This story comes from my desire to switch it up folically speaking. I was tired of the same ole haircut. Every once in a while I get to the point that I want a new me, not a real new me with growth and effort, just a new me that costs a few bucks at a hair salon. *I realize that I am not unique here but just willing to say it in writing!!! In my quest for a New Me I search in Pinterest, as I am assuming we all do, and I find the cutest inverted bob. Now when I bring it to my daughters for approval I realize that perhaps there should be more personally growth involved in the New Me, but what can I say, maybe that will come with the new haircut.

I show my daughter in a screen shot text that writes “I’m thinking of this new hair!”

She responds with “What? The ‘can I speak to the manager haircut?'”

I look at the haircut again and I think “I don’t want to speak to the manager with this haircut!” Do I maybe want to try to speak to the manager with this new haircut? Do I want to appear as if I would want to speak to the manager with this new haircut? Do I want to threaten all managers when I walk into their establishment to give me what I want when I want it with this new haircut?

Okay first lets back the fuck up for a minute. Since when has having a haircut meant that you are a certain type of person. Oh, forever, you say? Remember the long “hippy” style haircuts of the seventies. Or the clean-cut look of the fifties versus the long-haired metal heads of the eighties? We have been judging people by their haircuts for as long as I can remember.

Second of all, my name is Becki, which has been used as your quintessential white lady name…you know even Beyonce herself sang about “Becki with the good hair” *side note Beyonce did she have the inverted bob? I want to know if I can pull it off.  I think I can, but I am not that Becki with the good hair.

Third of all I am never, in my wildest dreams going to ask to talk to the manager. How do I know?? I have refused to return the following foods: a salad with a green worm in it, a burger that was raw…raw in the center, a plate of spaghetti when I ordered salad, and my favorite thing I refused to return was eggplant Parmigiano that was basically, and I kid you not, a hockey puck. In fact when the waitress came over she asked if I was enjoying it and I said yes and fucking smiled.

Also reasons why I KNOW I wouldn’t ask to talk to the manager is because I have had a waitress drop a bowl of hot soup in my lap and she still charged me for it. She didn’t even get me a new bowl of soup. She said “Oops! I’m sorry!” and walked away. I simply went to the bathroom and washed my blisters and paid my check and left…I even left her a tip because waitresses don’t get paid enough.

So needless to say, I can barely pull off the name Becki. Can I pull off the call a manager haircut on top of it? Will I be admired and maybe even feared with the Becki and call the manager haircut combo? Do I even want to wield such great powers as this? Does the full Becki with the good hair vibe come once I have the GOOD HAIR? Do I need this call the manager haircut to finally receive my full potential? Fuck guys am I at the cusp of greatness and all I need to do is go and get this inverted bob to be BECKI WITH THE GOOD HAIR?

Ummm? No! I got the haircut and my hair dresser is an absolute genius and she does great and powerful things, but her wizarding ways are not transferred during the haircut. I was still a mortal with a great haircut until I washed it and then it was just a shorter version of my frizzy mess. What’s worse is the sleek inverted bob when it is done right takes skill and time and my arms get tired blow drying it and I’m like “Good enough” and the Beyonce sure as hell isn’t singing about Becki with the good enough hair! That Becki bitch isn’t even worth some fucking lemonade.

For my hair dresser, if you are reading, You are a wizard of no comparison and I always love how you do my hair. I sometimes feel bad because I am lazy and it never looks the same when I do it. Sometimes I go out and I will put the effort in. But I don’t go all out to go to the grocery store. I am not worthy of all of your talent, but I do appreciate it.

As for the call the manager haircut and the name Becki combo maybe I am not responsible enough to have great powers as these. Maybe it is why my name is Becki with an i and not an y? *or as my Starbucks cup once said Bicky which is starbucks barista language for Becki with an i. 

Moral of my story: Get the haircut and see what magical powers you get. Or maybe it is stop judging others by their haircut, get to know the person instead. Unless it’s a mullet because we all know what a mullet means. Business in the front and party in the back and douche all the way around. I’m sorry that was mean….Joe Dirt you are a wonderful person, I am guessing.

Until next time 🙂

When my youngest was very little she would get incredibly ill at Christmas time. It always started a few weeks after Thanksgiving. At Thanksgiving we would be around all of those people. There were the holiday shows and concerts that we would attend to support the other children on their endeavors as a singer, or actor, or concert saxophonist. *hot cross buns on a recorder sounds like ass, hot cross buns on a saxophone played by a child with an expander makes your ears and eyes bleed. 

So naturally, I would be all pissy because some inconsiderate asshole has made my child sick. I would try to remember who she was around so that I could take a mental note of it. *this is the worst thing that we do as humans. We all get sick but somehow or another we want to blame someone for our illnesses. Fucking Debra with her snotty kid, why did you even come to support your child any way? Keep in mind I had vomited on my way to my son’s play and still attended. That’s right I was patient zero that year!!!! I wasn’t going to miss his play. He had speaking lines and everything.

So here it was Christmas eve and my daughter was three or four years old and we were visiting my parents for the Holiday. We woke up in the middle of the night to our poor little angel wheezing and she could barely open her eyes. She had a fever and she was so sick. On Christmas eve you have little choice on where to go for healthcare. So we headed off to the emergency room. If you have ever been to the emergency room early in the morning on the Holidays it is a sight to behold. I had to cover my poor baby’s eyes because the guy sitting next to us had a fork sticking out of his face. He had a dish towel wrapped around the fork and he sat there with his mother who was still yelling at him, “I told you not to upset your father! I knew this would happen!” *I don’t want to know what kind of dysfunction you need to have where you can accurately predict fork to the face. But here we are! I find people curious and so I did want to talk with them but at the same time keep my distance because I had my baby.

I get my baby into the doctor and they hook her up to the nebulizer and we get her all checked out. They believe it was pneumonia and we are sent on our way with her prescription that they filled for us at the hospital because there was no pharmacy open. We get back to my parents house and carry on with our holiday.

Next year, at Christmas again, my daughter wakes up and is wheezing can barely open her eyes. She has a slight fever. I take her into the emergency room…but at the children’s hospital this time, there is no family caused casualties here. Apparently forking is left for adult children, I mean seriously what could have been said to fork your own child in the face? I get her in to see the doctor and he thinks it is the flu this time. No meds, just a nebulizer treatment and we were sent home. We have a nebulizer at home and I have to keep treatments going at home. We get through Christmas and she gets better.

The following year she is sick again and this time it is the week before Christmas and I get her in to her regular doctor. She looks at me and asks “This happens every year?”

I say “Yes! It usually starts a little after Thanksgiving!”

“Do you have a real Christmas tree?”

Now I am thinking this is just small talk “Yes. We picked it out as a family and made a day of it.”

“Have you ever used an artificial tree?”

“Only when we are traveling for the Holidays. I don’t want the tree to dry out while we are gone.”

“Does she get sick the years you use an artificial tree?”

I think. “Yes. But only when we get up to my parents….Is it the tree?” I ask because now that someone is pointing it out to me it seems so perfectly obvious. My parents get a real tree every year. Some people think it is blasphemous to get an artificial tree, my parents are of this sort.

“I think it could be. Go home and get rid of your tree and see if she gets better right away.” the doctor says.

I am thrilled to hear this. I call my husband and he says “So we have to throw away our Christmas tree that we just bought?”

“Yes. But we can put up the artificial tree in its place!” I say. I am a problem solver that’s why.

