Negative Moms Prevent Pin Worms.

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My 7-year-old informed me the other night at dinner that I’m “kind of a negative person.” I think Robbie saw the crazy flash in my eyes, so he immediately said “YOUR MOTHER IS SUPER FUN.” (No one believed him.)

I want my kids to see my fun side, but it’s hard to show it — especially for people like me who are very goal-oriented and focused on results.

Okay, FINE. I’m uptight.

In my defense, someone has to be. I mean, if I were as laid-back as my husband … I really don’t know what would happen. Probably nothing. But also, maybe something terrible. Like pin worms.

I think this picture proves that I'm not COMPLETELY uptight.

I think this picture proves that I’m not COMPLETELY uptight.

Every day in parenthood, there are approximately 67 tiny goals to accomplish between the time I get up and the time I go to bed. Put on clothes that make me look like a mother and not a hooker. Ingest coffee while it’s still hot. Pack three semi-nutritious lunches.

School drop-off presents its own unique set of goals: Keep my composure in the face of tantrums. Refrain from screaming at the woman who damn near ran over my child. Try not to look too excited as I hurry back home.

Back at home, I begin my next set: Write. Laundry. Call my mother.

You get the picture.

I am regimented and focused and uptight, but it’s not because I’m unhappy. It’s because I have a lot of worries. I worry about my children. I worry about my parents. I try not to talk about it too much, but my mother has cancer. That’s concerning. Maybe men do a better job of compartmentalizing everything, but my entire life is a jumbled up heap that tumbles around in my brain like shoes in a dryer.

I have a lot of joy in my life, but I have lot of stress as well.

Until I figure out how to keep my worries from manifesting in negativity towards my immediate family, I will be referring to myself in the third person. Hi, I’m Negative Mommy. For example, “You don’t want to miss the bus today, Maverick, and end up stuck with NEGATIVE MOMMY all day.”

I tested this out a few mornings ago when he was dragging his feet.

He got on the bus.

Maybe I can make this work out in my favor after all.

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Truth Or Dare.

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My oldest child is in 2nd grade. Here’s one of our typical dinnertime conversations.

Maverick: “Truth or dare?”

Me: “Truth.”

Maverick: “Aw, man! Everyone picks truth! I always pick dare when we play it at school.”

Me: “That’s because people are too chicken to do the dares. Like me. I’m chicken.”

Maverick: “They dared me to eat grass and I ate it. I ate it a few different times.”

Me: (silence)

Maverick: “Well … grass AND leaves. I ate them both.”

Me: (silence)

grass-1394068

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How Adults Prank Each Other

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My mom and I swap furniture and home decor back and forth all the time. We’ve done this since I was in college.

It’s awesome for me because my mom has excellent taste and it saves me from having to break the bank buying things to hang on the walls. It’s awesome for her because she can let me “borrow” stuff and then when we swap again, it’s like she just went shopping.

A win/win.

So, my parents just moved and needed us to give back a GIGANTIC mirror they’d loaned us last year that was hanging above our living room sofa (which also belongs to them … although I’m not sure we’ll be able to return it in the same condition it was in when we first obtained it). After my dad left with the mirror, I mentioned to Robbie that I would need to find something big to put on that wall now that it was empty.

I fretted aloud for the remainder of the day, talking half to myself and half to him, about how I need to save up some money so I will have the funds available when I find the right picture.

“Whatever we get, it needs to be really big,” I said to him.

He stared back wordlessly.

I am a relatively laid-back person except when it comes to a few things. My home is one of those things. We have never lived in super-nice places — they’ve always been “fine” and/or “decent,” within our price range, and passable for warm and cozy after I finish decorating.

I TAKE PRIDE IN MY ABILITY TO COZIFY.

I went grocery shopping and came home to this.

Mean tricks to play on your wife

THIS. This totally sent my OCD tendencies through the roof.

No, David!

He mocks me.

If you have ever wondered how to really get under the skin of a woman who takes pride in her home, hang a very small picture in the middle of a massive wall, out of her reach without a ladder, and hide the ladder.

Proceed to leave it there for a week and counting.

This is how adults prank each other.

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I’ve Never Been As Happy As I Am At 35

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I’m 35 years old.

People around me are using terms like “advanced maternal age” and “yearly mammogram.” I know I’m getting older because all of my friends are, but you know what? FUCK THAT NOISE.

I’m not old. I’m loving my mid-thirties, and here are a few reasons why.

Enjoying the rooftop view in New York City.

Enjoying the rooftop view in New York City.

When I go shopping, I know exactly what will fit my body. I no longer waste my time trying to jam these hips into “boyfriend jeans.” It ain’t happening. Ever. It’s liberating to breeze past that bullshit and head directly for the “curvy” cut. Those suckers will slide right on and I won’t even break a sweat. Boom. Done.

I spend less time in hell, otherwise known as the fitting room. I remember a time, back when I was fresh-faced and only had two bills to pay, when I went shopping every single Friday. Apparently, I had nothing better to do with my time or my money than to peruse the sale racks at Gap and try on things just for fun. I know, I hate me too. That silly, rested BITCH.

