An author. AUTHOR!

I have a friend.  And this friend is smart and lovely and an amazing momma.  And? SHE WROTE A REAL LIVE BOOK.

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A book! Can you believe?  I can't.  I can't believe I have a friend who is AN AUTHOR.

I waited all winter to get my hands on a copy.  First it came out as an exclusive Nook selection from Barne's and Noble.  So I bought it.  And read it.

Then? Weeks later it came out in paper form.  And? I bought it again.

What?  I mean, I needed to HOLD IT. 

And then I read it again.

And  you should read it.  Go buy it.  And then buy it as a shower gift for a mother who plans to stay home.  The advice is so so good.

And then you should go buy another copy for someone else.  You know, to support Shannon.

Poor George

Please note the hand-crafted headgear.

Wednesday Paige's little pre-school class did a craft about George Washington.  They made adorable hats with curly "hair".  So very cute.

Apparently, the teacher also read the kids a book about President Washington.  When I stopped in to pick Paige up at the end of the day, the teacher quizzed her about her new knowledge.

Teacher: Tell mommy the name of George Washington's dog.

Paige: SWEET LIPS!

Teacher: And tell mommy the name of his horse.

Paige: NELSON!

Teacher: And do you remember what his teeth were made of?

Paige: *loooong pause while she pondered* VELCRO!

Pie in the Sky

Until recently, Dave worked in a building very near our home.  His "commute" was 10 minutes long during high traffic. 

And then a big corporation bought his entire office building and Dave's company was forced to relocate.  They acquired some space in downtown Oklahoma City - a 25 minute commute away.  They're on the 36th floor of the second-tallest high-rise in our sky line.

A couple of weekends ago Dave took me and the kids up to take in the view from his window.

And now I want to buy him a base-jumping parachute.  You know, just in case.

*gulp*



p.s. Dave sent me a photo of his incredible "view" during heavy fog. 

harharhar

Still. STILL!

Pitiful. 

My kids woke up running (admittedly low grade) fevers.  William missed his first day of school all year. Which meant that we spent YET ANOTHER day inside the house.  For those of you keeping track, Paige turned up sick LAST WEDNESDAY.

Blrgh.

I have been cooped up so long that I've managed to wash all my laundry (including sheets and bedspreads!).  I've detailed all the bathrooms.  I've ironed ALL the things that need ironing. I've popped all my pimples and filed all my nails.

I am so bored.

If my kids aren't better by tomorrow, I plan to cut the grass.  With nail clippers.

And the Fourth Could Iron Mommy's Clothes!

Somehow it happened that at one point this evening one of my children was massaging my feet while the other one was combing my hair.  They were performing these tasks voluntarily and spontaneously.   And in that moment, I was thinking that this mothering thing has been a wholly worthwhile undertaking. 

I'm also regretting not having MORE children - just think, if I'd had a third she (or he) could have been in the kitchen baking mommy a cake. 

I'm a Blogging Ninny

First, Laura from Hollywood Housewife had to (ever so delicately) suggest that I change my settings so that it was easier for folks to comment.  This was a few months ago, and the change was significant.  I've seen a definite upswing in comments (and we all love comments, no?).

Then tonight, Danielle told Twitter that she was SICK TO DEATH and STABBY (ok, maybe I'm putting words in her mouth) about the stinking word verification on Blogger.com websites.

And hey? Whattayaknow! *I* had word verification on MY site (I never knew! Never even thought about checking!).  So I disabled the crummy verification in hopes that EVEN MORE of you will comment.

See what I did there?  I guilted you into commenting.  MY EVIL PLAN WORKED!

*maniacal laughter*

Another One Bites the Dust

Oh hey!  Lookie here! 

Yeah.  William is sick too!  Really sick.

If anyone needs me, I'll be over here mainlining this:

(R)eal (S)tinky (V)irus

I got a phone call on Monday from Paige's little school.  The director told me Paige was running a fever and needed to come home.  This was a first for me.  In almost 8 years of motherhood, I've never delivered a healthy kid somewhere only to be summoned a few hours later to retrieve an ill one. 

I dashed up to the school (to Mah Baybee!), and was told by the teacher that they'd seen 12 confirmed cases of RSV in the last couple of weeks.  And hey!  Guess who's exhibiting all of the symptoms? 

Mmm hmmm.

I was told to assume Paige had RSV, and therefore I should quarantine her (since the virus can be terrible and even fatal if contracted by infants).  Quarantine!  Excellent!

Of course, I don't even need to tell you about the list of things I needed to do this week, now do I?  And my grocery list?  Yep.  As long as my arm.

