminophen and Caffeine
Nabbed this at work. It's a tiny bit like magic.

Here is my increasingly desperate and insane thought process beginning Sunday night:

6:00pm: Oh thank God it's almost over. One good thing about Daylight Savings - I can get the kids to bed earlier. I'm usually not one for drinking alone, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I've earned it. Come to Mama.

A romantical evening with me, myself, and I.
It's not drinking alone if your kids are home. That's a thing, right?

7:00pm: Ain't nobody got time for white wine and strawberries. Shit just got serious. Time to bring in the big guns.

Warning: They sell It's-Its in 12-packs

8:01pm: Fucket.

I'm just kidding. I didn't actually take Nyquil. That shit turns me into a straight tweaker.
On a side note, why don't they sell Theraflu anymore? All I can ever find is the generic CVS brand called Flu-Off or whatever. Anyway, me and Flu-Off had a moment.

8:30am: How on God's green earth did we wake up at 6am and still not manage to get out of the house on time?

"extra" hour my ass.
source

And of course we wouldn't forget to leave a love note for Daddy upon his return:

Naturally, by lunch time on Monday I was wistfully flipping through photos of the little beasties on my phone, my heart expanding with maternal love. Four hours is all it takes for total momnesia to set in. Motherhood, or Stockholm Syndrome? You tell me.

Of course, I didn't miss them enough to cancel my long-overdue post-work-pedi, or make any move to assist DM when he was being tortured by shrieking pygmies at bath time. Let's be real. This one's all you, buddy! You got this! After all, I wouldn't want to interfere with the development of his SuperDad powers!

I will say. If I ever only have 72 hours to live, I'll be sure to spend it alone with small children, so it'll seem like it lasts FOREVER ;)