the judgement of smothers

As you know I have three children, one oldest girl, my middle boy child and my youngest girl. They are all grown now and I will tell you sometimes I’m like “Wow! Thank goodness!” because a few times I wasn’t certain that they would all make it. I was a bit of a panicky mother, but after the panic wore off, I was the mother that sent my kids to school if they didn’t pass the mom test “Do you have a fever? Are you puking? and Can you walk on it?” This is a test that I have failed many times. But a mom has to have  boundaries and also expect border skirmishes on the regular. You may have to do the walk of assholism to go and get your puking feverish kid from school because they didn’t pass the mom test and now they do.

Okay….This story comes straight to you from My panic days as a mother. I once brought my son to the hospital because he had a blue dot on his head….when it washed off, thank you to the nurse who was sensible enough to do this,  I was relieved…that was one very expensive shampooing for my son.

We had recently moved to Pennsylvania from my hometown in Massachusetts where I had lived my entire life since I was three years old. I had a six-year-old, a four-year old and a one-year old. My husband had just started at work and he wasn’t home much. We were living in an apartment building on the bottom floor. The floors were carpeted and beneath the carpet was a cement floor. My children loved to color and read and there was always a book or four hundred on the floor at one time. My oldest daughter and my son were entertaining themselves while I was putting the baby down for her nap.

To put a one-year old down for a nap is like an act of congress. First is the lighting absolutely perfect? Is the sound level at the optimal decibel? Is the baby comfortable and sleepy? Is mom so tired that she has passed out first and woken up by the baby finger straight up the nostril and into the brain? And why is her finger fucking wet?

Finally the baby is asleep and I am going to go into the living room and clean up a bit. I am living with monsters and they are filthy little beings that insist on having everything on the floor in case they need it. I am going to go in and undo this mess for a good solid half an hour so that in the next five minutes it can look exactly the same as it does now. I walk in and start picking up the contents off of the floor so that I can feel good about myself. My son and my oldest daughter are chattering excitedly together.

“Mom, I have got to show you something!” my son begins.

“It’s so cool, Mom! Wait until you see it.” my oldest daughter states with her eyes gleaming. “Brother has a really neat trick that he can do!”

My son is standing there in his sweatpants and T-shirt limbering up for his amazing and daring  stunt he wants to show me.

I am always a willing participant in fanfare, “Oh Yeah? You got something cool to show me? I can’t wait to see it Bug!”

“Be prepared to be amazed!” my oldest smiles and she is really proud of her brother.

“Can I pick up these books first?” I ask “Should I clean up a spot for you to do your trick?”

“No, no! I have been practicing while you were sleeping!” he announces.

*Ummm excuse me, I was putting the baby down….not sleeping! WTF do this kids think I do all day? Okay I may have drifted but I definitely wasn’t sleeping.

“Okay. Where should I sit? Or should I stand?” I ask even though my feelings are a little hurt over that crack about me sleeping.

“Assistant, show the lady to her seat!” my son says to his older sister.

“Ma’am follow me!” Oldest daughter obliges.

I follow her and walk over to my grand seat on the couch. It is the front row to the act, I hardly ever can afford these seats. I am usually in the mezzanine behind the lady from sesame street wearing her fruit hat. I sit down and am ready to see this grand act. This physical feat that my clearly talented and brave son is about to perform.

My daughter walks over to the center of the living room and announces for her younger brother, “Ladies and gentlemen!” I look around because there literally is just lady and no gentlemen in the audience. “Be prepared to be amazed by the greatest trick to be done in all of the world. You will laugh. You will cry. You will ask yourself ‘how does he dooo that!’ Now are you ready for the one and the only great Brrrrooooottthhherrrrrrr!”

I clap with the pretend audience and I see the fine acrobat take the stage. He runs around the stage and bows. He thanks his lovely assistant for her kind words and he gets himself prepared to do his death-defying trick that he had  prepared a solid twenty minutes for. I mean the stamina and the shear determination of this kid. Some people spend their entire lives training for such greatness…. My son takes a running start and he jumps in the air and he twirls….yes twirls….and lands on a slippery fucking coloring book and lands directly on his chin. Oh for fuck’s sake, I should have insisted on cleaning up first. I run over to him and check to see if he is okay. My son’s face was in pure horror. He was stunned silent. His face is white as chalk and he doesn’t even cry. He stands up, tries to say something to me. He stops from the pain in his jaw. He runs to the couch and picks up a throw pillow pushes it to his jaw and announces “I’ve gotta go to bed now.” He runs to his bedroom and lies down in bed.

I am sitting on the floor in shock because what the fuck just happened here? My son never and I mean NEVER just chooses to go to bed. EVER!!!!!!!!!!! I call my husband and I don’t actual reach him of course. I leave a voicemail.

“So, um, your son did a twirl and landed on a book and then smashed his face into the fucking cement floor. I think I should take him to the emergency room.”

I go to check on my son.

“Bug, are you okay? Do you think I should bring you to have a doctor look at it?”

He shakes his head no.

“Can I see?” I ask

He shakes his head no.

“Do you need me to get you some ice or something to make it feel better?”

He shakes his head no.

He never cries. He never says anything. My son is not the silent type. He might be strong but he is not silent. His oldest sister looks shit scared because she too knows that her brother is typically going to talk about what went wrong. How he can improve his trick. He does none of this. He lays in his bed and holds a throw pillow on his jaw.

Weird! Right?

My husband walks in the door and says, “Did you call me?”

“No it was your other fucking wife!” I think but do not say. When I get nervous and scared I become a sarcastic asshole but only in my thoughts…and sometimes out of my face but also sometimes out of my mouth.

“Your son fell and I think he is really hurt. He is so hurt he didn’t even cry.”

“Then how do you know he is hurt?” my husband remembers the blue dot incident and he knows I am not a good judge of when things are desperately wrong.

“Because he just got up, grabbed a pillow and ran to bed.” I say and like a real fucking asshole I start laughing. Laughing. Laughing because my kid’s reaction was so strange, not because he is hurt. Because I am laughing my husband starts laughing. My oldest daughter looks at us both with shame and announces “He is really hurt guys, it’s not funny!”

I gestured to my daughter as if to say “See? Even the six-year-old agrees with me and she’s practically a better mother than I am!”

My husband goes in to check on his only boy and tell him to rub some dirt on it and suck it up. But my husband comes back in with my son in his arms and says “Have you seen his jaw? We have to get him to the hospital.”

I almost left my sleeping baby I was so worried. I said ALMOST! Don’t get your panties in a wad. I heard her cry as I was closing the door. I grabbed the baby and off to the hospital we go. I now do NOT want to look under my son’s throw pillow to see his jaw because I have a vivid imagination and what I conjured up in my brain was obviously the jaw needs to be amputated. Good thing I learned some sign language. *by sign language I mean the alphabet and a song about a bear. I am going to be able to communicate with my son after they remove half of his face. Oh my poor baby boy.

We get to the hospital and we have to wait for the doctor. The nurse sees my son holding his pillow firmly in place because of the severe and clearly unrepairable damage done to his jaw and probably teeth and maybe even his ear…Oh MY GOD, My poor son!

She says “Let me get a good look at it.”

I don’t want to see it! I really would prefer to not see it ever. I hope they can get us in touch with a good plastic surgeon. Fuck me, my poor child. Will he ever speak again? Will I ever get to hear that sweet raspy voice of his. So melodic was his voice. So gentle and kind and thoughtful were the words he chose to speak.

My son eventually agrees to pull the pillow from his face and there it is a big bruise and maybe some swelling.

PHEWWWWWWW!!!!! My son is going to be okay. Relieved is not even strong enough of a word I could use for what I felt. I was elated. My handsome boy just is a little banged up.

They take him in and do X-rays and announce that there was a little bit of a hairline fracture and some bruising of the bone. It was going to be painful for days and he would not really feel much like talking or eating. Soft foods and plenty of ibuprofen to bring down the swelling and to help with the pain.

We bring him home with the other two children….see I remembered them all. We let him have ice cream for dinner and we rent movies. Dad and big sister went to Blockbuster to pick it out….because that is what we did in the olden times…we got the horses saddled up and we went to a big video store to rent movies on discs. You needed to have a card or else you couldn’t rent movies. My God what a hassle it was. Remember “Be Kind Rewind” days? No? Me neither I was just checking to see if you were old, because I’m not. Okay I am so old I remember that if you got a scratch in your record it was useless. But the point isn’t how old I am, the point is my son was going to be alright.