But, you do what you gotta do, right?  So we've been dutifully staying home and watching hours and hours AND HOURS of Wonderpets (Wonderpets? With the speech impediments? Make me stabby.).  This afternoon I tucked her in on the couch and started Cars2 (because I lied and said The Wonderpets were taking the afternoon off to go to speech therapy).  About an hour later I heard Paige's little feet coming down the hallway upstairs.  But then they just stopped.  After a few minutes, I got curious and went to investigate. 

Oh my goodness.

There she was, sitting at the top of the stairs with her wee little head leaning against the wall.  When I asked her what she was doing, she just replied "Momma, I've decided I like naps."  (She will tell anyone who listens that she HATES naps). Turns out she was running a 104.  When I handed her a tiny cup of liquid Tylenol, her little hands were shaking so badly she couldn't hold it.  "Pitiful" is just not even the right word to describe it.

No *wonder* they don't want infants to catch this! RSV is a nasty little devil.  I don't recommend it.

*That* Mom

Ok, we all know who That Mom is.  The one who is just trying too damn hard.  The one who shows up to carpool everyday wearing 6 tons of eye makeup and high heels.  Or maybe she's the one who buys every kid in class a monogrammed beach towel at the end of the school year.  She doesn't buy cookies from the store, oh no, she makes them from scratch and lovingly decorates each one better than any professional bakery could.

That Mom.  She comes in many forms.  You've met her, right?  You vacillate between pity for her (who is she trying to impress?) and your own feelings of inadequacy (why don't *I* try harder?). 

No one likes That Mom.  For all sorts of reasons.

Which is why I was HORRIFIED when Paige brought home her little sack of Valentines from school today.  Inside were 12 simple little store-bought Valentines, and one totally over-the-top trying-too-hard HANDMADE Valentine from That Mom.

one of these things is not like the others

OMG I'M THAT MOM. 

To say I am MORTIFIED is not enough.  I want to write a personal letter to each and every one of the other mothers and explain to them that I LOST MY MIND FOR ONLY A MINUTE, and that I am usually a complete jackass.  That it's a total miracle that I even REMEMBERED to BRING Valentines.  That "crafty" is barely even a word in my vocabulary!

You know, I think I blame Pinterest for this.  Pinterest turned me (briefly) into THAT MOM. 

Romance

I woke at 5am with a migraine and spent the day downing pills while wearing my sweatpants.

I managed to rally by dinner (heart-shaped pepperonis and a homemade pink cake - go me!), but only just. 

Dave could tell I was in pain, so after our meal he offered to take the kids upstairs deal with them until bedtime.

It was the most romantic thing he's ever done for me.

Can You See It?

There's an error on one of these. I'm sure YOU will spot it right away.

Unlike me, who noticed AFTER they were packaged up and ready to go.

Yeesh.

Ready for Clown School!

Might I suggest that, if you decide some evening to let your three year old apply make-up to your face, you check beforehand to be sure you have eye makeup remover?

Otherwise?  You will be forced to call your neighbor, who as it turns out, is not home at the time, but her very kind husband INSISTS that you come over and get what you need from her bathroom.  Which means that when he answers the door, you look like this:

In case you are wondering, the answer is yes, he *did* take a photo of me.  Which is why I'm posting it here.  You know, to beat him to the punch.

I think this is what the PR professionals call Damage Control.

Delightful

I spend an unhealthy amount of time in my own head.  I ruminate about things.  I fester.  I struggle with frequently bouts of depression brought on mainly by my own belief that I'm Doing It All Wrong.  My brain tells me often that I'm failing.  At everything.

Which is, you know, ridiculous. 

A therapist told me once that I need to stop believing that voice in my head.  The one that tells me I have everyone snowed.  That if they knew The Real Me, they'd run far away.  The therapist said that I am REALLY the girl everyone else sees.  That THAT girl is the real me.  The girl on the outside IS me.

The voice in my head is lying.  Huh.  Who knew?

That same therapist told me that I am "one of the most delightful people he's ever met".  Which, you know, could have been some therapy-style trick to make me feel good, but for some reason it had a dramatic impact.  In other words: his trick worked! I left his office thinking "Damn! I'm delightful!"  I actually believed him. 

Sometimes I'm still a wreck.  My house gets messy and my pants get tight and I bark at my kids when I shouldn't, but instead of allowing that voice to tell me I'm a failure, I just try to remember that I'm delightful.  DELIGHTFUL, dammit!