“Becki, I threw out that tree years ago.”

“Why did you do that?” I ask

“Because the lights were burnt out on half of the tree don’t you remember?”

“Oh that’s right. Well we have to get rid of this tree. Maybe we can buy an artificial tree.”

“I will take down the tree when I get home. We can go out and try to find a reasonably priced artificial tree.”

It’s not that my husband doesn’t care about our daughter’s health, I am not saying that it’s just that we don’t know how to Christmas without the tree. We don’t know how to Christmas without spending every last penny on gifts…mostly because we were living on one income. *oh you’re a stay at home mom? How can you even afford that? We can’t!!! But I wouldn’t have changed it for all of the world. Coupons and sales are the way to do this by the way, If you want to know that information. My husband makes a good salary now and we made it through! 

My children and I undecorated the tree while my youngest was sleeping. My husband got home and took the tree outside. We talk to the children about why we needed to do this and say “But we have a babysitter coming over and we are going to go buy an artificial tree.” We didn’t tell them that this tree was going to be a budget tree that may be a little sad.

As we were out shopping for our artificial Christmas tree we found out that even the fucking pink ones are over our budget. “Excuse me could you point out which Christmas trees cost under twenty bucks, please?”

Finally we found a display model at Kmart with a sign that said “store model only”

My husband rolls up his sleeves and asks to see a manager. I walk away because haggling is not my favorite thing in the world. I get too uncomfortable with the back and forth and the silence. The silence kills me. Are you kidding me….I will give you one million dollars to fill the void of this never-ending silence. Which is strange because I am a stay at home mom and you would think that I would pay a million to get some silence. I once paid sticker price for a car and then they added a security system as an extra add on that I paid for…just to let you know how I haggle.

My husband talked that guy down and we get the tree, with no box, out to the car and load it up. We paid a decent price and we got a fairly decent tree. We get it home and get to decorate our new tree. We also couldn’t afford new ornaments and to this day we laugh about the things we would hang on our tree.

Our first ornaments I ever had in our home I made out of red fabric and stuffing (fiber fill not, stove top) and white ribbon. They were my husband’s and my son’s favorite ones because they could throw them on. They simply were cloth balls that you threw in the tree they didn’t hang, they sat on the branches. Then I had these Disney ornaments that were the shapes of the characters, but the children played with them and they were in rough shape. We had one arm Donald Duck. We had the head of Simba. We had just a sword that belonged to somebody but it still had the arm attached to it. Our Christmas ornaments were all dismembered and a little creepy, I’m sure to other people. “They hang body parts on their tree! It’s so fucking weird.”

We also hung the ornaments that the kids made. My youngest daughter just told me last night that she hates it when we hang “that start ornament that I made” on the tree. This star is huge and it has a picture of her….but she made it at school so it’s the school picture and it is not a fine piece of photography. She had her hair braided all nice for school but then they handed her a comb and so she used it. It looks like she is wearing a stuffed animal on her head. I love that ornament because it reminds me of how independent she always was. She hates it because “Why did they even hand me a comb if I wasn’t supposed to use it?”

We have nice ornaments for our trees now but I can’t put them on because our cat, my little naughty nunu climbs the tree. Yes I have tried squirting him with a bottle…and shaking a can of pennies, all that does is makes him go further into the tree to hide. We still have to use artificial trees because my youngest is allergic. She may not be any more she may have grown out of it…but I am never going to take that chance. She would get so sick I never want to go through that again.

Moral of my story: Do we even really NEED Christmas trees? I mean, the answer is yes, but why? If your child seems to get wheezy at Christmas time maybe try an artificial Christmas tree instead. Also the dust on the ornaments could be the culprit. If you have any old ornaments you laugh about every year I would love to hear about it. At my parent’s home my brother made an apple and cloves ornament one year….we hung that thing on our tree every year. It looked like an apple the first year and every year after that it looked like a lump of dog shit! We would laugh about it when we got older. I hope my mom still hangs the turd on the tree because it is tradition. WE still hang the arm with the sword on our tree for that same reason. I mean is it even Christmas if we don’t hang dismembered Disney characters on our tree? I doubt it!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Until next time 🙂

When I was a little girl I was number five of six children. The idea of Santa was a beautiful thing. He was like a rich uncle that didn’t have time to stay for dinner but he brought some great gifts for us to let us know he was thinking of us. I loved my rich uncle Santa that I didn’t have to talk to. My brother #3, we will call him, was four years older than me. I was home sick *legitimately sick, from school and my brother also caught *cough cough, what I had and stayed home with me. My mother had to go to work so my older brother being home was free babysitting for her.

I’m sick in bed with tissues shoved under my pillow, because I was gross *I don’t do this anymore, and laying in bed trying to breathe! My older brother who is home sick *illegitimately so, comes in with his Cheshire Cat grin and asks me “Do you want to help me with something?”

I, being me, always wants to help people say yes before finding out what it was. I get out of bed wearing my Holly Hobby nightgown and my brother says “Whoa! You’re going to need pants for this!”

I still don’t ask what’s up, because be fucking cool will ya Becki, he wants to play with ya!

I get pants on and follow him up to the haunted room of our house! Why is it haunted it’s a long story but mostly because it has the fucking attic in it. I venture in behind him and then into the very haunted closet! I’m still agreeable and slightly terrified. This closet always smelled like pine and model paint. I am standing behind my brother, whom I admired so much. He was kind to me and he always protected me. He treated me like I was there! So naturally I would follow his lead anywhere! *this has led me to some very interesting places, I never learned my lesson. I am standing behind him and he turns to me and says “I’m going to hoist you up and you’re going to go in the attic.”

What did he just say? Does he know the actual devil lives up there?

“I can’t!” I say

“Why not?”

“Because the devil lives up there!”

He gives me this look that I can only describe as the “Becki look” because I’ve only seen people give it to me. It’s a I’m totally amused by you, and baffled, and also what the actual fuck are talking about? Look!

“What?”

“The devil lives up there. So I am not going!”

“Becki, the devil doesn’t live in our attic, he lives in hell!”

“Where is Hell?” I ask

“I don’t know but it’s not in our attic!”

“How do you know?” I ask

“Because I’ve been up there!”

“And?” I ask

“And it’s just an attic!”

“Where the devil lives!” I say “our attic is where the devil lives and I’m not going up there?”

“Becki you are being ridiculous. The devil does not live in our attic!”

“Well maybe he vacations there!” I always with a logical explanation

“You think he comes to our attic for vacation?”

“It’s probably nice because it’s better than hell.” I say

“It’s not!” My brother replies

Apparently I lost the argument and am now being hoisted into the devil’s vacation home in our attic! I get up there and it’s dark and hard to see.

“Do you see a bag full of Christmas presents?” He asks

“Yeah!” I say back.

“Get it and lower it down to me gently!” He says

I reach out to grab the bag certain that the devil is going to grab my arm and pull me into the dark abyss. I snag the bag quickly and drop the fucking thing because this is a trap and I know it! The sneaky bastard is just trying to tempt me into his lair and I am going to be trapped up here forever.

“Hey, I said gently some of the things I asked for is breakable!” My brother scolds me.

I don’t fucking care because I am running from satan himself and I jump down on top of my brother.

“Holy shit Becki, you almost broke my neck what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m running from the devil before he grabs me!”

“You’re such a weird little kid!” He laughs and then he looks at something and he looks a little alarmed. “Becki do you believe in Santa Claus?”

“Yes! Why?” I ask hesitantly

“Because he’s not real!”

