Category Archives: Motherhood

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.)

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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Resist Urge To Scream.

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This blog post is based on a series of real-life events.

6:30 a.m. Stumble to coffee maker. Mumble good morning to spouse. Wonder how this is happening again already.

7:00 a.m. Breakfast.

7:30 a.m. Tell Robbie goodbye. Hold screaming child back as he tries to run after the car. Brew another cup of coffee.

9:15 a.m. Look out of the kitchen window to see Asher standing naked in the driveway and Maverick on the roof of our vehicle with the water hose. Both are screaming.

9:16 a.m. Choose to ignore staring neighbors.

9:30 a.m. Boys come inside because they both have to poop and we don’t allow them to poop in the yard.

9:45 a.m. Pepper touches my unshaven legs while trying to climb into my lap and gets very upset because they “ouched” her.

9:46 a.m. Took a picture of her subsequent screaming because she wouldn’t stop and I didn’t know what else to do.

This is an actual photo of my child crying because she touched my hairy legs.

This is an actual photo of my child crying because she touched my hairy legs.

10:00 a.m. Take stock of my day.

10:10 a.m. Brew another cup of coffee.

10:15 a.m. Realize that the only method of survival is pool time.

10:45 a.m. Head to the pool.

Asher would wear his goggles 24/7 if we let him.

Asher would wear his goggles 24/7 if we let him.

11:00 a.m. Check Pepper into the nursery.

11:05 a.m. Arrive at pool with the boys and look for a lounge chair. The first two I sit in are broken. Resist urge to scream.

11:07 a.m. Move to chair number three. Notice that the lifeguard is looking at me from behind his smug hipster sunglasses.

Resist urge to scream.

11:09 a.m. OH MY GOD THIS CHAIR IS FUCKING BROKEN TOO.

12:00 p.m. Head home.

12:30 p.m. Prepare lunch that no one is excited about, including me.

1:30 p.m. Decide that the world will not end if Asher wears his Darth Vader costume to the grocery store.

This photo pretty much sums up my entire Summer. A whole lotta Darth.

This photo pretty much sums up my entire Summer. A whole lotta Darth.

1:45 p.m. Load kids into the van. Go inside to pee in peace.

1:48 p.m. Return to van and discover emergency brake was pulled while I was inside. No one will own up to it. Both boys are now buckled into their car seats. Realize I have never used the emergency brake in this vehicle. Unable to locate it because three children are yelling.

Resist urge to scream.

1:50 p.m. Call Robbie at work and ask him to tell me where the emergency brake is. FORBID HIM TO JUDGE ME.

2:00 p.m. Arrive at grocery store. Plunk Pepper into a shopping cart and find that the seat belt is broken. Select another cart. The seat belt is broken on that one, too.

Resist urge to scream.

2:25 p.m. Buy potatoes. Open “share size” bag of M&M’s in the checkout line and cram them furiously into my mouth.

Refuse to share.

3:00 p.m. Make potato salad from scratch. Wonder who fucking makes potato salad from scratch anymore because it’s a lot of fucking work.

3:10 p.m. Spend the next 30 minutes making sure my toddler doesn’t get burned by the pot of boiling water.

4:10 p.m. Verify Asher’s arm is not broken.

4:11 p.m.  Remind Maverick that no one wants to see his private parts.

4:15 p.m. Get band-aid and ice pack for injured child. Scream at boys to stop trying to put toys up their behinds. Finish potato salad.

4:20 p.m. Locate a large glass bowl and dump it in. Notice that the bowl is broken and there are shards of glass now mixed into the potato salad.

4:21 p.m. Walk outside to throw broken dish and the potato salad away.

Scream.

Screaming

No caption needed.

4:25 p.m. Count the days until school starts.

5:00 p.m. Start cooking dinner.

6:00 p.m. Wine.

7:00 p.m. Count the days until school starts again.

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Thank You For Reminding Me.

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Thank you, my daughter, for reminding me.

Every morning I drag myself out of bed and stumble to the coffee maker, bumping into your Daddy and sometimes your brothers because I’m not awake yet.

I haven’t remembered yet.

