Tag Archives: motherhood

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!)

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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My Un-Apology.

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I have so much to say.

So many unfinished drafts. Thoughts that are still half-formed, nonsensical blobs, because it’s Summer, and I grab my time in 10-minute increments — writing or brushing my teeth or responding to emails furiously because I know that at any moment, someone is going to head butt someone else and I will have to drop whatever I’m doing to attend to the blood-curdling wails.

Writers require time and space. I have neither of those things.

BUT.

Because I have so much to say, I make the most of what I have to work with. It’s not pretty. I yell a lot. But when you want something bad enough, you find a way to make it happen. I can’t not parent, and I can’t not write, just like I also can’t not clean the kitchen after every meal.

I’m sort of sick of apologizing.

I won’t anymore. Writing is my un-apology.

If you read my work, I hope it’s because you enjoy it and are not looking for meekness or backpedaling for being real. You won’t find that here. Women do enough of that. I DO ENOUGH OF THAT. Let’s all make a promise to each other to stop saying sorry for being true, raw, honest human beings.

Today, my true, raw, honesty is that I enrolled my 2-year-old in preschool for the Fall because I made the decision that I can be a mother and also a person who pursues her wildest dreams, all at the same time.

I realized I was hanging around waiting for someone to give me permission.

I was waiting for someone — specifically my husband — to take me by the shoulders and say “YOU NEED TO PUT OUR KIDS IN SCHOOL SO YOU CAN WRITE ESSAYS AND SELL THEM AND PAY FOR THEIR TUITION AND MAYBE ALSO GET YOUR NAILS DONE.”

But you know what? No one is going to do that. Not even Robbie Hobbs, who we all love dearly because he is hilarious and endlessly supportive.

I took myself by the shoulders, looked myself in the eye, and told myself it was time.

And you know what happened next?

I didn’t apologize.

Victory!I’m elated.

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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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Liberation Feels A Lot Like Newly-Done Nails.

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Liberation feels damn good.Today was typical, and by “typical” I mean that I was ready to pour myself a glass of wine at 3 p.m.

I resisted.

Today I took all three children to a sporting goods store to buy a floatation device and new Crocs — for my kids, not for me, just to be clear.

The sky was almost black when we pulled into the parking lot, and as I sat there staring out the window, muttering why does it rain every effing time I leave the house, Maverick yelled “WHAT? WHAT DID YOU SAY, MOMMY? WHY DOES IT RAIN? BECAUSE THE CLOUDS ARE FULL FROM EVAPORATED WATER, MOMMY. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT?!” as he unbuckled himself and climbed into the second row of the van, stepping on his little brother … who was pulling on his little sister’s leg and making her cry.

Lightning struck in the distance, and I made the decision to just go for it, hurrying them all inside before the rain began to fall. I hit the checkout stands first for snacks — Mini Oreos, of course, because oh how far the uptight health freak hath fallen.

So, so far.

My day was typical until Robbie walked through the door at 5:45 p.m. and I said, I know it reeks of wine in here, but it’s not because I drank it, it’s because I spilled it all over the place. It’s a long story. I’ll be back in an hour. Dinner’s on the stove. Love you.

And I left.

I drove to the nearest nail salon and spent the next hour getting my toenails and fingernails painted and my tired arms and legs massaged. I haven’t had a manicure in 18 months.

I paid for this luxury out of an account holding money that I have earned by selling essays and copies of I Still Just Want To Pee Alone. For the first time since I quit my job almost 4 years ago to stay at home with the kids, I feel like I can maybe get my nails done sometimes without first looking at the family budget.

And that is why this day is so momentous for me.

I earned the money by doing what I love. I love being a wife and a mother. I love being lots of things. But I am driven to write, and I have continued to feed that drive by staying up late, waking up early, and carrying a notebook around with me to jot down things like “CAT scan of lungs” that will jog my memory later.

One day I will look back on this day and remember what liberation felt like.

It feels like Pink Flamenco OPI Nail Lacquer.

It feels like giddy pride.

It feels like if anyone messes up my nails, I’m going to inflict bodily harm.

It feels like I worked really hard and I am actually making progress towards an unknown goal with really pretty fingers.

11655083_10156007919720508_143257464_n

That’s right.

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