Monthly Archives: August 2015

I’m Medicated And It’s Fantastic.

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There are a thousand different ways to say this, but I don’t feel like being fancy so I’m just going to blurt it out … just like I did yesterday while attending a family barbecue.

I was standing in the middle of the kitchen with my cousin and my aunt, and I said (out of nowhere and completely unrelated to the conversation), “I’M MEDICATED AND IT’S FANTASTIC.”

I’m no stranger to anxiety, but I have noticed an uptick in recent months. I’d mention it to my husband, but he didn’t seem concerned. I was still functioning, still doing everything I’ve always done. He didn’t know that my chest was tight from the moment I woke up in the morning, until long after the kids were in bed. He didn’t know what it was like to be me … because he isn’t me.

And if he was me, I think we all know that he would probably just sit in one spot all day long and hold my/his boobs.

Then, I was surprised with some amazing news — we’re going to New York City next month to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary! I was so excited … until the worrying began. I can pinpoint the moment that it started — we were sitting on the couch, and Robbie showed me a video of the building we’re staying in. As the camera zoooooooooooomed up, panning the structure from bottom to top, I couldn’t breathe. The irrational thoughts were cutting off my air supply.

We haven’t flown together since our honeymoon. What if the plane crashes? What if there is a fire in the building where we are staying? WE HAVE THREE KIDS NOW. What would happen to them? We have nothing to pass on, they don’t have official Godparents. We are fucking terrible at adulting! Fucking terrible! WHO LET US BECOME ADULTS? WE ARE GOING TO CELEBRATE 10 YEARS OF MARRIAGE BY DYING A FIERY DEATH. I NEED A SHOT OF WHISKEY.

I can’t breathe. I can’t look. I think I’ll just double over.

Four days after that, my mother sat me down on that same couch and told me she has cancer.

This was when I realized I had a problem.

Before now, I have never had a need for a “primary care physician,” but I procured one immediately. I needed a pill or a therapist or possibly a tranquilizer dart. I sat quietly as the nurse took my blood pressure and asked me a series of questions:

Nurse: “Are you sexually active?”

Me: “Yes.”

Nurse: “Do you use protection?”

Me: “No.”

***

Nurse: “Do you drink alcohol?”

Me: (OPEN LAUGHTER)

Nurse: “How much and what kind?”

Me: (STILL LAUGHING)

***

My new doctor came in and we shook hands. She praised my self-awareness, coping mechanisms, and overall health. She informed me that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder and prescribed me a pill that will help me get through this challenging time in my life. Then I mentioned my weight, which is up. She said, “Yeah, your Body Mass Index is high … but you know what? You don’t look fat, SO WHO CARES?!”

This solidified her spot as My Most Favorite Person Ever.

I have now fully embraced my medicated state. I honestly can’t recall the last time I felt this calm and relaxed, while at the same time being sober. I’m not bothered by the little things, so I can focus on the big things with calmness and clarity.

This must be what it feels like to be my husband.

Today, instead of running around in a panic, picking up toys and cleaning already-clean surfaces, I cuddled and played with my kids.

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Photo credit: Robbie Hobbs

I don’t know what the future will bring, but between now and then, I’m going to take my medication.

I also plan to make a lot of memes like this one, because I have priorities.

Basic bitch(If you liked this post, then you should follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!)

Extraordinary Things.

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Motherhood is getting hit over the head with a plastic bin full of toys, because your child doesn’t know how to ask you to open it like a civilized person.

Motherhood is multiple, over-sized, unapologetic glasses of wine.

It’s earplugs, noise machines, and tiptoeing down the hall; it’s double shots of espresso ordered through a drive-thru because you haven’t had time to buy groceries this week and you are desperate for caffeine, SO STOP YOUR YAMMERING AND GIMME MY COFFEE.

Motherhood is self-sacrifice. Your heart and your mind, your body, your money, your energy and your breath. You pour it all out, everything you have, because you are a mother.