Sometimes I’m grouchy and slow to get going because I’ve become more and more dependent on caffeine. Sometimes my body feels stiff from sleeping either on the couch, if your Daddy was snoring all night, or because I slept unmoving in one position because I was so exhausted by the time I finally fell asleep.

I haven’t remembered yet.

When I’m stiff and grouchy, I feel old. Sometimes I feel annoyed with your Daddy because he gets to leave for work and I’m stuck cleaning the oatmeal off of three tiny people. When I exhale loudly into the kitchen sink, it’s because I haven’t remembered yet.

Your brothers aren’t as good at reminding me as you are. Maybe it’s a female thing, or maybe you simply have a gift. All I know is that you come over to me, and you wait. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for me to look up — you stand there and you wait.

I might not pay attention at first because I haven’t remembered yet. The boys will scream and yell for my attention, but you don’t.

You wait quietly.

And when I finally do look up, or look down, or look across the room at wherever you are, you beam at me. You smile at me like seeing my face makes you the happiest that you’ve ever been.

I have the most important, most humbling job in the universe.

Every day, you take my face in your hands and remind me.

Motherhood.(If you liked this post, then you should follow me on Facebook and Twitter!)

Step Off.

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Remember when I attended a blogging conference last month? It was awesome. Conversely, re-entry back into real life and motherhood was a cold, hard bitch.

Adulting wasn’t terribly difficult for me until it involved being in charge of other people. Currently, adulting feels very much like trying to run through Jell-O while being chased by three angry midgets who suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome and make me stop every few minutes to feed them.

Except that they hate food.

And Jell-O.

Despite the fact that it’s hard, I love being a mom. There is no arguing that it’s emotionally and physically exhausting and is by far the most difficult task I have undertaken and will continue to undertake every day that I’m alive, but I consider my role to be a higher calling. I actively CHOSE to be a mom. In fact, I actively CHOOSE to be a stay-at-home mom, which sometimes means looking out of my kitchen window to see my middle child standing butt-naked in the driveway watching his older brother wave the water hose in the air from the top of our car.

I also take motherhood seriously, which is why instead of screaming profanities at my children or beating them silly when they cram balloons down two of our bathroom sinks, I take a deep breath and only yell a fraction louder than the situation necessitates.

Okay … that was a lie.

But I do my best, I really do. And I try to enjoy it. Then, when no one is looking, I harness all of that angst and I channel it into humor. If I can’t laugh at my life — my maddening, insane, hilarious life — then I wouldn’t be a happy, functional, wife and mother. I would be a depressed, angry, pill-popping excuse for a wife and mother. I know this because that is what I was before I learned how to channel my emotions in a healthy way.

Some people don’t find my humor funny. Some people find it distasteful or downright offensive. I understand that, because humor isn’t supposed to be universally understood or accepted. The things I find the funniest tread a line between “completely offensive to Conservatives” and “marginally offensive to the average person.” I make a lot of jokes about alcohol and motherhood because to me, it’s funny.

Writing what I write is how I keep my sanity while shepherding three children under the age of 6. I joke, I exaggerate, and I drink, because I’m a 35-year-old responsible adult. Drinking is not for children. Profanity is not for children. This blog is not for children. My Facebook page is not for children. ALMOST THE ENTIRE INTERNET IS NOT FOR CHILDREN.

But you know what? Part of my job as a mom is to teach my children how to navigate the modern world responsibly, so that when they do become adults they are able to adult with more finesse than their mother. I like to think that I’m somehow able to walk through my life capable and self-aware enough to continue writing and joking and mothering appropriately all at the same time.

Circling back to the blogging conference. On Friday night I attended an event, and with a drink in my hand I was shown this video which is sponsored by Responsibility.org (the organization that leads the fight to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and promotes responsible decision-making regarding beverage alcohol).

Essentially, the video says that our children are watching us and by making jokes about parenthood and drinking, we are perhaps influencing them in a negative way. We were then asked to consider refraining from making our usual jokes about alcohol on social media for a solid month, and given the opportunity to write a blog post outlining our honest reaction to the presentation for a cash prize.

The first place prize is $500. That’s a lot of money.