Hipster

On my hip in 2010

Due to strange circumstances, Dave was home early today from work, which meant that he was here when I arrived home from Mother's Day Out with Paige.  Because I knew Dave was upstairs, I grabbed Paige out of the car and carried her all the way up to him.  She rode on my hip the way she did when she was a much smaller girl.  Except today her legs hung down to my knees and her weight bore down on my joints. 

It occured to me even in that moment that this very well could be the last time I carry her like this.  Which means, it's the last time I'll carry any of my babies like that.  Riding along on my hip as if they are still attached via umbilical.

It made me sad to witness a little piece of their childhoods falling away.  And since so many of these things go by unnoticed - the last bottle, the last night with a pacifier, the last pair of footie pajamas - I decided I'd write down the last day I carried my last baby on my hip. 

I want to remember this one.  Just because.

How's it Going?

morning snuggles

So I've been pseudo-homeschooling my first grader since September.  Aren't you wondering how it's going?  I hardly ever talk about it on my blog.  Why?  Because it's been such a non-issue.  So completely easy and good that writing about it would be sort of boring.

For those of you who are new here, my kid was in public school for three years (two years of pre-k, and then Kindergarten), before I chose to move him into a smaller private school.  A private school that only meets two days per week.  Mondays and Wednesdays William attends school all day just like any other kid.  Tuesdays and Thursdays he is tasked with specific homework assigned by his teacher.  My job on homeschool days is to keep him on task, and answer questions if necessary. 

Which means I'm not *really* homeschooling.  Because I do not have to introduce or teach any topics.

There are two things about this "blended model" that I find difficult.  The first is silly, but it does cause us MUCH grief: waking up on school days.  William must rise by 7am in order to arrive at school by 8:30am.  He finds this wake-up time to be VERY offensive.  We've had several mornings where he's vacillated between weeping and surliness because he's "so very tired".  In fact, if you ask him how he likes his new school, he's libel to say "it's fine, but it's SO EARLY". 

Now, you and I both know that if he were attending "real school" he'd have to rise every single day at the "ungodly hour" of 7am.  But I warn you not to try and use this rationale with William.  He's not buying it.  He is utterly convinced that all of the public school children sleep until they wake naturally, then wander off to school where they have hours and hours of recess followed by cupcake parties every afternoon. He believes this because in Kindergarten, he really DID have hours and hours of recess, and sometimes they'd watch an entire Disney movie in the afternoons.  Yeesh.

The other difficulty with the "blended model" is William's struggle to stay focused during our homeschool days.  There are many moments when my only option is to sit right next to him and force him to finish his work.  As you might imagine, this is a frustrating situation for both of us. 

But that's it.  Two complaints.  Everything else is wonderful.  The curriculum is impressively intense, and yet he is keeping up with the work without any trouble.  He loves his teacher and his new friends.  *I* love the other mothers (who are all crazy just like me!).  We still have cupcake parties (a reasonable number).  And (contrary to William's wailings) there is plenty of recess and P.E.

But the best part? The easy pace.  Three mornings per week, I snuggle in bed with my kids until 8am.  We eat a leisurely breakfast and start school at 9am.  We're usually done by lunch and then we can play the rest of the day.  We typically stay in our pajamas until school work is done.  For me, it's heaven.

I often think of other  mothers busily making lunches and hustling children to carpool while I'm under the covers snuggling with my kids.  I love our time together.  I love that William and Paige have become so close (William paces outside the door when Paige is napping, just waiting for her to wake up). 

I know this life would not be for everyone, but it suits us.

I have no idea what the future holds.  I have no idea if this is the school for us until graduation.  I just know it's working now.  My kids are happy.  I'm happy.

It's working. 

Acid Test

This is *my* dog, who is mute. 

So there's this dog.  He's a "golden doodle", I believe.  His name is Henry* and he lives in the house that backs up to our house. 

*I know his name is Henry because his owners can often be heard outside calling the dog by name while cajoling him into "going potty", presumably because they are on their lunch break and cannot afford to wait for Henry dawdle while doo-ing.

And Henry? He loves to bark.  Oh how he loves it.  He barks each and every time his owners let him out into his yard.  Multiple times daily Henry barks and barks and baaaarks.  Loudly.  Repetitively.  Constantly. If barking were knitting we'd all be wearing sweaters.  All of us.  You too.  A nice sweater knitted with love by Henry. 

Now, Dave and I have spent the last six months bitching and moaning about That Damn Dog.  We stomp around and make comments about The Type of Person who would let a dog Disturb Our Peace.  We grumble and moan and gnash our teeth WITH EACH OTHER.  Because we are not the types to make waves.

At least we weren't until today.