Moral of my story: If you are going to do a twirl you need to pick up the books off of the floor. I mean what did you think you were going to learn from this? Don’t panic. Never panic! Okay, don’t panic, your kid is going to make it.

Until next time 🙂

One of the parts of being a parent I was woefully unprepared for was the fundraisers! My children would come in and hand me this packet with all of the things that they want to buy in them circled. They also circle their goal gift on the back. That’s your goal, son? You want to sell fifty thousand dollars worth of wrapping paper to get a yoyo that lights up? I am pretty certain that I can just go get you one for like ten cents at the dollar store!

My children grew up without our family close by. My children would also wait til the last-minute to show me the packet. We would only have a few days left to sell this shit because it has been sitting in their bedroom being circled. Yes, I do see how they are like me with my Avon catalog *if you are new here please read “Hiding from the Avon Lady.” Hopeful little cherubs with their eye on the prize and no one to sell to. We lived in a neighborhood that was recently built, it was filled with children my children’s ages. Everyone was selling this garbage. My kids were so excited to get that prize and so I would buy some portion of what was circled. They would ask their horseback riding instructor and various other people who didn’t want any either but obligatorily purchased a candle or napkin rings.

The deadline day comes and the child only has to remember to put the envelope in their bag and bring it to school. Inevitably the envelope is left sitting on the table. Seriously this selling garbage to make money for the school is becoming a job for me. I mean, what the fuck guys? I then have to bring the envelope to the school. So I have to bundle up my baby, grab the envelope, put the baby in her car seat all while she is sticking her ass up because she doesn’t want to go. I mean how does every child know this trick? You go to put them in the carseat and they become stiff as a board. As a mother you know karate chopping them in the stomach is bad, so now what? What does the parenting books say about this? Oh that’s right it glosses over the “heavy as rocks, stiff as a board, made of jello and spaghetti arms” part of child rearing. So there you are fighting with your baby as they are stiffening up and you are thinking “karate chop is wrong….don’t do it!!! You normally like this child.” You finally have to bribe the fucking kid with donuts. “Hey do you like donuts?” and you hope that they do. “We can go get donuts after we drop this off at the school.” The child finally cooperates and you smile because you probably could use a donut after that workout you just had. You really deserve it for not harming your child in your battle of wills. American Ninja Warrior should have a portion of their show where the contestants are dealing with children who are unwilling. For this next round you have to give your child medicine that they don’t want. *If you are not a parent but have dogs it’s the same. *If you have neither then imagine wearing a bottle of sticky cough syrup and your child has yet to get a drop in them.

I get all the way to the school with the envelope and my baby in the backseat has fallen asleep. Now I have to wake up the sleeping beauty to bring her into the school. (I think the person who wrote the Fiona part of Shrek may have had a toddler. When your child is tired they are kind of ogres.) I am carrying my little ogre who is screaming and kicking and biting me to the door. I have to ring the bell and wait for them to ask me what the hell I want. Only the little siren in my ear is preventing me from actually hearing them. Finally I hear the little click of the door and I am allowed in. I walk to the desk and the office lady is always annoyed. Always annoyed ever since I was in school in the seventies and eighties. I think there is a class on being a school secretary that makes them all very fluent in resting bitch face. I am now seeing the two hundred other parents of the school all standing there with their envelopes too. Honestly, I knew this was going to happen. Why doesn’t the school have someone outside collecting these shits so that we don’t all have to come inside? Oh its the public shaming at how incompetent we all are as parents. “You didn’t remind your child to bring this in?”

“Yes, In fact I made a song about it and everything. We even practiced putting it in the backpack last night and everything. I mean what can I say I don’t actually know why I am here either. But that’s not the point….here is your check. I have got to go and wrestle this child back into her car seat now.” Like I want to be doing this at all.

I finally get the child back into the car seat and she no longer likes donuts because she is super fucking cranky. Now I don’t actually know what is going to get her into her carseat. “It’s not a karate chop! It is not a karate chop!” I tell myself. I finally ask “Do you want candy?” She does and like a charm she is sitting and buckling herself up. You would have too, don’t judge me. Candy for breakfast is only bad if you think it through. I didn’t and therefore it was not.

The day the fundraiser arrives there will be one thousand phone calls, emails, and text messages to alert you to pick up your fucking things because the school doesn’t want it either. This is always in some parking lot, like a drug deal. The text is always so cryptic….*FUNDRAISER: pick up packages at NTTGHM parking lot 5-7pm!

That is the only time too. Like if you have the fucking flu or a job too bad. And I just know that I am going to have a reenactment of the envelope drop off. I am going to see the same two hundred parents. My child is going to fall asleep on the way so she is going to be screaming. My older two are going to have to carry the boxes because my arms will be full of spaghetti arms and jello body. *seriously America Ninja Warrior just consider it, it could be the parent addition. The boxes are always deceiving large for what is inside. You open the box when you get home and realize that it was wrapping paper for  Barbies. What the fuck am I going to wrap with this? I hardly ever buy jewelry as gifts. The napkin rings look suspiciously like the kids made them in art class, they are all misshapen and different sizes.

If you are like me, you laugh and take pictures because it is hilarious. If you are reading this please send me pics of your hilarious fundraiser things. I am on Facebook and Twitter and would really love for you to share them with me. Then at the very bottom of the box is your child’s prize which is always the most disappointing thing in the box. It’s either incredibly lame or amazingly small. Your child looks at it and they realized that they have been duped. Then they say something like “All of that hard work for this?” And this is really preparing them for taxes, which is not a bad thing I suppose.

Then your child has to deliver the packages to their proper recipients and they do so with less gusto than when they were selling it because they don’t care that you bought something they only cared about the prize which they have by now either broken or lost. This lesson of theirs never lasts because in the spring they are all super pumped for this new prize that they are trying to earn. It’s the circle of fundraising.

Moral of my story: It is not about the items nor the prize, fundraising does great things for schools and we should all support them if and when we can. Some of the things last though…I, to this day, have a frozen cake that I bought when one of my children was still in middle school. My oldest is in veterinary school, my son is in graduate school and my youngest is a sophomore in culinary school….thats one old cake. I am thinking this might be the Thanksgiving I will serve it. Also I might need to clean my freezer.

Until next time 🙂

Is there anything worse than packing for a trip. I always tell people who I pack like I am running away, meaning that I am likely to have no underwear nor a toothbrush. It is more like packing like running away to join a shoe circus because I am going to have more pairs of shoes than days that I am traveling. I mean I may need these heels with the rhinestones because I may suddenly be invited to a fashion show or perhaps a wedding. How many shades of lipstick will I bring? Well did I mention that I have forgotten my toothbrush…what shade makes me look like I’ve brushed my teeth? Kidding, I am obsessive about brushing my teeth, my receding gum line will tell you. I still forget it though my toothbrush though.

It usually goes like this….

Me: sudden look of confusion and also panic.

Husband: “I have packed you a toothbrush!”

Me: smiles and still unsure what he means because it is usually not a new one. So I typically will have to buy one at the hotel store.

I also pack too many clothes for all seasons because is it winter or summer where we are going? Are they in the tundra but also near the equator? I brought five separate jackets on my last trip…..three of which I did not wear, and I still had to purchase one because I thought it was warmer than it actually was and got cold out on our travels for the day and bought a jacket to warm up. So I came home with six jackets.

As much as I don’t actually like packing to take a trip, I despise unpacking when I get home from one. It’s like a laundry bin at that point. Oh just let me unpack and do laundry and fold it and put it away….it’s so much work housed  in such a tiny bag. How did so many hours of work fit into that one small suitcase anyway?

If you travel with kids, you are going to get some sort of fucking surprise when you get home.

Such as:

Oh weird, here is the hotel tv remote!

or

A small container of seashells that smells as if they are housing a dead whale carcass!

or

twenty pounds of fucking sand!

or

a little bottle of ketchup from room service!

What the fuck are my kids doing when we are on vacation anyway? What the fuck am I doing where I don’t notice these things until I get home?

