You know you’re with the right man when you have a text message exchange like this one, and the next morning you have this conversation:
Me: Oh my goodness … I just found the text I sent you last night. What does this even say?!
Robbie: It says “Almost home.”
Me: How do you know?
Robbie: (Gives me a look like that was a stupid question.)
Me: Oh.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being the “House Guest” over at Housewife Plus, a blog written by a kindred spirit named Sarah. She lives in Maine, her husband builds boats, and she. is. hilarious.
Every Monday, Sarah hosts a House Guest and I was thrilled to hang out over there. She even used the word “y’all” to make me feel at home. Check it out here!
Like what you see? Don’t forget to follow her on Facebook and Twitter! She’s going to be famous one day and you’ll get to say you discovered her when. Just saying.
Yesterday, during an entirely-too-long road trip to Florence, MS, when Taylor Swift came on the radio and I started belting out the lyrics to “Blank Space,” I realized two things.
1. That song is not about Starbucks.
2. My children know me better than anyone else.
I’m not a shy person, but I’m admittedly prim and proper. It’s not on purpose, it’s just how I was raised — Southern and conservative. Minus the monogramming, because my mom wasn’t into it. I grew up in a church that frowns upon dancing, which means that as a 30-something adult I look like a complete idiot in my Zumba classes. I still haven’t learned how to shake my upper body, but don’t you worry, I’ll keep plugging away at it.
The side of me that my kids see is the side that belts out “YOU KNOW I LOVE THE PLAYERS, AND YOU LOVE THE GAME!” Yeah, I’m off-key, but who cares?
This is the side that makes ridiculous noises, chases them wildly around the house, hops on one foot through the kitchen and slides in socks down the hallway. Their mother is a non-makeuped, disheveled woman in mismatched lounge wear who is always teetering on the edge of insanity, but in a fun way. Unless she’s mad … which is no fun for anyone, because then she is non-makeuped woman in mismatched lounge wear who is parking asses in time out.
I have always worried that my kids get the worst of me because I seem to bumble through life in perpetual exhaustion. Tiredness is the basic truth of motherhood, right after unconditional love. It sucks the wind and the life right out of me and turns me into an impatient, rough-looking “momster” who sighs a lot.
In my non-mom life, I don’t belt out songs in front of other people unless I’ve been drinking, and I don’t dance unless I’m in Zumba. This realization disappoints me, because the side of me that doesn’t give a rat’s ass — that’s the side of me that comes out in my writing — is my best, most interesting side. That girl is a good time, and even my husband rarely sees her.
So maybe the side of me that the kids see really is my best side, even when I have been in pajamas all day, carrying a mug of cold coffee and yelling “FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME, PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR PENIS!”
Maybe the truth is, they don’t always get the worst of me.
Maybe they get the best of me, too.
Merry Christmas! I’m invisible! At least … I think I am? Because, camo.
You know what? IT’S BEEN A DAMN GOOD YEAR.
It’s also been incredibly difficult in a lot of different ways that needn’t be rehashed, and I’m not sorry to see it draw to a close. But I feel really optimistic about 2015 …
Because when you’re wearing an adult-sized onesie with antlers and holding a bottle of egg nog, that’s what happens. Optimism.
Today I am over on Toni Hammer’s site Is It Bedtime Yet? talking about the time I got stuck in a sports bra. Don’t you want to read it? OF COURSE YOU DO! This one has nothing to do with sex and there is no bad language, so have at it. (You can read it by clicking here!)
I met Toni because she is one of the talented authors in Scary Mommy’s Guide to Surviving The Holidays, and her straightforward humor made me like her right away. Her blog is awesome and honest — go check it out, and tell her I sent you!
Covered up with little people.
Maverick (age 6) drew this picture of me yesterday. I command the sun and the rainbows with my very large hands.
Finally, someone in this house recognizes me for the goddess that I am.
I lied to my best friend.
We hadn’t seen each other in a year – a year! – when we finally met for coffee the day after Thanksgiving. Her baby daughter is 9 months old and adorable, and even though I was meeting her for the first time, I felt like I’d known her forever. She’s just an extension of my friend. I scooped her up and marveled at her features while she played with my hair.
My friend was adorable, too. She had claimed previously that she was a mess, her house was a mess, her car was a mess. To me, it all looked normal. She looked exactly the same — gorgeous and willowy thin, like always (bitch). Her house and car look like they have a kid in the family, and for a mom like me with three of them at home, it didn’t seem messy. It seemed normal.
After 20 years of friendship, we have watched each other date boys, break up with boys, marry men, move to different states, land jobs, leave jobs, and move again. Having babies is just another one of those major life changes.
As we tried to discuss a year’s worth of topics within the span of a few hours, she said “I just feel like I can’t remember ANYTHING anymore. I am so scatterbrained.”
And that is when I told the lie.
I nodded in understanding and said, “It’ll be okay.”
