This is the question that used to set me into a full on rage all the while sink me deep into a dark place that scarcely could perceive light. And yet my husband would come home and ask me this every single day until I stopped talking to him….The End!

No just kidding, I have low self-esteem so I suffered in silence, like some do. I never told him how it made me feel. I simply would go into fits of rage and balanced that with inconsolable crying. You know, like a grown adult!!!!

Some of the things I would do during the day I could no longer think about because he was coming home to a house that smelled of dirty diapers, grape jelly, baby powder, sour milk and failed dreams, there were clothes strewn about because some of the children would either be buck naked or wearing some inappropriate apparel, like underwear on their head and a towel as a cape. I would be sitting on the couch or the floor (depending on whether or not I have totally given up) and staring off into space. He would come home in a suit and tie (clearly over dressed for what I’ve got going on here) and the things I had done all day was completely undone by these tiny little humans that have invaded my home.

So to set the stage: In walks this handsome man with blonde curly hair, blues eyes, clean-cut and wearing a suit. The door swings open and there is a waft of warm air that hits him in the face and it smells like regret and disappointment. The kitchen is decorated with some breakfast cereal bowls with milk and Cheerios, a high chair smeared with strained peas and failed attempts at introducing new foods, there is a crust of a sandwich pressed against the rung of a chair that is glued with peanut butter and good old-fashioned gumption and a sink full of sudsy water with a sippy cup floating on top. The dog has run to greet his master and probably telling him to run. This handsome man has decided to venture further into the den of these wild beings and he has now reached the living room where he sees one child standing inches away from the television screen singing into her microphone that has had the batteries removed to save her mother from a complete mental breakdown. (batteries are expensive in the fact that it costs one mother’s soul and sanity to have a child’s loud toy going off every few seconds. “Mom, can you replace the batteries?” “I’m sorry dear, batteries are too expensive!”) This child is wearing no pants, no shirt, and yet has both a crown and pink sandals on. The second child is wearing a shirt and underwear his face has a brand new sharpie mustache compliments of his sister and he is yelling to his sister “Move I can’t see the tv. Mom, make her move!” The youngest child is laying on the floor completely dressed because she is too young to remove her clothes. Mother is sitting on the floor in front of the youngest child playing peekaboo. The living room looks like a toy store had vomited everywhere and the mother seems completely oblivious to this. She looks as if she hadn’t showered today, because “When? When would she find the time to shower? The mustache happened while she was in the bathroom.”  She looks up at her husband happy to see him and hopeful to have a conversation about anything else besides “fill in latest children’s show here!” That’s when she sees the look of horror on his face and there it is the question that breaks her spirit and undoes any self-esteem she may have built up during the day…….”Hi, Honey, What have you done all day?”

Oh besides having my soul leached from my nipples, and also breaking up the many fights over who is faster, and cleaning, the never-ending cleaning because those breakfast dishes are from third breakfast today, and the opening of the juice but not pouring it because “I can do it myself!”, and cleaning the entire bottle of juice off the floor because they definitely cannot do it themselves, and changing nine thousand diapers, and coloring, and giving baths, and taking them outside so that they can all cry about having to be outside until it is time to go inside to take naps in which case they cry because they don’t want to go inside, and the many hours it takes to convince three children to take naps, and they do…..but at separate times in those many hours, and the sink full of dishes that you washed while the baby was sleeping but she woke up when her brother was yelling at his sister for standing in front of the tv, and the washing of the bite marks that was the result of the standing in front of her brother when he was watching tv, and the moral teaching of why you should never bite your sister ever, and the lunch that you made and inevitably no one wants that, so the other two lunches you made, and the introduction of peas to the infant (its funny how little those jars seem when you buy them and yet when they are spitting them at you it looks like the exorcist movie) and reading, the reading of books, reading and reading and reading, and the one moment when you were in the bathroom and every thing got eerily quiet and you came out to a tiny little sponge salesman wearing his underwear and one of his father’s ties and has a nice villain mustache which makes you both laugh and cry at the same time and the bath that he gets now to try to remove the mustache and cleaning up the sponges that your son took out to become a salesman and also cleaning up the contents of dad’s old briefcase that he used to be “said sponge salesman” and the talking to your oldest daughter about never writing on her brother ever and losing that “talk” because her uncle has a tattoo and I have simply given up and the watching and encouraging the baby to play on her stomach (which she hates because she can’t see her clowns that entertain her all day long, her older siblings) and the telling the children to stop shouting, inside voices, inside voices, inside voices, inside voices, inside voices, inside voices, inside voices, and taking them out to check the mail twenty times today because getting the mail has always fascinated my children (I don’t blame them it is a connection with the outside world) and now we are sitting and partially watching this sing along that is mostly being watched the oldest one because she is the one who turned it on and therefore the one who gets to stand in front of the tv and ruin the viewing pleasure for anyone else in the room.

I don’t think to defend myself and say all of this because this may have been my day but that isn’t what he’s asking me, what he is asking me is “What have you done today that was a success?” Or at least that is what I am hearing. I look around at the last stage of giving up that is usually what he comes home to and I realize that he sees my defeat. He thinks I do nothing all day. At least he thinks I do nothing productive all day. Or maybe he doesn’t think that at all, but I THINK he thinks that. I look at this adult man wearing his clean and pressed clothes and look down at my……OH MY FUCKING GOD AM I STILL IN MY PAJAMAS? I went outside several times today….in my pajamas, luckily I sleep in my bra because my breasts leak otherwise (my husband woke up to a nice milk shower one morning and I’ve slept wearing a bra ever since and that was six years ago.) Yes! I see it and I feel like a failure. I think back and I’m like “What have I done all day?” I don’t even know. So I look at him and shrug.

“You didn’t do anything at all?” he asks and he looks disappointed in me.

“I did stuff!” I say

That’s when his son looks at him and says “Hi daddy!” with his purple villain mustache

“What is all over your face, buddy?” my husband asks.

“I am a salesman!” he says.

“From the vaudeville days?” he asks, “My God Becki, what have you done all day? How could you let this happen?”

I look at him and I can’t speak because of the lump in my throat!!! I’m both angry and sad and I start to cry because I am so sad-angry. I put my arms up and I say loudly because when you have a lump in your throat you have no control of the volume and I say “I survived! And you know what, I will do it again tomorrow too!” I go to storm off because what I really want to do is to take a nap because I didn’t get one….but he stops me which makes me sob even harder.

My husband hugs me and he smiles and he says “I am not trying to make you feel bad!” (he should have stopped here) “I just feel like you could do better at organizing your time!”

Moral of my story: Mothers wake up with certain things they want to accomplish and some of those things actually get accomplished and undone all in one day. We put in a full day of work and typically have nothing to show for it but smiles on faces and maybe a mustache or two depending on how the day goes. If you come home to a mother (or father) that has been home all day with children and the house looks like a small insane asylum, just know that it will look like this for a while and that’s okay. My children were happy, healthy, loved and well cared for. That was the measurement that should have been taken, not how many cookies my husband found smooshed into his briefcase…fig newtons are great for smooshing and not really any child’s favorite cookie. I stopped buying them because they also got smooshed into the computer cd drive and the vcr. (you’re old) Be kind to stay at home parents they work hard and they do it for free…I mean who even does that…I have no retirement plan! I’m sad, I got to go lie down!

If you have gone to Vegas you will totally understand this segment of my blog. If you have not, this blog is about my experiences at Vegas and what that encumbered. If you have never been to Vegas I recommend that you go at least once in your life, it is like no other place I have ever been.

I have been to Vegas many times. As many of you already, know I travel with my husband for work from time to time. I have been with him to Vegas many times because:                       a) there is always a conference here at the time of our anniversary and he has little option but to bring me along (it was in the vows, I take thee to be my lawful wedded wife to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health but most of all in Vegas if I have to travel for work on this exact day for many years to come, til death do us part, probably in Vegas because that place was built on poor choices and high cholesterol.)

b) because some people think that if there should be business done it should happen in Vegas. I mean after all who doesn’t want to seal the deal with a topless stripper on their lap while winning the jackpot on the slot machine whilst all liquored up on free cocktails? *Unless the wife is there in which case it is a simple handshake to signify the bond of the deal.

So those are the reasons that I find myself in Vegas a lot. I sit in the room or at the pool or shopping while my husband goes to work. First of all if you go into the shoppes after a certain age the skin cream stores will beckon you from afar to take their sample. DO NOT EVER ENGAGE THESE PEOPLE UNLESS YOU WANT THE FOLLOWING TO HAPPEN.

“Ma’am, Miss, Miss, Ma’am!” the cute young woman bellows out to me.

I, being me, am all about eye contact and engaging with others. “Yes! I am Ma’am! How can I help you?”

“Free sample?” she hands over this tiny bag to me.

“Ooooh free! Yes, I like that price!” I reach to grab the bag and before I know it she has grabbed my hand and dragged me into her shoppe while saying the following.

“You are so beautiful! People must tell you this all of the time, Yes?” she smiles and looks at my clothes. “Such a beautiful top, did you buy that here in Vegas?”

I find myself bedazzled by the pleasantries and compliments. “Well, thank you! Yes, some people have called me beautiful. No, I bought this back home.” I look down at my shirt because I don’t know what top I even threw on to get out of the room so that housekeeping can clean it.

“Oh, where is home?” she asks and now there is a young beautiful man who comes over to talk with me too.

“I’m from Pennsylvania.” the girl slips out and the man continues the conversation flawlessly.

How did I get in this chair? I wonder.

“I am going to put some of this eye cream on your eyes. Do You mind?” He asks as he is cleaning my face with a wet wipe.

“I guess not!” I say and now I realize that I am no longer in control of the situation.

“This eye cream is amazing. You are a beautiful woman but you don’t want these eye bags to show your real age do you?”

“What? No! I don’t want that!” I say a little embarrassed. Why did I bring my eye bags with me out on this shopping trip? I should have left those bastards at home.

“I didn’t think so. You take such good care of yourself and these eye bags are hard to get rid of after you turn forty, am I right?” Who told him I was forty? What has happened to me?