If you think I am an over-packer for me? When I packed for small children I was super prepared for anything. I kid you not, that if and when I could fit it in we would travel with the child’s potty chair. My kids were terrified of using public toilets and that meant hotel toilets and also family member’s toilets. I don’t know what my children thought my brothers did for a living but it appeared that they were in the lucrative business of selling time on their toilets.

I would pack them books, toys, stuffed animals, blankies, pacifiers, bottles, cookies, juice, cereal, clothes for every season, diapers, coloring books, crayons, pictures of their pets, birth certificates, last two years tax returns and so on and so forth until I would look at everything and think “That’s probably going to hold us over until we get home!” This is all the things that I would schlep around for several days until it was time to come home and wash it all.

Have you ever forgot your child’s blankie? or comfort item? Have you survived to tell the tale? Are there any ghost moms reading my blog and wishing they had enough energy to write me and tell me about your experience? please don’t haunt me! I forgot my daughter’s blankie and it was like she had a vital organ removed by the way she had carried on….well maybe not vital because she sure had stamina…so maybe a tonsil or something.

It starts with the child getting a little tired and you look for the comfort item. First you check the suitcase. Not there, you don’t panic because your search has only just begun. You then check the diaper bag, not there, you began to feel your heart speed up. Then you ask the kids “Have you seen your sister’s blankie?” They all shake their heads no. You don’t panic because they aren’t very observant. You go out to the car and search any where a blankie could hide. You feel the lump in your throat. You search everywhere the blankie couldn’t possibly hide. The feeling that the world is about to end is slowly trying to settle into your soul. You pinch your cheeks to put some color into them because you are going to have to try to convince your baby that it’s no big deal. The blankie is misplaced, not dead and gone. You look at yourself in the car mirror and give yourself a little pep talk “Okay Becki, the blankie is not in any of the usual places. It is probably hiding under a chair or something. You can do this. If you cannot find the blankie you will simply just tell the child and it will be fine. You got this! Don’t cry. Come on! Babies can smell fear. You are going to do great. Maybe the baby won’t care any way, I mean it is only a blanket.”

Then you walk into the hotel and tear up the place because you fucking know that no one will be getting any sleep if you don’t find that fucking blankie. You have seen it before when the blankie was in the dryer and it had fifteen minutes left and your child’s tantrum lasted well into the night because even when you did give it to them all dry and clean it was too late. The child was beyond reason and over tired and the blankie smelled different and not at all like puke and stale peanut butter.

I don’t know what is going to happen when I go inside and face the tiny tyrant. All I know is that if I runaway now the shoe circus might take me. Honestly I could probably live in this car for two months with all of the snacks, water bottles and potty chair. Alas I get the nerve and go inside to face the tiny little drum that is about to spoil the night for everyone within a twenty-mile radius of our room. It has to be done. I have to admit defeat. I will one day laugh about it and write a blog about it. But today I am going to wish that I packed that fucking blankie first. Stupid Becki!

Moral of my story: Are vacations even worth it? Yes, they are so worth. Wrap your child in the blankie if you remember the child the blankie comes with it. Also unpack as soon as you get home it makes the chore easier. And if you are like me and pack too much stuff just know the stuff you buy is not going to fit in your bags when you come home so remember to pack an extra suitcase.

Until next time 🙂

I recently went on an adventure across the country with my daugher, in my daughter’s car. I word it that way to make my life sound like it has meaning. I actually just went to California to move my daughter and her copious amount of shit home. Now you all know me, and how I am an anxiety riddled stress machine, right? So when I say to you all that two days before having to fly out to California by myself I had a panic attack the size of California, you totally get it. I could have reasoned that I was going to be safe and that the trip was going to move forward without a hitch.

Well, I DIDN’T OKAY!

I instead looked up things like “Wildfires in California!” and “Tornadoes that ripped through Kansas” and not to mention the fact that I also watched a Netflix movie about the end of days for good measure. So I was good and prepared for anything that the Good Lord can throw my direction.

I am also an avid reader so I brought with me three books to read on the airplane and in hotels rooms because I plotted my trip out to take my beautiful nineteen year old daughter out of California up to her equally beautiful sister that is twenty-five who lives in Minnesota and then stay there until the twenty-five year old was on vacation from work four days later. We then journeyed the rest of the trek home all together. It was a total of two weeks.

I made it to my first stop on my flight which was in Phoenix, Arizona. Next was the flight to Monterey California. When I got on my plane for California I had already finished one of my books and had started another. Because I am reading, and also because I am getting old, I have to wear my bifocals. I also have sensitivity to light so I have to wear sunglasses that are also bifocals. Nothing says “Young and Vibrant” quite like a pair of bifocals sunglasses. I mean to look at them you would never know….but I know. Sure they are fashionable and shit, but they are also bifocals. I mean I might as well wear those weird square things the doctors give you when they dilate your pupils. So the spring is a bit out of my step, and no it has nothing to do with the weird click in my knee…it’s the fact that I am aging.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the flight that landed in Monterey California and how ill-prepared I was to be climbing out of the plane onto the tarmac with my bifocals glasses and not the sunglasses and my eyes are super sensitive to the light. I came off that plane blinking and shielding my eyes. I am certain that I came off a bit like a poor refugee that had just been released from the dark cave she had taken shelter in. “The LIGHT! It blinds! MY EYES! They burn!”

My inner-voice is all shouting “BE COOL! ACT LIKE YOU’VE BEEN PLACES BEFORE!”

I get into the tiny airport and I walk trying to read the signs that tell me which way to get my bags. My bags that I have packed to be on the road for two weeks. I can’t read the signs because my eyes can’t focus to the lighting in the airport. I am standing in front of a sign and squinting and rubbing my eyes and trying to see if it says Baggage Claim or Bagel Clam. I mean it seems obvious, but I don’t know. I get over to where the bags come out and I am super prepared to HULK OUT when my bags come out. Because I have packed everything a woman may need for two weeks in several climates. Yes, I may have over packed, but you never know when you may need things. My bags have my initials on them so I don’t make any mistake. So they come out side by side and I handle my luggage like a God Damned pro. I walk outside and a Taxi drive sees me “Need a ride miss?”

“Yes sir!” he takes my bags from me and off we go. Like it was planned. Smooth! Thank God for being gentle to me. My child and I spend the next three days moving her out. She drives a little Toyota and it is filthy. So filthy that I cannot see out of the mirror. It didn’t rain in California the entire time she was there. What it did do was mist…and create a lovely dirt paste all over her car. I now have to find a car wash. Thank goodness I have an iPhone and internet. Imagine life in the dark ages when you had to ask people and stuff. I get her car washed and I climb back in and drive away.

I get to the hotel and valet the car until it is time to pick up my angel at work. She and I are going to eat at the posh place she had been interning at all summer. I am dressed in my nice clothes and sweating my balls off. What has happened to her nice air conditioning? I am not going to lie when I say that I am not a car genius. This is probably going to make my father cry…LOOK AWAY DAD.

I couldn’t figure out how to turn on her air-conditioning. The valet or maybe the car wash guy turned off her air-conditioning and I am all….Oh yes hit the AC button and that is how it is done. Guys……….That is not how it is fucking done apparently. I am sweating and swearing (shocking I know) I turn dials and I push more buttons. NOTHING. It is warm here in California but we are going to be driving to Vegas tomorrow. Vegas is sort of Hell light. IF you want to prepare yourself for what Hell will be like go there. I mean it is 115 degrees there. That’s why Vegas women choose to strip…they are all like, “well I am going to walk around naked anyway I might as well get paid for it.”

I am going to be driving through the desert in this car with no fucking air-conditioning?

I call my husband and try to pretend I am not having a menopausal Hot flash and a nervous fucking breakdown all at once and I say politely “Hey, so, UMMMMM? How do I turn on the air-conditioning in this car?”

The way he yells back at me leads me to believe I am not being as polite as I thought I was “I don’t know honey, I am not driving it!”

So now I am annoyed so I say “I pushed the AC button and nothing happened and so then I turn the dials and nothing happened. I feel like I may be doing it wrong. Can you help me?”

“I will make you an appointment to have it fixed first thing in the morning.” Was his response.

“Do you think it’s broken? I mean it was working just fine until I gave it to the valet.” I think “It appears to have been just turned off, I just don’t know how to turn it on again.”