Motherhood is Vicks Vaporub, saline spray, and Kleenex bought in bulk. It’s the feeling of excitement when you see diapers on sale, the joy of finally throwing out an almost-7-year-old Diaper Genie, and the sheer anguish of potty training.

Potty training is a low point.

Motherhood is when you get news that makes your mouth go dry and your chest feel compressed, but you still have to go through the motions and be a mom anyway.

Motherhood can be a real bitch.

Motherhood is painful and uncomfortable from the very start. It is a bloaty, crampy, I’m-fat-and-my-heart-is-outside-of-my-body feeling that never ends. It’s overwhelming, always. It forces you to stretch in ways you never thought possible.

Motherhood makes you grow because you have to.

Motherhood is every joy and pain, the deepest love, the greatest source of hope. It brings us to our knees — in prayer, in suffering, in gratitude, in wonder — because it is worth every ounce of energy that we invest.

Motherhood is extraordinary, because all extraordinary things are hard.

And glorious.

But mostly hard.Joy(If you liked this post, then you should follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!)

Bottled Water Taste Test

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Guess what?! Hobbs & Hayworth (that’s me, Harmony Hobbs, and my friend Audrey Hayworth of Sass Mouth) landed a regular segment on our favorite online TV show for moms, Mom Cave TV!

Here’s our latest, where we taste-tested bottled water. Enjoy!

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“I DON’T WANNA DIE!”

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Maverick thought it would be hilarious to teach his siblings to scream “I DON’T WANNA DIE!!!!!” when they’re in the car.

Our days just became a lot more interesting.

11822511_10156169512270508_6396230565025311162_n(If you liked this post, then you should follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!)

Bad Poetry From College.

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One of my very best friends, Kate, has always encouraged my writing. I love her for it … except that she is also a pack rat and saves everything.

This means that I occasionally receive text messages from her that contain cringe-worthy notes, essays, or newspaper clippings from our college paper accompanied by: “Look what I found!” Or, “Did you write this? It looks like your handwriting.”

YES … I wrote that terrible essay linking fruit flies to the church service requirements at our private, Christian university. Let’s never speak of it again.

YES … I also wrote that opinion piece about Oatmeal Creme Pies. Can you just burn that one?

YES … I wrote that shit, and that shit, and that shit. It’s bad — all of it is so bad — proof that even if you’re born with a talent YOU STILL HAVE TO WORK REALLY HARD AT IT TO GET BETTER.

Most recently, I texted her back and admitted that yes, this trippy poem with the mispelled title was also written by me.

Funny, I don’t recall doing drugs at Bible college. Maybe I was high on life or religion or something. Maybe I wrote this as a joke, or someone dared me to write something that rhymed in under a minute and I scribbled this out as they timed me.

bad poetryMaybe I was just super weird.

It’s probably that.

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Trans Fats.

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Trans fats ... mmmm.I don’t really know what happened.

When Robbie and I met 12 years ago, I was eating a very clean, almost-vegan diet. I guess because I couldn’t get a date and I was bored, I figured it would be a good idea to snack on raw almonds and green tea. I also did a lot of Pilates.

Those days are over.

Anyway, after weeks of flirting he finally walked up to the Customer Service desk in the Albertson’s grocery store where we worked and said, “I want to take you to lunch.”

He had this charisma and confidence that stopped me in my tracks. Not the gross kind of charisma that televangelists have, and not the overinflated kind of confidence that makes me want to punch someone in the face. This was different. He had pizzazz, and YES, I WANTED TO GO TO LUNCH.

I gathered my purse and he drove me across the street to Applebee’s, where I ordered a vegetable plate because that’s the kind of shit that I ate back then, not because I was trying to impress him with my birdlike eating habits. I remember him staring at me incredulously and me feeling confused as to why he was reacting this way.

It’s just vegetables, I said, as he visibly shuddered.