“I guess.” I look around and think the tone has changed slightly.

As I sit getting my eye bags removed, on one eye only because that’s how they get you. I sit there feeling less beautiful than I did when the young girl called out to me and paid me many compliments. Now the eye cream is ready to be revealed and he shows me the two eyes that I have on my face. One looks like a new baby eye and the other belongs to the woman who made Snow White eat the apple. Holy Shit I do have eye bags and they are the ones with the many compartments in them.

“See this?” he says and points. “This eye is beautiful and young! Yes?”

“Yes, I like that!”

“And this eye makes you look like a sea hag! That’s what you will look like without this eye cream!” He says.

“How much for this clearly needed eye cream?” I ask feeling like I have to at least try.

“For you I will give you a deal.” He smiles, because I can see how beautiful you could be with this new product. “I will sell it to you for two hundred dollars for the large bottle.”

“How much for the small bottle?”

“You, my dear, are going to need the large bottle I am afraid.”

This is every skin cream store in Vegas. I never buy it because some where along the way I am onto them that this is a scam. Most times I am pleased that I said no. One time I think it was just Elmer’s glue they slathered on me. It glued my eye into place, but it had this weird film when I looked at my eye in broad daylight. That’s another thing the lighting in Vegas is dim and shady much like the people selling this eye cream.

At night my husband and I find things to do. As we are walking around the strip there are these people with what my husband refers to as “Clickity Clack Cards”. What are clickity clack cards? They are cards for hookers and the people handing them out make this sound by snapping them. My very first trip to Vegas I was being handed these Clickity Clack Cards left and right. I was just taking them because I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing plus I didn’t want to seem rude. My husband started with “Don’t take those Becki!”

I look at him with my doe eyes and ask “Why not?”

“Becki, stop making eye contact with these people.” He says, “Just put your head down and walk away. Don’t talk to them.”

“But I like people!” I say as my card deck is getting substantially bigger.

“Becki just put your head down and walk on by them!”

I look at my trading card deck and think ‘but now I have to get the whole deck. I’ve got busty lusty ladies, the little titty kitties, the horny asians, the black beauties, the blondes looking for more fun, and chicks with dicks….now all I need is the back door honeys and the GILFs to make my set complete.’

My husband knocks the cards out of my hands and he saids rather rudely to the clickity clack man “No Thank You!!!!” And he puts his hands up over my hands and he brushes the card away, like some sort of porn preventing superhero. He then grabs me by my hand and says “You can’t take those cards, you just have to keep walking and don’t even stop to talk to them.”

I smile and as we walk by the next clickity clack card dispenser I take one and say “Thank you!” because I was raised to be polite.

My husband laughs and says “What am I going to do with you?”

“Well this card has some suggestions!” I say and I laugh and laugh and laugh because I think I am funny.

The last story I am going to tell you happened a few years ago and it was the funniest thing I have seen, to date, in Vegas. We were coming back to our hotel from dinner and you have to show your key card to security in order to even get to the hotel elevators. There standing in front of us is a pack of hookers. Is a group of hookers a pack? A gaggle of hookers? A school of hookers? A hoard of hookers? A hoard of hookers sounds right. We’ll go with that.

There was a hoard of hookers that were standing at the security desk and they were giving the security guy a hard time.

“You cannot get upstairs without a key.” the security guy announces to them.

“We are here to see a friend of ours!” the lead hooker announces. ‘in my mind I have named her Pinky Tuscadero, because of course I did, duh!’

“No ma’am you are not, unless you have a key.”

My husband is standing behind me trying to nudge me forward, but come on who doesn’t want to see how this plays out? So I am standing there with my pure heart and my wide eyes and I am waiting to see if ‘Pinky Tuscadero and the Pink ladies’ ever get up to see their friend. When out of the elevators comes the chaotic mess of a man dressed in nothing but a towel yelling rather frantically “THEY’RE WITH ME! THEY’RE WITH ME! I HAVE A KEY! THEY’RE WITH ME AND I HAVE A KEY!” He’s shiny from sweat or lube or something and he is breathless! I now am intrigued because the plot has thickened. But there is more security encroaching on the suspect and his band of beauties.

It is at this moment when my husband starts pushing me past security while my Vegas virgin eyes are transfixed on the melodrama happening before them. My eyes were like those haunted mansion pictures that follow you, but my eyes were following the smut brother trying to get his hired friends up to his bungalow for a little game of charades or something!

“Becki, don’t make eye contact!” He is hissing in my ear.

I don’t know what my husband thinks happens when you make eye contact. But I have yet to catch a STD from making eye contact with anyone. But there I am making so much eye contact that if there was ever a time to catch a disease from it, this was it.

I get up to our room and I sit down and look at my husband and I laugh so loud and long. That has been the funniest thing I have ever seen in Vegas. I have always felt very blessed to have been there at that particular moment in time. I don’t actually think God was in on that, but if he was it is because he knows I enjoy a good story to tell to all of my friends.

Moral of my story: If you go to Vegas don’t make eye contact unless you want to buy a two hundred bottle of Elmer’s glue, have a large deck of clickity clack cards and witness the most hilarious, and yes a little bit sad, moment in a man’s life where he hired the best time of his life only to be stopped by security!

Until next time:)

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Being a parent, and I can only speak for myself but especially a mother, is like Groundhog’s Day. (the movie not the holiday)

Well, while we are on the subject, it’s also like the holiday because when you see that little face poke out from its slumber and you see a shadow, you fucking know “winter’s coming so  buckle up buttercup because it is not going to be a smooth ride!”

But definitely it’s like the movie in the sense that ever day blends together and they are all the same.

First is waking your children up for school and you know that someone inevitably is going to be crying. Reasons for crying: they don’t like breakfast, or they can’t find their favorite shirt (that you have hidden because you are trying to encourage them to wear something else because of that one perfect judgie mom asked you if your washer broke. No, Judge Judy my child just wears that shirt every day because I have no spine, not because I am lazy!!!!) or because they forgot to do their book report assigned to them two fucking months ago, or because they are afraid of something that they saw on the news (and by news I mean history channel, and by something I mean Pompeii) or because the corner of their pop tart broke and they know you did it on purpose. (yes its my evil plan to put myself into an institution so that I can finally get a full night’s sleep)

Once you solve these problems or ignore accusations, you are on to the next thing. This typically involves a thermometer because someone is going to fake sick. It will most likely be the one who still has forty chapters to read of that assigned book report.

Then comes the bartering (HOLY SHIT this sounds like the five stages of grief but its the five stages of getting your fucking kids to school: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. does this sound like your day? I’m onto something) and you say something to the effect of  “Well if you don’t go to school today then you can’t do this fun activity that you have planned for today after school. I mean if you are sick you can’t exactly go to little Toni’s party right?”

Then you finally break your kids’ spirits enough to get them into the car. The ride to school is in silence (because the next stage is depression) except for the toddler whining “That’s mine!!!” (what’s theirs? Who the hell knows, I don’t speak Bapanese!)

You drop everyone off and they get out with slumped shoulders and barely a goodbye (final stage is acceptance) and you drive home with your own personal seagull from the “Finding Nemo” movie. “MINE! MINE! MINE!” As you are driving home you are telling yourself “Today is the day that I finally get that play-doh out of the carpet!” (you never will. You should stop telling you that! That gullible bitch believes every single word you say to her!) You get home and you decide to sit down with your toddler to build puzzles. Ever try to build puzzles with a toddler? It’s the worst torture in the world. How I have never yelled “For Fucks sake that s Elmo’s God damned nose stop trying to shove it up Cookie Monster’s ass it doesn’t go there!” I don’t know.

Then if you have a toddler, more likely you are potty training. I can sum up potty training with a little math, it’s a word problem (If you bring your child to the potty for 2,498 times how many times will they piss their pants? The answer is 5,010.) People asked me “How did you get your child to potty train?” My answer was a shrug and “Is the answer they ran out of clothes?”

You then make your toddler a healthy lunch that you fight over for about an hour and a half before you give them M&Ms and you eat the healthy lunch on the separated plate you have to serve them with because there is no OCD like a fucking child who has their carrots touching their chicken. Finally you have had enough of them and it is time for a nap. I mean, they are tired. The child needs a nap, it’s all about their growth and toddlers need to nap because they….who am I kidding, I need this kid to nap. I need a break and also that fucking play-doh mocks me every time I walk by it. It sounds like a 1930s mobster and it is such a prick. You finally rock and sing and pretend to sleep enough that you finally get the child to sleep ten minutes before you have to leave to go and pick up the others from school. So you need to carry your mammoth baby into the school and sign your name with the challenge of not dropping your seven hundred pound baby on the hard school floor, all the while also not being able to see over their drooling face.

You wait on the bench next to that poor old lady with the beehive hairdo that frightens your little toddler every time she wakes up. This lady is super nice but she is old and she has like ten strands of hair that she has perfectly crafted into a beehive atop her head. She has the most precious eyes and she truly is a wonderful human being but her looks for some reason terrifies my toddler. I always try not to sit next to her but all the other moms have their own sleeping children that probably also are afraid and so now it has become my spot. So I go sit next to this dear woman who is the most gentle spoken lady and I begin to pray that the toddler doesn’t wake up. If she wakes up she is going to look at this woman and freak out. The  kids all begin to come out one at a time and when they call your name you can only hope that it is the right child they are sending you home with.

Once you collect your children and take your poor petrified toddler out of the building you can now go home for snack and homework. My children have to do homework straight after school because they have their sports and activities to get to.

“How was school?” I ask. then I have a follow-up question that I read in a parenting magazine that I found helpful. “What was your favorite part of your day?”

Their answer to the first question was always “Good!” But that second question got answers like the following.

“There was graffiti all over our playground today and the teachers didn’t know it so they sent us out there. Mom I could read all of the words! Do you want me to tell you what they said?”

“No! Please don’t!”

“I could read them and I told the teacher that I knew every single one of them!”

(that insane asylum is looking better and better!)

“S-E-X! Do you know what that spells?”

“That’s enough!”