“You have an appointment at 7:00 in the morning. Take it to them and have them check it out.”

“What if they need to buy parts and have them shipped?” I began to panic for real now because the expert I called is telling me that a professional is needed and I am never going to leave California. It’s like that fucking song “You can check out anytime you want but you can never leave!” Oh Fuck me, the Eagles were right. I’m stuck here.

I start to cry and tell my husband “this is not going as planned.” because I am a rock star and I am rolling with it.

My daughter comes to the car and I am in pieces. “Mom, are you okay?” she asks gingerly.

“I have some very bad news.” I take a deep breath. “Your air conditioner is broke.”

“Oh for fucks sake mom, I thought someone died.”

“Well to be honest I am not even sure your air conditioner is broke because I think it’s just turned off and I don’t actually know how to turn it back on again.”

She smiles and says “Yeah, this happened to me before. You have to turn the dial first and then hit the AC button.”

Once she did this her air conditioning turns on like a charm. Take that Menopause, I have raised a super hero.

We cancel our appointment and the next morning we take a walk before sitting in the car for our eight-hour drive to Vegas. We say goodbye to her home for the past few months and leave with the air conditioning working. I apologized to my husband profusely for being so irrational. He says it was not a problem. He totally understood and was glad that the air conditioner was working.

When we get to Vegas I have realized that we need to get rid of some of her things because there is no place for her sister to sit when we get to her place. So we decide to lug half of her things to the Fed-ex shop in the hotel and ship it home. This was so ingenious and I was so proud of myself for thinking it. It was a bit pricey but we freed up so much space in the car.

Vegas was fun and we saw a show and we laid by the pool until it got so hot that we couldn’t stand it. We went shopping. We ate some great food. We saw a premarital argument out on the street…we knew it was premarital because they were wearing their bride and bachelor sashes. We had the full Vegas experience.

Onward, next stop Utah. We drove through some really beautiful places and scenery and even some smoke because of wildfires in Utah. My daughter was the perfect navigator. We sleep in Utah, the next morning we wake up and go for a walk before we have to sit again. Our next stop was Colorado. I ask my daughter to take pictures while I drive. She then tells me “I am not as excited about dirt as you are!” I then tell her that when we get closer to Colorado it will be greener. I then tell her that I would like to take her to the “Garden of the Gods”.

“I’ll see anything as long as it is not dirt.” she smiles

I grimace because the “Garden of the Gods” is rocks. I then say “Well it’s pretty dirt though.” we didn’t go to the Garden of the Gods. What we did do was go to Target because we needed to get some duct tape. When I pulled into a gas station to gas up and go to the potty….I noticed as I was coming back to the car that some “underthings” were hanging. I call my husband again and I say “Soooo! UMMMMM? There are some underthings hanging down from the bottom of the car, are those important?”

“I don’t know! What are they?”

“The Flaps?” I look at my daughter. She nods in agreement “I think it’s the flaps and they are hanging and dragging on the ground. Is that okay?”

“What flaps?” he asks

“The under flaps.” I explain and preface this with “I think!”

“Oh and my bumper is coming off because some rich dick hit my car!” my daughter chimes in.

“Jesus Christ Becki did you get in an accident?”

“No, I have been driving well. I just noticed this. I mean I am still driving and the car seems fine its just every once in a while we hear a dragging noise. I mean it is probably fine right?”

“Let me think about this and what it could be.” my husband once had to listen to me explain whilst he was in Europe, no less, about the under clunking in my oldest’s car. He was so pissed by my explanation that he told me to just making an appointment. I told the people at the car shop that there was an underclunking and then my oldest produced a handful of clips that she had in her pocket and said “And I found these!” So yeah we are super great with these types of things. That particular day the clips my daughter found didn’t actually come from her car and they fixed the problem.

“I told you, its the under flaps.” in all seriousness.

“Cars don’t have under flaps.” he explains. “Can you just take a picture of it?”

“When I get to the hotel I will.”

“Maybe it’s the splash guards and you can just duct tape them up. I don’t know about the bumper though.”

“Yeah I think duct tape will help.” I say even though I didn’t actually get a good look at the bumper.

We get to Colorado and we take photos of the under flaps and the bumper that I was able to push back into place. My husband tells me that duct tape will work and to not worry about it.

We get the car all duct taped and head onto the next stop, Missouri. Except when I was trying to figure out where the GPS was telling me to turn I was premature and the GPS decided to be a fucking bitch and she was all like “OKAY you can take the scenic route.”

There we were driving down this country road with nothing but farm land on either side of us and we were on this road for a hundred and fifty miles. I start to get nervous, what if we need gas? Luckily my daughter is a savvy little genius and she found on the gps on her phone that there was a gas station coming up ahead. We were happy to stop and get gas and to use the restroom. We had doubts about getting food though. That was until we walked in and smelled the fried chicken cooking. There in behind the gas station was a little fried chicken shop with all of the fixens. My little girl walks up and looks at the menu.

8-piece dinner

16-piece dinner

24-piece dinner

My daughter who is a tiny little thing asks “Can I have an eight piece dinner?”

“NO!” the woman behind the counter says, “All I’ve got here is all I’ve got and it aint even lunch rush yet!”

My daughter looks at me confused because this chicken queen has over a hundred pieces of chicken in her case and we can smell more cooking.

“Well what can I have?” my daughter asks her.

“What ever you want sweetie.” the woman responds.

“Can she have the chicken strips?” I ask

“How many?”

“I guess three?” My daughter asks because she doesn’t know how many is too many.

“Okay any potatoes?” chicken lord asks

“Yes the wedges.” my daughter says.

“How many?”

“A couple?” my daughter answers and the woman drops two potato wedges into the box and then she looks at me.

“Do you want anything?”

“No thank you!” because I am not sure if we have purchased too much already. I grab some sandwich from the store portion of the gas station and then we were back on the road.

We climb into our duct taped car and carry onward to Missouri. When we get to our hotel we have a hard time finding where to park. I have been to New York city and pulled into the walkway thinking it was the valet parking before and had been yelled at by a police officer. So when I see this Parking sign I am immediately skeptical. Also as I pull forward to the parking garage it states to check in first. I park in the fire zone and run in and check in and they notice that I look flustered.

“Are you okay?” the check in girl asks.

“Yes, but I parked in a fire zone and I don’t think I was supposed to!” I say.

She smiles and says “No problem, let’s get you all checked in and I will have the valet go get your car and to help you with your bags.”

One night in this hotel and then onward to my oldest daughter’s home. We stay in a hotel because she is a vet student and she lives with many people and I didn’t want to intrude. When we finally get to see my oldest daughter we all hug and laugh and joke. We tell her about the duct tape and the under flaps. We go to dinner. She works two jobs, one frightfully early in the morning and the other starts at five and goes to the late night hours. So we go back to our hotel. That night my youngest got out of bed to use the restroom. When she came back she stopped before climbing back in and she removed her earrings. I see her there but I don’t know it is her. I just see someone standing over my daughter’s bed. So I yell in my man voice “Hey!”

My daughter screams and I stand up because I think the assailant has got her. I turn on the light and there is my poor little angel all wide-eyed and ready to take me down if need be. We laugh and I apologize.

It finally comes time to leave with both daughters in the car heading to Indiana and eventually home. My oldest is shopping through her sister’s things because we need to make more room. We tetris the shit out of our things and get enough space in the car for everyone and their belongings. The next drive was long and filled with traffic as people are moving back to Universities and what not. Finally we make it to our hotel. We decide on dinner and I have been eating such unhealthy things all I really wanted was a salad. Instead we ate at Five Guys and my stomach is on fire from the grease.

We are in a suite style room and I noticed before I went to bed that there is a door that leads to another room. There is a sign that says to lock door turn the lock this way. I try to turn it and it doesn’t budge. I shrug thinking it is locked and I go to bed. Then as I am sleeping I hear a door noise and I think “Holy fuck it is the murderer that lives behind that God damned door coming to kill my daughters and me.” So I wake up and try to see….as you now know I don’t see very well, hence the bifocals. So I am squinting into the dark abyss and I see the tiniest of a round shape and it looks like this person is watching us sleep.

I have been on the road with the youngest and I call for her first. She does not budge. I then call the oldest and she doesn’t move either. I walk over and I wake her up.