I eventually learned that Robbie only ate the following vegetables:

  1. Iceberg lettuce
  2. Bell peppers
  3. Onions
  4. Potatoes in the form of french fries

The remainder of his diet was comprised of hamburgers, powdered doughnuts, chips, and beer. I was appalled.

Over time, my eating habits changed tremendously as Robbie introduced me to pepperoni pizza, real hamburgers, crab cakes and fudge-flavored Pop-Tarts. I traded steamed vegetables for the gross kind of stuff that you crave when you’re hung over, like tater tots smothered in gravy.

And while I have introduced him to a whole slew of delicacies like pan-fried tofu, veggie dogs, and hummus with pita, nothing I like to eat is quite as fun as Lucky Charms cereal … which really is magically delicious, by the way.

Sometimes I get frustrated because I know I would lose weight if I could just be happy eating a kale salad while the rest of my family dined on pizza, but to me, an extra 10 pounds is worth being able to eat trans fats and unhealthy carbs whenever I please. And also? I cannot believe I lived for 23 years without pepperoni in my life.

WHAT ELSE AM I MISSING OUT ON?!

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The Force of Motherhood

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Motherhood is turning me into one tough bitch.

I used to be a mild-mannered, non-yeller who embarrassed easily and apologized a lot.

Before I had kids, things really used to get to me. I once had a female boss tell me that I’d gotten to where I was not because I was smart, but because I’d been “skating by on my personality.” I was too shocked and intimidated to tell her she was a dumbass bitch with a shitty personality, and what I’d really like to do is cram her Louis Vuitton bag down her pie hole.

Instead, I quietly nodded my way through the meeting and cried in the car when it was over.

That happened before I was toughened up by the experience of growing and expelling a human being. Is there anything more fortifying than bringing life into the world? Whatever was left of my modesty vanished; I was too busy mothering a squishy, red-faced baby into a spirited, defiant toddler to concern myself with much else.

Two more kids later, I’ve become a person who my old self would have shied away from. The version of me who cried in my car was before I bounced colicky babies for hours, and before I realized that three kids is way more than I have any business handling. Motherhood doesn’t care what you think you can handle.

The non-yelling me became a yeller when I gave birth without any pain medication, and my easily embarrassed self disappeared when I experienced the worst case of hemorrhoids, like, ever. I was in so much pain I was unable to explain to my husband that I needed to go to the hospital*. I just laid on the floor wishing I would black out so the pain would stop and he would forever be in my debt for not taking the situation seriously.

Motherhood doesn’t care about your modesty or self-respect.

I am tougher. I am bitchier. Because, let’s face it, motherhood does not care if you only had three hours of sleep. Motherhood does not care if you feel fat. Motherhood says, GET UP OFF YOUR ASS, LADY. YOUR SON IS EATING SILICA PACKETS.

Toddler MobsterIf I have to run outside in mismatched pajamas to chase a naked toddler through the yard or to make sure my oldest gets on the bus, so be it.

If I have to leave a full grocery cart in the store because my kids are making a scene, so be it.

If I have to tell a stranger to back the hell away from my van or please stop touching my baby, so be it.

I don’t have time to be embarrassed.

I don’t have time to apologize for my choices.

I don’t have time to get my feelings hurt if you don’t agree with me.

I don’t have time to poop alone, so I’m probably not going to be able to have an hour-long phone conversation with you this afternoon, remember to pay the bills, or figure out where that smell is coming from.

An onlooker might assume I’m medicated.

Nope.

I am shell-shocked and desensitized, with an ever-present goal of getting through the day.

Motherhood—shushing babies and wiping butts and weathering countless, psychotic tantrums—changed me. And I am grateful.

Motherhood forces me to carry on. It forces me to love when I don’t feel like it. It forces me to keep going when I am exhausted.

Motherhood is a force to be reckoned with.

And now, I am a force to be reckoned with.

* I’m happy to report that my ass did eventually return to normal, but the experience resulted in me having very little patience for my husband when he complains of a headache.

(This post originally ran on Scary Mommy.)