“Santa’s not real?” I ask with a lump in my throat

“No! It’s just mom and dad getting us things and signing his name. Santa is pretend and mom and dad are lying to us!”

I stand there looking at him with disbelief in my eyes! He then picks up a present and shows it to me. I nod my head and then wonder where this day is taking me!

“We are now going to snoop!” #3 says “Snooping is the best part of Christmas!”

“I don’t want to snoop!” I say quietly to my super cool brother “I like to be surprised”

“Surprise, there is no Santa! Now you can snoop with me!” He then puts his hand on my shoulder and looks me straight in the eyes and says “you are going to be the best snooping partner I can tell.” I am so complimented by this because in my family I’m not the best anything. I want to be the best something. I am going to work extra hard at being the best snooping partner ever!

“Go grab me an exacto knife and be careful they are very sharp! #2 keeps them in his model kit.” I go over and find the exacto knife and I bring it to my brother.

“Now when you are carrying a sharp knife to someone you turn it around so you don’t accidentally stab them with it.” He carefully takes it from me by the handle and shows me the proper way to hand someone a knife! I was so happy to be learning from my big brother. I was all ears and big doe eyes soaking in all the criminal ways of my brother. *he wasn’t really a criminal he just had a sneaky way about him. He definitely had the finesse to go into petty crime if he so chose!

He, with surgical precision, sliced the tape and unwraps the gifts. He looks at all of his gifts and then he looks through what the other boys got and he switches some of the tags so that he gets the best stuff. Then he looks at me and says “Mom never remembers what she got. Plus those guys do the same thing.” *this is why mothers get Dementia it’s from thinking we know what’s going on and then turns out name tag swapping on gifts is a thing!

We rewrap the gifts and then he says “Do you want to see what you got?”

I shake my head no!

“You sure? You could switch the names if #4 got something better than you?” #4 is my only sister.

I shake my head no again.

“Alright! It probably is why you make the best snooping partner!” He gets all the gifts back into the bag and he says “Now I’m going to hoist you back up there to put the bag back!

FUCK! The devil is going to be waiting for me this time for sure! I bravely take the bag up and I try to put it where I found it or I just dump it and run. Either way the bag of gifts is back in the devil’s pit and I can go rest! I am sweating because of the excitement or the fever and I go back to bed.

A few years later my mom tells me “Becki I need to tell you something!” She’s a little concerned because I still believe in Santa and I never questioned his existence like a normal kid would. “Honey, Santa isn’t real. I buy and wrap the gifts and I just say they are from Santa!”

Now I can’t say ‘No shit Sherlock!’ Which was a popular phrase then. I have been the best snooping partner since 1976. How do I play it cool. I pretend to burst into tears and ran to my room. Because I’m not sure how a normal kid would react to being told there was no Santa at the age of thirteen.

My family joked and picked on me for years about this. “Remember when I told Becki there was no Santa and she ran away crying?” *laughter ensues at my expense, which I was used to. I look at my brother #3 and he is smirking and no one was the wiser because I was the ABSOLUTE BEST SNOOPING PARTNER AROUND!

Finally well into my forties I got tired of being a mockery for my family and I said “I knew!”

“What dear?”

“I knew that there was no Santa! I had known since I was in first grade.”

“No you didn’t! You cried so hard when I told you”

“I was pretending because #3 told me that I couldn’t let on that I knew. That’s why I never questioned it.”

“Why did he tell you?”

“Because I was the Best Snooping partner around! I now think it’s safe to let you know because we are adults and no one can get into trouble.”

Moral of my story: If you have a child who still believes in Santa and doesn’t question it, don’t pick on them. They just might know something you don’t! Also I still, to this day, think the devil vacations in that attic. So it is fair to think that I still believed in Santa! Also my big brother #3 was always my hero and probably always will be. He and I got into some great trouble together and they were some of my fondest memories. Happy Holidays!

Until next time!😉

When I was a child I both wanted to be invisible and also I wanted to be famously paid attention to in a “OMG isn’t she fabulous and beautiful and don’t you just want to be her friend!” sort of way!!! There came a time in my life when we came back from summer and all of these kids had silver mouths. They all admired each other’s braces and there I was with my stupid back brace that mostly made me look as if I had a stick up my ass. Also I didn’t actually want anyone to know that I had the fucking thing. But these braces everybody had them. Damn me and my straight teeth and crooked spine. It wasn’t until I went to my friend’s house and saw her headgear that I got tremendously jealous. Here was this poor girl with pulleys and belts and a horse-drawn carriage connected to her teeth trying to pull them straight, which probably hurt like hell, and there I was thinking “Where can I get me one of these attention seeking contraptions? Holy fucking wow! That thing is massive and so hard to ignore.”

I have said it before and I will say it again being an attention whore is sort of a gateway to other types of whore and so I should have been wiser about not falling into “You can dance on this shiny pole and people will give you money!” type of bogus claim. But I was so super jealous of all of these kids walking around with their braces and smiling at one another. I was buying it. I needed braces so that I could fit in.

They were all so cool and had so much to talk about with each other. They even had their own language:

“I can’t even chew gum anymore!”

“I’m not supposed to have chips but I do!”

“Do you use the wax?”

What? What are you talking about? I want to fit in. I want to be a part of the “can’t chew gum and chips and waxing something” club! Instead I am in the “back brace is digging into my skin and I have developed bed sores from the fucking thing” club for one. Yup! One member of my stupid club or at least the only one I knew of. Crooked teeth is more socially acceptable than crooked spine so there may have been more but we didn’t go around flashing back braces and talking about things. “I had to learn to breathe again because my rib cage doesn’t move in and out anymore!”

“I can only sleep on my back!”

“I am allowed to take mine off for one hour a day!” Yeah, no! No one was walking around talking about their scoliosis with great gusto and detail.

I eagerly tried to fit in. Here I was listening and not knowing what to say because I didn’t have braces. I actually didn’t fit in before this but I definitely did not fit in after everyone came back with their tinsel smiles. I was sitting at my desk in class and I was looking at the paper clip that my teacher had dropped on the floor.

Kids if you are reading this, just know that this may have been the absolutely dumbest fucking thing I have ever done. Ugh, I can’t believe I am telling this. Okay I picked up that paper clip off of the school floor. (If you want to know what a school floor is made of I think it is 60% dirt, 10% disinfectant and 30% salmonella) I unwound the paper clip and I put it in my mouth to make it look like I had braces.

I wore that thing outside and I was talking to my friend who didn’t always have to wear her headgear. She said “Oh My God Becki what is in your mouth?”

“I got braces!” I said while swinging

“You didn’t have them this morning.” she said, *which was true but God Damnit be cool for like one fucking second okay?

“I don’t always have to wear them.” I lied.

“When did you get them?” other kids trying to poke holes into my already implausible story. No, not that thread bitches, this is going to unravel rather quickly.

“I’ve had them for a while.” I say and look away with my best Farah Fawcett face. Because she was the coolest of all the Angels.

I walk away quickly before they can ask me anything more and also I was choking a little bit on the paper clip I was trying to pass off as braces. I went over to the merry-go-round and the lady who yells at everyone at recess was heading my way. Fuck me! What do I do? I can’t take the paperclip out now because the nosy girls are looking right at me.

“Becki, What do you have in your mouth?”

“Nothing!” I say through pursed lips.

“Are you picking on the girls with braces?” She asks

“No! I am not picking on them….” I started to explain when my ‘braces’ decided to go shooting out of my mouth and hit the yelling lady in the stomach.