She says “Yeah?”

“I need you to help me.” I say, still sleepy and now starting to come to.

“What do you need help with?”

“I, ummm, I heard a noise. So I need you to be awake in case I get murdered.”

“Okay.” she says

“Oh and I’m going to turn on the TV.” I say as an after thought because I just woke up my daughter to witness my murder I might as well put some light on so that she can be a good witness. When the television is turned on there is my tiny headed person, it was a vase above the couch. The door that I heard was the elevator and I am glad that I am awake because I have to pee.

When I crawl back into bed, my oldest looks at me and asks “Are you done being murdered? Can I go back to sleep?” because she has been my daughter for twenty-five years and she is quite accustomed to my crazy.

When we get home the dogs are happy to see us. My husband had left on a business trip so I won’t see him for a couple of days. My daughter’s best friends were watching the dogs and waiting to see my daughter who has been in California since March. It was so lovely to see them all together again. My son and his girlfriend are coming home to stay a few days and for a few nights all of my babies will be under one roof. We played a card game that made me laugh so hard that I went to bed with a headache and a sore neck. My kids are hilarious and I am so proud of them. They all got their mother’s sense of humor and none of my ridiculous fears. My husband’s trip got cut short so he was able to come home and be with his family. It was lovely how everything turned out.

Moral of my story: Be patient with yourself and trust that everything will be alright. Also travel with duct tape. I totally loved this trip with my daughter/daughters. It was such an adventure and turns out that my imagination was worse than any of the troubles that were in front of me. The Good Lord watched over us and probably laughed along with us.

Until next time 🙂

When my youngest was a newborn I was a breastfeeding mother. My husband and I were planning to have family over for a cookout. The first thing to do was to go to the grocery store. My husband was asking me “What do we need at the grocery store?”

I was rattling off the list of things as his eyes were glazing over because the list he wanted was three items, the list I was giving was more like the Gettysburg address of lists. I mean when your list begins with “Four Score and Seven Years ago” there is going to be paper involved. So as his eyes begin to glaze over and the three hours of sleep that I was running on and also the possibility of me getting out of the house I naturally answered with “I will just go!” He looked relieved at the opportunity to be in the house alone. I was looking forward to going to the grocery store alone. I finish feeding the baby and I know I have a two and a half hour window to work with. I put the baby in the bassinet and I go outside and hand my husband the monitor so that he can hear when the baby is crying.

“Aren’t you taking the kids?” he asks (Are you serious? I just evacuated the last one from my body so no I don’t have to take them with me everywhere I go!)

“No! The baby is sleeping. The other two are playing nicely and you are an adult so I am able to grocery shop alone.”

“Becki,  you are just going to leave them here with me?”

I would like to think that I was all understanding and thoughtful and handled things like a good-natured human being. Instead I turned to him and I said. “Yes. Surprise and congratulations you are a father. It’s a girl and a boy and another girl!” I turned on my heels and walked all the way to the minivan and started that bad boy up like the rock star that I was.

I drove all the way to the grocery store listening to music. At first it was Ernie singing about his best friend “rubber ducky” and then I was like “Wait, I can listen to whatever the Hell I want to. It can be the most violent of all music I can find.” So naturally I blanked because what even is popular these days. I turned to some pop channel and there was Britney singing about spousal abuse or some such thing and I was all like “No Britney do not let him hit you.” I finally found Alanis and she is singing about the ironies of life. I can really get into that and so on my way I go. I don’t know the words but I sing anyway, because I AM A ROCK STAR!!!!

I get to the grocery store  and the first thing I look for is the cart with the car that the children can play in while I shop. But guess what folks I don’t need it. I can push a regular sized cart and shop in peace. I am going up  and down the isles and I start getting these guys that look at me and smile and say “HELLO!” I am impressed because did I even shower today, or this week? These men are all into me. I am floating because I am getting the “look” from all of these guys. “I still got it!” I think to myself.

*I know that I shouldn’t get my self-worth from a man or many men. I know that I am supposed to be better than that. But to be completely honest I have been feeling like such a host to a parasitic condition for so long It honestly felt good for someone to look at me not as a person that was going to feed and clothe them but as a hot piece of ass. A desired human being. My husband at this point in time looked at me as the person that was going to help him avoid parental duties. So yes I was flattered by all of these looks. 

My self-esteem was soaring by the time I get home. My sister was there when I get homw and she helps me unload the groceries. Then as I was standing in the kitchen telling her how all of these men were giving me the “LOOK”. She says “Your shirt is opened.”

“What?” I ask

“Your shirt is open!” she states again and points to my chest.

I slowly look down and low and behold there It is. My shirt was wide open.

*flashback to what I was doing prior to my shopping trip. BREASTFEEDING the baby! 

Holy fucking shit! These guys were definitely into me because there I was with my enormous milkshakes hanging out for anyone to see. The baby cries and now I realize that I may or may not just walk around with my blouse wide open because all I ever do is feed the baby. Why bother buttoning up when all I am going to be doing is unbuttoning every two and a half hours until she is old enough to say “button your shirt mom!”

Moral of my story: if you breastfeed check yourself in the mirror before you leave the house to make sure that the goods aren’t on display. Also, they still were checking me out so it counts. The irony is not lost on me that I was listening to that song on this particular shopping trip.

This little story is a flashback brought to you by Mama Mia and ABBA and my childhood. I recently saw the movie “Mama Mia! Here we go again”. It was great and if you have not gone to see it, I highly recommend it. If you have not seen it you are still welcome to read my flashback as it will give no spoilers to the movie. In fact the only spoiler was the dashed dreams of me singing as a girl.

I loved ABBA as a girl and so did my sister. We would dance around our living room or my brother’s room because those were the two places that had an 8-track player and we were listening to our ABBA 8-track tape. By the way I remember when the 8-track went, it was playing Elvis and Elvis’s voice got all melty and then there was smoke. Any way, enough about my nightmares, My sister and I would always sing together.

I just a few days ago purchased the ABBA greatest hits album on iTunes when I was fresh from the movie Mama Mia 2. I was so excited. I got that sucker pulled up on my iPad and lets just say I was stoked to sing along. But a really sad truth is I only knew the “Boy parts” as we used to call it. *Not to be mistaken with the other “boy parts” because that’s just gross. Why is it that I only knew the deep singing parts of the song.

*Insert flashback music and wavy scene maybe in black and white or perhaps Technicolor because it was the seventies.

My family was highly musical and everyone played an instrument. I played the spoons. I am calling that an instrument, it is in the percussion family. We had amps and microphones and guitars and a keyboard and a drum set so obviously I was given the spoons from the kitchen drawer. If you play the spoons first of all I say to you Bravo on your selection and welcome to the spoon players of America. Also (not to dash your dreams) spoons are an appeasement instrument. Much like the wand in Harry Potter, the instrument chooses you. Mine chose me with “Here stop crying and play these!”

Sometimes when we were playing “Band” it was just my sister and I. I would step up to the mic with grand dreams of being the ultimate of all lead singers. When My sister would open her mouth and sing my part. I would look at her and say “That’s my part. I want to be the girl!”

“But you’re always the boy! Besides you can sing lower than I can.” she would respond.

*children’s rules if you take the undesirable part once it will always be your part by default. That’s why I was the fucking dolphin.

We would rewind the tape and again begin, but if you listen to ABBA the boys don’t really sing much. So there I am with my sorta low chipmunk voice singing “Supapa Troopapa” and realizing that this is some bullshit. The next song would come on and I would start to sing first and this would always end with my sister reminding me that I am essentially a boy singer with the beautiful bass to go along with it.

I would then sing some sort of boy background words and the whole time I was wondering how do I become a lead singer only doing these dumb boy parts.

One day my sister was not home and the mic was Hot and waiting for me. I stepped up to that thing like the rock star that I was. I belted out Mama Mia. I belted out Dancing Queen. I was forever meant to be the lead singer. I was so happy to be alone and singing any part that I wanted. But I missed my sister because no one was there to appreciate the performance I was giving. When my sister came home I was like “Do you wanna play band?”

“Sure! Let me go change.” We always dressed in some outrageous outfit to play band, with my mom’s vest and some belt tied around our heads. We probably looked some waifs taken in off of the street that had been living in a donated clothing bin.