I am a better person. I used to lie awake in bed at night and dream up my outfits for the week. Outfit planning. That’s what kept me up at night. I’m not gonna lie, it was grand — but also self-absorbed, shallow, and unimportant. I like my 35-year-old self a lot better. My current nighttime train of thought is significantly weightier: I forgot to sign the permission slips AGAIN. I have to remember to do it before school tomorrow. What is our escape route if there is a fire? Is the mole on my husband’s back cancerous? I better Google it in the morning. Right after I sign those permission slips. But not until I have my coffee. Are we out of creamer? OH MY GOD, WE ARE.

See? Much better.

I know who matters. The people who matter now are stuck with me for LIFE: through sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer. And I’m not just talking about my husband. My true friends — the same ones who loved me even when I was a silly, rested bitch — still love me now as a tired, frazzled one, and they’re like family. What life lessons and terrible breakups have joined together, let no man put asunder.

I have more fight in me at 35 than ever before. I don’t know if it’s age, experience, a buildup of hormonal rage, or what, but if something riles me, God help whoever stands in my way. As the years tick by, I have begun to grasp the weight of things that are weighty and the infinite value of things that are precious to me. The things that are important are worth fighting for, and at halfway to 70 years old, I better make the most of the time I have left.

I have finally learned how to use profanity in a way that suits me. That takes time and practice. 35 years of practice, to be exact.

I can hail a cab, fall down in public, use a cocktail shaker and light a match without screaming like a girl. This is monumental. Shut up.

Being 35 is awesome. You should totally try it.

© 2015 Harmony Hobbs, as first published on Scary Mommy.

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Why God Made Wine.

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Have you ever felt like your life is so intense that you never have time to process anything that happens?

Crazy things go on here all day, every day. I’ll find myself thinking, okay … my child just got bleach in his mouth. I need to process that. But before I have a chance to work through it, someone is digging around in the can of garbage containing raw chicken, and then someone is standing precariously on a tall surface, and then someone else is eerily quiet. Which is never a good sign.

My marriage and my kids and my career and my extended family and MYSELF. That’s a lot to juggle without having adequate time to process things. It feels like I have been hurtling through life for the past few years. Maybe this is what they mean when they say “it goes so fast.”

It does go fast.

Too fast.

12081409_10156375952700508_1834778004_n

Me and my big girl.

I want to tell my kids to stop for just one day — just ONE! — to let me collect my thoughts. I’ve had a lot of weird things, both good and bad, happen recently and am struggling to gain my footing. But they can’t stop, because they’re children and their job is to spend their days learning how to dismantle kitchen appliances to see what’s inside, and my job as their mother often gets in the way of me dealing with my shit.

I can’t deal with my shit when I’m cleaning up literal shit.

Mothers have a deeper need for emotional and physical space than anyone else, and yet we are the ones who are least likely to manage to make that happen for ourselves.

Personally, I like to process things. I enjoy actively working through the stages of elation and grief and change and emotion because I want to feel every step. To me, that’s LIVING — because life, with all of its heartache and anger and happiness and love, is rich. I relish it.

My current processing methods are ineffective and outdated. I can no longer spend hours on a running trail walking and thinking. I can’t be alone anytime I wish. I’m a mom now. Sometimes I have to put my own needs on hold in order to deal with someone else.

Life is happening faster than I expected. Faster than I have time to process. And it doesn’t stop, not even when I say “WAIT!” I don’t know if there is a solution for that, but I do know that the Good Lord gave us wine.

And I am going to drink it.

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Terrible Choices In Footwear.

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Robbie and I just got back from a 5-night trip to New York City. It was amazing and hilarious and he almost stepped on a rat in Times Square, but I’m going to save all of those stories for later. Right now I want to talk about my terrible choices in footwear.

Here are the shoes I brought with me.

Packing Light

Now, don’t hate. I don’t get out much, especially without children, and I love an excuse to dress up.

I’m one of those girls who does not wear tennis shoes unless she is also wearing workout wear.

It’s totally fine if you just eye rolled me. I get it.

My family thinks I’m crazy, but it’s just how I’ve always been and I’m not sure how to be any different. It’s like a compulsion. When I think about things from a logical standpoint, I know that it doesn’t make sense to choose discomfort over comfort simply because it looks better, but isn’t that the very same line of thinking that would require me to also stop wearing Spanx under my dresses?!? 

You know how sometimes a thought is so horrible that you have to actively choose to un-think it and never visit it again? That’s where I am with that. Because I REQUIRE Spanx.

So back to packing, I was feeling very smug about how smart and impressively pragmatic it was to bring tennis shoes with me for a days-long tour of a metropolitan area.

Look at how well I adult. Check out my skilled adulting. I am so adult-like that I packed my New Balance because that is the SENSIBLE thing to do. Adults make good choices. I am clearly making good choices. See my good choice?!

I DAZZLE ME.

But then, we arrived in New York. And even though I had comfortable options, my new black booties called to me. I chose to answer the day we visited The American Museum of Natural History …

Which was followed by a walk through Central Park …

Which was followed by a lengthy trek through the subway system.