“What is this?” she asks. She picks it up and loudly asks “Did you have a paperclip in your mouth this whole time? Do you know how dangerous this is?” She yelled at me all the way into the principle’s office. There I was waiting to get yelled at some more when one of the boys that also was in waiting for the principle looked at me and asked what I was doing there.

I was about to tell him some cool story about being a badass when Miss Recess Yeller said “She was pretending to have braces by putting a paper clip in her mouth.”

Where the fuck did she come from? Goodness lady be fucking cool would ya? I don’t really want everyone in the school to know how lame I am. The boy looked at me and started laughing.

As if that wasn’t bad enough we had to have an assembly about not putting sharp objects that we could choke on….because one of our students had been on the playground with a paperclip in her mouth…..fucking come on I just wanted good attention. Never mind invisible would be good right now.

Moral of my story: Sometimes you get what you wish for! I wanted people at the school to notice me…and they did. But I also wanted to fit in….and I didn’t! I now know and understand that the recess lady was really looking out for my safety. I just wish that public mocking wasn’t the way that she taught me my lesson. A quiet, “you are beautiful as you are!” would have done wonders. As an adult, I try to be more encouraging to others and especially young ones because I remember how humiliated I felt. A lesson doesn’t have to be humiliating to be effective. I learned that lesson the hard way so You don’t have to. For anyone out there that needs this today, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL JUST AS YOU ARE. YOU ARE SO LOVELY AND WORTHY!

Until next time! 🙂

When my children were little I was exhausted ninety percent of the time. My husband may have been exhausted too, I don’t really know because I didn’t see him much. He was working and going for his master’s in engineering. I would try to be perfect, perfect mother, perfect daughter, perfect wife….as perfect as one could be in yesterday’s sweatpants and cornflakes in your hair. We had little extra money so date night typically happened in our home after the kids went to bed. My husband would grab a movie on the way home from school and I would get the children fed, bathed and read to. I normally would sleep read to the children at bedtime.

“Mom, you are reading it wrong!” my oldest would say. Now that I mention it all of my children learned to read rather quickly because of my inadvertently adding my nightmares into their story time.

“I’m sorry! You’re right Pooh bear was not bleeding from his mouth! He was eating from the honey tree.” I would say while rubbing my eyes awake.

My husband came home and the kids were all tucked into bed. He brought home dinner that was not chicken nuggets and we were going to have date night. My husband showed me that he also brought home the movie and some candy like we were in a real theater. (again we couldn’t afford a night out and a babysitter so this was a big deal to me)

We ate our adult meal, not chicken nuggets or macaroni and cheese. We cuddled on the couch and settled in to watch our movie. Again I was exhausted and I didn’t make it. I fell asleep! My husband leans over and says “Becki, Honey, do you want to go to bed?”

I wake up and look at him. “What time is it?”

“It’s one in the morning!”

“Oh No! Was the movie good?”

“I don’t know I fell asleep too!” He offers to carry me to bed which is nice but I am worried that he will realize that I have put on a few pounds.

“No, I can walk, it’s fine.” I go upstairs and brush my teeth, check on the kids and marvel at their sweet little sleepy faces in the moonlight. Is there anything more beautiful than your sleeping babies in the moonlight. They look so angelic sleeping there. I finally crawl into bed and go to sleep for the night.

The next morning comes quickly because I count last night as staying up until one in the morning. I understand that I was sleeping through most of it, but give me a break, I had to wake up enough to brush my teeth so it counts. I rub my eyes and yawn and I see that my husband is still sleeping too. Weird because who is downstairs getting the children breakfast?

I roll over in my dreamy state and check the clock and it is seven-thirty in the morning. I haven’t slept this late in……Wait, who the fuck IS downstairs getting the children breakfast? I jump up out of bed and run downstairs.

I walk into the living room first and there are candy wrappers all over the floor. I walk into the kitchen and there are both of my children sitting ON the table and covered in chocolate.

My son, always the honest one, shouts “WE HAD CWUNCH FOR BREAKFAST!”

“I see that.” I announce.

My daughter who was less likely to tell the truth looks at me with sheer panic in her eyes. Now I don’t know what the scene looked like prior to this, that I am seeing with my own eyes, now. But let me tell you how mornings usually would go in my house:

I am sleeping peacefully with a corner of blanket that I would call my butt flap. I would have one elbow in my eye socket and a foot trying to use my rectum as a slipper. Then some one, probably the boy would wake up demanding juice. I would have to take them downstairs and give them juice and decide if I was sweating in my sleep or did someone piss the bed. This morning I woke up to plenty of blankets, no sleeping ninjas and the children getting their own chocolate bars for breakfast. Which leads me to believe that these little fuckers smelled that chocolate in their sleep. My children clearly are gifted in the fact that they can root out candy regardless the situation. I am not certain if the Justice League could use them, but they are truly gifted just the same.

“I saw him with the candy and I said Mom wouldn’t be happy if he ate it without asking!” says the little girl with the fucking chocolate mustache, beard and eyebrows

“You didn’t have any?” I ask, not because I don’t know the answer, she clearly has, but because I cannot believe the audacity of this little five-year old who is wearing a chocolate. Literally the evidence is all over your face, sweetie!

She looks at me and shakes her head no. “Because I told him….” I stop her and give her another chance to tell me the truth.

“You did not eat any chocolate?” I ask her again.

She says “MOM, I told him that you would be very disappointed with him….” I hold my hand up and I stop her from lying to me mostly because I can’t hear it.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you did not eat any chocolate this morning.” I say giving her the opportunity to redeem herself.

She looked me in the eye and then she closed her eyes and she shook her head no. Well kid, you got the right idea, you should never look your mother in the eye and lie to her.

“You have chocolate all over your face.” I say.

“I do?” she asks

“You do! So I know that you ate the chocolate too.” I tell her.

“Well, I came downstairs with my brother and he was really hungry. I saw the candy and I said to him, mom would be very disappointed if we ate this before we had a sensible breakfast. But I don’t know how to cook so I tried to think of a sensible breakfast without cooking. When I was doing my best thinking he started to eat the candy.” she says in her most bullshitting voice. “I said bud you can’t have that it isn’t a sensible meal. He said that it was nutritious and I said it is? Because I am only five I tasted it to see if it was good for breakfast and it was tasty.”

“Oh Honey that is not how nutritious works!” I burst out laughing because here is this five-year old, a child whom I have lost “conversations about life lessons with” explaining to me that candy may be good for breakfast because it is fucking tasty. Because I am laughing the kids start laughing but that nervous laughing children do when they don’t know if they may have driven their mother over the edge.

My husband comes downstairs and sees the evidence and the kids and I laughing and he too starts laughing nervously because he has gotten the phone calls at work “The children gave the dog a Crisco bath and she shit in the car!” “The children spread mud all over the neighbor’s car!” and so on and so forth. So yeah, he sees the scene and while looking at the large amount of whites in my eyes and asks “What’s going on down here? Is everything okay?”

“We left the candy out last night and the kids ate it for breakfast.” I say without even a hint of blame.

“We had Cwunch for breakfast!” my son announces like a chocolate addled child would.

“You had crunch for breakfast huh? What did mom say about it?” he asks trying to get on the same page as me.

“She thinks it’s funny!” Count Chocula announces in his pure sugar high voice.