“They wrote mothereffer! Remember when the dog ate your shoes and you shouted YOU MOTHEREFFER?”

“How about you? What was your favorite part of your day?” I try to change the subject quickly!

“I remember that day. Mom was all like SON OF A B-WORD!” the other one is also refusing to get off of the curse word subject.

“Can we change the subject?”

“mothereffer!” the toddler says.

Perfect…… this is good! I am a great parent. I know at some point I am going to be inaugurated into the worst mothers hall of fame. If I do I promise to blog about it!

Now I have to distract them before I bring them to horseback lessons and they tell everyone about how I yelled out “Motherfucking asshole dog!” I remember that day as well and let me tell you that dog deserved it.

I would do what I called the loop around town. I would have to plan the trip just so…I would first drop off the horseback rider to her lessons and then to the football field and my youngest took dance. Then I would have to loop back to the football field because those coach dads would just leave even if your child was still there alone. Then last at the horse barn and then home. Finding dinner was always fun. One time I ordered pizza and then gave the kids baths and when I noticed that it had been hours I called them back. They were confused and didn’t know what happened. I canceled the order and gave them bagel bites. I get them to brush their teeth and all settled down and the fucking Pizza guy is knocking on my door.

Of course!

My kids then had to eat pizza. One was crying saying “But it’s not fair….you get pizza!” I mean yes, but I don’t actually want pizza. So nobody wins. So as they are eating their late night pizza I am crying because I know that I am not going to get any time to myself. I finally get the kids all tucked in. I go downstairs to lock up the house and I hear “Play-doh Capone’s” voice mocking me saying shit like “You’ll never get rid of me! Do ya hear me? I am going to outlive you!” I did eventually rip that carpet up and put hardwood floors in. So long Play-doh you filthy son of a bitch!!!!

As I lie in bed trying to get some sleep I know that tomorrow it will all happen again. My day starts with the five stages of getting my children to school. I am in the Groundhog’s Day of Parenting!

Moral of my story: Sometimes parenting is filled with monotony and it can really get to you. Now that my children are on their own and I have more freedom, I miss those days! I miss the little moments that I got to have with my children and I cherish the moments that I got to have with my children. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Oh and play-doh doesn’t come out of the carpet easily! And puzzle building with toddlers is what hell is going to be like.

Until next time 🙂

I recently did a term paper on the benefits of meditation on the brain. Meditating has been shown to help with the deteriorating aging affects on the brain. The practice of mindfulness not only helps your brain but it helps your spirit as well. Like becoming a more understanding and accepting person. Upon learning this I was like “Oh yeah, I am going to need this!” As a mother I am super worried about my brain and my mood. Here is why:

1) Pregnancy brain times three! All women who have been pregnant know what pregnancy brain is. I once put an entire bag of groceries in the pantry and when I eventually found the milk I was like “Fuck me! How long has this been sitting there?” Pregnancy brain means that you are so preoccupied with growing a human that you totally don’t know how to “human” yourself.

2) Mother brain times three! As a mother we have to remember so many things like doctor’s appointments and flute lessons and swim lessons and play dates and school functions and school plays and homework and dance lessons and football practice and horseback riding lessons and horse shows and all the equipment that go with these activities and bedtime and sleepovers and brushing teeth and grocery shopping and feeding the children and Birthdays and so on and so forth. While we are remembering all of these important things we forget where we put our things. My life for the last twenty-five years has been “Has anyone seen my glasses? Do you know where my phone is? Did I leave my purse in the doctor’s office again? God dammit!”

3) Children and Husband don’t know where anything in our house lives! When my husband would help put the dishes away… the next time I was trying to cook it was like the worst scavenger hunt in my life. The kids and I made a game out of it called “Where do you think Dad thinks the spaghetti strainer lives?” It still makes us laugh because he still does it. The children mostly move things from one flat surface to another. So lets say I ask them to pick up the table then all things get transferred to the desk. If I ask them to pick up the desk all things go to the counter. If I ask to them to pick up the counter all things go to the coffee table. And the coffee table is where it goes to die.

4) Children move my things! I don’t know if they do this on purpose or if it is just a fascination of my things. “Have you been playing with mom’s shoes?” “Were you in my make-up? Because I don’t think I smeared it all over the wall.” “Why are my good scissors in the bathtub……AGAIN?” Kids make us fucking crazy and we yet we love them anyway. I also have a bag of Christmas candy that I hid and I still to this day have not been able to find it. My kids deny ever taking it. So either there is a vintage bag of holiday goodies hidden deep in the recesses of my home or those little bastards ate it.

So yeah, I’m pretty worried about my brain health!

So I am all like, “I’m going to meditate.” Meditating for me now is easier than if I had small children mind you. I don’t know how a mother with small children could ever accomplish this without getting a hotel room all to themselves for like twenty minutes. Maybe that’s why motels are rented by the hour….its for meditating moms.

So I got an app for meditating. It starts out with the most pleasant woman’s voice that tells me to find a comfortable seat where I can sit upright with my back straight. (you see, I have scoliosis and this is a bit of oxymoron for me, first of all my back doesn’t straighten and second it is not comfortable.) but who am I to argue so I start sitting on the floor in a cross-legged position because if you have ever seen a cartoon of a person meditating they are sitting in a cross-legged position on the floor. This is only where I start because I shift the entire time and eventually end up laying down on my back and trying desperately to be peaceful.

I also had a cat rubbing up against me the entire time because he was all like “are you sitting with your eyes close, you must want me to stick my furry ass in your face?”

(come on peace, you can do it.)

Next the friendly disembodied voice tells me to close my eyes when I am ready. (Oh, my eyes were already closed.) So I open my eyes back up and close them again because I don’t want to upset my meditation coach she is delightful.

Then she says “Today I am going to teach you how to meditate. I want you to relax your face!”

(okay)

“Unclench your jaw!”

(how did you know that I was clenching my jaw?)

“soften your eyes!”

(got it)

“stop frowning!”

(oh she’s good)

“relax your thoughts by focusing on your breath!”

(think about my breath! okay I’m trying to think about my breath! Oh I think we need bread. When I run out today I should stop by the grocery store and get bread. The grocery store is right next to the dog food store so I will pop in there and grab some……)

“Now if you feel your mind wandering just gently remind it to come back to the breath!”

(the breath. breathing in and out. breathing in and out. breathing in and out. I have to go to the dry cleaners because I have nothing to wear for dinner tonight. If I go to the dry cleaners then I should probably go to the other grocery store because it is on the way. In that case I need to reroute my entire trip because the dog food store is not near that grocery store. I could go to the grain store.)

“Now keep focusing on the breath.”

(the breath, focus on the breath.)

“Now that you have gotten the hang of it I want to talk to you about the word *&^%”

(what’s the word you are talking about? I didn’t hear you properly. Shit….can I open my eyes to see if there is a rewind button. Is the word important to my meditation. Can I just carry on without knowing the word. Damn it focus on the breathing. That’s the most important thing. Okay. Focusing on the breathing. In and out. in and out.)

“And that’s why this word is so important because we must learn how to do this every day. It will help you stay mindful all day!”

(Oh no! I don’t know the word. It’s the entire basis of this whole meditation stuff. CRAP!!!!! Now I am going to miss out.)

Can I open my eyes now and rewind?

“Bring yourself back to the room by wiggling your fingers and toes and when you are ready open your eyes.”

(My eye spring open and I grab my phone and check for some kind of rewind button. The problem is that there isn’t one, however,I can redo the same session tomorrow if I want.. I just have to push the right button.)

“Delete this app?”

No I definitely want the app.

“Are you sure you want to delete this app?”

No. I want a repeat. I just want to know the word that I missed.

“App deleted”

Fuck! My poor brain is not going to make it. Also I know that there was a list of things I wanted to do. What were they? I’m pretty certain a coffee was on the list. I am going to go get a coffee and then head to the……? Well once I get coffee in me I will remember.

Moral of my story: Meditation is super awesome for your brain and there are studies that if you combine mindfulness with yoga it can help fight against some aging deterioration of the brain. Also there is a word that is the secret to the entire thing and I missed it because my practice was more of “Oh here’s a few minutes for me to collect my thoughts in one gigantic over-active basket and totally miss out on the whole meditation quiet mind experience. If I could quiet my mind a bit I might actually discover the secrets of the universe.” Nope! My mind is not quiet. My mind has been working on overdrive for so long that it now has one speed. There is a study that women suffer more from Alzheimer’s disease than men…..I am going to say it is the fact that we have to remember so much that after a while our brains are like iPhones (storage is full, empty contents and try again)! Clinically speaking that’s actually not true, but I’m not speaking clinically right now, I am telling you that as a mom raising kids has been hard on my brain. I don’t blame them it’s just a fact. So I will try meditation again. I have re-downloaded the app and I am going to try again tomorrow. I will let you know the word once I find it. If you know the word please leave it in the comments below.

Until next time 🙂

When I heard that “Dad Bod” was a thing that women desired in their men, I was like “What kind of fuckery is this?” because I am resentful like that. Other steaming thoughts followed like “I’m sorry did you wreck your body by housing a tiny human for nine months and had it vacate through your vagina….or in my case surgical removal from an infant size hole in your abdomen that both ruined any aesthetically pleasing visual effects and any chance of having control of all muscles in your abdomen for a year?” Like what the hell is causing this “Dad bod” anyway?

Sure Dad’s work hard and some even stay at home with the kids and whatever….but Dad bod isn’t a thing. It has no real effects on your actual body. You may have carried some sympathy weight. You may have given up on working out and eating healthy. Some of these “Dad bod” guys don’t even have children, just to let you know how easy it is to achieve “Dad bod”.

Mom bod has got to start catching on. Women should be celebrated for bringing these little humans into the world. Women deal with the original conundrum when they are first pregnant. “I hope people know that I am pregnant and not just gaining weight.” menopausal women feel the same way…..”I hope they think I’m just pregnant and not just eating my feelings!” (because a woman gaining weight is the ultimate evil….right? WRONG!!!!! All women should feel proud of themselves.)

