This is day 5 of the house hunt and I have to admit it’s one of the hardest tasks I’ve undertaken lately. You might be thinking to yourself, “What is she whining about? How can it be THAT hard?“

Well, let me tell you why.

Yesterday I saw a house that not only had a multi-leveled, GINORMOUS structure in the backyard that was constructed for kitty cats to play in but there was a large piano in what I can only assume is the formal living room. I inquired about this and the owner said to me, “It comes with the house.”

I said, “Do what?”

He explained that it’s too much trouble to move it, so … it comes with the house. And so I explained to him that we already have a piano, you see, and it would be odd to have two pianos in one smallish living area.

“Nah! Just scoot this one over and put yours next to it!”

I bid him good day.

It’s official!

We are moving back to our hometown of Baton Rouge, LA. This has been a dream of ours since I got pregnant with ONE, but we couldn’t seem to make it happen. Until it did.

I have been looking for a house to rent. I naively thought it wouldn’t be that hard to find something decent. I was wrong. For two days I hauled my children all over town looking at properties and all of them looked like meth labs were inside.

Today, my sweet mother-in-law kept the kids while I took her car and went on an all-day search. I looked at a house that smelled like animal pee. I looked at a house that looked like the kind of place where axe murderers would live. I looked at a house that was next door to the owner of “Bobby’s Bail Bonds.”

I saw one house I really liked, but it got rented before I could make an offer on it. And I saw an awful lot of places that looked like they should be condemned. Currently the front runner is a house that I have nicknamed The Cabin, because that is what it looks like.

In the midst of all of this, I realized I really had to pee. Like really badly. I had a small amount of time to find a bathroom before I was to meet with a property manager so I hightailed it out to a main intersection. There was a wreck up ahead and traffic was backed up so I attempted to do a u-turn. In my mother-in-law’s vehicle.

This is what happened.

I got stuck. I ran off the shoulder and sank into mud, freaked out, spun the tires and sank even deeper. People stared. A sherrif stopped and yelled at me: “What were you doing?!” And I said, “Officer, I have to pee. Like really bad. And now I’m stuck …”

I called the nearest towing company and they pulled out the car. There is no damage. I believe I got a discount on the bill possibly because they felt sorry for me, or because I was polite, or maybe because the wind caught my dress and blew it up. It matters not.

The search continues.

My life has become all of the sudden much more crazy than it already was for reasons I’m not able to share at this time. And then, the following happened:

Husband got sick. Like really sick. A bacterial infection that required a shot in each butt cheek and $70 worth of prescriptions. Since it’s contagious, I packed myself and the kids off to Baton Rouge with a quickness that astounded even me. It took me one hour flat to pack all three of us and I even sort of took a shower.

I hated to leave Husband there on the couch with no one to care for him, but the absolute very last thing in this world we need right now are two sick children. And truthfully his recovery will be a lot better in a quiet house.

We were three hours into the drive when we stopped at a McDonald’s in Ellisville, MS which seems to me to be the very middle of nowhere, but the McDonald’s was very nice as far as McDonald’s go. The only problem I had with this situation was the fact that the safety strap on the changing table was broken, as so many of them are … which is one of my personal pet peeves since I am always alone with my kids and I need the strap intact. Not because I’m some kind of safety nazi, but so I can use the bathroom while the baby is strapped somewhere safe. But since that never seems to be an option, I end up having to do things I don’t want to do.

And so I said to ONE, “want to see a magic trick?”  and proceeded to use the facilities whilst holding my 22-pound infant like a sack of potatoes.

I have to say, it was better than what I did on my last trip, which was put him on his changing pad, squarely on the bathroom floor of the Alabama Welcome Center. That still haunts me to this day.

Men have no idea what we go through.

I have a group of girlfriends that I talk to almost every day via Facebook chat. We all know each other from college, back before any of us were concerned with forehead wrinkles or preschools. We were just trying to get a husband back then. Or maybe that was just me?

Anyway, all four of us are now stay-at-home moms with completely different ideas, husbands, and standards of living. I can honestly say that these women, along with my local YMCA membership, saved my sanity when I was in that horrible, dark, sleep-deprived place after TWO was born.

Recently we had a semi-confessional going where we blurted out our deep, dark mommy secrets like “I haven’t cleaned my baseboards since August, and even then Merry Maids did it for me.” And we laughed at ourselves. 