“She does huh?” my husband is trying to read my face but I am laughing so hard that he is terrified because what he has been able to read is not good. His wife looks like she has legit snapped. I am laughing harder and harder because honestly what can we do? The children have already ate the candy. They got up by themselves and got their own tasty but definitely not nutritious breakfast. I got the best night of sleep in my life. I would trade candy breakfast for one good night’s sleep. That is my price. I now know as a parent my price is one crunch bar for one night of unadulterated undisturbed slumber. Perfection be damned. I am not going to do it again but it is nice to now know what my price is. The question shouldn’t be what would you do for a klondike bar? Turns out klondike bar is the fucking answer. I will give you a moment for you to pull your cerebral cortex back together because yeh your mind is blown. My house is the matrix where the question becomes the answer.

I get the kids all washed up and tell them that candy is not for breakfast EVER! Then I cook a nutritious breakfast that the children did not eat because they were “Too Full!” and maybe a little bit sick because they ate quite a large amount of chocolate.

Moral of my story: Perfection is a myth that can only be shattered by years of working on yourself and it starts with your children eating candy for breakfast. Also if your children do eat candy for breakfast once or twice in their life, you both learn from it. My son once ate an entire bag of peanut butter cups for breakfast on Easter because he didn’t want to share. He got sick and that was the last time he did that. My oldest daughter learned that sometimes her brother has bad ideas….it didn’t stop them from making their death trap though, but to be fair they still think that one is a solid idea and they are adults now. So you know, you win some and some you get to pull your children out of the dingle.

until next time 🙂

This story actually was when we were dating. I met my husband when I was nineteen years old. Early in our relationship, He showed up at my place of work and said, “Do you like road trips?” *I am much like a dog and when a car is leaving I fucking want to be in it. I am not picky where the destination is. So “Ummmm Yes, I love road trips!” was my answer.

He then says “I have everything we are going to need in my truck, so let’s just go!”

It is very clear to me that my boyfriend is unaware that I am no fucking Beyoncé I did not just wake up like this. Unless you have my fifty pound bag of makeup and hair care products in that duffel, you do not have everything *WE need! I need a little more than you! But because I am nineteen and afraid to disagree I smile and say “Okay!”

I hop into the truck and we head off. This was the days before cell phones so taking a nineteen year old off into the woods was easier then. As we are driving I literally have no idea where he is taking me. He promised me a road trip and being the dog that I am I was happily sticking my face out the window watching the scenery go by.  As we get further up a mountain I start to worry that the reason he has all *We need, is because only one of us is getting out. I worriedly look around his truck and notice all of the things he keeps in it. The knife in his console. The ball of twine. The tarp and the shovel. That weird scratchy army issue green wool blanket. “he has never been in the army. why do you need the army blanket sir….if that even is your name?” I am thinking. I might die and I just hope that he doesn’t bury me alive.

“I want to be cremated!” I tell him. “When I die, I want to be cremated.”

He looks at me and says “Okay!” because we just met a few months ago and still trying to get to know each other. Death plans don’t typically come up this early in the relationship.

My boyfriend then stops at a gas station, which was also the meeting place for all of the other people invited on this “road trip”. I get out and collect with the other girls, because that is what we do. The one girl said “Are you excited to go CAMPING!”

But it was in slow motion and the word was all drawn out “CCCCAAAAAMMMMMPPPIIINNNGGGGGGG!”

Mosquitos biting my ass all night? Oh fucking sure sign me the hell up to be on the all you can eat Becki Buffet. I honestly want to go back to when I thought he was going to murder me than now knowing it’s going to be fucking camping. How do I tell this really adorable man that camping is not my thing? I grimace and look at this girl who is sizing me up and I am all like “Oh Yay! Camping. Fun! I love camping!” I look down at my outfit and only clothes for this trip and it is my work clothes and heels. Yup this is sure to be a good time.

So I wouldn’t say that I am not outdoorsy. Some people who know me might say that, but I wouldn’t. I like to hike and I love looking at the stars. I absolutely love being out in nature. But I am an asthmatic with scoliosis and at the time,  just a year and a half ago got out of my back brace, so sleeping amongst the mold spores and allergens on the hard earth is not my idea of a good time. I like to be outdoors when there is a nice hypoallergenic bed I can go to sleep in. But how do I say this to the guy I just met. I mean I was still going along with him when I thought he might murder me. I am obviously not going to say “Yo, I am not really the camping type.” Seriously if you are signing on as victim of homicide is it okay to go back and say “I draw the line at camping?” I am asking for a friend.

Now that I know what  the hell I am signed up for, I start to tell myself it won’t be that bad. I buy an industrial size bottle of bug spray and off we go. This is the last stop before we get to the camping area. We get to the top of the mountain, hill or whatever the structure we were on and we pitch our tents. The girls get all ready to cook dinner over the wide grated grille that the camping place provided. The funny thing is these camping girls are just as prepared as I am. They even knew where we were going. They have no pans, or tin foil, or even a fucking spatula to flip the burgers. I stand there looking at this monstrosity as they are flipping dripping meat with a stick. My boyfriend comes over and he is really trying to act like he has done this before and he crouches by the fire and is doing his best to stick flip the burgers. He steps back to admire his work when I lean over and whisper “Your foot is on fire.”

He panics a bit and starts to stamp his foot.

“Stop, Drop and Roll!” one of the camping girls yells out to him.

Oh for fuck’s sake….these assholes have never ever been camping before. What the hell? The only camping expert is me and I fucking hate camping. I look at my boyfriend and I say to him “We need to go back to that gas station.”

“Okay! Did you forget something?”

“Yes. We have to go back.” We let the rest of the campers know that we are heading out, my boyfriend and the rest of these folks are twenty-one and old enough to drink. So now we are on a beer run as well.

I go into the store and I grab tin foil, a spatula, another can of bug spray, some aspirin, a pot, bottled water, more food and my boyfriend went to another store to get beer. When we get back to camp I get the food on the tin foil on the grill and I cook dinner. My boyfriend looks at me and smiles because now he is thinking “I knew this camping trip was a good idea. She likes camping. She knows so much about it.”

I am mumbling about how a nice hot bath and clean sheets would be perfect about now. I finally get the meal cooked and everyone had their fill. We stay up laughing and joking around the campfire. Then some fucking asshole decides it is time for ghost stories. NO! Stop that! Bad person! Very very bad person now you go into your tent and think about what you have done. Except I can’t say that because I am new in this relationship and I have to be sweet and agreeable.

“Hey, did you know that there was a mass murder around here about ten years back?” it started.

“NO, I heard that was just a myth. There wasn’t a murder. There was a happy birthday party and someone exaggerated the details a bit!” I say because I really don’t need to be creeped out on top of camping. Sleeping in the woods is enough they don’t have to be haunted to make the experience less desirable and more terrifying.

“No! There was a mass murder and the guy was never caught.”

“Oh I believe that he would have gotten caught, they have the best law enforcement around up here. They have to because of the isolation and shhhiit!” oh for the love of all things holy I just played into this fuckery, well then get on with it. Tell your fucking ghost story.

The story is told and now I am jumpy, mosquito bitten. I look at the bottle of bug spray to be certain that I am not spraying legit mosquito feed onto my precious skin. Everyone else seems fine and they have no bug spray on them. Where is that skin so soft when you need it? I mean for all the baths I have had in that shit I should have mosquito repellent as one of my super powers by now. I should be the super hero “Avon Girl” with the skin so soft greasy hair and mosquito repellent skin. But that is not how it goes for me. I bought some tea while I was at the store so I make a pot of hot water and ask if anyone else wants tea with me? They do not because of the beer.