This Is How We Do.

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My oldest child started 2nd grade today.

I woke up at 5:30 a.m., a full hour before my alarm was supposed go off, unable to go back to sleep because it felt like Christmas morning.

I did all of the things mothers are supposed to do when their children start 2nd grade. I lovingly fashioned pancakes out of the instant mix that comes in a bottle that you pour water into and shake really hard.

I made sure I had a bra on, just in case the neighbors could see me shaking that bottle of pancake batter.

First day of school!

I laid out Maverick’s navy blue uniform shorts and told him to ignore the lint that blanketed them — clearly, washing them with new towels was a mistake — and made sure that his tennis shoes were double-knotted.

We missed the bus, but I assured him there was plenty of time for us to go through the carpool line. I corralled the other pajamaed children and loaded them all into our van.

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Maverick has been telling us for months that he wants to be an “asteroidal physicist.” Last year and the year before that, he just wanted to be a regular scientist. I’m not sure what changed, but I do know that I was Googling “asteroidal physicist” before I had my coffee this morning, and that was intense.

We rounded the corner and waited in the long line of cars at the elementary school, and because I am a good mother who tries to do the right things, I attempted to have a special moment with my child.

You know what I’m talking about. That moment when you and your kid connect on a deeper level, and he or she understands for a fleeting moment the depth of your love, and you relish the feeling that you’re doing a really good job until you find yourself screaming “DON’T EAT THE TOOTHPASTE OUT OF THE BATHROOM SINK!” yet again.

It’s special.

I turned around in my seat to look at him, blinking back tears. “Maverick, I am so proud of you and I hope you have a great day. Your brother and sister are really going to miss you tod—”

This was the precise moment that the teacher who was on carpool duty opened our van door and Maverick yelled “BUH-BYE, SUCKAS!!!!!!” at the top of his lungs as he leapt out.

She stood there for a moment, frozen.

I smiled and yelled “HAVE A GREAT DAY!” as if this was perfectly normal, as though the Hobbs family yells that phrase every time they part ways.

Her face never changed expression as she slid the door closed.

I’ve decided that the next time I drop my children off somewhere, I’ll kiss them all goodbye as usual, and as they smile and wave at me like the little darlings that they are, I will roll down the window of our beat up van and shout “BUH-BYE, SUCKAS!!!!” as I peel the eff out.

Because this is how we do, SUCKAS.

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Reality Isn’t So Bad.

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Somehow I made it through another summer.

I know this because Maverick starts school tomorrow. And I know that because I filled out a bunch of forms today while a toddler pulled on my arm.

2nd grade! How did that happen? And also, isn’t it time for college? They’re all so big and so small and they need so much from me but not quite as much as they used to. So it’s just weird right now. We are all transitioning, I’m sleeping through the night, but there’s still poop all over the toilet seat. So clearly we aren’t out of the woods just yet.

I used to write about everything that happened, and now it all happens so fast that I don’t have time to write it down, because before I have a chance to form the words on paper another thing happens, followed by another. Days and weeks of hard things and hilarity and the monotonous joy of being a mother to three tiny humans who all know the words to Walk The Moon’s Shut Up And Dance have blended together into a chapter that I’ll just call 2015.

SummerToday I was looking at each of my children, thinking about what makes them special and how I don’t have enough time to dwell on their good qualities because I’m too busy keeping them from blowing up the house, and I realized that my job isn’t to document everything for them to review at a later date. My job is to keep them alive.

Keeping them alive is a full time job.

I wish I had more time to soak up the good things, and I wish the bad things would just stop happening, but that’s what they call denial. I live in reality.

So today, after a very long day of the last day of summer, after I split the boys up because they wouldn’t stop fighting, as I was half-heartedly stirring a pot of Tuna Mac with toddler wedged firmly underneath me, Robbie walked into the house and gave me the kind of kiss where you get dipped backwards.

Right there in the kitchen.

Reality isn’t so bad, you guys.

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