Today Dave arrived home from work to the New Normal: a cacophony of woofing.  When I told him that Henry had already been barking for an entire hour, Dave decided he'd Had Enough and was going to Do Something.  Namely: call the neighbor.  Someone whom we have never met, mind you. 

I panicked.  I might have even begged Dave not to make the call. 

Me: Please don't call. 

Him: I'm calling.  This is ridiculous.

Me: I don't want to start a war with our neighbors!

Him: No, this has gone on long enough.

Me: What if they take retribution?

Him: Like what? Are they going to throw acid on our children?

Me: OMG I hadn't thought of that THEY WILL TOTALLY THROW ACID ON OUR CHILDREN!

And then he walked outside on the back porch and called.  I stayed inside watching him through the window nervously shifting my weight from side to side and wringing my hands. 

He came back inside a few minutes later and said the owner was apologetic and said SHE COULDN'T HEAR THE BARKING (because she is clearly deaf), and that she would bring the dog inside immediately.

Dave was cocky.  "See? Nothing to worry about. Problem solved".

I'll admit, I was cowed.  He showed them who's boss, didn't he?

But then? (oh you KNEW there was more, right?). The neighbor CALLED BACK about an hour later and left a message on our machine asking us to call her.  I told Dave that she'd had time to stew about his complaint about Her Angel and now? CLEARLY SHE WAS GOING TO THREATEN MY CHILDREN WITH ACID.

I mean, why ELSE would she be calling back?  WHY? What other possible reason could there be?

Um.  Turns out she called back to apologize again for disturbing us.

Which I assume was just a way to lure us into a false sense of security so that she could throw some acid on our children.  It's the only thing that makes sense.

Bullet Points

So, I'm looking for part-time work. 

I put a note on Twitter last week and within hours a woman (whom I know in real life) contacted me about her company.  She suggested I apply for a part-time position.  And she asked for... (wait for it) A RESUME.

Of course she did.  Because DUH, if you want a JOB you're going to need a resume.  Everyone knows that.

Except that I hadn't even THOUGHT about a resume before I opened my big yap and asked Twitter to give me a job.  What the hell is wrong with me? And I have to tell you, the last resume I put together contained information FROM THE NINETIES.  Yes! 

This means 1) I am older than water and dirt and 2) I have nothing to PUT on a resume.

I've been a stay-at-home mother for almost eight years.  Eight years ago - back when I actually earned a paycheck - the Internet was still "so new and groovy!" (ok, we didn't really say words like "groovy" in 2004, but still).  Blogs had not even been invented!

As a side note: how the hell did we live without Facebook and Pinterest and blogs?  My gosh, life was hard back in the Olden Days.

So now I'm tasked with coming up with a resume that does not scream "MOMMY APPLYING RUNRUNRUN!"  And also, I'm forced to put things on my resume to show that I can actually DO something.  You know, I'm supposed to point out all of the charity work and volunteering I've done.

Which is fine I suppose.  But I'm sad that I can't point out all of the things I've REALLY been doing these last eight years.  Things that are, in my opinion, MUCH more impressive than "Supervising the implementation of CRM campaign management software from initial data definition to completion" (which was an actual bullet point on my resume back in 2001.  I *think* I know what it means.  Mostly). 

I wish people knew who I have become these last eight years.  I wish they knew that THIS job is the one I'm most proud of.  That THIS is the job that has made me who I am.  And THIS is the job that has proven to me that I am capable of anything.  An. EEE. Thing. 

But sadly, "capable of nursing a baby while simultaneously peeing and comforting a sobbing 4 year old" is not something you can really put on a resume.

The Whoorl Curl

Well, apparently Sarah over at Whoorl featured a photo of my hair (or HAY-er as some Oklahomans call it) on her blog. 

Pardon me while I faint from all the blushing.

If you are here visiting for the first time from Whoorl, let me just warn you, I do not always have great hair.  Oh yes, sometimes I can rock the 'Alt Summit Bun' (as it will forever be known).

But most days you will find me schlepping around in yoga pants with my bedraggled locks in a nasty tangle.   Unlike Sarah's, my blog will not inspire you to be more beautiful.  To dress better.  To organize your life and get rid of clutter.

No, mostly you will find stories here about my children, their poop (among other things), and (a shocking number of ) tales about my underwear.

You should probably just run now while you have the chance.  Or, hell, stay!  I might make you feel better about yourself.

Perky



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It's strange.  Some days I'm inexplicably down.  I blame the moon.  And solar flares.  And pollen.

So forgive me while I curl up in bed and watch Downton Abbey while simultaneously balancing the checkbook. 

What?  We all know nothing is more cheering than Quickbooks and an English accent.  Duh.