Time for bed and when we crawl into our tent it is facing downhill and pitched on a gigantic jagged rock. My boyfriend has had some beers and is able to sleep. I am up all night because of the stupid ghost story and the scratching and also the fact that the blood is rushing to my head and did I even get the decaf tea. I put my head to the other end and eventually go to sleep. Next morning I wake up early and go to take a shower before my boyfriend wakes up and sees that I am not Beyoncé. I hike all the way to the ladies room and there they all are. All of the women that do not want their men to see what they actually look like. By the time I get into the shower there is only cold water. I take my ice shower and I realize that I don’t have shampoo, conditioner or soap. I holler out “Excuse me, does anyone have any shampoo and conditioner I can borrow?”

This nice lady hands over some Prell. If you don’t know Prell then let me explain it to you. It smells amazing. It has shampoo and conditioner in one. I use this stuff as a third wonder as well because it is also my soap. I get out of the shower and yup, no fucking towel. Another nice girl offers me hers. I towel off and put on my clothes from yesterday, which was my work clothes because I didn’t know that I was going camping. An older woman looks at me and offers me twenty bucks because she thinks I am a runaway. I don’t blame her, I have no makeup on and I look very young for my age. So to her I am around twelve-years old.

“Call your folks I am sure they are worried about you!” she tells me and gives me a hug. I don’t disagree because it seemed like sage advice. I take the hug because I could use the warmth after my ice shower.

I get back to the camp and it is hot and humid and my hair is going to grow. I have magically growing hair when it is humid. Remember the episode when Monica was in the Bahamas? Friends? You know I am old….just humor me. Well that is me. I find a piece of twine in my boyfriend’s murder mobile and I make a make shift pony tail.

Everyone starts to rise and I have the pot of hot water and instant coffee going. I hand styrofoam cups to everyone who wants it. Yes styrofoam cups…we didn’t know about global warming then. They all smile and say “Are you ready to go hiking?”

I look down at my heels….from work….and my dress slacks that are covered in soot and my pressed shirt that is filthy and I am like “I didn’t bring anything to hike in.”

My boyfriend smiles because he thinks he is smart. “Don’t worry I brought you these!”

He pulls out his mother’s sneakers as if women are one size fits all. I am about to tell him that they are not going to fit…when I remember that we are still pretending that we are perfect. I put on the gargantuan shoes *because my shoe size is 4 in women and actually a 2 in children. I am now clomping around in his mother’s size 7.5 shoes on a hike. I don’t have deodorant on and I am certain that I am the one who’s going to attract bears. I smell like an actual pig, that has bathed in Prell.

We stop off at a place to eat and I look at the menu. On there is Belgian Waffles with berries and whipped cream. I am all over that shit. I chose wrong and I now realize it because I look like a small child with no make up, my make shift pony tail and these shoes that are far too big for me. Why did I order the child breakfast? The waitress even put a smiley face on the plate. Clever. Very Clever waitress. She tells my boyfriend that it was really nice of him to take his “little sister” out for breakfast.

He doesn’t know what to say because its weird now. What is he supposed to say? Oh no I am dating the child? So he smiles. For the rest of the day we got “Does your little sister want anything?” “How is your little sister doing?” and “Do you kiss your little sister with that mouth?”

The camping trip finally came to an end. My boyfriend asked me on our drive back “So do you like camping?”

“No! I actually never want to do that again.” I admitted. He and I both laugh and decided that camping wasn’t for us.

My now husband and I take many adventures together but we have never camped again. My children have only heard tales of camping and they are pretty certain it’s not for them either. I feel bad for tainting them but camping for me is just one big mosquito buffet of Becki blood and sleeping on rocks. I know some people know what they are doing and that is great. I just don’t enjoy it.

Moral of my story: If you are going to go camping, make sure you are prepared. Also don’t surprise someone with a camping trip that is a horrible idea. Camping is something that should be planned, especially if all you have to wear is your work clothes and heels. If you do surprise a person with a camping trip give them an opportunity to pack a bag and tell them that they will be needing essentials like clothes, deodorant and a way to back out!

Until next time 🙂

Today, as I was showering, I was thinking “What a luxurious experience showering is now!” I had three kids and let me tell you that if anything is going to happen it is probably going to happen while you are in the shower. It starts out when they are babies.

As a young mom to a baby I would get the baby down for a nap and think “Oh great maybe I’ll take a shower now.” I know I am supposed to sleep when the baby is sleeping but a shower is necessary at this point. “what smells like baby puke, sweat and sadness?” *sniffs my shirt, “Oh for fuck’s sake it is me!”

I climb into the shower and I know that it is a race against the clock. So I start lathering everything up. I grab the razor I shave and I hear the baby winding up to cry. I am a new mom and I don’t actually know that babies cry without being stabbed, so I rush out of the shower. OOPS! I still have soap in my hair. What do I do? I do the only logical thing I can think of and grab the baby and jump back in the shower with her. Here’s the thing…is there anything more slippery than a wet human baby? I don’t think so. I am trying to rinse my hair, keep the soap out of my and my baby’s eyes. I am also holding the child in a death grip so that she doesn’t slip. Finishing shaving is not goint to happen but hey maybe I can start a nice trend. My underarm hair looks like ZZ Top and that’s going to have to be okay!

When the child is a little older, and they have never seen the movie “Psycho” clearly. I am in the shower thinking my toddler is asleep. I have my eyes close trying to rinse my hair when I hear the shower door open. My eyes spring open thinking I am going to see a horrifying sight and yes, there it is. Naked toddler believing that this is a shower for two. I get out of the shower and look at my work. Yup, one shaved leg and zero shaved armpits. I have options now. Which leg will my husband get tonight? Who am I kidding I am giving him the prickly one because I need my sleep and he can try rocking the baby at three in the morning for a change. Yes my leg hair is a weapon! Don’t judge me. He sometimes gets the smooth one. I am not all bad.

I now have more than one child. I am in the shower and believing in my mom skills for clearly, no apparent reason. I hear breathing and look out there is my three-year old naked and trying to get her baby brother’s clothes off. UMMMM? Excuse me. I am not trying to have a showering circus right now. I don’t need two slippery kids in my shower, but I also don’t know how to put an end to it. Why? Why do y’all want to shower with me? It’s bad enough that I shower with an entire tub full of toys because I am lazy and in a hurry. Now I have to share the already too small space with the kids that belong to those toys. But “Come on in”,  because I need to get clean.

Children are older and the last thing that want to do is shower with their mother. I am in the shower and this is when the children are desperate for answers. It always starts the same. “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

“In the shower!” I say to deter the conversation from happening.

Door opens anyway “Mom!”

“What?” I say through tears and frustration.

“whispers something incoherent so that I get super annoyed with them. is it too late to take birth control for this?”

“I didn’t hear you! What?”

“inaudible words to really piss me off and to catch me off-guard to agree to something i wouldn’t normally allow!”

I stick my head out of the shower and ask again “What? What do you want?”

“Never mind I will just wait until you are out of the shower.”

Really? Now you see that it is a bad time to talk?

Three kids later….”Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, MOM!”

Door is locked because I can.

The youngest is a clever little shit and gets the key and unlocks the door.

“Mom, they are downstairs and saying bad words.”

*I’m about to say some bad words.

Husband is home. It is mother’s day. I am in the showering “Mom, Mom,”

“Can I have a lollipop?”