“I hope that I can start to wear maternity clothes so people understand that this extra forty pounds is actually from my superhuman powers of creating life!”

Then you go to the maternity clothes store and you think “First of all why are they so expensive? I am only wearing these fuckers for a few months?” (little do you know that you will be wearing these hideous garments long after the baby is born because they are super comfortable and make you feel thin)

Also you think “who is designing these ugly creations? I mean I’m pregnant not going to have tea with the Queen. Why are there so many bows and flowers and let me preface this, no woman should be both pregnant and wearing stripes, ever. Unless she is the hamburgular’s wife.” (times have changed so I hear that maternity wear has stepped up it’s game and made things better. I was pregnant in the 90’s I had one outfit that made me look like I joined the navy! I had another sweat suit outfit that I wore all the way until my delivery and it was too tight that day…. A sweat suit made for maternity purposes should never get too tight….just to let you know…make that shit out of balloon material or whatever, but no woman should have this insecurity put on her ever. My husband still laughs about it. Yes he’s still alive, but he is hanging by a thread.)

Once you start to really show and you are clearly pregnant, which is what you were hoping for because of the maternity wear which you have found out is both too expensive and also unsightly, but now you can’t put your shoes on comfortably. Or even see your feet. Or get up from a seated position. Or sleep. Or walk. And even though this is what you wanted, it is so uncomfortable you sort of wished you could go back to people thinking you were just eating too much ice cream. I also was the type of woman who swelled everywhere. “I know you are having a baby but are your face and feet also pregnant or….?”

I had preeclampsia and so then I was put on bed rest. You know what is really great for your physique? Bed rest while pregnant with unhealthy cravings like “nachos” and my cravings were super specific I wanted nachos but they had to be from a certain restaurant. My first pregnancy was brought to you by “Uno’s.” My second pregnancy was brought to you by “Raw vegetables”. My third was brought to you by “Ben and Jerry’s” I’m sure all of these places were like “Wow what happened?” when I finally had the child and could no longer look at the foods I once craved. I’m sorry your earnings went down. But royalties would be super great if you are up to it.

Morning sickness is another great invention of pregnancy. Guys have no idea. They think its like being hung over. It’s not, it really isn’t. It’s more like having a carnivorous monster inside of you that wants to eat right now and that window is closing ever so quickly….”FEED ME NOW OR YOU WILL…..TOOO LATE!” now you won’t be able to keep anything down for four to nine months and you only have yourself to blame…but definitely blame the father!

Oh and the heightened sense of smell is great. “Oh did you get a new deodorant? Because its odor makes me want to vomit.” Cake made me nauseous with all three pregnancies. Fucking cake. If I smelled that sickeningly sweet vanilla frosting I had to leave. Cake! What did cake ever do to you, you tiny little tyrant?

If you rub cocoa butter and vitamin E oil on your body until you are slippery and actually fall out of bed on several occasions…pregnant and turtled on your back…you won’t get stretch marks….maybe! I greased myself up so well that I should have been guaranteed to not have one stretch mark. I have stretch marks on my calves!!!!!!!!!! I have them on my stomach, hips, thighs and my motherfucking calves! Are you kidding me? Really? Good thing board shorts and those swim costumes from the 1800s are in fashion.

My belly button used to be so cute and sexy. Now it looks like a lazy eye! You don’t know who it’s looking at. It’s sort of winking but in more of a ‘I’m having a stroke’ sort of way. The extra skin becomes a flap over your pubic area that you have to lift to wash AND tuck into your underwear and bathing suit to look like an actual human being.

The boobs that grew and shrunk and filled with milk and leaked whenever someone cried……they ain’t great!!!! I mean after a while all you do with them is bring them to their own special doctor to have them squished and prodded and checked for cancer. I mean we can’t keep abusing them like this and expect them to look good. When I jump I sound like I am clapping. Giving myself a round of applause for having the energy to actually jump, I suppose.

The tireless nights nursing and singing and reading and changing diapers and getting vomited on. Sure maybe the dad joins in once in a while. I am not trying to be hard on Dads I’m really not. But here is the thing….a dad feeds his child lunch and he gets admiring looks and applause…even if it was fruit loops served with non-fat dairy creamer and at 4:00pm. A woman gives her child lunch and we get “You’re suppose to Deborah, that’s your fucking job!” And God forbid it be lacking nutrition. “Did you just give your child a hotdog for lunch? WITH CHIPS?” You see Dads only have to show up to be considered a good father. They can gain weight, even if they don’t actually have children, and they say “Oh look at that handsome devil over there with the Dad bod! He is amazingly sexy. Just look at how good he is with his kids. It’s not his fault that one over there is drowning! Where is the mother? Is she sleeping while her child is drowning? Shameful lazy mother!”

Meanwhile we Moms go to the beach schlepping the diaper bag, the sand castle kits, the blankets, sunscreen, sandwiches, snacks (healthy of course), juice, water, the tent, and a million other things that we may need while we are there.  We change into our modest bathing suit tucking the skin flap in, making sure the boobs are snug, and can we get away with wearing tights at the beach? We usually can do some sort of control top Spanx situation but it’s the beach so it’s mostly you and your stretch marks hanging out there for the world to see. We get into our bathing suits knowing that there will be whispers. “Look at her stomach. Is her lazy eye of a belly button winking at me, no thank you ma’am! And why is she so sad and tired all of the time!”

You see maybe we can give some congratulations to these women too. Tell them how sexy they are because they are givers of life. Tell them that they look great! and leave it there, don’t preface it with “for having a baby” or “for your age” or even “for having stretch marks all the way down to your calves”!!!! Let’s celebrate these super heroes that get up in the middle of the night and pee for the thousandth time because someone used her bladder as a trampoline for nine months. Let’s make “mom bod” a really desirable thing. We owe it to ourselves! We did great things with this poor little body. We grew life and brought forth a miracle. Also seriously, why didn’t women want to wear those bathing costumes from the 1800s? They look super comfortable. I guess it may have been the fear of drowning! I mean they do not look easy to swim in. But I would take threat of drowning over disgusted glances any day. “I’m sorry my flap flop out while I was comatose on the beach…I’m exhausted and I normally wear spanx to hold that in. Oh shit, My child is drowning!”

Moral of my story: Let’s start giving women a break. Let them become secure in the fact that they are wonderful and beautiful the way they are. Give them props for those stretch marks and saggy boobs. We did it ladies! We created human beings. You are so lovely and beautiful and your winky lazy eye belly button is sexy as hell. Now go wear that bathing suit proudly and know that those little whispers are saying “Look at that hero….or dare I say Shero!” And as men have shown us, you don’t have to even have a child to have a sexy “Mom Bod”.

Until next time! 🙂

When I was a child I was a bit odd. I used to think that was a bad thing. My heart hurt for people and animals and things. I was told that I was “Too Sensitive!” I always thought that there must be something that I am doing wrong. However, try as I might, I was there being Overly sensitive about one thing or another. I am still very heart forward and I wear my emotions on my sleeve, however, I am the perfect amount of sensitive. That is what others tell you to make themselves feel better about breaking your heart.

So in this “very sensitive” girl’s world I heard my brothers talking about the Penny. They called them useless and good for nothing. The penny, the brightest, most unique, dazzling penny. The luckiest of all coins. How dare they speak about the penny like that? It has Lincoln on it. LINCOLN! I mean he just happens to be my all time favorite president. He came from nothing and he worked hard to be smart and one day he became president of the united states. He freed the slaves and everything. I mean Pennies are not worthless. I immediately feel bad for the penny, because alone perhaps it was only worth a little but if you get a whole group of them together then their value has grown. I felt like the penny. I felt worthless and small. So I decided to make it my job to prove to the world that the penny was more valuable than they gave it credit for. At first I just had my little crotched purse that every time a person tossed a penny I would grab it and put it in my dingy off-white crotched purse. Am I spelling crotche correctly? I didn’t have it in my crotch purse. I don’t keep things in there. Hold up let me check with the spelling on this. Where would I go for that? Maybe start googling knitting and go from there. Hold up! I’ll be back. Crocheting! Hmmmmm? Not much better. Crocheted purse. Well I’ve never crocheted my purse either, but let’s just carry on! My crocheted purse was a dingy off-white and I probably had someone hand it down to me because I was young and as my mom would call it “Too young to be carrying a purse.” Mostly because she knew me and knew that I would be leaving it places. Leaving my purse in places is what I will become famous for. Mark my words I will be in People magazine one day for losing my purse so many times that I must be known only for the cautionary tale of leaving your purse everywhere. So I began my great penny crusade and I would pick up every little penny I would find. I asked my family members if I could have their pennies and they gladly handed them over all the while scoffing at me.  “Penny collector Becki”

Whenever my mother went to the store and I had my crotch purse (I did that on purpose because who the hell named that?) if she needed a penny or two I came to the rescue like some kind of penny miracle worker. “Oh do you need two cents?” Papow!!!! “I got you covered!”

People threw pennies away so often that I had to find a better place to keep them. My poor little crocheted purse was starting to drag on the ground. It was a weapon at this point, but a poorly executed weapon because it was too heavy for me to lift. The best I would’ve been able to do is trip them with it. “That little girl just tripped me with her bag full of pennies!”

“Sorry, you looked menacing to me!”

Now it was time for me to find a new place for my lovely little pennies. I emptied out my drawer in my dresser and began to store my lovely little fellows in there. It wasn’t long before I had an entire drawer full. A whole dresser drawer full of pennies. Look at us little worthless creatures now. I had so many pennies that the bottom of the drawer was threatening to blow out. I had to do something else with these wonderful beauties. It was the time of “Jerry’s kids” and I watched the telethon and I thought who better to receive my pennies than these kids. I went and talked with my mother and said “I have decided to give my drawer full of pennies to Jerry’s kids.”

My mother nodded her head in agreement and we started to roll them in the penny papers. By the time we finished we had over a hundred dollars in rolled pennies. I was so proud of my penny collection going to Jerry’s kids it became a tradition. I would save a whole drawer full of pennies to give to Jerry’s kids. I could never collect as many as I did that first time but it was such a nice project for me to do. I showed that pennies were very valuable and that if you collect them the only proper thing to do is to give them to some one more deserving.