She comes out and damn she looked good. She steps up to the mic and she is all “Ooh You can dance        You can Jive”

I was all like “You CAN DANCE   YOU CAN JIVE”

Because I was just going to sing louder, because everyone knows that’s how you become the lead singer by aggressively singing louder and a bit off-key.

“Becki, what are you doing?”

“I’m the girl this time.”

“You are always the boy.”

It wasn’t until years later that we found out that ABBA had two girls that sang. We could have avoided many arguments by doing a little research or perhaps looking at the picture on the 8-track tape.

Thanks to my sister I have great range, I can hit both the high notes and the low notes. Also I don’t sing in public so I may not actually be hitting any of the notes. But that’s not my point is it?

Moral of my story: Some one has to be the boy! That’s a terrible thing to say. Wait, women empowerment! No one has to be the boy! That’s equally terrible. What’s my moral here? I got it! There can be two lead women singers in a band and they can both be equally awesome. Nailed it!!!!!

Until next time 🙂

My oldest daughter was such a delicate little angel and she had big blue eyes, dirty blonde hair and she picked up talking like a pro. She was speaking two and three word sentences by the time she was nine months old. When she was two she had language down. So when she learned a new word she instantaneously used it.

My husband was setting up to the paint our living room. He had removed the covers of the outlets and put the screws on his desk next to his computer. This was the early nineties and our computer was the most expensive thing we owned. My husband was an engineering student and his computer was his best friend. When I was showering to get ready to leave because I was pregnant and my husband didn’t want me near the paint fumes. I was drying off when I heard a commotion coming from outside the door. I listen to my husband’s voice and none of it sounded nice and pleasant. This is when I decide to check in on him to see what was up. (keep in mind, he is an adult and this is his two year old daughter, soooooo I mean do I really have to go and deal with this because shouldn’t he have this. After all I spend every single weekday and most weekends alone with her. But whatever!)

“What’s going on?” I ask while I waddle into the living room with my big round belly.

“Where are those fucking screws?” he asks

I look at him and I am all like “I’m not sure. Where did you put them?”

My daughter is now hiding behind me because her father is furious.

“I put them right here.” and he shows me.

“I waddle over and start searching for the missing screws.” my daughter is clinging to me and I get the feeling that she knows something about the missing screws. I look at her and I say “Sweetheart did you see Daddy’s screws?” I lift up a screw and show her.

She smiles and nods her head. She points to the hard drive slot on my husband’s favorite thing in the world, his computer, and she says “Futtin thcrewth!”

She smiles and says it again pointing “Futtin thcrewth! Futtin thcrweth! Futtin thcrewth!” like she is having some sort of swearing baby episode or something.

My husband finally sees where she is pointing and his face turns white and I am not lying when I say I have never felt more like that lady in the shining when her husband was trying to find her with that axe…..I was like Oh shit, He is about to lose his futtin mind.

I grabbed my daughter and I sort of move out of his path. He looks at me and he says, “Just get her the hell out of here! I am going to have to take the computer apart now and I don’t need her touching anymore of my things.”

I put her down and gather all of our things and she is wandering around the house while I am packing a diaper bag full of the essentials to be away for the day or longer if he loses his complete fucking shit and we are no longer welcomed back. As she is wandering around behind me she says this to each thing I put in the diaper bag.

“Where are my futtin pants?”

“Where is my futtin cup?”

“Where is my futtin blankie?”

“Where is my futtin dollie?”

Where are my futtin diapers?”

So as my daughter is releasing all of these F Bombs I start laughing because I am really just a child who can’t adult on my best day. My husband is in the living room and he has moved one of our roadside couches to block the entryway so that the little hoodlum doesn’t break anymore of his things.

She is now over by the barricade and shouting “Where is my futtin Daddy? Where is my futtin Daddy? Where is my futtin Daddy?”

I think well that’s a fun game that will keep her busy while I get my shoes on because I can’t actually see my feet and this is going to take a while. When all of a sudden she disappears under the couch and get’s herself stuck under there. At first I hear her  grunting and wrestling to get herself free. Eventually she realizes her predicament and let’s out a scream that would wake the dead.

My husband is sitting calmly still working away at his computer not even paying attention to his daughter freaking out under the couch. I look at him and I say “Can you please help me?”

He sighs and puts his things down. We both are working toward trying to release our two year old who has got herself wedged completely under the couch when she finally says.

“Help Me! I am FUTTIN STUCK!”

I start laughing so hard that I am rendered useless. I can’t lift the couch. I can’t pull her out. All I can do is Wheeze and laugh and lose all muscle control. This makes my daughter panic even more and shouts even louder “I’m really futtin stuck!” The more she says it the more it makes me laugh and the more annoyed my husband gets and the more panicked my daughter gets. Finally I get some composure and my husband lifts the couch enough so that I can grab her leg and drag her out of there.

My daughter looks me square in the eye, slaps my chest and says with pure conviction “Stupid futtin Mommy!” At that moment I knew she was actually mine. This is my child for sure. I can now see the family resemblance.

Moral of my story: Obviously watch your language around your children unless you want to have your own version of this story. I get it babies cursing isn’t that attractive but when you hear that little tiny voice cursing you out it is a little bit startling and that makes me laugh. I mean you just don’t expect it. Also if this isn’t clear my daughter was two and had a speech impediment….she was saying fucking screws… and fucking everything else. I was told not to react to it and they will stop. I didn’t give any reaction and she eventually lost interest in that word…that is until she became a teenager in which case we revisited this word on a more permanent basis. Also I don’t really mean to make my husband look like an asshole but to my recollection of this day he was an asshole…..but I was also pregnant so you do the math.

Until next time 🙂

When I found out that I was going to be a mother, I was so excited and very nervous. I wanted to be the best mother that I could be. I was a psychology student and I studied all about early childhood development, so I felt that I had at least some idea as to what to do. Of course I lacked any confidence that I could actually do any of it, but I was like I am going to try to follow the recipe in these books and I am going to see what kind of cookies come out. In theory I was ready…..in the first two trimesters I was ready. The last trimester I was sitting on the couch, a roadside find that my husband came home with, that’s a whole story in and of itself. Let’s just say for a time my husband’s favorite store to shop was “the fucking side of the road”. We were poor and it was fine. Any way I was sitting on our lice infested couch (which apparently is the only reason I think couches are thrown away, this and hats) and I looked at him and said “I have changed my mind I don’t want to have a baby.”

MY husband looks at me and was baffled because we just bought things for the child and he’s pretty certain that is a guarantee that you are having this baby because he just spent money on it. He talks me off of my “This fucking creature is going to tear my hoochie to bits” ledge and I sit there and think “Yes! Yes! My baby is not going to be a vagina tearing monster. My baby is going to be polite and not want to disturb anyone. Excuse me, can I just get through here, I am trying to be born.”

Okay, now that the children have multiplied, much like the free couches in my home, I am like, sure parenting is going to be good. But in the fine print there is a clause and it states that you are also going to have to become different supernatural beings. Like the motherfucking tooth fairy. Me as a mother is a stretch. Me as a magical being that flits about in the middle of the night searching under pillows and standing on legos all the whilst finding teeth and leaving money and never disturbing my little sleeping cherubs….Not actually going to happen. I am not that graceful. I was a dancer and apparently that has tricked my brain into thinking that I am light on my feet. I am not. I am writing this with a broken toe complete with broken toe nail because I dropped a weight on my foot. So, no, I am more of the fairy godmother in Ella enchanted. That’s the type of tooth fairy I am. I am clumsy. I am forgetful and I am broke AF.

My oldest daughter had two rows of teeth surgically removed because her baby teeth didn’t fall out on their own. Nothing says braces quite like two rows of teeth. So when she lost her first teeth she was on the “goofy juice” and I didn’t even have to pretend. I was like “Hey the tooth fairy came and brought you flowers and balloons and money!”

Also I am not great when it comes to how much things cost. I was like “I got a quarter or a dime or a coupon for McDonald’s for my teeth, so add in inflation and she just had four teeth pulled at once, so what? Like forty dollars?”

So there my daughter is with her loopy look and being handed two twenty-dollar bills. I am so proud of myself because this tooth fairy is a badass mother! However, I have three kids and apparently ever other week they are going to be losing teeth. I am all tired and shit and forgetful and broke.