I have great respect for Responsibility.org, and in no way wish to disrespect the organizers of the conference, the lovely woman who led the presentation, my colleagues who may feel differently about this topic, or my family of origin (who do not believe in alcohol consumption — nope, not at all), but as I sat there listening, a rage began to build up inside of me.

A RAGE.

I say this with every ounce of Southern courtesy I can muster: I will say what I want, when I want, how I want. My writing is all that I have that is mine. The rest of me is constantly being given away to everyone else. If I want to make a joke about drinking wine out of my massive wine glass that holds 24 ounces, and no one finds it funny, I don’t give a shit. The one thing that is special about my writing is that it’s real. I’m not here to sell anything, win anything, trick anyone or perform for the masses. I am here because I am real and this is real and the people who enjoy what I write are real. 

I don’t want to win $500 by pretending to be something that I’m not.

So maybe I’m not so bad at adulting, after all.

Disclaimer: I’m submitting this piece for a writing contest sponsored by Responsibility.org. I’m not being compensated for this post. In fact, I probably black-balled myself by writing it. I think we all know I’m not going to win. All opinions are 100% my own … obviously.

In my aunt's pantry, hiding from my children. GIVE ME THIS MOMENT OF PEACE.

In my aunt’s pantry, hiding from my children. GIVE ME THIS MOMENT OF PEACE.

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Motherhood Can Be Jarring.

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Tonight I got really sad all of a sudden because my children are getting SO big, SO fast, that it’s jarring. It takes a substantial amount of something to truly jar me. I stood in our darkened living room, watching my boys, and tears spilled onto my cheeks as I whispered to my husband, “Asher doesn’t need his blanket anymore.”

He used to need it.

I am jarred.

I know that a lot of mothers who are also writers seem to go on and on about the beauty and sadness that comes with seeing your children grow up. This post is just one among thousands like it. In fact, I wrote one almost exactly like this one, almost exactly one year ago, and it still makes me cry when I read it. (If you want to read it, click here.)

Except that, as I pulled my toddler into my lap tonight to rock and sing to her before I tucked her into bed, her legs dragged farther down than last week. And as I stroked her hair and talked to her softly, she talked to me back. She answered my questions, my mindless questions, the ones I apparently ask every night without thinking.

“Pepper, are you sleepy?”

“No. Pepper not sweepy.”

“Do you want to sing a song?”

“Yes! Sing a song! Siiiiiiiilent night, hoooooooly night … “

She used to be so tiny. Now she could climb out of her crib, if she wanted to. She climbed out of the bath tub today. I walked away for a minute, heard a THUMP, and there she was, dripping wet in the hallway.

“I get out?” she said.

“Yep … you got out.” Bath time was over.

8-month-old Penelope. Back when she was tiny.

8-month-old Penelope. Back when she was tiny.

My oldest child is going to be taller than me one day. Much taller. I know this because he is 6 years old and the top of his head is boob-high already. He is all arms and legs.

He can read. I catch him peeking over my shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of what I’m working on.

He gets my jokes.

He used to scream unintelligibly when I asked him to put his pajamas on, and now he’s talking about the anatomy of bugs and asking me questions about space travel.

I used to know the answers to all of his questions.

I don’t anymore.

This photo was taken in 2012 when we announced that I was pregnant with baby #3!

This photo was taken in 2012 when we announced that I was pregnant with baby #3!

My middle child was so attached to his green blanket that he wore it to pieces and we had to replace it with a brown one. We fretted over how long he would drag it around.

Then, suddenly, he stopped. And I cried. I CRIED ABOUT MY CHILD GROWING OUT OF A HABIT THAT DROVE THE WHOLE FAMILY CRAZY.

When my babies were babies.

21-month-old Asher with his blanket and brand-new baby sister.

It’s so weird, this motherhood thing. The things that cause me pain can also bring me great joy, and the things that irritate the ever-loving shit out of me are also sorely missed when they stop.

I stepped over my children to make my way out of the living room tonight, wiping the tears from my cheeks. I stopped for a moment and leaned down to tell Asher goodnight. He smiled up at me, dimples cracking.

We whispered back and forth for a moment, saying our good-nights, and then he paused.

“Mommy? Can you get me my blanket?”

Yes.

Yes, I most certainly can.

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