Bad choices in footwearI WAS IN SO MUCH PAIN. At the time that this photo was taken, I was begging Robbie to get us a cab so we could just stop walking.

He pretended not to hear. He calls that “tough love.”

I’ll let you imagine what I called it.

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Be Who You Are.

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Maverick, my 7-year-old, recently walked up to me and said, “You are who you are, Mommy. And you’re just right. That’s what you always say to me.”

I stared at him, speechless.

“Don’t let anyone judge you.”

And then he walked away.

I have poured my heart and soul into my children, and there have been times when I felt like my spirit was breaking. Or maybe it was already broken. It can be hard to tell the difference.

I fuck up all the time. Daily. Multiple times per day.

I’m probably not supposed to admit that, right? I’m probably not supposed to say that I screamed like a lunatic this morning when the kids wouldn’t stop fighting. I’m so calm, until that one thing — like milk boiling over on the stove, or poop that gets smeared all over the toilet seat  — sends me over the edge.

I don’t give myself enough grace.

When you’re doing the impossible, you should give yourself some grace. My kids, who see the best and worst of me, give me grace. They somehow absorb what they see and hear, assimilate it, and regurgitate it in their charming kid way.

Pepper will say “Maybe way-ter, okay? WAYTER,” when I ask her if she’s ready to take a bath.

Maybe later.

I say that a lot.

My middle child uses big words in an attempt to sound important. “Actually, Mommy …” He says “actually” all the time. I guess I do too, but it’s a lot cuter when he says it.

But what my oldest said — you are who you are, and you’re just right — struck me. I’ve said that to him, many times. I believe that for my children, but do I believe it for myself?

I have to model what I want my children to value. And even though I feel like a dismal failure most days because I haven’t done enough or said enough to make me feel like I truly nailed this parenting thing … these moments drop out of nowhere that remind me that I’m doing a damn good job.

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Surviving An Indoor Playground In 6 Easy Steps

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I live in the Deep South, where soaring temperatures and obscene humidity levels make being outdoors a miserable experience for approximately one half of the year.

It’s not that I hate being hot. Many lovely places — like spas, saunas, and beaches — are hot. Being hot in the right situation is acceptable to me. What I find unacceptable is the feeling of makeup running down my face, my inner thighs sticking together and ripping apart when I walk, and what happens when a sweat-covered child lands in dirt.

Indoor Playground image

Because of these reasons and more, I know the location of every indoor playground within a 20-mile radius and I visit them on a rotating basis. But be warned — indoor playgrounds are just as wretched as their outdoor siblings. The temperature is more tolerable, but there are a lot of other things to watch out for … like the poop diaper that someone left next to the inflatable ball pit.

Here are some tips to help you navigate your way through what may be the germiest, most obnoxiously tolerable place on Earth: the indoor playground.

1. Stake your claim. Indoor playgrounds are crowded, so staking out prime seating is a top priority. Ideally, you should be near an outlet, the bathroom, and within earshot of your children. Wait, no. Scratch that last one.

2. Bring a friend. You may be tempted to go alone, since the indoor playground is a confined space and there is little chance of your child wandering off. But who’s going to catch you up on the latest gossip or discuss nipple hair with you?  Who will hold down the fort while you go look for the child you lost track of because you were so wrapped up in talking about anal sex? Your friend. Bring the nonjudgmental one.

3. Smuggle in alcohol. What?! Don’t judge me. We all know that intolerable parenting situations are much easier to handle when you have a glass of something in your hand. Pour your beverage into a benign-looking container, bury it in your oversized purse, make eye contact, and try not to look like you’re being a totally irresponsible rule-breaker. Sneaking vodka into an establishment full of giant inflatables was the only way I made it through my last trip. I offer no apologies.

4. Leave your pride at the door. It’s likely that you, your children, or all of the above, will make complete asses of yourselves before you make your exit. Go in with that knowledge, and you will feel a lot less embarrassed when your child screams “MY DADDY HAS A BIG PENIS!” Encourage your kids be as loud as possible while they aren’t in your house. Revel in the fact that you won’t have to clean that glass door that your child is licking. Whatever your kids are doing, worse has happened here. Trust me.

5. Be prepared — for anything. A throw up, a poop, a hunger, a thirst, a headache, a period, a nervous breakdown, a fire. Ready yourself for the world to end right there on the bumpy slide … because if the kid going down right before your kid has diarrhea pants, it might.

6. What happens in Vegas … you know the rest. Did you show your literal ass when you bent over to help little Jimmy get out of the toy car? Did your deodorant fail you? Did you cry, scream, or curse in front of small children? Did you over-share and immediately regret it? Did your toddler throw a tantrum and slap you in the crotch? It happens to all of us, because playgrounds — indoor and out — are terrible, God-forsaken places and motherhood can be a real bitch. The good news is that once you leave, you can just forget any of it ever happened and enjoy the silence of worn-out children.

Unless, of course, one of you touched that abandoned poop diaper.

Never touch the poop diaper.

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This post originally appeared on Scary Mommy.