So many women think that they have to be perfect. Especially once they have children. But it’s comical, really, because everyone knows that no one has perfect lives, perfect children, or perfect husbands. NO ONE. Motherhood and womanhood in general is messy. Let’s not try to lie about it.

In the spirit of honesty, here are some of my confessions:

1. I have never, ever cleaned my refrigerator. Ever. I mean, I throw away the old food … but I have never removed all of the contents to give it a good scrub-down. And I don’t plan to.

2. I haven’t a clue how to clean my stove. It’s a self-cleaning stove. So I assume I don’t need to? But there is food and ashes in there. It confounds me.

3. All of our bathrooms smell like pee and I can’t seem to locate the source. I live with three males (one still in diapers) and I am concerned that if I don’t address this situation with a quickness, I am going to end up being the person with the piss-smelling house. HELP.

4. I have a garden tub that I love to soak in. It’s always dirty. I just look away and climb right in.

5. Our shower hasn’t been cleaned since August 2011 and Merry Maids did it that time.

6. I’ve become very lax about shaving my legs.

7. I have never in my life made a pie. Or used a pizza stone. And we got one for a wedding gift going on 8 years ago. Something about it intimidates me. Why? I do not know.

8. I have no idea how to care for any kind of plant.

9. Vaseline has been my go-to product for years. I use it for EVERYTHING: scrapes, dry heels, my hands and face, my children’s faces, getting grease off of little hands, rubbing on stuck zippers, getting stubborn makeup off. I’d bathe in the stuff if I could. It’s cheap and it’s amazing.

10. I’m weaning myself off of Lexapro. Now that I’m getting normal amounts of sleep, I feel like I can handle life again. It might be a mistake. We won’t know until I’m off of it. My husband has been instructed to alert me immediately if I start acting crazy.

11. Nothing in life has made me as happy as being a mother. Nothing.

TWO is trying to crawl. He’s figured out how to wiggle like a worm to get from here to there. Unfortunately, he seems to go backward when he actually wants to go forward. I wonder who he gets that from? 

*moment of self-realization*

OH. 

Anyway, I don’t have any pictures of crawling yet, but here is what I have managed to capture …

I’m a mess. Are you? Read my latest Birmingham Mommy article here!

Ah … Sunday. I yelled a lot today. Now that the baby is finally asleep and I have time to think, I want to discuss a few things that make me HAPPY:

1. Fuzzy baby hair…

3. Fun bottle stoppers …

4. And ROAD TRIPS! 

I’m taking ONE and TWO with me on a little trip to visit my college roommate and her family and IAMSOEXCITED. Mostly because I am dying for girl talk and she has a little boy and hopefully all of our children will play together marvelously so we can both take a bit of a breather …

I hope they are ready for what they are about to experience, that is, myself – a person who may or may not be insane – ONE, who is a major handful of a banshee – and TWO, who was so unbelievably fussy today I can only assume he’s about to sprout another tooth. (Please be a tooth and not an ear infection. Please be a tooth and not an ear infection. Please be a tooth and not an ear infection. Please be a tooth and not an ear infection.)

They have been warned. She was gracious enough to say she isn’t concerned. I actually laughed aloud when I got that text. Laughed out loud right there in the middle of the produce section at Publix. A big guffaw. But it was nice of her to say.

She is one of the genuinely nicest people that I know. This is why I am so excited to visit. She also said her husband, who is also one of the most genuinely nicest people I know, has an enormous stockpile of coffee from Costco. He grinds his own beans and makes his coffee in a French press. 

I hope I don’t scare him when he finds me waiting for him in the kitchen. Cup in hand. Pupils dilated.

This is a blog entry chronicling a regular day in my current life, just in case someday I need that information. 

I won’t need it. But … just in case.

Yesterday I started feeling a little bit like I might lose my mind if I didn’t do something that my normal (read: “before children”) self would have done on a beautiful Spring day. Like shop, eat something fattening, or waste time somewhere wandering aimlessly.

My children might be the reason that I can’t fit in my pants … but they can’t stop me from TRYING to be normal. I put that word in all caps because all I can do is TRY. 

I took them to our fancy outdoor mall and we made it through exactly three stores before I realized that was all any of us were going to be able to handle because I have never been a fan of shopping with anyone except for myself or possibly my mother, and certainly never, ever children. Goodness GRACIOUS. I turned my back to look at some dresses and before I knew what was happening ONE had grabbed the umbrella stroller and was turning his little brother in fast, haphazard circles and then he tried to shoplift a necklace because he thought it was pretty and I should take it home with me to wear for Daddy … so we immediately left the store and I let ONE throw almost all of my change into an outdoor fountain.