I have always been a little bit odd like this and overly sensitive and always trying to help people, animals and things. I only recently learned that it was one of my greatest qualities and if I am one of the few or one of the many I just know that us pennies can come together and do great things.

Moral of my story: In this era and climate in our world we have a tendency to devalue things, animals and people. If anyone makes you feel like you are too different, odd or worthless, can I just tell you that I think you are beautiful. You are worth so much. You have love and compassion and kindness. You are unique and wonderful and you mean more to this world than you could ever possibly know. You are a bright and shiny copper penny and we are lucky to have you!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I was once a tiny little dancer. I started when I was two years old. My first memory of dance classes as a two-year old is pissing my pants because I didn’t want the germ infested public toilet to eat me…I would get flushed and also get syphilis, nobody wants to go out like that. I also remember the piano player Paulina, she was super old and nice and gave me candy. But the most important thing I remember is the recital. Dance recitals were my favorite. The glittery costumes, the makeup, the hairspray and the STAGE……..oh my Lord the STAGE…..are all these people here to see me? In my sparkle costume and my blue eye shadow and the bobby pins digging into my scalp. Holy wonderful moments are these when I have an audience. I don’t remember my first recital per se but I was told that I was a complete bossy professional. I was going to make sure that everyone did it right because my fans expect perfection.

Dance recital begins when the woman shows up in dance class with her tape measure. What a magical day it is when she comes in with her clip board, pencil and tape measure around her neck. Every dancer in the room knows this is the beginning of waiting for your costume to show up. What will they look like? I hope they are pretty. I hope they don’t itch. I hope mine fits right. It never did. I was the queen of needing my costume altered. Also what will our recital song be? Will I be in the front? I usually was because of my size. And of course you would always secretly hope that you would get a featured solo part…. well at least I did. I never did!

You spend months learning your recital dance. You work and work in your living room, your kitchen, your bedroom and in the shower with only small gestures because of that one time you slipped and fell and thought you would drown from your own stupidity. But I wouldn’t mind dying while dancing. That’s how I want to go out. I’m probably going to die a painfully embarrassing death like choking on my own spit…which I do at least twice a month. However, if I get to make a wish to the wish granting gods I want to die on stage dancing. I want to pirouette into the afterlife like some kind of ballerina angel.

The day that costumes come in…you know it as soon as you walk into those doors at the dance studio. First there is an electricity in the air (it’s probably static because that’s an ingredient in dance costumes…..the formula is : 20 parts glitter + 25 parts sequins + 5 parts stretchable fabric + 8 parts itch + 10 parts static electricity + 42 parts awesome = dance costume) But then there is the boxes stacked around the studio. Also there is glitter dust from every end and corner of the place. If you ever try to sweep costume glitter from a studio floor you know that shit is electrically charged because you get anywhere near it with a broom and it’s repelled away from the dustpan.

Trying on the costumes is so exhilarating. You see that there is a color scheme and in my case each girl is a color of the rainbow. You start your wishing: please let me get a good color. Please let me get a good color. please let me get a good color.

I have olive colored skin and I do not look good in just any color you give me. I can wear blues, pinks, purples, reds, black, white and brown. I cannot pull off anything in the yellow family…it makes me look like an actual fucking olive. Think of the color an olive is and now picture that olive in an itchy orange tutu. You see what I am saying right?

So when they pulled out green and handed it to me I was all like “What the fuck is this?”

Well I didn’t actually start cursing until I was much older. I was afraid that if I said the F-word it was like signing a pact with the devil…I thought it was like “Beetlejuice” and if I said it even once the devil would be there waiting for me….I didn’t even say “Frick” because you might get one of the devil’s minions to show up and that might actually be worse because no one wants the guy who is not in charge, am I right? So I was more like “Green costume? Thank you!” and also “What is going on here with this green? Do I look like I can wear green?” and also I was probably sobbing. Because “what the fuck is this?”

I get this hideous lime green costume on my olive body and I look in the mirror and I look like the wicked witch of the West. I look like the vomit emoji wearing a tutu but that’s not a thing yet because it’s the seventies. Does this costume make my eye bags look huge? I try to find something to like about my costume because it’s green and I look like I have just contracted hepatitis. I look like I am in full-blown liver failure. I think well it is sparkly and it has this nice itchy tutu. I then am handed the headpiece. I didn’t know it came with a headpiece. WHAT?????? A tiara? BEST COSTUME EVER. Hands down the best costume. Oh and I peer over at my sister with the same color skin and she is dressed in orange and they want her to wear her tutu around her face because she is playing a lion.

I WON COSTUME DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can go home now.

My sister always wins everything. She is older, taller, prettier and friendlier. To let you know how much my sister is better, we were known as the “girls” of the family…she had a real name and a very unique nickname. My name is Becki. When people who had been to our house several times they would ask me which one I was and then proceed to give her real name and her nick name, non of the choices was Becki.

for example:

“Which one are you? Bethany or Giggles?” I’m neither of them. That’s the same fucking person. I used to think it was because I was so insignificant. Now I know it’s because they were stupid morons. Dude you have been living in our house for like eight months, how do you not know my name?

So there is my perfect winner of a sister dressed up in her costume complete with itchy tutu around her face. I’m not sure what the material tutu’s are made of but I think it’s closely related to insulation and fleas.

I may look like puke in a costume, but at least I am not wearing that. I think to myself. I have seen the photos as an adult and I didn’t realize at the time how brilliantly my sister was pulling off that costume. She has this smile that lights up the world. IF you know my sister you know what I’m talking about. You also know that her name is neither Bethany nor Giggles, but I don’t want to name her outright on the internet. So in the photo she has a huge smile and I am standing next to her but you don’t actual perceive me as a human. I look like scenery. Oh look at Giggles standing next to that fern.

Dance recital day was amazing. Keep in mind this is the seventies and so hair care products are lacking in this generation. So my sister and I would be giggling and hopped on excitement and my mother would come in and say “Girls you are going to wash your hair and then I will curl it for you. While your hair is in curlers you will take your nap.”

That’s right folks it would be right after we practically risen from our night-time slumber that we would have to have our hair wrapped in pink curlers and then we had to lay down in our beds all hopped up on adrenaline with a head full of bumpy plastic and try to sleep. We would sit in bed with the covers over our eyes because it would be the brightest day in the year and we were trying to get some sleep.

“I forgot my dance!” one of us would say in a panic.

“Just follow the other girls!” the solution was so simple. Dance recitals was the only place where copying another’s work was perfectly acceptable.

“Are you nervous?” Giggles would ask.

“Yes!” I would lie. No I am not nervous…the stage is where I come to life. The blinding lights and the faint blur of the crowd. You know they are there you just can’t see them properly. The APPLAUSE, HOLY CRAP THE APPLAUSE! I know that I am a young lady in the seventies and being an attention whore is frowned upon….also any other kind of whore is frowned upon….but attention whore is a gateway. And there it is, my calling, a stage and an audience filled to the brim all ready and waiting and there under some contractual agreement with the studio. Sigh!

Where was I? Oh yeah. Recital evening and it is time to get our makeup on. My mother should have outsourced this to someone else. She was not great. We had big blue eyeshadow and circle rosy cheeks and bright red lips complete with a dab on my snaggletooth just to make us look relatable. (all products from Avon thanks Mrs. Whichadinger) We walked into the doors of that high school like we owned the place.

“Move bitch the talent is here!”

We get dropped off back stage in our dressing room and we wait with all of the other dancers. I am so excited that I have to pee. I am a nervous pee-er. I am sure you may already know this about me. I also don’t want to get my costume wet so I risk my life and my health and sit on one of the gonorrhea potties that they provide in the high school. My germaphobia only gets better with age. Because then I was just worried about catching cooties, now I know the names of these cooties and it is so much worse than I could ever have imagined.

Finally it is time for me to put on my ballet slippers, my lime green itchy tutu, my tiara because I’m the Princess of the olives and go stand in the jumble of children in the wings of the stage. Back stage we are all smooshed so tightly together that our tutus are rubbing together and creating a nice lightning show from all of the static electricity. We enter stage right and find our X to stand on. Mine is red in the very front to the left. The music starts and the lights hit. I remember every move. I am twirling, I am jumping, I am on fire. I am in my element up here on stage. When we finish the crowd applauds and I am hooked. The lights go down and we are told to exit the stage to the left.

Wait? That’s it? Can I go again? I need this people. I need to be on that stage. Can’t I just go on with the next group? I mean how hard could it be to learn their choreography. Like I saw it twenty times at rehearsal. I know their dance. I can do it if you just let me do it.

“Becki, get off the stage!” the lights go dark and I hear people in the audience laughing. I am now being carried off the stage by some muscular man who was dating my dance teacher. Ugh! My adoring fans need me. They are waiting for me to do an encore.

My dance teacher was so impressed that I knew this dance better than the kids that had actually learned it that she told my mother perhaps I should be taking more classes. This began my dance recital addiction.

Flash forward to me as an adult and my youngest tells me that she wants to take ballet classes. I was so excited for her journey. The excitement for costumes and recital is still the same. My daughter was a much better dance than I could ever imagine. I have not been on a stage in a very long time. I still have “Dance Fever” and when I see performers on the stage I can feel their movement. I am certain that I am lifting through my shoulders, rib cage and torso. I tighten my belly because that is the proper posture to take when you are watching dancers on stage. I find dance to be such a beautiful art. I find dancers to be incredible athletes. I once almost fist fought a woman for saying that dancing was not an athletic sport. I’m like listen here “LADY” these dancers train endlessly to make flying through the air and landing lightly on their feet look easy. You don’t even know. I landed like a herd of elephants, I know because my dance instructor told me so. But I decided to back up because you know what? Its more than an athletic sport, it’s an art, its an expression and its poetry.

If you were a dancer who had recital or if you have a child who is a dancer who has a recital, I say bravo on your hard work. Enjoy those bright lights. Soak up the applause. Vaseline on your teeth helps the snaggletooth lipstick problem. But most of all enjoy your craft. It doesn’t get any better than dance recital night.