“Where is your father?”

“I don’t know!”

“Go find him and ask him.”

A few minutes later “He said to ask you.”

“Yes, you can have a lollipop, but tell dad he can’t!”

Showering as a mother is such a funny experience. I don’t know what it is about being in the shower that makes us so desirable or needed. But we sure are.

Moral of my story: Human babies are the slipperiest things on the planet. Mothers need to shower too, but sometimes it doesn’t go as planned. You may share your shower with some slippery kids. You may have to shower in installments. You may have to settle disagreements with soap in your eyes. To be honest I think that alone qualifies us for any job on the planet. Can you settle petty disagreements about who is the fastest runner in their new sneakers with soap in your eyes? Yes! Welcome to the oval office Madam President. 🙂

Until next time.

It’s that time of year again, you know the pumpkins, the candy, the festivities and me shitting my pants anytime a horror movie commercial comes on tv. I absolutely hate this time of year. I do not like to be scared. No surprises, please! I am a big scaredy cat and have been since I was a small child.

My first ever horror movie was “The Wizard of Oz”. When that witch showed up on-screen I flew out of my seat and ran to sit with my mom and to cover my eyes with her hand. (spoiler alert….the witch shows up on a bike. This is before Oz and color and munchkin land) The bitchy neighbor lady shows up and threatens Toto and I am very distrustful of anyone who would willingly harm a dog. I mean I don’t know what Dorothy did to piss her off but you leave Toto out of it. Then the witch who was horrifying had flying fucking monkeys that could make me piss my pants even thinking about it. Those things were made in a laboratory of poor choices and bad science. Oh Goodness those flying monkeys would show up and swipe away anyone who wasn’t looking and I was certain that I was going to be next. Could you imagine one of those fuckers grabbing you and off you go to the green witch’s lair. Holy shit, Not for me! Nope, I’ll pass. I am going to do what ever that witch suggested. I am no hero!

Another Horror movie was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. NO it isn’t about how offensive everyone is to Rudolph, in fact I didn’t pick up on that until I became a mom. It was that fucking abominable Snowman. He terrified me. I would flee from my seat into my mother’s lap and cover my eyes with her hand. Then we find out that he just needed a good dentist or something and we are all….of course…rotting teeth hurt.

Another one was Rudolph with the baby new year with the big ears. That stupid buzzard haunted my dreams, Eon I think his name was and he wanted to snuff out the poor little baby with the enormous ears. I mean what demented person came up with these specials. “You know what gets everyone in the Christmas spirit?” Apparently it is a good soiling of ones pants from sheer terror. No Christmas is complete without it.

As I got older my brothers rented the Exorcist and even though I have never actually seen it, this is the movie that haunted my days and especially my nights up until I was an adult. Again I had nightmares from simple, regular movies or specials, do you remember the Great Gazoo from the Flintstones…I had nightmares of that little fucker dancing on my pillow. ET when Elliot made friends with him? I refused to eat Reese’s pieces after that, I didn’t want to risk aliens following me. Any ghost on Scooby-doo….I know it was Mr. Wickles, but fuck me why do you gotta go around scaring everybody like that, with your glow in the dark footprints and your special effects that look so real? Hell even those two old bastards that heckled the muppets scared me. My goodness can’t y’all just watch the show and be nice?

Yes the Exorcist was truly a movie that my pure heart could not take and there were the screams and that musical score that I will never ever be able to get out of my head. The pea soup that I accidentally saw because I ran to the bathroom and I couldn’t help myself but look at the screen. Oh God, I never in my life at pea soup because of that movie. I don’t even know what it tastes like, I don’t want to risk the satanic possession that comes with it. I’ll have the pea soup but hold the demons please, I am watching my weight!

Remember Fantasy Island that came on right after Love Boat. I always watched because of the hope that it wouldn’t be too scary and then afterward I would sing the Love Boat theme song to settle my nerves. I think it is in the bible that if you are singing of love no bad thing will ever happen to you. One particular episode fucked me up real bad, it involved a murderous dummy. I used to love dolls until that. After that episode I was all like Barbie you can no longer live here. You can sleep in the basement…and then I would lock the door for good measure.

My husband loves horror movies and I am pretty certain that if we went through some dating app it would be like “Nope not him, never him…she is too innocent for his horror loving ways.” But unfortunately we met at a keg party and welp there was no swipe left there. So he took me to see “Silence of the Lambs” for one of our first dates. I made him drive home with the lights on in his truck.

Horror movies have gotten substantially worse, or at least their trailers have. I haven’t actually seen any so I don’t really know. But things like “The Purge” and “It” I mean I know that “It” was a remake but seriously killer clowns….I’m assuming because I don’t really know…that is terrifying. And a night where killing people is allowed, no thank you, please! No I will not watch any of these movies, ever, probably!

I did watch “Sixth Sense” in installments and through my husband’s fingers because he has taken over hiding my face for my mother. I have gotten through Jurassic Park, also through his fingers. I even watched nightmare on Elm Street and let me tell you that I was not sleeping great after that. I am not a horror movie lover at all. This time of year all of the trailers come on and I am sitting at home all alone and I am all NOPE, NOPE, NOPE! Oddly enough I do like to watch those ghost hunting shows. Those sooth me because mostly they are like “Oh it’s the wind and this creeky door. The attic has birds!” or “There is a small boy trying to communicate on this piece of equipment!” then I turn it off and watch something super innocent like “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” for the dogs and cats of course. Poor little animals will get so scared from that show I was watching. LOL!

Moral of my story: I am a huge chicken and Halloween is not my favorite. I get through it every year and every year I am all, that wasn’t so bad. My friends go to the haunted Pennhurst Asylum and I honestly do not know how they get through it. I would die. Then I would probably not know that I died and accidentally haunt people. I don’t go for you! I would not want to accidentally haunt you! I’m nice like that.

This is a loaded question isn’t it? I mean there are several ways you can approach this question when your child asks you. When they are really little it is a small miracle that these little stubborn beings ask for help. A two and three year old is very confident in their abilities despite the many gallons of juice they have spilled on your table and floor they are still certain that “I can do!”

As a parent you can either fight with them. You can break their will or you can clean up the fucking juice off of the floor. I have been all three types of mom. It usually goes like this.

“Juice!” small child demands.

“You need some juice baby. I’ll get you some.” I walk over to the cupboard grab the sippy cup because the last thing I want to do is make more work for myself by having the open cup get knocked over. Sippy cups is to avoid spills that’s why we use them. I sniff the sippy cup, I think this is normal, right? Does this cup smell like ass? Did it get fully cleaned? I washed this by hand and took all of the mechanisms out and boiled them…. but if it smells like ass I will do it again. I take out the juice and now the very confident small child goes to grab the jug from my hands.

“I do it!”

“No! I will do it!”

“I dooooo it!” small child is so confident and clearly I am not because of the cup sniffing and all. Maybe the small child should do it.

“How about I help you?”

“IIIIII DDDDOOOOOOOOOO ITTTTT!”

oh for fucks sake stop whining. fine you do it.

I reluctantly hand over the juice bottle. It typically starts well until the juice line tilts and the bottle becomes top heavy and the entire bottle is dumping. I reach out and grab the jug and try my best to keep my composure. The small child slurps the juice off of the table and is completely pleased with their performance. That’s because they don’t have to clean it up. I tell them to run along so that I can clean it up and they always try to help….because they are very confident. Yes please smear the juice around that is very helpful.