After that I decided I wanted to go to Whole Foods because it was nearby and I always feel happy when I go there. And I thought, I could show the kids all of the pretty produce and dispensers full of multiple kinds of beans and maybe we could get samples of cheese.

So we went, and it was marvelous. They were as enamored with the place as I am.  I even maneuvered them through the wine section without breaking anything which was nothing short of miraculous. Those aisles are narrow.

Then I gave ONE a cookie to keep him quiet for a few minutes. There he is, in the background. No sound. So nice.

Then we came home and I took this ironic picture.

After that, I proceeded to eat almost an entire Newman’s Own pizza by myself and then spent the next hour lamenting over why I can’t eat like a bird like a real lady. 

The end.

Husband and I come from two very different places when it comes to food. First of all, I was raised vegetarian and when I met my Husband I had never eaten a real hamburger. Or pepperoni. And definitely never a hot dog, shrimp, crawfish, or lobster. 

I don’t eat chicken with skin on it. I don’t eat pork. I refuse to eat any meat with bones in it. None of this is a religious thing, it’s a finicky thing. I’m not picky at all about food except when it comes to meat. I kind of don’t like it that much. Husband loves it, like eats-his-steak-rare loves it.

After we began our relationship, I tried all of the foods I listed above. Because I was in love with him. That’s the only reason. Some of them (hot dog) were awful. Some were okay (pepperoni). I can do without all of them, but I did try them. And to be fair, he had never eaten anything remotely healthy before I came into his life, and he tried tofu and veggie meat because he was in love with me and probably because he wanted to get in my pants and it totally worked.

Now we find ourselves married for going on seven years and we consistently crave things that the other person finds disgusting. Both of us are mystified by this. And yet, it continues.

Today was Husband’s day off and I really wanted to do something nice for him. I mean the one thing I feel like I can handle at this point is cooking something for him that he really wants to eat, because I’m certainly not going to squeeze myself into some of my old lingerie after a day of caring for our children. I did try this once and I believe I pulled a muscle trying to wrangle myself into a corset. I plunked myself on the floor of our closet and all at once I understood why women simply GIVE UP. 

It’s just exhausting to shave my legs and even blow dry my hair … so pouring my ample curves into something too-small with 20 hooks up the back of it just isn’t going to happen. I know that this is something I need to work on, and I plan to, after I sleep for a month or so and then buy some pretty, new, fancy things that actually FIT me. 

Until then, I’ll cook.

So anyway, Husband got up this morning and I greeted him by asking what he would like for breakfast. We settled on pancakes and he was really excited about it. I pulled everything out to make them and realized that we were out of milk and so he ended up having to eat Eggo waffles instead, that I put in the toaster for him. It was really disappointing for both of us.

Later, I asked if there was anything he was really, really wanted because I felt like a failure of a wife and since he’s not getting any bedroom action he might as well eat good food. He thought about it and came up with … crawfish etouffee. 

Hello.

Crawfish seriously disgusts me. I know it’s blasphemous for me to say that since I’m from Louisiana, but I think it really stinks and it doesn’t taste too good either. I don’t know where to procure crawfish here in Alabama, and even if I did, I have no clue how to cook it and I certainly don’t want my house smelling like it. The first time I ever saw Husband throw down at a crawfish boil, it kind of shook me up. I wasn’t prepared for what happened. He went into a kind of zone and he tore into it like a rabid caveman. 

So anyway, back to today: I said I was really sorry but I just can’t make him crawfish etouffee for obvious reasons. So he asked me if I could fry him some chicken. With the skin on, of course. Like a whole chicken, with legs and bones and innards that I guess I would either have to pull out, or peek inside to make sure someone else had already removed them. Oh, and little hairs. Because I know they are there.

I fell silent. I couldn’t bring myself to say “I can’t make that either,” even though it’s the truth. I don’t know if I can stomach it. But that would mean that I’ve basically become a naysaying person who says no to everything: lingerie, crawfish, and now chicken legs with the skin on it.

I suppose it’s time for me to woman up, get myself a chicken, whack it to pieces and deep fry it up.

I am so, so scared.  
Please help me.