Moral of my story: Dance recitals and dance costumes are the absolute best thing in the world. Also if you see my sister please don’t start calling her Giggles, you know her nickname.

Until next time 🙂

Have you ever been exhausted? I mean totally and completely exhausted! I mean so exhausted that a coma would be nice right about now, exhausted! For months maybe years at a time. Oh that is called motherhood. If you have this you have arrived to being a mother. YOU will get your crown in the mail! No, I promise it’s coming, the mail room is a little backed up at the moment, but it is coming.

This is going to be a compilation of  stories about my exhaustion that was compounded through each child that I had. My children are spaced apart pretty well. My oldest daughter and my son are two and a half years apart. My son and my youngest daughter are just shy of four years apart. So when you add two and a half years to almost four years and then carry the (kids don’t sleep through the night until they are about ten) we are talking 20 years of not sleeping through the night.

DISCLAIMER: To all of you new moms out there. This is a lie kids sleep through the night at around six to ten months.

addendum to the disclaimer: other moms stop laughing we don’t want to scare them. I’m just trying to give them some hope.

The first story of my sleep deprivation as a mom:

When my oldest was an infant I had this recurring dream that I would forget my baby somewhere. So I had this fear when I was awake too, obviously. I had a particularly rough night with her and I took her to the doctor’s office at “the walk in” at eight in the morning. I was like “My daughter screamed all night. I think she has something wrong with her.”

They collected my co-pay and told me that she was fine. Maybe give her some cereal before she goes to bed to help her make it through the night. I am like cool holistic healing at its finest right there. I stop at the grocery store and bought the cereal. I had my baby in the baby seat that they provide for your baby on the top of the grocery cart. (I think they stopped doing this for what I am about to tell you) I get the groceries all in the car and I climb in and I drive away. As I am driving I see the baby’s car seat but it’s facing backward, because that’s what they told me to do. I call the child’s name (but this was dumb because she doesn’t talk yet.) (My daughter began speaking at four months and spoke complete sentences by the time she was nine months old also because of what I am about to tell you, probably). I do not hear any noises coming from the carseat. My mind is tired and creative and I can see my child in the cart return all strapped into that stupid cart baby seat and I am all like…..’Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. Who let me raise a fucking child? ‘ It’s their fault really. I quickly speed back to the grocery store and I see the carts and no baby. I even scream “MY BABY!”

This curdling scream woke the child sleeping in the back of my car who was safely buckled in her beautiful loving car seat The Entire Time. The poor child didn’t answer because she too was exhausted and finally could get some well deserved rest until her lunatic mother screamed out in pure panic and horror and woke the poor child up. She had been with me the whole time.

I now had to drive all the way home with my screaming baby because I didn’t leave her there after all I just imagined that I did. This is how it begins. My daughter, shortly after this incident started to say her first word “DADA!” Which probably translated to “Oh dear father, please don’t leave with this neurotic woman, I fear for my safety with her!”

The next story comes from when my son was born. I now have two children who take turns being awake so that I get no sleep. My husband is all pissy because he doesn’t want to go to bed at seven-thirty until he gets there and he is the first one to go to sleep.

caution: this story is filled with resentment towards my husband because he was a perfectly  well rested human being and also the children didn’t want him. they only wanted MOMMY!

My son was a newborn and as a newborn he felt it was his job to stay with me at all times day and night and everything in between. My oldest is a two and a half-year old who says, “whoa buddy get to the back of the line, because up until now that has been my job.” So she thinks that she is CEO of my sleep deprivation and he is the intern. He is an exceptionally ambitious intern and younger, so he can run circles around her. I am dying because at some point I am just going to collapse out of sheer need for sleep.

This particular night my son is screaming and I look at my husband and say “Either grow some tits and feed this one…..OR take that one and put her to bed.” Because I want to give him a choice its his life after all!!!!!

He gives me this hurt wounded animal look and takes the oldest one to put her to bed. I start nursing the vampire when I hear the blood curdling screams from my daughter. I want to ignore them but she is also calling my name… “I don’t want you. I want mommy! Get out of here. You don’t do it right. Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”

Oh for the love of all things holy, please just make this stop! It doesn’t stop until I get up and walk in her room. My husband is barricading the door so that the little hostage can’t get out and I am like “Well at least he tried. He’s completely incompetent but he did it wrong too. What was my point? He’s the worst, that was my point! The actual worst!”

“Did you read to her?” I ask

“You didn’t ask me to read to her.” he explains

“Can you read to her?” I ask  (with that ‘you stupid stupid little man’ voice. you know the one) and I walk away mumbling words like moron and useless. because I’m a team player but he’s doing it wrong!!!!!!!!!

I hear him shout reading to her over her screaming at him. So now it must be done. We have to switch children which is going to be bad because believe it or not she is the one that likes him. The boy child has not picked up on the fact that he has left the womb. So any time someone else, besides me, holds him he is like “Stranger danger. Stranger danger.” complete with rape whistle sounding noise.

I go in and hand him, the now sleeping, infant to simply rock until I can get this one to sleep. I walk into her room and she smiles because she is the CEO and she knows how this business is run. I am reading her favorite story. Her father was reading her something from his engineering magazine. I get her all tucked in when I hear the infant wind up….its the, “before” of a pure unadulterated tantrum, sound. I look at this one all smiles and happy because mommy is about to sing to her when her father broke her brother. Why does my husband hate me?

My husband opens the door a crack and asks “Can you take him please? I can’t hear the tv.”

(i divorced him in my head at that very moment. i divorced him and he is wearing a barrel that poor people in cartoons wear.)

I get the baby latched on and I sing the wheels on the bus and everyone is quiet and sleeping except me. I quietly escape (oh yeah escape rooms are less appealing to mothers because every fucking night is an escape room) and I get the baby in his crib. I go to bed and my husband comes in with his judgment and asks “Are you really going to bed at seven-thirty?”

I didn’t answer him because I was trying to decide if divorce was the worst thing to do to him. There is always death but then he would be getting more sleep than me and that is not what I want to grant him with.

It’s the middle of the night and because I went to bed at seven-thirty that means its ten o’clock at night and the baby is screaming for a meal. I, like the sacrificial lamb, let him blood let me and my oldest comes out of her bedroom looking well rested. She climbs up on the couch next to me all smiles and asks “Can we watch the lion king?”

“Yes we can!” is my answer. Like a true child of technology she goes over to the tv and puts the tape into the VCR (you’re old) and the credits are rolling. Shit we need to rewind. She pushes all of the buttons because she’s two and half and wants to watch the Lion king. I go over balancing the newborn using my nipple, breast and knees while I try to find the rewind button without turning the lights on (because that would mean I have given up) and hold the toddler away from the tv because “she can do it!” I know this because she is telling me very loudly.

I get the movie going and the baby nursing and I see my husband sleeping peacefully in bed. I hate him. I hate him and his well rested face. I look like the walking dead and he gets to sleep. The baby has eaten and the toddler is watching her movie and I go in and I kick the side of the bed and I say “Tag you’re it!” I hand him the milk drunk baby and I crawl over his stupid body and I dig into the comforter to get some sleep.

“What do you want me to do with him?” my husband asks

“I don’t care. I am tired.” I lie in bed trying to sleep but now it sounds like they are having a good time without me. I try to not be jealous I just need sleep.

The next morning I wake up to fingers trying to wrench my eyelids open “Mommy are you awake?”

I woke up and I love my family again. I see my husband and he is a beautiful being with his blonde hair and blue eyes. I have been transformed from that hideous beast I was last night into the family loving Goddess that I want to be, all I needed was some real sleep.

This next story is from when my youngest was born. My husband’s job required him to travel which meant I am a single mom with the benefit of having my bills paid. Not a bad job really, but I have to still take care of three kids by myself.

My mom calls me and asks if she could treat the kids and me to “The Tigger Movie” and also to watch my youngest child. I was like “YES and Heck yes!”

I get the baby over to my mom’s house. She coos and fawns over her littlest grandchild at the time and I leave complete with a trail of rubber on the road. I get the tickets and we get into our seats. My oldest is six and my son is four and Pooh Bear is their favorite. They are so excited and I would be excited but I am basically a corps with milk leaking from my breasts. The lights get dim and I see the characters all on the screen talking about family. I am thinking what a heartwarming tale…………………….

“Mom! Mom!” little hands slapping my cheek

“Is she dead?”

“Mom! The movie is done!”

I open my eyes and there are my two poor frightened children staring rather close to my face at me. “Oh GOD! Someone could have kidnapped my babies!” Was my thoughts. I felt like I was the worst parent in the world. I gather my shit and I get the popcorn out of my shirt and I hurriedly leave the theater.

Now if you ever want to try to tell a lie when your children are small, just don’t, because they are truth-telling machines. We walk into my mother’s house and the first fucking words out of my son’s mouth are “Mom fell asleep at the movies and we had to slap her awake. I hit her as hard as I could. We thought she was dead!”

Thanks son.! Just thanks! I stand there waiting for my mother to tell me how I was failing miserably at this mom thing. She doesn’t! Instead she just laughs and tells me about her embarrassing tired mom story.

I am still thankful that my children were safe. I am still thankful that my mother was understanding. I am forever thankful that I could eventually buy “The Tigger Movie” on VHS and watch it with my children for real this time. In fact the song at the end is going to be the song that my son and I dance to at his wedding one day, unless he changed his mind. He was only four years old when he told me that. I hope he didn’t change his mind.  It’s a lovely sappy song that makes me cry and think of my babies when they were small and almost kidnapped.

Moral of my story: Being a mother with young ones who don’t sleep is exhausting. Be patient with yourself and know your limits. Ask for help. We aren’t superheroes and by trying to be some super being we actually become some hideous beast in the process. If this story put you to sleep, you are welcome! That’s what friends are for. Now go get some rest, you deserve it! If you are a new mom, it’s not that bad. But if it gets that bad ask for help. Older moms if a young mom calls you and asks for help give it to her. Let’s break this judgement cycle. We need to build each other up. We need to help one another get some rest before that over tired mom has a complete breakdown in the checkout line at the grocery store because their child dropped the gallon of milk that was too heavy for them and split the damned thing wide open. She’s crying in a puddle of milk eating a snickers off the shelf as her boobs leak all down the front of her because someone is crying. It’s her! She’s crying! I mean, that never happened, what are you even talking about??!!!!