I blamed her lack of mental focus on lack of sleep and waved it away, like it was nothing to worry about. The truth is, IT WON’T BE OKAY. AT ALL. It’s not going to go away and it won’t get better. From my experience, the scatterbrained-ness seems to mushroom with each kid and eventually you just sort of learn to live with it. You just adapt to being stupid.
Tonight I lost a pod of dishwashing detergent. One minute I had it in my hand, and the next minute I didn’t. Where the hell did it go?! Did I set it down somewhere? Throw it away? Put it back in the bag? I honestly have no idea. Robbie helped me look for it, and confirmed it was not sitting somewhere in plain sight. Not that I’ve ever completely overlooked something and nearly cried with frustration only to have him pick it up out of whatever obvious place it was located and hand it to me condescendingly. Nope. That has never happened.
Anyway, at this point I will just have to hope that one of the kids don’t find the pod first … wherever it is. I have forgotten more tampons, appointments, and essential pieces of information in the past year than I have in my entire adult life. And yet, we’re all still here, functioning at what appears to be an acceptable level.
So maybe what I said wasn’t a total lie.
Maybe it was actually the truth.
Since none of the retailers seem to be selling self-respect, sanity, or nannies who are both legal and willing work for free, I’m just going to sit this Cyber Monday out.
While the rest of you frantically put up holiday decorations over the weekend, I was trapped in an enclosed space with four other humans who can’t control their gasses. When we finally got home, I declared Thanksgiving officially over and switched out the wreaths on our front door.
This Christmas, I REFUSE to try to make everyone happy. That is an impossible task that is rarely accomplished by anyone, and even if you somehow manage to make it happen and all the people are happy … then you probably aren’t.
I don’t care to make anyone happy except for the people who live in my house. Their happiness is my top priority, and I won’t apologize for it. I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings, but if it does, you should turn to the people in your own house for comfort.
There will be tacky decorations. There will be hot cocoa. There will be beverages containing alcohol. We will listen for reindeer. We will bake cookies. I will probably yell and then feel bad about it.
The likelihood of me sending out Christmas cards is very, very low. I probably could pull it off if I really put my mind to it and acted like a crazy person for the next few days, but it’s not worth it to me. I just spent the past week of my life acting crazy. I think it’s time to put a stop to that.
There will be no last-minute rush to the store for gifts for so-and-so because we just found out they’re coming over. Nope. No adults will get a gift from us this year, not only because we don’t have the money for it, but because I also do not have the wherewithal to Pinterest some handmade bullshit to wrap up and give away to everyone. I just don’t. I’m not sorry. If you’re expecting a gift, don’t come over.
If you do come over, here’s what you can expect: a very low-key holiday experience full of laughter and the occasional high-pitched screech. There will also be crying, because my kids are small and someone is always crying. You may also get a whiff of a poop or pee smell. I’m sorry about that. The good news is that, overall, my house will smell nice because my mother-in-law gave me some awesome Yankee candles that are “Autumn Leaf” scented and they mask the poop odor like a boss.
It will be cozy here. The floor will be strewn with toys. Something will be baking. The cups will be plastic and the plates will be paper. No one will be camera-ready except for me, because I have a deep, irrational need to look nice when people come over. It’s the one remaining thing I have control over, so don’t hate on the fact that I spent an hour on my hair. I did it because no one in my life is predictable … except for my curling iron.
We have dance parties here. You can join in if you like.
This year, I’m TAKING BACK MY JOY. Starting now. Happy December 1!
Thanksgiving nearly killed me. Kids + breakables + elderly canines = me wanting to hide in a closet with a bottle of vodka. But, we managed to make it through the experience without divorcing or making a trip to the … Continue reading
This morning I totally lost my temper in a crazy kind of way that I’d like to just pretend never happened.
Sometimes … a lot of times … everything just bubbles up and it’s all too much. Women carry around a lot of things, you know. Robbie has learned not to say “Why are you so stressed out?” because he knows I’ll sit him down in a chair and TELL HIM WHY.
That terrifies my husband, the idea of being held captive as all the worries rain down upon him. It’s not because he is emotionally incapable of listening, or can’t handle being there for me. It’s because he can’t fix any of my problems. He can’t make Thanksgiving go away. He can’t make our kids sleep or travel well. He can’t make my hormones level out.
He can’t bake the cookies we’re supposed to bring to Alabama on Wednesday, because he knows they wouldn’t turn out right. He can’t fix the bathroom light or deal with the yard right now, because he needs to be at work. He can’t stop tracking dirt through the house, because THAT IS WHAT HE MUST DO.
He can’t guarantee that we will win the lottery or that I won’t scar our children for life or that they will maintain their virginity until they are very mature adults. Robbie can’t do anything except love me and tell me it’s going to be okay, even though both of us know that he doesn’t know that for certain. We hope it will be okay. We hope things will work out. We hope no one breaks an arm or floods the house.
All married people can do, I’ve realized, is hold hands and face life together with hope.
So far, it’s working out okay.
Modern Mommy Madness 