“Go see what the dog is doing!” I say because I don’t really need nor want their help.

Now the child is in school  and it starts so innocent “Mom can you help me?”

I peer over and see that it is simple arithmetic and I’m like yes but once you hit calculus you are on your own because that fucking class made me her bitch. Calculus is female for obvious reasons.

“Okay first you add the two numbers to the right. and then you carry the one.”

“That’s not how my teacher showed us.”

I stand there looking at the kid and thinking the mathematicians have been carrying the one since they built the pyramids…. what do you mean this isn’t how the teacher showed you?

“This is how you add, child.” I go back to the problem.

“No. Mom you have to draw a lattice.”

“My math had more numbers and less drawing.” I say.

The child builds the lattice and plugs in numbers and does their eighteen steps to get the proper answer and I am trying to follow along. I get out my calculator to check the work and I am like what kind of string theorist came up with this long complicated arithmetic in the first fucking place.

I told my child “How many problems are you supposed to do tonight?” because if you keep this up we are going to finish in time for school tomorrow.

The child looks at me and says ten problems.

“I’m sorry!” I say and I walk away.

I call other parents and ask if their children are also doing art math and they said yes. I am all progressive and I believe the teachers are trying to teach the kids something so I go along with it. The school has a reason so I am all like, sure learn this way. I also bought my children math books at the grocery store that does straight up math with carry the one and I teach that in my home too. I mean what can it hurt.

“Can you come into a parent teacher conference?”

Oh this is what it’s going to hurt, me!

The teacher and I come to the agreement that as long as my child is using the math that I taught to check her math it was okay. Problem averted!

Another time when one of my children asked for help she was trying to get down from her horse and she calls out nervously, “Mom, can you help me?”

I look at my daughter and she was dangling from the side of the horse. She was caught and I have no idea how. I walk over and I see that the tiny little hole that was in her pants had gotten snagged on her stirrup and she is being held onto the poor pony.

I start laughing because its honestly hilarious to see her just dangling and completely unable to get down. The stupid pants are really caught and luckily the pony is standing there otherwise this would have been dangerous. I start laughing and because I am laughing, and because I have had three kids, I am standing crossing my legs so I don’t piss my pants. I am all jelly arms because I can either do things requiring strength or I can laugh but I obviously cannot do both. My oldest daughter looks at us and comes over with her original “stupid futtin mommy!” sentiment and she, whilst on her own pony, helps her sister down. She rolls her eyes at me and rides away like the teenager that she was.

Moral of my story: “Mom can you help me?” has been a learning experience for me as well. Sometimes the answer is “yes!” and I lack the ability. Sometimes I am there mostly for moral support. Sometimes it takes the entire family to get involved and that is the best of times. Whatever the situation I will always be there! I may not help in the original manner but I will help to what capacity I am capable of. FYI I would like to point out there have been times when I have been totally helpful but those stories are less entertaining and therefore have no reason to be shared. I wouldn’t want to bore you with my excellent helping abilities. Okay there are more stories that ended this way.

I am an empty nester now and I have a great many moments of quiet. I sometimes fill those quiet moments up with a great many memories. If you grew up in my house or perhaps you came over for a play date, or perhaps you were a frequent flier crashing on our couch and eating dinner here. You were all my children and I welcomed you in. If you came to our home and made it ours for a brief time or maybe longer you probably know that we didn’t have many quiet moments. We would have rap battles and dance contests and we would orate great stories. That was the home I wanted to create. The kind of home that welcomed creativity and no judgement.

The quiet moments when my children were little were very precious. Those wee hours of the night feeding my little ones. Looking down upon those pink little faces nursing until they had their fill. Yes, I was exhausted! Yes, I sometimes would begrudge having to get up! Yes, sometimes I felt like my soul was being leeched through my nipples. But something happens in those quiet moments that is so vulnerable and so precious. The world is quiet and it is just you and your child. You know that this bond will never break. These moments of being so dead tired and still dragging your ass out of bed to feed your child, you learn that there is very little you wouldn’t do for your children. You give yourself very little credit for being a mother, a woman, or even a human in those quiet little moments, but you are so much more than that. You are both a soft nurturer and you are a strong defender. You are putting in the hours that your child will not, most likely, remember nor will you ever remind them. Hell, half the time we forget ourselves. We are women and we do whatever is necessary.

Sometimes those quiet moments come when your child has been throwing a tantrum and you have finally lulled them to sleep. You are exhausted and you have fought a battle that was so bizarre. As your child fights sleep they often times fight you and you are not a warrior of the fight but a warrior of peace. You do your best to remain calm in the storm and you finally have sung the right song or you have rocked at the precise tempo. Whatever magic you have created to get this child to sleep, your wizarding ways will go greatly unnoticed. But for right in that moment you will know the exact right timing to stand up and put your child down. As you sit and look for the appropriate signs, you sit content and you cherish your little fighter. You will rock or pat or sing until it is no longer needed and you will finally get the rest that you deserve. You will work for their benefit until that time has come.

Sometimes those quiet moments come when your child is sick. They have a terrible cough, or an upset stomach and you have been there right along side of them. You know that you are being exposed to germs and sure maybe before you go to bed you will spray yourself down with lysol, but there you are that nurse out on the battlefield with your little one hoping and praying that they will get the rest that they require to fight for their health. Those quiet moments that you fill with prayer and ask God to give them health and help them to heal. The love and the powerlessness you feel in those quiet moments are so overwhelming and yet they are precious moments just the same. For these are the moments where we rise to the challenge and we know that we will do it again and again until we no longer can.

Sometimes those quiet moments come after a big fight that you have had with your stubborn child. Maybe you have said some things that you truly wished that you could take back, but that child has shut you out. You sit in those quiet moments with so much love to the point of bursting. You sit with regrets and with maybe some steam coming from your ears, but mostly it is love. You fill these quiet moments with plans of how to make things right with your child. You know that you owe them an apology and that perhaps they owe you one too. You know that you are the parent and the role model so you definitely should go first. You make yourself some nice humble pie with a side of crow and your quiet moments are spent choking down your pride. Once you have stuffed your pride down enough, you know that the silence will now be filled with forgiveness.

Sometimes those quiet moments come when your child went out on their first date and you are sitting with anticipation to hear, or maybe not hear, but definitely hope tha

they share with you how it went. You watch the clock and even when you try not to watch the clock you know that it is exactly 9:23pm on the nose. You know that even if they don’t share how it goes that you will be there if they need you. You sit on the sidelines as the best benchwarmer there is. In these quiet moments you know that whatever has happened on the date you will respect them. Oh now it is exactly 9:24pm.

Sometimes those quiet moments come when they have gone to college and you are worried about them being on their own. You know that you have great kids but some how you doubt that you have taught them enough to handle every situation. You think about them in their little pajama feet and their little pigtails and you know they aren’t that small anymore but they are your babies. In these quiet moments we spend our time convincing ourselves that we have to let them go. They are all grown. 

These quiet moments are far and few between but for a mother we spend many moments in the quiet. We fill that space with undying love and a fierce protection for our children. We sit in these moments and we know that whatever happens next we will do it for the love of our children.

Moral of my story: Live in those quiet moments. Love in those precious moments. Give yourself credit for accepting the challenge of those moments. You have been a great defender, a terrific giver of life, a wonderful friend, a fierce adversary and an amazing role model. Now that there are more quiet moments allow yourself a moment to really marvel at the terrific job you have done and then let them go. Good Job Mama!