Until next time 🙂

Well? What exactly did I do? I made it through another semester of school. This semester I learned so much, mostly I learned that I can’t put too much on my plate. (unless we are talking food and an actual plate in which case I do that a lot too and really shouldn’t) Also I am not as young as I used to be.

Another thing that I did was I moved my youngest daughter all the way across the country. That was exceptionally hard.

That is what I will write about today. Moving my youngest daughter and it all started with going up to her college to pack up her dorm room. I had to complete homework assignments while I was there. I went from going to her room, which was practically packed because she is prepared at all times, to the hotel room to learn about what the brain does while it is sleeping. Also I had to squeeze in talking to my husband because he was there too. I was like “Did you know that with each stage of sleep there are different brain waves?” And “Do you want to watch this video of sleep deprivation with me?” Because this is what mothers do, we multitask. We are also good at romance.

We get all of her belongings packed up in the two cars, except her mattress topper because I envisioned it springing open in the car as I was driving down the road and we would end up dead in a ditch….(in case anyone wants to know why mothers believe that death is the only reason for not hearing from their kids, this is the thought process. you’re welcome)

So we finally get her home so that she can repack the things she will need during her internship as a pastry chef at a very affluent Golf resort in California. I am so proud. While this was going on, my oldest daughter was at a tremendously popular horse show as a veterinarian intern. And my son was getting his new job. So I am a great mother, for all of you doubters out there. That’s right lady who said I gave up on natural child birth to have each child ripped from my stomach…take that!!!!! (I may have built up some resentments through the years mostly because I totally could believe that I was going to be a horrible mother) Where was I?

Right, the moving! We get her all packed up to travel across the country to begin her next chapter. The day to fly out gets here. I get up early in the morning so we are not late for our flight and my husband comes in to see us off. (also to lift our bags because she is moving out there for the summer and she will need many things, mostly shoes apparently because she is like her mother) We get through security and go get a coffee because we are early enough. I’m early for mostly everything unless I’m late and if I’m late it is either a few minutes or fucking days because I totally forgot. Anyway we are early and we sit at the gate and I start reading my files for my term paper. My daughter is snap chatting her friends because she will not see them at all this summer. The announcement comes across the speaker, your flight is delayed for maintenance. I smile at my daughter and say “Best to be safe!” I go back to my reading and hi-lighting. Another announcement comes across the speaker, delayed even further. I pat my daughter’s leg and ask “Are you hungry?”

I send her out to grab some food. I began to do more research. She comes back and a new announcement “Maintenance does not know when your plane will be ready so just sit tight folks.” People around us grumble. There is one mom breastfeeding her baby and another trying to not lose her shit with her four year old that has spent his patience and hers from all of this delaying. The father tells his wife “Can you just take it easy?”

I begin to fear for his life. (sir let me tell you something….you DON’T EVEN KNOW THE JUDGEMENT THAT IS PUT ON MOTHERS WHEN THEIR CHILD IS EATING LINT OFF OF THE CARPET) I smile at her and she says to him “I am going to go find a snack.” which is code for “I cannot be held accountable for my words and actions so I am going to walk away from you. This may be the last time we see each other.” She was smart to do so. I tried to not judge her husband either because no one likes to hear their precious four year old get hissed at, even if the child is slightly annoying with his impressions of a cop car in a tight space filled with impatient travelers.

I couldn’t help but identify with these mothers. Yes, I have been the breastfeeding in public mother, trying to be modest and cover up. Yes, I have been the hissing mother in public because four year olds truly could give two shits about social constructs. And now I am the mother trying to get through this paper so that I can focus on my real purpose for sitting in this airport. I am moving my baby all the way across the country.

I am proud

and I am sad

and I am busy.

I am mom!

A poem for all of you mothers out there. Its almost mother’s Day feel free to rip this off for your mom’s card.

A new announcement comes over the loud speaker that they have found a new plane and once they de-board and fuel up and change the crew and clean the vessel and other things “we will get you on your way!” Everyone in the tiny area all begin to glue back together. Its happening folks it’s really happening! They then get the plane de-boarded and we see the cleaning crew go on. I stand up with my books and things all neatly put away because “this is it, what we have tirelessly been waiting for!”

A new announcement “Sorry folks, maintenance is now looking at this plane.”

GROANSSSSSSSS!!!!!

I look at my daughter, who starts work as an intern at a very prestigious place tomorrow morning and we don’t even know when we will be getting there, if at all. The airline bring food in for us. We all stand in line and get our free sandwich. I go over there and browse because I am always on some form of healthy eating and/or giving up on healthy eating pattern. I browse and I take inventory. I decide that I will eat healthy and I grab a veggie wrap and water. I skip the chips. As we are all getting fat and happy I see this man that has been sitting across from me this entire endeavor, get up and sprint out of the room. I immediately hope that I didn’t just eat the “diarrhea inducing sandwich” he just had, when I hear the announcement “Ladies and Gentlemen, we want to let you know at this time that your flight has been cancelled and you will now need to run all the way across the airport and have a gladiator like fight to the death to see who is worthy to carry on to the next flight. We thank you for your patience and ready, set, GOOOOO!”

Oh not diarrhea! This is a gladiator who has seen battle before. I look at my sweet little angel and I think, I will fight to the death for a seat next to her. My husband, who travels for a living, calls me and says “Honey, I am on the phone with the Airline and they just need to talk to you to get you on the next available flight.” BECAUSE I’M MARRIED TO THE KING OF ALL AIRPORT GLADIATORS, BITCHES, AND THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I AM GOING TO WIN TODAY. He had been getting the alerts for our flight fiasco and he was prepared. He had the airline on speed dial from his own personal experience. I want to say that I would have known what to do, but I would be lying. I am very thankful to my gladiator husband. We get on the next flight and we are not sitting next to each other but we are sitting one in front of the other. As we wait for the next flight I strike up a conversation with the mom who is nursing her child. I explain that it was my daughter’s first day at work tomorrow and we have to get there. She explains that her husband was seated on the very back of the plane and he was no where near them. I look at my ticket and said if she needed to switch we could. She smiled and said that she believed people would gladly switch seats so they didn’t have to sit next to a baby. This is the truth. How many times have you gotten on a plane and saw a baby get on. Your impression is “Oh CRAP, who brought the fucking noise maker with them!” I mean I don’t because I’m nice *cough cough!

Finally we get to board our plane. I see the man that was to be seated next my eighteen year old angel and I say “Excuse me sir, could you change seats with me. I have an isle seat.” He gladly does because the seats are four across and he was in one of the center seats. He actually thanks me for switching with him. We get all settled and the person that eventually sits next to me is a man that I am (probably exaggerating) Not exaggerating at all when I say is seven, almost eight feet tall. I don’t really know because I am super short and I don’t know what real tall is, but this man didn’t fit in the seats with his long legs. I look at him and say “I have little legs so feel free to stretch out.” He smiles and says kind things and we settle in to be best friends on this flight.

I look at my daughter who is tired and say “This is shaping up to be a good day.” The flight was good and I ordered some cheese and crackers on the plane because I am getting a low bloodsugar headache. We land and then think “I hope our bags made it.” I turn on my phone and my husband texted me “Your bags made it I checked.” (okay, I see it too, it’s a little co-dependent stockholmish and whatever….but he sees it as being helpful…. so be nice)

I am waiting by the carousel watching the bags go around. I have unique luggage complete with my initials on my bags. I see a bag that is identical to mine but no initials. I didn’t give it a second thought. I grab my other bag (complete with initials) my daughter’s two bags and watch this imposter bag zoom around a few more times. I look at my daughter and ask “Do you think my initials just wore off?”

“No Mom, don’t touch that bag. It’s not yours!”

I pick up the bag and look at it anyway because it looks almost exactly like mine but no initials and nope it is definitely not mine. I stand there and watch the bag impersonator go around a few more times and I pick it up again. It’s still not mine. I was hoping it would be. I then go to baggage claim to ask them if they knew where my bag was.

“Did you check the carousel?” the man asks

“Yes, I did. And there is a bag that looks like mine but it’s not mine.”

“Go and check the carousel again.” was his advice.

I go back out to check the carousel again and I pick up this bag two more times because I have now developed some weird sort of fascination with it. It is still not mine. I go back to baggage claim again and this time there is a woman working there and she actually listens to me.

“Oh I betcha someone took your bag by mistake.”

This is what I have been saying for like an hour. Thank you!

She gets the imposter bag and she checks the tags and says “Well the problem is that this bag was gate checked and we have no formal information for who owns it.”

I fill out paperwork and I am laughing with the people and we are joking about it. She then says that it was a man that the bag belonged to because of the contents. We laugh more about some man trying to wear my clothes. I start getting a call from some number I don’t recognize and I am like “Oh I know that this is that stupid FBI scam that calls me every damn day.” I hang up on it. I fill out more paperwork and we go on our merry way. It is nine o’clock at night and we have a two hour drive still. My phone rings again and I’m like they sure are persistent. I send it to voicemail as we are waiting for the elevator to get upstairs to take the tram to the car rental place. And again the phone is ringing…..I answer it and low and behold it is the man with my bag. “I am so sorry and super embarrassed, but I have your bag. I am in a cab and bringing it to you. Where are you?”