After a while my kids were like “this tooth fairy is always on vacation. Does she ever work?” And here’s the thing about kids, they talk to other kids, about the tooth fairy. Oh my fucking word don’t you assholes have anything better to talk about other than how your mother is failing at her other identities? I mean I hear you,  little Suzy says that her toothfairy gave her a special pillow and is on time with her payments….meanwhile your toothfairy has been sent to collections more times than not. Your tooth fairy is a little bit of a hot mess. That’s how it goes sometimes. Sometimes you get the ghetto tooth fairy.

Me as the tooth fairy: *two weeks after the tooth had been sitting under my child’s pillow! To husband “Do you have any cash on you?”

husband “For what?”

“For the tooth fairy!”

H: “Nah all I got is a twenty-dollar bill.”

“Give it to me!” I demand like some kind of pimp

H: “What? No that’s way too much for the tooth fairy.”

“I don’t care! That tooth has been sitting under her pillow for a month. I keep forgetting.”

H: “You are not going to give her twenty dollars for her tooth.”

“Fine!”

*sits down and writes out a fancy I Owe You document with calligraphy. I sneak upstairs and crack the door open and wait to see if the child is really asleep. I then crawl into the room because of the Lego incident of 1999 where I shouted “You son of a bitch!” I get close to her bed and watch to see if my presence wakes her. I then fish around under her pillow while watching her head bob up and down. I finally find the tissue that she has wrapped her tooth in. I snatch it and then I carefully place the I owe you in its place. I sneak back out of her room and look at the tissue. Oh Fucking great! It’s just a snot rag. No tooth, just crusty old tissues. I then sneak back in and gently roll the child off of the pillow and lift the pillow up. There are sixteen tissues in there. What do I do? Am I supposed to look through all of these snot crusted kleenex until I find the right one? Do I put the disgusting booger keepers back under her pillow? Do I leave screaming and asking my husband for one of those “Silkwood” scrub downs? For the love of all that is Holy, what is my course of action here? I grab all of the tissues to do the most disgusting detective work ever in my life. (to be fair my children have never swallowed anything of value, so that would have topped this ten fold. I’m sorry but I don’t really care how valuable it is….I would simply just be like it’s gone forever. But I guess it is more about the child’s health than the item. But this isn’t about health, this is about some asshole parent that couldn’t deal with the fact that their child had loose teeth and was all like “But there is a fairy that will visit you!”

first child ever to lose teeth “So?”

“And she comes at night!”

child not falling the parental bullshit “I don’t care!”

“And she brings money!”

Apparently Scrooge was the first child ever to lose a tooth: “How much money?”

Now I am searching through diseased paper products for my child’s tooth and meanwhile the only thing I left for the poor dear is a promise that money is coming soon. It is the tooth fairy version of “the check is in the mail!” But with rainbow colors because she’s a fairy. DO NOT TRY THIS WITH THE ELECTRIC COMPANY THEY DON’T CARE HOW COLORFUL IT IS WHEN YOU ARE SAYING YOU CAN’T PAY YOUR BILL. THEY DON’T JUST GIVE YOU STROBE LIGHTS IN RETURN. THEY JUST TURN OFF YOUR ELECTRICITY. I heard from a friend. *insert sheepish grin here

After searching each gross tissue I find no tooth. Where the hell is it? I take the stash of tissues and go back in to put them under her pillow because I am not sure if she would notice her snot collection was missing. I then look under the bed with a flashlight and the horrors I find under there is enough to make even the most hardy of parents faint. I am more delicate and I am now like “Is this child sick with typhoid? why does she have so many tissues under her bed? Also what is going on in my life where I haven’t noticed her clear and ever-growing snot problem?”

I never find the tooth and I threw away her tissues. And I remind myself to never ask if she is digging for gold when she is picking her nose. I may have given her false hope. Also I doubt people would ever wear a gold ring if it was mined out of someone’s nose. I mean we aren’t making kidney stone engagement rings. But then again we do wear pearls…so I digress.

The next morning my daughter climbs out of bed and she is all smiles. “The tooth fairy came and she left me a note AND my tooth.” She shows me the tooth and that’s right she lost it at school it was in a fancy plastic jewelry box thing.

Memo to me stop looking through those disgusting kleenex. This is a fancy “at school tooth” and I just have to look for the plastic thing on a string. Also go to the store and get some cash. This tooth fairy is the worst.

Moral of my story: When your children are tooth loosing age keep some small bills on hand at all times. Also go make one of those fancy tooth pillows so that you aren’t risking getting the plague while rummaging through snot infested tissues. Also keep a walking path free of debris so that you don’t wake your child up by whiper-yelling obscenities. (My children believed that there was another cursing fairy that was sort of the bouncer for the tooth fairy, because that’s what I told them “Oh that must have been her security detail, she probably needs that because she travels with cash.”) Also if there is someone writing a parenting book put in a few chapters about how to be magical beings that extract teeth beneath pillows at night. Santa is easy because there is a tree in the formal living space…..Oh my Gosh I have solved all of our problems folks “missing tooth tree” Trademarked……do not be stealing all of my good ideas guys.

Until next time 🙂

I have just come back from a trip and it required only for me to sit in a car for two straight days. It was an unexpected trip to say goodbye to a very dear person that I had known when I was younger. Going back home was wonderful and sad all at the same time. I saw people I have not seen in years, like since graduating high school. I got to see family and friends that I love dearly and so it was an emotional roller coaster.

When it comes to expected trips to go back home to see people, say for a reunion, I would typically put myself on a regiment of “Oh Fucking No, Don’t EAT That, they might not think you are thin and beautful still!” foods and “Holy COW can’t you even do a thousand more of this oblique crunches, my Gawd you are going to look your fucking AGE!!!!!” But alas, this was not a planned trip, so these people that I saw got to see my real “Why Yes I do eat chips and ice cream!” self. I brought my spanx and if you have not tried to put on a pair of spanx I am going to stop and wait for you to go and try on a pair because really we should all share in this torture………………………

……………okay if you still didn’t take the recommended time to put on a pair of spanx I am going to now try and describe it to you. Putting on a pair of spanx uses both sheer force of strength and the delicate touch so that you can shove the size and shape of a pear into a banana peel if that banana peel was made of lyrca. If you have nails they are going to break through and you are going to have open your second pair of spanx. Usually when this happens and your husband is sitting in the other room where he can hear you grunting and struggling and wrestling with the damn things until “Son of a Fucking Tomato” you say tomato because you don’t want to swear out loud at the hotel. And let me say “Good job” because it’s hard not to curse when you almost got all of your fat concealed before your nail went through the stupid things and now you have to wear your lycra wet suit complete with gut hanging over the top to get out your second pair. As you are scrounging around your luggage looking for your second pair that You are hoping that you packed because if you didn’t you are going to appear to have a rather large tumor popping out of your first pair of spanx, all the while looking like a broken can of pilsbury biscuits.

“Don’t Look at me I’m a monster!” you yell to your husband and then you get your next pair of spanx to squeeze into….your husband tries to be helpful with “Maybe you have bought the wrong size.” you decide not to kill him because he has to fix the leaky faucet when you get back home. But you definitely think horrendous thoughts because “no I didn’t buy the wrong size….these say small and I want to be small when I am done. So take your helpful hints and go fuck yourself buddy!”

The second pair go on without too much catastrophe and so what the spanx is giving you is a nice muffin top because you probably did buy the wrong size but you can stuff that into your bra and hope that it stays there.

Now that I have put myself through all of the torture of getting dressed and get to the funeral home I realize with great relief it isn’t about me or how fat I feel. This is about the great man that has passed and how missed he will be. How life will not be the same now that he is gone.

When I get home from this world wind trip I am emotionally and physically exhausted. In all of the unexpectedness of this trip, I forgot to go and get my dry cleaning and I have church the next day. I wake up and go through my closet and I choose a pair of pants that I know are going to be snug, but they button and zip and I am happy for that. I go outside and climb into my car and sit down and the FUCKING SEAM OF MY PANTS GIVES WAY TO THE POINT THAT THERE IS NO WAY I CAN WEAR THESE TO CHURCH. I can’t go to church with my coochie hanging out and now I have to decide what I am going to wear AGAIN. Luckily I just bought a pair of leggings that were the same exact color as my ripped pants. What luck. I threw on my new leggings and my heels and head off to church.

Now that I am home from church I am putting myself on the “YOUR PANTS BLEW OUT BEFORE CHURCH” diet, complete with food diary. I sorta hate myself for being this big right now and I honestly don’t even know how it happened. It wasn’t that long ago that I was actually underweight…..and happy being told to eat cupcakes. But I am no longer able to eat what I want and when I want without threat of starting a fire from my thighs rubbing together. Well that is really what I am going through. So I am hopefully learning from this experience and will get my weight under control. I will let you know.

Moral of my story: I don’t know really! Maybe don’t forget to get the dry cleaning, its important! Also eat better, I guess! And after a certain age you really have to cut calories. I am going to be super good at this. Chocolate is not our friend especially when it is covering a mountain of ice cream.

Until next time 🙂

My sister had her youngest child a few months before I had my first child. These two children were inseparable. They did everything together and were best friends when they were young. My daughter was a talker and she would decipher what her cousin was saying and for whatever reason we truly believed that she could understand him. For all we know she was just telling us what she wanted and we were like “Here you both are! The juice that you have clearly been asking for!” and he was like “I wanted food. Oh well this is good too!”

They would also get into mischief together, which as cousins is probably the best memories to have. “Remember the time we…..?” But when you are the parents of children such as these the memories are more like “Oh my Gosh, how did we not notice that the children did that.”

For instance my children recently told me this story: The oldest cousin and his brother were fooling around and accidentally kicked a hole in the wall. Then all of the kids, curious as they were, took turns shoving things into the hole to see where it led to. They would run to the basement and yell “Ready!” Then a golf ball would be sent down the hole. The kids in the basement raced around to see if they could find it. They didn’t find it….but this didn’t stop them! They then would send pennies, pencils, army men toys, matchbox cars and the list goes on and on and on. They never did locate the lost items and then when their father patched up the hole in the wall the kids were disappointed for the both the loss of those items and the loss of the opportunity to find out where the hole led to.

Another game they would play was pile the bottom of the stairs with every stuffed animal that they owned and jump off the stairs to see how far they could jump. When someone got hurt they were out of the game. “Little Timmy, you got a black eye, you’re out!” “Little Suzy, you knocked a tooth out, you’re out!” “Nuh-uh! My tooth was already loose, it doesn’t count!”

Where were my sister and I? We were happily talking with each other as adults. Nothing feels better than having adult conversations when you are a stay at home mom of little children. The real truth is that we could only talk to each other because as stay at home moms we had lost the real ability of talking like adults. It was adult-lite conversation and not at all relatable to our non-mom friends. It was more like “Holy shit did you see that new show Spongebob? That is a great show for the kids. He is such a delightful little character!”

“Yes, but don’t let your kids watch South Park, it looks like a children’s show, but it definitely is not!”

“I heard a new song on kids bop yesterday and I am in love. It is so catchy!”

“I am not a fan of those diapers they leak, I bought them because they were both on sale and I had a coupon and I am regretting my decision. I sent them over to the in-laws for when the kids go over there!”

Now that you know the scenario of how things go down when I would take my kids to my sister’s, I can carry on with the story. My son was a toddler and her youngest and my oldest were preschool aged and we took the kids outside for some good ole fashioned fresh air. She and I were sitting on the steps talking and I had my son with us. He was playing with her middle child and I was so thankful for that. I was exhausted and needed to talk to someone who knew how to spell. Because apparently this is a phase you go through as a parent…you go through the talking in spelling only….or “Letter speak” if you will.

“Last night their father came home and he was d-r-u-n-k and I was all like you son of a b-i-t-c-h! I almost kicked his a-s-s o-u-t!”

“I was so upset I ate a whole gallon of i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m!”

“I think our house is h-a-u-n-t-e-d. I actually saw a g-h-o-s-t-b-o-y!”

“Did you spell ice cream?” middle son looks at us.

“No, I spelled vegetables. I ate all of my vegetables! Run along and play with my baby he needs you!”

“That was close! Also I’m sorry but your child may not do well on his next spelling test if either ice-cream or vegetables are on there.”

So as my sister and I were spelling at each other we hear her neighbor shriek and yell “Ladies! Ladies! You should see what they did to my car! Come quick!”

I’m going to honest I did not want to go over and look at what they did to her car. Also if I am being completely honest I didn’t even know they were even over by her car. And if I am going to be totally upfront I thought both “how bad can it be?” and “Holy fucking cockballs how fucking bad is this going to be?” I looked at my sister with this look like “It’s your neighbor, you have to go see what our kids just did to her car.”

She looks at me and grimaces because we have been sisters for a very long time and she knows what my look meant. I then picked up my baby as protection. Because apparently I am not above using a small child as a shield. “You wouldn’t yell at a young mother holding her baby, would you?” Or “Please don’t sue, diapers are expensive because the ones that I bought that was both on sale and had a coupon was more like a piss repellent than a helpful absorption pillow… So, you know, you really shouldn’t sue me! I am broke!”

As I let my sister walk over and take full responsibility for our kids’ actions I watched while holding my baby. Her middle child ran over to see what they had done. So first you see the neighbor, who is an older woman with grey hair, with this horrified look on her face. She is both appalled and frustrated! My sister’s middle child is bemused and laughing. He is very young too, probably in kindergarten. The two culprits are keeping themselves out of view, because if we saw them, it would be a clue as to what exactly they had done to this woman’s car.

My sister walks over cautiously and slow to take a look at the side of the car that is hidden from view of the steps. I stand being the coward with my baby shield and watching my sister for signals to flee. Don’t worry I would take my baby with me. I will start a new life. My name will be something exotic like “Valerie” and I will take up the tambourine (which is like playing the spoons) and I will live a quiet life as a gypsy somewhere on the coast.

As I was fantasizing about my escape, I see my sister slowly turn towards the damage and also facing me. Her eyes were those of both disbelief and pure hysteria. She is trying desperately not to laugh. I want to laugh. Laughing is my favorite. Maybe they decorated the car with puppies and stuffed animals and hearts. Maybe it wasn’t a shriek of horror but a shriek of delight. Maybe this elderly woman is overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness of our perfect little angels. I walk over holding my baby because maybe it is actually not any of these things at all. It probably isn’t.

As I approach the car, which is a large car and the color of burnt orange. It’s an old person’s car, I first see the two little perpetrators standing by a large paint bucket. They are holding sticks that are covered in mud, and they are covered in mud and the bucket is half full of mud. They both look guilty as fuck and they both have mud caked uni-brows and mustaches. As I turn holding my baby close to me I see that the kids have smeared mud all over the side of this poor woman’s car. The mirror has mud. The window has mud. And this poor woman standing there in her best outfit to go to work in is now going to be late for work because of our two little assholes.

“Ummm? Yes I am going to be late because two little fuckers gave my car a mud bath. Also I may be searching for a new place to live!”

Her son, ever so charmingly asks “What? You don’t like pooparoonies?”

I busted out laughing because I am always on the verge of bursting out laughing. My sister turns to look away from me because she has to be the adult now. I stand there looking at the kids laughing my ass off because I am helpful like that. When I get my composure I say to the children “Let’s go get something to wash off the pooparoonies!” I then laugh again because where did they even get this word?

The elderly woman looks at me with anger in her eyes and says “I don’t want the children to wash my car! They are babies!”

I looked at her and was like ‘but I’m holding a baby! do you not see that i have a baby in my arms?’

While my sister and I get punished for what our children have done we both say “What? You don’t like pooparoonies?”

To this day my sister and I talk about the pooparoonies and how hilarious it was that day.

Moral of my story: Children get into mischief and they really should be watched more closely. However, we could always hear them talking and they were making happy noises so we totally thought they were good. Never did we think they were making a bucket of mud to lather all over the neighbor’s car. My sister’s neighbor shared a driveway with them…so it was all on the same property. Regardless of those happy noises, maybe check in to make sure your kids aren’t giving the neighbor’s car the ole “Pooparoonie” treatment. Also don’t be a coward and use your baby as a shield. That is totally inappropriate. Learn from my mistakes. Also “it is your neighbor it is your problem” is not a valid argument apparently. I got scolded and punished as well.

Until next time 🙂