“I’m still at the airport, I can meet you in baggage claim. They have your bag there.” I announce. I look at my daughter who has work in the morning and her first day too. She is exhausted because it is actually midnight where we live and we had been up since five in the morning. We take the elevator back down and wait. Finally around ten he shows up we laugh and shake hands and he is super gracious. He offers to get us a car service and I decline because I have a rental car. We finally get in the elevator, we get on the tram and we get to the building where they rent cars. I find the place I need to go and we have been schlepping our heavy backpacks all day long. I have developed a hump much like quasimodo and I am okay with it. I wait my turn. I go through the actions and they tell me “Oh now that we have scanned your id and your credit card and did the eyeball scan, and checked you for lice we will tell you that you are in the wrong fucking place to get your car.” I could have had a complete meltdown because I deserve it. I truly deserve a good old fashioned meltdown. But I think of that nursing mother with her teeny tiny baby and neither of them had meltdowns so I need to just smile and thank them. We go to the place that is the right place and again scan, scan, scan, lice check and your car is the furthest one from these doors and  you will need a map and we are not going to give you one. You will probably also need a bodyguard and we do not provide those either. We finally get all the way over to our car and get all of our bags tetris-style in the back and climb in the damn car. Car is not the proper term, this is the biggest SUV I have ever even thought of trying to drive. I am driving this tank out of the rental garage and I am hoping to not run anyone over. Why? Why are you standing there holding that flag? Move or die. I am tired. I am frustrated and I cannot see over the steering wheel. MOVE OUT OF MY WAY!!!! for your own safety, please. I get on the road and ask my daughter who is working the GPS  “Where to honey bunch?” She looks at me and says it can’t find the satellite. UGHHHHHHH! Enough of this day. I have a good amount of patience and at this point…..oh no I still have more because that is how I role. “Use my phone with the eight percent battery and we will hope for the best.”

“My battery is good.” she says and we use her phone and we drive through San Francisco.

Okay, this may seem naive to anyone who has seen “Full House” or “Charmed” or the commercial for “Rice-A-Roni” But I did not know that I was going to be driving down the edge of a very winding steep cliff. It makes sense but I still wasn’t prepared for this level of driving expertise after the day that I had just had. It was two hours of steep winding curves and corners with three lanes. I was terrified and that helped me stay awake. Fear is a great motivator. We finally get to our hotel and I at first miss the turn in and have to drive around the block. The second time was a “my bad” because I have this habit of driving on sidewalks and walkways in cities because I am from the country and they look like parking to me, and I miss it again because do they actually have valet or what am I doing? So third times a charm because I pull up to the side of the place and tell my daughter to ask them. She comes back with the valet and he starts guiding me to parallel park this tank. I roll down the window and I say “I’m sorry. I cannot park this enormous car can you do it?” He smiles and tells me to pull into the “could be parking lot, but also this has fooled me before and a cop yelled at me in New York city” area. He helps us with our bags and we go in and get checked in. We get into our room and I look at my daughter it is midnight and we are exhausted. WE are also starving. I go down to the desk and ask “Is your kitchen still open?”

“Sorry ma’am but we stop serving food at eleven.”

I died. The End!!!!

No! I sort of must have looked pathetic because he offers to find some chips and salsa for us.

Flash forward to a few minutes later, my daughter and I eating chips lying in bed and trying to get something in our stomachs before we fall asleep. I woke up the next morning to breakfast, that we ordered the night before, being delivered. It was awesome. I’m sure they didn’t even question the enormous salsa puddle on my shirt. It happens all the time I’m sure. I get her to her first day on time and it was more of a meet and greet, sign paperwork and tour of the place and drug test of course, day. We get the keys to her new place and we go into her home for the summer.

The people who occupied the place prior obviously threw a rager and didn’t have time to clean afterword. Disappointing was a word I could have used but my daughter has to live here so I used the word potential. We went shopping and got cleaning supplies, a vacuum and decorations. When we were done the place was cute and habitable. We ate dinner at the hotel and the next morning she had orientation. I get up early and bring her to that. I walked her in and gave her a huge hug. I go back to the hotel and write my term paper. I also take a nap because I am exhausted still. I pick her up from work and we go and buy more things for her apartment. The next day is her official first work day and she was nervous. I get her there and come back and pack because I am a terrible mommy and I have to abandon my daughter in this foreign location. It’s so far away from home. Why did I agree to do this? I get back to her work and pick her up and take her and her friend to dinner and grocery shopping. Her friend is another girl that goes to college with her. It’s nice that she knows one person there, however they work in different places. I finally get her back to her place and tell her that I have to get on the road. I will drive back to hotel close to the airport so that I can get on the plane early the next morning. As we hug I meant to sigh and instead I sobbed complete with shoulder movement. Even as I write this I feel the lump in my throat and my eyes are welling up. It was tremendously hard to walk away. I held her hands and we said a prayer. I hugged her and kissed her and said our goodbyes. I hugged her friend and thanked her for being there. I left. I drove two hours with sobbing and singing and I barely noticed the steep roads because I am acclimated to them now. I get on the plane the next morning and I write my term paper on the plane.

I call her when I get home and she is happy and having the best time there. She is doing great. She loves her job and the people she works with. I am so proud of her and her sister and her brother. Maybe I am a good mom after all.

moral of my story: Be encouraging to your children and their dreams. If they want to reach beyond the stars tell them that you will be there for them. Other than that you have to let them do it. You have to hug them goodbye and you have to get out of their way. Children are meant to grow up and be adults. It’s so hard to let them do just that, but when you do it is so amazing to watch them fly.

Until next time.

My husband typically does not work from home. He would not choose that for himself. However, on occasion, the Governor calls for a state of emergency and then my husband has little choice. We recently had such an occasion, in March because we get blizzards whenever we want now, and my husband was all like, “I guess I can just work from home.”

I am a stay at home mom, except all of my children live elsewhere because of college and vet school and because they essentially are grownups. I am a student too, so I have school work and I am swamped with term papers and midterms and learning the difference between myelinated axons and de-myelinated axons, and also haploid cells and other cool things. So when my husband said he was going to work from home, for the first time in like twenty five years, I was all like “Cool!”

Secretly I was like ‘does he know the level of crazy i am, ummm does he know that i pretend to be mary poppins to the animals when he is not home? also, would he mind playing the role of burt?’

So that morning I got up with the puppy and put him out. When I did this a very strange thing happened, a shit ton of birds came and landed in the tree behind the fence in my yard. I was like, “They have come to meet the future king.” I lift up the puppy and presented him like Simba off of pride rock, complete with music (hum singing)!

I totally forgot that my husband was home. I am outside in my pajamas, winter coat, muck boots and holding the puppy up to a tree and singing. Husband opens the door, it’s a sliding door so it makes a swoosh sound. I feel my heart up in my throat.

“What the hell are you doing, Becki?” he asks, which is fair.

“I’m presenting the puppy to the birds, because they wanted to see him.” I answer, and smile because I know it is weird.

“Why?” he asks

“Because they wanted me to.” I say

He shakes his head and says “Do you want a coffee?”

So this means, that yes he knows how crazy I am.

That day I spent a lot of time taking the puppy out because apparently the puppy game is stand out in a blizzard singing “potty potty potty potty” and then bring them inside so that they can shit on the floor. My husband was on the phone talking loudly because he doesn’t know that phones have come a long way from the ole’ soup can on a string model  and I am trying to also get school work done.

My husband every once in a while will ask “Do you want me to do something?”

I think ‘i would like you to risk it and just drive to work, the blizzard looks like its letting up it’s only two inches of snow an hour now.’

I answer “Nah! I’m good.”

I decide to try to yoga and you see when I am home alone I am a fucking yoga rockstar, when I have an audience I am NOT a yoga rockstar. I look more like a ball trying to balance on a stick. I wobble, I sweat and I breathe and then I take breaks, many breaks, which is normal, right? Like oh that pose, I’m working up to that one, skip it. Oh that’s the one I did yesterday and it made my neck hurt, skip it. Oh I don’t even know what the hell this lady is doing….Is that her leg or her arm, skip it! But this particular time, I am all like, “Ah yes the tree horn and the swattling frog, and my favorite the farting goose pose!” okay maybe those aren’t the names but I know that I can’t do them and I’m sure that they way I am doing them, these names are appropriate. So if I am being honest my favorite pose is savasana and that’s basically a nap. So there I am teetering and trying not to land on my poor unsuspecting puppy,  who thinks I am just trying to play with him. My husband is watching me and he says “Is he disturbing you? I can take him.”

“no, don’t take him because he is my excuse for not being able to do the wrangling a pig pose.” I look up and say “He’s fine. He isn’t in my way.” I secretly hope that I don’t fall on him because the puppy is only like seven pounds and I am way more than seven pounds and it would be fatal I am certain. I sit and cuddle with the puppy in my lap and my husband looks at me and says “Is that really a pose?”

“It’s the puppy pose.” I announce. Well it’s my puppy pose, actually puppy pose in yoga squishes my boobs.

The wind starts really whipping outside and the puppy runs over and starts whining at the door. I now consider letting him use the cats’ litter box. Do I really need to go out into the extremes to potty train this seven pound puppy when I just let the cats shit in a sandbox?

My husband puts his boots and hat on and says “I can put him out. You can finish your yoga.”

Oh right! My yoga. Okay, I look at the girl in folding pretzel pose and I sigh. Okay! When my husband comes in and sees me laying down in nap pose he says, “That’s one I can do!” He comes and lies on the mat that I set out for the puppy and he looks at the woman and she is doing fucking lunges. The jig is up, he’s on to me. Yoga is my time to lie on a mat and take a nap. “Why aren’t you doing what she’s doing?”

“Oh, a new program must have started by accident.” I turn off the yoga app and lie back down in nap pose. We both lie on the floor side by side each on their own mats, because we aren’t animals, and we stay that way for a solid twenty minutes. The puppy was asleep on my mat with me and my husband snoring.

His phone starts ringing and it’s back to reality. He is at work and I am suppose to be doing my school work. That night we sat discussing if we should chance it and see if the sushi place was open. They weren’t, we called. So that meant we had to cook. We cooked together and we ate together and then we sat and watched the snow fall together. It was so nice having him home. Not weird after all.

“Honey, why didn’t you ever do this when the kids were home?”

“Do what?”

“Work from home?”

“Oh, I don’t know! I honestly wished that I had. Today was a good day.”

That’s because I didn’t ask him to do a rap battle with me. The kids know what I’m talking about.

Moral of my story: take time to just be together and yoga is hard!!!!